“Former boy astronaut. Now adult fighter pilot.”
“So I hear.” She ran to him and gave him a hug. “I heard you were aboard, and I was going to find you. They’re flying us back to Bahrain in half an hour.”
Yes, he thought, holding his arms around her. It was definitely Claire Phillips. She even wore that same perfume he always liked. He remembered the way she felt pressed against him like this.
Maxwell was suddenly deluged with memories.
Back in the Patuxent River days. Claire Phillips was the smartest, sexiest, classiest girl he had ever met. She was on her first real job out of Duke, doing a piece for the Washington Post about astronauts-to-be. The commandant of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River introduced her to Lieutenant Sam Maxwell, who was competing to be in the next class of space shuttle pilots.
The interview lasted three hours, then spilled over into late dinner at the officers’ club. They closed down the bar, then went out to the marina pier to talk some more They were still on the pier when the dawn rose over the Chesapeake.
Brick and Claire became an item. For eight months they spent every weekend together, either at her Georgetown apartment or on the water at Patuxent. She wrote a series about the astronaut selection program that won her an award and a promotion to the international desk.
Claire was offered a post in Reuters’ London bureau. Maxwell, in the meantime, learned that he had been selected for a post at NASA. He had orders to Houston to begin astronaut training.
While he was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, he met another trainee named Debbie Sutter. She had red hair and a pert nose, and until her selection as a shuttle mission specialist she had been a resident cardiologist at Bethesda. Sam and Debbie were married the week after his first shuttle flight.
As if reading his thoughts, Claire said, “I’m sorry about Debbie.”
Maxwell looked at her, surprised. But then he realized, of course she would know. Claire was a reporter. It was her job to know.
“You look wonderful, Claire. I’m proud of you.”
“You should be. I’m doing what I always wanted. My fantasy job.”
“I remember. You were going to blow away Christiane Amanpour.”
“I’m doing it. Give me a couple of years.”
Maxwell remembered how hurt and angry Claire had been. She had called him one night from Teheran, crying. She still loved him, she said. Within a few months he heard that she married another journalist.
“What happened to —?” Maxwell tried to remember the name. He couldn’t.
“Chris Tyrwhitt?” She shook her head. “Didn’t work out. Too many women, too much booze. Too much competition between us, probably. We’re still officially married, but in process.”
For several seconds, neither spoke. Maxwell remembered again what good company Claire had always been. That quick, dry humor. It occurred to him that he hadn’t enjoyed the company of a woman — a civilian woman — for over three months.
He said, “I guess I never got around to explaining about —”
She cut him off. “I’m over it. Believe it or not, there really is life after Sam Maxwell.” She gave him a wry smile.
She had half an hour before the COD was to fly her and her crew back to Bahrain. Maxwell took her down to the officers’ wardroom.
He brought them a pot of coffee from the server bar. She gave him an appraising look as he sat down. “Sam, you haven’t changed a bit. How do you stay so slim and fit?”
“Same as always. A little weight training, a few miles of running every day or so.”
“Running?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. This ship seems so jammed with people and airplanes.”
“It’s a big flight deck, about three acres worth. You have to watch out for obstacles, of course.”
She laughed and gave him another look of appraisal. For the next twenty minutes they caught up on each other’s lives. She talked about her career, how she had graduated from Sunday supplement writer to head of the Middle East desk. He told her about NASA and his shuttle experience. He skimmed over the details of his departure from the space program.
“I’ve been following your adventures,” she said. “How’s this for a headline? ‘Ace fighter pilot patrols the skies of Iraq.’”
“I like it, except that I’m not an ace. Not even close.”
“That would be your commanding officer, Killer DeLancey, right?
“Close. Four down, one to go.”
“But you were there when he shot down the MiG. General Penwell knows your name by heart.”
“How did you learn all that?”
“I’m smart and persistent.”
“You fluttered your eyelashes and got some guy in JTF staff to run his mouth.”
She laughed, and he knew he was right. That was Claire’s talent. She could get people to talk.
“What they tell me is all in the public record,” she said. “You just have to know how to piece it together.”
A thin man with glasses and a pony tail, walked into the wardroom. Maxwell remembered seeing him in Claire’s camera crew. “Hey, Claire,” the man said. “They want us on deck. Time to blast off.”
The clamshell doors of the COD were open, and the crew was loading boxes of gear into the back of the cargo plane. Claire stopped in the doorway to the flight deck and struck a pose. She was wearing a cranial protector and float coat for the flight back to Bahrain.
“Like it?” she asked.
Maxwell had to laugh. “You look like Minnie Mouse.”
She made a face. “Where is the Reagan’s next port call, Sam? It would be nice if we could… you know, meet again. Have a drink and talk. Something like that.”
Maxwell caught the reticence in her voice, the sudden shyness. He liked it. It meant that for all her hard-edged toughness as a reporter, she was still vulnerable. In a secret place, she was still Claire Phillips, cub reporter.
“We’re overdue for a port call. But after what happened yesterday in the No Fly Zone, they probably won’t announce the ship’s movement until a couple of days before we drop anchor. I’d bet on Dubai, or maybe Bahrain.” He looked at her. “Does that mean you’ll be there?”
“You know very well what it means, Commander Maxwell. Do the right thing. Ask me for a date.”
“A date? Oh.” He cleared his throat and said, “Would you, Ms. Phillips, do me the honor of joining me for dinner and drinks at a place yet to be announced?”
“I’ll have to think about it.” She deliberated for several seconds. “Oh, what the hell. I’ll take a chance.” She glanced across the deck at the COD. “Your time’s up, sailor. My plane’s leaving.”
She leaned forward and gave Maxwell a quick, non-lethal kiss. “Be careful, Sam.” She trotted across the deck, then stopped at the ramp of the COD. She waved and blew him another kiss.
The two turbine engines cranked up. Minutes later, the blunt-nosed cargo plane hurtled down the track of the Reagan’s number one catapult. Maxwell watched until the speck of the COD vanished in the milky sky.
Chapter Five
Buttwang
The mood in the Buttwang was getting ugly.
“She moved my gear out and took over the goddamn locker!”
“They got better staterooms than lieutenant commanders. Can someone explain why the fuck that is?”
“The tall one with the mouth like a megaphone, calls herself Spam? She went marching into the parachute loft and told the rigger she wanted her call sign stitched on all her gear. By tomorrow. And guess what? The maintenance officer told him he’d damn well better do it.”