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  “Sir,” the Captain cried up to him with a hint of distress.

  “Yeah?” Luke replied.

  “I really don’t think we’re supposed to be in the cockpits . . .”

  “I’ll be right down,” he said as he tried to memorize the cockpit and its instruments. He waited as long as he could and still be responsive to her. He climbed out and removed the ladder. Vlad closed the canopy.

  “What do you think?” Thud asked.

  “I think they’ll work,” Luke said enthusiastically.

  “For what?” the Captain asked, deeply confused and a little concerned.

  “Sorry, that’s classified,” Thud said in dead earnest, before Luke could say anything.

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Have you seen enough?”

  “We’d like to see all of them,” Luke answered.

  “I can’t let you open the cockpits,” she said.

  “That’s fine,” he replied. He smiled as he saw Vlad behind her. He’d taken a special tool out of his pocket, opened the engine-access compartments, and was copying down serial numbers from the engines.

  They spent the next hour examining the entire group of MiGs, with Vlad writing down all the identifying information he could find.

  “You get enough?” Luke asked.

  “Never,” Vlad answered as he climbed into the backseat of the Taurus and put his small notebook down next to him. “Can’t get into rest of cockpits? Why not? She should be Russian officer. Stupid rules for no reason. That is what I’m trying to get away from.”

  “I like your spunk,” Luke said as he glanced at Vlad in the mirror.

  “What is spunk?”

  “Determination, sort of, but with a confident . . . I don’t know . . . independence, I guess.”

  Vlad was silent as he considered whether he understood the word or how someone might consider him independent. “Coffee,” he suddenly said. “I need strong, thick coffee, and we will talk about the airplanes.”

  “You got it,” Luke said as he watched for a place to stop. He saw a McDonald’s ahead and pulled into the parking lot.

  They sat in a booth. Vlad took a sip of McDonald’s coffee and frowned. “This is coffee?”

  “Sort of. How long you been with MAPS?”

  “Not long. I retired from Russian Air Force just three weeks ago. I got this job with MAPS right away and moved to Germany. Very lucky. Very hard job to get. I have many hours and much maintenance experience. When I got there, they told me about this. I was very interested. They told me to do work on it.”

  “What do you think?” Luke asked.

  “About coffee? Is terrible.”

  “No, the MiGs.”

  “I need to see maintenance records. I need to see how much hours are on the engines. They don’t last that long. Russian engines run very hot. But if engines work good, I think they will do.”

  “Did you get the numbers?”

  “Yes. We will be able to reconstruct the entire history of the airplanes. We keep track of all MiG-29s in the world. We keep duplicate maintenance records for all planes so we can track failures and times. No question,” he said, downing another deep gulp of the hot coffee. He looked at the serial numbers. “I am afraid of many of the engines. They are old numbers and may not have too much hours left on them. You make sure in planning you have money for many engines. They only fly four hundred hours before need overhauls.”

  Luke frowned. “When the U.S. bought these planes from Moldova, they bought the spare parts, too. I hope there are also some spare engines.”

  “Yes, there are. But you will need more.”

  “Where are we going to get extra engines?”

  “I get them. You pay for them, but we can get you anything. You forget that MAPS is half Russian. Owned by company that makes MiGs. They want to sell lots of parts. They make them, so we can buy them. You just have to be able to buy them.”

  “I need you to do some things for me.”

  Vlad looked across at him. He glanced down at his grubby little notebook with Russian writing and numbers in it. “Anything.”

  “I need an estimate of the costs of refurbishing the MiGs, bringing them up to NATO specs, and the expected cost of maintenance for five years on an annual basis.”

  “Yes, yes,” Vlad said as he wrote in his notebook with a stubby pencil, the kind one might find at a golf course.

  “And then, if you can, I need an estimate for MAPS to train Thud and me to fly the MiG-29, in Germany or Russia or wherever.”

  “Germany. Much easier.”

  “Okay. How long it would take—”

  “For TOPGUN instructor? Ha! You could fly now. No question. I could tell you in five minutes things you need to know. Fighting in air combat would take longer, and learning weapons. But flying? Easy. Very forgiving airplane. And no fly by wire. No computer tricks. What you ask for from the stick is what you get.”

  “Still, for a syllabus—the kind the German Air Force went through when they got the MiG-29s from the East German Air Force.”

  “Sure. MAPS would do that for free, if we do business.”

  “Would MAPS actually be able to contract to do the maintenance for us? Here? In Nevada?”

  Vlad’s already red eyes grew more intense and cloudy. “Yes,” he said, but with some reservation, Luke could see. “I want to do it. I want to come to Nevada to do the maintenance, train your own people, take care of everything for you.” Vlad reached down to his beat-up brown leather briefcase and pulled it onto the small table in front of them, nearly knocking over his half-full coffee cup. “I have something for you.” He pulled out two thick manuals and handed them to Luke and Thud.

  “What is this?” Luke asked.

  “Pilot manual for MiG-29.”

  Luke stared at the manual. He was skeptical. He opened it to an arbitrary page and began reading. The English was excellent, and it had all the diagrams and charts in the right place. He was shocked. “Outstanding,” he said.

  “Good. So do we do business?”

  “I don’t know yet. I have to get the U.S. government to approve all this. They own the MiGs and have to agree to lease them to us.”

  “You have money?”

  “I think so. We’ve had interest from investors.”

  “You have a lot of money?”

  “What do you mean by a lot?” Thud asked.

  “Many millions. You won’t be able to maintain these airplanes for less than many million dollars a year.”

  “We think we have enough. If you get us the estimates, we’ll have a better idea.”

  “I will do it.” Vlad looked down and was clearly considering whether to say what he had in mind.

  Luke and Thud could both sense what was happening.

  “What?” Thud asked. “What’s eating you? You don’t think this will work?”

  “Oh, no, it will work. Your idea is brilliant. And good for my company.”

  “What then?” Luke asked.

  “I have two dreams,” Vlad said. He studied their faces. “Two things I want in life. I have no wife. No children. Maybe one day . . . but I want to fly again. It was taken from me. I am good pilot. Maybe you could think of having me as your instructor pilot for other pilots, when you start your company. You should get eight C models and the one two-seat UB. I will do training for you. I trained many to fly MiG-29. I could do it.”

  Luke was leery. “What else?” he asked noncommittally.

  “I want to live in United States. I want to work with green card.”

  “How do you expect us to help?”

  “You could employ me. Could ask INS for green card. I will take care of you. You can be sure I’ll take care of everything. But I want you to help me.”

  “I don’t know, Vlad. Those are pretty tough—”

  “You need to have special skill. I have that. There is not another MiG-29 flight instructor in the country. I am sure.” He looked at their eyes, watching him. “You don’t know if you can be
lieve me. I understand. I have copied my Russian flight records and had them translated for you. You can have them translated again. I have one thousand hours in MiG-29. I can teach your people. Give me chance.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Luke said, not giving him any tone of encouragement at all. “Have you talked to MAPS about it? Would they let you?”

  “They have given me permission.”

  “You want us to keep those?” Luke asked, indicating his translated flight records.

  “Sure,” Vlad said, his optimism renewed. “You keep and look at these.”

  “Great,” Luke said, taking them and putting them on the pile of MiG manuals. “Why don’t you let me have the copies in Russian, too.”

  Vlad understood immediately. “Of course,” he said, handing them across the table. “What is next?”

  “I need to get those maintenance-cost estimates from you. In writing. Numbers that MAPS can commit to. Then it’s up to me to sell it.”

  “You will have it.”

  “We’ll need it right away. We’ve got a meeting with the government this week.”

  “Yes, of course. What is name of person?” Vlad asked.

  Luke glanced at Thud, his mind drawing a blank.

  Thud tried to remember. “He’s an Undersecretary of Defense. Merewether, or something.”

  7

  Luke walked down the passageway of TOPGUN toward the glass doors to the parking lot. He had just left Commander Beebe’s office. The letter of reprimand, the copy of which Gun had given him with no explanation or ceremony, no softening apology, was smoldering in the pocket of his flight suit. Gun had given it to him as if it were next month’s watch bill.

  Gun had finally shown some surprise, though, when Luke handed him his letter of resignation in return, without even looking at the letter of reprimand. He’d said he understood. Would have done the same thing, he’d said. Right, Luke had thought. Gun had said he would approve Luke’s request and forward it up the chain of command. “Great,” Luke had said, not even attaching a “sir” to the end of his sentence. He couldn’t possibly. He had no more respect for Beebe.

  As he headed out the door to his car in the hot parking lot in front of the building, he saw Brian Hayes, almost completely masking his ongoing fight with MS. “Hey, Spy Man,” Luke hailed. “What’s up?” Luke could see that Hayes had been standing by the door of his car without moving for some seconds. Hayes’s face was filled with emotion. “What’s the matter?” Luke asked as he walked over to him.

  Hayes’s eyes were swollen and pink. “They’re giving me a medical discharge.”

  Luke knew that would be the result. The Navy wasn’t about to keep someone with MS on active duty. “I’m really sorry, Brian.”

  Hayes spoke quietly. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, Stick. This is where I belong. I’m good at this.”

  Luke nodded. “The best.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “Just submitted my letter of resignation.”

  “From what?”

  “The Navy.”

  Hayes looked over his shoulder to make sure no one else had heard the heresy. “Are you crazy?”

  “I can’t stay in with a letter in my jacket. You know that.”

  “I figured you’d appeal it or something. Everybody in the Navy loves you, Stick! They can’t let you get out.”

  “Apparently not everyone.”

  Hayes let the truth of that sink in. “Now what? Airlines?”

  “I’d rather die.”

  “So what’ll it be?”

  “I’m going to start my own TOPGUN school.”

  Hayes frowned. “You serious?”

  “Serious as a heart attack.”

  “How?”

  “Lease some MiGs and an airfield from the government and hire former TOPGUN instructors as pilots.”

  “You’re not kidding. How you going to finance that?”

  “I’ve got an appointment with Thud’s dad—”

  “The billionaire?”

  “The same, on Saturday, and if he’s interested, I’ve got an appointment with the Undersecretary of Defense on Thursday to explain it to him. Thud and I just got back from checking out the MiGs.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “You want to come work with us?”

  Brian didn’t want to look desperate. “Seriously?”

  “Sure. We’ll need an intel officer to do the same stuff you do here.”

  “Classified?”

  “Don’t know yet. Could do it a bunch of ways. May be classified, may not be. You could be the admin officer, too, setting up the classes and all kinds of stuff. You interested?”

  “I don’t know really, how long . . .”

  “Do it as long as you want.” Luke smiled. “I’ll keep you posted. Keep your fingers crossed for us with Thud’s dad and the DOD.”

  “Does Thud know you’re going to ask his father?”

  “He’s going with me.”

  “I didn’t think they were on speaking terms.”

  “They’re not.”

  “Is he going to get out, too?”

  “Gun doesn’t know it yet, but if I get the money and the DOD approval, Thud is going to put in his letter.”

  “The skipper will go completely postal!” Hayes laughed.

  “Yeah. That would really rip me up,” Luke said as he headed toward his Corvette. “I’ll call you.”

  * * *

  One week later Luke stood at the pay phone in the cafeteria at the Pentagon. He finally pressed his home number into the pad, then his credit card number, and listened to the phone ring at his house. Thud stood behind him and listened in on the conversation.

  Katherine picked it up after one ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “How did it go?” Katherine asked.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he said, trying not to sound as discouraged as he felt.

  “Did your computer crash?”

  “The Undersecretary’s a train wreck. All disheveled. I didn’t even get to do my whole presentation. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”

  “He didn’t want to hear it?”

  “Completely uninterested. He had the time set aside, and we had a conference room, and his staff was there. Everybody seemed enthusiastic except him. He’s just a bitter guy.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said it wasn’t happening on his watch. Said it sounded like a waste of U.S. assets.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. We’re finished.”

  “But it’s a fabulous idea. Especially since Thud’s dad signed on!” Katherine knew what it would do to Luke if he could never fly fighters again.

  “I think the Undersecretary is one of those guys that hates it when other people succeed. It makes him feel better about himself to bring down other people.”

  Katherine sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to regroup, find other airplanes and a different airfield. They can’t really stop you from doing this.”

  “Yes they can, Katherine. This is the guy who would approve the contracts to use our school at all. If he doesn’t want us out there competing with TOPGUN and Red Flag, he’ll just make sure we don’t get the contracts. He can sink us!”

  She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

  “I guess it’ll have to be the airlines,” he said bitterly. “Our flight leaves from Reagan in about three hours. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay,” Katherine replied. “I love you. And it doesn’t matter how these things go. I always will.”

  “Yeah, I know. See ya.” He leaned back against the pay phone and closed his eyes. All he could think of was sitting in the cockpit of an airliner, trying to sound cool as he made an announcement to the passengers about how they were going to try a different flight level because it would be smoother . . . He didn’t want smooth air. He wanted to scream through the sky and across the desert floor, and pull
on the stick of a jet until vapor trails ripped off the wings, and zoom straight up into the sky so the only way he could see the earth was through his rearview mirror, and get his radar to lock up another airplane, and hear the growl of a Sidewinder missile in his headset, and watch the sun set—upside down—and look at shooting stars in the night sky through his bubble canopy, and head to the O’ Club full of the piss and vinegar and exhilaration of a day of air combat maneuvering. He couldn’t imagine life without it.

  * * *

  The Undersecretary wrestled with the lock on his apartment. The key didn’t fit perfectly, and unless he jiggled it just so, the door wouldn’t open. It was the perfect end to a very aggravating day. Now he was prevented from even getting into his pathetic apartment. The apartment he hated. He became so annoyed that he put too much force into the key, and it started bending inside the lock. He took his hand off and backed away and began breathing heavily. He wanted to kick the door open and rip it completely off its frame. He closed his eyes, continued to breathe, then tried the door again. He forced himself to the grab the key lightly and turn the lock gently. It finally opened, and he stepped through the door. He threw his raincoat onto the wooden dining room chair and dropped his briefcase on the floor. It was full of memos and papers from work that he knew he wouldn’t touch all night. He just took them home so the others in his office would think he was being diligent.

  He had only two things to look forward to that evening—a basketball game on television and a refrigerator full of beer. He could lose himself in the game. Merewether walked into the living room to switch on the television and noticed for the first time that something was amiss.

  “Good evening, Mr. Undersecretary.”

  Merewether felt the chill of pure panic race through him. He spun to his left and saw Yushaf. “What the hell are you doing here? About gave me a heart attack! How did you get in?”