“It can’t be—” Her eyes flick over to the window, back to the laptop. She looks up at Howie, turns her head to look out at the cabbie again. “There’s no way—”
“You have to admit it’s possible.”
“Just because he looks Middle Eastern?”
“It feels like a setup. He was waiting right in front of the motel and he’s been too interested in our conversation.”
“So what now?”
“Order quickly and act normal.”
“How do you eat at a time like this?” Sharon’s eyes are flitting around the interior of the restaurant.
“Do what he says, he’s the boss,” Risstup pipes up.
Sharon darts a cutting look at Risstup.
“That’s a first,” Howie smiles.
“This is no time for jokes.”
A waitress lumbers up to them, her shoes squeaking on the gleaming floor. Round face and a body to go with it, she’s well into her sixties, looks like she’s worked there for years. Big smile, Howie can tell she’s going to be chatty. She swabs their table with a rag as she begins her banter. “You folks just passing through?”
“Just passing through, right,” Howie answers, deliberately terse, dreading the prospect of five minutes of small talk.
“Well, you sure came to the right place if I don’t say so myself. People come from miles around to eat here. Burgers are good, omelets are excellent, owner smokes the bacon himself. Fries are famous, been written up in all the papers. We even have Internet as I see you discovered,” she tips her pencil at his laptop. “Glad you know how to work it, I don’t understand the first thing about that computer stuff.”
Standing at the edge of her table, order pad flipped open and pencil at the ready, she finally gets down to business, “So, what can I get for you folks?”
“I’ll have a bacon burger medium, fries and coffee,” Howie says.
“Good choice, and you, ma’am?”
“Scrambled eggs, wheat toast and a Coke, please.” Sharon’s voice is thin and reedy, almost on the verge of cracking, the way it gets when she’s on edge. Howie can tell she’s fighting to keep from looking at the driver.
The waitress is eyeballing her, as if she knows something’s amiss.
“Cheeseburger, well done,” Risstup orders.
Howie catches the waitress as she gathers up their menus and begins to turn toward the kitchen. “Ma’am, can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Is there a back door?’
She raises an eyebrow, “Anything the matter with the front?”
Howie thinks fast, he nods out the window at the man standing against the cab, “It’s a husband/wife thing, kind of touchy—if you know what I mean.”
The waitress’s eyes are sizing up the situation, switching from the cab to Sharon and back, putting together a plot right out of a scandal rag—abusive husband, battered wife, family members trying to help her escape.
Sharon picks up the tune, putting on a hangdog look and casting her eyes toward the parking lot, “He’s not a nice man,” she says, shaking her head and lowering her gaze as if she’s ashamed of the situation she’s in.
Surveying the three, the waitress leans in and whispers sympathetically, “Oh, believe me, I’ve been there. I’m very sorry. Yes, the door is just past the ladies room, it goes out into the parking lot. Now, let me run get your orders.”
The waitress turns slowly, making sure they notice the quick but unmistakable wink of her eye, letting them know she’s on their side.
The next fifteen minutes go slowly. Sharon’s fretting, Risstup’s anxious, his attention flutters back and forth between the cab outside and the booth. Howie’s debating how they are going to get out the rear door without being noticed when the waitress arrives with their order.
Swinging the large tray down to rest on the edge of the table, she starts off-loading their plates. Right off the bat Howie notices a folded piece of paper she sets down next to his food, not a check but a note. Unfolding it, he hastily scans the message inside. When you least expect it, someone decides to do a good deed. The woman is a saint.
She stands back and says, “Enjoy your dinner, folks. Anything else I can get for you?” Her eyes drop down to the note, then lift back up to the threesome. She smiles knowingly.
“No, you’ve been extremely helpful,” Howie says.
“Good luck to you.”
A half an hour later, the three are on their way to an empty apartment twenty blocks away. A busboy was waiting for them in his car behind the diner. They were out the back door and on their way in a matter of seconds.
Sharon asks to see the note, and Howie hands it over. The waitress’s scrawled message reads, “My daughter got caught up in a mess like you’re in so I know what you’re up against. You look like nice folks so I’ve arranged for one of our busboys to drive you to an apartment I own not far away. He’ll be outside in a blue Camaro. My place doesn’t have a lot of furniture but there’s bedding in the hall closet so at least you can get some sleep. That should give you time to put some space between you and your husband. Stay there as long as you like. Leave the keys under the mat when you’re through. I wish you well, your friend, Louise.”
“Thank God for Louise. Somebody up there really is looking out for us,” Sharon says, handing the note back to Howie.
“You should get a best supporting actress nomination for the job you did playing the abused wife.”
“There’s never a dull moment with you, Collyer.”
“Pardon my French,” Risstup says. “But he’s going to be one pissed-off cabdriver—you stiffed him for an eighty buck fare.”
“We couldn’t take the chance.”
“You don’t really think he was a bad guy?”
Howie shrugs, “No point in taking chances.”
So far there’s been no trace of the driver. Either he’s still waiting in the cab or he’s tearing apart the diner trying to find them. Howie wasn’t about to stick around to find out. Just as they were finishing, the cab driver for some reason climbed back into the front seat of his cab and shut the door, his line of sight just below the front windows of the diner.
Howie took advantage of the opportunity. If they couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see them. Howie threw down a fat tip and hustled Sharon and Risstup out the back door. He followed. Creeping out into the lot where the Camaro was waiting.
Sitting in the front seat next to the busboy, Howie carefully backtracks through the events at the diner. Something doesn’t add up. The cabdriver let us get away too easily, he decides. If terrorists have been watching my website, shadowing us, maybe even setting fire to the motel to flush us into their hands, they aren’t a bunch of amateurs who would let us sneak out the back door of a diner.
All of a sudden Howie pieces together the answer. They want us to think we’ve eluded them. They are staying out of sight until we find the nuke, aware that we’re not going to knowingly lead them to it.
Sharon suddenly interrupts, “You want to tell us what’s bothering you?”
“I’m just thinking,” Howie says.
She doesn’t fall for it, “That’s B.S., your imagination’s getting the better of you again. We got away from a cab driver that was acting suspicious—leave it at that. Stop being so damn paranoid. You’re driving me bonkers.”
The Camaro brakes and makes a turn into the driveway of an apartment building, pulls up and stops. The driver hands Howie a key chain, explaining in broken English that one key is for the front door, the other for the third-floor apartment. Summoning up what’s left of his high school Spanish, Howie thanks the busboy and the three hustle inside.
The apartment is tiny, a double bed in one room, a sleeper sofa in the other, a few chairs, small kitchen with the refrigerator door ajar to air it out. While Sharon starts making up beds, Howie stands at the window looking down at the street.
A brisk wind whips through the trees, the neighborhood is dark,
two of the four streetlights on the block are out, bunch of parked cars, no noticeable activity but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. Howie realizes he needs to play down the terrorist angle so Sharon and Risstup can get down to business. The first chance he gets he’ll email Winn with his concerns. For the time being, he’ll keep them to himself.
“You going to stand there staring out the window all night, or are we going to get to work?” Sharon says to him. Howie turns back into the room. She and Risstup sit in chairs, the laptop open on the daybed in front of them.
While Sharon was working with Risstup in Front Royal, Howie spent hours fiddling with the software Straub had sent him, assembling a virtual B-52 cockpit on the screen of his computer. Even though it’s a simulation, a two-dimensional reproduction of the cramped upper deck of the B-52 fuselage, Howie’s computer wizardry has recreated the experience of sitting in the cockpit of one of the huge bombers.
Okay, it’s show time, he thinks to himself as he sets the laptop down in front of them. Let’s see what we can get Risstup to remember. “Why don’t we shift around so I can sit next to the major,” he says, motioning to Sharon to change places with him.
“You’re the boss,” Sharon says. “I found some instant in the kitchen. Anyone for coffee?”
“Good idea. We’re going to need it. Let me show you what I’ve done.”
Howie opens his flight simulation program and clicks on the B-52 folder. Working from aircraft cockpit templates, in the center of the console he’s laid in a bank of thirty-two gauges that monitor the eight engines. The gauges are arranged in four rows, the throttles ganged below them with small black-and-white TV screens over the two control sticks. Sectioned windows wrap around the front of the flight deck and with the glass canopy overhead they provide a 180° panorama of the surrounding skies. Though the space is cramped, the expansive view out the windows of the blue sky and billowing clouds gives the cockpit the feeling of an observation deck.
He turns the laptop toward Sharon and Risstup so they can see it. Sharon whistles in admiration, “Wow! That’s impressive—how did you do that?”
“Magic,” Howie says, “plus a bit of practice.”
Risstup isn’t saying a word, silently staring down at the simulation, taking in all the details.
“It feels like we’re right in the cockpit,” Sharon continues. “Talk about tight quarters, how long were these flights?”
“Twenty-four hours and thirty minutes from takeoff to touchdown. Ten thousand miles including two refuelings.”
“No frequent flier miles either.”
“Not even a bag of peanuts. And if you think the cockpit looks minuscule, you ought to see the bathroom.”
“I’ll pass on that.” Sharon points at the sky backdrop Howie has superimposed, “Look at all the clouds.”
“That’s just wallpaper. Wait until I drop in the real-time views out the plane’s windows.”
“You can do that?”
“Give me a few minutes.”
Sharon pushes her chair back and heads for the kitchen. “Go ahead while I get the coffee.”
“I’ll make the clouds fly by so you’ll feel like you’re actually piloting the plane.” Howie’s fingers race over the keyboard as he types commands to lay in the aerial views.
She returns with coffee and stands looking over his shoulder.
“Okay, take a peek at this.” Howie pushes back from the laptop so Sharon can see. “Look at those cumuli whipping by,” he says, tapping a key.
“That’s amazing,” she says, bending over the screen and looking out at the skies above and the landscape rolling by as if it were thirty-five thousand feet underneath them.
“With a little more work, I should be able to drop in the exact course the major’s B-52 flew right up until it ran into trouble. If I have time, I’ll create a thunderstorm to simulate the actual conditions.”
“Let’s give it a try. Major Risstup, you ready?”
Sharon swivels the laptop toward Risstup. “Okay, Major. See if anything feels familiar.”
Risstup leans forward and peers at the screen. He slowly lifts his left hand as if he’s reaching for the controls.
“You’re on the flight deck, Major—”
Risstup nods, pulling his chair closer to the screen.
“At the controls of a B-52.”
Risstup is concentrating, his left hand poised over the keyboard.
“Hold on a minute,” Howie says. “He’s reaching out with his left for the throttle. If he were the pilot he’d be using his right hand.”
Risstup glances down and then up at the gang of throttles on the screen, trying to make the connection.
“Were you the co-pilot, Major Risstup?”
Risstup nods. Then says tentatively, “I was the co-pilot. Okay, yes. I was the co-pilot.”
“And when you were a co-pilot, where were you based?” Howie asks.
Risstup stares at the screen.
“Were you based at Barksdale Air Force Base, Westover or March?”
“Boy,” Sharon says. “You’ve really gone to school on this.”
“Those were the B-52 bases back in the late 1950s when they started flying round-the-clock missions: Barksdale in Louisiana, Westover in western Massachusetts and March in California. Major, can you remember which one?”
Risstup looks startled, then slowly says, “It was Westover, Westover Air Force Base. In Massachusetts, yes.”
Howie smiles at Sharon. “Good work, Major.”
“And where did your missions take you, where did you fly to?”
Risstup shakes his head.
“He’s stopped tracking—”
Risstup quickly corrects her, “I can’t tell you because they are classified.”
“Were classified,” Howie tells Risstup. “That was forty years ago. It’s all out in the open now.”
“It’s top secret. Everything was top secret. We couldn’t say a word about it.”
“Not anymore, Major Risstup. The Cold War is over.” Howie presses, “You were stationed at Westover Air Force Base. When were you there? Can you tell me the year?”
“Why is the year so important?” Sharon asks.
“During that period there were as many as five or six kinds of bombs in use, all with different characteristics, some more of a threat than others.”
Risstup suddenly pushes back from the table and turns to look at Howie and Sharon. “Can I ask you guys a favor?”
Howie notices an expression on Risstup’s face he’s never seen before, as if he’s about to reveal a secret.
“Certainly, Major.”
“I do have a name, you know.”
Both Sharon and Howie gape at him.
“Mark, my name is Mark, Mark Risstup,” he says proudly, his face lighting up at finally being able to remember his name. Every time they’d tried to call him Mark, he’d objected, claiming that wasn’t his name though he had never been able to come up with a name that connected for him.
Howie and Sharon raise their hands and slap palms, “Mark. That’s terrific, Mark Risstup, Major Mark Risstup from Arcata, California, the man who’s going to help us get to the bottom of all this. Way to go, Mark.”
“Mark—sure is nice to realize that after all these years,” Risstup says wistfully.
“Now can you tell us what years you were stationed at Westover, Mark?” Howie asks. “It must have been in the ’50s, right?”
“Yes, I think the ’50s,” Risstup hesitates. Sharon can see his eyes slowly begin to fog over.
She looks at Howie, “Maybe we should drop the time thing and go back to focusing on the B-52. We were making good progress there.”
Howie nods, “All right, Mark. You are the co-pilot flying missions out of Westover Air Force Base. Where to?”
“I remember a number of courses,” Risstup says as he stares at Howie’s improvised cockpit on the screen. “We flew over the Pole to points over the Barents Sea.” Risstup glances at Sh
aron. “Are you sure I’m not going to get in trouble for telling you this?”
“No, it’s okay, Mark. It’s all declassified now, I promise.”
“Then we flew three routes. The polar route, one over Scotland and a southern course over Spain.”
“Where were you flying to, Mark?”
“I told you.”
“What are you trying to get him to say?” Sharon asks.
“Give me a minute. You’d fly to a go, no-go line, correct?”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“But you couldn’t cross the line without a strike order.”
“That’s correct, we had to have a strike order.”
“And that would direct you to targets in Russia?”
“Yes, to targets in Russia.”
Howie turns from the screen to Risstup. “And why would you be flying to Russia? Was it because you were carrying nuclear weapons? Isn’t that what the strike order was all about?”
“I think that is secret.”
“No, no, no, Mark, forget about this secret business. It’s all open knowledge now. So you were carrying nuclear weapons?”
Risstup nods.
“You had hydrogen bombs aboard when your B-52 went down, right?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But didn’t your B-52 carry nuclear payloads on every mission?”
“Yes.”
“Then you had to be carrying a nuke the day your plane went down.”
Risstup looks up at Howie with a slightly quizzical but still empty expression. “All that is very hazy to me, but what you’re saying makes sense.”
“That’s okay, Mark. We’ll keep working on it.”
“Sorry for acting so dim-witted.”
“You’re doing fine, Mark,” Sharon reassures him. “This isn’t easy.”
“I don’t want to end up back in that VA hospital.”
“That’s the last thing any of us want,” Howie says, swiveling the laptop toward him. “Let’s try a takeoff and see what comes back to you.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Risstup says.
“Okay, Major Risstup, we’re cleared for takeoff. Full throttle . . .”
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