Stephen Coonts - Combat

“Liz, didn’t you ever lose anybody in TraCom?”

“No, not like this. A classmate of mine was killed instructing in T-34s at Whiting, but this was different.” Ostrewski shrugged again. “Ozzie, why didn’t you talk to me when Yao was killed?”

He exhaled, slowly letting the air out of his lungs. “I didn’t know what I felt, Liz. I guess … I guess I didn’t trust myself to say anything to you before I learned the details because I wondered if you had screwed up, and I was even more afraid that I had screwed up. Maybe I missed something with Yao. I just don’t know.” He rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry that I caused you any extra pain. I should have been thinking beyond myself.”

“You had your own dragons to slay.”

“How’s that?”

She smiled. “It’s a Chinese saying or something. We all have our emotional dragons to slay.” She laughed. “You were one of mine.”

Ozzie’s eyes widened in apprehension at the implication. High buffet, airspeed bleeding off. Unload, bury the nose and go to zone five ’burner . He recovered nicely. “Consider that dragon slain, Scooter.”

Ozzie walked Liz to her car and made a point of hugging her again. They kissed good night the way friends do.

There was a little delay in the pace of training after Yao’s death. As Peters predicted, Mr. Wei had declared the incident closed long before the FAA, the Air Force, or anyone else had reached the obvious conclusions: Mr. Yao had ignored the minimum recoverable altitude when using live ordnance and had tried to land the aircraft instead of ejecting while he still had control. “Consider it another lesson learned,” Wei had said. His next words bespoke his mission-oriented mind-set: “I expect you will proceed with strafing next week.”

Sitting with the other IPs in the Skyhawk Room, Robo Robbins absorbed the implication. “Did you ever notice Wei’s eyes?” he asked. “He’s got dead eyes, like a shark.”

“Be that as it may,” Peters said, “we’re now going to be dead eyes with our guns.” There were exaggerated groans at the pun. “To tell you the truth,” Peters added, “I’d just as soon wrap up the air-to-ground phase and get on to the tactics syllabus.”

Delight rubbed his beard, and asked, “Terry, are we condensing the gunnery syllabus to make up time?”

“Affirm. I talked to Rocky Rhode and held his hand long-distance. He’s concerned that the loss would delay carquals and upset Lieu and some others back in D.C. so we’re throwing in an extra simulator session with two live-fire hops instead of three.”

Peters searched the audience. “Gunner, where are you?”

Warrant Officer Jim Keizer raised a laconic hand at the back of the room. He was a tall, well-built career sailor in his late thirties. Peters continued, “Now that we’re done with bombing, your ordies can concentrate on the twenty millimeters. Then you can all go back to Kingsville and rejoin the Navy.”

“What? And lose all this per diem? Not likely, sir!” Keizer’s retort drew appreciative laughter. Ordnancemen qualified to arm and load bombs and maintain the A-4s’ cannon were a premium commodity. Like all seadogs, they knew how to turn their per diem expenses into a profit by careful shopping and gratuitous mooching.

“All right,” Peters continued. “We have three days before the first gunnery flight. Jim’s crew has done the boresighting, but we need to test the guns on the jets we’ll be using in this phase. That’s eight launches a day. We have range time tomorrow and the next day to confirm that both guns work in each bird. Everybody gets one hop to fire fifty rounds per gun. Any malfunctions, and I may exert my authority and take the extra flights myself.”

Catcalls and two paper cups pelted Hook Peters. Fending off the assault with crossed arms, he intoned, “Hey, it’s not my fault. Jane said either she gets a gunnery hop or I sleep on the couch.”

“El Cid,” began Delight, standing at the Skyhawk Bar. “Greatest six-minute sword fight ever filmed — duel to the death for possession of the whole danged city of Calajora. Single-combat warriors like Tom Wolfe wrote about in The Right Stuff.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “And Sophia Loren …”

“ Fighting Seabees ,” countered Robbins. “Burly construction guys who drive bulldozers and earthmovers. They level mountains for airfields while killing Japs and hardly break a sweat.”

“Okay, The Vikings . You can’t get no more manly than they were. Sail the Atlantic in an open longship, then go raping and pillaging — real Manly Man stuff. And remember Ernest Borgnine? Ragnar’s feasting hall where they swill mead from horns and throw battle-axes at each other and ravish the serving wenches …” Delight grinned hugely. “Come to think of it, kinda reminds me of Animal Night at Miramar …”

Robbins nearly choked on his drink, rerunning the long-gone Friday frivolity at Fighter Town USA. He thought fast. “ Taras Bulba . Those cossacks were really Manly Men — jumped their horses over a huge ravine to prove who was right or wrong.” He struck an heroic pose and emulated Yul Brynner. “‘I am Taras Bulba, colonel of the Don Cossacks. Put your faith in your sword, and your sword in the Pole!’” He glanced across the room at Ostrewski. “Oops, sorry, Oz. No offense.”

Ozzie, conversing with Vespa and Thaler, flipped him off without looking back.

“ Conan the Barbarian .” Delight flashed a gotcha smile, confident he could not be topped.

“Beeeeep,” went Robbins. “You lose. Conan doesn’t count ’cause he isn’t real.”

Terry Peters entered the lounge with Jane on his arm. He turned to his wife. “Oh, no,” he groaned. “They’re at it again.”

She looked around. “At what again?”

“Richthofen and Brown over there. They play a game called Manly Man Night. One starts by naming a movie and the other has to respond with an equally macho flick until one of them runs out of titles. I think Zack just lost.”

Delight saw the Peterses enter the lounge and joined them at a table. “Hi, guys. You’re just in time — the party’s rolling.”

Jane regarded the former Marine, a suspicious pout on her face. “Things never change around here. The monthly Friday night gathering and poor Carol’s over there with the rest of the aviation widows.” She glanced at the far corner where Carol Delight sat in animated conversation with Kiersten Thaler, Marie Robbins, and some other ATA wives.

Delight waved a placating hand. “Hey, it’s an old-married-person trick. You spend the whole evening talking to everybody else so you have something to say to your spouse during the drive home.” He looked back and forth between Terry and Jane Peters. Keeping a straight face, he added, “Didn’t you know that?”

Jane patted his cheek. “That’s all right, dear. I’m sure you have a comfortable couch somewhere.” She joined the other ladies, knowing that her husband wanted to speak to their partner.

Peters motioned Delight into a corner. “Zack, I got a call from Congressman Ottmann this afternoon. He wants to meet me for a faceto-face with one of his people day after tomorrow. I should be back Monday night.”

Delight nodded. “Sure. You taking the red-eye to Dulles?”

“No, I’m hopping Southwest to Wichita.” He looked around to ensure no one overheard. “Look, if anybody asks — and don’t volunteer it — I’m looking at a twin Cessna at the factory. Ottmann stressed that we keep this as low-key as possible. I don’t know exactly why, but that’s how he wants it.”