Top Gun (46 page)

Andrew nodded. “The worst damage is to my pride.” He glanced at Gail. “How’d you get away from Johnson?”

“I dumped your ice-cream soda in his lap.” She shrugged. “It kind of distracted him.” She glared at Greene. “But
you!
You
son of a bitch!
If there was anything still between us, it’s gone now. You can be sure of that!”

“I’ve been sure of that for a while.” Greene realized he felt sorry about it, but it was so.

“It’s your loss!” Gail snapped.

“I know that too,” Greene acknowledged softly.

“What’s going on here?” Andrew demanded. “Is there something I should know?”

As Greene walked away, he heard her explanation.

“I’m so sorry, Andy! This is all my fault! Major Greene and I used to go out. Yes, it’s true, he’s been picking on you because
he was jealous of me seeing you, and—Andy? What is it? Why are you laughing?”

“Gail, honey, this isn’t about you.”

“Huh?”

“Robbie and I have been tussling like this since I was born.”

“Huh? Are you telling me that you two guys know each other?”

“Gail, Robbie’s my brother…. Gail? Now, why are you laughing?”

(Five)

The trailer Andy shared with three other members of his squadron had fold-out furniture, a galley kitchenette, a small bath,
a cramped seating area, and light-blue walls with wood-grain vinyl trim. In the way of entertainment there were a few paperbacks,
some tattered skin magazines, and a radio just now turned low to a rock station that was playing the Eagles’ “Hotel California.”

The trailer’s lights were off. Several lit candles stuck onto jar lids were scattered about, casting their lambent glow. A
soft breeze rattled the rattan shades over the trailer’s screened jalousie windows, and every now and then a strong gust would
cause the candles’ flames to waver, casting long shadows and creating a strobe effect over the narrow bed where Andy lay cradling
Gail in his arms.

“I want you to know I usually don’t sleep with guys this early in the relationship,” Gail murmured dreamily.

“I feel like we’ve known each other a long time,” Andy said.

“I guess we have,” she agreed, “… in some ways.”

Andy buried his face in her hair, inhaling the entwined scents of herbal shampoo and the salty tang of her lathered body.
Her musk was all over the twisted, sweaty sheets.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Gail asked.

Andy smiled. “I was thinking that I’d better remember to change these sheets or else my roomates will go crazy.”

“Oh, God! You’re terrible.” she trilled, nudging him in the ribs.

“Ouch!” Andy winced. The spot she’d caught was still sore from Robbie’s elbow strike.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Gail said quickly. “You poor baby.” She gently stroked his side. “It still hurts, huh?”

Andy nodded. “Of course, I only lost that fight in order to garner your sympathy and thus lure you to my bed.”

“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “And I’m sure that if you could have only kept the fight going a little longer, Robbie would have
worn himself out using you like a punching bag.” She flipped over on her side on the narrow bed in order to nestle like a
spoon against him. “By the way, where
are
your roommates?”

“Well, Johnson is probably at a dry cleaners….”

She giggled. “You should have seen his face when I dumped that soda in his lap. It’s funny now, but at the time I was really
pissed off when you and Robbie ordered me to stay inside. When I was a little girl growing up in Motion, South Carolina, I
never could cotton to folks telling me what I could or couldn’t do. That I couldn’t help out my daddy at his garage in town,
for instance. That it was unseemly”—she spat the next word—”
unfeminine
for me to want to fiddle around with engines. Everybody kept telling me about how I was
meant
to become a schoolteacher, or a nurse, or a
ballerina
or some such shit.”

Andy laughed. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Ugh, men!” she fumed. “Andy Harrison, you’re better than most, but that still leaves you an insufferably smug dolt.”

“Yes,
Miz
Sergeant, ma’am.”

“Shit up and kiss me, you sex object, you.”

Andy kissed her, pleased to have been able to get her off the subject. Just like Grandma Erica, Gail was a real women’s libber,
a bra burner, not that Gail’s delicious tits needed one. Andy did respect her for her accomplishments, but sometimes she got
a little too strident. However, he’d learned that if he was careful about it he could kid her out of it.

“I gave my other roommates a quarter,” Andy said. “And sent them to the movies.”

“Huh?”

“Remember back at the ice-cream parlor when you were worried about how badly I’d been hurt in the fight, and insisted on driving
me home? Well, from the way you were babying me, I kind of had a hunch we’d end up here, so when I excused myself in order
to clean up in the men’s room I took the opportunity to make a phone call to tell my roommates to clear out.”

“Oh? And they listened to you?”

Andy nodded whimsically. “It’s like an unwritten social contract that whenever single guys room together, all the rest have
to clear out if one guy gets lucky.”

“Hmm. and do you often get lucky?” Gail demanded teasingly.

Andy lifted her hair to kiss the nape of her neck. “Never
this
lucky.”

“You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you?” She didn’t particularly sound like she was complaining. “Oh! What are
you
doing
to me? And whatever it is, don’t stop!”

Andy was gently rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger while he stroked her long, supple thigh, tarrying his
palm at the sleek curve of her hip. She had a marvelously toned body thanks to her strenuous work climbing around on scaffolding
hefting heavy jet-engine parts. She was firm with muscle where other girls were soft, and that had initially been disconcerting
to Andrew. Making love their first time tonight, Andy had felt like he was in a wrestling match. Gail had not been shy about
making clear what she wanted, at times literally manhandling him into the desired position…. But then it had been challenging
fun at last pinning her down, and she had surrendered deliciously. Together the two of them had really set this old trailer
rocking and creaking on its springs, and when they’d orgasmed together, Gail had howled so loudly that her cry had been answered
by a far-off coyote. That had reduced the both of them to an endless bout of helpless laughter.

On the radio, “My Girl,” by the Temptations, was seguing into “Silly Love Songs,” by Paul McCartney and Wings. They listened
quietly to the music for a few moments and then Andy gently turned Gail around in order to kiss her. He saw the sad look in
her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked, concerned. “Are you having second thoughts about coming here?”

She shook her head. “No, I wanted this as much as you.” She sighed. “I was thinking about the story you told me concerning
you and your brother.”

“Half brother.”

“Oh, Andy! How sad it all is! I wish I could do something.”

“I appreciate that, but you can’t,” Andy replied. “When it comes to Robbie and me, it’s the Hatfields and the McCoys all over
again.”

“There’s only one way there’s ever going to be peace between you two,” Gail said. “You’re going to have to beat him at his
own game. You’re going to have to come out on top during Red Sky.”

“I agree with you, but I’m not sure I can beat him,” Andy replied. “I had no conception of how good he was until I tangled
with him in the air today.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gail insisted. “You just have to recognize your own abilities and stop letting him psych you out.” She
paused. “That may not be as difficult as you think. I think you’ve begun to psyche him out.”

Andy shook his head, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Gail shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, but back in that alley, just before he turned away from us, I caught a glimpse of something
in Robbie’s eyes. It was…” She paused, shaking her head. “I’m not sure what it was, but somehow I got the impression that
a part of him wants you to beat him.”

“You think he’s going to make it easy for me?” Andy asked doubtfully.

“No, he’d never do
that.
You’ll still have to try your best, and it won’t be easy, but…” She trailed off. “I can’t explain what I picked up from Robbie
earlier tonight. You’ll just have to trust me. After all, I know him pretty well.”

“That’s for sure.” Andy cursed himself for letting it slip out, but he just couldn’t help himself. He knew he had no right
to be jealous or upset or anything at all concerning Gail’s prior relationship with Robbie, but knowing and feeling were too
very different things.

“Andy, is this going to be a problem for us?”

He’d been braced for a justifiably angry retort, but instead, when Gail spoke, her hesitant tones had betrayed her own vulnerability.

“Andy, you didn’t ask me back here… to… to try and get even with Robbie?”

“Oh, no, babe,” Andy said, shocked.
How ironic it all was,
he thought to himself as he hugged her tightly. She’d volunteered no particulars concerning her relationship with Robbie
beyond what she’d confessed in the alley, and earlier, just after their lovemaking, it had been on the tip of his tongue to
ask her how he’d compared. But, of course, he couldn’t bring himself to be so crass, and anyway, he was a little bit afraid
to hear the truth. He’d already lost twice to Robbie today. A third loss in this particular arena would have been truly unbearable.

And for the last few hours he’d imagined that Gail considered herself in the catbird’s seat, when all along she’d been just
as paranoid.

On the radio. Rod Stewart was crooning “Tonight’s the Night” as Andy asked Gail, “What did you mean before, at the ice-cream
parlor, when you said that in a way I’d already beat Robbie?”

“What did you think I meant?” she challenged.

“That maybe I…” Andy was finding it hard to speak. He didn’t want to make a fool out of himself, and yet he had to take the
chance of revealing his own feelings. “I guess I’m hoping that you meant that you’d kind of forgotten about Robbie because
of me, and that—”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Yes, that’s what I meant.”

He kissed her.

She asked, “When are your roommates going to be back?”

He said, “About a half hour.”

“Then we have time to do it once more?”

“If we start now.”

(One)

Gold Residence

Malibu, California

25 June, 1978

“Yeah, Don, I understand, and I agree with you,” Steve Gold said into the telephone.

It was a Sunday morning. Gold was in his study in his home, wearing nothing but bathing trunks and a canvas billed cap to
protect his scalp from sunburn. The telephone call from Don Harrison had summoned him from his deck over-looking the sand
and surf of Malibu, where he’d been spending a little quiet time with his wife and the Sunday papers.

“Okay,” Gold said. “I’ll meet you at the office this afternoon. Yeah. No problem. On the contrary, I’m looking forward to
this. Talk to you later.”

Gold hung up and then left the study, moving through the rambling three-bedroom beach house into the living room, which was
casually furnished in glass and bronze, natural rattan, woven leather, and white wicker. The house had more furniture in it
than when it had been Gold’s bachelor digs, but not much more. Neither he nor Linda liked clutter, and you didn’t need much
in the way of decoration when your living room had a glass wall looking out onto a wide swatch of beach leading down to the
ocean. A sliding door set into the glass led out onto the deck, which stretched the length of the ocean side of the house.
Gold could see Linda out on the deck. She was wearing a black two-piece bathing suit, and was lying on her back on a chaise
longue, the newspapers and a mug of coffee within easy reach.

Gold gazed fondly at his wife. He was lucky to have her, and he knew it. Linda had stood by him like a friend, helping him
keep his perspective throughout the hellish days since the GC-600 had crashed at the Paris Air Show.

In the two weeks since the crash, GAT had fought for its survival on two fronts. In France, where it was announced that no
criminal charges would be filed against GAT or its officers until all the facts were in, GAT had pushed hard for a speedy
and thorough conclusion to the on-site crash investigation. In America, Don Harrison had combated the media firestorm that
had resulted over the
L.A. Gazette’s
publication of the incriminating memo suggesting that GAT management knew the GC-600 was unsafe by publicly branding the
document a forgery and then threatening legal action against the
Gazette
for publishing it. The
Gazette,
unable to substantiate the forged memo, quickly backed off, publishing a front-page apology to GAT. Meanwhile, in Burbank,
GAT used its outrage over the forged memo to justify to the company’s employees a no-holds-barred, hard-hitting housecleaning
to ferret out Icarus.

A GAT engineering team was sent to France armed with data that made a strong argument that pilot error had been the cause
of the accident. GAT’s rigorous test flights of the two remaining GC-600 prototypes, and computer simulations run in the lab,
indicated that the pilots of the ill-fated 600 had turned off certain safety controls built into the fly-by-wire system to
allow them to perform the severe air maneuvers that led to the crash.

As soon as Gold had heard the explanation, he knew in his gut it was true. He’d been a jet pilot. He knew that the men who
flew the fast movers could often exhibit a foolhardy side. Most important, he’d known the crashed airplane’s pilot, Ken Cole.
Ken was a natural daredevil. Why else would he have chosen to become a test pilot? Gold knew that it was Ken’s impulse decision
to shut down the safety controls built into the GC-600 and to execute those fancy maneuvers for the crowds watching that had
led to this tragedy.