The Fly Boys (37 page)

“Major Gold!” a disembodied voice called out from behind the wall of bright lights and whirring movie cameras. “Do you have
a statement?”

Steve hesitated. He hadn’t much liked public speaking the times he’d been forced into it back when he was working in public
relations, but then he thought about that article in
Stars and Stripes
. If his father had seen fit to bad-mouth the Air Force, suggesting that it would be destroyed by the enemy if GAT didn’t
save it, Steve would just have to set the record straight.

“Yes, I do have a statement to make,” Steve began, leaning forward in his chair and planting his elbows on his knees. “I’d
like to begin by recounting the purpose of my flight’s mission, and how my airplane happened to sustain damage….”

He quickly filled the reporters in on what had happened during the mission, and then said, “Now, I don’t want you guys making
too much out of how my fighter was disabled. I wouldn’t want the American people to get the wrong idea about their Air Force—either
its personnel or its equipment.”

“Come on, Major!” a reporter challenged. “You telling us it’s not news when one commie rifleman can knock down a six-hundred-thousand-dollar
airplane?”

“First of all, my plane wasn’t knocked down,” Steve said firmly. “She’s damaged, sure, but she’s also right here, safe and
relatively sound and in American hands. I don’t want to get into a war of words with you guys.” Steve paused and smiled. “I
know when I’m outgunned.”

He waited for the reporters’ appreciative chuckles to die away. “Seriously, what you have to understand is that the fault
here does not lie with the Shooting Star. The ‘Shooter’ is a magnificent airplane. You ask any jet jockey, and they’ll tell
you that she is doing an outstanding job flying long-range operations in the kinds of weather that a year ago would have made
the Air Force or Lockheed fall down laughing with disbelief.

“Take it from me—and I’ve flown just about every fighter the Air Force has come up with—the Shooting Star is one tough airplane.
I’ve seen them make it back to Japan after sustaining the kind of damage that would have knocked a Mustang right out of the
sky. We F-80 pilots wouldn’t want to fly anything else.

“Now let’s examine what happened to me today. First let me make it clear that the incident took place while the F-80 was successfully
doing a job that she had never been designed to do. The Shooter belongs up around thirty thousand feet, where it can intercept
enemy jets, not down on-deck doing the Triple-T Shuffle.”

“What’s the Triple-T Shuffle, Major?” a reporter interrupted.

“Shooting up trains, tanks, and trucks.”

Steve again waited out the laughter, and then said, “The biggest problem the F-80 has faced has been the fact that she’s had
to fly from Japan, but now that K-2—Taegu Air Base—is F-80 operational, that problem is licked. You can tell the folks back
home that the F-80 and the men who fly her have the situation in Korea well in hand.” He paused. “Okay, now I’ll take questions,
if there are any.”

“You think the F-80 can stand up to the commies’ MiGs?” a reporter called out.

“Absolutely,” Steven said.

“Major Gold,” another correspondent, this one a woman, began. “What you’ve just told us seems to be in direct contradiction
to what your father has said about the F-80.”

“First of all, let me say that I’m surprised but pleased to hear a woman’s voice. I think it’s testimony to our fighting forces
that what was once disputed territory is now safe enough for women civilians. Now getting back to your question, I
know
what my father said about the F-80’s capabilities,” Steve said coldly. “I happen to disagree with him when he says that the
Shooting Star is inferior to the Broad-Sword.” He paused. “I guess the BroadSword will prove to be a capable fighter, but
that’s
all
I can do:
guess
about it. At least the F-80 has been combat tested. Ask any veteran fighter pilot, and he’ll tell you that the confidence
that comes from your own and other pilots’ accumulated experience with a particular airplane can make all the difference in
whether a dogfight is won or lost. Despite what
Herman
Gold has said,
Steven
Gold believes that the F-80 has already sufficiently proven itself to be more than a match for anything the commies can put
into the sky. We can only wait and see about the BroadSword. Next question?”

“Major Gold,” a reporter began, “Major Kell has already filled us in on how he was able to talk you down.”

Steve looked inquiringly at Kell.

“The correspondent is referring to the fact that my radioed instructions to you helped you to make a safe landing,” Kell said
hastily.

“Oh….” Steve nodded, smiling as he leaned back in his chair.
This one’s for you, Evans
, he thought. “Yeah, sure, the major here talked me down. You know how this old tiger did it? He realized that I was
psychologically on edge
, so he made me a
promise
in order to get my mind off my troubles.” Steve glanced at Kell. “Didn’t you, Major?”

“I’m not sure to what you’re referring….” Kell began to sweat.

“How about it, Major Kell?” a different woman reporter called out. “What did you promise him?”

“It—uh—seems to have slipped my mind, exactly.” Kell looked beseechingly at Steve.

“Don’t be modest, Kell,” Steve coaxed. “Tell them how you promised me the scotch—”

“Yes!” Kell exclaimed, sounding relieved. “The scotch!” He confidently turned to face the reporters. “I promised the major
a bottle—”

“A case,” Steve corrected meaningfully.

“A…
case
of scotch,” Kell echoed, glaring at Steve.

“I’ll let you fellows know when he delivers,” Steve said, and heard Evans’s deep and sustained laughter coming from the back
of the room.

“I have a question,” yet another female voice announced.

Holy shit, that sounds like
—Steve sat bolt upright. “Linda? Linda Forrest?” he called out uncertainly. “Is that you?” He shielded his eyes, trying to
see through the bright lights. “Come on, fellas, shut those spots off for a second, would you?”

The lights died. Steve tried to blink away the specks in front of his eyes as he scanned the twenty-odd people sitting with
their heads bent, jotting notes or winding up their hand-held movie cameras.

“Linda?” Steve called.

She stood up. She’d been sitting near Evans, toward the back of the room. “My question, Cap’n, is how do you manage to get
yourself into and out of such tight scrapes?”

Steve laughed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Covering the war for my wire service. What else, Cap’n?”

She had her hair tucked under a duck-billed airman’s cap, and was wearing a too-big set of fatiques that hid her lush figure.
Steve, wondering what she had on under the fatigues, felt himself beginning to get hard.

“Uh, pardon me, Miss Forrest,” Kell patronized, “but that’s
Major
Gold, not Captain—”

“The Air Force may have promoted him,” Linda said, winking at Steve, “but
I
haven’t.”

It was early evening, and cold, but the wind blowing out of the east had chased away the clouds, revealing a starry sky. Steve
was standing out on the far end of the runway, looking at his F-80 in the deepening twilight.

The day’s events had caught up with Steve by the time the press conference had ended. Exhausted, he’d asked Linda if they
could get together after he’d had a couple of hours of sleep. That had suited her; she’d needed some time to prepare and radio
her dispatch to the Japanese mainland, where it would be cabled to the States.

As tired as he’d felt, once Steve had stretched out on a bunk in the pilots’ barracks he’d been unable to sleep. Every time
he’d closed his eyes he’d found himself back in the cockpit of his F-80, reliving the mission, and that moment when he’d locked
eyes with that lone communist soldier, seeing the expression on the commie’s face as he brought his rifle to his shoulder….

It was like that a lot after a CAP. So much was happening at the time that you had to do the best job you could without really
thinking about what you were doing at the time. It was well afterward, usually at night when you were trying to get some shut-eye,
that one random incident from the mission would rise up in your mind and suddenly the whole damned experience came vividly
alive in your fevered brain.

When that happened, Steve was helpless to do anything but give in. A little while ago he’d spent a fidgety couple of hours
lying on his back, staring into the darkness and chain-smoking as he relived over and over again the day’s mission, including
that hellish landing. Finally he gave up trying to sleep, and left the barracks, thinking the cool night air would clear his
brain.

The Korean sentries initially challenged him, but then left him alone as he prowled the compound, finally walking the length
of the deserted airstrip to gaze at his airplane. Now, as he stared at the F-80, he couldn’t help feeling that it was weird
that he seemed to take some comfort from being near the jet. Hell, you’d think that he’d had his fill of the big hunk of metal
by now.

“I knew I’d find you here,” Linda said, coming up behind him.

Steve turned. “Hi, Blue Eyes.”

She was all bundled up in a cold-weather insulated parka. Like her other military-issue garments, the parka was way too big
for her. In the starlight the hood trimmed with gray-tipped rabbit fur was gathered up around her face like the petals of
a silvery flower.

She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. He put his arm around her, and with his free hand reached out to pat the side
of the jet. “I’m in heaven,” he joked. “Surrounded by my two best girls.”

She playfully nudged him in the ribs. “Just don’t get us mixed up and go sticking your thingie in the wrong tail-pipe….”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Steve told her. “I know how to tell them apart. Yours is much hotter.”

“You’d better believe it,” she laughed.”But what are you doing up? You were supposed to be sleeping,” she scolded mildly.

“Couldn’t,” he shrugged. “I was too restless. I guess my nerves are still kind of keyed up from what happened today.”

Linda nodded. “That’s understandable.”

Steve gestured to the shadowy F-80. Even earthbound, its graceful form seemed the evocation of flight.

“I keep thinking about what happened today,” Steve murmured, and then he chuckled. “You’ll probably think I’m crazy—”

“I already know you’re crazy,” Linda said.

Steve nodded indulgently. “As scared as I was today, I really enjoyed myself. Especially the glide from the target area to
here. I was all alone.It was just me and the airplane, and somehow I
knew
she wouldn’t let me down.”

Linda nodded. “And she
didn’t
let you down.”

“That’s right,” Steve replied adamantly.

“Is that why you felt the need to defend your airplane to the press?” she asked softly.

Steve just shrugged.

“And attack your father?”

“I
never
attacked my father.”

She shook her head. “Shall I read you my notes from the press conference?”

“Ah, hell,” Steve sighed. He looked at her. “I guess I did get somewhat carried away. Was it that obvious?”

“Let me put it to you this way. Most of the other correspondents used the fact that you disagreed with your father as their
leads.”

“But not you?”

“I stressed the valiant-pilot-saves-his-airplane-in-emergency-landing angle.” She moved away from him, turning her back to
stare at the lights of the compound. “I liked your father that time I interviewed him, and I’m sort of fond of you, you big
lug. I’m sorry you two don’t get along, and I’m not going to add fuel to the fire by immortalizing your dumb, rash provocations
issued in the heat of the moment.”

“Okay, so maybe I went a little too far this afternoon,” Steve sighed. “I can’t explain it, but somehow my father always manages
to get under my skin. He always seems to know how to say the wrong thing—like that speech he made suggesting that the F-80
was a piece of shit, and that if GAT wasn’t ready to save the day with that damned BroadSword the United States Air Force
would have to turn tail and run from the commies.”

“He didn’t exactly say that, Steve….”

“Yeah, he did.”

“Come on, Cap’n,” she coaxed. “You know as well as I do that all your father was trying to do was promote his company. He
never came out and said that the F-80 was a bad airplane.”

“Okay,” he admitted grudgingly. “Maybe not in so many words, but take it from me, my old man knows how to make a speech. He
knew very well that everyone would read between the lines.”

“Well, no one is going to have to read between
your
lines concerning what you think of your father’s new airplane.”

“You mean that crack I made about how the BroadSword hasn’t yet met the test of combat?” he asked, troubled.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, I guess I do kind of regret that part of what I said.” He patted the patch pockets of his A-2 jacket. “You got any
smokes? I seem to be out.”

Linda produced a pack of Chesterfields, took one for herself, and then gave the pack to Steve. “Hold on to them,” she said.
“I’ve got a carton in my bag.”

“Thanks.” He took out his lighter, cupping the flame while Linda lit her smoke, then lit his own. “Here, hold it like this,”
he said, showing Linda how to cup her cigarette so that its glowing tip was hidden.

“You think there’re snipers?” she asked worriedly, glancing toward the dark hills.

“Nah, the compound isn’t blacked out, but why take the chance? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“You wouldn’t?” she asked, suddenly shy.

Steve looked away, unable to deal with the sudden rush of emotion he was feeling. “Anyway, now you’ve got a trick to use to
impress all your journalist friends when you get stateside,” he said lightly.

Linda laughed softly. They were both quiet for a few moments as they smoked. Finally she said, “You want to know what I think?”