by Tom Wilson
Colonel B. J. Parker led them to his private table at the rear corner of the room, and Tom Lyons waved imperiously to a flustered waitress, who hurried over to hand them all a menu typed on a sheet of folded bond paper.
"The selection is abominable," announced Lyons, letting a smile play across his pretty-boy features, "but it tastes worse."
She'd grown an instant dislike for Tom Lyons the moment they were introduced. Too oily smooth and sure of himself. Although he wore no wedding band, Linda had pegged him as married, regardless of the constant come-on. After she'd spoken a few caustic words of discouragement, he'd switched his attentions to Jackie, the shapely young Peace Corps administrator. He now hovered over her and pointed out various menu items, as if the girl couldn't choose between a hamburger, fried chicken, and a Salisbury steak, which was all the Thai waitress said was available.
Linda observed Paul Anderson again.
Still as shy as ever, she thought. She wondered if he was over the bitterness or whatever it was that had taken him from her.
In 1959 she'd been a GS-8 working for the Defense Intelligence Agency at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany, trying to make sense of the electronic intelligence gathered by aircrews flying very special aircraft on the airway into Berlin and the embassy run to Moscow. She'd been twenty-three years old, attractive, unattached, living in exciting Europe, doing exciting work, and out to prove to her parents that she could manage just fine for herself in the big world outside Big Spring, Texas.
Then one evening she'd agreed to a night out at the Von Steuben with a male acquaintance, a co-worker civilian employee at Wiesbaden Air Base. The Von Steuben was a military hotel for officers and civilian equivalents located in downtown Wiesbaden, and the master chef there prepared some of the finest entrées in Germany. After dinner they'd gone to the bar, where they'd danced and had a drink or two, and then the boyfriend had put the moves on her, and she had told him not only to forget about what he was after, but to go far away, like maybe to hell or Amarillo.
To impress her and try to return to her good graces, her co-worker had then made a tactical error, for he'd introduced her to "this fighter-pilot guy" he'd met who was there on temporary duty from Sembach Air Base.
The young captain was tall and movie-star handsome, with a breath-catching physique. He'd been charming yet wonderfully shy, and as they were still being introduced, she'd gotten the warm, moist feeling her mother had warned her about, precisely where she'd said it would be centered.
He was from Dayton and had gone to school at the University of Ohio at Athens, where he'd gained a mechanical-engineering degree, then had wasted it by going directly into the Air Force's flight cadet program. He flew F-84's at Sembach Air Base, a few miles south of Wiesbaden, but shortly he would return to the States to be checked out in the F-100 Super Sabre. He was available. His wife, having endured enough military life, had returned to the States and was filing for divorce, which he agreed was the best course for them both.
Linda had breathlessly learned all of that within their first five minutes of discussion, and then he'd listened just as raptly to everything about her boring childhood in Big Spring, Texas, and her education at Texas Woo, which is what they'd called the women's university at Denton, north of Fort Worth.
The guy she'd come with had finally wandered away muttering, but she'd scarcely noticed. At the end of the evening she'd accompanied the fighter pilot to his third-floor room in the Von Steuben as if it were the natural thing to do, because it was, and found that losing one's virginity to the right man was more sharing than giving.
Every weekend for the five wonderful weeks following that night, she'd hopped into her VW bug and flown south, for she was sure the tires hardly touched the autobahn's surface, to Sembach Air Base.
On the Monday following her final visit, he'd taken off in his F-84 "bent-wing thunderhog," as he called it, on a routine training mission to a gunnery range in the Netherlands. They told her that on his final approach back at Sembach the engine had belched fire and quit, and that he'd ridden it in, landing in an open field so the aircraft wouldn't crash into nearby homes. She was told the fuel tanks had ruptured during the crash landing, and that he'd been extremely fortunate to be able to stagger out and get away from the aircraft, even if he was drenched with jet fuel and burning like a human torch. They said his oxygen mask had been torn away when he'd egressed the airplane, and that his face was horribly burned.
He'd been allowed no visitors after they'd taken him to the big Wiesbaden Hospital. Except for a single peek at a mound of loose bandages with tubes extending from it, she'd been unable to see him before he was flown in a med-evac aircraft to the burn center at the Brooks Air Force Station hospital in San Antonio.
The doctors at Wiesbaden told her that since he'd survived the initial shock and the critical first week with no infections or complications, it was possible he might recover. Regardless, they said, he'd be kept for a very long while at the burn center for reconstructive surgery, and that he'd never fly again. They said that when he was in his worst pain, he'd called her name.
She'd immediately requested a leave of absence to be with him during the difficult period. The international tensions were hot, and the Soviets were acting up, so Linda had been unable to get leave right away, but she'd written him every day for the next month. Then she'd received a single-liner from him saying:
Dear Linda,
I'm getting back together with my wife.
Best regards,
Paul Anderson
When the leave of absence finally came through, she took it, staying in her apartment for a solid, lonely week to cry and try to get over him. It had been nine more months before she heard more, and that was by accident, through a pilot a girlfriend was dating.
He said that Lucky Anderson had been released from the bum center and was spending his days going between the Air Force Military Personnel Center and Wilford Hall, the Air Force's largest hospital, both located right there in San Antonio, fighting to get back on flying status. When she asked very casually how he was getting along with his wife, the pilot said Lucky and his wife had split when he was still in Germany, and as far as he knew, she'd never even visited him at the burn center. He said Lucky's face looked like hell, but that except for some initial skin grafts he'd turned down more reconstructive surgery because he was afraid a further healing period might keep him from getting back on flying status.
Linda had seen him only once after that. Two years ago when she'd flown to Las Vegas.
She'd been working in Washington, D.C., in the State Department information office. It was a boring, dead-end job, screening inputs for Voice of America broadcasts, ensuring their accuracy and then analyzing embassy reports to measure the reactions in Eastern Bloc nations. Trapped in a field that would not allow her to rise above GS-11, she'd decided to return to the intelligence collection-and-verification business because she knew she'd been damned good at it. But she was having trouble with a guy in State Department intelligence who thought women weren't mentally equipped to serve as anything more than secretaries.
That had all accumulated to put her in a funky, down mood when she heard from a friend working across the river at the Pentagon that a Major Anderson—"I'm just sure it's the same guy you had the hots for over in Germany who was burned so horribly"—was assigned to Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. He was now flying F-105 fighters and teaching aerial gunnery to other pilots and had recently been presented with some kind of flying award. Her friend had seen his picture in the Air Force Times. "Awful!" she'd said.
Linda had convinced herself that a trip to Vegas was just what she needed, and maybe if she just relaxed some there, she could figure out how to handle the male chauvinists at State. She'd signed up for a Las Vegas tour package offered by a local travel agency. Upon arrival at the desert city, she'd immediately rented a car, and then, when she realized she wasn't fooling herself, drove directly to Nellis and used her State Department ID to get on b
ase.
From the arched doorway of the Officers' Club dining room she'd seen him having dinner alone in a corner.
His face! She'd known it would be bad, but it was much worse than she'd expected—so disfigured that no one could have been prepared for it. She'd caught her breath a couple of times and started to cry, then turned and fled, to stand outside and sob and feel sorry for him, he'd been so handsome! and for herself, she'd loved him so! . . . and for both of them together for what should have been.
Several officers in flying suits had stopped and tried to help, but she'd ignored them and kept on sobbing until she was devoid of sorrow, dry of tears, and quite ashamed. She started to go in to him, knew she looked awful from crying so much, and retreated to the safe haven of the ladies' room for repairs.
He'd already left the dining room when she finally emerged, which was not surprising because she'd taken so long.
The billeting office had given her his room number in the bachelor officers' quarters, but when she'd gotten there, his roommate told her Lucky had come back, grabbed a pack and some gear, and had immediately taken off for "Mount Charlie or up north somewhere" in his Jeep. Lucky went camping alone like that every now and then, the friend said, but this time he'd acted as if he were in a particular hurry.
She'd felt awful and wondered if Lucky had seen her crying.
I'm Glenn Phillips, the guy had said. Why don't you come in and wait, and we can share a drink and see if he comes back for something. She had judiciously left and the next day had cut the trip short and returned to Washington.
Now he was here in the same room, and Linda felt as giddy as she had the first time they'd met. She was staring at him, she realized, so she looked away.
"Unsightly, isn't he?" said Tom Lyons, who had reached over and was patting her hand reassuringly, as if he were protecting her from something.
She pulled her hand away. "Pardon me?"
"The major with the burns. We've got a few like that around the Air Force."
She nodded, and then the impact of what he'd said struck her, and she bristled.
"That's Lucky Anderson," said Colonel B. J. Parker, whom Linda had not yet made up her mind about. She had him pegged as a climber. He'd been too impressed when she had first arrived and introduced herself as country coordinator for the USAID program. He was obviously aware that the country coordinator position was much different and more important than it sounded and had little to do with handing out foreign aid packages to Asians; that it was a front title for a senior State Department intelligence official.
"He looks awful," said the Peace Corps administrator. Jackie Bell was cute and sexy, and Linda had liked her from the moment she'd met her, but she had a lot to learn. Like to stop listening to the showcase colonel, who was now trying to imitate an intrepid Steve Canyon look and at the same time peek into her blouse.
"Major Anderson's one of the finest pilots we have here," said B. J. Parker, and with those words of defense Linda decided she liked him after all.
"But definitely not very pretty," quipped Colonel Lyons.
You low creep! thought Linda.
"Who's the dark-haired captain with him?" asked Jackie Bell, and Linda saw Lyons stiffen. Jackie was demurely eyeing a virile-looking captain who steadily returned her gaze.
B. J. Parker chuckled. "That's the Supersonic Wetback." Then he glanced at Linda and looked embarrassed, remembering her name was Latino.
Linda smiled to show she wasn't offended.
"He calls himself that," said B. J. Parker awkwardly.
"He's a hunk," Jackie said. Linda noted that Tom Lyons was looking sullen.
"His name's Manny DeVera," said Colonel Parker, "and he's a self-centered, show-off, hot-rod pilot." He nodded his approval. "I wish more of my pilots had his spirit."
Lyons was frowning at Parker's description, obviously in disagreement.
"You'll have to introduce me," said Jackie.
"If I know Manny, he'll do it himself. You'd better watch out for him, young lady. He'll charm your socks off."
"Mmmmm," mused Jackie wickedly. "Is that all?"
Colonel Parker chuckled. Jackie was young and open and could get away with such a remark. Linda's female's antennae picked up that Jackie might not be quite as naive as she let on.
"Maybe I'll have to visit your base more often than I thought, Colonel," said Jackie, as she cast another glance at Manny DeVera.
"The guest trailer is yours anytime you wish," said Colonel Parker. Linda felt he was being fatherly toward Jackie Bell. Some one probably should be, she thought.
"Sometimes," said Tom Lyons, trying to recapture center stage, "I wish I hadn't made full colonel so quickly. Captains seem to have all the fun."
Could Lyons be such an egotist that he'd brag so openly? She decided he was.
The men at the other table stood as if preparing to leave, and Linda nodded to Parker. "Excuse me for a moment. I'd like to say a word to an old friend."
Jackie Bell surveyed her sharply, wondering, and the men stood politely as she rose. He was on his way to the door with the others, so she had to hurry.
"Paul?" she called in a voice louder than she'd intended. He turned and stared, and it was difficult to tell his expression because of the mask of scars.
"No time to say hi to an old friend?" she asked.
"I thought you were busy over there." He watched as his friends left.
She sucked a breath and lowered her voice. "Have I ever been too busy for you?"
He glanced about awkwardly.
"How long have you been at Takhli?" she asked, forced to carry the conversation.
"Not long."
"I've been here since Saturday. If I'd known you were here, I would have gotten in touch." She glanced at the patch on his shoulder, held there by Velcro tape. 354th TFS it read, and she made a mental note.
"Good to see you, Linda," he said, but there was little conviction to his tone.
"I'm working in Bangkok, running the USAID mission at the embassy." She said it hoping to get him to display at least a trace of interest.
"Uh . . . I've gotta go and plan a combat mission. See you."
"It's good to see you again, Paul," she said, but he'd already turned and was hurrying toward the door. She stood planted for a moment longer, then returned to the table where the waitress was delivering their Salisbury steaks.
"You know the major?" asked Tom Lyons, looking at the door with distaste.
"The major," said Linda Lopes firmly, "is probably the finest man I've ever known."
Jackie Bell was looking at Linda softly, as if she were observing something very nice. "I'm sorry I reacted like I did, Linda. It was thoughtless of me."
"He was in an aircraft accident in Germany."
"Not exactly the sort of thing you'd like to meet up with in a dark alley," Lyons joked to Jackie, with a short laugh at his own wit.
Linda looked down at the table, eyes brimming. She wanted to cry, just as she had two years before at the Nellis Officers' Club. The sexy kid, Jackie Bell, reached over and gently patted Linda's hand. "If you say he's a nice person, hon, he's okay by me, and his burned face doesn't make a damn."
B. J. Parker looked on with an embarrassed, yet sympathetic, look. Why am I being this transparent? she wondered, for both Parker and Jackie Bell seemed to know exactly what she felt. She was normally much more collected.
"Like I said," Parker said kindly, "Lucky's one hell of a fighter pilot."
Tom Lyons shook his head, exasperated that they would waste valuable time discussing anyone with a disfigurement. While Jackie Bell was turned away, he stared sidelong at her full blouse. He grew a calculating look and sucked in a breath to flatten his soft belly. He saw Linda looking and smiled.
A true creep, she thought.
"How much longer are you going to be with us, Miss Lopes?" asked Colonel Parker.
"I'll stay in the area for another week on this initial visit," Linda said.
She
would be working with local Thai government officials, ostensibly to observe their foodstuff-distribution networks, but also to set up a dialogue with certain key civilians. She'd work quietly with contacts across the field from the U.S. Air Force flying unit: with the Thai base commander to determine who might be asking questions about U.S. military matters, at the Air America compound to establish a radio listening post. Shortly she would have a local information net established here, as she already had in the areas surrounding the other American military bases. Within three months she wanted to have a good idea of every possible source of trouble that might emerge for the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing. If she was fortunate, she might even get a lead on enemy agents they believed were reporting on base activities.
"I'll leave next Monday," she told Colonel Parker.
"Will you be visiting often?"
"Monthly, once I get everything set up. At first it will be more often. If you don't have room for me here, I can find something in Nakhon Sawan."
Nakhon Sawan was the provincial capital, located fifty miles to the northwest.
"No need. Since you'll be in and out, I'll tell the base commander to permanently assign you the guest trailer you're occupying now. We're getting more and more facilities built, and there's plenty of room for our field-grade officers."
"That's most gracious of you," said Linda. She and Jackie occupied either end of one of the trailers reserved for majors and lieutenant colonels. Her GS-15 grade authorized Linda the same courtesies provided to an Air Force full colonel, but she wouldn't complain.
An idle thought struck her. She wondered how far from Lucky Anderson she'd been sleeping. It would be more difficult to drop off at nights, now that she knew he was so close.
Lyons interrupted her thoughts with his smooth voice. "We're honored to have you ladies here. We don't get many female visitors at Takhli, and it's tonic just to get a glimpse of a pretty American woman every now and then."
Creep, Linda thought again. He'd been here less than a week, yet he was acting like a deprived war hero.
He eyed Jackie. "How long will you be with us, Miss Bell?"
