Dale Brown - Shadows Of Steel

by Shadows Of Steel [lit]

  "But you paid your dues as a military aviator, Patrick. Your work is done. You're a genuine hero. You've saved this nation a dozen times over. You've risked your life, hell, I've lost count how many times! For my sake as well as yours, put that life behind you and start a new one, with me, here, right now."

  "I will, Wendy," Patrick said. He took a deep breath, squeezed her hand, then got to his feet. "I better see if Jenny's showed up yet."

  "Hey," she said, pushing him back to his seat. She held his hands tightly until he looked into her eyes again. "You know, Patrick, Charlie O'Sullivan asked if he could look over our books again, and he wants to bring Bruce Tomlinson from First Interstate over."

  She interrupted herself with another short fit of coughing.

  "You okay, sweetie?"

  She ignored the question and continued: "He's really serious about buying the place. He knew your dad from the force. He's got the financial backing to turn this place into a real entertainment spot, bring in big-name groups--we can't even afford to get a dancing permit."

  "I'm working on all that, too, sweetheart."

  "But we can't afford all the upgrades we need to do unless we mortgage the place again, and that's too risky. You said so yourself," Wendy said. She took his hands and squeezed. "I'm your wife and your friend and your lover, Patrick, so I feel qualified to tell you: as a barkeep, you're a great bombardier."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Do you want to be working for a business that you took on just because you love your father and you couldn't stand the idea of your mother selling?" Wendy asked. "You don't want to be a barkeep, babe. I have no doubt you could make it if you wanted to, but your heart's not in it. You She stopped again, the coughing lasting a bit longer this time. "Besides, hon, the air quality in Sacramento is not getting any better. My company doctor down in La Jolla says a change might do me some good--San Diego, or Arizona, or Tahoe..."

  "So you think we should sell?"

  "We'd have the money to make a fresh start," Wendy said. "We could go anywhere, do anything. Jon Masters said he'd hire you in an instant, doing God knows what. Any defense contractor in America would hire you, hire both of us, on the spot if we wanted to get into that life again. Hal Briggs talked about us getting involved in his brother's police canine-training facility in Georgia. Or we could just buy a boat and shuttle back and forth from Friday Harbor to Cabo San Lucas all year. We wouldn't be obliged to anyone except ourselves and our own dreams. We could..."

  But she stopped, and she knew he wasn't listening--he had adopted what the Vietnam vets called the "thousand-yard stare," a flashback. His mind had drifted off once again, replaying some bomb run or aerial chase or dangerous mission where men and women had died around him. Mentioning the names of Brad Elliott, Jon Masters, and Hal Briggs had been a big mistake, she decided. His life, his heart, was still with them, wherever they were. If there truly was a purgatory, Wendy thought, Patrick McLanahan must be in it--and she was with him.

  She knew that he had forcibly separated himself from them, his longtime friends, to return her to California so she could heal after her aircraft accident--and it had been a truly extraordinary event. A Russian spy named Kenneth Francis James had shot down an experimental bomber in which she had been a crew member. Only two of the seven crew members aboard that bomber had survived; the spy had killed six other soldiers, injured several others, and destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of equipment in his mad dash to escape. The incident had led to the dismissal of all of the senior officers of Nevada-based HAWC, including Patrick McLanahan, and the closure of the facility.

  Patrick had accepted an early retirement rather than demotion and reassignment so he could be with his new love during her recovery; to pass the time and do something close to home, he had taken over the operation of the longtime family business in Old Sacramento. She loved him for making that sacrifice for her, but she could tell that he longed to be back in the action, even though he was bitter that the government and the Air Force had destroyed so many lives and careers in the witch-hunt that followed the James disaster. The restlessness, his guilt-based desire to stay with his wife and run the family business, and his anger and frustration were all combining to turn Patrick Shane McLanahan into a dark, explosive, and angry young man.

  He said absently, "I'll think about it, sweetie," before rising, robot-like, giving her a peck on the cheek, and departing. As Wendy watched him leave, she knew that he hadn't heard a word she'd said. All he could see was a job not yet finished, a life not yet fulfilled. He had come out of sixteen horrible, hard years in the Air Force with barely a scratch, yet he had been wounded far worse than all the others--his spirit may have even been killed. Just a little bit, perhaps, but just as surely and as finally as the deaths of J. C. Powell, Alan Carmichael, and John Ormack, among all the others that had touched Patrick's life over the past ten violent, unpredictable years.

  Patrick's attention had wandered because he had heard the eleven o'clock news come on. As usual the lead story was on the goings-on in the Middle East, and he wanted to hear the latest.

  So far, a lot of saber-rattling by Iran, and virtual silence from Washington.

  "What do you think of all that shit, boss?" asked the bartender, a young kid by the name of Hank.

  "I think the Iranians are sailing their carrier around to scare the shit out of the rest of the world, and to prove they're the baddest Muslim country on the planet," Patrick replied matter-of-factly.

  "Why aren't we doing anything about them? Is it because we're afraid of getting our asses kicked, like twenty-five years ago?"

  "Hank, that was Vietnam, and we didn't get our asses kicked--we withdrew," McLanahan corrected him. "Iran and Iraq are two different countries in the Middle East, not southeast Asia. Both countries border on the Persian Gulf, a major oil-producing region. We went to war with Iraq six years ago, remember?"

  "Six years ago... man, I was just in high school then, boss!"

  Hank laughed. "Did we win that war?"

  "Hank, we won that war in one hundred days!"

  "One hundred days! That's... that's like over three months!"

  Hank exclaimed. "Don't the Navy SEALs and guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme kick ass and clean up in just a day or two?"

  "The Vietnam War lasted ten years, Hank."

  "Oh, yeah, we learned about that one in school," Hank said, trying to sound as if he had really been paying attention. "That was the war where Johnson and Nixon kept on drafting war protesters and sending them over into the jungles to napalm villagers and get killed by bamboo poisoned with rat shit, until Jane Fonda caught Reagan bugging her offices and got him thrown out of office..."

  "Jesus, Hank..." Patrick spluttered. Man, this kid made him feel old, Patrick thought. He didn't even remember the Persian Gulf War, let alone the Vietnam War or Watergate! All he knew was what he saw on "Beavis and Butthead" or "Hard Copy."

  "Try picking up a copy of something other than Mad magazine once in a while, okay?"

  "So why don't we just go in and kick some butt, boss, like we did against Iran...?"

  "Iraq, Hank."

  "Yeah, right... whatever. Why don't we just go in and bomb 'em or something?"

  Patrick looked angrily at the bartender, then turned, picked up a towel to do the tables, and said as he walked away, "We don't bomb anybody anymore, Hank. We're peacekeepers now."

  Hank nodded, hopelessly confused, and said, "Yeahhh... right.

  We're peacekeepers" Talking international affairs with Hank was like talking to the dishrag in his hands, Patrick decided.

  Yep, only peacekeepers now... and targets...

  The waitress hadn't shown up yet, so Patrick decided to make the rounds. The guys who looked like feds only wanted coffee refills.

  Patrick tried to strike up conversations with them, hoping to find out if his instincts were right, but none of them were in a chatty mood, which suited Patrick just fine. Patrick found a pretty blond woman sitting with
the black gent in the corner booth now; she placed her coffee cup where he could reach it with the pot, and Patrick filled it. He tried to catch a good glimpse of her face, but failed. Was she a hooker, trying to scare up some business? Patrick caught a glimpse of sleek legs, but little else.

  It appeared that the black gent hadn't touched his beer in half an hour. Even the sweat on the side of the glass was gone. Patrick reached for the glass: "I'll get you a fresh Samuel A," he said.

  "Thanks, young man," the gent said. "Guess I'm paying more attention to the news than to the beer."

  "Me too," Patrick offered. "Can I get you anything else? We have some great hot appetizers. Would you like to see a menu?" The woman sitting at the guy's table tittered a bit, covering her mouth. The black guy scowled at her; Patrick ignored it, but inside he was turning, asking himself, Why the hell am I here?

  What the hell am I doing? This bitch is laughing at me because I'm taking food orders... but I'm not happy doing this. Wendy's right, I'm not happy doing this.

  "I heard what you told the bartender about Iran," the black guy said, in a bit of a booming, authoritative voice that made Patrick think perhaps he was a little drunk or distraught. "It's pretty unbelievable when you think about the historical memories of America's young people."

  "Not everyone," Patrick said. "Hank's main concern right now is paying the rent, not world affairs. He's a pretty smart guy."

  "What makes you think the Iranians are just scaring everybody?"

  "Iran's got enough domestic problems without worrying about picking fights with any of its neighbors, or with the United States," Patrick said, not really wanting to get into another inane discussion about the Middle East but unconsciously blowing off a little steam from interacting with ol' Hank. "But the GCC attack on Abu Musa Island stirred up the military. Soon they'll mobilize the Pasdaran-"

  "The what?" the guy asked. "The who?"

  "The Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian elite troops. The Pasdaran are the Iranian storm troopers, the SS of the Middle East. They're the best of the best, the pointy end of the spear. They have about the same size, speed, and equipment as the U.S. Marine Corps--maybe even better." Patrick pointed to the TV set over the right side of the bar just as a map of Iran was being shown for the hundredth time that hour on CNN.

  "What will they do?"

  "If the military gets the ear of the clerics in charge of the country, the first thing they might do is close off the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. They'll use the Khomeini carrier group, backed up by their new fleet of land-based bombers."

  "You've lost me, son," the gent said. "Iran's going to do all this? Why?"

  "They'll do it if anyone, especially the U.S. or Israel, gets in their way," Patrick said. "If Iran closes off the Gulf and maybe then the Red Sea, all the oil-rich countries lose billions a day.

  The Gulf states won't risk that--they'll deal with Iran rather than risk losing oil revenues."

  "So why don't we just get a Steve Canyon aviator hero-type and bomb the crap out of Iran, like we did in Iraq?" the woman chimed in, her voice slightly sarcastic, as if a mere bartender had any answers she would find useful or informative. Aha, Patrick thought, not a hooker--or at least a very highly educated one.

  These two were together, and probably with the other three guys surrounding the bar. What in hell was going on?

  "We could, but we risk starting a huge Middle East war," Patrick said. "We'd need a pretty thick scorecard to keep track of all the alliances, cooperatives, economic unions, and religious factors in this region." Patrick began wiping a nearby table so he'd be better able to slip away and avoid a prolonged conversation with these two. "We couldn't count on our old friends for help, because Iran is a pretty tough adversary, far stronger than Iraq was. This time, both Russia and China are involved--on Iran's side, not ours. And we've got fewer bombers, tanks, ships, and men to fight a war. We're pretty well on the backside of the power curve on this one." Patrick paused, then added, "Besides, Steve Canyon types are just fiction."

  "Too bad," the blonde said.

  "That sounds like a fighter pilot talking," the black gent observed. "You a flier?"

  "I was in the Air Force once," Patrick said. "Didn't do anything special. Put in my years and punched out." His blue am, and he half turned to the man and told him, "I'll bring that beer right away."

  "Sure. Thanks," the guy said. As Patrick was walking back to the bar, the guy raised his voice and added, "When you get back, maybe you can explain how a single B-2A equipped like a Megafortress could slow down the Iranian advances without triggering a Middle East war."

  Patrick tried hard to make no outward reaction to the word Megafortress, but inside his guts turned upside down. The Megafortress had been one of his top-secret projects back when he was in the Air Force--a highly modified B-52 bomber, what they referred to as a "flying battleship," designed for long-range heavy-precision strikes and to escort other, less sophisticated bombers, such as unmodified B-52s, into the target area. Several other Megafortresses had been built and flown--even flown in combat, over Lithuania and Belarus--but they had all been dismantled and placed in storage or destroyed when HAWC was disbanded. This guy knew about it, knew about him, about his past. All that information was highly classified. Was he a reporter? A foreign agent? An industrial spy?

  Remaining calm, pretending he hadn't heard the guy, Patrick nonchalantly set the man's beer mug on the bar. "Hank, pour him another Adams," Patrick said, then headed immediately into the office.

  "Sure, boss. Hey, I'm gonna need..." But Patrick was already through the office door, practically at a dead run.

  As soon as he closed the door behind him, he said, "Wendy, head out the back, take the cell phone, and call OSI." OSI, the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, was their point of contact should anyone try to contact them regarding any classified information. Their nearest office was at Beale Air Force Base up in Marysville, about an hour away, but if they had any agents in the area, someone could be by there right away to intercept. Or maybe they'd call the FBI or U.S. Marshal's office in Sacramento for help...

  "I think it's too late for that, dear," Wendy said. There, standing next to Wendy, was a stranger in a black trench coat and wearing black gloves.

  Patrick didn't hesitate. He quickly stepped forward until he reached the desk, then shoved the computer monitor off its stand at the stranger. The guy instinctively grabbed at the monitor flying toward him, which distracted him and brought his face down to the perfect level--so Patrick swung his right fist, putting his entire two hundred pounds behind it, connecting squarely in the middle of the stranger's left temple. He went down with a muffled grunt and lay still, knocked cold.

  "God," Wendy gasped as she stared at the unconscious stranger.

  "Patrick, wait."

  Without stopping, Patrick stepped on and over the stranger, grabbed Wendy's left arm, and steered her toward the back of the office to the back door. "Head toward the coffee shop down the street--they'll be open, and the cops hang out there," Patrick told Wendy. "Tell them there's five out front, one black male, three white males, one white-"

  "What in hell is going on back here!" a voice thundered behind him. Patrick whirled around and saw the black gent and the woman standing at the office door. The black guy was bug-eyed as he looked first at Patrick, then at the unconscious guy on the floor with the computer monitor lying on his chest, then back at Patrick. The woman studied the scene the same way, but her face registered immense glee. "What do you think you're doing, McLanahan?"

  "Wendy, go!" Patrick tried to pull her toward the door, but she was not moving. "Wendy, what's wrong?"

  "Patrick, sweetie, you just knocked a Secret Service agent out cold," Wendy said with a smile.

  "A what?"

  "He's a 'who,' dear," Wendy repeated, grinning broadly. "Special Agent Frank Zanatti, from Washington, D.C. He's already showed me his ID. I tried to tell you, before you knocked m
y monitor over."

  "Secret Service?" Patrick looked at the unconscious guy in total confusion, then pointed an angry finger at the large black guy standing in his office door. "Then who the hell are you?"

  "I am Philip Freeman, U.S. Army, retired, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States," Philip Freeman bellowed.

  "Fr... Freeman? General Freeman?"

  "Don't just stand there gaping, Colonel," Freeman shouted, "help Agent Zanatti up." He half turned to the woman beside him and ordered, "Colonel, give him a hand. I swear, McLanahan, if you've killed him, we'll all be skinned alive."