CHAPTER
3
In spite of
the certainty of his retirement, Wentz felt funny in civilian
clothes. He always had, as though high-alt flight suits had become
as much a part of him as his skin. He felt funny driving cars, too,
cautious to the point of paranoia—like a senior citizen behind the
wheel. He remembered when he’d made the initial test flights of the
B-2 bomber at Edward’s Palmdale range, how natural it had felt on
the stick of a prototype aircraft that cost nearly a billion
dollars. But, somehow, driving a $20,000 station wagon felt
daunting.
One thing
that did feel
right today, though, was the fact that his fourteen-year-old son,
Pete, sat right next to him. Things would be different now. Now
Wentz would actually get to be a father to his son. Today, they
were on their way to Camden Yard, Yankees versus the
Orioles.
“I couldn’t do
math either, Pete,” Wentz was saying. “I hated it—algebra, trig,
geometry. But I worked my tail off, hung in there, and made it.
You’ve got to get those math grades up—C’s won’t cut it. Not if you
want to get into a good—”
“I aced the
final, Dad,” Pete told him. “I got a ninety-nine.”
Wentz was taken
aback. “You’re kidding me? A ninety-nine?”
Shit, I never got a ninety-nine on an algebra test in my
life!
“Yeah, so I’ll
get a B for the course. A’s in everything else.”
Wentz slapped
the wheel. That’s my boy! “Hey, that’s great, Pete! Now you’ll make the honor
roll! Outstanding! Buddy, we are celebrating this weekend! The Yankees game tonight, King’s
Dominion tomorrow, crabbing on the bay all day Sunday, and…you know
what? I think maybe we’ll do a little dirt-bike shopping once
school lets out for the summer. How’s that sound?”
“Thanks, Dad,”
Pete said but it was a glum response, despondent. The boy seemed
miles away.
Wentz glanced
over. “Hey, partner, what’s wrong? You look like somebody shot your
dog…and you don’t even have a dog.”
“Well…Mom
said…”
Wentz smirked.
“What? What did your mother say?”
“She said you
might be bluffing.”
“Bluffing about
what?”
Pete shrugged
morosely.“About retiring from the Air Force.”
Damn it! Wentz ground his teeth, then pulled the station wagon
over to the shoulder and skidded to a stop. He looked right at his
son. “Pete, when I told you and Mom that I’m leaving the Air Force,
I meant it.”
“Really?”
“Really, Pete.
Look, I know it’s been tough on you and your mother. Half the time
I wasn’t around—no wonder she divorced me. But we’ve been talking
about it for months, and it’s settled. On Monday I retire, your
mother and I get back together, and we’ll be a family
again.”
“Yeah, but you
said that a bunch of times in the past, and then it never
happened.”
Shit, Wentz thought. Nothing he could say could make it
right. Even the truth was an excuse. “Yeah, but that’s because
stuff came up at the last minute that I had to do for the Air
Force. You know, stuff I’m not allowed to talk about.”
“Secret
stuff.”
“Yeah. That’s
why I was never around very much. I
had to do it, Pete. When you’re in the service you
have to obey orders.”
“I
know.”
When Wentz
glimpsed his own face in the windshield’s reflection, the basest
impulse urged him to punch it, to just put his fist right through
the safety glass. In one second he saw all of his regret—and all of
his arrogance disguised as service.
This is my son,
for Christ’s sake, and I’m snow-jobbing him. I’m making
excuses. When
Pete was four, he’d almost died from pneumonia; Wentz was flying a
classified recon op over North Korea. When Pete had hit his first
home run in Little League, Wentz was flying at 100,000 feet testing
new fuel-tank seals in an SR-71. And when Pete had been sent home
from school for fighting, when he’d most needed a father’s counsel
and discipline, Wentz had been joyriding a YF-22 Advanced Tactical
Fighter over the White Sides Mountain Test
Reservation.
Some fucking father,
he thought.
Always passing
the buck to Joyce, always too busy playing Big Bad Top Secret
Flyboy.
“I’m
telling you, Pete, that stuff in the past—it changes now. Your
mother’s giving me one more shot, and it’s no jive this time. We’re
patching things up, getting back together, and it’s going to work
out.”
For the first
time since he’d gotten in the car, Pete looked genuinely
enthused.
“And you’ll
move back to the house?”
“No, I’m going
to pitch a tent in the back yard. Of
course I’m
moving back to the house! I’ve got my stuff all packed, got the
mover lined up. It’s a done deal.”
Pete’s eyes
widened on Wentz. “You promise?”
“Roger that,
buddy-bro,” Wentz said with no hesitation. “You can count on it.”
He pulled the car back onto the road. “And there’s nothing in the
world that’ll make me break that promise. Now let’s go watch the
Yankees kick some tail.”
««—»»
The office
stood dark. Beneath a wan lamp, the folder lay open on the
desk.
The leader
sheet on the right read:
_______________________________
TOP SECRET
EYES ONLY - RESTRICTED:
OFFICER EVALUATION REPORT (OER)
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, MARINE CORP BRANCH.
Subject: FARRINGTON, WILLARD, E.
Grade: 0-7/DOB 13 FEB 48. SERVICE #220-76-1455
Spouse: (DECEASED)
Children: ONE (F/ADOPTED)
Other Living Relatives: NONE
DE: DETACHMENT 4,
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
AERIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMAND
FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA.
DUPLICATION OF THE ENCLOSED IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH VIA AIR FORCE REGULATION 200-2 AND U.S.C. 797 OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT.
TOP SECRET
_______________________________
A personnel
photograph was fastened to the left side of the folder, and staring
up from its glossy surface was the face of General Willard
Farrington.
A hand closed
the folder. A sputter was heard. Bold typeface on the folder’s
manila cover read:
OPERATOR “A”
It was General
Rainier’s hand which closed the MILPERS folder, and it was his
voice which muttered, “God damn,” a
moment later.
Another
officer—a major—sat in the room, submerged in darkness. He was a
Tekna/Byman liaison field agent; hence his name was
classified.
“Jesus,”
Rainier said. “Who would’ve thought something like this would
happen?”
“It all went so
well for so long, sir,” the Major responded. “Perhaps we took the
circumstances for granted.”
Rainier looked
up testily. “Yeah, I guess we did. The guy’s been doing it for more
than ten years without a hitch.”
“Yes, sir, but
remember the retrieval time table. We don’t have another ten years.
We don’t even have ten months.”
“And you’re
telling me there’s no alternate?”
A slight crack
in the Major’s voice betrayed his nervousness. “N-no, sir. Given
the highly critical criterion, not to mention the most recent
Presidential amendments to AR 200-2, it was deemed too sensitive a
risk to have a fully briefed and fully trained alternate on
line.”
Rainier
strummed his fingers on the desk. “I’ve never heard anything so
reckless and ill-advised in my life. Matters like this should never
be disclosed to these ludicrous temporary occupants of the White
House.”
“You can be
sure, though, sir, that the President
hasn’t been briefed on the QSR4 data.”
“Thank
God.”
It was just a
figure of speech, of course. General Rainier didn’t actually
believe in God. From where he sat, the lone desk lamp projected the
shadow of Rainier’s head onto the wall. It looked like a halo, and
here was Rainier, the angel with no God. Instead his shrine was the
Pentagon, and his church the most restricted warrens of the NSA.
Technology—and death—were the only gods he could trust. He was
probably the most powerful man in the United States’ military, but
it was all unofficial: an angel of might but with no wings. Only
the jaded halo.
“And we do have
a contingency, sir,” the Major added as if to offer some
consolation. “No one prepared, but at least—”
“You have
someone in mind is what you’re saying.”
“Affirmative,
sir.”
The chair
creaked when Rainier leaned back. He spoke with his eyes closed,
struggling against a headache. “He’s the best we’ve got?”
The Major
stepped forward into the smudge of light and picked up the MILPERS
folder labeled OPERATOR “A”. He
inserted it into the feed slot of a Gressen automatic
paper-pulverizer.
“He is now,
sir.”
The machine
whined for a split instant, then disgorged its powder into a burn
bag.
Presto—gone, Rainier thought. He wondered how many real lives
he’d disposed of just as efficiently.
Next, the Major
set down a second folder, this one labeled:
OPERATOR “B”
General Rainier
opened the folder to glance down at a personnel photo of a
lean-faced, hard-eyed white male in his
forties.
“The
candidate’s name is Jack Wentz,” the Major augmented. “He was
promoted to general O-7 two days ago. He’s been Top Secret/SI with
eleven suffixes for more than twenty years, and he’s our senior
restricted test pilot. He’s also got more black flying hours than
any man in the world.”
Rainier
appraised the face in the photo as if calculating an ancient
arcana. His fingers continued to strum the desk, and he wondered
how angels felt when they struck down innocents with their swords
in the name of God.
“Get him,”
Rainier said.