“The plane will carry your XM-9, Marcus… Darby is, as you know, totally familiar with it. He will employ it.”
Marcus was obviously excited.”At maximum output?”
“Yes. All out. We'll need you in the control room.”
“Of course, of course… Eh, Major Darby — may I talk with him?”
“Tomorrow morning. Before he suits up.” Ryan stood up. The interview was obviously at an end. “Darby is home now. Taking it easy for tomorrow. Hopefully getting a good night's rest.”
Marcus walked from the General's office. He was as excited and exhilarated as a child on Christmas morning. It showed in his pleasure-creased face and in his jaunty walk as he hurried down the corridor, even the ache in his kidney forgotten. He believed in enthusiasm; he believed in showing it. He was unable to understand the younger generation who considered it “cool” to be devoid of emotion — or, at least, never to show it.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow would demonstrate whether his work of the last ten years would bear fruit. Tomorrow might well turn out to be a great step for him, the most important day of his life.
Perhaps also a great step for his adopted country…
3
The remodeling of the pool at the Officers Club had been finished only a week before and the Base personnel hadn't yet resumed the habit of spending the warm evenings there. Randi Darby liked it that way. They had the entire pool and barbecue area to themselves. It was especially nice tonight, she thought. They were finally getting together with a good friend of Tom's who had arrived at Edwards a short time before. To take over Base Security Operations, Tom had told her. He'd been at the Flight Test Center for almost four weeks getting acclimatized, and — according to her husband — already acted as if he'd spent half his life there. And although Tom had spent a good deal of time with his friend, this was the first chance they'd all had to get together. She'd enjoyed lining up a date for him.
Using a leisurely sidestroke, she let her sleek, sun-gilded body glide through the water. It was refreshing and cool, compared to the warm evening air. With easy grace she hoisted herself up onto the rim of the lighted pool. She shook the water from her blond hair and looked toward two young people dancing slowly on the wooden deck to the soft music of a portable stereo. Paul was a good-looking man, she thought. But she hadn't made up her mind yet if she really liked him. Something about him was — grating her. It was different from the fighter-jock self-esteem she was used to in the exclusive fraternity of Air Force test pilots stationed at Edwards, the dome of the world. He seemed a little too — macho. Perhaps when she got to know him better.
“Paul!” she called. “Judy! How about a dip before the hamburgers are done? Cool you off.”
Captain Paul Jarman grinned at the bikini-clad girl in his arms. He pulled her to him. “Who wants to cool off?”
A faint shadow flitted across Randi's face. She threw a quick glance toward the barbecue.
At the barbecue Tom Darby began to flip the batch of hamburgers sizzling over the hot charcoal. Over his swim trunks he wore a white barbecue apron with a comic-book version of an F-15 fighter plane stenciled on it in red and blue. He turned toward the others at the pool.
“You can start the countdown, guys,” he called cheerfully. “Minus five minutes.”
Randi stood up. With a towel she began to pat herself dry. It was going to be a good evening, she told herself. A lovely evening. It was.
Paul and Judy walked over to Tom. Judy looked wide-eyed at the hamburgers on the grill, licked by quick flames from the glowing coals below as little droplets of fat dripped down.
“They've got holes in them,” she exclaimed in surprise. “Like doughnuts.”
“Major Darby's famous Holy-Burgers,” Paul exclaimed. “I've heard about them. Renowned throughout the Air Force! Outranks the Colonel's Chicken any day!”
“But — why the holes?” Judy wanted to know.
Tom looked at her in mock surprise. “You don't know?” he said incredulously.
“No.”
“Well, let me enlighten you, Judy, my love.” He was enjoying himself. “It's computed scientifically. You see, the flavor is vastly enhanced when the heated air from the charcoal flows through the hole.” He made the scientific mumbo-jumbo sound almost believable. “The — eh — convex eddy patterns of the vortex are inversely proportioned to the air density and compressibility—”
“Cut the crap and cook the burgers!” Paul cut in.
“Yes, sir! Since you put it that way.” Tom turned the hamburgers. He gave Judy a confidential wink. “It's a very sound aerodynamic principle,” he said. “Makes for a hell of a hamburger.”
Judy was impressed. “Really?” She was not sure if she should take him seriously.
Randi had joined them. “Don't encourage him, Judy,” she said, smiling. “He'll have them flying in a moment.”
“Actually,” Tom confided, “hamburgers are my only culinary accomplishment. Randi does all the rest.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the rear. “Great cook.”
“Sure,” Randi laughed. “I'm no fool. The way to a man's heart is, after all, through his stomach.” She patted Tom on his F-15. “Especially if you tell him how flat it is!”
“It's a fact,” Tom insisted. “B.R. — before Randi — I used to cook for myself.” He made a final turning of the sizzling burgers on the grill. “Believe me, my cooking tasted like a misprint in a Mongolian cookbook. I even had to give my garbage disposal Alka-Seltzer.”
They groaned in unison.
They all helped stack the dirty dishes in the basket Randi and Tom had brought them in. It had been a nice evening. They had enjoyed Tom's Holy-Burgers — and each other's company. All the burgers had disappeared, along with a large pitcher of lemonade, handfuls of potato chips, a jar of dill pickles and gobs of relish and ketchup. All very successful. Even the ketchup bottle had been cooperative.
Randi, as usual, had her reservations about her husband's special hamburgers. The holes made them too well done for her liking. She'd never told him. He got such a kick out of making them. She had wondered how he'd gotten into the habit of cooking them that way. To be — different? It was a strange practice for someone who loved steak tartare…
They were having a last swim before calling it a day. Randi was sitting at the pool's edge, swishing her feet in the water and watching Tom and Paul swimming the length of the pool with powerful, rhythmic strokes. Judy came over and sat down beside her. She looked toward the men.
“I don't think I could ever get used to it,” she said.
“To what?” Randi asked.
“Having a husband doing such a dangerous job. Never knowing…”
A forbidden phrase pressed briefly for recognition in Randi's mind: shooting dice with death. She shut it out. The pilots themselves could banter it about. The wives could not think it.
“I don't think anyone ever gets used to it,” she said. “But I wouldn't want to change it. It's really wonderful for Tom.”
“What do you mean?”
“He's doing something he really wants to do. It challenges him. It's exciting. And important. What more can you ask?” she looked at her husband churning through the water. “I — envy him that sometimes…”
She knew Tom could not live without flying. It was part of him. It was a part she had accepted. His father had been a flyer, too. On February 25 in 1944—during “Big Week”—the Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, had roared across the Alps to attack the huge Messerschmitt factories in Regensburg in Bavaria. In the P-51 Mustang fighter Tom's father had flown bomber escort. He had not returned. That was something Tom's mother had to accept.