The melancholy sound of taps reverberated across the hangar deck. Each mournful note of the bugle seemed to swell in the air, then vanish in the cold steel bulkheads.
The soul of Devo Davis was committed to the Almighty.
Maxwell stopped outside DeLancey’s stateroom door. He rapped twice, then heard DeLancey’s voice: “Come in, it’s open.”
It was their first meeting since CAG had tapped him to be the squadron executive officer. Maxwell wished he could have seen DeLancey’s reaction.
Delancey sat at his desk shuffling through a pad of notes. He didn’t bother looking up. “Sit down.”
Maxwell sat on the steel chair and glanced around. It was a typical senior air wing officer’s quarters — single bunk on one bulkhead, a steel bureau with pull-out drawers, a couple of padded chairs. An oriental throw rug lay on the deck. On one bulkhead hung a framed portrait of Delancey standing beside his Hornet with the kill symbols beneath the cockpit. Next to it was a framed collage of DeLancey’s awards and decorations, including the new silver star.
Maxwell glimpsed his own name at the top of one of DeLancey’s note pages.
Finally DeLancey said, “Contrary to my expressed wishes as commanding officer, you are going to be the XO of my squadron.”
Maxwell said nothing.
“How did you pull that off? Was it your old man, the admiral?”
Maxwell ignored the question. “I’d like to say I look forward to working with you, John. Sounds like you don’t feel the same way.”
“Let’s get something straight. You may address me as ‘Skipper,’ or by my call sign. You and I will never be on a first-name basis.”
By tradition, squadron commanding officers and executive officers dropped military protocol and began a bonding process. So much for tradition, thought Maxwell. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re a temp. You may be the CAG’s golden boy, but you are by no means a permanent replacement as my XO.”
DeLancey picked up the sheaf of papers. “These are documented deficiencies in your performance. As a squadron department head you were a flop. As an aviator, I consider you average at best, and in my opinion your act of cowardice in combat is worthy of a court-martial. Besides all that, you were never a team player in this command. I’m going to write you a fitness report as operations officer that will end your career. Those orders to the Training Command were the only route you had to a graceful retirement.”
Maxwell did not respond. It was nonsense. Since he had arrived, the squadron’s scores had reached an all time high. With the exceptions of the late executive officer, and the recent problem with Spam Parker, all the pilots were trained and combat ready.
DeLancey went on. “I don’t care what CAG said about your strike lead into Al Kharj. As far as I’m concerned, it was a disaster. Right now he’s the only man standing between you and the brig. I have good reason to suspect your loyalty to your country. I’d like to pull your security clearance, given that you’ve been shacking up with that reporter —”
Maxwell felt a wave of anger pass over him.
“—but you can read all about it in your next fitness report,” DeLancey said.
Maxwell knew there was nothing he could do about his fitness report. Commanding officers could say anything they wanted.
DeLancey tilted back in his chair. “Here’s the bottom line. VFA-36 is my squadron. You will carry out my orders immediately and without question. You take no action without my approval. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Much as I hate to afford you the privilege, you’ll need to occupy the XO’s stateroom. You’ll conduct squadron business in there, and I don’t want it to look like there’s a rift between us.”
Delancey regarded Maxwell for a moment. “Don’t get too comfortable. As far as I’m concerned, your real job is in Kingsville, and my advice is that you should take it and run. CAG might think you’re here for the duration, but he doesn’t necessarily have the last word, either.”
Maxwell didn’t reply. The meeting with DeLancey had gone as he expected.
DeLancey kept his gaze on him. “First whiff I get you’re trying to stir something up with the CAG or the admiral, I’ll have you in front of a court-martial. Do you copy?”
Maxwell didn’t answer right away. For a moment he was tempted to dredge up the past — the real reason DeLancey despised him. Maybe this was a good time for them to bury it. The MiG you claimed in Desert Storm? You can have it. It’s over.
He saw DeLancey’s narrowed, hate-filled eyes, and he realized the truth. It would never be over.
“I copy, Skipper.”
“Good. Get the hell out of my office.”
Maxwell emptied the drawers in Devo’s locker, neatly folding and placing all the clothing in a wooden shipping container. On a yellow legal pad he listed each article that went into the container. Then he gathered the items from Devo’s desk — photographs of his wife, videocassettes that he guessed were tapes he exchanged with Eileen, and a stack of letters. He and Eileen were childless, which had been a frustration for Devo. Maxwell remembered that sometimes, when Devo was drinking and feeling contemplative, he would mention that Eileen had never wanted children.
In a desk drawer he found another stack of photos. In one of the shots he was startled to see the four of them — Devo and Eileen, Brick and Claire. It was taken on the Maryland seashore while Maxwell was still waiting for his assignment to NASA. The four faces smiled at him from the photograph. Maxwell felt an overwhelming sadness come over him. He sank into the desk chair. The face of Claire Phillips smiled at him from the photo.
He remembered that day, the breeze blowing in from the gulf, the seagulls and the sand crabs. Devo had been filled with himself, cocky and proud. He had his orders to a strike fighter squadron as a department head. Someday in the not-too-distant future he would be an executive officer and prospective commanding officer. The only thing better than being an astronaut, he gloated, was getting command of your own fighter squadron. To a fighter pilot like Devo Davis, that was the ultimate success: your own command. It didn’t get any better.
It didn’t happen. That was before Killer DeLancey, before Eileen announced that she was splitting. Before the Reagan and a bad day over the Persian Gulf.
Before Spam Parker.
Maxwell sighed and laid the photograph back on the stack. He wished again that he had stood firm and insisted that Devo’s name be removed from the flight schedule that night. Of course, it would have given DeLancey the final ammunition he needed to relieve Devo of his duties as executive officer. Devo would be disgraced but alive.
Then it would be Devo cleaning out this room, Maxwell thought. He would gather his effects and quietly disappear from the Reagan, transferred to some meaningless billet back in the states. Devo would hate it, and after a few weeks he would put in for early retirement. Then he would then drink himself into an early grave.
The thought made Maxwell even gloomier. One way or the other, Devo Davis had been a doomed man.
He returned to the task of packing Devo’s effects. He filled the wooden container with clothes from the drawers. He placed all Devo’s personal papers in a manila envelope and sealed it. Then he removed the contents of Devo’s safe — five bottles of vodka, one a quarter full, and a half-empty flask of brandy. Devo’s nightcap stock.