"We can do comfortable. We can certainly do comfortable. With a build like your friend's," he gushed, "we can do just about anything."
From the corner of her eye, Diana caught the surprised and slightly wary expression that crossed Charlie's face.
Oh-oh. She reached for his arm, thinking to take him aside and bring him up to speed on the alternate lifestyles many men and women openly embraced today. Before she got the chance, the eager clerk whisked him toward the sports department.
She trailed in their wake, holding her breath, only to find that she'd once again underestimated Charlie. He set the fawning salesman straight using some form of silent communication that only males seemed to understand. With an audible sigh of regret, the clerk put a lid on his obvious interest.
"We just got in a new shipment of chinos and jam pants. If you'll come this way, sir."
Twenty minutes later, they'd piled an assortment of slacks and knit polo shirts beside the register. Diana left the two men going through the shorts rack and dashed to the women's department. Three hastily crammed shopping bags later, she returned to find Charlie patiently waiting for her.
"Oh, my!"
Her footsteps slowed. Her heart did a crazy little somersault.
"Well?" the clerk demanded with a proprietary smirk. "Is he totally right for the California look, or what?"
"Totally," she breathed, lost in awe as she took in the neon orange flip-flops, khaki cargo shorts, and brightly flowered Hawaiian shirt.
"I hope I don't look as ridiculous as I feel," Charlie muttered, strolling forward to relieve her of her bags.
"You look...incredible."
And hip. And gorgeous. And astonishingly virile. After seeing the man naked, she wouldn't have imagined the mere sight of his muscular, hair-roughened calves below the hems of his baggy shorts would constitute such a turn-on!
"You look pretty good yourself," he returned. "I like the dress."
Diana was suddenly, absurdly pleased with her hurried purchase of a black and white polka-dot wrap-around. The slit in the dress's front opened almost to the thigh with each step. Teamed with strappy black sandals, the slinky little number made her feel cool, chic, and decidedly feminine.
Charlie gave her another slow once-over. "Can't say that your watch goes with the outfit, though. It's got more dials than an F-86."
"Functional beats dainty any day in my book," Diana said airily.
Not to mention the fact that Mackenzie Blair would have heart palpitations if Diana traded the clunky chronometer with all its embedded electronics.
Shifting her shopping bags to join those in his right hand, Charlie guided her through the aisles with his left. It was a hopelessly archaic gesture, but Diana had to admit she enjoyed the warmth of his palm at the small of her back.
Only after they'd tossed their bags in the convertible's back seat did she dig into her purse for her special purchase. Grinning, she knotted a small square of white chiffon around her neck.
''There. Do I fit the image of a real cool chick?''
"Almost." His mouth curved. "You forgot the crinkly petticoats."
"A girl has to draw the line somewhere. I'm not about to ride on this hot leather seat encased in six layers of itchy net."
His gaze slid down to the crossed legs exposed almost to the thigh by the slit in her sundress. When he raised his glance to hers again, the gleam in his blue eyes sent heat coursing through her veins.
"Actually, I like the current styles better. A lot better."
Diana's breath caught. It took her several moments to remember why she was sitting in an open convertible with the sun beating down on her head and shoppers sending curious glances their way.
A U-2 downed forty-five years ago under mysterious circumstances. A president who wanted the facts about that incident. A potential political imbroglio with Russia if and when those facts came out. With a mental shake of her head, Diana got back to the business at hand.
"You wanted to look up your friend in Santa Monica, remember? If you don't want to experience L.A. traffic at its worst, you'd better rattle these pipes, Major."
Chapter 7
They beat the afternoon rush hour, barely. Even at two-thirty, continuous streams of vehicles clogged the four-and five-lane freeways leading into the City of Angels.
Charlie's initial amazement at the number and variety of cars, all occupied by drivers with car phones glued to their ears, soon gave way to the grinding tension of stop-and-go traffic. A knot formed at the base of his neck and grew tighter with each mile they traveled.
Nothing on the outskirts of L.A. looked familiar to him. Nothing. Frowning, he searched in vain for recognizable landmarks amid the ocean of glass-fronted skyscrapers, the apartment complexes, the seemingly endless rows of stores Diana termed strip malls. Only the palm trees lining the streets and the occasional stucco cottage tucked among more recent structures recalled his era.
Inching west on I-10, they passed the maze of buildings that constituted Culver City on the right and the fringes of Hollywood on the left. Only after they'd exited the Santa Monica Freeway onto the Pacific Coast Highway did Charlie start to breathe again.
There it was, the shining, sun-capped Pacific. Waves rolled in, foaming onto the shore. The pounding, crashing surge was timeless. Ageless.
The Pacific, at least, hadn't changed. Nor had the famous Santa Monica Pier. Ignoring the traffic that backed up behind him, Charlie slowed the Hawk to a near crawl. Relief poured through him as he identified the structures on the wooden pier that jutted out into sea.
There was the same, neon-lit sign marking the end of Route 66, once the main highway stretching halfway across the country from Chicago to the promised land of California. And the carousel with its hand-painted horses, housed in a huge fantasy of a building constructed in Moorish style. He didn't remember the monstrous Ferris wheel, though, or the proliferation of restaurants and souvenir shops. Nor could he locate the vast, ornate La Monica Ballroom.
"There used to be a dance hall out on the pier," he told Diana as they cruised slowly by the jetty. "Whenever Harry and I hit Santa Monica, we'd stop by his folks' house first, then head for the pier to pick up townies and jitterbug half the night away."
Diana arched a brow. "I can guess what you fly-boys did the other half of the night."
"We rode the carousel," he drawled.
"Suuuure you did."
Charlie smothered a grin. He and Harry had racked up enough hits with the local girls to make the long drive in from Edwards well worth their effort. None of those curvaceous armfuls put a kink in his gut quite like the slender blonde sitting next to him, though.
He shifted uncomfortably on the leather bench seat as swift, erotic images from his former life leaped into his mind. He could see Diana sprawled beneath him on a blanket spread over the sand, her hair gilded by moonlight. Or curled next to him, her eyes luminous, as he parked the Hawk in a turnoff high above the Pacific. With a few smooth moves, he'd slither open the polka-dot dress and go to work on her underwear.
Which was when he remembered that Diana didn't wear a brassiere...
"Charlie, look out!"
With a silent curse, he jerked the wheel and returned the Hawk to its proper lane. Sweat dampened his palms. Beneath the baggy shorts, he was hard as a rock. Giving silent thanks for their excess of material, he aimed the Hawk along Ocean Boulevard.
On the left, the Pacific rolled into the shore. On their right, modern high rise hotels jostled for space alongside vintage resorts and B & Bs. Diana watched the side streets slide by for several moments.
"Don't you think we should call ahead and get directions from your friend? Or at least find out if he's home?"
"And tell him what? That his buddy who's been missing for almost fifty years wants to stop by for a visit? I'd rather just show up at his door and take my chances."
"It's your call," she said with a lift of her shoulders. "Can you find the house?"
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"I think so." He squinted through his sunglasses at the palm-lined side streets. "It should be just off Washington Avenue."
"There's Washington," she pointed out a moment later.
Charlie swung the wheel and immediately experienced an unsettling sense of deja vu. The neighborhood looked exactly the same as when Harry's folks lived there, yet so very different. The neat, thirites-era stucco cottages still marched down either side of the street. Red and orange hibiscus still spilled in wild profusion beside doors and driveways. But most of the houses boasted additions that doubled their size and almost half of them had weird little dishes perched atop their pitched roofs.
"Those are satellite dishes," Diana explained when he asked their purpose. ''They can pull down anywhere from two to three hundred channels."
The idea that the average, ordinary Americans living right here on Fourth Street in Santa Monica, California, could receive signals from space disconcerted Charlie so much he drove right past six-ten. Recognizing his error, he hit the brakes. The white walls screeched in protest but brought the Hawk to a gliding halt.
With the engine idling, Charlie looped his wrists over the steering wheel and studied the house. The once dun-colored stucco was now flamingo pink and the palms in the front yard reached high into the blue sky, but an arched porch still shaded the entry and the faded turquoise shutters he remembered framed the windows.
"This is it," he said grimly, backing the Hawk up to the driveway. Now that he was here, the knot at the base of his skull torqued even tighter.
Harry Simmons was his only buddy still alive and well, the only peer from his time he trusted hands down. An aeronautical engineer by training and air force pilot by profession, Harry had worked with Lockheed to design the high-altitude flight suits required for the U-2 program. As an air force test pilot, Charlie had spent hours in the experimental suits even before he'd been detailed to the CIA to help transition the Dragon Lady into an operational aircraft. If anyone could help him make sense of those nightmarish last moments before he bailed out into the blackness, Harry could.
Slamming the convertible's door, he reached into the back seat for his gear bag. Diana was halfway out before he could get around to open her door. She gave the canvas bag a speculative glance as he reached down to help her out. Not even a flash of long, slender thigh lightened the tension that gripped Charlie as he ushered her up the front steps with a hand at her back.
The woman who answered the door was a short, stocky brunette with tired lines at the eyes and mouth and streaks of silver at her temples. Charlie assumed she was Harry's wife until he got a better look. With a jolt, he realized she must be his friend's daughter.
"Yes?" she asked through the screen door.
"We're looking for Harry Simmons."
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. "You're not from that publisher's sweepstakes, are you? I've already told them three times that dad didn't know what he was doing when he sent in those so-called winning tickets."
"I'm not..."
"If you think I'm going to pay for all those damned magazines, you can think again!"
Charlie blinked, taken aback by her vehemence. "I'm not a magazine salesman. I'm a test pilot. Or I was until recently," he amended gruffly.
Her gaze dropped from his flowered Hawaiian shirt to his orange shower clogs. "You don't look like a test pilot to me. What do you want with my dad?"
' I just want to talk to him about a special project we worked together on."
Her suspicion deepened. "Dad retired almost twenty years ago. If you worked with him, you couldn't have been more than five or six years old at the time."
"I've, uh, aged well."
Smoothly, Diana stepped into the breech. Digging her wallet out of her purse, she flipped open her ID. "I'm Dr. Diana Remington and this is Major Charles Stone. We're engaged in a special project for the United States Air Force and would like to ask your father a few questions about the work he did at Lockheed Aircraft."
The woman's shoulders sagged. "You can ask," she said wearily, pushing open the screen door. "Just don't expect many answers."
Leading them into the living room, she gestured to a rail-thin figure slumped in a wheelchair parked before a TV. Hearing their footsteps over the laughter of a game show, the chair's occupant lifted his head.
Charlie sucked in a ragged breath. He'd steeled himself to find Harry older, thinner, perhaps frailer. But not this frail, and not wearing this absent, vacuous smile. His chest tight, he walked over to the chair.
"Harry, it's me. Charlie Stone."
The empty smile stayed in place.
"We worked together on that...that high altitude aircraft at Lockheed, remember?"
Even now, the name of the super-secret plane got stuck in his throat. Hunkering down beside the wheelchair, he gripped the gear bag tightly in his fist.
"You helped design a special flight suit, and I tested it during air trials."
Reaching out a shaking hand, Harry patted him on the cheek. "Thatzniz."
"What?"
Charlie received another fumbling pat. "Thazniz."
Frowning, he swiveled on his heels. Harry's daughter interpreted in a voice that combined love, anguish and painful resignation. "He said, 'That's nice.' That's all he can say anymore."
Diana moved to her side, her face awash with pity. "Is it Alzheimer's?"
When the older woman nodded helplessly, Charlie pushed to his feet and crossed to the room. "Who or what is this Al Himers?"
"It's a progressive disease of the neurological system," Diana explained softly. "It primarily affects the elderly, although there are numerous cases involving people in their middle years. We only recognized the disease a decade or so ago and are still searching for a cure."
"You mean there's no treatment?"
''No. The victims usually lose their memory first, then their motor skills. Eventually they..."
"They die," Harry's daughter whispered, her eyes shimmering. ''Without knowing who or where they are, or remembering even their own names. The doctors don't give dad more than a few more months."
Swallowing the rock-hard lump in his throat, Charlie returned to his friend and gave Harry's hand a gentle squeeze.
"Sorry you're under the weather, buddy. I'll come back when you're feeling better. Maybe... Maybe we'll talk about old times."
"Thazniz."
Diana kept silent as Charlie backed the Hawk down the drive. Slowly, he retraced their route down Washington Avenue toward the ocean. He stared straight ahead, his hands fisted tight on the steering wheel, the knuckles showing white.
The breeze off the Pacific whooshed through the tall palms lining the street. The June sun warmed the air, but Diana wrapped her arms around her waist and fought off a shiver. She didn't know who she felt worst for. Harry Simmons had lost his memory. His daughter had lost her father. Charlie had lost everyone.
Diana wanted desperately to comfort him, almost as much as she wanted to ask him why he'd lugged the canvas gear bag down to L.A. His high altitude flight suit had some connection to the loss of his plane. That was becoming painfully obvious. But what?
She'd examined the gear at the oceanographic station, as had Dr. Goode and the rest of the team. Aside from the rubber seals that had disintegrated when exposed to air, the flight suit had survived the incarceration in the ice remarkably well. So why had Charlie wanted to talk to the engineer who helped design the equipment? And when would he trust Diana enough to share his thoughts?
When the Hawk nosed onto Ocean Avenue once more, she stared blindly at the waves curling in on the shore. She'd better report to Lightning ASAP, ask him to put Comm to work researching all material related to the U-2 pilots' flight gear. If anyone voiced questions or concerns about the equipment at the time of Charlie's disappearance, Mackenzie Blair would dig them up.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice Charlie had slowed the Hawk until he pulled into a parking turnout alongside the be
ach.
"I need to walk," he said gruffly.
"Do you want company?"
He shrugged. "If you can manage the sand in those shoes."
"Not a problem." Toeing off the strappy sandals, she reached for the door handle.
"Wait a moment!" he snapped.
Slamming his own door shut, he came around the front of the car. As much as she appreciated the courtesy, Diana debated whether to clue him in to the fact that today's women were perfectly capable of exiting a vehicle on their own. Later, she decided. He'd already been dealt one severe setback today. Tucking her sandals into her purse, she wiggled her toes in the hard-packed sand while he locked their purchases and his gear bag in the trunk.
They walked side by side. Shoulders hunched, hands thrust deep in his shorts pockets, Charlie let Diana set both the direction and the pace. The frisky breeze swirled her polka-dot sundress. She could practically feel the salt spray frizzing her hair.
With the damp sand tickling her soles, she charted a path through joggers, kite flyers, yoga enthusiasts, dog walkers and surfers, all out to enjoy the sun and the shore. Charlie speared a hard glance at the circle of purple-robed meditators, but it was the dog walkers who finally broke his brooding silence.
"Why are they all carrying those jugs?"
She glanced at the gallon milk jug carried by a Doberman owner. The bottom of the plastic container had been cut to form a convenient scoop.
"That's a pooper-scooper. There's probably a city ordnance that requires owners to clean up after their pets."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, why would I? I don't know about you, but I'm not particularly keen about stepping in a steaming pile of doggie-do while strolling on a public beach."
"So you step around it."
"Folks are more environmentally conscious these days."
"What's more environmental than manure?" Thoroughly disgusted, he shook his head. "Next thing you know, you'll have to keep cats on leashes and put diapers on carriage horses."
"As a matter of fact..."
He shot her an incredulous look, opened his mouth, clamped it shut. Shaking his head again, he pushed on. Diana walked with him, knowing his edgy temper didn't have anything to do with dog poop or the unforgivable sin of opening her own car door.
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