Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (16 page)

           
McLanahan rose. “Oh, I understand
that,
Colonel,” he said. “Remember,
now,” Wilder said. “Nobody needs to know about this duty. Keep this letter out
of sight. Don’t tell anyone else about what you’ll be doing or where you’re
headed, even after you find out at the airport.”

           
“Yes, sir,” McLanahan said. “That
won’t be difficult to do, since I don’t know anything about what I’m doing.”

           
“Well, don’t tell anyone
that,
either, Pat,” Wilder said,
smiling.

 
          
“Yes,
sir.” McLanahan turned to leave. Just before he stepped out, he turned to
Wilder and said, “Sir, when I get back I need to talk to you about
assignments—and the Air Force.”

 
          
Wilder
nodded and folded his hands before him on the desk. “I understand, Pat,” Wilder
replied. “I’m glad, at least, that you’re going to talk before doing anything
else. Believe me, I know what you’re feeling. We’ll talk when you get back, but
don’t let it spoil this exercise.”

 
          
“I
won’t sir,” McLanahan said. He turned and left.

 
          
Wilder
stood, paced the floor for a few moments, then reached into a desk drawer and
lit up a cigarette, the first in several years.

 
          
“
‘You’ll find out, my boy, when you’ve been in as long as I have,’ ” Wilder said
sarcastically, mimicking himself, “ ‘that this hush-hush stuff becomes old
hat.’ ” What horseshit, Wilder thought. Real horseshit. And he saw right
through it all.

 
          
Wilder
sat there for a long time smoking the cigarette.

 
          
I
don’t understand any of this,” she said finally.

           
McLanahan had just stuffed the last
pair of socks in his bulging gym bag when his mother came into the bedroom to
watch him pack. She stood, arms crossed impatiently on her slim chest, staring
in dismay. He slowly pulled the zipper closed.

 
          
“Mom,”
he said, picking up the bag, “there’s nothing to understand.”

           
“Is this some kind of secret
mission?” Maureen McLanahan asked, half-jokingly. “Are you a spy? Come
on
, Patrick. Can’t you give me a hint?”

           
“You’ve been reading too much John
LeCarre, Mom,” McLanahan said. “I’ve got orders, just as if I was going to Bomb
Comp or off-station training. You know, TDYs, Mom. They come up suddenly.”

 
          
“But
your orders don’t say where, or for how long, or for what.”

           
“Mom, c’mon. I don’t have written
orders. I went into see Colonel Wilder. He gave me all the information.”

           
“Which is?”

           
“Which I’m not allowed to say.” He
turned and put his hands on his hips. “C’mon, now. You know better than to pump
me for information I can’t give.”

 
          
Maureen
McLanahan watched her son for a while. Then: “Catherine said something about
the Colonel giving you a new assignment.” Patrick nodded. “I received the
assignment I wanted—an excellent position at SAC Headquarters. I had to call
them and beg and plead with them to keep the slot open until I get back from
this TDY. Any other guy in the Air Force would have packed his bags and been on
his way in three days. I may lose that assignment. I may already
have
lost that assignment.”

           
Maureen tried to be soothing. “It
sounds like ... a wonderful opportunity . . .”

 
          
“It
is,” Patrick said. “But Catherine may not follow me to
Nebraska
— she thinks that the military is
manipulating me. And you . . . well, I know what your reaction would be if I
moved out.”

 
          
Patrick
slung the bag over his shoulder and hurried past his mother. “Is that
all
you’re taking?” his mother asked as
she watched him enter the livingroom.

           
“This is all they wanted me to
take,” he replied. “I imagine they’ll supply me with whatever else I need.”

 
          
“Oh,
Patrick,” his mother said, wringing her hands. “I want to help you make the
right decision, but I can’t help it. The restaurant is our life. If you move
away, I don’t know if we could handle it by ourselves.”

           
Patrick walked back to where she
was standing and kissed her on the cheek. “I understand, Mom. I really do. But
. . . the business is almost running itself now. And you have Paul. You don’t
need me like before.” He gave her a hug. “It will be all right, Mom. Believe
me.”

           
Maureen McLanahan buttoned the top
button of her son’s shirt. “You’ll be back, won’t you, Patrick?

 
          
She
hadn’t really heard a thing. “Yes,” he sighed. “I’ll be back.”

 
          
She
brushed back a lock of hair from her forehead and smiled. “I love you,
Patrick.”

 
          
“I
love you too, Mom,” he said. He gave her a firm reassuring look, turned and
walked out.

 
          
The
ride to the airport in Catherine’s Mercedes was fast and very quiet. McLanahan
held hands with Catherine right up until she pulled up to the curb in front of
the United Airlines terminal, but few words were exchanged. She did not stop
the engine, but only put it into neutral and watched as he retrieved his bag
and jacket from the back seat.

 
          
“I’m
going to miss you,” he said as he piled his belongings on his lap. “I’ll miss
you, too,” she replied. There was an uncomfortable pause. Then she added, “I
wish you didn’t have to go.”

           
“Part of the job, Cat,” he said.
“It’s kind of exciting, all this mystery. A ticket on the Orient Express.”

 
          
“Well,”
she said, “I don’t think it’s exciting. It’s stupid—sending you off to God
knows where and not even telling you when you’ll be back.” He stared back at
her and said nothing.

           
“Thank God you won’t have to do this
much longer,” she went on. “This just underscores how the military treats
people like you. The best nav in the Air Force, bundled up like a sack of dirty
laundry and hustled off to
Timbuktu
.”

 
          
“The
Air Force has been a good life, Cat. A good job. It’s had its ups and downs
...”

 
          
“Oh,
Pat, that sounds like you, all right,” she said, glaring at him. “Here you are,
on your way to some nonsense at a moment’s notice, and you’re still spouting
the ol’ party line.” She watched him as he opened the car door.

 
          
“Got
to go, Cat,” he said, leaning over and giving her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks
for the lift.” He started to step out of the car . . .

 
          
“Patrick,”
she said suddenly, “when you ... get back, we have to talk—about us.”

 
          
He
looked at her for a moment, trying to read her expression, then shrugged.
“Okay,” he said. “Fine.” He stepped out of the car and watched for a few
seconds as she drove away.

 
          
The
information counter handled McLanahan’s request as if cryptic orders for tickets
were honored every day. He produced his ID card—the only piece of
identification he was allowed to bring—and he was promptly given a sealed
envelope and directions to the boarding gate.

 
          
Curiosity
overcame him on the escalator ride to the upper floor, and he opened the
envelope. Inside was a round-trip ticket to
Spokane
,
Washington
, with an open return date. The office symbol of the ticket purchaser
was a strange four-letter military official symbol with no base or office
location.

 
          
He
exchanged one of the tickets for a boarding pass at the gate and sat down to
wait. Why all the damn mystery, he asked himself.
Spokane
was the location of Fairchild Air Force
Base, the Air Force’s basic survival school. He had already been to basic
survival right after undergraduate navigator training, but Fairchild had a
number of survival schools and other training courses.

 
          
Well,
that was it, then. He had been tapped for some exotic survival training
school—maybe it was a special school under development. He had heard rumors of
a new school in the works that taught survival in environments contaminated by
nuclear fallout. Or perhaps it was a new twist on the mock-up prisoner-of-war
camp located at Fairchild, a facility complete with interrogation centers, a
prison camp, and real Eastern bloc-trained guards and interrogators.

 
          
The
waiting became much, much easier after McLanahan had sorted it all out for
himself. Fairchild. All this lousy secrecy, all the hassles, all the
worrying—all for some dumb exercise, some stupid class where CIA or DIA
interrogators could get their hands on a
real
crewdog for a while. What a waste.

 
          
McLanahan
did not have long to wait until his flight was called, and all the passengers
were on board in a matter of minutes. Only a handful of people—a few obviously
G.I. by the looks of their haircuts, a few civilians—were headed for
Spokane
. McLanahan scanned an inflight magazine,
wishing he’d brought a magazine or a book, wishing the damned military had
let him
bring one.

 
          
He
was fast asleep, the gentle roar of the engines acting as a narcotic for his
settling nerves, long before the plane’s wheels ever left the ground.

           
A waste of time, he nodded to
himself just before he dropped off. A complete waste of time.

*
 
*
 
*

 
 
          
It
was late in the evening when McLanahan finally collected his baggage and stood
at the entranceway to Spokane International’s central lobby. He put his single
carry-on bag down on an empty chair and reread the cryptic, computer-printed
instructions he received when he departed:

 
          
ARRIVE
SPOKANE
2135L. HAVE BAGGAGE IN POSSESSION BY 2200L
AND WAIT FOR FURTHER DIRECTIONS.

 
          
It
was 2345, almost two hours after his scheduled—scheduled
what?
Another classic example of the military’s standard “hurry up
and wait” procedures. Get to where you’re going on time or else, but sit on
your butt and wait till
they're
ready.

 
          
McLanahan
slung his gym bag over a shoulder and went over to a counter with a sign that
read SHUTTLE TO FAIRCHILD. The desk was empty, but a sign with two moveable
hands on an Air Force recruiting clock face promised that an Airman Willis
would be back by
twelve o’clock
.
The hands looked as if they hadn’t been moved in months. McLanahan chose a seat
near the counter and waited.

 
          
A
few minutes later, a tall, muscular Air Force enlisted man in a neat pair of
combination one double-knits with a few impressive rows of ribbons arrived at
the desk. He filled out a line of a clipboard log beneath the counter, turned
on a huge portable tape deck, and took a seat on a tall school. McLanahan
approached the desk.

 
          
“Good
evening, sir,” Willis said. “Headin’ out to the base, sir?”

 
          
“I
guess so,” McLanahan said. “When’s the next shuttle?”

 
          
“Twelve-oh-five,
or thereabouts, sir,” Willis replied. He retrieved his clipboard. “Can I see your
orders and ID, sir?”

 
 
          
“I
don’t have orders,” McLanahan said. He fished his plastic-coated card out of
his jeans pocket. Willis examined the card, made a few entries on his log, and
returned it.

 
          
“Do
you have any quarters arranged sir?”

 
          
“No,”
McLanahan replied. “I left ... on pretty short notice.”

 
          
“Do
you have someone we can contact at the base? Someone who knows you’re coming?
Your sponsor perhaps?”

 
          
McLanahan
pulled out the original message and scanned it. “All I have is a Major Miller,
but he only has a
Washington
office symbol and number. Nobody at Fairchild. I didn’t... I mean ... I
wasn’t sure I’d be coming here . . .”

 
          
Willis
looked at Patrick McLanahan quizzically, suppressing a slight, “Jesus, another
space cadet,” remark.

 
          
“Well,
sir, I can give billeting a call, but without orders or a point of contact
you’ll be space-available only and that’s pretty slim pickins’ right now.”

 
          
McLanahan
put the message back in his pocket and said, “The shuttle leaves at
five after twelve
, right?”

 
          
“Yes,
sir.”

 
          
“Okay.
Please give billeting a call and see what the room situation is like. My
contact, whoever it’s supposed to be, was scheduled to meet me by ten. If he
doesn’t show I might as well get a room and try to contact him in the morning.”