“What’s on your mind, Mr. Pruett?”
Pruett smiled inwardly. Olson was no fool. One did not get to become a two-star general in the Armed Forces by being a fool. Olson was biding his time, waiting for Pruett to make a move. If that didn’t get Olson where he wanted to be, Pruett knew the general would wait for other moves. The question was, where did the general want Pruett to go? Pruett felt certain the answer to that depended on how he responded to the general’s question. He leveled his gaze on Olson’s.
“I want to get them out. I think I know a way to get in contact with Mambo and get them to a prearranged spot at a specific time and airlift them. That’s what I want to do.”
Olson’s lip curved up a little. “Let’s assume for a moment that your decision is the right thing to do in this situation. Under that assumption answer this: How, Mr. Pruett? How do you propose doing that? Of course, without me knowing about it.”
Pruett also smiled. Olson was playing ball. The general would go along by simply looking the other way. If anything went wrong with Pruett’s plan and heads began to roll, Olson would be out of reach since he was not involved in it. Pruett was merely acting of his own accord. If Pruett succeeded, Olson would emerge smelling like a rose. If it backfired, then only Pruett’s ass would be on the line, not his. Pruett slowly nodded, accepting the unwritten terms of Olson’s conditional help.
Thirty minutes later Pruett shook hands with Olson and walked outside. He checked his watch. Dawn was just over the horizon. He spotted Cameron and Marie sitting on the hood of their jeep.
“Hmm… that was long,” Cameron said as he yawned and stretched. “What did the general say?”
Pruett smiled. “Do you still remember how to jump out of a plane?”
“What — wait a second, wait a fucking second. You’re not serious about me going—”
“That’s the only deal I could make with the general, Cameron. He has agreed to give us a lift to Guiana and look the other way, but he would not commit any more of his men.”
“Look, Tom. I’m not the same Special Forces soldier you recruited fifteen years ago. The game has vastly improved since then and I haven’t been keeping up. I know my limitations. I’m telling you, I’m not qualified. Those new Special Forces teams like Mambo can run circles around me. They’re much better trained than any team in ‘Nam.”
“Yes, but none of them has experienced battle. You have.”
“What’s that got to do with—”
“Everything. I think there’s another reason you don’t want to go. Is there something you want to tell me?”
Cameron glanced at Marie, lowered his gaze, and remained silent.
Pruett continued. “Actually, I don’t want to hear your motives for going or not going. All I can tell you is that either you go and make contact with these guys, or we leave them behind. There’s no time for hesitation at this point. We might already be too late.”
Cameron took a few steps away from the jeep and quietly watched an F-4E Phantom taking off on full afterburners. He had dedicated his entire life to the military and the CIA at the price of writing off his personal life. And all for what? Have I really made a difference? Do I really want to end up ill and alone like Tom? With Marie, Cameron knew he had a chance at really living again. Why risk his life any further? He glanced back at Marie. She walked to his side and held his hand.
“You have to do what’s right in your heart,” he heard her say as he watched the white-hot tail of the Phantom disappear in the dark sky. Cameron closed his eyes and saw another phantom appearing in his mind. Go, Cameron… I’ll be all right… you can make it on…
Cameron opened his eyes, turned around, and looked at Pruett. “All right. I’m in.”
Michael Kessler stared at the stars but in his mind he saw the sea. The tranquil, blue sea. Kessler smiled when he spotted flecks of light reflecting off the swells. It was so vivid, so perfect. In his mind he was there, back on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Constitution, back on the number-one catapult staring at the cat officer wearing the standard yellow jersey and solemnly waving his green flashlight wand at him. The blazing sun slowly disappeared below the horizon, transforming the orange-stained sky into one with a less vivid hue. Back inside the cockpit of an F-14D Tomcat, gently applying full throttle in response to the cat officer’s hand signals, Kessler felt the plane tremble as it endured the overwhelming stress just before ferocious Gs piled up on him, jamming his very soul against the flight seat…
Then Kessler saw Jones struggling to eject out of his wounded bomber. He heard the Air Force captain scream in agony as the F-111B’s cockpit filled with flames, killing the navigator. Kessler had failed them. He had arrived too late. Jones left the blazing aircraft and shot upward under the power of his ejection seat’s solid-propellant rocket.
I’m sorry, CJ…
Kessler’s mind jumped to the moment in time when he had to eject after losing his first dogfight. He involuntarily held his breath as the frightening memory overwhelmed his senses. For a second, perhaps two, he felt consumed by the terror of not being able to reach the ejection handles. The he finally did, pulling them as hard as he had ever pulled anything in his life. Then came the explosion. The canopy flew up and he followed. The wind tore at him. His body was thrown up, to the side, and flipped upside down. The earth and sky changed places over and over again as the Gs pushed down on him with titanic force. Then the peace of free-falling at 130 miles per hour descended upon him. He welcomed the feeling of isolation. Kessler had never felt more alone than at that moment. Until now.
All was quiet aboard Lightning. Too quiet. Deathly quiet. Only the sound of his own breathing interrupted the silence. It seemed amplified in the silence of space. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Kessler’s mind grasped at the edge of consciousness as he struggled to remain in control, despite the fact that his suit’s oxygen supply had been nearly consumed. He thought about switching suits but decided against it. The air inside the crew module had also reached a hazardous level long ago. Besides, removing the space suit was no longer an option. Incapable of moving, he had lost physical control of most of his body, as he slowly asphyxiated in his own carbon monoxide. But his mind refused to go. It refused to take the final jump into the unknown that Kessler had always been reluctant to accept. In his opinion there were no unknowns. Everything had a simple, logical explanation. There was nothing complex in life. All was either black or white. For Kessler, the definition of life was not written in long, convoluted sentences. Life was expressed in simple terms. Simple words like freedom, loyalty, decency, friendship… love. That’s what life was all about. Simple, logical, yet very human. Unlike most people he’d known, Kessler had always tried to remain in close touch with real feelings. With the real emotions usually found deep below self-imposed layers of pride and mistrust. He refused to take that final step, refused to leave a world he’d grown to enjoy, a world that still had so much to offer to him. There were still so many feelings he had not experienced, so many feelings he longed to make a part of his life, that the mere thought of never having the chance to savor them sent chills across his weakened, exhausted body.
He floated gently inside the flight deck, too tired to report to Houston that he was still there, still alive. Still hopeful something would happen. Something that would save him from what seemed to be his destiny. Kessler had never been very religious, but he believed enough in a Higher Authority to know that he would somehow be judged for his life on Earth. He could feel it. Perhaps it was the reason his life was quickly flashing before his eyes.