Ben Bova - Able One

Madelaine worked for Anson, Harry recalled, in the human resources department.

“What is it, Mr. Hartunian?” Colonel Christopher prodded.

He blinked at her. “It’s probably nothing.” He pushed himself up from the seat. “Let me talk to Monk.”

Christopher got to her feet beside him. “It’s him?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. Let me talk to him before we go jumping to conclusions.”

She studied his face for an intense moment, then nodded. “Okay. You do that. I’ve got a plane to fly.”

As she stepped back into the cockpit, Karen Christopher saw that Captain O’Banion’s shirt was dark with perspiration as he sat in the left-hand seat. Even though his hands were in his lap, they were balled tightly into fists. Kaufman was doing the flying, she saw, and the communications officer was clearly afraid to touch the controls.

O’Banion looked relieved as Colonel Christopher leaned between the two seats.

“How’s it going, Obie?” she asked pleasantly.

“She’s flying straight and level,” said the copilot, glancing up at her. “Buffeting a lot, but she’s holding together.”

“Good. Captain, you can go back to your comm station. Thanks for keeping the major company.”

O’Banion pushed himself out of the chair. “You’re entirely welcome, ma’am.”

“How’d you like sitting up here?” Christopher asked as she slipped by him and into the seat. It felt warm, hot almost.

“Makes me think of W. C. Fields,” O’Banion replied.

“The old comedian? How come?”

“He said he wanted on his tombstone, ‘All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.’ ”

Christopher laughed. “You don’t want to be a pilot?”

“No, ma’am. You can keep the job. I’ll stick to communications.”

O’Banion ducked through the hatch.

As Colonel Christopher strapped in, she said to Kaufman, “No competition from him.”

Kaufman grunted. Christopher could see that he was reluctant to turn control of the plane back to her.

Looking through the windshield, the colonel saw that they were back over the gray swirling storm that they had passed on the way to the Korean coast.

“Hope we don’t have to put down in that mess,” she said lightly.

Kaufman gave her a sour look. “Misawa reports it’s starting to rain there. We’ll be landing in the storm, looks like.”

Christopher shrugged. “Not much we can do about that—unless you want to head back to Elmendorf.”

Kaufman said nothing, but the expression on his face could have curdled milk.

Monk Delany was asleep when Harry stepped through the hatch to the beam control compartment. He was sitting in front of his main console, head lolling on his shoulder as the plane bounced and staggered through the air. Up here in the 747’s nose, the constant rise and fall of the plane was more noticeable than farther aft. The noise of the engines wasn’t as bad, but the shaking and shuddering caused by the damaged wing seemed more intense up here.

“Monk,” he called. “Hey, Monk. Wake up.”

Delany stirred and grumbled to himself. His eyes fluttered, then opened fully.

“Harry,” he said blearily. “Musta dozed off.”

“Yeah.” Harry sat in the chair next to the big engineer. “Monk, when we get back to Elmendorf, the Air Force police are going to dust that optics assembly for fingerprints.”

Delany shrugged. “My prints’ll be all over it. Hell, you know that, Harry.”

“Yeah. Your prints and nobody else’s.”

“So whoever took it wore gloves.”

“They’ll search the plane. And each one of us. They won’t find any gloves.”

Delany’s face clouded over. “What’re you telling me, Harry?”

“You took the lens assembly out of the ranger, Monk. Last night. You wormed your big ape arm into the housing and popped it out, nice and neat. Just the way you popped the replacement set into it.”

Glaring at Harry, Delany looked as if he wanted to answer but thought better of it.

“It was you, Monk,” Harry said quietly. “I know it was you.”

The big man’s eyes narrowed. For an instant Harry thought Delany was going to get violent. But then he put on his lopsided smile and said, “What the hell, Harry?”

“You’re not denying it?”

“I didn’t do any damage. We shot down the gook missiles, didn’t we? We’re all heroes.”

“Yeah. All of us—except Pete Quintana.”

Delany look startled. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“How’d the grease get into the oxygen line, Monk?”

“Now wait a minute!”

“You put it there,” Harry insisted. “You knew what would happen when the line was pressurized. You killed Pete.”

“Dumb spic shouldn’t’ve been out there. He shoulda come into the control room with the rest of us.”

“You let him get killed.”

“I warned him!” Delany shouted. “I told the dumb sonofabitch to get inside! You heard me!”

“You didn’t tell him the COIL was going to explode. You didn’t tell me to stop the test.”

“Tell you fuck! Who the hell are you? Chief of the test team! Why you, big shit? It shoulda been me!”

Harry felt the fury radiating from the big man. “I know,” he said softly. “I told you so when Anson picked me.”

“Anson! Big fucking asshole! You know why he picked you? Because he can push you around. He calls the tune and you do the dance.”

“And Pete burns to death.”

Delany jumped up out of his seat, making Harry twitch with surprise and sudden fear. Monk’s a big guy, Harry thought, remembering the way the big guys at school had always run roughshod over him. He’d learned to talk his way out of most trouble, but there were always gorillas who took special pleasure in beating up smaller guys who got As in class.

“So Pete’s dead,” Delany roared. “Whattaya want me to do about it? I didn’t kill him! Damned brown-nosing spic had to show Levy and Scheib how good he was, how fucking concerned he was about getting every fucking detail just right! So he killed himself. I didn’t do it!”

Slowly, Harry rose to his feet. He barely reached to Monk’s nose.

“I know you didn’t intend to kill him,” Harry said, trying to placate Monk.

“Fucking right I didn’t!” Looming over Harry, Delany growled, “And you’re not going to say a word about this, buddy. Not to anybody. Understand?”

Before he could think of anything else to say, Harry heard himself reply, “Monk, I can’t keep this quiet. The colonel knows about the ranging laser.”

“So what? That’s all been fixed. No damage done.”

“We’ve got to know why you did it. Who paid you to do it.”

Delany slammed a big fist against the main console, making Harry flinch backward a step. “Dammit, Harry, you don’t hafta know anything! Not a damned thing! You got that?”

“Yes I do, Monk. But the Air Force will want to know. Mr. Anson will want to know. Pete’s widow, too.”

“Harry, I’m warning you! Drop it!”

“I wish I could, Monk.”

“But I can’t.”

Whirling, Harry saw Colonel Christopher standing in the compartment’s hatch. Monk stared at her, frozen, his mouth open, his hands balled into fists.

“From what Harry tells me, you’ll be charged with negligent homicide, I imagine,” the colonel said, her voice tight, her face hard and unforgiving.

“Now wait—” Harry began. He never got any further.

Delany gave out a strangled roar and grabbed Harry with one big hand, punched him squarely in the face with the other. Harry’s head snapped back. His nose spurted blood. He tried to push himself away, but Monk kept punching him.