telling whether or not he could survive the crash at all. Or if any of them could. Better to let him die where he lay rather than torture him by moving him to the illusion of safety in his seat.
The cameraman and Mike were holding on to their armrests, stark white faces gleaming dimly in the moonlight. Had she been given a choice, this was not the company she would’ve chosen to die with. No, if she had a choice, she would have died with…
The helicopter approached the clearing in the forest, its rate of descent increasing. It passed over the first line of trees, then the front skid caught on the tip of a pine tree. It wasn’t a large tree, but given the helicopter’s instability, the impact was enough to flip it tail over nose in an airborne summersault. Pamela’s last vestige of hope vanished, just as the face she saw in her mind was beginning to seem so real.
General Arkady slammed his hand down on top of the radar set. The picture wavered, went blank, then reappeared, the contacts slightly offset from their previous locations. Clearly a transmitter alignment problem, one that the operator would have to correct later. But for the moment, in the face of General Arkady’s rage, no one dared move. Not the watch officer in charge of the ground control center, not his supervisor, not the officer of the day, not even General Arkady’s chief of staff, Colonel Zentos.
“I gave an order,” Arkady howled. “A simple, direct order. ‘Conduct a fly-by.’ You all heard that, didn’t you?” He glared at the assembled men and women. A chorus of nods answered him.
“You,” he said, pointing at the officer of the day. “What went wrong?”
The officer of the day tried to stammer out an answer, aware that by selecting him as the scapegoat for the entire incident, General Arkady had just terminated the OOD’s career in the Army, unless he could find a way to reverse the situation. The OOD thought frantically.
Finally, it dawned on him. An old military adage, one as true today as it had been in the days of the Pelleponesian wars. Shit rolls downhill. If ever there were a time when he needed that to work, it was now.
“The pilot,” the OOD began uncertainly. He saw General Arkady’s eyes shift slightly, and felt more confident. “Yes, General, the pilot. He disobeyed your orders. I distinctly heard you give the order, sir. It is clearly the pilot’s fault. An almost treasonous act, I would call it.” By now the OOD’s voice was strong, and he felt the mood of the crowd begin to shift.
It seemed an eternity, but General Arkady’s expression finally thawed slightly. “Yes, of course,” the general said. “Have him return to base immediately. And bring him to me. I will deal with this matter personally.”
The airfield stretched out before him like a giant game of tic-tac-toe. Spiros banked the Tomcat gently, slowly bleeding off air speed and altitude. Touching down on a land-based airfield was child’s play compared to his experiences as an exchange student with the United States Navy. The carrier landings… he shuddered at the memory, the black, clawing sea, the shifting deck and uncertain winds. How they manage to do it every day, every night, he would never know. He still had nightmares about his last night trap.
This, however, was simple — maybe too simple. He made a slight correction in the course, lining up on the runway now. Anyone could do this. For a moment, just a moment, he realized he missed the challenge of trying to wrestle tons of aircraft onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.
The touchdown then, light and gentle. He rolled out smoothly, taking up more runway than he actually needed. He used his nose wheel steering gear to turn the jet toward the flight line. A yellow “follow-me” truck appeared.
After he had completed his post-flight shutdown checklist, Spiros unstrapped from his ejection harness and swung out over the side of the aircraft. His feet sought out the familiar pattern of the boarding ladder, and he jumped lightly to ground. His backseater was still in the aircraft, stuffing charts and kneeboards into his flight suit.
Colonel Zentos was waiting for him, much to his surprise. Spiros snapped off a hasty salute, stammered out a greeting.
“Sir?” Spiro stammered. “Did you want to see me?”
“The general wants to see you,” the colonel said finally. “You will come with me immediately.” He turned and led the way back to his vehicle. The driver had kept the engine running.
“But my aircraft,” Spiros began. “My RIO.”
Without turning back, the colonel said, “You alone. The flight line crew will take care of the aircraft. Come immediately.”
Spiros glanced back at the plane captains who had taken charge of his aircraft. The senior-most nodded reassuringly, giving him a thumbs-up. They probably thought that the general was going to honor him in some way, Spiros thought. None of them knew what had happened.
Spiros managed a jaunty wave, and strode off after the colonel, who was already seated in the back of the vehicle.
“What did I tell you?” the general demanded. “What were you thinking, in the name of all that is holy?”
Spiros stood braced at attention, his hand shaking alongside his legs. This was bad, worse than he’d ever thought possible. The possibility that he might somehow keep his wings had now completely vanished, and Spiros was now wondering whether or not he would be in the army by the time the day was over.
“General, I… it was unintentional, sir,” Spiros finally choked out. “I didn’t mean to get so close.”
“Intentions don’t matter. I hold you responsible for your conduct,” the general said. “About-face, soldier. I cannot stand to look at your stupid, cowlike face.”
Spiros executed a shaky about-face by sheer reflex, and stood at attention with his back to the general. The shaking had spread from his hands down the spine now, and he could feel his leg muscles dancing as though he’d just run ten kilometers. A court-martial, perhaps. Time in military prison, disgrace to his family. Spiros heard a soft, slithering sound behind him. His panicking brain tried to make sense of it. Then cold metal touched the back of his neck, just at the spot where his spine met his skull.
“I do not tolerate excuses,” Arkady said calmly. The general pulled the trigger.
The bullet shattered Spiros’s spinal cord, then tore out most of his neck, severing his head from the body. Before the head had a chance to fall away from the torso, the bullet cracked through his brain, ricocheted off the interior of his skull, and reduced the remaining flesh to bloody pulp. Spiros was dead long before his head bounced on the hardwood floor of the general’s office.
For moment, no one moved. The general held his pose, arm outstretched in front of him, staring down at the decapitated body of the pilot. Finally, he let his arm fall to his side. He replaced the gun in his holster and gazed at the rest of the officers. No words were necessary. They all heard his unspoken comment: Let this be a lesson to all of you.
The general walked back around his desk and took his seat again. He started riffling through the papers centered on the highly polished wood in front of him. Without looking up, he said, “Have someone clean that up.” He reached into his desk drawer, took out a pen, and began signing his name to the papers.
Colonel Zentos was the first to react. He stepped forward, picked up Spiros’s bloody, staring head, and glanced at the officer of the day. “You heard the general.” Zentos placed the head on top of the body. “Get the cleanup crew in here.
The room exploded into a flurry of activity. No one wanted to be the next target of the general’s temper.
