wings folded upward at mid-span to meet above the center of the fuselage, S-3 Viking sub-hunters with tails twisted to one side and slender wings laid flat against the top of the aircraft, the weird shape of a Hawkeye with wings tucked close in alongside its body and the huge rotating radar dome on top casting strange shadows, all of them looked like prehistoric beasts lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Around them the steady work of a carrier at sea went on. Grant dodged a pair of green-shirted maintenance men and narrowly avoided being run down by one of the “mules” that were used to tow planes from place to place on the deck and were driven by a blue-shirted crewman. Then he saw the newly arrived Tomcat, already tucked neatly into a row of other aircraft, with the familiar tall, spare figure of Tombstone Magruder visible near the front of the plane.
Magruder had his helmet under one arm and was bending over to examine the jet’s front landing gear assembly. Grant had seen the hard landing he’d made, and knew what that could do to the wheels. It was typical of Magruder to be concerned for his plane after he was down, a familiar echo of many shared flights.
They went back a long way, Magruder and Grant, all the way back to flight school. Over the years the two of them had been rivals in almost everything, and a lasting friendship had grown up between them along the way. Grant had won their competition for the heart of Julie Wilson, but Tombstone had been best man at their Navy wedding. Then Magruder had won the coveted assignment to Top Gun, narrowly beating out Grant in the squadron competitions for the honor. Tombstone had been a step ahead of Grant when it came to promotions, making lieutenant commander and squadron leader of VF-95 after his graduation from Top Gun. It hadn’t changed their friendship, though. Far from begrudging Magruder his advancement, Grant had been delighted for his friend. He had secretly wondered, though, if he himself hadn’t been the lucky one of the pair. What he had with Julie was something he wouldn’t have given up for all the stripes in the Navy, and by the same token there had always been a restless, questing part of Matt Magruder that was never entirely at ease no matter how much he achieved.
They’d been reunited in the Vipers for Jefferson’s Pacific deployment, and it was that cruise that had changed them both forever. While Tombstone was scoring ACM kills over North Korea and starting on the hero’s path, Grant had been shot down in the first engagement of the confrontation. Captured by the enemy he’d been thrown into a prison camp alongside the crew of the American spy ship that had triggered the crisis. The Marine rescue mission to Wonsan had freed him along with the others, but afterward Grant had come close to turning in his wings. He had come too close to death to ever take anything, especially his happiness with Julie, lightly again.
The one thing that had pulled him through that time of crisis had been Magruder’s unyielding faith in him. In the fraternity of naval aviators there was little sympathy for the men who cracked under the strain, who showed even a hint of human weakness. But Tombstone Magruder hadn’t turned his back on Grant, and in the end, recovered from his ordeal, Grant had returned to VF-95 in time to fight side by side with Tombstone again in the skies over the Indian Ocean.
It was a debt he would never be able to fully repay. Grant loved flying, and looking back now he knew that he would never have forgiven himself if he’d gone through with that first impulse to quit.
A plane captain clad in a brown shirt had joined Magruder, and was nodding sagely at something Tombstone was pointing out to him. The Tomcat’s RIO, looking painfully young and unsure of himself, lingered for a few moments looking uncertainly at Tombstone before he finally started for the carrier’s island.
Then Tombstone was finished with his inspection and starting off in the younger officer’s wake, heading toward Grant but apparently not aware of him. Grant stepped in front of him, drew up to attention, and tore off a snappy salute. “Deputy CAG, Sir!” he said. “VF-95 welcomes you aboard, Sir!”
The look on Magruder’s face was a joy to behold. Bewilderment, then surprise, then sheer joy spread across his features in quick succession. “Coyote!” he said, using Grant’s well-worn call sign. “God damn, Coyote, what a perfect welcoming committee! I didn’t even know you were still on the Jeff!”
“There’s still a few of us here, Matt,” Grant told him, grinning. Despite the best of intentions they’d lost touch over the past two years. Magruder wasn’t much of a correspondent at the best of times, and Coyote could imagine how easy it had been for him to put off writing letters in the face of day after day of piled-up paperwork. Though he’d tried to keep up his end, eventually Grant had started letting the contact slide as well. That had been about the time Julie Marie had been born. “Batman and Malibu would’ve been here too, but they had a Bear hunt tonight. We were afraid we’d lost you to the old five-sided squirrel cage forever!”
Magruder’s smile faded. “Biggest mistake I ever made, letting myself get talked into that. I could’ve had damn near any assignment I asked for after that cruise, but I ended up pushing papers and smiling for the publicity photos.” There was a bitterness there that Coyote didn’t like. Tombstone had always been a little bit moody, but this was different, grimmer. Like he’d lost a part of himself and wasn’t sure he’d ever get it back again. Tombstone shrugged, then said, “How’s the baby?”
“Almost three now … what they call the ‘Terrible Twos.’” Coyote made a face. “Julie claims she’ll get over it. I hope the house survives!”
“She must love you bugging out for sea duty again so quick,” Magruder commented, chuckling.
“You know Julie. No complaints there.” Grant glanced at his friend. “How’s Pamela doing?”
“Okay, I guess,” Tombstone replied, looking away. “We … uh, called it quits a few months back. I haven’t seen her in a while, except on the tube.”
“I’m sorry,” Coyote said, feeling the words were inadequate. “I thought you’d worked out all the … problems there.”
“I did too. Guess I was wrong.” He had that grim look again. Tombstone’s romance with Pamela Drake had been the kind of relationship Hollywood screenwriters loved. The red-hot Navy fighter jockey and the beautiful television reporter had seemed perfect together, and Grant had really thought his friend had found something to hold on to at last, something as strong as what Coyote had with Julie. There had been some strains, of course. Pamela had been faced With the problem every service wife or girlfriend had to deal with, the danger of Tombstone’s career, and the fact that her Marine brother had died overseas hadn’t helped. She’d pleaded with Magruder to give up the Navy, but Tombstone had finally made her see how important his job was to him. “I really thought she understood how much the Navy meant to me, but I guess I was wrong. Even though she gave up on trying to make me a pilot for United or whoever, she kept telling me I should use my reputation to get myself a better job … you know, go into politics or on the talk show circuit or something. Can you see me spending all my time making the rounds with Jay or Phil?”
“I’m sorry,” Coyote repeated uselessly. “I thought you two had something pretty good going.”
“Yeah, me too,” Magruder told him. He looked away, then turned back to Coyote with a grin. “Well, if the Batman’s on board, maybe he’ll teach me how to hold on to women.”
They both laughed. Batman Wayne had been as much renowned aboard the Jefferson for his conquests in port as for his skill in the sky, but he wasn’t good at lasting relationships. Not if “lasting” meant a period of more than a week. But the laughter was strained, and Coyote felt there was a wall between them.
He wanted to change the subject, but after so long he wasn’t sure if there were any safe topics left. “How about your uncle?” he said hesitantly. “How’s he been doing?”
“Good, good,” Magruder said quickly, latching on to the new topic. There had been a time when his relationship to Admiral Thomas Magruder would have been a sore spot as well, but that was one thing that being a hero had helped him come to terms with. The admiral had commanded CBG-14 for a time, and his nephew had taken a lot of flak from people who thought he owed his advancement more to connections than ability. Tombstone had certainly disproved that. “He just got a posting to the Pentagon, in the Joint Operations Staff. A bit of a letdown from Presidential adviser, but after Connally came in it was a pretty good career move. He was moving in about the time I was coming up for reassignment.”
“Well, there’s one Magruder I’ll be glad to have in the Pentagon. The Old Man will show them a thing or two, huh?” They had reached the carrier’s island. Ducking through a hatch, they started down one of the seemingly endless corridors en route to the ready room, where Magruder could get out of his flight suit before reporting to Maintenance Control for the usual round of post-flight paperwork. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I took care of your uniforms and your quarters assignment as soon as I heard you were coming aboard. Everything’s set.”
Magruder looked relieved. “Great. They stuffed us into those planes so fast they didn’t even give us time to pack. You’re a real buddy, Willie.”
Coyote glanced at him. The words were sincere enough, but Grant couldn’t help thinking how much they’d grown apart these last two years. It was like he was meeting Matt Magruder for the first time, and there were barriers there that old friendship just couldn’t get around.
