“Left. I got him.” She was holding herself forward in the seat with her left hand on her handgrip as she craned back over her shoulder and applied the G.
“Get the nose up higher.” Enough advice. Either she could hack it or she couldn’t.
The left wing sagged to the vertical and the nose fell toward the horizon- G off as she slammed the stick all the way to the right and the plane rolled two hundred degrees in the blink of an eye. Back on the stick with the nose coming down. Pull, pull, pull that nose around.
Degan was in front of them now and below, but Rita was on the inside of his turn going down at him. Relax the stick and build up your speed, close on him; Toad silently urged her on.
“Degan lost sight,” Toad said as he fought the vomit back in his throat. The hangover had caught up with him. He ripped off a glove and jerked the mask aside. His stomach heaved once. She was set up perfectly for a downhill Sidewinder shot.
“Fox Two,” he called over the radio. “You owe me ten bucks, Degan.” Then he puked into the glove again.
Rita lifted the nose and reversed her turn until she was headed west “Fuel’s going to be a little skosh,” she murmured to Toad, then called Degan and told him she was leaving this frequency for Seattle Center.
After the debrief the duty van dropped them at the BOQ. “Thanks,” Rita said.
“For what?”
“Coaching me during the ACM.”
“No sweat. They’re attack guys. ACM ain’t their bag.”
“Are you going to get some dinner?” she asked.
“Naw. I’m going to bed.”
“I hope you aren’t coming down with something,” she called after him.
Jake Grafton sat in the attic beside the pile of boxes that contained the miscellaneous junk he had collected through the years and had never been able to throw away. Everything from high school year- books to souvenirs from half the world’s seaports was tucked away in some box or other. He examined the boxes and tried to remem- ber which was which. Perhaps this one. He opened it. Shoe trees, almost empty bottles of after-shave, buttons, spools of thread and some paperback novels. Three worn-out shirts.
It was in the fourth box. He removed the pistol from the holster and flipped the cylinder out. The chambers were empty. He held the weapon up so the light from the bare forty-watt bulb on the rafter shone full upon it. No rust. Good thing he had oiled it before he put it away. He looked into the box to see if there was any ammo. Yep, one box of.357 magnum, a couple dozen shells still in the box. He closed the cylinder, worked the action several times, then loaded the weapon.
With his back against one of the boxes, he extended his legs, crossed his ankles and thoughtfully stared at the bolstered pistol on the floor beside him. Camacho said it had probably been a professional hit. Harold Strong would be just as dead if he had had a pistol. Still, a pistol nearby would make a nervous man feel bet- ter, sort of like an aspirin. Or a beer.
A large-frame revolver like this couldn’t be hidden under a uni- form. Perhaps in an attache case? Then he would be the slowest draw in the East. In the car it could go in the glove compartment or under the seat, but it would be too far away if someone opened fire while he was sitting at a traffic light or driving along the free- way. And he rode the Metro to and from work anyhow. Maybe he should keep the gun in the bedroom or kitchen here at the beach and in the apartment in Arlington.
How would he explain the gun to Callie?
The hit man nailed Strong as he was driving to his weekend cabin. Probably the same route every Friday night. Predictable. Predictability was vulnerability. Okay. So what do I do routinely every day, every week? He reviewed his schedule in light of his new job. Boarding the Metro, driving to and from the beach, what else?
Strong was divorced, lived alone. What about Callie? Would she be a target?
Smoke Judy — had he put out the contract on Strong?
George Ludlow… Admiral Henry… Senator Duquesne was the tip of the congressional iceberg… Seventeen billion dol- lars, how many jobs did that mean, how many people supporting families and raising children? Seventeen …
“Jake.” Her voice seemed distant. “Jake, are you still up here?”
He shook himself awake. “Hmhun.”
Her head appeared in the attic access hole. She was standing on the ladder. “What are you doing up here?”
“Drifted off.” He stirred himself. Rain was smacking against the roof, a steady drumming sound. He glanced at his watch: 1 A.M.
She came up the ladder and sat down beside him. She touched the leather of the pistol holster. “Why do you have this out?”
“Looking through the boxes.” He laid the bolstered pistol in the nearest open box.
They sat holding hands, listening to the rain. “Jake,” she said, “I want to adopt that little girL”
“Won’t be easy, Callie. An eleven-year-old veteran of how many foster homes? She’s had more rocky experiences and picked up more scars in her short life than you have in yours. Won’t be easy.”
“You’re having problems at work, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Bad?”
“I suppose.” He picked up her hand and examined it carefully, then looked her straight in the eye. “I may be in over my head.”
“Won’t be the first time.”
“That’s true.”
“You’ve always managed to come out in one piece before.”
“That’s the spirit. Good of you to point that out. I see you’ve taken our talk this morning to heart.” He tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but some crept in anyway.
She took her hand back, “Jake. Our lives are slipping by. I want that little girl. I want her now.”
“Okay, Callie-“
“You’re doing what you want to do. I want that little girl.”
“I said okay.”
“Thursday. Thursday morning we see her, then that afternoon we go to the Department of Social Services for an interview.”
“Okay. I’m leaving town Monday, but I should be back Wednes- day. I’ll take Thursday off. Just for the record, though, last week I asked the personnel people to fill out retirement papers for me. I’m going to tell them to forget it before I leave on Monday.”
“Retirement? Is that what the admiral’s visit today was about.”
“Not really. The retirement thing was the catalyst, maybe. No kidding, Callie, this may be the worst mess I’ve ever been in. Worse than Vietnam, worse than the Med last year.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”
“Not that I know of. Not yet.”
She got up and moved toward the ladder. “I’m not going to wait any longer. I want that little girl,” she said, then went down.
Toad Tarkington was sound asleep when the phone rang. He was still groggy when he picked it up. “Yeah.”
“Tarkington, this is Grafton.”
The cobwebs began to clear. “Yessir.”
“How’re you doing on the flying?”
“Pretty good, sir,”
“Flown any full-system hops yet?”
“Yessir.”
“How’s Moravia doing?”
Toad checked his watch: 12:15 in the morning. It was 3:15 in Washington. “She’s doing great, sir. Good stick.”
