The Minotaur (54 page)

“Everyone’s sorry. We’re born sorry, we spend our life apolo-
gizing, and we die sorry. Sorry for all the guys with their names on
the Wall. Sorry for the silly bastards who sent them there and
stayed home and aren’t sorry themselves. Sorry for the 230 grunts
killed in Lebanon by a truck bomb. Sorry for the simple sonuva-
bitch who wouldn’t let the sentry load his rifle. We’re sorry for
them all.

“Forget it,” Jake added.

“I should’ve killed the bastard.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good.”

“I suppose not.”

31

Rita was released from the hospi-
tal on a Wednesday in November. She wore a cervical collar and a
blue uniform that Toad had had dry-cleaned. He picked her up at
noon. “Where to, beautiful?”

“Straight to the beauty shop, James. I’m going to treat myself to
a cut, shampoo and perm, then home to bed.”

She was very tired when he got her home to their apartment,
After a nap, that evening she walked around slowly, looking at
this, touching that. Harriet came over for a gabfest and left at nine
when Rita visibly wilted.

On Friday, Rita insisted on going to the office with Toad. The
crowd paraded by the desk one at a time to welcome her back. She
greeted each of them joyfully, with genuine enthusiasm. Her de-
lightful exhilaration was contagious. She seemed the incarnation of
the promise and hope of life. Yet by noon she was tired, so Toad
drove her home, then he returned to the office alone.

Saturday morning arrived crisp and clear. “How do you feel
today?” Toad asked as he helped her into the collar.

“Good. I’ll need a nap this afternoon, though.”

“Want to go on an expedition? I promise a nap.”

“Where?”

He wouldn’t tell. So. suitably dressed, they went down to the
car, where Toad announced he had forgotten something upstairs.

He rode the elevator back up to the third floor and made several
quick phone calls, then returned smiling.

He drove out to a small civilian airport in Reston, all the while
refusing to answer questions, parked the car in front of the flying
service’s little building, and came around to help her out.

“Just as lovely a morning as ever was seen, for a nice tittle trip
in a flying machine,’ ” quoteth Toad. ‘•

“What is this? Toadi I can’t fly!”

“I can. You can watch me.”

“You? You’ve been taking lessons?”

“Got my license too. Last weekend. Now we’re both pilots.” He
grinned broadly and hugged her gently.

Toad took her inside and introduced her to the owner of the
flying service, who visited with her while Toad preflighted the
plane and taxied it to the front, where he killed the engine. The
machine was a Cessna 172, white with a red stripe extending hori-
zontally along the fuselage, back from the prop spinner. Toad
thought it looked racy.

Rita was standing in the door, watching him. He couldn’t resist.
He bowed deeply from the waist. “Come,” he said. “Come fly with
me.”

He helped her strap into the right seat, then walked around the
machine and strapped himself into the left.

“This feels funny,” she giggled.

“Come fly with me, darling Rita. We’ll fly the halls of heaven,
watch the angel choir. We’ll soar with the eagles and see where the
storms are bom. Fly with me, Rita, all your life.”

“Start the engine. Toad-man.”

With a half inch of throttle, the engine spluttered to life again.
He pulled the throttle back to idle and the Lycoming ran
smoothly, the propeller a blurred disk. Out they went down the
narrow asphalt taxiway with Toad monitoring the Unicorn fre-
quency and checking the sky. He paused at the end of the taxiway,
ran the engine up to 1,700 RPM and checked the mags, carb heat
and mixture control, all the while acutely aware of Rita’s scrutiny.

He was trying very hard to do everything right and not to laugh
at the incongruity of the situation. When he glanced at Rita, she
quickly averted her gaze. She was biting her lip, no doubt to keep
from smiling. She had that scrunched-up look around her eyes.
Trying hard to keep a straight face himself. Toad got back to the
business at hand.

He wiped the controls through a cycle and ran the flaps out and
in with an eye on the voltage needle. Satisfied, he announced his
intentions on Unicorn and took the runway.

The engine snarled as he smoothly pushed the throttle knob in
all the way. With his feet dancing on the rudder pedals, the plane
swerved only a little as it accelerated. At fifty-five knots he pulled
bock on the yoke and the plane came willingly off the runway. He
trimmed the plane for a seventy-knot climb and said, “You’ve got
it.”

She took the wheel gingerly and waggled it experimentally. “Oh,
Toad! It’s terrific! It flies great.”

“Anything that gets you off the ground is a great airplane.” He
gave her the course he wanted and checked that the IFF was prop-
erly set.

Upward they climbed. They circled south of the metropolitan
Washington area and headed eastward across the Chesapeake at
5,500 feet, 105 knots indicated. The engine was loud, but not un-
pleasantly so.

Rita flew with a smile, occasionally waggling the wings or kick-
ing the rudder, just to see how it felt. She made gentle coordinated
climbing and descending turns as Toad monitored the engine in-
struments, swept the sky for other airplanes, and kept track of
their position with the VOR needles. Still, 105 knots was not warp
speed, so between all these tasks he had time to watch the boats on
the Chesapeake a mile below. They were small, trailing short
wakes on the great blue water, under the great blue sky.

The wind helped the plane eastward. About fifteen knots of wind
from the northwest. Toad figured. Approaching the eastern shore
of Maryland, he could see smoke rising skyward from odd smoke-
stacks and bending with the wind as it drifted aloft.

Rita signaled that he should take the controls, and he did. She
sat back in her seat and watched him fly. Somewhere over eastern
Maryland she began to laugh.

What began as a giggle quickly became an eye-watering gut
buster. Toad joined in. Together they laughed until they had tears
in their eyes. When they had melted themselves down to wide
grins, she ran her fingers through his hair as he continued his
impersonation of Orville Wright, Glenn Curtiss and Eddie Ricken-
backer, Douglas McCampbell and Randy Cunningham, Jake Graf-
ton and Rita Moravia and all the rest, all those who were only
truly alive when they had a stick in their hand and the airplane was
a part of them.

Finally she devoted her attention to the sky and the green earth
spread out below. When he next looked at her she wore a gentle,
contented smile. She seemed very much at peace.

I must always remember her this way, he thought, with the sun
on her face and the blue sky behind her, happy and content?

The field at Rehoboth was grass. Toad held the plane off until the
stall warning sounded, and after the main mounts kissed, he held
the weight off the nose with full back elevator until he had slowed
to the speed of a man walking.

Jake Grafton was leaning on the fence, watching them taxi in.
Toad napped a hand. The captain waved back.

“Have a good flight?” Jake asked after Toad killed the engine
and climbed out.

“The best. No lie, sir, this was the finest flight of my life.”

” ‘Lo. Rita. Was he safe?”

She laughed and grasped Toad’s hand. “I’ll fly with him any-
time.”

At the Graftons’ house Callie led Rita upstairs, where she
stretched out in Amy’s bed, at Amy’s proud insistence. Callie
seized the girl’s hand and led her from the room, closing the door
behind them. “You can visit with her all you want when she wakes.
She’s very tired right now.”

“I’m going to be just like her when I grow up,” Amy announced,
not for the first time.

“You already are, Amy. I think you’re sisters at heart.”

They had finished dinner and Jake and Toad were sipping coffee
as Calhe, Rita, and Amy rinsed the dishes and arranged them in
the dishwasher when the phone rang. Callie answered it in the
kitchen, then stuck her head around the comer and said, “It’s for
you, Jake.”

He took the call on the phone in the living room.

“Captain, this is George Ludlow. Sorry to disturb you at home.”

“Quite all right, sir.”

“Just wanted you to know- We have a new man ordered in as the
prospective program manager. Rear Admiral Harry Church. He’ll
arrive Wednesday. I want you to do the turnover by December
15″

“Aye aye, sir. But this is pretty quick, isn’t it? I’ve only been at
this job nine months or so and am not due for orders for an-
other—“

“You’re going to the staff of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
From your record, it looks as if you’ve never had a joint staff tour.
CNO wants you to get one now so they can send you to a task
group when you make rear admiral.”

“Rear admiral? I thought—“

“CNO thinks you’re flag material. For what it’s worth, two sena-
tors and three congressmen have mentioned you to me this past
month. They want to see your name on the flag list next year or the
year after. I concur. Wholeheartedly, So does Royce Caplinger.
The CNO personally picked this billet for you.”

After a few pleasantries, they said goodbye. Jake hung up,
slightly stunned. Callie glanced at him and raised an inquisitive
eyebrow, but he shrugged and grinned. He would tell her later,
when they were alone.

The phone rang again. “Is Amy there?” The voice was high, well
modulated. David, from down the street.

“Amy, it’s for you.”

Jake resumed his seat at the table. He was only half listening
when he heard Amy say, “I’ll have to ask my dad.” She held the
phone at arm’s length and said loudly, “Jake, can I go over to
David’s?”

“Sure. Be back in about an hour or so and you can go with us
when we take Rita and Toad back to the airport.”

“Can David come too?”

“Yep.”

She held the phone to her ear. “My dad says I can come over.
And you can go with us to the airport. See you in a sec.” She threw
the instrument roughly onto its cradle and bolted, elbows flying.

”Wear your coat,” Callie called.

The youngster snagged the garment from the peg and charged
for the door, yelling over her shoulder, “See you later, Rita.” The
door slammed shut behind her.

“You get that?” Toad asked Jake with a grin. “Dad?”

“Yeah,” said Jake Grafton. He stretched hugely. “It’s a nice
sound, isn’t it?”

One Thursday in February, Admiral Church, the new project man-
ager, called Toad to his office. Tarkmgton was one of only three
officers in the office this day: everyone else was somewhere in Texas
or Nevada or over at the Pentagon. The first production A-12 was
due to roll out next week and everyone was swamped with work.
Although Washington was suffering one of its rare blizzards, the
navy was steaming as before. The Metro wasn’t running and aB
nonessential government employees had the day off. Only one of
the civil service secretaries had made it to the office.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. We got a call from the D.C. police. They
would like one of the officers to drop by D.C. General this after-
noon. If you can spare the time, would you go, please.”

“Yes, sir. Did they say what this is all about?”

“No, they didn’t But they wanted an officer from this unit. Ask
for a Dr. Wagner. And brief me in the morning, will you?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

As Toad approached the reception desk at D.C. General Hospi-
tal, he brushed the snow from his coat and shook the moisture
from his cover. He explained his errand to the receptionist. She
busied herself with the telephone buttons and he watched the flakes
fall outside the front door while he absently pulled off his black
leather gloves and placed them in the left pocket of his navy-blue
bridge coat. The white scarf around his neck he folded and tucked
into the other pocket. Finally he removed the coat and hung it over
his arm. His hat he retrieved from the counter and held in his left
hand.

“A navy officer . . .” the receptionist was telling someone.
“. . . Dr. Wagner.”

The snow had been falling for two days. The sailor from Minne-
sota who had driven him here had had numerous pithy comments
about the locals’ ability to drive on icy, snow-packed streets- The
hospital staff. Toad noted with a trace of satisfaction, was appar-
ently as indifferent to the edicts of the transportation authorities as
Admiral Church was.

‘Take the elevator on that wall. Third floor, turn left, then left
again, fourth or fifth door on the right. I think.”

“I’ll find it.”

She smiled and fielded another phone call. Toad went to the
bank of elevators and jabbed a button,

Wagner was in his early fifties, with thin, iron-gray hair and an
air of nervous energy. He seemed fit and agile in spite of the rather
prominent tummy he sported.

“You from the A-12 program?”

“Yessir.”

“Know why we asked you to come over?”

“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Put your coat and hat on this chair. And do sit down.” Dr.
Wagner befted a pile of files to make room, then quickly surveyed
the office for an empty spot He placed the files on a corner of his
desk, then took the remaining unoccupied seat. The chair behind
the desk already contained a heap of paper a foot thick.

Wagner glanced at Toad’s uniform, then spoke- “Terrible
weather. Plays havoc with the street people. Police and charities
are scooping them up as fast as they can and bringing the ones in
need of medical attention here.”

Toad nodded politely, wondering what this had to do with the
navy.

“Got a case in last week during that terrible cold snap, those
nights when it got down almost to zero. Just terrible.” He shook
his head. “Wreck of a man. Had to amputate all his fingers and
toes. Did save the stump of one thumb. He was dying of hy-
pothermia, gangrene, and alcohol poisoning when the police found
him. And we had to amputate his ears, the tip of his nose, and a
portion of his lower Up. They were gangrenous when we got him,
probably from damage during that storm at the end of January.”