Tiger's Claw: A Novel pm-18

by Dale Brown

  “So what’s it going to be, Brad: stay or quit? I think you should stay, but it’s up to you.” Still nothing from Bradley. “Give me a call when you make up your mind. I’ll fly out this weekend either to drop off your CARE package and air mattress, or pick you up and bring you home. Talk to you later, son.” And Patrick hung up.

  Patrick decided to let Brad think about it over the weekend, but he hadn’t heard anything, so a little before eight A.M. Monday morning, Patrick landed his turbine pressurized Centurion at Reno-Stead Airport and taxied over to the main Warbirds Forever hangar. He was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Bradley, who trotted out onto the tarmac wearing ear protectors and an orange reflective safety vest and carrying marshaler’s batons. “Hey, Brad,” Patrick said after he was led to his parking spot and shut down the engine.

  “Hi, Dad,” Brad said. They didn’t embrace or shake hands. “How was the flight?”

  “A little bumpy already,” Patrick said. “I needed to speak with Colonel Hoffman, and I didn’t hear from you, so I thought I’d bring the air mattress and some goodies for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  They stood in awkward silence for a few moments, then Patrick asked, “Made a decision yet?”

  “I don’t really have much choice, do I?”

  “You do, and I’ll support any decision you make.” Brad’s cell phone beeped, and he looked at the display. “You’re being paged?”

  “For about the hundredth time this morning,” he said. “Do you need fuel? Should I top it off?”

  “Depends—are you going back with me, or staying?”

  The cell phone beeped again. Brad looked at the display with a rather concerned expression, then at his father. “I gotta go,” he said. He looked at his father, once, the weariness evident in his face, but he nodded. “I’ll top it off for you.”

  “Okay, Brad,” Patrick said. That should mean he was staying—the turbine P210 couldn’t hold two men, all Brad’s belongings, the CARE package, the air mattress, and full fuel tanks, and Brad knew that. Patrick retrieved the CARE package and the air mattress and headed inside.

  On his way there, he saw Brad hurrying out of Tom Hoffman’s office. “I’ll put this stuff in your room, Brad,” he said.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Brad said over his shoulder, then quickly disappeared.

  Patrick found Hoffman at his computer, with the TV on in a corner. The office was Spartan, with just a desk, two chairs, and a couple bookshelves crammed with technical manuals. The walls were filled with photographs, plaques, and memorabilia from his twenty-six years in the U.S. Air Force. “When are you going to invest in a real office, Tom?” Patrick asked.

  “Don’t need one,” Hoffman replied. He nodded at his laptop computer. “My entire life and business is right here.” He glanced up at the television. “What do you make of the Chinese acting up in the South China Sea, General?”

  “I don’t find it credible that the Coast Guard helicopter was shot down by mistake,” Patrick said. “If they were recovering pieces of that Poseidon, the crew of that Coast Guard helicopter would have seen them doing it. Downing that helicopter bought them several hours to search for wreckage.”

  “So you think China was involved in the P-8 crash too?”

  “I don’t have any details, but I don’t believe in coincidences,” Patrick said. “There’s no doubt that China is laying claim to the South China Sea and building up their air and naval forces there quickly. I think we’re going to see many more unexplained occurrences, mistakes, and accidents out there. Beijing thinks as long as there’s no solid trail leading to them that we won’t do anything.”

  “Well, we’re not doing anything,” Hoffman said, “so it appears their strategy is working. What do you make of the Chinese president laid up and the vice prez taking over?”

  “Zhou was starting to get up there, so I’m not too surprised,” Patrick said. “We’ll see how the new guy does. He’s much younger, just a little older than President Phoenix, and Gao was educated in America. Other than that, I don’t know much about him.”

  “I don’t like seeing all these Chinese military units gearing up all of a sudden,” Hoffman commented, “but I guess with a sudden change in leadership and the uncertainty in the country, that’s bound to happen.” He nodded at the packages. “Stuff for Brad?”

  “He’s running short of some things, and he moaned about his bed, so I brought an air mattress for him. Mind showing me where his room is?”

  “Of course, sir.” Hoffman got up, grabbed the air mattress, and led the way.

  A mechanic was just leaving the room carrying a box of airplane parts when Patrick and Hoffman arrived. Patrick looked around. “Brad described it pretty well,” he said.

  “Best I could do, General,” Hoffman said.

  “No, no, this is okay, Tom,” Patrick said. “Maybe it’ll give him a little incentive to finish his training and get out there to make some money to afford his own place.” He set the box of food and clothing on Brad’s bed, and Hoffman threw the air mattress beside it. “How’s he doing, Tom?” Patrick asked.

  “You were right—he’s a good stick, a good student, and a good worker,” Hoffman said. “But I’ll be straight with you, General: I sense an attitude about him.”

  “What kind of attitude?”

  “An attitude that he’s better than this, like he doesn’t deserve the life he’s leading,” Hoffman said. “I see it in him when he works around here: that he thinks he’s too good for all this.” Patrick said nothing; Hoffman noticed his grim expression and shrugged. “I’m giving it to you straight, General. I’ve led aviators and techs for over thirty years. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “I appreciate that,” Patrick said. “Character and attitude matter as much as skill and knowledge—they’re all connected. Brad has to pass muster on all of it. I leave it to you to determine if he’s good enough for your program.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Patrick nodded; then, after a short pause, he said, “Brad seems to think you’re riding him especially hard.”

  “Yes, I am,” Hoffman said bluntly.

  Patrick blinked. “You are?”

  “You bet I am,” Hoffman said. Patrick had to struggle to quash a rising feeling of anger in his chest; Hoffman obviously noticed it right away. “General, you can’t swing a dead cat by the tail around this place without hitting a genuine prima donna. Guys spend millions of dollars on flying toys, and they want me to train them on how to fly them. They don’t want to know anything about the aircraft or its systems—they just want to fly a sharp-looking, hair-on-fire badass jet. Unless they’re completely unsafe, I’ll take their money, train them, and let them fly away. If they’re not interested in learning more about the jets they fly, that’s their business.

  “But I have a great opportunity to avoid all that with Bradley,” Hoffman went on. “Frankly, sir, Bradley’s on the very cusp of being a prima donna. He’s a good pilot, but the problem is: he knows he’s good. He also knows he’s General Patrick McLanahan’s son. He does the work and he can fly.”

  “What exactly is he doing?”

  “Every time I page him and he walks into my office and I tell him to do something, I get the hairy eyeball,” Hoffman explained. “If the order doesn’t involve flying, he gives me the look. I get a strong vibe from him almost every time.”

  “Is he disrespectful?”

  “No, not outwardly or verbally—you would have gotten a call from me much earlier if he was,” Hoffman said. “He does the same thing with the mechanics and the techs, and they’ve pointed it out to me. And every time he does it, it makes me want to load him up even more with nonflying crap to do.”

  “Load him up? Why?” Patrick asked.

  “To see if he’ll quit, like he quit the Academy,” Hoffman said. “From what you’ve said, sir, Brad is a tough, athletic, and dedicated young man and student. You know I’m an Academy grad, and I still do liaison and orientation acti
vities, so I know the Academy. With his sports and Civil Air Patrol experience, he should have had the Zoo nailed, even if he was getting hazed pretty badly by upperclassmen who knew who his father was. My opinion is that perhaps he didn’t want the Academy as badly as he thought . . . or, if I may say, sir: as badly as you wanted it.”

  Patrick choked down a strong twinge of indignation . . . but he knew Hoffman was probably right. “Maybe so, Tom,” Patrick said. “It couldn’t have been harder than he expected because he was getting ready for it for a year—he knew exactly what to expect.”

  “My point exactly,” Hoffman said. “Brad busted out during Second Beast—that’s the field portion of summer camp, ten times as hard as First Beast, which is pretty damned intense. He probably had First Beast nailed, but all of a sudden he’s up to his eyeballs in mud and grief and he’s not comfortable, so he got in some upperclassman’s face. I’ve seen it a hundred times.” Patrick said nothing—because he knew Hoffman was probably spot-on. “You want me to stop bugging Bradley and just treat him like a student, sir? I’ve got enough other guys around here to do the busywork, and he is doing pretty well with the flying stuff, so I can push him a bit more on his ratings and get him some more stick time.”

  Patrick shook his head immediately. “I’m not going to tell you how to run your business or your training program, Tom,” he said. “Truth is, over the years I’ve probably—no, I have—been too easy with him with all the travel and assignments I’ve had, with Brad living with his aunts and grandmother after Wendy was killed, and maybe he hasn’t had to sacrifice as much as other kids. No, you keep on doing what you’re doing. Let’s see what he does. He said he has his single-engine commercial ticket already, and he’s working on his multiengine?”

  “Like I said, he knows how to fly.”

  “And we can keep this conversation between us.”

  “Tell him if you want, sir,” Hoffman said. “Tell him I expect him to be positive, proactive, and engaged. I want him to start acting like he’s part of a team. Right now he thinks he’s just an errand boy. As long as he feels that way, he always will be. You can’t tell someone to be a team player or to be positive and proactive—they’ve got to want to be that themselves. I think, eventually, he will join the team—we’ll just see if he can gut it out long enough. But at least you should know that’s he’s a good pilot and a good worker. He’s just got to ditch the ’tude.”

  “I hope he does, Tom. I hope he does.”

  “Same here, sir.” They left the storeroom and headed toward the main hangar. “So, any word about your Excalibur proposal?”

  “A few requests for additional information, background checks on some of the engineers, and that’s about it,” Patrick said. “You can probably expect a visit by the FBI or Department of Defense on your background and those of the instructors you propose to use, and maybe some more information on the training program.”

  “Already have—I turned over five boxes of stuff to the Defense Investigation Agency. No problems that I’m aware of.”

  “Good,” Patrick said. “But the silence is deafening—I haven’t heard no, but not a yes either. At least I haven’t heard volleys of laughter yet from the Pentagon.”

  “It’s a good plan, sir,” Hoffman said. “But DoD is not accustomed to buying old equipment, even if the idea makes sense and is doable. But I’ll be ready to swing into action when you give the word. I’ve got a list of pilots ready to go through training, mostly ex-B-1 crewdogs but a few civilians. It’s a pretty geriatric bunch, but they’re all well qualified and eager as hell.”

  They walked through the main hangar out onto the parking ramp. Bradley was just climbing down from a ladder after fueling the right wing and was carrying the Jet-A hose and the ladder to the other wing. “When you’re done, check the pressure on those tires—I see a little bulge,” Hoffman yelled out to Brad. “And don’t forget to wash the windows.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brad responded . . . and then Patrick saw it, that little expression that silently said, “Anything else, master?” Hoffman looked at Patrick, who nodded—he had seen it too.

  “The ’tude,” Hoffman said to Patrick in a soft voice. He shook his head, then smiled wryly and shook hands with Patrick. “I’ll see you later, sir,” he said in his usual booming voice. “Have a nice flight back.” And he left Patrick alone with Brad.

  “What did Colonel Hoffman say?” Brad asked.

  “Nothing,” Patrick replied. “We put your stuff on your bed.”

  “Thank you,” Brad said stonily as he started up the ladder, fuel nozzle in hand. He laid a protective neoprene mat over the wing to guard against any damage to the deicing panels on the wing’s leading edge, then uncapped the fuel port and began feeding jet fuel into the wing fuel tank. “Are you heading home right away?”

  “We have our Monday department head lunch meeting at eleven o’clock,” Patrick said. “Then it’s the meeting with the board of directors. Mondays are always pretty busy.”

  “It’s pretty much the same around this place,” Brad said morosely. “The pilots fly in and they want it all done snap-snap, and Mr. Hoffman kisses their kneecaps and then barks at me. If he’s not giving me yet another menial job to do, I have to read another tech manual and do another test. It’s the same routine every day.”

  Patrick could feel the anger rising in his chest, and he was about to do some barking of his own, but then his intraocular monitor flared to life. The late Dr. Jon Masters had replaced one of Patrick’s corneas with a tiny electronic device that acted like a large high-definition computer monitor, allowing Patrick to use a computer and access the Internet anywhere without any other hardware. Patrick scowled at the back of Brad’s head, then stepped away to answer the call. “Patrick here. What’s up, Kylie?”

  “Just got an e-mail from the Pentagon,” his assistant, Kylie, said. “I forwarded it to you. The undersecretary of the Air Force for acquisitions wants to see you, Dr. Oglethorpe, and Colonel Hoffman immediately in the national security adviser’s office.” Dr. Linus Oglethorpe was Sky Masters’s new chief engineer, replacing the late Jon Masters, and the head of the Excalibur design project.

  Patrick quickly read the e-mail, his excitement rising. “Get us airline tickets for this afternoon, Kylie. I’ll double-check with Colonel Hoffman to see if he’s free.”

  “The Pentagon is sending a plane for you, Patrick,” Kylie said. “It’s already on the way. It’ll be here in a few hours. I’ve sent a text to Colonel Hoffman too—I assume he’ll be flying back with you in the Centurion.”

  An even better sign, Patrick thought. “I’ll be back within the hour. Can you throw some clothes and travel stuff in a bag for me, and make sure my laptop has all our latest presentation materials and budget sheets? And check on Dr. Oglethorpe to make sure he’s ready to go—you know how he can be.”

  “Will do, sir,” Kylie replied, and she hung up.

  Patrick hurried back to Hoffman’s office, but his assistant, Rosetta, said he had already left for home to pack and said he looked very excited. Patrick stepped quickly back out to Brad and the Centurion. Brad was busy cleaning the windshield, and he had a portable compressed nitrogen bottle with him ready to help one of the licensed mechanics fill the tires if they needed it. “What’s going on, Dad?” he asked.

  “We’re on our way to Washington to talk about the XB-1 project,” Patrick said. “Colonel Hoffman is coming with me. The Pentagon is sending a jet to pick us up in Battle Mountain.” Patrick called up a weight-and-balance and flight plan form on his intraocular computer system. “I’d better check the weight and balance with Colonel Hoffman—he’s a pretty big guy.”

  “I think you’ll be okay,” Brad said. He finished checking the tires a few minutes later. “Just as I thought: the tires were fine,” he said.

  “Brad, you seem to be doing an awful lot of complaining today, and when I spoke to you on the phone the other day,” Patrick said as he worked, accessing the programs using a virtual
tactile keyboard on his intraocular display—it was always comical for Brad to watch his father poke and swipe at empty space and see his eyes dart back and forth as he worked. “You may think you’re getting a raw deal here, and I’ve given you your options. Just don’t make other people’s lives miserable.”

  “I don’t complain to anyone.”

  “See that you don’t,” Patrick said. “And it’s not just your words but your attitude that gets people down. You have to at least act like your work and your study mean something to you. If all folks around here see of you is this bummed-out moaning mumbling Eeyore, you bring everyone down, and that’s the impression of you that you’ll burn into everyone’s brain.”

  “Is that what Colonel Hoffman said?”

  “That’s what I’ve noticed around here myself in the short time I’ve been here, and I don’t like it,” Patrick said, “looking up” from his virtual computer to glance at his son. “You know what it’s like to be a team player, whether it’s Civil Air Patrol or football. You also know that the team needs the support of every member, even if you’re not doing exactly what you’d rather be doing. You didn’t grumble about being a ground team member in Civil Air Patrol, even if you’d rather be flying; you didn’t complain when you were benched or when you played special teams instead of first string.”

  “But that was different—I knew what I was doing back then,” Brad said. “I was usually the leader or captain. Around here, I’m lower than whale poop on the bottom of the ocean.”

  “You may not remember when you first joined Civil Air Patrol or were a junior varsity football player, but I do,” Patrick said. “You always sat in the back of the room, never wanted to get called on, had to be told how to do something a dozen times, and would panic when the others would turn and look at you or whisper about something stupid you said. It’s the same now. You’re the new guy, and you have to prove yourself all over again, just like you had to do working at Sky Masters.”