Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  Alpha Kat

  William H. Lovejoy

  © Willian H. Lovejoy, 1992

  William H. Lovejoy has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1992 by Zebra Books.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Jane, Jodi, and David, and for my friend and technical advisory, Terry Keating

  Table of Contents

  Characters

  Pre-Flight Check

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Taxi

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Takeoff

  Eight

  Nine

  Flight

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Turbulence

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Landing

  Twenty-three

  Pre-Flight Check

  One

  The earth was upside down.

  As it should be.

  When Kimball glanced to his right, he saw the foothills of the Rockies descending to their rugged and majestic peaks. Far away, there were still a few snowcapped pinnacles backed by low cumulus clouds. On his left were cultivated green fields, creamy squares of wheat, the twin ribbons of Interstate 25 clogged with Saturday drivers, and Sam Eddy McEntire.

  Half a mile ahead, and above him, was the landing strip, starkly dark gray next to weed-cluttered fields and white and tan industrial buildings. The July sun glinted off the Plexiglas and the aluminum skins of thirty parked aircraft. A flight of six F-16 Falcons were lined up on the taxiway, waiting for their chance at the runway.

  A gravel road passed over him, a hundred feet away. He continued to lose altitude. The earth pulled him closer. His engine screamed pleasantly, and the wind streaming past the open cockpit whistled at the edges of his helmet.

  The two Pitt Special biplanes passed over the boundary markers and then the end of the runway with thirty feet of clearance between the asphalt and their stubby wings. Kimball concentrated on staying aligned with the western side of the strip. A touch of right rudder moved him to the left.

  When he saw the crowd of tanned faces, sunglasses, and vibrant T-shirts in his peripheral vision, Kimball clicked the mike button on the stick once.

  McEntire clicked back twice.

  Kimball snap-rolled left at the same time McEntire rolled to the right. The wingtips cleared the runway surface by less than five feet. As soon as he came level, he neutralized the controls and pulled the throttle full back, and the engine roar died away.

  The main gear touched down with a chirp of rubber on asphalt. McEntire was right beside him, a couple feet back.

  The speed bled off quickly, and Kimball allowed the tail to settle. It bounced twice.

  At the end of the runway, McEntire pulled off onto the taxi strip, and Kimball turned in behind him. In consort with McEntire, he goosed the throttle a tad, and the two biplanes raced back toward the aircraft park.

  Two of the F-16s shot past him, their turbofans wailing, lifted off, and retracted gear immediately. Two more Falcons were right behind them. The biplanes bobbled in the turbulence of the passing fighters.

  McEntire’s voice sounded in his helmet, “Miss it, Kim?”

  Kimball had once flown with the Air Force Thunder-birds. He keyed the mike, “Only difference, Sam, they go faster.”

  “You’re so very damned good at answering a question.”

  “I don’t miss it.”

  Maybe just a little. It was easily suppressed, however, when he tempered the longing with memories of mind-numbing regulations, social and career expectations, and brassy-voiced, narrow-minded commanders. Not all of them, he reminded himself. There were a few with wider minds.

  The apron in front of the main hangar and the airport operator’s office was roped off with orange nylon line and yellow flags to contain the spectators, and Kimball estimated the crowd size at around seven or eight thousand people. That would be enough to ensure their minimum cut of the gate receipts.

  Tex Brabham waved Sam Eddy, then Kimball, into a line of parked airplanes and gave them a cut-throat signal. Brabham was a scaled-down man, barely touching five feet four inches, weather-wrinkled and tanned the color of old brown boots. His boots were, in fact, old and brown and run-over at the heels, but polished to a high luster. He wore what Kimball called a seven-gallon hat to protect his completely bald head. He was the best all-around aircraft mechanic that Kimball had ever met.

  Kimball switched off the ignition and killed the power to the radios. He disconnected the helmet’s communication cord, removed the helmet, and placed it on the floor of the cockpit. Unbuckling his parachute and seat harness, he stood up, then stepped up on the seat and stretched. Bryce Kimball’s six feet two inch height, broad chest, and wide shoulders made many of the cockpits he inhabited overly cramped.

  “Nice routine, boss,” Brabham said.

  “That’s because everything worked better than it was supposed to, Tex. The power plant sang happy tunes.” He swung a leg outboard, found the step plate with his toe, and descended to the asphalt. It was hot, but the sun felt good on his face. He had come to prefer the warmer climes.

  The announcer on the PA system turned it over to an Air Force major who introduced the crowd to the Thunderbird pilots in a soothing, public relations voice.

  … the third aircraft is piloted by Captain Bryce Kimball of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His wingman, from Boston, Massachusetts …

  Kimball walked around the wing, patting it with affection. Both biplanes were finished in white with orange scallops topside and white with yellow on the underside. The color differentiation helped the spectators on the ground follow the attitude of the airplanes during acrobatic maneuvers.

  Sam Eddy McEntire joined them at the nose of Kimball’s plane. Kimball could hear the engine popping as it cooled, until a noisy Falcon shot down the length of the runway doing a four-point roll.

  “Nice technique,” McEntire said, his eyes following the General Dynamics F-16. Perhaps with some longing.

  “You talking about us or the Air Force?”

  “Us.”

  “I agree with you.”

  “You guys ready for lunch?” McEntire asked. He was usually fond of food, no matter the origin or preparation.

  “You two go on in,” Brabham said. “I’m going to tie down the birds and prep ‘em for morning, then drive on up to Cheyenne. I’ll meet you there tomorrow.”

  “Ah, ah!” McEntire said. “Chickie-poo?”

  “Knew a couple gals when I was stationed at Warren. Maybe they’re still around and still single.”

  Tex Brabham was a dedicated bachelor close to sixty years old, but he kept looking for companionship. As far as Kimball had ever determined, he had a pretty fair success ratio.

  “Okay, Tex. Be good to her.”

  “Or them,” Brabham said, turning to walk over to his van parked off the asphalt.

  The Chevy mini-van was cream-colored, with a pale blue stripe that expanded as it flowed back from the front end, then broke up into the stylized logo, “KAT.” The van belonged to the company, but by reason of possession, it was Brabham’s, and it was crammed with his own specialized tools.

  Kimball and McEntire left the aircraft park, ducked under the orange nylon rope, and headed out to the field where the rented car was parked. The field was weedy and dry, and dust soon coated Kimball’s Welling
ton boots. He unzipped and shrugged out of his flying jacket.

  Sam Eddy drove. He drove or piloted whenever he was allowed. He hated getting his hands greasy under a car or in an engine compartment, but he loved being in control of anything mechanical. McEntire, like Kimball, had been a major in the Air Force when they both departed the service ten years before their retirement checks had been scheduled for printing. He was a couple inches shorter than Kimball, fair-skinned and dark-haired, and he wore a Boston Blackie moustache that was always carefully trimmed. Sam Eddy said he had forgotten how many times he had been married, but Kimball was pretty sure the count was now at three. All three of them were exes.

  He pulled out of the industrial park that was springing up around the Fort Collins-Loveland Airport, followed the frontage road north until he could cross over the interstate and join its northbound lanes. Traffic was heavy, which McEntire always took as a personal combat challenge, but he didn’t push the rental Olds hard today.

  “You suppose we’re going to be hopping around to air shows the rest of our lives, Kim?”

  The dream had been much grander when they had bailed out of the Air Force, and Kimball had begun to worry about the dream in earnest in the last six months.

  He said, “Hell, no, Sam. Just to tide us over.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  McEntire took the Harmony Road exit west and kept the speed at fifty-five as they passed the sprawling Hewlett-Packard plants. Kimball thought his friend was being very reserved today. Maybe thinking about his future, which he had never thought about before. Maybe he had lined up another job? That added to Kimball’s worry. He didn’t want to lose his chief pilot, primary propulsion engineer, company vice president, large stockholder, and most importantly, friend.

  Five miles later, McEntire took Lemay Avenue over to Horsetooth Road, then continued west until he reached the Fort Collins Marriott and pulled into the lot. The foothills to the west were a brownish gray. The notched gap called Horsetooth Rock was clearly visible. There was a lot of nice greenage — cottonwoods and aspens and pines — to the south.

  Kimball kept waiting for Sam Eddy to break the bad news, or some kind of news, to him, and Kimball certainly knew that he, himself, wasn’t going to open the subject.

  Twenty minutes later in the hotel’s restaurant, with a club sandwich and a Michelob in front of him, McEntire’s mood had not improved. That was contrary to his relationship with food.

  Kimball used his fork to pick desultorily at a plate he had heaped high at the salad bar and wondered if he would get through half of it.

  “Bryce Kimball?”

  He looked up. The man standing next to the table was in his fifties, smooth-cheeked and a bit jowly, with graying hair and soft hazel eyes. To many of the younger people in the dining room, he’d have been an ideal daddy. Instinctively, Kimball felt the eyes and the easy smile on his face were deceptive. He wasn’t dressed for the casual West. His blue suit was summer weight, dimly striped in silver, and expensive. He wore a brilliantly white shirt with a widespread collar and a dark red tie.

  “Have we met?”

  “No. But we were both in Bangkok at the same time once. The name’s Ben Wilcox.”

  That introduction made Kimball immediately suspicious, but he didn’t want to antagonize a potential client. “Have a seat, Mr. Wilcox.”

  Wilcox pulled out a chair and sat down. “You’re a hard man to run down, Mr. Kimball. Your office in Phoenix led me in this direction, and I drove up from Denver this morning, but I missed you at the airport.”

  “You didn’t see us fly?” McEntire asked with disbelief overriding his tone.

  “Sorry, I missed it.”

  “Damn, you sure did,” Sam Eddy said. “Would have made your whole day.”

  Was this something that couldn’t be taken care of on the phone? Creditor?

  Kimball lowered his fork to the plate. “Who do you represent, Mr. Wilcox?”

  The man reached inside his jacket and withdrew a leather folder. He flipped it open, and Kimball saw the shield with the sunburst, the eagle head in profile. It was a familiar logo to Kimball.

  Central Intelligence Agency.

  “I don’t want any part of this,” Kimball said. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Wilcox. I’m truly sorry you couldn’t stay around and talk.”

  “Now, hold on a minute, Kim,” Sam Eddy McEntire said. “Let’s not jump to any expensive conclusions.”

  Two

  Major General Brock Dixon drummed his fingers on his desk top, thinking. It was an old, large, and solid walnut desk, and drumming his fingers was an ingrained habit; the varnish coat near the telephone was eroding after three years of Dixon’s thinking.

  Dixon was a big man, barrel-chested. His hair was blondish gray and clipped to near-baldness. There were Vietnam and Panama service ribbons among the six rows of ribbons above the breast pocket on his blue uniform coat. He wore the jacket at all times, even when at his desk thinking and drumming his fingers.

  In his thirty-two years in the Air Force, whatever the geography might have been, Dixon’s assignments had consisted of a country paying him to mull over difficult topics, to plan countermeasures, and to execute operations. He was not very active, and the sedentary life-style had gone to his waist, which is why he kept his coat on.

  Finally, he gave up drumming and used his stubby forefinger to punch the private line on his telephone console and then hit one of the memory buttons.

  “Weapons Procurement, this is Linda.”

  “Linda, Brock Dixon here. Let me talk to General Ailesworth.”

  Ailesworth came on the line a couple of minutes later. “What’s up, Brock?”

  “Wilcox.”

  “What about him?”

  “He flew out to Denver early this morning, then rented a car and drove to Fort Collins.”

  Ailesworth laughed. “Goddamn, Brock. Doesn’t Air Force Intelligence have anything better to do these days than spy on the CIA?”

  “Jack, you know damned well that all the funny proposals showing up in the National Security Council meetings are coming off Wilcox’s desk. The man’s a menace.”

  “Hey, Brock. The Agency’s in the same boat Defense is. With all of the bad guys in the world turning in their black hats, everyone’s looking for new ways to justify their existence.”

  “You don’t believe that, Jack.”

  “About the bad guys? Of course not. There’s always going to be a few around. Check the Middle East, South America, and Asia. But the public thinks it’s getting better, and they love it. Face it, we’re cutting back, and so is the Agency. Wilcox wants to redirect some of his resources into new areas, just so he can hang onto the resources. He and his buddies over in operations have got a hell of a budget they don’t want to lose. You blame him?”

  “No, I guess not,” Dixon said.

  “Then why are you following him around? To see if he has a scheme you can steal?”

  “You’re going to be damned glad I had him watched.”

  “Why?”

  “He went to Colorado to meet Bryce Kimball.”

  “Shit! He didn’t.”

  “He did. Kimball and McEntire are flying acrobatics in some air show up there. My man called from the hotel where they’re meeting.”

  “Ah, damn. I’m going to have to make some calls.”

  “Yeah, I thought you might.”

  “And Brock, you find out what they’re talking about.”

  “I’ll do that,” Dixon said.

  *

  They went up to Kimball’s room to talk, and McEntire brought along a six-pack of Michelob and a big bunch of small bags of potato chips and Fritos. His appetite was returning.

  Wilcox draped his suitcoat over the end of the bed and sat down next to it. McEntire twisted the caps off three bottles and passed them around, then sat in a chair at the small table next to Kimball. He tore off the top of a bag of chips and began to crunch them.

  “I want to tell yo
u about Kimball Aero Technology,” Wilcox said.

  “I know all about it,” Kimball told him.

  “You don’t know my version of the story.”

  Kimball shrugged. He was going to have to sit through it because Sam Eddy was intrigued.

  Wilcox put his bottle on the nightstand and leaned back on straightened arms. He appeared completely at ease, and Kimball wasn’t happy with that appearance either. The man had a salesman’s face, and Kimball wasn’t in the mood to be sold, either up or down the river.

  “Back in the beginning,” the CIA man said, “Bryce Kimball got himself a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Academy down in the Springs, but that was just dressing. He was in it to fly, and fly he did. All kinds of airplanes. Top man at the Red Flag aggressor exercises. T-bird team. Instructor. Aviation advisor in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand.”

  “This is already getting boring,” Kimball told him. “I’ve read the book.”

  “It gets better. For both of you, because McEntire has most of the same experiences.”

  Sam Eddy grinned and swigged from his bottle.

  “Major Kimball had a bright, bright, soaring future in the Air Force. If he could just toe the line, he’d probably make general officer. But he fucked it up.”

  “How?” McEntire asked.

  Wilcox paused to sip from his bottle, then leaned forward and reached across to the table for a bag of potato chips. “I missed lunch.”

  “Let’s miss dinner next time. How about sometime next year?” Kimball asked.

  Wilcox grinned. “This Kimball guy? He kept getting upset about Air Force procedures and inflexibility. He thought he could do it better than the Air Force could do it.”

  “I’ve shown that I can.” Despite a desire to stay out of a debate, Kimball couldn’t resist defending himself.

  “To yourself, perhaps. You haven’t proved a damned thing to anyone who counts, that is, the people who control the bucks. Can I finish my story?”

  “Shoot,” McEntire said. “I like a good story.”