The Minotaur (2 page)

Nearing Falls Church he stopped beside the road for a moment
and removed his bridge coat. With the car back in motion and the
radio tuned to a soft-rock FM station. Strong chewed over the
week’s frustrations and disasters again. Oh crap, he thought, it’s
Friday night and you have the cabin all to yourself for an entire
weekend, so forget it. It’ll all keep until Monday, God knows.

Since the divorce he had spent most of his weekends in the
cabin. His son was a junior in college this year, busy with school
and giris. The captain wasn’t interested in female companionship,
which was perhaps a good thing since he lacked both the finances
and the time.

They want too much from that airframe, he told himself as he
drove, reviewing the arguments of the week yet one more time.
You can’t build a plane that will drop bombs, shoot missiles, hassle
with MiGs, have a radar cross section so small it can’t be detected
—haul the President back and forth to Camp David on weekends
when it isn’t being used to save the free world—and still expect the
goddamn thing to take a cat shot and make an arrested carrier
landing- With so many design compromises it can’t possibly do any
mission well.

A fucking flying Edsel, assuming that one way or the other it
can be made to fly. He had used precisely those words this after-
noon to that simple sonuvabitch from SECNAV and that slimy
political hack looked like his wallet was being snatched. And what
had he said to Vice Admiral Henry after the meeting? “It’s almost
as if those idiots want to buy just one ultimate do-everything flying
machine and park it in the Rose Garden of the White House to
scare the shit out of the Russian ambassador when he comes to
call.” Henry wasn’t happy with his blunt assessment. Well, he was
right, whether Henry liked it or not. Those political clowns want to
build something straight out of a Hollywood special-effects shop, a
suborbital battlestar that will automatically zap anybody who isn’t
wearing olive-drab underwear.

Why is it, over eighty-five years after Orville and Wilbur showed
the worid how to build an airplane, that we have to keep explain-
ing the basic laws of aerodynamics to these used-car salesmen in
mufti?

Strong was still stewing when he reached the outskirts of Win-
chester. Raindrops began to splatter on the windshield. He turned
on the wipers. The road looked slick and the wet night seemed to
soak up his headlights, so he slowed down.

He was hungry. He turned into the drive-through lane of a Me-
Donald’s and was soon back on the road mechanically munching a
burger as he headed west. The coffee was hot and black.

Passing through Gore he noticed headlights behind him. Not too
dose, but glued there. How long had that guy been back there? A
cop clocking him? Well, he wasn’t speeding, not on a night like
this.

The road was a twisty two-lane and empty. Almost no traffic.
That was one of the charms of coining up here. The glare of his
headlights illuminated the black trunks of wet, naked trees as he
cranked the wheel back and forth around the switchbacks up the
mountain. The sign at the top said: “Welcome to Wild, Wonderful
West Virginia.” And the radio reception would go on the other side
of the signl Sure enough, on the second curve down the music
faded to static. He switched off the radio. The headlights were still
in the rear-view mirror.

At the foot of the mountain he went through the village of Ca-
pon Bridge. Almost there, just a few more miles. He checked the
mirror as they went by a sodium light on a pole by the little Texaco
station, which was dark and deserted at this hour of the evening. It
was some kind of pickup with a huge steel bumper welded to the
front. Not too new. Mid-seventies maybe.

Impossible to make out the color- Then a camper passed him
headed east and, curious, he glanced in the mirror again. The guy
behind—blue, I think. Maybe blue.

Leaving the village the road began to climb and he was again in
switchbacks at twenty-five miles per hour. The glare of the head-
lights from the pickup behind him swept across the mirror going
into and coming out of every curve, and he squinted. He turned the
mirror so the lights wouldn’t blind him. Should’ve got the day-
night mirror, he told himself, but he had saved twenty bucks pass-
ing on that option.

Above the noise of his engine he could hear the rhythmic slap-
slap of the wipers and the protests of his tires on the wet macadam.

He was almost at the top of this low mountain. He would build a
fire in the fireplace when he reached the cabin in a few minutes.
Maybe a shot of Irish whiskey while the fire was driving out the
chill. Tomorrow he would—

He could hear the engine of the pickup behind roaring and the
headlights spotlighted his dash and windshield. He squinted. What
was that damn fool doing? Did he want to pass? We’re right at that
overlook—

The truck behind smashed into his rear bumper and pushed him.
Strong fought the wheel. His vehicle was accelerating. He applied
the brakes. Wheel lock-up. He released the brakes and jammed the
throttle down. He was trying to steer but the wheels wouldn’t bite
on the slick pavement. Goddamn—the car was going across the
road, straight for the overlook pulloutt

In the gravel the car skidded sideways and Strong glanced over
his shoulder, straight into the pickup’s headlights. Then he felt the
lurch as the pickup slammed on its brakes.

Panicked, he looked forward but saw nothing, still blinded from
the headlights’ glare. He felt the car’s nose go down, then it began
to roll, over and over and over.

The motion stopped suddenly with a terrific, smashing impact.

When he came out of his daze he was in darkness and the engine
was silent. There was a little light, but it seemed to come from
above and behind, from the road. Jesus . . . Something black and
wet beside him. A tree trunk, where the passenger seat used to be.

The car was half wrapped around a tree. He had gone down over
the edge and rolled several times and smashed into a tree. That
asshole in the pickup . . . trying to kill him.

He wasn’t hurt too bad. Thank God for seat belts. Blood on his
face, minute pieces of glass everywhere. He was still groggy.
What’s that smell? Gasoline! A leak. He fumbled for the seat-belt
release.

Someone was beside him, reaching in through the smashed win-
dow- “Hey—“

He was being splashed with something wet “What—” Gas! It
was gas! “Please, you gotta—“

Out of the comer of his eye he saw the lighted match come
floating through the broken window. The roar of the gasoline ignit-
ing was the last sound he heard.

2

The airplanes were shiny and
brilliant in their bright colors of red, yellow and blue. They hung in
the window suspended on wires, frozen in flight, the spring sun-
light firing the wings and fuselages and emphasizing the sleek
perfection of their forms. -

Jake Grafton stood on the sidewalk and stared. He examined
each one carefully, letting his eyes roam from tail to prop to gull-
Hke wingtip. After a moment he pushed the door open and went
into the warm shop, out of the weak sunshine and the cool breeze
coming off the ocean.

As he stood and gazed at another dozen or so planes banging
from the ceiling, the shop proprietor behind the glass counter laid
aside his newspaper and cleared his throat. “Good morning.”

“Hi.” Jake glanced at the man. He was balding and bearlike and
perched on a stool. “You’ve got some nice airplanes here.”

“Sure do. You have a son interested in radio control?”

Jake let his eyes find the swooping, soaring forms above his
head. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Just looking.”

The proprietor began turning the pages of his newspaper as Jake
moved deeper into the shop. He wandered slowly, examining the
counter displays, fingering balsa from a wire bin, scanning the rack
of X-actokmves and miniature drills, looking at the rows and rows
of boxes with airplanes and cars on the covers that stood on shelves
behind the counter. Finally, back at the door, he muttered his
thanks to the shopkeeper and went out onto the sidewalk.

The sea breeze was brisk this morning and tangy with salt. Not
many people on the street. This Delaware beach town lived on
tourists and summer was a long way off. At least the sun was out
after a week of low, scuddy clouds and intermittent drizzle. Stand-
ing there, Jake could faintly hear the gulls crying as they soared
above the beach and boardwalk a half block away. He looked again
at the airplanes in the window, then went back into the shop.

“Sell me an airplane,” he said as the proprietor looked up from
his newspaper.

“Delighted to. Which one you want?”

Jake scanned the planes hanging from the ceiling. He began to
examine them critically.

“You ever build an RC plane before?”

“Build? You mean I can’t buy one already made?”

“Not any of these, you can’t. My son built all these years ago,
before he went to the air force. They’re his.”

“Build one,” Jake said softly, weighing it He hadn’t figured on
that. Oh well, the decision was already made. Now he wanted a
plane. “Let me see what you have.”

Forty minutes later, with a yellow credit card invoice for
$349.52 tucked into bis wallet, Jake Grafton left the hobby store
carrying two large sacks and walked the block to his car. He
walked purposefully, quickly. For the first time in months he had a
task ahead that would be worth doing.

Fifteen minutes later he parked the car in the sand-and-crushed-
seashell parking area in front of his house. He could hear the faint
ringing of the telephone as he climbed the steps to the little wooden
porch. He unlocked the front door, sat one of the paper sacks on
the floor and strode across the living room for the phone on the
wall by the kitchen table. The ringing stopped just as he reached
for the receiver. He went back to the car for the other sack.

The airplane on the tid of the box looked gorgeous, mouth-
wateringly gorgeous, but inside the box was sheet after sheet of raw
balsa wood. At least the aircraft parts were impressed, stamped,
into the wood. All you would have to do was pick them out and
maybe trim the pieces. The instruction booklet looked devilishly
complicated, with photos and line drawings. Jake studied the pic-
tures. After a bit he began laying out the balsa pieces from the box
on the kitchen table, referring frequently to the pictures in the
booklet. When the box was empty he surveyed the mess and
rubbed his temples. This was going to be a big job, even bigger than
he thought.

He put coffee and water in the brewer and was waiting for the
Pyrex pot to fill when the phone rang again. “Hello.”

“Jake. How are you feeling this morning?” Callie, his wife,
called twice a day to check on him, even though she knew iCirri-
tatedhim.

“Fine. How’s your morning going?”

“Did you go out?”

“Downtown.”

“Jake,” she said. tension creeping into her voice as she pro-
nounced his name firmly. “We need to talk. When are you going to
call that admiral?”

“I dunno.”

“You can’t keep loafing like this. You’re well. You’re going to
have to go back to work, or retire and find something to do. You
can’t just keep loafing like this. It isn’t you. It isn’t good for you,
Jake.”

She emphasized the word “good,” Jake noticed listlessly. That’s
Callie, instinctively dividing the world into good and evil- “We’ll
talk about it this weekend.” She was driving over from Washington
when she got off work this evening. Jake had driven over to the
beach house two days ago.

“That’s what you said last weekend, and Monday and Tuesday
evenings. And then you avoid the subject” Her voice was firm.
“The only way I can get your undivided attention is to call you on
the phone. So that’s what I’m doing. When, Jake?”

This weekend. We’ll discuss it this weekend. I promise.”

They muttered their goodbyes. Jake poured a cup of coffee and
sipped it as he sorted through the piles of balsa again. What had be
gotten hinuetf into?

Coffee cup in hand, he went through the front door and walked
past UK car to the street He turned toward the beach, which was
about a hundred yards away. The house beside hw wu empty, a
suaiiBer place that belonged to some doctor in Baltimore. The aext
house belonged to a local, a phar»adst whose wife worked sights
down at the drugstore. He had seen their son OB the beach flying a
radio-controlled airplane, and didnt Callie say this week was
spring break for the kids? He went to the door and knocked.

“Captain Grafton. What a pleasant surprise.”

“Hi, Mrs. Brown. Is David around?”

“Sure.” She turned away. “David,” she called, “you have a visi-
tor.” She turned back toward him, “Won’t you come in?”

The boy appeared behind her. “Hey, David,” Jake said. He ex-
plained his errand. “I need some of your expert advice, if you can
come over for a little while.”

Mrs. Brown nodded her approval and told her son to be back for
lunch.

As they walked down the street, Jake explained about the plane.
The boy smiled broadly when he saw the pile on Jake’s kitchen
table- “The Gentle Lady,” David read from the cover of the in-
struction booklet. “That’s an excellent airplane for a beginner.
Easy to build and fly. You chose a good one. Captain.”

“Yeah, but I can’t tell which parts are which. They aren’t la-
beled, as far as I can tell.”

“Hnunm.” David sat at the table and examined the pile. He was
about twelve, still elbows and angles, with medium-length brown
hair full of cowlicks. His fingers moved swiftly and surely among
the parts, identifying each one. “Did you get an engine for this
plane?”

“Nope.”

“A glider is more difficult to fly, of course, more challenging, but
you’ll get more satisfaction from mastering it.”