Jim DeFelice - Going Deep

“What kind of story is it going to be when they find out the hero’s a coward?”

Knowlington shook his head.

“Yeah,” said Mongoose. “What the hell do we do?”

“I’m going to have to think about it. When’s he supposed to fly again?”

“Saturday I think. I’d have to check at this point. I’m a little tired.” The major tightened his hand into a fist. “I’ll tell you, my first instinct… ”

“That isn’t going to get us anywhere, Goose,” said Knowlington.

The colonel closed the door behind Mongoose. He sat at his desk, staring at the blank wall for a minute. Finally his rage exploded and he smashed his arm down against the desktop so hard it stung.

In the kid’s defense, he had come to them and told them what happened. If he hadn’t, it was doubtful they would ever have found out.

Dropping the CBUs blind — not good, but not the worst thing he could have done.

Not answering the AWACS hail? Less than optimum, but again, it wasn’t as if he had flown to Jordan and sat out the war.

Quite frankly, Knowlington couldn’t hold any of what happened over the site the first day against him; he understood fear quite well. And the kid had gotten through it. Knowlington knew enough about people to know it wouldn’t happen again.

But the issue now was trust. Willfully misleading a superior officer. Lying. Even Knowlington, as far from a by-the-book guy as there was, couldn’t allow that to just slip by.

In his opinion, it deserved serious disciplinary action.

Which would piss a hell of a lot of people off. And with the media hanging around, someone was going to get a very black eye.

Knowlington didn’t care how he would look. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, let the Air Force look bad. Not in this war. Never again.

But how would the Air Force survive if pilots lied about what happened during their missions?

He slammed his fist down on the desk again, this time so hard it felt as if he broke it.

“I say, we call him Blaze, because he blazed the chopper.”

“How about Chopper? That’s different.”

“Blaze is better,” insisted A-Bomb. He and Doberman were sitting in A-Bomb’s tent, alternately teasing Dixon and congratulating him. A-Bomb had broken open his daily Fed Ex Happy Meal and Doberman had brought along a bottle of shampoo, which had proven to contain Jack Daniels bourbon.

The older pilots had napped after their flight and were raring to party. Dixon, on the other hand, had spent the past eight or nine hours telling camera crews and reporters — along with several dozen Air Force officers and enlisted personnel — how the Iraqi helicopter had gone bye-bye. His eyelids felt heavier than a pair of BLU-109B 2,250 pound bombs.

“Air War God, that’s it,” snorted Doberman, sipping the whiskey.

“Just God,” said A-Bomb. “How’s that for a call sign? This is God talking.”

The two men laughed like school kids watching a Three Stooges movie.

Since telling Knowlington and Johnson what had happened on the first mission, Dixon hadn’t said anything to anyone else. He wasn’t keeping it a secret, necessarily; everybody would know sooner or later anyway. But he just didn’t want to deal with telling people on top of everything else.

Except for Doberman. He’d been his wingmate, his flight leader, and he owed him an apology. His screw-up could have killed him.

It was better to do that sooner rather than later. That was why he was here, rather than sleeping; he’d spent the last ten minutes or so getting ribbed, hoping eventually to get Doberman alone so he could apologize. He wanted to tell the captain himself before he heard about it from anyone else.

“What do you think, kid?” A-Bomb asked. “You want God or Blaze?”

“What’s wrong with BJ?” asked Dixon.

A-Bomb laughed. “Too suburban. Preppy, you know. Fuckin’ Hog pilot’s got to have a good name, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“My mom used to call me BJ.”

Doberman and A-Bomb burst out laughing.

“I’m serious.”

“We know you’re serious, kid,” said Doberman. “Have a drink.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep.”

“So?” asked Doberman.

“How about Grunt?” said A-Bomb. “Now there is a Hog name. Grunt. Yeah, I like that.”

“BJ.”

“Hey, okay,” said Doberman, holding up his glass in a toast. “BJ it is. For your mom.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“I’m serious. BJ.”

“Nah. That ain’t gonna do it.” A-Bomb got up. “I got to take a leak. Hold my place.”

Finally alone, Dixon exhaled deeply and turned to Glenon. “Captain, I got to tell you something. You’re gonna hate me, but I got to tell you something.”

The word “captain” struck Doberman like an ice ball in the back of the head. He’d had just enough of the bourbon to feel comfortably mellow, but the next words from the pilot sobered him immediately.

“I lied to you about yesterday,” said Dixon. “I lied to everybody.”

Doberman poured himself another shot as Dixon slowly detailed what had happened. He sipped this one, not so much listening to the younger man’s words as absorbing them.

It was a damn hard thing to admit you had been a coward, Doberman thought. Damn hard.

Then again, the kid had redeemed himself today. Shit, not too many guys got that chance, not with so much style.

Now that was luck, wasn’t it?

Doberman curled his toe in his boot, feeling the penny. He’d plopped it into his sock for his nap, then decided to keep it there.

Luck, skill; who knew what part of either played in the equation? One thing he did know, though — he was holding on to the damn penny. You couldn’t be too certain of anything.

“It wasn’t your fault I got hit with the triple A,” Doberman told Dixon when the pilot stopped talking. “They aimed at me because I was the first one through, and I just happened to hit the route where all the guns were. You were lucky they didn’t nail you, too.”

“I was scared. Nothing like that’s ever happened to me. Not like that.”

Doberman nodded. “You got through it. And you’re past it. Hell, you’re a hero now.”

“But I lied to the colonel. I just ditched the bombs and ran.”

Doberman scratched his chin. True enough, the kid did remind him of his younger brother. There was a physical resemblance, and hell if he didn’t have the same sincere crap in his voice. Not made up, either.

“Sooner or later, we all do things we’re ashamed of,” said Doberman. “It’s what happens next that matters.” He got up from the chair. “Hey, let’s go get something to eat. I never really liked Big Macs, to tell you the truth.”

Forty-five minutes later, Colonel Knowlington found Dixon walking toward his tent. He had just finished eating with A-Bomb and Doberman.

“Come with me, Lieutenant,” he snapped, leading him down a short alleyway not far from the hangars where they could be alone. The light cast a yellow pall over the lieutenant’s face; he was struggling to keep his eyes open and his cheeks sagged with fatigue.

“I’ve read through the reports on your mission, and talked to Major Johnson. There doesn’t seem to be any basis for bringing formal charges against you, at least none that are likely to be upheld,” said Knowlington. “The major concurs.”

The words about formal charges sparked Dixon’s eyes, as Knowlington knew they would.

“That doesn’t mean I condone what you did. You can’t leave things out, not like that. Not when people’s lives are depending on you. It may seem trivial, but everything is connected, usually in ways we don’t know about until it’s too late.”