finally broke the silence: “As you’ve probably ascertained, sir, there’s one more catch.”
“I kind of figured.”
“But you do realize the gravity of the situation, don’t you?”
“Yes!” he snapped.
Ashton didn’t react. “Operator compatibility with the OEV’s guidance and navigational systems requires certain…alterations.”
Wentz looked up quizzically over his coffee. “What, system alterations?”
“No, sir. I don’t mean alterations to the vehicle itself. I mean alterations…to the operator.”
Wentz’s thoughts froze.
“
Morosely, then, she passed Wentz a glossy 8x10 photograph.
Wentz stopped breathing for a moment.
The photo showed two scarred, deformed human hands. Index and pinkie fingers gone, the web of the thumb gone, the middle and ring fingers widely separated.
Human hands with only three fingers each.
“God in heaven,” Wentz muttered, his eyes pulled open by shock.
“That is a post-op photograph of General Farrington’s hands,” Ashton dryly stated. “It was taken three weeks after the required procedure.”
“This is crazy,” Wentz said just as dryly.
“The operator detents—the handprints—will not function unless the pilot’s hands are an
Next she showed him another photo: Farrington’s three-fingered hands pressed into the detent outlines in the OEV’s control panel.
“It’s absolutely essential,” Ashton went on. “There’s no other possible way to operate the OEV without first undergoing the procedure. We’ve tried every conceivable alternative. None of them worked.”
“What alternatives?” Wentz mouthed, still looking wide-eyed at the pictures.
“A number of Army and Navy demolition men who’d lost two fingers on each hand in training accidents. Then there was a flight technician from McCord who’d lost two fingers while working on the flap-servos of a C-141. He volunteered to have his good hand altered too but, again, it didn’t work. We’ve even brought down some civilians with tridactylism, a rare genetic defect in which the afflicted are born with only three fingers on each hand. None of it worked.”
Wentz got up, stormed around the room. “I can’t go back to my wife and kid with hands like that!”
“No, General, you can’t. And due to the aggressiveness of the procedure, there’s no way to effect a cosmetic reversal. The surgery requires a complete removal of the index and pinkie fingers along with their adjoining metacarpals, removal of the web of flesh between the index finger and thumb, and a 21-degree widening of the phalange-margin between the middle and ring fingers.”
Wentz’s anger impacting with his incomprehension felt like someone hitting him in the head with a hammer.
“There’s
“Well what about those other guys?” Wentz rebelled. “What happened with them?”
“Absolutely nothing. The palmar alignments weren’t concise enough to achieve a positive connection with the detents.”
“There is no other recourse, sir,” Ashton said.
“I know.”
“So you’re going to do it, right?”
Wentz nodded. “Yes.”
“Your wife and your son will be personally notified—”
“Some cover story, I suppose. The old empty casket.”
“Yes. They’ll be told that you were killed in a test crash.”
It was only darkness now that filled his mind, and blazing regrets. “Joyce and I are still technically divorced. I need to make sure she gets everything, and all of my SOM pay.”
“JAG will take care of all that, sir.”
Wentz lowered his face into his hands, tears suddenly slipping from his eyes.
“I’ll be back later to show you to your quarters, General,” Ashton said. Then she quietly left the room.
««—»»
The next day, the banquet room of the Thornsen Center stood crowded with Air Force personnel in their Class-A’s, their wives, their children. The base commander and several other generals milled about impatiently. The entire auditorium seemed like a congregation with no purpose. Something stiff and uncomfortable throbbed through the air.
Civilian caterers in white hats traded pinched looks behind tables stacked with refreshments and steam tables.
Above the stage, where the retirement presentation was to be held, hung a long sign which read CONGRATULATIONS, JACK WENTZ!
“This is so fucked up I can’t believe it,” 1st Sergeant Caudill muttered.
“I hear ya, Top,” Sergeant Cole agreed. He glanced at his watch. “He’s more than an hour late for his own retirement. I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I—shit, there’s his wife.” Top, with considerable reluctance, approached Mrs. Joyce Wentz and her son, who seemed to be wending their way toward the exit door.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Wentz,” Top offered. “Maybe he got the day wrong or something. I can’t believe he’d miss this.”
“I can. We’re leaving now, Sergeant.”
“Well, wait, ma’am. Maybe he just got tied up, maybe he just—”
“Goodbye, Sergeant.”
Mrs. Wentz turned, holding her son’s hand.
“He’s not coming, is he, Mom?”
“No, Pete. I’m sorry. Let’s go home now.”
Top watched them both leave the auditorium. He glanced at his watch again and grimaced, edging back to where Cole stood.
“All this time I thought he was a great guy,” Top remarked.
“Some great guy. Looks like he dumped his own retirement party and skated on his wife and kid.”
“How do you like that?” Caudill said. “Wentz turned out to be an A-one prick.”
««—»»
“I’m a freak now,” the words grated a day later.
It was Wentz who’d uttered them, propped up in the hospital bed of Area S-4’s medical unit. The surgery had taken almost ten hours, and now he lay in a pain-killer fog.
He held up his two braced and bandaged hands—hands with only three fingers each.
“I’m a monster…”
When the door clicked open and Ashton entered, Wentz quickly slipped his hands beneath the bed sheets.
“There’s nothing to be ashamed about, sir. What you’ve done is heroic.”
Wentz glanced away. “Leave me alone, will you?”
