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  “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.”

  (Two)

  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 re
ad 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?”

  “About what?”

  “About you and your father.”

  Steve shrugged noncommittally.

  “I’ll take that as an affirmative response,” Linda said. “I think that your father never considered the fact that his speech advancing his company’s airplane would rile you.”

  “Oh, sure!” Steve exclaimed. “It’s okay for him to be thoughtless, but not me, is that it?”

  “Let me finish,” Linda said. “No, it’s not okay for him to forget your feelings, but two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “I thought you journalists were taught to avoid clichés?” he asked coolly, but she seemed to ignore, or excuse, his sarcasm.

  “Sometimes clichés are true.” She ground her cigarette out against the sole of her shoe. Steve was amused to see her then field-shred the butt. “You know how badly you felt when you saw your father’s published comments?” she asked.

  “So?”

  “So think how he’s going to feel when he sees yours.”

  Steve nodded. “He’s going to feel pretty bad, I guess.”

  “I guess….” Linda agreed quietly.

  Steve laughed ruefully. “You know what the funny part of all this is? I’ve got nothing against the BroadSword. It’s a damned fine airplane.”

  “Did you ever tell your father that?” she asked. “Have you ever complimented him on any of his achievements?”

  “Not since I was a kid,” he admitted. “It’s so hard, Linda,” he elaborated, shaking his head. “I’m always in the hole with him. Always a day late and a dollar short. Always! As far as he’s concerned, I’m always making the wrong decisions, and that’s because they’re my decisions, not his.” He dropped what remained of his cigarette to the clay and angrily ground it out beneath his shoe.

  Linda put her arms around him and hugged him close. “I think that you’re a very brave man willing to fight any war on behalf of your country, but there’s one war you’re fighting on behalf of yourself, and it’s a war you’ve got to end.”

  “You mean the war with my father.” He nodded and then kissed her on the forehead. “Thanks.”

  “For what?“she demanded gruffly.

  “For making me feel better.”

  “I wish you could make me feel better,” she whispered. “Do you know how horny I am for you?”

  “I got horny as soon as I saw you,” Steve chuckled. “There I was, sitting up on that stage with all those lights on me. I wondered how the hell I was ever going to get out of there without everyone seeing my boner. I’m hard as a rock right now.”

  She laughed.

  “Maybe that’s why I couldn’t sleep,” he continued. “It wasn’t the day’s ordeal, or my father at all—it was you!”

  “You’re a slow thinker, but you do draw the right conclusions eventually.”

  Steve gently tilted up her chin and kissed her. “It’s been a long time….”

  “Umm…. The last time was that weekend in San Francisco, right before you headed off to Japan.”

  “’Like I said, a long time to go without you.” Steve kissed her again.

  “Are you telling me you haven’t been with those very pretty, very willing Japanese girls?” she demanded skeptically.

  “I didn’t say that at all,” Steve said between kisses. “What I said was, it’s been so very long… since I was with you.”

  “Good answer,” Linda murmured, and then she sighed. “Too bad we can’t do anything about it….”

  “We can’t?” Steve asked, frowning.

  “Well, I mean, your bunk is in the pilots’ barracks, and I’m quartered with the other women correspondents. Where could we go that’s private?”

  Steve smiled.

  The door to Major Kell’s office was locked.

  “Now what?” Linda whispered, casting anxious glances over her shoulder down the dimly lit corridor.

  “Relax,” Steve coaxed, trying the door knob a final time.

  “I can’t,” she complained. “I keep thinking that I hear somebody coming.”

  “No way,” Steve promised. “It’s just your nerves.” He sauntered over to the clerk’s desk and tried the middle drawer, which slid open. In it was a ring of keys. “Never knew a clerk who didn’t have the keys to his superior’s office,” he said triumphantly. Out of curiosity he tried some of the other drawers. In the bottom left-hand one he found a two-cell flashlight. “This will come in handy. We don’t want to draw attention by switching on lights.”

  Linda nodded. “But then shouldn’t we also be keeping our voices down?” she asked, concerned.

  “What for?” Steve asked as he began to try keys in Kell’s door. “There’s nothing at this end of the building but the briefing room and this office.”

  “But aren’t there guards?” she persisted.

  “Outside, patrolling the perimeter. Trust me. Besides us, the only other person in this building is the TCG guy on duty in the radio room, and that’s at the opposite en
d of the building, and to top it off, he’s probably wearing a headset.”

  The third key on the ring clicked in the lock. Steve tried the knob and the door swung open. “Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

  Linda hurried in. Steve followed her, shutting and locking the door behind him. He checked to see that the shades were drawn, and then switched on the flashlight. It had a red plastic rim around the lens. By standing it upright, facedown on Kell’s desk, the flashlight cast a diffused red glow that was enough to dimly illuminate the office.

  “Umm, romantic,” Linda smiled, unzipping her parka. “Is this wall-to-wall carpeting?”

  Steve nodded. “Nice, huh? I figured we could spread out your parka on the carpet, and then—”

  “Steve,” Linda interrupted, shivering. “It’s cold in here.”

  “Not much we can do about that, I’m afraid. If I lit the coal stove the smoke would attract attention.” He went to the closet and opened it. “No blankets, unfortunately.” He pointed to the liquor cabinet. “How about a drink to warm you up?”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  Steve went to the cabinet. “He’s got some Chivas in here.”

  “That’d be wonderful.”

  Steve tried the door. “Locked,” he frowned.

  “Have you got the key to it?”

  Steve shook his head. “Not likely the clerk would have need of a key to the major’s liquor cabinet.”

  “Oh, well….” Linda sighed, sounding disappointed.

  “Hey, no problem,” Steve told her, going over to Kell’s desk, where he picked up a stilettolike letter opener from the blotter. He took the letter opener over to the liquor cabinet, carefully inserted its point into the cabinet’s lock, and began to jiggle it around. Nothing happened, so he jiggled it a little harder. There was a loud clicking noise. “Ah-hah!” Steve announced.

  “You picked the lock?”

  “I broke the lock.”

  “Kell is going to be furious,” Linda worried.

  “Probably, but what’s he going to do about it?” Steve shrugged, opening the cabinet and taking out the bottle of Chivas and two glasses. “I played along with him this afternoon at the press conference. Thanks to me he came off a hero. He told me he expects a commendation. He’s not going to want to screw that up.”