Strike Eagle

by Doug Beason

  She swung her hair around, glanced his way, and showed a quick flash of teeth. She settled into her chair, then rummaged through her purse before hauling out a book. A pair of sunglasses with white frames came on before she started to read.

  Charlie blinked. It was if a goddess had descended from the heavens.

  Flawless.

  He had leaned on one elbow to watch her, when she turned to him. She wore a slight frown. “Excuse me. I’m sorry for not asking, but is this seat taken?”

  He couldn’t see her eyes, but that made her more exotic. “Uh, no, it’s not.” He waved an arm. “Feel free to stay.” Oh, please God, stay! He started to settle back down into his chair. He pulled his book up to him.

  She lifted her sunglasses and squinted across the pool. She motioned toward the Rathskeller with her eyes. “You’re sure your, ah, friends, weren’t planning on joining you?”

  “Friends? Those guys? Are you kidding? They wouldn’t be caught dead in here—drinks aren’t served out by the pool. Besides, they’re having too much fun to come swimming.”

  Dryly: “I noticed.” She swung her hair behind her head and put her feet up on the lounge chair.

  Charlie watched her for a moment before settling back in his seat. He brought his book up and tried to read. His hands felt wet, and if he had to speak with her again he wasn’t quite sure he could be coherent. He felt ashamed at himself—he was acting like he’d never seen a beautiful girl before.

  When he was in college, Auburn had had some of the best-looking girls around—absolute dynamite, and their good looks almost made up for the Southern Belle act and the sticky-sweet talk. And every location in which he had been stationed—Phoenix, Fort Walton Beach, Langley—had always had more than their share of head-turners. As a college professor’s son, Charlie had been around coeds all his life. For him it was easy to find a good-looking woman, but one with a head on her shoulders instead of air—that was another matter.

  This woman carried herself with poise. Her tan meant she had free time during the day, and the bag she carried resembled those carried by flight crews.

  She had to be a stewardess, then. They sometimes frequented the O’Club pool, but were usually driven away either by the families or the hordes of pilots. He stole a glance—no ring. He still couldn’t determine her age. She couldn’t be a high school student, she was much too mature; and he couldn’t believe that an unmarried teacher for the Department of Defense schools would have lasted this long, unless she was new.

  Which led him back to his original conjecture of a stewardess.

  He suddenly realized that he hadn’t read his book at all since picking it up. It was as if his eyes had been flash-burned by the sight of her.

  He put down his book and headed for the pool. Not looking back, he dove in and stroked for the far side. He pushed off the side and glided the width of the pool underwater. The movement relaxed him, took away some of the tenseness that had been putting his muscles into rigor mortis.

  After a few laps Charlie lifted out of the pool, water dripping, and headed back to his seat. He could just make out the title of her book.

  Reaching for his towel, he tried to sound relaxed. “What’s an airline stewardess doing reading a book called Alive? Doesn’t that make your passengers uneasy?”

  She looked up. “I’m not a flight attendant.”

  Charlie’s mind yammered at him, but he was in too far to back out. “You’re not? I’m sorry—it was meant to be a compliment. But how do you like the book?”

  She put down her book. “It’s all right. A little gory.”

  “Cannibalism usually is. But at least those guys had a conscience about it.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Years ago, but it sticks with you.”

  She brushed back her hair. “What do you mean ‘at least they had a conscience’?”

  Charlie finished wiping himself off. He sat on the side of his chair. “Ever hear of Alfred Packer? There’s a cafeteria named after him at the University of Colorado.”

  “No.” She drew her legs up, but seemed interested.

  “Talk about macabre. Packer was a guide in the Rockies, took a group up in the fall and got caught in a snowstorm. That spring, he was the only one who made it back from the mountains.” Charlie paused. “They later discovered he had murdered, then eaten, everyone in his party to stay alive. At least those soccer players in your book knew that what they were doing was morally repugnant when they were forced to resort to cannibalism. Packer didn’t hesitate to commit murder, much less eat the people.”

  She shivered. “So what’s a pilot doing reading stuff like that? Ever afraid you’ll make your friends uneasy?”

  Charlie grinned. “I’m not a pilot.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Really. And by the way, I’m Charlie.”

  “Nanette.”

  When he shook her hand, it took all his strength to let go.

  ***

  Chapter 6

  Monday, 4 June

  Clark AB

  A monkey-wood sign hung over the Officers’ Club main entrance. The sign pointed to pizza at the left and rathskeller to the right; muffled yelling and whistles came from the right. Bruce, Catman, and Robin turned toward the Rathskeller.

  As they approached the door, Bruce heard methodic banging and thuds coming from inside. He cautiously opened the door.…

  … and instantly pulled back as a beer bottled whizzed past his head. A female laughed, then shrieked as two men plopped her on top of a table. Music blared from speakers set throughout the room; not new music, but really old, solid rock classics, the type of songs that had been popular before Bruce was even born: Van Halen, .38 Special, Rush, Boston. It marked a fighter pilot hangout, keeping with the hard-driving songs.

  They eased themselves into the room and made sure the door was closed behind them. There was little cigarette smoke in the air. In front of them a group of fighter pilots gulped “afterburners”—flaming concoctions of Wild Turkey and crème de menthe, ignited with a match.

  Besides the girl on the table, two scantily clad females gyrated at the front of the room on a small stage. They wore cowboy attire—chaps, a frilly shoulder throw, and cowboy hats—but that’s where the resemblance to cowgirls stopped. Black bikinis made up the rest of the Western outfit.

  A long bar ran across the opposite wall, with four bartenders keeping busy filling pitchers of beer and mixing “afterburners.”

  Catman shouted into Bruce’s ear over the music, “I feel right at home! We could still be at Luke, if I didn’t know better!”

  Bruce nodded tightly as he surveyed the place. Yeah, he thought, back at Luke. The sudden memory of Ashley raced through his head. She was behind the bar, her golden hair flying as she poured the drinks; her job as a bartender pulled in that extra money so they could jet off to Aruba, Mazatlan, or some other exotic place for an extended weekend. Bruce’s hours were always changing, and at first her job had given them a chance to be together during the days when he didn’t have to fly.

  It had seemed perfect back then, and it was a real kick to watch the face of a senior officer’s wife when she learned that Mrs. Bruce Steele not only didn’t belong to the Officers’ Wives’ Club but was a bartender as well.

  Robin waved them over to a table. Commandeering a waiter, he shouted over the noise, “San Miguel?”

  “You got it.” Bruce and Catman elbowed their way through the crowd.

  Catman stacked another beer bottle on top of the pyramid growing in the center of the table. Charlie had joined them but didn’t say a word.

  Bruce sipped his beer. The alcohol gave him back that nice warm glow. He knew that tomorrow morning his head would ache, his breath would smell, and he’d be passing gas like crazy, but at least he felt good now.

  He looked at Charlie and said, “Seems there’s never enough time for the simple things in life, anymore. Things are moving too fast, changing all th
e time.” He looked wistful. “Even finding a girl who believes in relaxing—you know, stuff like holding hands, going for walks. Simple things, just spending time together.”

  Charlie stared into his drink.

  Bruce took another pull on his beer. “I remember when Ashley and I were first married—just out of the Academy, roaring through Texas to Del Rio for pilot training. We didn’t have much money then. She didn’t have a job and man, were we stretching the paycheck. Even buying a malt was a big decision. We used pillowcases stuffed with laundry until we could scrape enough money together to buy a pillow.” Bruce glanced at Charlie. His backseater still had his head down.

  “Hey, you s’all right?” Bruce gave his backseater a playful push. Damn, Charlie was a nice guy.

  Charlie looked up and smiled slightly. “I’m fine,” he whispered.

  Bruce nodded. “Great. You know, sometimes I wished there’d be more simple things like that in life to enjoy. After leaving Del Rio, Ashley and I never had the time—maybe that’s why things didn’t work out.” He gripped his bottle tightly and blinked. The events of the day seemed to be catching up with him, welling up his emotions.…

  Charlie said quietly, “Does she still mean something to you?”

  Bruce shook his head, scared to say anything, afraid that his voice would crack. How can losing your wife not affect you? If it had been anything he had done, something that he could have changed to make her stay … but it had been totally out of his control. And especially with what she had done …

  Bruce wiped his eye with the back of his hand. He spoke in a low voice. “She would never go for a walk. She was always into keeping busy, buying the fastest car, eating the most expensive food. I guess I never thought that her working as a bartender would hurt—you know, bringing in the extra money and all. It … it probably doesn’t explain what she did.…” His voice trailed off.

  Charlie leaned against the bar. “What about your dad? Does he still mean something to you?”

  Bruce finished his beer without answering. Things were starting to get hazy. He’d had plenty to drink, and if he didn’t get a handle on things he’d be crying in his beer all night.

  Charlie persisted. “Well, are you going to see him?”

  “Someday. Sure, why not. Hell, he’s stationed at Subic. We were only five minutes away when we were flying this morning, Charlie. Maybe I’ll get down there after Survival School.”

  A voice interrupted him. “Excuse me.”

  Two men in flight suits slid in next to the bar. One came very close to pushing Bruce out of his seat; the other plopped down on a free stool.

  Bruce opened his mouth to retort when he saw the patch on the men’s shoulders. “Rotorheads! You guys in Rescue?”

  “That’s a rog.”

  Bruce leaned over to shake their hands. “How ya’ll doing? I’m Bruce Steele, and this chucklehead is Charlie Fargassa. Assassin and Foggy.” The helicopter pilots returned the handshakes.

  “Richard Head.”

  “Bob Gould.”

  Bruce stood, wavered slightly, then offered Head his stool. “Go ahead. I’ve been sitting all night. You guys want a drink?”

  “Sure.”

  Bruce motioned with his hands to the bartender. “Hey, include these gentlemen with the round.” The presence of the chopper pilots brightened Bruce’s mood, pulling him out of his funk. “So how long have you been here?”

  Gould leaned back against the bar. “Oh, about two minutes.”

  “What the captain meant to say,” interrupted Head, “is that he just arrived here on Clark. I’ve been here two years and have two left.”

  “Your family is with you?” asked Charlie.

  “Locked up safe and tight up on Thirty-First Place.” At Charlie’s puzzled look, Head explained, “You guys must be brand-new, too. That’s on-base officer’s housing. Since you’re new, you’ll be staying off-base at one of the American compounds. And if you’re bachelors, you’ll probably be there your entire tour. That’s one nice thing about coming to Clark without a family—you’ll rotate back to the States faster.”

  At a nudge, Bruce looked up. Catman and Robin had crowded in next to him.

  The beers arrived; the first two went to the helicopter pilots.

  Bruce drew on his, finishing half the bottle. He smacked his lips and pointed to the two chopper pilots. “Gentlemen, meet Richard Head and Bob Gould—Rotorheads, Esquire.”

  “Well, I’ll crap a brick. Howdy, guys. I’m Catman.”

  “Robin.”

  The four fighter jocks surrounded the chopper pilots, buying them drinks, laughing at their jokes, and in general doing everything they could to make them feel welcome. They all knew that their lives might one day depend on the helicopters that these men flew.

  Angeles City, P.I.

  Cervante stood across the street from the Skyline Hotel and pulled on his cigarette. He watched a long van drive up to the front and stop. Men and women spilled out of the van, laughing, all dressed in uniforms. He tensed when he first spotted the people, but as they came into view he recognized the uniforms of commercial airline employees.

  The flight crew was spending the night in the hotel while their plane was serviced. The planes were contract carriers, on lease by the United States government to ferry the military personnel from the States to the P.I. The military owned vast fleets of its own airplanes, the giant C-5s and smaller C-17s that dotted the tarmac on Clark, yet in Cervante’s eyes the Americans flaunted their superiority, thinking that their people were too good to be transported on those war machines. It was just another itch that made the entire American presence unbearable.

  A human sea washed around Cervante as he waited for Pompano Sicat. It was getting dark, and in a few moments he would be unable to distinguish one face from another. Most of the Filipino men were dressed in identical white shirts and dark pants. In their school days, the school’s uniform-of-the-day was the unchanging white on black.

  Cervante had dressed the same way, in order to blend into the crowd. His avant-garde friends at the University of the Philippines would be dumbfounded if they saw him now. But then again, they’d be amazed that anyone would actually do something and take action against the Americans; his friends were long on talk, but pretty damned short on changing things.

  He threw down his cigarette, then glanced at his watch. Pompano was late. Not by much, but it still irritated Cervante. Kawnlo would never put up with this: time was much too valuable.

  Finally a jeepney pulled up to the curve. A crowd of people rushed off the vehicle.

  Cervante saw Pompano slowly step down from the corrugated metal floor onto the pavement. The man looked around, spotted Cervante and started walking down the street. Cervante stepped in behind him, then moved abreast of him. People pushed past them, but they were close enough to speak without being overheard. Pompano spoke first.

  “So, my friend. What is it that you bring?”

  “A plan.” Cervante touched Pompano’s arm, pointing to a dark street plunging away from the main avenue. When they turned the corner they found themselves walking along a row of quiet houses. The city’s roar was still discernible in the background, but the abodes seemed like a quiet oasis amid the fast-paced downtown life. There were many such pockets scattered throughout Angeles, further enforcing Cervante’s perception that the city was a two-dimensional façade, set up mostly for the benefit of the Americans. It lacked the depth, the rich history of other Filipino cities.

  They walked next to walls covered with broken glass to prevent burglars and vandals from entering. Pompano reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Cervante.

  Cervante noticed the official blue-seal emblem that covered a portion of the top of the pack. He shook his head and pulled out one of his own.

  “Cervante, you university types take this much too seriously. You want to cut yourself completely off from the Americans? Bah, it will never happen. Everyone is in bed with
everyone else, no matter how well you clean house.”

  “Supporting their black market only builds up the American presence. The claws are reaching deeper every day, making sure the Americans never leave the P. I. again.”

  Pompano nodded. “That may be true, my friend. Yes, I pay twice as much for these American cigarettes as that fine Filipino brand you are smoking; and yes, the American housewife who brings me a hundred cartons she received from her friends is spending my money on their base, and not in the Angeles economy.” He blew a deep breath of smoke out. “But, ah! These cigarettes are from God’s own garden.” He crossed himself as he spoke. “Yes, I want to hasten the Americans out, but if I do not sell our countrymen these Blue Seals, then someone else will.”

  Cervante scowled. “I did not come to debate how much better those American cigarettes are than ours. It does not matter. Our cigarettes could taste like caribou shit—”

  “And they do.”

  “But the point is,” said Cervante, carefully ignoring Pompano’s interruption, “every American item we buy, we sell, we push, or we use is dividing our country and forcing us farther and farther away from complete independence. We almost had it the first time the Americans left. But now, the people are frightened to imagine having no Americans to protect them against China, and the addiction grows worse every day.”

  Pompano stopped and puffed for a minute. He spoke quietly. “My friend, you are missing my point. I despise the Americans as much as you.” He narrowed his eyes at Cervante. “And probably even more so, for what they did to me, did to my family. That I can never forgive. But I must face reality. Not as an idealistic student such as yourself, but as a businessman. As a father who must care for his daughter.”

  “Yolanda is old enough to take care of herself—”

  “Leave Yolanda out of this!” The rebuke came swiftly, strongly. Cervante took an involuntary step backward at the harsh tone. Pompano continued, but lightly.

  “The reality I must face is greater than a simple black-and-white decision: if a young person comes into my sari-sari store, I do not question him about buying illegal American cigarettes. For if I do, then he will go to another store, which will probably not only sell him the cigarettes, but set him up with a prostitute as well. It is survival, and an economic necessity. I cannot boycott American goods, just as I cannot boycott Chinese goods.” Pompano spit at the word. “I believe in a separate P.I., but there is reality to deal with.”