Stacks of computer printouts and reports were arranged in Waters’ office against the walls. But the two maps that Bill and Sara had tacked up were the most important documents in the office. Bill had created his scenario on a map of the Persian Gulf, sketching in the order of battle of force threatening Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Sara had tried to re-create the geography of Bill’s scenario on her map of Europe. “We substitute the North Sea for the Persian Gulf, East Anglia in England for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the continent for Iran. The distances are almost identical and both have overwater approaches.”
“The weather’s different,” Bill said. “The Gulf has almost unlimited ceilings and good visibility. The flying weather in Europe is cruddy. The continent has less than fifteen-hundred-foot ceilings and five-mile forward visibility about thirty percent of the time.”
“True,” Waters said, “but if a fighter puke can’t handle the weather he’s not going to do well when surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery are hosing him down. The distances are much more critical. With a base in East Anglia we can run raids against NATO’s Tactical Leadership Program at Jever Air Base in Germany and they can retaliate against us. The Luftwaffe should love it — World War Two all over again.”
Waters stretched out in a dilapidated overstuffed chair he had rescued from a back room and plotted how he would use the Tactical Leadership Program, the TLP, in a training program. The possibilities excited him as he developed one training scenario after another. TLP was NATO’s counterpart to the United States Red Flag and strongly supported by the German Luftwaffe and the RAF. U.S. pilots who had been through both programs gave TLP a slight edge over Red Flag… Waters broke off his brainstorming and returned to the immediate reality of finding a new home for the 45th.
“The computer boffins,” he said, affecting his best, or worst, British accent, “assure me these stacks of printouts contain data on every base available to us in NATO. Supposedly everything is in here, including which toilets leak and the age of the grass. Let’s find the base we want.”
Six hours later Carroll drew a heavy red circle on the map around a base seventy miles northeast of London in East Anglia — RAF Stonewood. “That’s it,” he announced. “I don’t think we’ll find anything better.”
Sara stood up in the middle of the clutter littering the floor and announced she was hungry. “It’s eight o’clock on a Friday night. If either of you are interested, it’s spaghetti at my place.” Waters and Carroll looked at each other, tore the maps down from the wall, locked them and the other classified documents in a safe and were right out the door after her.
Waters had asked Sara to a Van Cliburn concert over dinner when a lull drew their attention to Sara’s background music — a classical piano piece.
“I’m just a farm boy from a place near Lyndon, Kansas,” he had said, “but I’m a music nut — especially classical. Go figure it, but there it is.”
A man of parts, no question, Sara had thought. A complex man she wanted to know more about. Much, much more. From that day at Alexandria South when he had asked her what Blevins would do, the growing attraction she felt for this older man had tugged at her. And now she sensed the attraction was mutual…
She carefully dressed for the evening, choosing a sleeveless black dress her mother had made for her. By most standards it would be considered modest, even simple, with a modest neckline that formed a vee in the back just low enough to suggest she was not wearing a bra. A woven belt of the same material snared her small waist, and the full skirt ended below her knees. The dress was discreetly but emphatically sexy. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her jewelry was small gold earrings and a matching necklace.
She answered the knock at the door.
“Well, what do I call you? Colonel Waters seems a bit formal.”
My God, he thought, he barely recognized her. In mufti she was all woman… “Muddy, I guess, like everyone else. I’ve been cursed with that name for so long that it seems natural now. Hell of a thing to call a grown man. I can’t even remember when I picked the name up, sort of goes with Waters, I guess.”
“Okay, then, how about Anthony?”
“Whatever you say,” he said, and meant it.
Sara loved the concert. Cliburn’s virtuosity created its own magic with the audience and flowed over her. Afterward she suggested, brazenly, she supposed, but to hell with it, that they go back to her apartment for coffee.
While she made coffee Waters rummaged through her tape collection, selecting an artist he had never heard of. “Who’s Liona Boyd?”
“A classical guitarist. Put it on, I think you’ll like her,” Sara said, bringing the coffee. She looked around the room… the lights were not too dim or distractingly bright. The neighbors were quiet and they did have the right music. She settled onto the couch, close but not touching him, and curled her legs up under her full skirt. “What happened to the Shaws after they left Alexandria South?” she asked, rather abruptly steering the conversation in the way she wanted, into his past.
“What? Oh… he’s assigned to Headquarters TAC at Langley in charge of Operational Requirements. Beth likes Norfolk and the Virginia countryside. They may retire there.”
“Really? I was born and raised in Virginia,” she said, stirring her coffee, “near Fredericksburg. I enjoyed that evening with the Shaws. She’s so vivacious. I take it you’ve known them a long time… ”
Waters felt himself unwinding, wanting even to confide in her, and told her how they had met in 1963 at pilot training at Williams Air Force Base outside of Phoenix. They were both married and had lived in the same apartment complex. He told her how poor second lieutenants were. “Base pay was two hundred and twenty-two dollars a month. Payday was a very big deal.”
Sara sensed something was bothering him. “I never realized you were married… You and the Shaws never mentioned it.”
Waters looked slightly pained and she instantly regretted bringing it up.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to pry.” She leaned forward to pour more coffee, brushing his arm.
“You’re not prying,” he said. “It happened a long time ago… Life was much simpler, I’d known Sarah since I was a kid. Small farm towns are like that.”
Sara, startled by the name, was staring at him.
He knew exactly what she was thinking… wanted to make her understand that he had never looked for a replacement for his first wife. “We were a couple in our senior year in high school and it seemed so natural, friends in common and a shared and surprising interest in music. We both went on to the University of Kansas. Along with baseball and playing in the orchestra, my life was complete with Sarah. Or so I felt. We were married in our senior year. I started out majoring in math but ended up in aeronautical engineering, which was why I joined the Air Force, to be around airplanes. I wanted to be a test pilot then. Sarah accepted it and we decided to start a family… ”
Waters was staring into his coffee cup. Slowly he recounted the hours in the hospital. “That was the hardest time of my life. I couldn’t have made it alone. Beth made it a lot easier. Something like that leaves a scar, I guess. Anyway, it was years before I could have what they call a close relationship with another woman. And by then I guess I’d turned into a crusty bachelor, too set in my ways and caught up by the Air Force.”
Listening to him, Sara felt at once moved and excited. Tears actually started to form. Was this careful discriminating Sara? Falling in love with the man beside her that she had spent only a few hours alone with. It seemed so… Impulsively she put a hand to his cheek. “Please, I need to look at you when I say this.” She turned his face to her. “I want you to stay with me.”