Top Gun (39 page)

Now Greene leaned back in his swivel chair and swung his feet up onto his blessedly cleared desk. At this hour of the evening,
everyone else had knocked off for the day, so Red Square was quiet. Greene was thinking about rewarding himself for going
one-on-one with his In box and coming out on top by heading over to the O club for a cold one, when he heard a knock on his
door.

“Come in,” Greene called. The door opened. “Well,” he said. “I was wondering when you’d get the balls to show up here.”

“Thanks for the friendly greeting, brother dear,” said Lieutenant Andrew Harrison. “Or let me amend that to half brother.”

“You can amend it to no brother at all, as far as I’m concerned,” Greene replied evenly. He looked Andrew over. The kid was
a little under six feet tall, and built solidly. Andrew’s thick blond hair was cut moderately short and worn casually brushed
forward. He was just going on his twenty-second birthday, but already Andrew had the fighter jock’s characteristic squint
lines etched around his brown eyes that were the result of long hours spent scanning the sun-bright sky from various cockpits.

Greene noticed that Andrew was wearing his plastic photo ID badge identifying him as a visiting player pinned to the breast
pocket of his service dress uniform. That was unusual. “You know,” Greene began, “most of the visiting fighter jocks take
pride in wearing their flight suits.”

There was just the hint of a mocking smile on Andrew’s face as he said, “I figured this would be more appropriate dress for
a visit to a superior officer.” He gestured toward a chair. “May I sit down. Major?”

Greene nodded, and when Andrew was seated, asked, “Well, what do you want?”

“‘What do I want,’ “ Andrew mimicked. “Yeah, you sure do know how to express familial warmth.”

Little fucker is still a snotnose.
Greene thought. “Listen to me,” he said, cutting Andrew off. “I’ve had a long day, I’m tired, I’m in no mood to deal with
that sarcastic, effete intellectual attitude you inherited from your father. I never could tolerate it when Don came on strong
with it against me or Uncle Steve, so I’m sure as shit not going to put up with it from the likes of
yow
.”

“Yes, sir!” Andrew said, deadpan.

Greene studied him. “Lieutenant Harrison, I hope you don’t intend to give me trouble during your stay?”

“It depends.”

“On what?” Greene demanded sharply.

“On where we are,” Andrew replied. “On the ground you’re my superior officer and I intend to treat you as such.” He grinned
coldly. “But in the air, half brother of mine, all bets are off. I’m going to give you all the trouble you can handle when
we fly one versus one during Red Sky.”

Greene leaned back in his chair, smiling. “You think you’re going to be a match for me one vee one?” Greene shook his head.
“You don’t have a prayer, kid.”

“I’m good, Robbie.”

“Sure you are.” Greene nodded. “As far as you go,” he qualified. “Your squadron had to be good, or else it wouldn’t have gotten
to Red Sky. Let’s see, your squad is the 9th-the “Blue Wolves”—which is part of an F-66 Stiletto Tactical Fighter Wing based
at Howard, right?”

“You’ve been reading up on me,” Andrew remarked.

“I knew you’d show up at Red Sky sooner or later.” Greene shrugged. “That thanks to our mother you had enough Gold family
blood in your veins to make it this far.”

“I’m going to make it all the way,” Andrew said fervently. “I’m going to make it to the top!
Past
you.”

“No, you won’t,” Greene calmly replied. “Your trouble, little Andrew, is that the dose of the right stuff you inherited from
our mother isn’t going to be enough to take you all the way.” He shook his head in mock sympathy. “It’s really too bad. Maybe
if you’d had a fighter-pilot father, like I did, you’d have a chance of being
really
good, but your father is Don Harrison, a wishy-washy egghead with nothing between his legs but a slide rule.”

“Don’t talk that way about my father.”

“And you’re just
like
Don,” Greene pressed on, gradually losing his icy cool. “That’s why when it comes time to make that final cut between us
in ACM, I’m going to come out on top, just like my father came out on top with our mother. Answer me this, little Andrew,”
Greene spat. “If my father had made it through the war that your father draft-dodged, do you think you ever would have been
born?”

Greene had watched Andrew stoically take what he’d had to say the way an armored warbird endures 50-caliber blistering punishment.
Now Greene tiredly prepared himself to absorb Andrew’s answering volleys as hatred glowed like tracer fire from his half brother’s
brown eyes.

“Permission to speak frankly. Major?” Andrew asked harshly.

“Go ahead.”

“Let me bring you up to speed on a few things,” Andrew began, sitting rigidly in his chair. “I am
proud
to be Don Harrison’s son. And he didn’t draft-dodge the war. My father was given an exemption for reasons of national security,
just like they gave to Grandpa Herman, because my father was such a talented aviation engineer. It was my father who led the
design team that created the Amalgamated-Landis Cougar fighter, and the Bullwhip attack bomber, two combat airplanes that
did more to win the Second World War then anything your fighter-pilot papa ever did!”

“You through?” Greene asked, angry all over again.

“No, I’m not! I want to tell you something else, Robbie. I think you’re a son of a bitch. You always were a son of a bitch
toward me, and now I’m convinced you always will be. Back when I was getting ready to come here. I entertained the notion
that even if the two of us could never be friends, we could at least be cordial with one another, but now I know that’s not
possible, because you’re too blinded with hatred.”

“That’s enough,” Greene began fiercely, but Andrew ignored him.

“Because you need to blame me for your own neurotic hang-ups concerning the loss of your father—”

“Shut up!” Green thundered, finally silencing his half brother. A few seconds of silence ticked by in the charged office.
When Greene next spoke, it was with a voice trembling with pent-up emotion. “Andrew, for as long as you’re here at Ryder,
I intend to treat you exactly as I would any other visiting player. No better and no worse.”

“Oh, I think you’d better treat me
much
Worse,” Andrew warned. He leaned forward in his chair to plant his fists on Greene’s desk, so that he could spit his words
into Greene’s face. “Because when we find ourselves one vee one, our fight is going to be
personal,
and after I’m through with you you’re going to have to change that hot-shit Attackers shoulder patch you wear to show that
bear’s hind end, with its
asshole
shaved pink!”

Just then Greene could have easily wrapped his fingers around Andrew’s throat and choked him to death. Instead, he took a
deep breath and let it out, willing himself to regain his calm. “You’re dismissed. Lieutenant.”

Andrew stood up, came to attention, and sharply saluted. “Yes, sir! Major!” He turned on his heel and went to the door, where
he paused. “Remember what I said, Robbie. I’m playing no-holds-barred.” He strode out of the office.

Greene listened to Andrew’s footsteps receding down the hall. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking.
His stomach was twisted up into knots, his heart was pounding, and his brow was bathed in sweat like he was in the cockpit
and had just completed a six-G bat-turn.

How dare that fucking little punk talk to me that way!
Greene endlessly repeated to himself.
How dare he!

He waited until he was absolutely sure that Andrew was gone, and then made his way out of his office and down the corridor
to the men’s room, where the squadron had put up posters of Marx and Lenin, and a banner reading, “Gentlemen, we salute you…”
over the urinals.

Greene went to the washbasins and ran a cold tap, splashing the water onto his face. He dried himself with paper towels and
then leaned against the basin to study his reflection in the mirror. He was going to be thirty-six come December, but like
most fighter jocks he looked older. His black hair and his mustache had become seeded with gray, and the creases around his
eyes and at the corners of his mouth were becoming deeper.

It all happened so long ago,
Greene thought, staring at his reflection.
So why do I still feel like that frightened little boy on the day he found out that his mother was remarrying? Why do I still
feel bitter hate and fearful loneliness the way I did on that first day I had to start living under the roof of the man who
expected me to call him “Dad” when I knew he could never replace my father?

(Three)

Lieutenant Andy Harrison went for a long walk after his confrontation with Robbie. Andy- didn’t know where he wanted to go,
but he knew it wasn’t back to his quarters, a trailer he was sharing with two other guys from his squadron, which had flown
here all the way from Howard AFB in Panama.

It had been a hurting ten hours in the cockpit, all right. Andy considered the Stiletto a fine bird, but Grandpa Herman and
Andy’s father hadn’t designed her to be a one-man jetliner. Then again, how far a player had to fly in his own bird to Ryder
was the luck of the draw. Some lucky-stiff players had only a hop of a few minutes’ duration from their bases in California,
for instance. The Red Sky philosophy was that the reality of modern warfare was one itty-bitty piece of combat, and a whole
lot of getting to the fight. For that reason, all participants were expected to fly their airplanes from their home base to
Ryder as if they were rushing to a hot spot somewhere on the globe, with stopovers allowed if tankers weren’t available, but
aerial refuelings being the rule. The Air Force wanted its pilots and air crews to be able to endure grueling stretches in
the cockpit in order to get where they were going as quickly as possible. Sure, it wore a guy out, but as the saying went,
“War is hell.”

Andy’s squadron had arrived late Friday, and they’d had the weekend to recoup. Now, on this Monday night, with a pleasant
breeze blowing off the desert and the lights of Las Vegas brightening the horizon, Andy was feeling pretty chipper and ready
for come what may.

He strolled about a half-mile down Thunder Alley, checking stuff out. The base was well-lit, and busy around the clock, with
shuttle buses running twenty-four hours a day. As Andy reached the TACCC complex, he thought about heading into the snack
bar for a soda, but instead he went where he guessed he really wanted to be all along: He crossed the street to the players’
aircraft parking ramp, near the maintenance complex.

Roy Rodgers talked to Trigger, and Gene Autry talked to Champ
Andy thought.
So why I can’t I talk to my warbird?

Sure the F-66 Stiletto was just a machine, but it was Andy’s machine: it had his name stenciled on the side of the cockpit.
More important, his Ice Pick was going to be the means through which he was going to show Robbie Greene who was top dog between
them once and for all.

The ramp was crammed with row upon row of airplanes parked six or seven abreast, interspersed with whining, orange painted
electric carts belonging to the maintenance crews, who even at this late hour were still busy seeing to the visiting players’
birds. The ramp held F-4 Phantoms, F-66 Stilettos, F-15 Eagles, A-7s, A-10s, choppers, and then there was the bigger stuff.
In all, it was a massed air armada that stretched for over two miles.

The ramp was also lit to daylight intensity, and well patrolled by security details. Andy had hardly set foot on the ramp
when he was intercepted by a four-wheel-drive vehicle wearing flashing blue lights. The guards toted M 16s as they hopped
out to check Andy’s photo ID. Satisfied he belonged where he was, they looked up his squadron’s location on their clipboard.
It turned out Andy’s Stiletto was parked with the rest of his squad’s birds, a quarter-mile away, so the guards gave him a
lift, remarking along the way that it wasn’t unusual for a visiting player or two to become homesick for his bird the first
couple of nights at Ryder.

As the security truck came to a halt, Andy hopped out, thanking the guards, but wearing a worried frown as he spotted his
bird. Why was it his was the only Stiletto in his squadron being serviced?
Oh, no! What if there was something wrong? What if he was grounded?

He hurried over to where a lone maintenance guy wearing baggy overalls and a duckbilled cap was standing on a metal scaffolding
platform beside a box of ominous-looking tools. The maintenance guy had his back to Andy and his head stuck in the open bay
just aft the Stiletto’s nosewheel carriage.

“Hey, pal! What’s wrong?” Andy anxiously demanded as he approached his plane.

The mechanic didn’t turn around, but just but held up one work-gloved hand to silence Andy. “Hey. pal,” Andy repeated. “I
mean Sarge,” he amended as he noticed the stripes on the guy’s sleeve. “That’s my bird you’re working on.”

“He’s
your
bird in the air,” the maintenance man said. “He’s
mine
on the ground.”

He?
Andy thought. Who called an airplane ‘he’? Andy shook his head. The mechanic’s voice was somewhat muffled due to the fact
that the guy had most of his head stuck into the open bay, but Andy still thought the guy’s voice was pretty high-pitched.
Like it hadn’t changed yet. Just how young was the Air Force taking them into the Aircraft Generation squadron these days?

“Sergeant,” Andy demanded, putting a little steel into his tone. “You’re talking to a lieutenant who demands to know the status
of his airplane!”

The maintenance guy pulled his head out of the open bay and turned around to face Andy.

“Holy cow. Sarge,” Andy murmured. “You’re a girl—”

“No, I’m a woman. Lieutenant,” she corrected him, her tone amused. “Are you too young to know the difference?”

Girl or woman,
Andy thought.
You’re beautiful.