Power Curve (15 page)

Patrick Shaw wasn’t so lucky, and when the Watergate complex lost power, his condominium turned quickly into a cold storage locker. Feeling chivalrous, not to mention frozen, he bundled up his young female companion and headed for his office in the White House. Lacking a chauffeur, he drove and barely made the three-quarters-of-a-mile journey down H Street. As he expected, the West Wing was mostly deserted.

With a fresh pot of hot coffee delivered from the kitchen and his companion curled up on a couch, he had time to thaw and do some serious thinking about tax reform. Too many legislators and lobbyists were getting wind of Turner’s plans to reform the system, and the signals coming from the Hill worried him. No matter which way he cut the deal, Madeline Turner was rushing headlong into disaster and taking him with her. His thoughts turned away from tax reform when his companion sent him another, much more basic signal when she shrugged off her panties and kicked them on his desk. “Lock the door, darlin’,” he muttered as the phone rang.

It was the president. “Patrick, I knew you’d be here. I’m in my study. Why don’t you come up? Let’s talk taxes.”

It was a command he couldn’t ignore no matter how much the lower regions of his body protested. The president needs a distraction, he decided. He pulled Bender’s file from his safe and added the videotape and thin report a contact in the Pentagon had sent him. He lumped it all together with his thick folder on tax reform. “Put your clothes back on, darlin’.” He smiled and dropped her panties in a desk drawer. “A souvenir of your first visit. Now, I’ll be a while, so don’t you go starting without me.” He closed the door behind him and ambled down the colonnade that led to the mansion, considering his next move. He knocked on the door of the president’s study and was mildly surprised when Brian opened the door. He knew how he would play it.

He settled into his usual spot. “I’ve got somethin’ you might like to see before we get started, Mizz President. I’ve been rummaging around in the Bender attic. Pretty interesting stuff. Turns out he’s a roarin’, snortin’ top gun. A certified aerial assassin.” Brian perked up and moved away from the football game he was watching on television. He sat beside his mother and listened. “Did you know he shot down a MiG in the Persian Gulf War?” Shaw didn’t wait for an answer. “Pretty impressive stuff. I’ve got the videotape from the mission.”

“Mom, can I see it?” Brian asked.

“I don’t think so,” Turner answered.

“Mom,” he begged, “I’ve seen stuff like this before.”

Reluctantly, she gave in and let him play the tape. It wasn’t what she expected. After a brief title identifying the pilot, date, time, and place, the Iraqi skyscape flashed onto the screen. They were seeing what Bender saw through his HUD at 18,000 feet on a cloudy day. Brian interpreted the symbology on the screen. “It’s sorta like an F-16’s,” he said.

“Bolo flight,” a woman’s voice said. “Four bandits. Snap vector three-six-zero, bearing three-zero-zero at thirty-five, on the deck, heading zero-eight-five, speed four-eight-five. You are cleared to engage. Repeat, you are cleared to engage.”

Bender’s voice answered as the picture on the screen swirled and the ground rushed at them. “Rog, Phoenix.
Bolo’s engaged.” Nothing in his voice indicated he was heading into a fight at 800 miles an hour and descending toward the ground at over 10,000 feet a minute.

Brian crouched in front of the TV and told them what was happening. “Phoenix is an AWACS, a radar plane, ordering him to go after four MiGs 35 miles away.”

“Arm ’em up,” Bender radioed.

“Reb, I’ve got a problem,” Bender’s wingman answered. “I’ve got a CAS light.”

“Who’s Reb?” Turner asked.

“That’s Bender’s personal call sign,” Shaw said. “I think it stands for his initials.”

Again, Bender’s cool voice came over the radio. “You’re cleared to home plate. Phoenix, copy all?”

The woman’s voice answered, much more rapid than Bender’s. “Copy all, Reb. Are you still engaged?”

“Roger that,” Bender answered. “Contact ten o’clock, 20 miles, four bandits.” He had a radar paint on the bandits.

“Contact is your target,” the AWACS replied.

“Judy,” Bender transmitted, telling the AWACS that he was taking over the intercept.

“He’s taking on four all alone!” Brian yelled. The TV screen filled with hills and rocks as Bender descended below the MiGs. He was so low that it looked like he was going to hit the ground. “He’s below 100 feet!” He pointed to the vertical airspeed bar in Bender’s HUD. “He’s going over 500 miles an hour!”

They could hear Bender’s breathing, much louder now but still regular, controlled, and rhythmic. “Tallyho,” he transmitted. The symbology on the HUD flashed indicating he had a radar lock-on. “Fox One,” Bender said. The smoke trail of an air-to-air radar missile leaped out in front of him, tracing an arc through the sky toward a fast-moving dot.

“He’s fired a missile!” Brian shouted.

“Calm down,” Turner said. She caught herself. Her voice was much more rapid and edgy than Bender’s on the videotape.

“Radar broke lock,” Bender radioed. “Missile’s ballistic.” The picture turned topsy-turvy as Bender turned into
the bandits and sliced head-on through their formation. The nose of his aircraft pitched up as he reversed back into the fight. “Fulcrums,” Bender shouted.

“They’re MiG-29s,” Brian shouted, jumping up and down. The MiG-29 bore a striking resemblance to an F-15 but was about the same size of an F-16.

“Brian!” his mother said, stopping the tape. “Calm down.”

“But a MiG-29 is better than an F-15!” the boy shouted.

Shaw’s easy laugh broke the tension. “Hey, good buddy, this happened eleven years ago. We know he made it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Brian said, a sheepish look on his face. “Can I see the rest of it?” Without waiting for permission, he hit the play button.

The picture was back, the radios deafening as the AWACS directed other fighters into the fight. “Strangle the chatter,” Bender shouted. The commotion on the radios tapered off. The picture on the TV again filled with terrain as a dark shape flashed by in front of Bender’s jet, passing from left to right. He had avoided a midair collision by inches. “Coming back to the left,” he radioed, his voice heavy and laboring as he fought the
g’
s. “Fox Two!” he shouted. Again, the TV screen recorded the action as the smoke trail of an infrared-guided missile streaked out in front of the F-15. But he was too low, and the missile hit the ground. “Fuck!” Bender shouted.

“Well, I’ll be,” Shaw allowed. “He does know the
F
word.”

The screen twisted and spun as he rolled his jet, turned to the right, and started jinking. “Bandit, at my six,” Bender radioed, trying to shake off the MiG that was behind him. The picture stabilized for a brief second as another MiG filled his HUD. Bender was in the saddle and tracking for a gunshot. “Fox Three,” he shouted as he came off and pulled up into a tight loop, trying to shake the MiG that was still on his tail.

“He’s too low!” Brian shouted. He turned his face away from the TV and looked at his mother. The tension was overwhelming and he couldn’t bear to watch.

“You wanted to see this,” Turner said, unable to take her eyes off the screen. She heard Bender grunt as he fought the
g’
s and turned the tight loop into an Immelmann. He rolled out on top, 1,000 feet above the ground, and jinked to the left before again diving. He was on the tale of another MiG, this one down on the deck and trying desperately to escape from the fight. “Fox Two,” he said, a little calmer than before. He had a much better shot this time, and no one was on his tail. The MiG was in a shallow turn to the right as the AIM-9 missile tracked. The doomed pilot must have seen the missile coming and tightened up his turn, rolling past the vertical. He ejected just as the missile exploded.

The HUD’s videotape recorded the ejection seat as it shot out of the inverted aircraft, heading straight for the ground. A puff of dirt marked the spot where it hit as Bender flew over barely fifty feet above the ground. “Splash one bandit,” Bender transmitted, his voice still staccato-quick. “Phoenix, any more trade?”

“Negative trade,” the woman controller onboard the AWACS answered. “I hold the two bandits in Iran. Do not pursue. Repeat, do not pursue.”

“What happened to the third guy?” another F-15 pilot asked, anxious to enter the fight. There was no answer as the videotape played out.

Brian hit the reverse button, playing the tape backward. “That was great!” he said.

Turner folded her arms. “Where did you learn all that?” she asked her son.

“General Bender,” Brian answered. “He likes talking about flying and real stuff.”

She turned to Shaw. “He seems so decent, so rational, civilized. What kind of man is he?”

Shaw shrugged an answer. “I don’t know.”

Washington, D.C.

R
obert Bender was shoveling snow off his driveway Sunday evening when the second wave of the storm hit. He kept shoveling as the snow kept falling, and it became a personal challenge. Finally, he gave up and leaned on the handle of the shovel, defeated. He was worried. Nancy was working a volunteer shift at the hospital downtown, and he didn’t like the thought of her being stranded in the inner city. He thought about his options and allowed a little smile. This was the type of challenge he enjoyed. Within minutes, he had tire chains on the rear wheels of his four-wheel-drive Ford Explorer.

He glanced outside at the blowing snow and remembered the winter they had spent at Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. He rummaged through the boxes in the basement until he found another set of tire chains and mounted them on the front wheels. After throwing a shovel, two blankets, a survival kit, and a thermos of hot soup in the Explorer, he called Nancy on his cellular phone. “How’s business?” he asked.

“It’s not,” she answered. “We’re snowed in and the patients are snowed out.”

“I’ll come and get you,” he said.

She laughed. “Robert to the rescue! You’ve been itching for a chance to use the Explorer, but I’ll be OK here.
Why don’t you wait until morning when the roads are clear?”

“No problem,” he said. “I’m on my way. I’ll call if I get stuck.”

She wished he would stay home, but after twenty-eight years of marriage, she knew what he was like. “Be careful,” she cautioned.

With chains mounted on all four wheels, the Explorer turned into a tank and he made good time crossing the Capitol Street Bridge. The real battle started when he hit the city streets, but by plowing down the center, he maintained a slow progress. Twice, he pushed stalled cars out of the way and, once, detoured down a sidewalk. He was thoroughly enjoying himself until the heart of the storm moved over the city and stalled. The wind rocked the truck, and snow piled against the windshield wipers, dragging them to a slow beat.

He paused to fix his position by using a GPS (global positioning system) receiver he had added to the Explorer’s survival kit. He was eight blocks from the hospital. A hard knocking at his window startled him. A hand scraped the snow back and a frost-encrusted face appeared, shouting at him. It was an African-American woman, and her words were jumbled, incoherent, and filled with panic. “What do you want?” he shouted back. An inner alarm went off, warning him that trouble was inches away. More shouting, the words still senseless. He started to inch forward when the words finally made sense.

“My man…got’s to get t’hospital.”

Bender did not make a conscious decision; it was simply a part of him, the result of years of experience making choices and being responsible for others. He opened the door. “Where is he?”

“Over d’ere.” She pointed to a car that had broadsided a parked car. The wind blew his hat away when he opened the back door. A man was doubled up in pain on the backseat.

“What’s the matter?” he shouted, dragging the semi-conscious man out.

“Don’ know,” the woman answered. “He jus’ doubles up.”

“Scrape the windshield while I get him in the car,” he ordered. The woman climbed on the Explorer’s hood and pulled the heavy snow off the windshield with her bare hands. “Let’s go!” he shouted. She moved slowly, the cold numbing her, and crawled in the rear seat. Bender was thankful for the blast of heavy warm air coming from the heater, keeping the threat of hypothermia at bay. He called ahead on the cellular phone, and a medical team was waiting for them at the emergency dock.

Free of his charges, he bulldozed his way into the parking lot and abandoned the Explorer in what looked like a parking spot. He jammed on a knit watch cap, pulled up his hood, and waded through the snow back to the hospital. Nancy was waiting for him by the entrance to the emergency department. She gave him the look that had captivated him the first time they met. “Nanook of the North,” she said, “mushing to the rescue.” She nodded at a woman huddled over a cup of coffee and wrapped in a blanket. “You saved her husband. He has acute appendicitis.” She led the way down the hall to her cubicle. “Not much business tonight. It’s been this way all afternoon.” She locked his coat and snow boots in her locker. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour.” She gave him a smile he hadn’t seen in weeks.

He followed her through the hospital, responding to the tone in her voice while he tried to absorb everything she was saying. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he was certain the dark days following Laurie’s death were behind them. Even the pain from learning their daughter had been pregnant had slipped into the dark recesses of memory. But he could sense something was different between them.

Her pager bleeped, and she walked hurriedly back to her office. “It’s Shalandra, one of my patients. We’ve got her on an experimental vaccine program that eases the craving and dependency on cocaine. But to work, we have to keep her off coke. Unfortunately, she’s caught up in an abusive relationship and can’t get out of it.” He listened while Nancy talked to the woman on the phone. “Did you call the police?…They probably didn’t come because of the snow…. If you can get here, we can take care of
you…. Get out if you think he’s going to kill you…. No, Shalandra. There’s no way I can pick you up.”

“I’ll go get her,” Bender said.

Nancy put her hand over the phone. “It’s too dangerous out there. The police have to bring them in.”

“I saw a cop in the cafeteria,” he said. “I can drive if she goes with me.”

She shook her head. “It’s a war zone out there, even now.”

“Maybe inside, but not in the streets, not in this weather. Tell Shalandra if she can get outside, we’ll pick her up.”

Nancy looked at her husband. He would never change. “Be careful.”

“Turn here,” Patrolwoman Elena Murphy said, pointing to the left. Murphy was a tall and slender African-American, made bulky by the heavy anorak she was wearing. He plowed through the snow barely able to see the middle of the road. “This is the last time I listen to some dumbass white man,” she grumbled.

He shot a glance at her. “Murphy, I think you’d do this with or without me.”

She ignored him and pointed to a four-story building. “Over there, beside those steps.” He pulled to the right, and a small figure materialized out of the blowing snow. It was Shalandra. She tried to run, but the snow was too heavy and dragged at her shoes. She stumbled and fell.

Murphy was out of the car and moving toward her when Bender heard a man shout, his anger carrying over the wind. “What’cha doin’, bitch?” Two shots rang out, and Murphy went down. Then Bender saw the shooter—a big, shadowy hulk of a man—stumble down the steps of the building and head for the two figures lying in the snow. He pulled at the slide of the pistol he was carrying and screamed, his obscenities broken by the wind. “…don’ fuck wid me!…I’m a mean mutha fucka!” Again, he pulled at the slide, trying to clear a jam. He crouched on the sidewalk behind a parked snow-covered car and worked at the pistol.

Bender didn’t hesitate. He gunned the Explorer and
cranked the steering wheel hard to the right. The chains bit into the snow, and the truck skidded around, heading directly for the car where the shooter was hiding. He saw the man’s head bob up from the opposite side of the car and disappear. Bender rammed into the side of the car and pushed it up onto the sidewalk. The shrieking and tearing of metal drowned out whatever human cry might have been there. He backed away in time to see Murphy struggle to her feet. She was pulling the much smaller Shalandra with her. Bender reached across and opened the front passenger door while Murphy shoved Shalandra into the rear seat. She was a wisp of a girl, her face bloodied and bruised, and was holding a blood-soaked rag to her right ear. Then Murphy was in the car and they were moving again.

“I thought you were dead,” he said.

“That’s why we wear vests,” Murphy told him. “Damn, this is brand-new.” She fingered two bullet holes in her anorak. They would have been lethal if she had not been wearing a bullet-proof vest. “I ought’a make you pay for this.”

“If you can give me directions back to the hospital, it’s a deal.”

Murphy gave him a disgusted look. “You know we did this for a fourteen-year-old nigger hooker?”

“Does it matter what she was?”

Murphy didn’t answer at first. Then, “You really a general?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

She shook her head. “This is the last time I listen to some dumbass white man.”

Bender allowed a tight smile. “I’ve heard that line before, Murphy.”

Nancy sipped at her coffee. “You’re becoming some sort of hero around here.”

Bender leaned back in his chair, stretched out his long legs, and took in the hospital’s deserted cafeteria. It was after midnight, and the police had left after an hour of intense questioning. “I can tell from the admiring audience. Are you ready to go home?”

She looked at him. “Yes. No.”

He smiled. “Sounds like we got a problem with decisions.”

She reached out and touched the top of his hand. It was a warm and loving gesture that meant she wanted to have a serious talk. “Are you still thinking of retiring?” A nod answered her question. “The hospital has offered me a full-time job as a counselor.”

“And you want to take it,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He knew his wife too well.

“I can make a difference here,” she said. They looked at each other. All the pain she had been hiding was back, there for him to see. “This is how I’m hanging on,” she told him.

“I know. But I’m a fish out of water in this town.” He humphed. “Actually, I’m more like a beached whale about to be rendered for oil. We’ve got to get out of here.”

She clenched his hand, and they looked at each other. “I want to stay.”

The signals were all there, and for the first time in their marriage, they were on opposite tracks. “Let’s go home,” he said.

Okinawa, Japan

An observer can see it all from Habu Hill, the grassy bluff that overlooks the runways at Kadena. In front of Habu Hill, to the north, the concrete expanse of the parallel runways stretches almost two miles from left to right. Most of the activity on the flight line takes place east of the hill, around the hardened aircraft shelters, the long flow-through shelter, hangars, and buildings where the three F-15 squadrons are located. To the west, less than a mile away, the East China Sea shimmers in the sun. Across the runways, on the north side of the base, are another set of buildings, hangars, and a vast concrete parking ramp, now mostly deserted.

A small plaque on Habu Hill tells how it was named in honor of the SR-71 reconnaissance jet that flew missions out of Kadena until it was retired from service in
1990. On Okinawa, the twin-engined SR-71 Blackbird had earned the name Habu after the deadly black cobra that inhabits the island and bears such a strong resemblance to the spy plane.

But no observer was standing on Habu Hill that breezy morning on Tuesday, January 8, when a black stiletto-shaped apparition appeared on final approach over the East China Sea and touched down on runway 5 right. A bright reddish-orange drag chute billowed behind the long dark shadow as the supersonic aircraft slowed to a crawl and then stopped. The jet dropped its drag chute on the runway and taxied into the old Little Creek hangar on the north side of the base.

A Habu, the last of the three SR-71s that had been returned to service, had come home and was safe in its nest.

A hunch-shouldered Air Force captain who rarely saw the light of day met Brigadier General Martini at the entrance of the building less than fifty yards from the Habu’s hangar. No plaque or sign identified the building or gave any hint of its function, and even Martini did not know the exact nature of the intelligence that was produced inside. The captain was about to give him his first clue. “The imagery is coming out of the processor now,” the captain explained. He led the way through a set of double security doors and into a large room. They stood in front of a projection screen as the high-resolution film scrolled out of the processing unit.

“Only the SR-71 can give us this quick a response time,” the captain said, “and nothing matches its quality.” He froze a frame and gave a low whistle. “Son of a bitch. Will you look at that.” He fast-forwarded to another frame. “General, this is not good. The PLA never stood down after positioning in front of Taiwan last August.” He pointed to the ships in the harbor at Fuchow on the mainland opposite Taiwan and counted. “Now they’ve brought in five, six, seven more surface combatants.”

Again, the machine whirred, and this time the captain froze on the frame of an air base near Taipei on Taiwan. “They’ve almost doubled the aircraft deployed in the forward area opposite us.” He slowed down and mumbled
to himself as he scanned a supply dump. He hit the rewind button. “General, we’ve got to get this to Omaha ASAP.”

“What are we looking at?” Martini asked.

“A quantum jump in their offensive capability,” the captain said. “Offhand, I’d say we’re getting a definite signal about their intentions.”

Martini left the building and drove along Perimeter Road, around the west end of the runway, past Habu Hill, and back to his headquarters. Away from the flight line, the base turned into a community with neatly manicured lawns and pristine buildings. Martini drove slowly, fully aware that he was in command of a $6 billion operation and responsible for 7,300 airmen and over 11,000 family members. It was a large and complex air base and a happy one. But he was not a happy man. Every instinct told him to bring his base to a wartime footing. But what if he was misreading the signals? He didn’t pursue that line of reasoning, for if he was wrong, there would be 1,000 coroners presiding at the inquest of his career.

But what were the consequences if he didn’t act? Fortunately, he also knew the answer to that question. And for all this, he was paid $87,000 a year.

Washington, D.C.

The newspaper was on Bender’s desk when he came to work that same Tuesday. The story on page 3 was circled in red and related how one Lieutenant General Robert Bender and Patrolwoman Elena Murphy had rescued a fourteen-year-old African-American prostitute off the streets at the height of the snowstorm. The girl, whose name was being withheld because of her age, had been mauled by her pimp. The pimp had tried to cut off her right ear before she escaped. The pimp had chased her and fired two shots at Patrolwoman Murphy, striking her in the chest. Fortunately, Murphy was wearing a bullet-proof vest and his 9-millimeter automatic had jammed. Bender had used his vehicle as a battering ram and crushed the pimp under a parked car. Patrolwoman Murphy claimed Bender had saved their lives by his quick action. The pimp’s fro
zen body was found the next morning under the car, the gun still in his hand. Ballistics matched the gun with the two slugs taken from Murphy’s vest. No charges were being filed in the incident.