Stephen Coonts - Combat

Liz ran a hand through her raven hair. In that motion she seemed transformed from a shaken young woman into a professional aviator who had just sustained a loss. She looked at her employer with eyes still misted but calm. “We didn’t have full comm,” she said in an even voice. “He could receive but not transmit, so I gave him the lead. He signaled that he was losing utility and fuel, but he still thought he could make the field. About two miles out I saw he might not make it and I asked if he …” She ran out of breath. Inhaling, she continued. “I asked if he didn’t want to eject while he had time. But he continued the approach, and …” She cleared her throat. “ … and he dropped the gear too soon. He started a high sink rate, and then he lost power and the bird went in.” She dropped her right hand, palm down. “Just like that. He pulled the handle just as he hit.”

Peters nodded. “I know, Liz. We heard most of it on squadron common. I don’t know what else you could have done …” His voice trailed off.

He won’t say that I should have ordered Yao to eject sooner . She realized that eventually some of the others might be less reluctant to voice that opinion. With a start, she thought of Delight and Wang, who probably now were landing at Luke. “Does Zack know?”

Peters shook his head. “Negats, unless he monitored our freq, which I doubt. Anyway, I don’t want to distract him when he has to land with hung ordnance.”

Liz realized that ATA still had a lesser emergency to sweat out before the day could be put behind them. She looked at Peters again. “Ozzie?”

Peters’s blue eyes went to the pavement before meeting hers again. “He knows.”

“Ozzie?”

“Yes.”

“This is Liz.”

Ostrewski’s pulse briefly spiked, then returned to his normal fifty-five. But his grip tightened on the phone while he thought of something to say.

“Hi, Liz.” He never asked “How are you?” unless he meant it. Whatever his faults, insincerity was not among them.

Her breath was measured, controlled. “Listen, Michael. I really think we should talk. Could I come over?”

“Well, yeah. I mean … tonight?”

“Yes, if that’s all right.”

No point putting it off . “Okay. Ah, sure.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “You’re still shook about Yao?”

“He’s dead, Ozzie. But you and I haven’t said ten words since yesterday morning. The investigation and everything …” She swallowed. “I just felt you didn’t want to talk to me, you know.”

He swallowed hard. “Why, of course I’ll talk to you.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“‘Bye, Scooter.” He hung up. “Damn!”

Fourteen minutes later the doorbell rang at Ostrewski’s condo. Before he opened the door, he inhaled, closed his eyes, and did a five count. He did not want to do this — he would rather tangle with two of Colonel Li’s MiG-29s again — but he recognized the only way out was straight ahead.

“Hi, Liz. C’mon in.” He managed a smile.

“Thanks.” She stepped inside and looked around. “Gosh, this is nice. I’ve never been here before.” Oh, that’s original, Liz. Talk about stating the obvious!

Ozzie showed her to the living room, where he had some ice and soft drinks. “Well, I haven’t done much entertaining, you know. At least not before I met Maria.”

Liz sat on the sofa, trying to appear nonchalant. “Oh, when do we get to meet her?”

Ostrewski sat in the chair at right angles to the sofa. He poured a Coke for himself and a Tab for Liz. “Oh, I’ll prob’ly bring her around one day. We’re just now going steady.” Got that out of the way .

She sipped her drink, trying to decide how she felt about that information. “Mmmm … what’s she do?”

“She’s an MBA; manages the family business — construction. It’s a large family, sort of like mine.” He waved to a series of color photos on the wall behind the sofa.

Liz turned to study the Ostrewski family portraits surrounding a simple crucifix. A big, happy Polish clan with lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. The only other photo was a large framed shot of an F-14 squadron. It was labeled “VF-181 Fightin’ Felines, USS Langley, ” and the date. Suddenly Liz felt on safer ground. “Was that your combat cruise?”

“Yeah. The CO was Buzzard McBride. That’s me and Fido Colley behind the skipper.”

She leaned forward, hands in her lap. “I’d really like to hear about it sometime, Ozzie. As much as you can tell.”

He leaned back, a defensive gesture. “I can’t say much, Liz. There’s a twelve-year hold. I don’t even know why. Something to do with intel sources and diplomacy.”

“But that’s crazy. A lot of people know what happened.”

He smiled. “Like the GS-20 said, ‘There’s no reason for it — it’s just our policy.’”

Vespa recognized a no-win setup and changed the subject. She looked him full in the face. “I need to know what you think about Yao.”

Well, there it is . “Liz, I think he screwed up — twice. He pressed too low and he stayed with a dying jet too long.”

“Some of the Chinese think I’m partly to blame. Damn it, Ozzie, I have to know what you think. What you really think. He was your student and I lost him …” She had sworn she would not cry; she held back the tears. For ten seconds. Then the dam broke.

Michael Ostrewski, who had dueled with the Tiger of the North, shot eight Front-Line aircraft out of the sky, and held the Navy Cross, felt helpless with a weeping female. It was one more Guy Thing.

“Ah, Liz …” He moved beside her on the sofa, awkwardly patted her shoulder, then wrapped both arms around her. She leaned into him and let the sobs out.

Nearly three and a half minutes trickled by, two hundred seconds, each with a beginning, middle, and an end. Abruptly she sat up, wiped her eyes with the back of one hand and sniffed a few times. He handed her a Kleenex.

“Thank you. I’m all right now.” She blew her nose and Ostrewski had no idea what to say. Instead, he picked up her glass and passed it to her.

She drained the soda, set it down, and looked at him through misted eyes. “I really do need to know, Ozzie. Do you think I could have saved Yao?”

He took her hand. He realized that she needed to know another professional’s opinion of her judgment. “Liz, I think if I’d been there I’d probably have told him to pull the handle. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t know what you knew, and you didn’t know what I knew about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I brought him along, that’s all. I think I got inside his head. He was insecure about his bombing, and my guess is that he thought by saving the jet he could sort of make up for, you know, screwing up.”

Liz dabbed at one eye with the hankie. “Did you like him?”

“What?”

“I mean it. Did you like Yao as a person?”

“Well … gee, I don’t know. I didn’t think of him as an individual human with friends and maybe a family. He was a student who was my responsibility.” He shrugged. “It was a professional relationship, that’s all.” Ozzie looked at her again. “Do you like Deng?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I do. The way he wears his Stetson everywhere. And he has that shy quality about him, you know?” Ozzie nodded. He didn’t know.

“But he’s a good student, Liz. He follows orders.”

“You know they were friends? They’d been squadronmates for about four years.”

“He seems to be taking it okay.”

She gulped an ice cube. “Better than me, evidently.”