Able One (34 page)

The only light in the room came from the computer screen on the desk, over in the corner. Brad Scheib sat in the shadows, bone-tired, emotionally spent, feeling ragged. He had torn off his uniform the moment he’d arrived home from the Pentagon and put on a comfortable old sweatshirt and baggy gym pants. He’d nodded hello to his wife and bounded up the stairs to his sanctum sanctorum.

“I gave you the priority code,” he growled into the phone. “What more authorization do you need?”

“Sorry, sir,” came the voice of the harried operator in the Pentagon. “Circuits have been overloaded all day.”

“I don’t care! Get me through to that plane! That’s an order!”

“Yes, sir. I’m trying, sir.”

The door swung open, spilling light from the hallway into the darkened room. Scheib’s wife stood framed in the doorway, wearing a floor-length flowered silk robe: lean, curvaceous, a tribute to relentless exercise and cosmetic surgery.

Angrily, he said, “Do I have to put a lock on my door? You know this is private territory. You can’t--”

“I’m not going to steal any military secrets from you, Brad,” answered Carlotta Harriman Scheib coolly. “I’m quite sure your call is personal. Isn’t it?”

Cupping one hand over the phone’s receiver, Scheib said, “Whatever it is, it’s none of your business.”

“Calling your little slut of a colonel?” Carla asked, smiling coldly. “Do you make her stand at attention for you? No, I imagine it’s you who stands at attention when you’re with her, isn’t it?”

“You’ve done enough damage to her career,” Scheib snapped, nearly snarling.

“So what? There are plenty of other women panting after you. I could set you up with a couple of the dewy-eyed twits you met at my birthday party. They’d love to flop into bed with you.”

“Carla, this is Air Force business.”

“Of course it is.”

“For god’s sake, we nearly went to war today!”

“So now you’re a hero.”

“No, but
she
is.”

Carlotta’s face contracted into a puzzled frown.

Suddenly understanding the reality of it, Scheib grinned maliciously as he told his wife, “That’s right, she’s a hero now. Thanks to you, she was in the right spot at the right time to shoot down a pair of ballistic missiles that were launched at us. What do you think of that?”

She started to reply, but hesitated, then snapped her mouth shut, spun around, and disappeared down the hall, leaving the door open. Scheib could hear the clop-clop of her high-heeled slippers going down the stairs.

He put the phone down next to his scotch and swiftly went to the door, closed it firmly, then returned to his recliner.

“Well?” he demanded.

“I’m still trying, sir.”

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Harry asked. His voice sounded funny to him because his nose was stuffed with cotton batting.

They were in the galley. Lieutenant Sharmon was leaning over Harry, dabbing a pad soaked in rubbing alcohol over the bloodstains on his face. The plane lurched and the first-aid kit sitting on the next seat slid to the deck with a clatter. Harry barely missed getting the pad shoved into his eye.

“Sorry,” the lieutenant said.

Colonel Christopher stood behind Sharmon, watching the first-aid work closely.

“Four older brothers,” she answered Harry’s question. “And self-defense classes at the Academy.”

“You’re a terror,” Harry said.

“That wasn’t a love tap you hit Delany with,” Christopher replied, grinning.

“Kidney punch. Learned that at good old Medford High.”

“Must’ve been a great school.”

Harry chuckled despite the pain from his nose. “We had a pretty good football team. But winning the game wasn’t as important as winning the fight after the game.”

Lieutenant Sharmon stooped to pick up the first-aid kit, “For what it’s worth,” he said, inspecting his handiwork, “I don’t think your nose is broken. You’re gonna have a pair of beautiful shiners, though.”

“Thanks.” Harry sighed.

Colonel Christopher shook her head slightly, then said, “I’d better get back to the cockpit. Weather’s getting thicker. Jon, you’ll have to get back, too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the lieutenant, shutting the first-aid kit’s lid with a click.

Harry asked, “Where’d you put Monk?”

“Locked him in the forward lav,” said the colonel. “Your people helped drag him in there.”

“What’s going to happen to him?”

She shrugged. “That’s up to the AG’s people, I suppose. And your own corporate execs. From what you said, he killed somebody?”

“That was an accident.” But Harry knew it was more than that. “I mean, he didn’t intend to kill Pete. He just--”

The plane lurched again, much worse. Sharmon staggered against the bulkhead, Colonel Christopher grabbed at him for support.

“I’d better get to the cockpit,” Christopher said. Silently she added, Before Obie wets himself.

O’Banion had both hands on the control yoke as he tried to help Major Kaufman keep ABL-1 flying steadily. Christopher could see the dark, swirling clouds of the storm below them, smothering the view from horizon to horizon.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said to O’Banion. As the captain got up gratefully and she slid into the pilot’s seat, Christopher said to Kaufman, “Sorry to be away so long, Obie. We had a bit of a ruckus downstairs.”

“Hasn’t been a tea party up here,” Kaufman muttered.

The plane was buffeting worse than ever as it plowed ahead on its three remaining engines. Colonel Christopher put on her heavy flight helmet and plugged in her communications line.

“Jon, I need an ETA for Misawa,” she said into her lip mike.

“Lieutenant Sharmon’s still downstairs, ma’am,” O’Banion’s voice replied in her earphone.

“Get him up here,” she commanded.

“We got a shi ... a big load of messages piled up, Colonel,” O’Banion said. “Including a top priority from Washington. General Scheib.”

“Give me that one first.”

Some stranger’s voice, a woman, asked, “Colonel Christopher?”

“Right.”

“General Scheib, I have Colonel Christopher for you.”

“Karen?” Brad’s voice. “General,” she replied.

In his darkened den, Brad Scheib heard the stiffness in Karen’s voice. She’s not alone, he understood. She’s in the cockpit of that plane with the rest of the goddamned crew tapped in.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“We’re approaching Misawa.” Karen’s voice sounded cool, totally under control. “One engine out, wing damaged, but we’re maintaining altitude and airspeed.”

“You’ll make it to Misawa? Met reports there’s a storm over the area.”

A hesitation. Then she answered, “We’ll make it, General.”

“Good.”

Silence, except for hissing static. What can I say? Scheib asked himself. What can I tell her with the rest of her crew listening in? Even if she tells them to stay off the line there’s no guarantee that they won’t eavesdrop. Hell, half the Pentagon could be listening to us. And it’ll all get recorded, too.

“I... I’m glad you’re okay.”

Again a long silence. She’s thinking of what she can say, what she should say, Scheib told himself. Helluva way for us to talk. For all I know this is the last time we’ll ever talk to each other. Helluva way for it all to end.

At last Karen’s voice said tightly, “I’m fine, General.”

“That’s good,” he said, feeling inane. Suddenly he couldn’t control himself any longer. He blurted, “Karen, I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“I am too.”

“If things had been different. . .”

“Brad, it’s over and done with. You made that perfectly clear.”

Feeling utterly miserable, Scheib said, “I wish it could be different.”

“But it’s not, General. It couldn’t have ended any other way.”

He nodded in the darkness of his room. She’s right, he knew. It couldn’t have ended any other way.

In the cockpit of ABL-1, Karen Christopher heard the sorrow in Brad’s voice. And she realized that he felt sorry for himself. Not for her. Not for the mess she’d made of her career. For himself.

And she understood. He’ll never have the strength to leave his wife. His career is more important to him than I ever was. I made him happy for a while, but that’s all over now. It was doomed from the start.

“You still there?” He sounded like a lost little boy.

When she tried to nod, the damned helmet wobbled on her head. “I’ve got to sign off now, General. The weather’s closing in.”

Silence for several heartbeats. Then, “Good-bye, Karen.”

“Good-bye, General.”

And the connection went dead.

Karen looked over at Kaufman, who was studiously staring straight ahead. Looking out, she saw that the weather was indeed closing in.

“Colonel?” Sharmon’s voice.

“Go ahead, Jon.”

“ETA to Misawa, one hour seventeen minutes.” “Better get their weather report. Looks like we’ll be in for a shaggy ride.”

Washington, D.C.: New Jersey Avenue SE

The Bakersfield residence was not pretentious, except for the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the lot and the armored Humvee parked in the driveway, occupied by at least three heavily armed Secret Service guards at all times.

The Secretary of Defense was in bed, his fleshy face ashen, his corpulent body soaked with perspiration. His physician, a close friend since Lionel Bakersfield had first arrived in the capital as a newly elected senator, stood over him with a severe expression on his lean, nearly gaunt face.

“I could’ve been Vice President, you know,” said Bakersfield as he lay propped up on a mound of pillows in the king-sized bed. “One heartbeat away from the White House.”

The physician, rake-thin, white-haired, shook his head and replied, “Another day like this one and you’ll be one heartbeat away from your own funeral.”

The Secretary of Defense tried to chuckle at his old friend’s dismal attitude. “You’ve always been a sourpuss.”

“Lon, you can’t take so much stress,” the doctor warned. “I think you ought to retire.” Bakersfield snorted at the idea. “You’re killing yourself.”

“Bullshit! I’m just a little tired. It’s been a long day.”

“You can’t put in days like this without hurting yourself. That old ticker of yours is going to explode if you’re not more careful.”

“Another year,” said the Secretary of Defense.

“After next year’s elections. If the President gets reelected I can retire with dignity. If not, I’ll be asked to leave anyway.”

The doctor shook his head again, his face a bony mask of disapproval.

The phone on the bedside table buzzed.

As the Secretary of Defense reached for it, his doctor snapped, “No!”

Bakersfield hesitated, his fingers inches from the phone. “It’s probably important. Only a half dozen key people have access to this line.”

“No more stress!” the doctor insisted. “You’ve had enough for today.”

The Secretary of Defense made a weak grin. “Just one more. It could be important.”

He picked up the phone’s receiver while the doctor gave a disgusted sigh and started for the bedroom door.

The phone’s minuscule screen showed a prim-looking young woman. “Mr. Secretary,” she said, “I have the Secretary of State on the line for you.”

“Put her on,” said Bakersfield. With his free hand he waved good-bye to the doctor, who shook his head with frustration and left the room, closing the door behind him with a bang.

“Lonnie,” said the Secretary of State, smiling her news-conference smile. “Celebrating our victory?”

Defense realized that the phone’s miniature camera showed little more than his sweaty face.

“Should we celebrate?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” State replied. “We shot down the Korean missiles. They didn’t bomb San Francisco.”

“And the President looks like a brave young hero.”

State’s smile faltered a bit. “I suppose he does.”

“What do you hear from the DPRK government?” Defense asked.

A small crease furrowing her brow, State answered, “Pyongyang says its troops have taken the site where the missiles were launched. Most of the rebel officers have been killed--or committed suicide instead of allowing themselves to be captured.”

“So there’s nobody left to question.”

“Probably not.”

The meds his doctor had given him were beginning to take effect, Bakersfield realized. He felt relaxed, no pain. Almost giddy, in fact.

“So we won’t find out why they tried to attack us,” he said, feeling nearly relieved about it.

“Oh, I think we’ll find out, sooner or later, one way or the other,” said the Secretary of State.

Backdoor channels, Defense thought. She puts a lot of faith in her personal contacts in China, he knew.

To her blandly smiling face, he said, “It was good of you to call me and bring me up to date.”

If she caught the sarcasm in his tone she gave no visible inkling of it. “Actually, Lonnie, the reason I called is about how we should react to the President’s position. He’s bound to get a big bounce out of this in the polls.”

Bakersfield shook his head wearily. “That’s for you to worry about, my dear. I’m not interested in the White House anymore.”

“Not interested? How ...?”

The Secretary of Defense enjoyed the play of emotions flickering across the Secretary of State’s face: surprise, satisfaction, anticipation--all replaced by a hard-eyed calculation.

“He’s going to be reelected and neither you nor I will oppose him,” he said.

“Yes, but four years after that...”

“I’ll be too old for it. It’s all yours, my dear.”

“I can count on your support, then?”

Bakersfield thought that in politics five years is an eternity. How can you commit yourself to anything so far in the unguessable future?

“Of course,” he said, knowing the obligation was unenforceable. “But don’t you have more immediate problems to worry about?”

She blinked at him, her thoughts obviously two election campaigns down the road.

“More immediate problems?”

“I don’t think the Chinese will be happy with our shoot-down of those missiles. Do you?”

“Self-defense,” the Secretary of State immediately replied. “We have a right to defend ourselves.”