“No.”
“Aw, crap. I mean, I’m sorry. Really. Look, come on in, before you drown out there.”
Once inside, she shook her hair, allowing the long, dark strands to fall at her side. Water dripped onto the carpet.
“Why are you looking for Bruce?”
She tightly grasped the yellow sheet of paper. “It is very important. I must see Bruce Steele right away. He gave me this to come onto Clark Air Base if ever I needed to see him.”
“He’s not here. Bruce was selected to escort the vice president of the United States into your country. The vice president, you know, the number two guy for all America? Bruce is just too busy right now.”
Yolanda’s eyes widened. “Then … he will not have time for me?”
“Not for a while, I’m afraid.”
“Then you must bring me to him. Now.”
Catman chewed on his lip. “You can’t wait?”
She shook her head.
Catman stared back. He couldn’t tell her age, but she couldn’t be more than a few years younger than he. With infinitely more innocence, and a boatful of persuasion to boot.
Catman had always been a sucker for good looks.
He squinted at the rain still pounding down outside. Visibility had been reduced to a quarter mile, and the clouds seemed to be descending to around five hundred feet. If anything, they’d delay Bruce’s flight just to see if the weather would turn around. If he called a taxi and they hurried, they just might be able to make the squadron briefing room.…
Catman turned for the phone. “Stand by one minute.”
Thirty seconds later he was assured that a taxi would pick them up in less than five minutes. He briefly thought about changing clothes and getting an umbrella, but quickly shoved the idea. Umbrellas were for wimps. He knew that was the real reason why pilots in flight suits didn’t use them: preservation of the species.
Major Kathy Yulok hated her dark green Nomex flight suit. Within her she knew it didn’t really matter, but that wasn’t the point.
As an SR-73 pilot she was authorized to wear the bright orange flight suit that marked her as something special. It seemed to proclaim: Here is a person a cut above everyone else, with quicker reactions and steadier hands than you. It was the most explicit ego-stroking device she had ever seen in her operational career.
But it was something she didn’t take lightly. Her thoughts drifted to her dad, his Wing carousing around in their “green bags,” special people because they flew fighters. She remembered seeing a poster with the caption “I dreamed I was the hit of the ball in my Nomex flight suit.” In the same way she knew she didn’t have to prove herself, explain to someone that no, she was not just a tanker pilot, when she wore her orange flight suit.
It wasn’t a big deal, but it was what she had earned.
And now, being forced to wear a green bag just so no one would know that she was a SR-73 pilot didn’t make her any happier.
But it was a simple matter of “need-to-know.” No one but the SR-73 pilots had a need-to-know about the time of their next classified flights, or even that the plane was still being flown; so here she was, slumming.
She stepped out of the crew van and briskly climbed the stairs to the Kadena Officers’ Club. Her flight wasn’t for another few hours and she had slept in, so this really wouldn’t be breakfast. But the dietician always insisted on a high-protein, low-fat meal just before the flight. Just in case.
“Paper, ma’am?”
Kathy smiled down at the voice. A thin, brown-skinned youngster held up a copy of Stars and Stripes. The boy was here every morning without fail, hawking copies of the American printed paper. Kathy suspected that what he earned might be the only money the boy’s family saw. She dug in her knee pocket and fished out two dollars. “Keep the change.”
The boy bowed as he sat when she flipped him the money. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She started reading the front page while walking into the club. Finding an article on Indonesia, she almost missed the door to the special dining room for SR-73 pilots — a left turn, instead of a right, once inside the main entrance.
Yolanda followed Ed Holstrom through dark hallways; some of the ceiling lights were not working. She could just make out paintings on the walls — murals, like those on the sides of buildings in Angeles City, except that these pictures were of planes, flying high over the countryside. The murals mixed in with an unusual smell — food and some sort of fuel; this place seemed so strange to her.
They turned a corner and entered a bright room. A group of men and women, all dressed in the same baggy green jumpsuits, were clustered around a table. Large pieces of paper covered the table, and one of the women was taking notes.
Ed Holstrom called out, “Yo, Assassin.”
Yolanda spotted Bruce — he had looked up, startled. “Catman.” Then when he spotted Yolanda, his eyes widened. He said, “Just a minute,” over his shoulder as he moved toward her.
She saw Charlie at the table. He waved and flashed a grin at her, then went back to studying the maps on the table.
Bruce set both hands on her shoulders.
“How did you get here?”
“Ed Holstrom. And this.” She folded the yellow visitor’s pass in her hands.
“What’s up? Are you all right?” Yolanda kept quiet; she looked up at him. Bruce glanced around the room as if he were searching for something. He nodded with his head. “Over here — we can talk.” He led her to a row of computers, set apart from the rest of the room. Plaques and emblems of all sorts of strange things — sleek planes with tiger heads, large planes with impossibly large bellies — covered the walls.
Bruce leaned up against a counter holding the row of computers. He moved his head close and said softly, “How’s your dad? Has he cooled down any?”
Yolanda shook her head. “Father is still very upset with you — and me.”
“That figures.” Bruce drummed his fingers against the wooden counter. Someone yelled from another room; the men by the table all laughed, and Yolanda felt her cheeks grow warm.
Bruce drew in a breath. “Well, how long do you think it will take for him to cool down? I don’t mind meeting you away from the sari-sari store, but I’d really prefer to have your father’s blessing on this.” He lifted a finger and ran it lightly down her arm. “I don’t want you running around behind his back — not on account of me.”
She slowly shook her head. “Bruce …”
A voice interrupted them. “Assassin, get the lead out. Wheels up in thirty minutes.”
Bruce rubbed his hand against her arm and smiled. Yolanda drew in a breath. He doesn’t even know me, she thought. What my dreams are, what my future holds.
She lowered her eyes. “Bruce, you are a very nice man. We have not spent much time together, but from what I have seen, you have a, what you say”—she stumbled for the word—“good … future ahead of you.” Yolanda started to talk fast. Frightened that her words might well up into tears, she tried to put the other people in the room out of her mind. She stared at the zipper on Bruce’s green jumpsuit.
“My father and I have had plans for many years for me to attend the University in Quezon City. This is very important to me. My father is selling the sari-sari store so we can go down to Manila and get another store set up before school starts. I will have a chance to spend time with him.” She looked up and set her mouth. “This is something that I want very much. I cannot turn my back on my father, go against his wishes.”
Bruce spoke for the first time. “His wishes?”