VIABLE

Copyright
©
2013 R.A. Hakok

All rights reserved

www.rahakok.com

Prologue

London, England - 1920

THE
YOUNG
WOMAN placed the basket carefully on the ground. She sat next to it, her knees hugged tight to her chest, her back to the stone wall. It was cold, the wind driving the rain, and the wall offered little shelter. The light clothes she had left in were already soaked through.  She hardly noticed. There wasn’t much time. By now he would know she was gone. If she allowed him to find her he would make her tell where she had hidden the child, and it would continue. She couldn’t let that happen.

A sound in the distance and she looked up, her heart racing. He couldn’t have found her already. But it was just a horse-drawn cart crossing the small cobbled street, the driver hunched forward over the reins, the animal’s head down as it slowly pulled its load north into the city. Soon it was gone, silence returning.

She checked the basket. She had fed him before they had left and the infant slept on, oblivious. Looking down at her son, so impossibly small, so helpless, she felt an unbearable sadness, the weight of it threatening to crush her chest. What had she done? He seemed healthy but the few others that had survived birth had all been frail, sickly. Would these people take him in, raise him as their own? She had to believe they would. There was nothing else she could do for him now.

It was still raining, but she could see the clouds beginning to break up in the distance. The drops ran freely down her face, mixing with her tears as the first of the morning light found its way over the rooftops. She had to go. She leaned over the basket and the child opened his eyes, looking up at her. He had such beautiful eyes – how could they think of harming him? She took the St. Christopher medal from around her neck and placed it under his blanket. It was all she had to offer him. It would have to be enough.

She kissed her son goodbye.

1

Montgomery, Alabama - 2003

R
OB
D
YLAN SAT IN THE BACK
, staring out of the window at the traffic flowing south on 65, the Excursion’s 7.3 liter diesel idling for the aircon. The
Exxon Valdez
he called it when Brad was in earshot. But today he was glad of it. He had felt the heat when Lucy May had opened the door. Had to be over a hundred, and humid as all hell.

He wished now he’d come by himself. It might have taken him a little longer in the Bronco, three days perhaps instead of two, but he could have used the time to set things straight in his head, to prepare for what he had to say. And travelling with young kids was hard time, even when they were your own grandchildren.

But they had insisted.

It’ll be like a road trip
, Lucille had said,
we’ll have fun
.

Hadn’t trusted him to make the journey by himself, more like.

At least they hadn’t tried to get him to fly out here. They’d known better than to suggest that. It had nothing to do with that business up in New York with the towers, already almost two years ago now. He hadn’t set foot on an airplane in over fifty years, not since the transport that had brought him back, and he’d not have got on that if there’d been any choice in the matter. He certainly had no intention of taking up with those godforsaken machines now. 

They were only looking out for him of course, he knew it, and he loved Lucille like she was his own daughter. Brad had done well there. But sometimes they fussed too much. Sure he was getting on a bit – seventy-three next month – but in good shape for his years. He’d had to get glasses last fall, but only for reading and for the TV. His eyes were otherwise as sharp as they’d ever been, plenty good enough for driving.

And the Bronco might have been old, but she wouldn’t have let him down. Hadn’t once in the thirty-seven years he’d owned her. He still remembered the day he’d picked her up.
Come on down to the plant
, Arjay Miller had said,
meet the guys who build the cars you’re selling for us, pick one out, anything you want.
He could have had any model in the line-up – Thunderbirds, Mustangs, even the new Galaxie with that sweet V8. When the president of Ford himself calls you and tells you to go pick out something you’d better believe he means it. Hell, he’d sold more cars for them that year than any other dealer in the tri-state area; he could have asked for one of each and they’d have given them to him. But the moment he’d seen the Bronco, just rolling off the production line with that candy apple red paintjob, his mind had been made up. And then something had come over him and he’d told the manager he wanted to drive it right out of there that day, all the way from Wayne, Michigan back to Texas. He smiled as he remembered the guy running around trying to get as much added from the options list as he could before the visit was over, just so that he wouldn’t have to explain to Miller that they’d gone cheap on him. A CB radio, an auxiliary gas tank, even a goddamned winch. He’d never used any of it of course, not in all the time he’d had her. But it all still worked just fine. The guys in the workshop took care of that car like it was their own, even though parts were getting harder to come by each year.
Nossir
, she wouldn’t have let him down. It would have been like that drive home, when he’d first got her, fresh off the line.

He should have insisted.

He saw Lucy May running back from Bruster’s carrying the sodas, her younger brother in tow. Brad followed behind with a cardboard tray of ice creams. They were good boys, he and his brother Jason, he was lucky to have them. They’d been running the business for him this last ten years, since Phyllis had died, and doing a good job of it. He’d made his mind up to hand the company over to them this year. He’d tell them both when they got back.

The door opened, a blast of heat cutting through the chilled air inside the Excursion as his granddaughter climbed up into the back seat, scooching over beside him on the leather, handing him a soda. Rob Junior was taking his time clambering in behind her and he could feel the remainder of the cool escaping into the Alabama afternoon. Then Lucille was handing out the ice creams, telling the children once again to be careful not to spill any on the upholstery. He looked over at the plastic spoon overloaded with double chocolate chip already being shoveled into Rob Junior’s gaping maw and thought there were two chances of that happening, and that slim had perhaps just quit town.

He shifted in his seat, looking out of the Excursion’s heavily tinted windows as he slowly ate his ice cream. A bike had pulled up at the Chevron across from them while Brad and the kids had been in the store. One of those fancy Japanese crotch rockets with the garish paint jobs.
Yamaha
. It was sitting in the sun in front of the nearest set of pumps and he could make out the decal easily.
Nossir
, nothing wrong with his eyesight. Jason’s eldest boy, Mikey, had told his father he was saving for one just like it. Well he sure as hell wasn’t about to let that happen. The boy was turning eighteen that year and he planned to bring him down to one of the dealerships and set him up with something. Nothing too fancy – maybe an Explorer – but certainly something that wasn’t going to get him killed before he reached his next birthday. It was another thing he needed to talk with Jason about when they got back. But for now he needed to focus on why he was here.

He took another scoop of his ice cream. Brad and Lucille had agreed to drive him eight hundred miles across country without even asking why he suddenly wanted to attend such an event. They probably thought that he was getting sentimental in his old age, trying to come to terms with his past while he still had the time. He wondered if they would still have brought him if they knew why he really wanted to be here. Tell the truth, he’d been a little surprised that he had even been invited. He had written to each of the organizations when they had first started to contact him, years ago now, telling them to take him off their goddamn mailing lists. And to be fair most of them had. For years he had only received an occasional letter, which had quickly found its way into the trash.

But then two months ago, this.

He reached into the pocket of his jacket, checking it was still there. He didn’t need to take it out. He had read and re-read it so often he knew every word on the card by heart. An invitation to Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama, to a ceremony to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the armistice. If that had been all the invitation would have gone the way of all the others. But then he had read that the guest of honor was to be Colonel Yevgeny Grupolov, formerly of the
Voyenno Vozdushnye Sily
, the Soviet Air Force. The leaflet that had accompanied the invitation had described Grupolov, a holder of the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, as the greatest fighter ace of the war. He hadn’t recognized the name – they hadn’t known it at the time – but it was Rudy, he was certain of it.

Fifty years.

Fifty goddamned years.

He had tried to forget. But all he ever had to do was close his eyes and he would be back there, walking from the mess to the flight line, Little Bitch sitting on the runway, waiting for him, somehow ungainly on the ground. A cursed ship; slow, thirsty, guns that overheated and jammed. But that morning he had walked right past her and climbed up into Mitchell’s Sabre, his mind still replaying the offer his friend had made as they had finished their coffee. A chance to finally earn a star for underneath his cockpit.

How eager he had been to be off then, like a goddamn idiot. The short taxi to the runway, their ships quivering in the blast as the planes ahead readied for takeoff, rudders flicking slowly from side to side as the brakes released and they began to roll. Slowly at first then quickening, feeding in the power, feeling the Sabre surge forward, moments later lifting free of the ground, climbing. The observation birds had spotted MiGs being fuelled at Antung earlier that morning and he had led them north over the Haeju peninsula, across the edge of the Yellow Sea, the shortest way there. At thirty thousand feet the contrail level, speed fences appearing on the wings. Then they were through it, continuing to climb, leveling out just short of the Sabre’s ceiling, forty thousand feet above the Yalu.  The sun higher in the sky now, shimmering off the water miles below, a majestic sight. And yet he had hardly noticed as he leaned forward against the straps of his harness, his neck craning from side to side as he had searched for their adversaries, desperate for the fight that would earn him his kill.

But the skies had been clear and for half an hour they had flown in silence, the click and hiss as the valves in his mask opened and closed the only sound in the cockpit as he led them through long, shallow, sweeping turns, patrolling both sides of the river. One by one other flights had run low on fuel and started to leave, until only they had remained.

It was Mitchell who had seen them first, calling them out. Four wakes briefly visible as they climbed through the contrail level. MiGs crossing the Yalu, turning south towards them.

His heart raced even now, fifty years later, as he remembered. Mitchell radioed that he had lost two of them, that the remaining MiGs had dropped tanks. Alone, running on fumes, two bogies unaccounted for. But he had ignored his friend’s warning. The Russian pilots had jettisoned the external fuel tanks they carried, making them lighter, more maneuverable in combat. They had come to fight.

Endless moments scanning the skies until at last he had seen them. Two birds, descending to meet them head on, the gap between the two flights closing rapidly. Then surprise as suddenly the Russians had done something he hadn’t seen before, breaking formation as they rolled and dove, each heading in a different direction. Without thinking he had followed, banking hard to the left, pushing the nose down, not even bothering to call it out, knowing his friend would be behind him. The Sabres were faster in a dive and they had closed steadily, full throttle in lower altitudes burning through their remaining fuel at an alarming rate. He had ignored the gauge, his world now the gun sight reflected on the armor glass, the MiG ahead tantalizingly close.

Suddenly Mitchell’s voice in his helmet. More MiGs bearing down on them from above. Cold fear flooded his system as he realized the jet they were chasing had been bait and he twisted in his seat, squinting into the glare even behind his visor, straining to see. Something against the sun, then gone. Then again, glimpsed for longer this time, the scarlet bifurcated nose of the lead MiG telling him that it was Rudy, the Russian ace, who was hunting them.