High Flight

by David Hagberg

  Kiyoda suppressed a smile. He had won! Kamiya had somehow pulled it off. If he had been charged with disobeying orders, he would have lost his command and gone to jail in disgrace. There was no defense against such a specification. But against the charge of treason there were a host of defenses. Half the country was behind him.

  “May I be allowed to commit seppuku?” Kiyoda asked.

  “No,” the first officer said.

  “Very well, then. I will accompany you.”

  “Prove InterTech is controlled by a Japanese firm, and we’ll win,” Glen Zerkel said.

  “There is a more elegant solution,” his brother Louis suggested. “If Mr. Reid has the stomach for it.”

  “I’m all ears, my dear fellow,” the older man said. He’d been drinking for twenty-four hours. But like the true functioning alcoholic he wasn’t falling-down drunk, just very loose.

  “I believe all Guerin’s P522’s have been equipped with the control chip. If we can prove that, and if we can reprogram a couple of the FAA’s flight service stations to send out the trigger signal on our command, we’d be able to bring a lot of airplanes down all at once.”

  “Wouldn’t they trace the signal back here?” Reid asked.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Louis replied. “InterTech will send the signal, and the orders will come from Tokyo.”

  U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Clifford Talmadge had a raging hangover. His head was about to split apart, his eyes felt as if someone had thrown hot sand into them, his mouth tasted like dog shit, and he had a piss hard-on that was killing him. On top of all that, his live-in girlfriend, Susie Heidinori, was bitching at him to get up, her whiny, needling voice going on and on like an irritating insect.

  Last night had started out all right at the Noncommissioned Officers Club on base. Nearly eighty percent of the Seventh was at dock, so Fleet HQ was crammed. It was party time, and when the Navy partied, everybody partied. By 2000 hours there probably wasn’t a sober off-duty sailor within a hundred klicks. That’s when the exodus into town began.

  Yokosuka had been home to the Seventh Fleet since after the war. As a result a lot of great drinking establishments, strip joints, and whorehouses flourished just off base, although lately the city fathers were making moves to clean up the area. Apparently there was some resentment by the locals.

  After last night there’d be even more resentment, Talmadge thought. There’d been fights. He’d heard that one of the after-hours clubs had been practically destroyed. And no doubt there’d been a handful of rapes and sexual assaults as well.

  Susie came into the bedroom in her black lace bra, panties, garter belt, and nylons, her makeup only half finished. “Goddamn you bastard, Clifford, get your ass out of bed. We’re both going to be late.”

  Like most Japanese women she was slightly built, with a golden complexion and tiny features. Six months ago when they’d met at a party at the NCO Club he’d thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. But then he was new to this theatre, and the novelty had worn off quickly.

  “Fuck you,” Talmadge said good-naturedly, although he was starting to get mad. “It’s early. We don’t have to be to work until eight.” He was a large man, a former Penn State running halfback, and he’d always had to watch his temper.

  “Well, it’s quarter ’til, you prick. Get up!” She went into the bathroom and slammed the flimsy door.

  She’d stuck a hot poker up his ass. “Sonofabitch,” he roared grabbing his wristwatch. She was right. He shoved the covers back and scrambled out of bed. This would make the third time this month he was late for work. His C.O. had warned him about it last week.

  “I don’t care what you do on your own time, mister, until it affects my time,” the old man said. “If need be I’ll confine your ass to base. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Talmadge had replied crisply. “It won’t happen again.”

  Susie worked on base as a bilingual secretary in Procurements. Her boss had reamed her out too.

  He put on his shorts from yesterday and pulled a semi-clean set of blues out of the closet.

  “For what?” he shouted in frustration. Last night had turned out shitty. He’d gotten into a squabble with a couple of bastards from Meteorology, was thrown out of at least two places he could remember, and in the end he and Susie had gotten into a terrific row about going to listen to a blues combo playing at one of the whorehouses. She liked the music, but she didn’t want to go to that kind of place, and he couldn’t understand. In the end they’d come back to the apartment downtown, and they tried to make love, but he couldn’t do it and he blamed her.

  “Christ, fuck, sonofabitch,” he swore, pulling on a pair of dirty socks. For what? “Get the fuck out of the bathroom, I gotta get in there,” he shouted.

  Their apartment was on the third floor front, facing busy Kaigan-dori Avenue, in an old brick building that always had been used to house foreigners. Like Kamakura and Yokohama, which were part of the Tokyo megalopolis a few miles north, Yokosuka had been one of the port cities where the British and others seeking trade with Japan were isolated so as not to contaminate the purity of Nippon.

  In Talmadge’s opinion it was bullshit then and it was bullshit now. The Second World War had established that, all their color TVs, VCRs, stereos, and Toyotas notwithstanding. If it came to it, we’d just kick ass again.

  “Get out,” he shouted again, putting on his shirt. He had to shave. But his tongue felt as if it had a three-day growth of fungus on it that only a dozen hours of sleep could possibly cure.

  “Just a minute,” Susie yelled.

  Talmadge tried the bathroom door, but it was locked. “Goddammit,” he swore. She always locked the door, which really pissed him off. What the hell was she hiding that he hadn’t already fucked, kissed, or licked?

  Well, he was through being the nice guy. He put his shoulder to the door once very hard, the frame splintering against his 220-pound bulk. Susie, dressed now in her skirt, reared back in alarm, her eyes wide.

  “I told you to get the fuck out of here,” he bellowed. He grabbed her roughly by the arm, hauled her out of the tiny bathroom, and threw her against the dresser.

  She cried out in pain and looked at him with hate and venom in her eyes, her jaw tight, her body rigid. This moment had been coming for weeks, and they’d both known it.

  “Put on your blouse and get us a cab,” Talmadge ordered. “I’ve got to take a piss and grab a shave, then we can shove off.”

  He turned to go into the bathroom when Susie, screeching in rage like a banshee, leaped on his back, biting and scratching his neck and the side of his face. She wanted to draw blood, to hurt him, like he had hurt her so often in their brief relationship. She wanted to knock him to the floor and stomp him into the dirt where he belonged, because he was a lying, bigoted sonofabitch.

  The unexpectedness of her attack caught him off guard, and he was driven forward, banging his head against the door frame. Still she wouldn’t let up. The bitch really wanted to hurt him.

  He spun her into the wall, smashing her against the edge of the door, knocking the air out of her lungs. She grunted and lost her grip on his neck. It was enough. He grabbed her by the hair, plucked her off his back, and tossed her like a rag doll across the bed and halfway into the tiny living room.

  She scrambled to her hands and knees, but Talmadge was much faster.

  He came over the bed, grabbed her arm, and yanked her to her feet. “You fucking bitch,” he shouted, spittle flying.

  She raked his face with her free hand, her long fingernails opening three gashes in his cheek that began oozing blood.

  “Goddamn you whore!” he yelled, completely out of control. He shook her so hard her head flipped back, spraining her neck.

  This time she cried out in real pain. She was not angry now. Suddenly she was frightened for her life.

  Talmadge was seeing red. He had crossed over the brink to where he wanted nothing more
than to hurt her, to cause her pain. To blot her out of the universe.

  Still violently shaking her, he shoved her backward into the living room toward the low couch that sat in front of two windows overlooking the street.

  “You fucking bitch, all you want is a free ride. You want to be an American. You want us to fuck you, and then you laugh at us behind our backs. I know about you fucking superior Japs. Fucking sneaky bastards. Slant-eye fuckers! Maybe we ought to drop the fucking bomb on you again, teach you some fucking manners.”

  Susie was incapable of making even the smallest effort to protect herself. Physically she was no match for Talmadge, who outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds, but she was mentally stunned as well. She’d never seen him act this way, had never seen anyone act this way, and she was flabbergasted. She was convinced that he was going to kill her.

  At the last moment, Talmadge picked her off her feet, his big, rough hands breaking three of her ribs, and he tossed her over the couch and through one of the windows, the thin bamboo-slat Venetian blinds going with her, and she was gone.

  Still it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to hurt her even more, and in his insane rage he was even madder that she hadn’t begged for him to stop.

  In three steps he was across the living room. He yanked the door open, snapping both locks, and thundered down the dark, narrow stairs to the street. Already a crowd was gathering around Susie where she lay on her back, half off the sidewalk into the street. It was rush hour and traffic was heavy, the street clogged with cars and buses and bicycles. Many of the drivers stopped to see what was happening.

  Talmadge bulled his way through the people, his rage still increasing, blind hatred choking out rational thought. He’d always had a chip on his shoulder, especially when he was drinking, and he’d always had a problem controlling it. More than one school psychologist had predicted he would do something very bad one day. But fuck ’em, something was saying at the back of his head. They’d never been laughed at like he had when he’d been a little fat boy. Fat and stupid.

  “Bitch!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He kicked Susie in the side of her rib cage with every ounce of his considerable strength, flopping her body over on its stomach without a sound from her.

  She was dead, and those closest in the crowd sighed and tried to step back, but others were coming, pressing them nearer.

  She was dead. The stupid bitch had gotten herself killed. He kicked her again with all of his strength, pushing her limp body completely into the street.

  He was in some big shit now. There’d be nothing so simple as a Captain’s Mast and a weekend in the brig. It just wasn’t going to be that easy. He’d killed a woman, a fucking Japanese national, because of his foul temper, and he was going to have to pay the price.

  He kicked her again, this time more in frustration than in rage.

  “Yamero,” someone in the crowd shouted, and someone else took it up.

  Talmadge understood enough Japanese to know that they were calling for him to stop. But how could he stop? He’d already gone too far. He looked at Susie’s bloody body, her arms and legs splayed out, and he felt the first stirrings of remorse mixed with a growing fear and confusion. How could he have done this thing? Christ, how could it have happened?

  He looked at the crowd, some of the people jostling forward menacingly, shouting and screaming what sounded like threats. He couldn’t remember from his orientation course if Japan had the death penalty, but he figured for sure he would be turned over to the civilian authorities. What he did remember was that Japanese prisons were notorious for hard time, especially for foreigners.

  The blare of a police siren sounded like it was just down the street, and Talmadge stepped back a pace. It would be one thing to turn himself over to his own Shore Patrol and get a Navy hearing, but something completely different to get himself arrested by Jap cops. He wouldn’t have a chance.

  The crowd was pressing even closer, and the siren stopped just on the other side of them. What the hell had he done this time? He had to get to the pay phone in the downstairs hall. He could call the base.

  Talmadge charged straight at the crowd, bowling the much smaller Japanese out of his way as if they were nothing. It seemed as if everyone were shouting and screaming, pummeling his back with their fists, kicking at his legs, hitting him with umbrellas, shopping bags, anything they carried.

  He broke loose in front of the door to his building at the same time a uniformed cop came up the street in a run, a white plastic holster flapping at his hip.

  People in the crowd shouted something to the cop, and pointed at Talmadge, who pulled up and stopped. A second cop came across the street in a dead run, and the people in the crowd shouted what sounded like a warning.

  Talmadge looked toward the open door into his building and started toward it when the first cop, now just a few feet away, fumbled at his side for his night stick.

  “Ugokuna,” the cop shouted as he got the night stick out.

  Such a stupid little toy, the thought popped into Talmadge’s head, but the Jap looked like he was going to use it. Fuck, he wasn’t going down this way. Not a chance in hell.

  The cop was raising the night stick when Talmadge batted it out of his hand, and snatched the big automatic pistol out of the Jap’s holster. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other cop pull out his gun and bring it up.

  This wasn’t happening! Fucking hell, it wasn’t happening!

  Talmadge raised the SigSauer 9 mm automatic and pulled off four shots as fast as he could squeeze the trigger. An old woman in the crowd fell back, and then the cop went down, the right side of his head exploding.

  Something hard came down on his right collarbone. His right hand instantly went numb, and he dropped the pistol. It was the first cop. The sneaking sonofabitch had hit him from behind with the night stick.

  Howling in pain, Talmadge came around with his left fist, swinging it like a bludgeon, smashing the cop in the head, knocking him backward off his feet.

  Still the cop tried to get up and come after him, so Talmadge scooped the pistol off the pavement with his left hand and awkwardly pumped three shots at point-blank range into the Jap’s chest.

  More sirens were approaching now, and despite the fact he’d killed two cops and possibly the woman, and held a gun in his hand, people kept streaming into the crowd. People screamed and shouted. Called him names, called him a killer, taunted him … he didn’t know what, but he was frightened. He couldn’t kill all of them, even if he wanted to.

  But Christ, it hadn’t been his fault. He had not meant to kill the bitch, but she’d gone on and on at him. He’d told her from the beginning to just leave him the fuck alone in the morning. At least until he had his coffee. And then everything would be hunky-dory. But she wouldn’t let it go.

  He stepped back toward the door to his building, the crowd louder now, the sirens closer.

  And the cops, Christ, what the hell was he supposed to do? Let the bastards shoot him down? Well, fuck that. That part he’d do the same if he had to do it over again. It was simple self-defense, goddammit!

  He turned and sprinted across the sidewalk when a bottle tossed from the crowd caught him on the back of the head, and he stumbled forward, slamming his right knee into the concrete steps, pain temporarily blotting out his vision.

  “Sonofabitch,” he shouted, but it only came out as a croak. He started to bring the big pistol around when it was grabbed from his hand, and someone kicked him in the side of the head.

  The little bastards. Always attacking from behind.

  They were kicking him in the head, in the neck, in the back. Rolling him over, kicking him in the chest and stomach and groin.

  He was done. The fuckers. There were too many of them. And their blows didn’t even hurt anymore, as it all began to fuzz out, coming down to a point.

  ELEVEN

  The Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-86 the Russians provided for the return trip to the States was a far
cry from the Guerin P522 that had brought them to Russia. Even fitted out for the diplomatic service, as it was, its accommodations were narrow and cramped. Everything was chipped or worn and in need of replacement or refurbishment. The half-dozen Russian engineers and finance people who would continue to Portland to work with the plant development, design, and construction engineers didn’t seem to notice the shabbiness. Neither Kennedy nor any of the other Guerin executives saw fit to point it out to them. The differences would become painfully obvious when they were given the grand tour at Gales Creek.

  Heading west they would gain eight hours, so their twelve-hour flight from Moscow would put them on the ground four clock hours after they left. It made for a long day.

  Socrates and his staff were huddled in deep discussion with some of the Russian engineers, while the others either slept or tried to. A pall of sadness hung over them, and it affected Kennedy more than the others because he and Socrates would stay in Washington to work with the NTSB on the accident investigation. It would be them, not their staffs, who would have to reassemble the remains of the airplane. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Sir Malcolm O’Toole, Rolls-Royce’s chief designer, was already on the scene, and without a doubt the old lion was doing a lot of growling. Under most circumstances the Brit was a delight to work with. But this time would be infinitely different. Two engine failures in ten years was, on the surface, a fantastic performance record. It would be like driving an automobile for ten million miles with only two problems. But the crashes were apparently caused by the same malfunction. How many other Guerin airplanes would fall out of the sky?

  They’d just finished lunch and Kennedy was seated alone with his thoughts when McGarvey sat down beside him.

  “I had the flight engineer tune in the BBC’s World Service. You went down four points yesterday.”

  “I know,” Kennedy said. He’d spoken with Vasilanti about it last night just after the market closed in New York.

  “I’m assuming that isn’t a big enough drop for them to start the run on you.”