Aces (58 page)

He sighted in on the red circle painted on the bomber’s gray wing and cut loose with everything he had. Now the crackling
of his quartet of wing guns almost drowned out the jackhammering fifties. Steven saw the bomber’s wing begin to smoke, and
then break off. The crippled bomber, spilling oily black smoke, fell out of formation, and began cartwheeling toward the ground.

“I got one! I got one!” Steven called out excitedly as he streaked through the hole he’d carved in the bomber formation.

“Great work, kid!” Jenkins laughed. “But look sharp! This duck shoot ain’t over yet, over and out.”

“Duck shoot is right.” Steven laughed to himself as he came around in a wide sweep and began to regain altitude for another
bounce. The five planes of Flight Two had knocked five bombers out of the sky on their initial pass. Steven dived on another
bomber, this time concentrating all his firepower on the ball turret. He never did get the gunner, but some of his rounds
must have hit a fuel tank, because the bomber erupted in an orange cloud of flame. One of its engines went spinning off, striking
the starboard wing of another bomber, and
that
plane, leaking black smoke from its starboard engine, sunk out of the formation.

Steven unable to resist an easy kill, throttled down, to settle on the crippled bomber’s tail. He traded shots with the Jap
tail gunner for a bit, until the Jap gunner got a little too good and holes began appearing in Steven’s canopy. He quickly
dropped below the bomber and used his guns to stitch hits across the entire length of the Mitsubishi’s fuselage. As he peeled
away he had the satisfaction of seeing his third kill of the day fall out of the sky. He happened to glance overhead. High
above, Flight One was still tangling with the Jap fighters, keeping them busy and out of Flight Two’s hair.

By now, the battle had drifted over Rangoon. The ten bombers in the lead were beginning their runs, but the Jap bombardiers
in those plexiglass nose compartments must have felt awfully naked, because they were too hasty. Most of their bombs fell
harmlessly into the sea, sending up thunderous geisers of blue water.

Flight Two dropped five of those ten bombers as they were peeling away. That was his kill number-four. After that, the rest
of the Jap formation didn’t even try to drop their bombs. They just broke up into clumps of two and three and began hightailing
it in retreat. Seeing what was happening, the Ki-27 fighters that were still in the air quit their dogfight with Flight One
and hurried to give escort, but the Ki-27s were not as fast as the twin-engined Mitsubishi bombers, and the latter weren’t
sticking around to give the Ki-27s a chance to catch up.

Steven got on the tail of a retreating Jap fighter and blew it out of the sky with a three-second burst.
Five planes
, he thought to himself as the red warning light on his fuel indicator blinked on.
Five planes, in one fucking battle! I’m an ace!

A Ki-27 suddenly appeared about five hundred yards directly in front of him, coming his way. Arnie simultaneously thought
that the damned thing looked like a bird of prey with its fixed landing gear hanging down; that he didn’t have enough fuel
to execute evasive maneuvers and still get back to base, and he wasn’t about to spoil the triumphant day by cracking up Cappy’s
P-40—

“Fuck you! Tojo!” Steven screamed as the Ki-27 loomed in his cross hairs. The Jap fighter began firing at him. Steven saw
the almost pretty flames twinkling from from the twin guns mounted just above the Jap’s prop. His own tracers licked out in
fiery spurts, arcing above the Ki-27. He heard something that sounded like pebbles rattling against tin; he was taking hits.
He flicked his stick forward, dropping the P-40’s nose, and, in the process, hosing the Jap fighter with lead. The fighter
exploded in flame an instant before Steven’s guns, out of ammo, went dead. Groaning, he shut his eyes and gritted his teeth
as he flew right through the oily smoke cloud that a second ago had been a very solid airplane.

Six planes
, he realized as he came through the cloud in one piece.

“I guess you won’t do that again, son, over,” Jenkins’ easy voice came over the panel speaker.

Steven jabbed the radio key. “Where are you?” he gasped. “Over.”

“Right behind and above you, over.”

Steven twisted his head around and looked up. Jenkins waggled his wings in salute.

“Why didn’t you help?” Steven demanded. He waited a bit for an answer. “Over,” he blurted.

“I would have, son, if I’d had any ammo left.” Jenkins chuckled. “Congratulations. You’ve got six confirmed kills. See you
at home, over and out.”

Steven realized that he was laughing giddily, and that he was sweat-soaked, and that he had peed in his pants. His hands were
shaking. He hoped he had the strength left to land.

Ah, he
knew
he had the strength…

Six planes
. He was going to have a lot to tell Pop the next time they met, he thought as he headed back to base.

Steven landed to find that the British citizenry of Rangoon had delivered a truckload of groceries, cold beer, and scotch
to the camp to show their appreciation to the Tigers for saving their city. The numbers were fantastic: the Japs had lost
twenty-five planes, while only three P-40s had been shot down, and all three pilots had parachuted to safety and were now
back at base.

That night there was a grand celebration in the mess tent. Steven, by now exhausted, and very drunk, sat at the head of the
table in honor of his being the high-scorer.

“Here’s to beginner’s luck,” Cappy announced as he poured a bottle of beer over Steven’s head. “Since Stevie has today earned
himself three grand in bonus money, I want him to know I intend to charge him for lending him my plane.”

The rest of the squad was yelling, “Speech! Speech!” as one of the radiomen came into the tent and handed Cappy a sheet of
paper.

Steven, laughing, clutching a tumbler of scotch in his fist, rose a bit unsteadily to his feet, and said, “Before I pay Cappy,
I’ll have to see how much Monique leaves me…”

There were whistles and catcalls. “Quiet down!” Cappy suddenly yelled. He waved the sheet of paper in the air. “This is just
in, from the old man.”

“Chennault want to congratulate me?” Steven laughed.

Cappy shook his head. “Not quite, son.” Something very serious in Cappy’s tone quieted the tent. “It seems you’ve been joshing
us a bit, haven’t you, Stevie?…”

“Huh?” Steven blinked.

“It seems your name isn’t Steve Smith, at all. It’s Steven Gold.”

“Oh, shit,” Steven muttered, shaking his head. “That fucking newsreel.”

“And worse yet,” Cappy said, tapping the page. “It says here you aren’t even eighteen years old.”

“It’s true,” Steven admitted.

“How’s the old man taking it?” Jenkins broke in.

“Well, let’s just say that Chennault is pissed,” Cappy said. He looked around the tent. “You all know how he feels about anything
reflecting poorly on the Tigers…” He turned back to Steven. “Evidently,
your
old man is somebody real important.”

“Tell me about it,” he said dully.

Cappy frowned. “Whoever your father is, he’s got the muscle to threaten the existence of the A.V.G. by having the federal
government cut off our supplies, and the British here in Rangoon withdraw their support, unless we get you home, pronto.”

“
Stevieee, you got to go home
,” one of the men taunted in a quivering falsetto. “
Your mama’s calling youuu!
”

“Shut up!” Cappy growled. “It’s not funny! This kid just broke the record for kills in a single day, and he’s about to get
a raw deal!”

“What do you mean, Cap?” Steven asked, worried.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, son, but the A.V.G. is wiping their personnel records clean of you. It’ll be like you
were never a part of the Tigers. There’ll be no record of your kills, and no bonus money. And I’ve got orders to restrict
you to camp, until I can put you on the first freighter sailing out of Rangoon for America.” He glanced back at the paper
in his hand. “According to base command, that’s in five days.”

Steven wanted to argue, to plead to be allowed to stay, but he knew there was no point. It wasn’t even up to Cappy. It looked
like his father had won again… “There’ll be no record, but I still did it, right Cappy?” Steven smiled proudly. “I’ve got
what it takes, right?”

“Yeah, we’ll all know you’re an ace,” Cappy solemnly said. He shook hands with Steven. “I’d be proud to fly with you as my
wingman, anytime.”

“That goes for me, too.” Jenkins smiled, coming over to pat Steven’s shoulder.

Steven blushed. “Cap? If I give you my word that I’ll come right back, could I at least go and say good-bye to Monique? I’d
hate for her to think something happened to me, or that I’d leave without saying good-bye.”

Cappy smiled. “Sure thing, son.” He crumpled the radio message in his hand. “Hell, what the old man doesn’t know won’t hurt
him. Since you’re grounded, you might as well spend the entire five days with Monique.” He winked. “See what other kinds of
records you can break—”

Herman Gold was in his office when his secretary buzzed to say that Blaize Greene was waiting to see him.

“Good morning, Herman,” Blaize said, coming in a few moments later.

“Good morning.” Gold smiled, thinking what a pleasure it was to be genuinely glad to see Blaize. “That’s a nice tie you’re
wearing,” Gold complimented him. “You look good, kid. You’re looking healthy. I think you’ve even put on some weight. I guess
travel agrees with you.”

“I rather think that it’s marriage that agrees with me,” Blaize chuckled.

Gold nodded as Blaize took a chair in front of his desk. He had to admit it: he’d been against the marriage at first, and
he’d been wrong. Not only was the relationship between his daughter and Blaize going strong, his own relationship with Blaize
had improved considerably since the marriage. The kid was coming to work regularly, and was making progress on his gas-turbine
project. Gold was even beginning to think that Blaize was ready to let bygones be bygones between them.

“You must be pleased over the fact that GAT has just received a large reorder on the BuzzSaw bomber…”

“Yeah,” Gold said happily. “Things are going pretty well for us. All our assembly lines are operating at full capacity. We’re
building military-transport version GC-3s, BuzzSaws, and I just got word this morning that we’ve got the go-ahead on a new
long-range escort version of the BearClaw fighter. It’s another joint project with Stoat-Black. We’ll be sending the redesigned
fighters, sans engines, to England, where S-B will fit them with Layten-Reese Stag II power plants, and underwing fuel drop
tanks. We’re predicting the modifications will allow a two-thousand-mile cruising range.”

“That’s marvelous, Herman,” Blaize murmured.

Gold watched as Blaize settled back in his chair, taking out his cigarettes and making himself comfortable. Gold didn’t want
to be rude to his son-in-law, but he did have work to do…

“I understand your son will be home next week.”

“Yeah.” Gold beamed. “I thought I had him on an RAF seaplane flight departing Burma for Pearl Harbor, but there was some kind
of foul-up.”

“There is a war on, I believe.” Blaize smiled.

“You mean to tell me the combined Allied air forces don’t exist to ferry my kids around?” Gold laughed. “So anyway, Steven
ended up taking a boat. Talk about your slow boats
from
China.” He shook his head. “That freighter must have stopped at every two-bit atoll between Rangoon and here. But the wait’s
almost over.”

Blaize nodded. There was a moment of silence.

“Blaize, was there something
specific
you wanted to talk to me about?” Gold coaxed gently.

“I’m afraid there is, Herman,” Blaize sighed. “It’s ironic. A few months ago I would have been eager to confront you with
this, but now… Well, we have been getting along
so
well that I
do
want you to know, old man, that there’s nothing personal in this, but I’ve managed to persuade some rather influential friends
of my family to do some lobbying on my behalf with British Air Staff…”

Gold sighed. “I guess you’ve gone and gotten yourself new orders, is that it, Captain Greene?”

“Yes, Herman. I’m to return to Britain for eight weeks of fighter training, and then it looks as if I’ll be assigned to the
Mediterranean.”

“So you’ll be going up against Rommel’s Afrika Corps.” Gold frowned. “The Luftwaffe has some fine—and deadly —pilots operating
in that theater.”

“The more combat I see the better,” Blaize firmly said.

“I hope you don’t see more action than you’ve bargained for.”

Blaize shrugged. “Herman, I do want to reiterate that there’s—”

“Nothing personal in it.” Gold smiled. “Yeah, I understand that.” He stood up and leaned across his desk to shake hands with
Blaize. “I will miss you—”

But I’ll really miss Suzy
… Gold brooded, realizing that Blaize would rightly expect his wife to accompany him back home. It frightened Gold that this
man would be taking his only daughter out of the United States to Britain, where she would be within reach of Nazi bombs,
but he realized that there was nothing he could do to prevent Blaize taking her. To try would just reopen old wounds.

“When are you and Suzy leaving?” Gold asked sadly.

“Actually, that’s something else I’d like to discuss with you,” Blaize began. “I’ve tried my best to convince Suze to stay
here—”

“You’ve tried to convince her to
stay?”
Gold echoed, surprised.

“Why, yes, Herman,” Blaize said, sounding a bit miffed. “I love Suze very much. I would never willingly part from her, but
at present my country is a relatively dangerous place…”

“I understand,” Gold said, relieved. “Blaize, I must admit, I’d underestimated you! You have my highest respect—”