He walked over to the single porthole in the room and pushed back the blackout shade. The tranquil sea calmed his troubled conscience. He remembered when he had finally made the decision that he would have to evaluate his men on their personal traits and then trust their technical advice accordingly. Men, he understood. Human beings did not really change from generation to generation. If his sixty-seven years were good for anything, it was that he had arrived at an understanding of the most complex piece of machinery of all. He could read the hearts and souls of his fellow men; he had peered into the psyche of Commander James Sloan, and he did not like what he saw.
Petty Officer Loomis turned around. “Commander Sloan.” He pointed to a video display screen.
Sloan walked over to the screen. He looked at the message. “Good news, Admiral.”
Hennings closed the blackout shade and turned around.
Sloan spoke as he read the data. “Our elements are in position. The F-18 is on station, and the C-130 is also in position. We need only the release verification.” He glanced at the digital countdown clock. Five minutes.
Hennings nodded. “Fine.”
Sloan gave a final thought to the one command check he was not able to complete. If the test had not been a secret, and if delay had not meant possible cancellation, and if cancellation had not meant potential disadvantage in a future war, and his career weren’t in the balance, and if Hennings weren’t evaluating him with those steely gray eyes, and if it wasn’t time for the Navy to gets its balls back, and if that damn digital clock weren’t running down… then, maybe, maybe he would have waited. Four minutes.
The video screen’s display updated again, and Sloan looked at the short message. He read it first to himself, smiled, and then read it aloud. “The C-130 has launched its target and it was last tracked as steady and on course. The target drone has accelerated to Mach 2, and is now level at sixty-two thousand feet.” He glanced at the digital countdown. “In two minutes and thirty seconds I can instruct Lieutenant Matos to begin tracking the target and engage it at will.”
“Would you like another drink?”
“No, I think I’ll wait.” John Berry put down his empty glass and looked up at the flight attendant. Her shoulder-length brunette hair brushed across the top of her white blouse. She had narrow hips, a slender waist, and very little visible makeup. She looked like one of those models from a tennis club brochure. Berry had spoken to her several times since the flight had begun. Now that the job of serving the midmorning snack was nearly finished, she seemed to be lingering near his seat. “Not too crowded,” Berry said, motioning around the half-empty forward section of the Straton 797.
“Not here. In the back. I’m glad I pulled first-class duty. The tourist section is full.”
“High season in Tokyo?”
“I guess. Maybe there’s a special on electronics factory tours.” She laughed at her own joke. “Are you going on business or pleasure?”
“Both. It’s a pleasure to be away on business.” Disclosures can come out at unusual moments. Yet, for John Berry, that particular moment wasn’t an unusual one. The young flight attendant was everything that Jennifer Berry was not. Even better, she seemed to be none of the things that Jennifer Berry had become. “Sharon?” He pointed to the flight attendant’s name tag.
“Yes, Sharon Crandall. From San Francisco.”
“John Berry. From New York. I’m going to see Kabushi Steel in Tokyo. Then a metal-fabricating company in Nagasaki. No electronics factories. I go twice a year. The boss sends me because I’m the tallest. The Japanese like to emphasize their differences with the West. Short salespeople make them nervous.”
“Really?” She looked at him quizzically. She grinned. “No one ever told me that before. Are you kidding?”
“Sure.” He hesitated. His throat was dry. Just the thought of asking this young woman to sit with him was mildly unnerving. Yet all he wanted was someone to talk to. To pass the time. To pretend for a few relaxing moments that the situation in New York didn’t exist.
Jennifer Berry’s tentacles reached even this far. Her presence stretched across a continent and over an ocean. The image of his difficult and complaining wife lay over John Berry’s thoughts. Their two teenaged children-a son and a daughter-were on his mind, too. They had grown further from him every year. The family tie had become mainly their shared name. Shared living space and shared documents. Legalities.
The rest of what was termed these days their lifestyle was, to Berry, a cruel joke. An outrageously expensive house in Oyster Bay that he had always disliked. The pretentious country club. The phony bridge group. Hollow friendships. Neighborhood gossip. The cocktails, without which all of Oyster Bay, along with the neighboring suburbs, would have committed mass suicide long ago. The futility. The silliness. The boredom. What had happened to the things he cared about? He could hardly remember the good times anymore. The all-night talks with Jennifer, and their lovemaking, before it became just another obligation. Those camping trips with the kids. The long Sunday breakfasts. The backyard baseball games. It seemed like another life. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
John Berry found himself dwelling on the past more and more. Living in the past. A 1960s song on the radio made him yearn for Dayton, Ohio, his hometown. An old movie or serial on television brought on a nostalgia so acute that his heart ached.
He looked up at the young woman standing over him. “How about having a drink with me? Never mind. I know… you’re on duty. Then how about a Coke?” Berry was speaking quickly. “I’ll tell you about Japanese businessmen. Japanese customs. Very educational. Wonderful information. Great stuff to know if you ever want to become an international corporation.”
“Sure,” she said. “Love to hear it. Just give me a few minutes to finish up. A few more trays. Ten minutes.” Sharon Crandall gathered Berry’s tray and half a dozen others. She smiled at him as she walked past on her way to the service elevator in the rear of the first-class compartment.
Berry turned and watched as she stepped inside. The narrow elevator was barely big enough for both her and the trays. In a few seconds she had disappeared behind the sliding door, on her way down to the below-decks galley beneath the first-class compartment.
John Berry sat alone for a minute and collected his scattered thoughts. He got out of his seat and stretched his arms. He looked around the spacious first-class section. Then he looked out the window at the two giant engines mounted beneath the Straton’s right wing. They could swallow the Skymaster. One gulp, he thought.
His company, Taylor Metals, owned a four-seat Cessna Twin Skymaster for the sales staff, and if Berry had any real interest left, flying was it. He supposed that flying was mixed up somehow with his other problems. If he found the earth more tolerable, he might not grab every opportunity to fly above it.
Berry turned toward the rear of the first-class cabin. He saw that the lavatories were vacant. He looked at his wristwatch. He had time to wash up and comb his hair before Sharon returned.
On his way to the rear of the cabin, Berry glanced out the window again. He marveled at the enormous size and power of the giant airliner’s engines. He marveled, too, at the solitude of space. What he failed to notice was that they were not alone. He did not see the tiny dot against the horizon that was rapidly approaching the Straton airliner.
Lieutenant Peter Matos held the F-18’s control stick with his right hand. He inched the power levers slightly forward. The two General Electric engines spooled up to a higher setting. Matos continued to fly his Navy fighter in wide, lazy circles at 54,000 feet. He held the craft’s airspeed constant at slightly less than Mach 1. He was loitering, flying nondescript patterns inside a chunk of international airspace known to his country’s military as Operations Area R-23. He was waiting for a call from Home. It was overdue and he was just beginning to wonder about it when his earphones crackled with the beginning of a message. It was the voice of Petty Officer Kyle Loomis, whom Matos vaguely knew.