"I'm not pregnant. Nor am I ever likely to be." "And don't get cute with me, Bub!" "I just love it when you talk dirty." She gave him her coldest stare. "I wear the uniform, I got the training, I take the pay-I will fly the missions when they come." "Brunhilde." "Not on your life." He watched her walk away with her shoulders slightly hunched, her head down, as if she were walking into a strong wind.
This fatherhood bit... it was awful sudden. Of course, when you're married and do all the conjugal things, parent hood is one of the risks. Or rewards. Whichever. Still, it would have been nice to have a few years to think about it before it became a fact.
Why didn't she say, Maybe we ought to think about being parents? Why didn't she say that?
Perhaps, he thought, she assumed I was thinking about it all along.
Women are big assumers. The biggest assumption of all is the one they routinely make, that men think just like they do. And they are tortured by disappointment when it is proven for the umpteenth jillion time that men don't.
Because he hadn't been thinking about it. In fact, the possibility had never once crossed his mind.
Kids are little people who wail in supermarkets, get beaned by baseballs at Little League, and ride in the back end of station wagons making faces at people in other cars. Other people have them. Usually other older people.
The fact that he had been a kid once upon a time had never inspired him to want one of his very own or to even contemplate the prospect.
Of course he knew the theory that sex causes kids, but he had assumed Rita was taking care of everything. After all, she never got pregnant before.
Surely Rita would not have made a decision like that on her own. Would she?
Maybe there had been an accident. Toad Tarkington, professional naval flight officer, knew a great deal about accidents. A little dollop of carelessness could cause you to crash, burn and die.
Sometimes even without the carelessness you crashed, burned and died--at a level too deep for philosophers, luck was involved. Life is a grand game of chance. This kid must have been an accident, he decided. Not that it mattered.
Diapers. They were extremely messy and smelled to high heaven. Of course he had never actually seen or smelled a loaded diaper or wiped a baby's bottom-he knew from listening to adults who had taken the parental plunge. As he contemplated the messy prospect now, he shuddered.
And washing clothes in the same machine used for diapers!
Do people get two washing machines? His mom had never owned but one.
Funny, he had never thought of that before. He would have to ask somebody.
He wondered if Rita would want to nurse.
There's somehing... not obscene... jarring, yes, jarring, about watching a woman open her blouse and do something to her bra an d plug a kid in. Seeing a woman nurse gave Toad the same sensation he got watching a sword swallower: the sight jolted him right to his toenails. These modern women have waited so long for kids they do it everywhere--in cars, restaurants, theaters, stores, hair places-not just in the ladies" room like their grandmas used to do.
And somebody once said that babies don't just eat three squares a day-they are hungry every two hours. That seemed like a lot, and he frowned. Every two hours couldn't be right. That guy must have had a fat kid.
His kid wouldn't be fat. He would speak to Rita about that. Eat right and get plenty of exercise, throw the ol' ball around, climb trees and play tag and all that stuff. He would see to it.
Boy or girl, he would raise this kid right.
Help with the homework and stories at night, lots of sports.
How in the heck had his parents done it?
He recalled some spankings and flashes from holidays and picnics, and some run-ins with the little girl who lived next door-Becky or Rebecca or something like that-but it was precious little when he tried to add it up. That stunned him. Shouldn't he remember more? God, he hadn't tried to dredge up this stuff in years, not since... well, he had never tried.
And now he needed it. Slam barn thank you ma'am and he was going to be a father.
Maybe he ought to write to his mom and get some sort of operator's manual, something in writing.
Rita wouldn't like that, might get all hurry.
Did she remember more about being a kid than he did?
Probably not, but she would confidently assume that since she wasn't cursed by the y chromosome she would instinctively know the right things to do, Why couldn't he remember?
Jake Grafton used the phone in the office after the senior chief had rigged the scrambler. He reached General Hayden Land at the Pentagon.
"The real problem is Iraq," Land told Jake after he had related Ambassador Land's little speech. "Missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Saddam Hussein's arsenal is something these people in Washington don't want to face." "The Iraqis only took a few missiles," Jake informed him. "Apparently they elected to take warheads instead." "I think so too. The president didn't have any problem putting the wood to the Russians to destroy Petrovsk. He was ready to use U.s. assets to bomb it if the Russians refused. Almost too ready." "What do you mean, General?" "He hasn't got burned yet by one of these military adventures blowing up in his face.
So he's ready to damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead." "What did CIA say to all this?" "They told the president to go slow. That he risked making an enemy of Russia. They were about to threaten World War III but he shut them up before they got it out." "General, now is the time to go get those weapons in Iraq. Every day that passes means we are one day closer to a desert Armageddon." "I'm listening," Land said.
"We're going to have to go into Iraq. An airborne assault. We'll go into Hussein's backyard, take or destroy the missiles and warheads, and leave as quick as we can.
We're going to have to do it before he uses those weapons." Silence. "That won't be easy." "Yes, sir. I know that." "Saddam may bag the whole lot of you." "That's a possibility. But we'll destroy the missiles first.
General, we're going to have to pay a little now or pay a lot later-there are no other options. Any way you cut it, we've got to get the jump on him. We have to take the initiative while there is still time." "I don't like it. It's too risky. Too many things can go wrong, then you'll be stuck on the ground with a lot of casualties. The Iraqis may bag the whole lot of you, then we have a political prisoner situation.
No, the way to do this is an air strike.
We'll bomb that base into powder and that will be the end of Saddam's nuclear arsenal. We might lose a few pilots, but not a whole bunch of people." "If destroying the missiles were the only objective, I would agree with you," Jake told the chairman. "But it's not. We must prove to the world that Saddam has the weapons. We've got to show the world these missiles and warheads. Here's what I want to do." Jake laid it out. His explanation took almost five minutes.
When Jake was finished, Land didn't say anything for several seconds.
Finally he said, "Well, maybe. I'll think about it. Present it to the president. As a soldier, I'll tell you right now that all that is too complicated." "It's our best shot, sir." "I'll, think about it. What time frame are you thinking about for this operation?" "As soon as humanly possible, sir. As soon as we can plan it. The sooner the better.
I'm going to be flying one of these Russian jets down to Petrovsk tomorrow. We're flying out of the Lipetsk air base. We leave here in about an hour. I figure we'll get a checkout on the planes tonight, then fly first thing in the morning. Tomorrow night I can go to Arabia." "The weather people say that you can expect scattered to broken stratocumulus in the Petrovsk area, maybe fifty percent coverage, bases around three or four thousand feet, occasional rain showers." "That'll be good enough." "Who is the other pilot?" "Lieutenant Commander Moravia, sir." "Okay. Take your scrambler with you and call me from Lipetsk before you take off. I'll go back to the White House and see what they think about Saddam Hussein." "Yessir." "Good luck, Jake." "Thanks, General." Only two options left to stop Saddam Hussein-an
air strike or an airborne assault. Jake thought about that after he broke the connection. When you are down to just two options in this dangerous world, you are in deep and serious trouble.
He knew that and Hayden Land knew it, but did the president?
She was in the apartment rolling her hair into a bun, with her mouth full of bobby pins. She was already wearing her flight suit and steel-toed flight boots.
"Gertrude Murgatroyd Tarkington," Toad told her. "Or Tarkington-Moravia or Moravia-Tarkington. Do you want the kid hyphenated?" "Tarkington is okay," she said, grinning around the bobby pins and eyeing him in the mirror.
He rammed his hands into his pockets and stood looking at this and that, avoiding meeting her eyes.
"Have you told your folks?" he asked finally.
"Of course not. Just you. We'll wait until the rabbit dies before we tell anyone." "Does a rabbit really die?" "Not anymore. Used to though." Toad thought about that for a moment, about rabbits giving their lives to let women know they were pregnantreally! There was a whole lot about this baby business that he didn't know.
He glanced at her reflection in the mirror and said, "You be careful out there." "I will." "Be ready for anything." "I will." He came over and stood right behind her. "This is supposed to be a little day jaunt down to Petrovsk, roll in and make a couple of runs with live ordnance, then back to the barn. But it may not go like that." "What do you mean?" "The other night we were sitting in a park when people started shooting.
Some people here and there would probably like to see Jake Grafton dead.
Somebody wants those missiles pretty badly. Keep your head on a swivel.
Watch your six. If anybody looks cross-eyed, blow "em out of the sky." Rita got her hair the way she wanted it and inserted bobby pins.
"Grafton's been shot at by experts," he told her. "Anybody that straps him on is in big trouble. Just stick to him like glue.
Stay with him.
No matter what, fly your own airplane." "I will, Toad." She finished with her hair and turned around to face him.
He put his hands on her shoulders. "I want you back in one piece." "I know, lover." "We're in a helluva fix when we send pregnant women to fight our battles." "Shut up and kiss me." Jake took Spiro Dalworth along because he spoke Russian. Unfortunately he knew next to nothing about aviation or airplanes or weapons, so the terms didn't translate very well. Yet somehow Jake and Rita found out what they had to know. They took turns sitting in the cockpit of an Su-25 asking questions. Dalworth translated and a Russian pilot supplied the answers.
The pilot was young, a lieutenant. He was in culture shock. "Who flies?" he asked Dalworth.
Spiro pointed to Jake and Rita.
"The woman?" "Yes, she will fly." "A woman? She will fly?" "Yes.
When Rita asked a question, the answer was short, curt.
When Jake asked one Dalworth had trouble finding a pause to translate amid the Russian's verbal flood. Rita saw the problem and addressed her comments to Jake, who then asked the questions. The process seemed to work better that way.
The olive-drab airplane with a red star on the tail seemed an excellent piece of military equipment. With two internal engines generating over eleven thousand pounds of thrust each, ten external weapons pylons under a wing designed to haul a big load of ordnance, an adequate fuel supply, and a twin-barrel 30mm cannon mounted internally, the airplane seemed just what the doctor ordered for ground attack.
The avionics were not state-of-the-art, however. The plane lacked a radar and had no computer to assist the pilot, who had to do his own navigation with a minimum of electronic help. Jake and Rita would have to find the target with their Mark 1, Mod Zero eyeballs and attack it with dumb weapons.
The plane contained a laser ranger and could deliver laser-guided weapons, but it lacked a laser designator. The bombsight was strictly mechanical.
The cockpit and pilot chores were straightforward.
enough, yet the switches and gauges were scattered through out the cockpit with apparently no forethought given to ease of operation or minimizing the pilot's workload.
Visibility from the cockpit wasn't great either.
Although the pilot sat well forward of the wing, the view aft was nonexistent and the view downward was restricted by the sides of the airplane.
The electronic warfare (Ew) panel was simple and passive. Lights illuminated when the plane was painted by radars on certain bandwidths, but after receiving that quiet warning the pilot was on his own.
"It's no A-6 or FirstA-18," Rita remarked.
"More like an A-7," Jake muttered.
The only officer they met was the lieutenant who had led them to the hangar for their briefing. The CO of the base and the CO of the air wing were conspicuously absent.
They were cooperating on orders from Moscow, but that was all.
The officers" quarters were a barracks. Rita tossed her stuff on a bunk and stared back at the Russian pilots, who were whispering among themselves.
They were offered food. Jake declined for everyone-he didn't want to risk a case of the trots. Hunger was preferable.
After Jake had used his satellite corn gear for another long talk with General Land in Washington, he sat on a bottom bunk with Rita and examined the charts they had brought from Moscow. With only these charts they had to find the Petrovsk base, then find their way back here.
Most of the Russian nav aids were inoperable and the Su-25 might not reliably receive the ones that were transmitting.
There was a minor flurry in the bathroom when Spiro insisted all the Russians depart so that Rita could use it, but the lights went out without fanfare after Rita disappointed a little knot of onlookers by crawling under her blanket fully dressed.
Jake Grafton lay under his blanket staring into the darkness, tired but not sleepy. The hangar where the missiles and warheads were housed Was priority number one tomorrow morning. Then, if there were any bombs or cannon shells left, they would attack the clean room with its warhead parts stacked everywhere.
And they had to do it on the first flight.
There was no way they could ask Yeltsin to let them fly another mission, not with the outstanding cooperation and friendly attitude these uniformed folks here had displayed.
And then there was the problem of the missiles in Iraq.
Just how long did mankind have before Saddam Hussein decided his new arsenal was operational?
Had the dictator reached that point already?
How could the Americans plan an airborne assault into Iraq that minimized the hundreds of possible things that could go wrong and yet gave them a reasonable chance of grabbing or destroying the weapons before the Iraqi military massively retaliated?
were the odds good enough to order people into action, or should they be asked to volunteer? They would volunteer to a man, Jake was convinced, but he wanted no part of asking anyone to commit suicide. Nor did he plan on doing it himself.
What was Herb Tenney up to these days? Did the CIA tell him of this bombing mission? What could he do about it? Why would he do anything?
More to the point, what could Yakolev and his cohorts do, assuming they were so inclined?
Dozens of questions, no answers. But first things first.
The mission tomorrow-Jake knew how tough it would be.
Using contact navigation to get to Petrovsk would be tough enough.
Flying there in a type of aircraft he had never flown before was a helluva challenge. The task would be huge even if he were current on jet aircraft, which he wasn't. How long had it been since he had flown a tacticaf aircraft?
Three years? No, four. Actually four years and three months.
And Rita had never been in combat. Oh, this wasn't supposed to be combat, but what if someone started shooting?
How would Rita handle it?
Maybe he should have said something to her.
What? Knowing Rita Moravia, anything he could come up with would wound her pride. Oh,
she wouldn't let on, would say yessir and nosir with the utmost respect, but.
So what could go wrong tomorrow) Only a couple million things. He began to list them, to sort through the possibilities and try to decide now what he would do if and when he was faced with real problems.
He was still mulling contingencies an hour later when he finally drifted into a troubled sleep filled with blood and disaster.
He was preflighting the ejection seat and removing the safety pins when he realized that one pin was already out.
This one here, attached to the others with this red ribbon that went where? He looked. Must be somewhere here on.
the side of the seat, to safety the drogue extraction initiator mechanism.
Stephen Coonts - Jake Grafton 5 - Red Horseman Page 30