A Knife Edge

THIRTY-ONE

The C-130's interior smell was a mélange of hot kerosene, grease, and gasoline. Up at the front of the aircraft, not too far from where I sat, a battered, tied-down Humvee leaked fluid onto the bare aluminum floor. I knew how it felt. My bladder was on the verge of doing likewise. I had the pins and needles in my fingers along with the sweats and the shortness of breath. I was well aware of the classic symptoms of avia-phobia even before reading about them in my new flying companion, Have a Nice Flight, on account of the only time I experienced them was when I sat in an aircraft. And the fact that these symptoms were “classic” didn't make me feel any better about having them.

The aircraft lurched, bucking forward as the pilot tested the brakes. And then the engines screamed as only engines in C-130s can, and we turned onto the strip and accelerated. I did what the book suggested I do when in an aircraft heading down the runway. I pedaled, just like Fred Flintstone in his Flintstone car pedaled. This, according to the book, was to give me a feeling of control over my situation. It was supposed to help. It did. It helped me feel like the village idiot, especially as I only noticed the smirking loadmaster strapped into the troop seats on the opposite side of the aircraft after we'd taken off. He began flapping his arms like bird wings, which is one of the ways people lose their front teeth.

Driving a rental back to D.C. wasn't an option. The fact that I had to get my ass up to the captain's office by 1300 hours didn't give me the chance to dick around on the nation's highways. As is often the case at an Air Force base, there happened to be a flight leaving and headed my way. Lyne got me and my well-thumbed copy of Have a Nice Flight on it.

The book didn't recommend getting comatose with a bottle of single malt as a means of overcoming my fears, a suggestion that would have suited me just fine. Instead it recommended distraction. In the lexicon of modern weaselspeak, the book called this “thinking positive thoughts.” I put my cynicism away and gave it a go. There was the bust-up with Anna — nothing positive there. I thought about Ruben's last few months and couldn't see much good there, either. I thought about dinner the previous evening at Clare's. And I thought about how wrong I'd read it. After the night in the hotel, I believed she'd been having fun with me when she'd said I was being presumptuous about sex being on the table, or words to that effect. But no. In fact, we ate fried rice with her son, Manfred. One of the things I learned about Manny was that he wanted to be a rotary-winged pilot, ironic given what had happened to his dad. Or maybe not. Maybe it was the kid's way of conquering the loss: He couldn't beat ‘em, so he was going to join ‘em — or would when he grew big enough to reach the pedals.

Manny was a good kid, but laying carpet would have done more for my libido.

The closest Clare and I came to sex was dessert. She fixed us each a banana split. Given what I knew of her proclivities, this was practically pornographic.

When dessert was finished, it was bedtime — Manny's. Clare read him a story. Afterward, we sat on her back porch, listened to the frogs in the marsh beyond the fence, and talked shop — about the case, about past cases. The conversation ran its natural course until there was only one topic left to discuss. Clare sipped her glass of wine and said, “I meant it when I said just dinner.”

“OK,” I replied.

She picked a small bug out of her glass that was beating its wings furiously, swimming in panicked circles on top of her wine. She flicked it away. “It's been fun.”

“Yes, it has.”

The frogs croaked in unison somewhere in the darkness until one of them missed its cue. “You were just passing through, Vin, and that made what we were doing possible. Remember?”

I remembered. “But now I'm so passed through I'm out the other side?”

“Yes,” she said. “I'm really going to miss you.”

“The feeling's mutual.”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “So we've had a nice farewell dinner. I don't want to ruin it.”

“Can't we ruin it just a little?” I asked.

A short while later, we shook hands at her front door — buddies. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. But now, sitting in a climbing C-130, when I needed a positive distraction, I had none. So instead I focused on a spot on the floor, ground my teeth, fought the pins and needles, and wondered why the hell I hadn't studied accounting.

Flying time to Andrews AFB in Washington, D.C., was a little over three hours. I stepped off the C-130 with my ears ringing, feeling like I'd spent a couple of hours rolling around inside a steel hubcap with a handful of gravel. I took a cab to my apartment. It was exactly as I'd left it — quiet and empty. The über-mold in the fridge hadn't even managed to regroup for a renewed assault. I had a quick shower, threw on my Class A uniform, and walked out the front door half an hour after I arrived. The sky was gray and so low I could almost touch it. The fingers of my left hand ached — a sure sign that snow was in the air.

It started coming down as the cab climbed the ramp on to the Beltway. It fell slow, like white ticker tape. In between songs, the radio warned a big storm front was headed D.C.'s way. A little snow was OK. Too much and the only people who'd benefit from it were the kids who might be forced to skip school if the drifts got too deep.

The cab slowed along with the surrounding traffic as the snow became heavier and the temperature kept dropping. Nevertheless, I arrived outside Chip's office with two minutes to spare. I had enough time to release two buttons on my coat when Schaeffer's door burst open. He was in his Class As too. “Fall in, Major,” he said as he strode past. Perhaps I was being unfair, but striding was something I thought he was incapable of. Schaeffer's face was red and he didn't look pleased. I was pretty certain he wasn't going to wish me Happy New Year.

We climbed a level and walked to the other side of the building. I followed Chip through an unfamiliar section, took some more turns, came through several doors requiring the swipe of his security card, and through another couple needing his card as well as a ten-digit code punched into their touchpads. One set of doors even required a scan of Chip's retinas. While he was being scanned, I kept a lookout for Tom Cruise and his Mission Impossible team.

Thirteen minutes after we set off, and, disproving Arlen's seven-minute theory, a female naval officer with the rank of lieutenant snapped open a set of double doors as we approached. Once inside, I could see there was a bunch of people sitting around a large, rectangular table. Flat-screen computer monitors faced each chair at the table, and the room was ringed by large television monitors at standing height. The light wasn't good as it was provided only by table lamps and the flat-screens. I took all this in at a glance, my synapses popping away like corn on hot steel. Although I couldn't see exactly who was who, I caught enough stars to know there was a who's who of high-ranking brass in the room. However, it was the presence of three people dressed in civilian clothes that gave my pulse rate a push: the U.S. Secretary of Defense; one Bradley Chalmers, now back from his little trip to Guam; and Dr. Freddie Spears. The doctor didn't look up when Schaeffer and I walked in, which told me I was expected. For a second or two I thought the smile on Chalmers's face meant he was pleased to be in my company again. When I looked again, I saw it was a snarl.

“So this is your man, eh?” said the SecDef, leaning back in his chair, appraising me like I was a suit on the rack that might possibly fit.

Chip Schaeffer said stiffly, “Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary. Major Vincent Cooper, currently assigned to OSI, formerly a special tactics officer in the CCTs.”

“At ease, gentlemen,” said an Air Force four-star who, like the admiral, was one of the people I didn't recognize.

At least the order to wear Class As now made some sense, even if the rest of it didn't. An Army four-star got to his feet and walked up to and around me. “Are you fit, Major?” he asked.

“He looks fit,” said a voice from the shadows down the end of the room.

The general was short, with big fleshy ears that reminded me of Yoda's. He smelled strongly of breath mints and cigar smoke. Those three words—”Are you fit”—gave me a tight feeling in my gut. Since when did physical fitness have anything to do with an ability to investigate crime? The Air Force had a basic fitness standard for its cops. Basically, you had to be fit enough to stand for ten minutes on line at a Krispy Kreme's.

“Reasonably, sir,” I said.

“Reasonably, eh?” the general said, half turning to the audience seated behind him.

“Get on with it, Henry,” said some rear admiral.

“Your record says you're thirty-four, Major.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm,” the general said, sucking in his top lip and then chewing on it. I read the name tag on his chest: Howerton. I knew the name. Henry Howerton was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, which explained who the rest of the brass were. The gray hairs of his eyebrows were long and met above the bridge of his nose where they tangled like a kid's shoelaces. He was thinking hard, frowning. “Major, I want to see if you can do the APFT push-up requirement, plus eight to round it up to fifty,” he said.

“Jesus, Henry…” said the unidentified admiral.

Howerton turned and said, to no one in particular, “If the guy's not in shape, we can sort that out here and now and move on if we have to. Do we have time to screw around?”

“No,” said the SecDef.

“Well, then… Fifty push-ups, son,” Howerton said, speaking to me with his hands on his hips. “I don't reckon you can do ‘em, and neither does Ulysses S. Grant here.” He pulled his wallet from a back pocket, lifted out a fifty-dollar note, and slapped it on the table.

Whatever I might have been expecting, it wasn't this. The APFT was the Army Physical Fitness Test. I'd done it before for reasons I didn't want to think about.

“Go on… take his money, Major,” said the admiral from the shadows.

I found myself undoing my overcoat buttons, not because I wanted the fifty bucks but because majors don't say no to generals, not unless they enjoy a good kick in their performance reports and mine were already bruised enough. The room was cool but I was sweating anyway. I took the coat off and put it over the back of a chair.

“Make ‘em good ones, Major — straight back, chin up,” said General Howerton.

A little voice in my head told me this might be a good bet to lose. I got down on the floor and saw my nose reflected in the mirror shine of Howerton's shoes. With all the adrenaline in my system, I did thirty-five easy, without feeling them, Howerton keeping count, but I made the last five look like I was bench-pressing three years of pancakes with extra cream, and stopped at forty-eight, spent. It was a great performance. I got to my feet slow, sucking in the O₂. “Sorry, General,” I said, shaking my head. “Hit the wall.”

“That's OK, Major. I get to keep my money. This is what's known as a win-win.” He said all this with a broad grin.

My eyes narrowed.

“Like I said, the APFT says you only need to do forty-two, son. I just wanted to see with my own eyes. Satisfy myself and these good people here. See that you could do ‘em.”

“Gotta hand it to you, Henry; you read the Major right,” said the admiral with a chuckle. “The way you started out, Major, looked to me like you could go all the way to a hundred.”

Someone else said, “You sure about this, Henry?”

“Look, he's got the necessary experience. We can get him an Army Regulation 40-501 flight physical examination that falls within the specified time limitations. He meets the height and weight standards as set down in AR 600-9. He scrapes in with a few years to spare for age, he's a good thirty inside the two-hundred-forty-pound weight limit for MFF, and he's security-cleared for black ops. We can get him waivers for the rest. In other words, gentlemen, for the purposes of this exercise, Major Cooper here is good to go.”

The APFT? MFF! Hang on a second, good to go the fuck where? And for the purposes of what exercise?

“You look confused, Major. Don't worry, you won't be for too much longer.” Howerton put his hand on my shoulder. “Your orders will be cut this afternoon and given to Captain Schaeffer. Dismissed. Oh, and, Vin … good luck.”