by T. E. Cruise
“Oh, and Suzy—” He came close and bent toward her to give her a kiss on the forehead. “Happy New Year,” he murmured.
And why the hell this stodgy, bumbling, balding man’s touch should affect her so, she had no idea.
“Happy New Year to you, too, Don,” she said brightly.
She watched him as he walked away from her and out of the department. And then she slid a fresh sheet of paper into her machine and went back to her typing.
(Two)
The Reginald Hotel
Chicago
23 April 1953
It was a little after nine on Thursday morning. Steven Gold, nude, was lying on his back, his head propped up with pillows in the big double bed of his tastefully furnished, moderately expensive hotel room. The room was exactly like the endless series of other moderately expensive hotel rooms he’d been in over the last few months. When he’d first opened his eyes a half hour ago, he’d had no idea where he was.
But now he knew he was in Chicago, he thought as he sipped the tepid room-service coffee, and smoked a Pall Mall. The cigarette tasted terrible. He hadn’t even brushed his teeth yet. He reached over to the bedside nightstand and dropped the smoke into last night’s ice bucket, which stood next to last night’s empty scotch bottle.
In a couple of hours he had to be cleaned up and in his dress uniform. He had his speech to give to the Greater Chicago Federated Boys’ Society. After the speech, it was over to city hall to receive the key to the city from the mayor, and say a few words.
Then the press conference for the local papers. The reporters would shout the same old questions: “What do you think about Ike being the President-elect?” and “How do you think the war’s going?”
Pretending never to have heard those questions before was bad, but trying to sound fresh giving the speech was the worst. The speech was titled, “How I Captured Yalu Charlie.” It was one part truth and all the rest bullshit; scripted for him by the Air Force’s Office of Public Information.
He’d already given the speech twenty-two times; first as an exclusive to PhotoWeek magazine, and then in front of civic and church organizations all across the country. He would probably give it another fifty times before he was done.
The speech was full of stuff about how he’d knocked down the blue lightning MiG on behalf of the Flag, and Liberty, and Mom’s Apple Pie. Now, he wasn’t a dummy. He knew why it had to be that way. Hell, he couldn’t get up there and tell the audience the whole grisly mess concerning Mikey DeAngelo,—that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Gold was in reality a maverick fighter jock who had blithely broken the rules in order to avenge his buddy’s death and in the process almost turned the world into one big Hiroshima.
The same way he knew all that, he knew he was damned lucky not to have been court-martialed and imprisoned. Hell, he would have ended up breaking big rocks into little ones if good old Vladimir—AKA Yalu Charlie—hadn’t gone and knocked himself out of the sky by flying into the BroadSword’s debris.
Yeah, I’m lucky, Steve thought, staring at the ceiling cracks as he lit another smoke. But it still got to him, having to say that phony speech over and over. At some point during the intervening months since he’d been reassigned from Korea to Washington, D.C., what had really happened that day in the sky over Bao Kung Cheng had faded from his own mind, to be replaced by the contents of the speech.
That had made Steve feel all hollow inside. It had made him feel like maybe the commendation he should have received was not the Medal of Honor, but the Academy Award for Best Actor in a film called “The Korean War.”
But the war, and your popularity on the rubber-chicken circuit ain’t going to last forever, Stevie boy. So then what?
He knew that he had his present slot for as long as he wanted it, but the problem was he didn’t want it at all. It had been a kick at first to be back in Washington with the title of Special Spokesman for the Air Force of Public Information, but what it entailed was hanging around the Hill waiting to have his picture taken with influential politicians, just like the last time. He sure as hell didn’t want to do that for the rest of his career, assuming the Air Force wanted to let him. But then what else was there for a twenty-nine-year-old light colonel with a high school equivalency diploma?
This war isn’t going to last forever, Steve thought again, and had to grin. It was probably too much to hope for another one to come along anytime soon.
He kicked out of bed, heading for the shower.
He had some extended leave time coming once his speaking engagements were fulfilled. Maybe he’d spend it at home in California, he mused. It would be good to get to know his father again, Steve thought. God, they’d been close when he was just a kid.
And then, who knew? If things worked out, maybe he wouldn’t make a career out of the Air Force after all.
Steve had always resisted the notion of going to work at GAT, in part because he didn’t want his father to take him for granted, and in part because he didn’t want the world to think that he’d gotten his job through nepotism. But now he was beginning to think that maybe he could make a niche for himself at GAT. Maybe he could do some kind of spokesman job for GAT the way he’d been doing for the Air Force.
It was worth thinking about, Steve decided. Maybe he’d end up working with Pop, after all….
THE WAR GENERATION
* * *
America rises to dominate the skies. And Gold Aviation and Transport has given it the wings to do it. Now, in the face of spirited competition and the winds of a coming war, proud patriarch Herman Gold fights to keep his gift for daring innovation alive and conquer the fear that times are passing him by. For soon, in the conflagration of World War II and its unsettled aftermath, the torch will be passed to a new generation…a galaxy of passionate and bold young men and women bound to a great legacy, but tempted by their desires. Theirs will be the glory of a new world that rushes from jet age to space age – and offers yet undreamed-of challenge and triumph.
WINGS of GOLD
* * *
BOOK II THE FLYBOYS