Warren spoke. “They took the buggies down the beach. They had already eaten. Said they’d meet us later.”
“They never were much for sitting around,” Beau said, nodding his head. From the shadows at the other end of the restaurant a pair of angry eyes watched the group. Haun had followed Beau and was prepared to force him into a rematch but thought better when he observed the men at his table. Haun and his two comrades would wait for a better opportunity.
Ruben poked Beau. “Did you know you’re being observed?”
Nonchalantly, Beau sipped his drink. “Yeah, ya ever see three more capable gentlemen?”
“You been causing more trouble?” asked Ruben. Both laughed.
Beau changed the direction of the conversation. “Where are the others?”
“Dean is staying at the barracks. James, and Marix will meet us on the beach in a few hours.” Then he bent over to whisper in Beau’s ear so no one else could hear. “Marix is not too happy about us introducing you to Krysti.”
“I know. He came to my room.”
“He what? Well, tough shit,” Ruben snapped. Then he stood erect and lifted his almost empty margarita: “To the Red Baron.” All the men laughed and raised their glasses.
Krysti was confused and leaned toward Beau. “Who is the Red Baron?”
“Uhhh…” Beau almost choked on his drink. “You see, all the pilots get a call sign when they fly. It’s like a nickname. Marix is called the Red Baron.”
Mullholland heard and held his glass high. “Aye, mate, that he is.”
Everyone was listening closely now, as Beau tried to evade the issue. “Take me, for instance. They call me Mongoose. Hey, you guys sound off.”
Sully stood. “Flipper.” It was a name Ruben had coined for Sully when he flipped two T-38 trainers in less than a week. Both accidents had been during bad weather and were judged unavoidable. Still, he had been stuck with the name.
“Grey Ghost,” said Mullholland, a name he had received for his curly, gray hair and his age, since he was older than the average fighter pilot.
“Catman,” said Pickett pointing to his face. Slits instead of round pupils filled both eyes making them look more like cat eyes.
Warren chuckled. “Black Jack. That’s why they call me BJ.”
“Boink,” said Deberg.
“Boink?” said Krysti.
Deberg rolled his eyes. “Bumped a plane during flight and kinda bent the nose on my craft." Fitzhenry shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t have one.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ruben. “We’ll find one for you.”
Beau faced Krysti. “You can count on it. Ruben picked mine, BJ’s, and Sully’s.”
“And the Red Baron’s,” said Ruben again, bringing a roar of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Krysti asked.
“Marix doesn’t like it,” said Sullivan.
“I think it’s cute,” she said, and again the men chuckled.
Beau turned to her. “Don’t tell him you think it’s cute. He’s probably sensitive over the name.”
“Why are you called Mongoose?” she asked.
But Ruben answered. “When we raced his Corvette against those Shelby Cobras and beat them I would call him the Cobra killer. Well, one Saturday morning when I was watching cartoons—”
Now Beau interrupted. “You notice he said when he was watching cartoons.”
They all laughed and Krysti said, “I think that’s sweet.”
Ruben shrugged his shoulders. “I was practicing for when I have a little boy.” He continued. “Anyway, I saw a cartoon show about a little mongoose called Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and recorded it.”
“Rudyard Kipling, you know,” Sunday noted. “A classic.”
“Anyway,” said Ruben, “I had that cartoon of the mongoose painted on the side of Beau’s plane in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
“Shoulda been Operation Iraqi Liberation,” Sully said with a chuckle. “Then the letters could have stood for what that war was really about.”
Warren laughed. “OIL.”
Natasha interrupted. “President Bush had to free the people of Iraq.”
“Maybe,” said Ruben, and then he added, “but the people of Iraq would have been a lot safer if they had had an oil well in their backyards.”
BJ snickered. “Al Gharib was not freedom; it was torture.”
With a wicked grin Ruben added, “It wasn’t torture, it was just new management.”
“They were enemy combatants,” snapped Pick.
Shaking his head, Beau said, “We were supposed to be above torture. The war didn’t bring Iraq up to our country’s lofty expectations but rather we came down to their level.”
Anger flashed in her words as Natasha said, “Remember what they did to New York. President Bush was right in what he did against terrorism.”
Warren chimed in. “Iraq didn’t do New York. Bush declared war against terrorism. You don’t declare war against a word.”
Ruben quickly added, “Yeah, what about Iran and North Korea, Bush’s axis of evil?”
Warren snickered, “Iran. We should have known nothing would happen to them. Halliburton was doing too much work for them.”
A few chuckled; Natasha rolled her eyes and groaned. “Someone had to pay for the thousands of Americans that died in New York.”
“Natasha is right,” said Krysti.
“Iraq was revenge not justice,” added Beau. “If Iraq was for New York then shouldn’t we have been flying up and down America’s interstate highway blowing away yellow Ryder trucks for what Timothy McVeigh did?”
Natasha frowned, while Warren and Sunday chuckled.
Ruben asked, “So who pays for the thousands of American lives lost in Iraq?”
Sully nodded. “Not who pays, but who made the money? We may have freed the people, but Halliburton, Rumsfeld, and Cheney really protected the oil wells. How long were we there before Halliburton got that big paycheck?”
“About two months,” said Ruben. “And they were paid a half a billion.”
“Halliburton was the best qualified,” said Deberg.
“Seven billion for the no-bid work in Iraq? That’s a lot of qualified. God knows how much they made away with,” Warren noted.
“A seventy-five million dollar bonus for the good work,” said Ruben. He chuckled and added, “You know a good deal like forty-five dollars for a case of cokes.”
“A few bad apples don’t make Halliburton evil,” said Pickett defensively.
“With Halliburton the whole crate of apples was bad,” said Warren shaking his head. Ruben and Beau smiled.
“I wonder how much they got from the Iraqi oil?” Sunday wondered more than asked.
“A small fortune,” said Sully sadly. “Cheney wouldn’t have sent Halliburton unless they were going to make a bundle.”
“Hey mate, didn’t Cheney run Halliburton?”
“Yes, that was Cheney,” Krysti confirmed.
The curiosity was evident in Kipp’s face. “I thought Halliburton was fined for accounting practices when Cheney was there.”
Ruben laughed. “Bingo, you won the game, Kipp.”
“Sure makes you wonder about the people we elect,” said Beau.
“We elected?” snickered Ruben. “You mean big business elected.” He rolled his eyes, “I think there were more chads in the election than just Florida.”
“I think Bush was sincere,” Natasha continued in the former president’s behalf.
Warren nodded, “Bush got sucked in by his cronies.”
Nodding, Kipp added, “It was said down under that the oil was the real reason.”
“It’s like they couldn’t wait to try the new weapons we had developed,” Ruben said.
“Yeah, and we were part of those that tested them,” Sully added.
“I think Bush did a good job,” said Krysti.
“So do I,” Natasha added.