by Tom Clancy
Jackson was shorter than Ryan, and much darker. He’ was the fourth son of a Baptist preacher in southern Alabama. When they’d first met, the officer was still in a cast, and Jackson had asked Ryan if he might want to try his hand at kendo. It was something that Ryan had never tried, the Japanese fencing sport in which bamboo staves are used in place of samurai swords. Ryan had used pugil sticks in the Marines and figured it wouldn’t be too different. He’d accepted the invitation, thinking that his longer reach would be a decisive advantage, particularly on top of Jackson’s reduced mobility. It hadn’t occurred to him that Jackson would first have asked a brother officer for a kendo match. In fact, Ryan later learned, he had. He’d also learned by then that Robby had the blinding quickness and killer instinct of a rattlesnake. By the time the bruises had faded, they were fast friends.
For his part, Ryan had introduced the pilot to the smoky flavor of good Irish whiskey, and they’d evolved the tradition of an afternoon drink or two in the privacy of Jack’s office.
“Any news on campus?” Ryan asked.
“Still teachin’ the boys and girls,” Jackson said comfortably.
“And you’ve started to like it?”
“Not exactly. The leg’s finally back in battery, though. I’ve been spending my weekends down at Pax River to prove I still know how to fly. You know, you made one hell of a flap hereabouts.”
“When I was shot?”
“Yeah, I was in with the Superintendent when the call came in. The ‘soop’ put it on speaker, and we got this FBI-guy askin’ if we got a nut-case teacher in London playing cops and robbers. I said, sure, I know the jerk, but they wanted somebody in the History Department to back me up—mainly they wanted the name of your travel agent, I suppose. Anyway, everybody was out to lunch, and I had to track Professor Billings down in the O-Club, and the superintendent did some runnin’ around, too. You almost ruined the boss’s last golf day with the Governor.”
“Damned near ruined my day, too.”
“Was it like they said in the papers?”
“Probably. The Brit papers got it pretty straight.”
Jackson nodded as he tapped the cigar on Ryan’s ashtray. “You’re lucky you didn’t come home parcel post, boy,” he said.
“Don’t you start, Robby. One more guy tells me I’m a hero, and I’ll flatten him—”
“Hero? Hell, no! If all you honkies were that dumb, my ancestors would have imported yours.” The pilot shook his head emphatically. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you, that hand-to-hand stuff is dangerous?”
“If you’d been there, I bet you’d have done the same—”
“No chance! God Almighty, is there anything dumber than a Marine? This hand-to-hand stuff, Jeez, you get blood on your clothes, mess up the shine on your shoes. No way, boy! When I do my killin’, it’ll be with cannon shells and missiles—you know, the civilized way.” Jackson grinned. “The safe way.”
“Not like flying an airplane that decides to blast you loose without warning you first,” Ryan scoffed.
“I dinged my leg some, sure, but when I got my Tomcat strapped to my back, I’m hummin’ along at six hundred-plus knots. Anybody who wants to put a bullet in me, fella, he can do it, but he’s gonna have to work at it.”
Ryan shook his head. He was hearing a safety lecture from someone who just happened to be in the most dangerous business there was—a carrier aviator and a test pilot.
“How’s Cathy and Sally?” Robby asked, more seriously. “We meant to come over Sunday, but we had to drive up to Philadelphia on short notice.”
“It was kinda tough on them, but they came through all right.”
“You got a family to worry about, Jack,” Jackson pointed out. “Leave that rescue stuff to the professionals.” The funny thing about Robby, Jack knew, was his caution. For all the down-home bantering about his life as a fighter pilot, Jackson never took a risk he didn’t have to. He’d known pilots who had. Many were dead. There was not a single man wearing those gold wings who had not lost a friend, and Jack wondered how deeply that had affected Jackson over the years. Of one thing he was sure, though Robby was in a dangerous business, like all successful gamblers he thought things over before he moved his chips. Wherever his body went, his mind had already gone.
“It’s all over, Rob. It’s all behind me, and there won’t be a next time.”
“We’ll put a big roger on that. Who else am I gonna drink with? So how’d you like it over there?”
“I didn’t see very much, but Cathy had a great time, all things considered. I think she saw every castle in the country—plus the new friends we made.”
“That must have been right interesting,” Robby chuckled. The flyer stubbed out his cigar. They were cheap, crooked, evil-smelling little things, and Jack figured that Jackson puffed on them only as part of the Image of the Fighter Pilot. “Not hard to understand why they took a liking to you.”
“They took a liking to Sally, too. They got her started riding horses,” Jack added sourly.
“Oh, yeah? So what are they like?”
“You’d like ’em,” Ryan assured him.
Jackson smiled. “Yeah, I imagine I would. The Prince used to drive Phantoms, so he must be a right guy, and his dad’s supposed to know his way around a cockpit, too. I hear you took the Concorde back. How’d you like it?”
“I meant to ask you about that. How come it was so noisy? I mean, if you’re doing mach-2-plus, why isn’t all the noise behind you?”
Jackson shook his head sadly. “What’s the airplane made out of?”
“Aluminum, I suppose.”
“You suppose the speed of sound is faster in metal than it is in air, maybe?” Jackson asked.
“Oh. The sound travels through the body of the airplane.”
“Sure, engine noise, noise from the fuel pumps, various other things. ”
“Okay.” Ryan filed that away.
“You didn’t like it, did you?” Robby was amused at his friend’s attitude toward flying.
“Why does everybody pick on me for that?” Ryan asked the ceiling.
“Because it’s so funny, Jack. You’re the last person in the world who’s afraid to fly.”
“Hey, Rob, I do it, okay? I get aboard, and strap in, and do it.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Jackson eased off. “It’s just that it’s so easy to needle you on this—I mean, what are friends for? You done good, Jack. We’re proud of you. But for Christ’s sake, be careful, okay? This hero shit gets people killed.”
“I hear you.”
“Is it true about Cathy?” Robby asked.
“Yep. The doc confirmed it the same day they took the cast off.”
“Way to go, pop! I’d say that calls for another—a light one.” Robby held his cup out, and Jack poured. “Looks like the bottle’s about had it, too.”
“It’s my turn to buy the next one, isn’t it?”
“It’s been so long, I don’t remember,” Robby admitted. “But I’ll take your word for it.”
“So they have you back in airplanes?”
“Next Monday they’ll let me back in a Tomcat,” Jackson replied. “And come summer, it’s back to the work they pay me for.”
“You got orders?”
“Yeah, you’re looking at the prospective XO of VF-41.” Robby held his cup up in the air.
The executive officer of Fighter Squadron 41, Ryan translated. “That’s all right, Rob!”
“Yeah, it’s not bad, considering I’ve been a black shoe for the past seven months.”
“Right out on carriers?”
“No, we’ll be on the beach for a while, down at Oceana, Virginia. The squadron’s deployed now on Nimitz. When the boat comes back for refit, the fighters stay on the beach for refresher training. Then we’ll probably redeploy on Kennedy. They’re reshuffling the squadron assignments. Jack, it’ll be good to strap that fighter back on! I’ve been here too long.”
“We’re gonna miss you and Sis
sy.”
“Hey, we don’t leave till summer—they’re making me finish out the school year—and Virginia Beach isn’t all that far away. Come on down and visit, for crying out loud. You don’t have to fly, Jack. You can drive,” Jackson pointed out.
“Well, you’ll probably be around for the new kid.”
“Good.” Jackson finished off his drink.
“Are you and Sissy going anywhere for Christmas?”
“Not that I know of. I can’t, really; most of the holidays I’m gonna be flying down at Pax.”
“Okay, come on over to our place for dinner—three-ish.”
“Cathy’s family isn’t—”
“No,” Ryan said as he tucked everything back where it belonged. Robby shook his head.
“Some folks just don’t catch on,” the pilot observed.
“Well, you know how it is. I don’t worship at the temple of the Almighty Dollar anymore.”
“But you managed to do a job on the collection basket.”
Jack grinned. “Yeah, you might say that.”
“That reminds me. There’s a little outfit outside Boston that’s gonna hit it big.”
“Oh?” Jack’s ears perked up.
“It’s called Holoware, Ltd., I think. They came up with new software for the computers on fighter planes—really good stuff, cuts a third off the processing time, generates intercept solutions like magic. It’s set up on the simulator down at Pax, and the Navy’s going to buy it real soon.”
“Who knows?”
Jackson laughed as he got his things. “The company doesn’t know yet. Captain Stevens down at Pax just got the word from the guys out at Topgun. Bill May out there—I used to fly with Bill—ran the stuff for the first time a month ago, and he liked it so much that he almost got the Pentagon boys to cut through all the bullshit and just buy the stuff. It got hung up, but DCNO-Air is on it now, and they say Admiral Rendall is really hot for it. Thirty more days, and that little company is going to get a Christmas present. A little late,” Robby said, “but it’ll fill one big stocking. Just for the hell of it, I checked the paper this morning, and sure enough, they’re listed on the American Exchange. You might want to check it out.”
“What about you?”
The pilot shook his head. “I don’t play the market, but you still fool around there, right?”
“A little. Is this classified or anything?” Jack asked.
“Not that I know of. The classified part is how the software is written, and they got a real good classification system on that—nobody understands it. Maybe Skip Tyler could figure it out, but I never will. You have to be a nuc to think in ones and zeros. Pilots don’t think digital. We’re analog.” Jackson chuckled. “Gotta run. Sissy’s got a recital tonight.”
“ ’Night, Rob.”
“Low and slow, Jack.” Robby closed the door behind him. Jack leaned back in his chair for a moment. He smiled to himself, then rose and packed some papers into his briefcase.
“Yeah,” he said to himself. “Just to show him that I still know how.”
Ryan got his coat on and left the building, walking downhill past the Preble Memorial. His car was parked on Decatur Road. Jack drove a five-year-old VW Rabbit. It was a very practical car for the narrow streets of Annapolis, and he refused to have a Porsche like his wife used for commuting back and forth to Baltimore. It was dumb, he’d told Cathy about a thousand times, for two people to have three cars. A Rabbit for him, a 911 for her, and a station wagon for the family. Dumb. Cathy’s suggestion that he should sell the Rabbit and drive the wagon was, of course, unacceptable. The little gas engine fired up at once. It sounded too noisy. He’d have to check the muffler. Jack pulled out, turning right, as always, onto Maryland Avenue through Gate Three in the grimly undecorous perimeter wall that surrounded the Academy. A Marine guard saluted him on the way out. Ryan was surprised by that—they’d never done it before.
Driving wasn’t easy. When he shifted, Ryan twisted his left hand inside the sling to grab the wheel while his right hand worked the gearshift. The rush-hour traffic didn’t help. Several thousand state workers were disgorging themselves from various government buildings, and the crowded streets gave Ryan plenty of opportunity to stop and restart from first gear. His Rabbit had five, plus reverse, and by the time he got to the Central Avenue light he was asking himself why he hadn’t gotten the Rabbit with an automatic. Fuel efficiency was the answer—is this worth an extra two miles per gallon? Ryan laughed at himself as he headed east toward the Chesapeake Bay, then right onto Falcon’s Nest Road.
There was rarely any traffic back here. Falcon’s Nest Road came to a dead end not too far down from Ryan’s place, and on the other side of the road were several farms, also dormant at the beginning of winter. The stubby remains of cornstalks lay in rows on the brown, hard fields. He turned left into his driveway. Ryan had thirty acres on Peregrine Cliff. His nearest neighbor, an engineer named Art Palmer, was half a mile away through heavily wooded slopes and across a murky stream. The cliffs on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay were nearly fifty feet high where Jack lived—those farther south got a little higher, but not much—and made of crumbly sandstone. They were a paleontologist’s delight. Every so often a team from a local college or museum would scour at the base and find fossilized shark teeth that had once belonged to a creature as large as a midget submarine, along with the bones of even more unlikely creatures that had lived here a hundred million years earlier.
The bad news was that the cliffs were prone to erosion. His house was built a hundred feet back from the edge, and his daughter was under strict orders—twice enforced with a spanking—not to go anywhere near the edge. In an attempt to protect the cliff face, the state environmental-protection people had persuaded Ryan and his neighbors to plant kudzu, a prolific weed from the American South. The weed had thoroughly stabilized the cliff face, but it was now attacking the trees near the cliff, and Jack periodically had to go after them with a weed-eater to save the trees from being smothered. But that wasn’t a problem this time of year.
Ryan’s lot was half open and half wooded. The part near the road had once been farmed, though not easily, as the ground was not flat enough to drive a tractor across it safely. As he approached his house, the trees began, some gnarled old oaks, and other deciduous trees whose leaves were gone now, leaving skeletal branches to reach out into the thin, cold air. As he approached the carport, he saw that Cathy was already home, her Porsche and the family wagon parked in the carport. He had to leave his Rabbit in the open.
“Daddy!” Sally yanked open the door and ran out without her jacket to meet her father.
“It’s too cold out here,” Jack told his daughter.
“No, isn’t,” Sally replied. She grabbed his briefcase and carried it with two hands, puffing as she climbed up the three steps into the house.
Ryan got out of his coat and hung it in the entry closet. As with everything else, it was hard to do with one hand. He was cheating a little now. As with steering the car, he was starting to use his left hand, careful to avoid putting any strain on his shoulder. The pain was completely gone now, but Ryan was sure that he could bring it back quickly enough if he did something dumb. Besides which, Cathy would yell at him. He found his wife in the kitchen. She was looking at the pantry and frowning.
“Hi, honey.”
“Hi, Jack. You’re late.”
“So are you.” Ryan kissed his wife. Cathy smelled his breath. Her nose crinkled.
“How’s Robby?”
“Fine—and I just had two very light ones.”
“Uh-huh.” She turned back to the pantry. “What do you want for dinner?”
“Surprise me,” Jack suggested.
“You’re a big help! I ought to let you fix it.”
“It’s not my turn, remember?”
“I knew I should have stopped at the Giant,” Cathy groused.
“How was work?”
“Only one procedure. I assis
ted Bernie on a cornea transplant, then I had to take the residents around for rounds. Dull day. Tomorrow’ll be better. Bernie says hi, by the way. How does franks and beans grab you?”
Jack laughed. Ever since they came back, their diet had consisted mainly of basic American staples, and it was a little late for something fancy.
“Okay. I’m going to change and punch up something on the computer for a few minutes.”
“Careful with the arm, Jack.”
Five times a day she warns me. Jack sighed. Never marry a doctor. The Ryan home was a deckhouse design. The living /dining room had a cathedral ceiling that peaked sixteen feet over the carpeted floor with an enormous wood beam. A wall of triple-paned windows faced the bay, with a large deck beyond the sliding glass doors. Opposite the glass was a massive brick fireplace that reached through the roof. The master bedroom was half a level above the living room, with a window that enabled one to look down into it. Ryan trotted up the steps. The house design accommodated large closets. Ryan selected casual clothes, and went through the annoying ritual of changing himself one-handed. He was still experimenting, trying to find an efficient way to do it.
Finished, he went back down, and curved around the stairs to the next level down, his library. It was a large one. Jack read a lot, and also purchased books he didn’t have time to read, banking against the time when he would. He had a large desk up against the windows on the bay side of the house. Here was his personal computer, an Apple, and all of its peripheral equipment. Ryan flipped it on and started typing in instructions. Next he put his modem on line and placed a call into CompuServe. The time of day guaranteed easy access, and he selected MicroQuote II from the entry menu.
A moment later he was looking at Holoware, Ltd.’s stock performance over the past three years. The stock was agreeably unimpressive, fluctuating from two dollars to as much as six, but that was two years back—it was a company which had once held great promise, but somewhere along the way investors had lost confidence. Jack made a note, then exited the program and got into another, Disclosure II, to look at the company’s SEC filings and last annual report. Okay, Ryan told himself. The company was making money, but not very much. One problem with hi-tech issues was that so many investors wanted big returns very quickly, or they’d move on to something else, forgetting that things didn’t necessarily happen that way. This company had found a small though somewhat precarious niche, and was ready to try something bold. Ryan made a mental estimate of what the Navy contract would be worth and compared it with the company’s total revenues....