Fallout

9

“Crumb!” Luke bounded across the room and extended his hand to Delbert Crummey, one of his favorite Navy pilots and the one with the funniest name, a name that gave rise to absolutely endless jokes. His enthusiasm was legendary. “How you been?”

“Stick!” Crumb said. He’d left quite a mark as an instructor at TOPGUN, until he, like so many others, decided not to go back to sea. He got out of the Navy and took a job flying Falcon jets for a large company. As far as civilian flying went, it wasn’t bad. There wasn’t any high-G inverted flying, but Falcons were good performing jets, and once he got over having passengers, he’d grown not to hate it. But as soon as Luke had called, he offered to quit his job that day. He’d said he missed the flying, but he missed the camaraderie even more. “Where’s Thud?”

“Next door. Let’s go see him.” They walked from Luke’s office to Thud’s. “Thud! Crumb’s here!”

Thud shook his hand vigorously. “Welcome aboard! It’s great to have you.”

“You’re the XO?” Crumb asked, surprised.

“Yeah. Benefits of partial ownership. We get to appoint ourselves as the bosses.”

“Who writes your fitness report?”

“Nobody, except maybe Luke.”

“And who writes your fitness report?” Crumb asked Luke.

“Nobody. That’s the beauty of it. How do you like the setup?”

“This is unbelievable,” Crumb said, looking around. “This is like the greatest job in the history of the world. Thanks a lot for calling.”

“Did you see the MiGs?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t ever seen one in person.” He glowed. “That’s a beautiful airplane—or at least somewhere there are beautiful MiG-29s, but yours look like shit right now. They need a lot of work. The one I saw looks like a jalopy you’d find in a barn that you try to turn into a hot rod.”

“Don’t let the paint fool you. They’re in good shape. Did you see the two-seater?”

“Yeah. That’s a good thing, so we don’t prang ourselves on our first flight.”

“It’s supposed to be ready to go Monday.”

“When is everyone else due to get here?”

“Monday except for Lips, who won’t be here until next month, and Stamp, who has a bunch of air shows to fly.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Vlad has set up a ground school and a flight instruction plan. Believe it or not, this guy who’s the head of the MAPS group for maintenance is a former Russian instructor pilot in the MiG-29. He’s going to do a lot of the instruction for us and run the ground school.”

“A Russian?” Crumb’s eyes narrowed, and he grew serious. “You’re going to let a Russian fly as an instructor?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“How do you know he’s not a Russian spy?”

“What the hell would Russia get out of spying on us? Maybe learn all about the MiG-29?”

“No, the syllabus. The whole way of running a TOPGUN school. I don’t know. Doesn’t it bother you? We’ve all flown as instructors. We’re probably going to do it exactly the same way. Russia could never get inside the real TOPGUN. So maybe they sent him here to get it from us.”

“Hell, Crumb. We’re going to be giving instruction to foreigners. This is no big secret deal. We might even do it on an unclass level. It might be secret level, but certainly not anything higher than that. I’m not worried about it. But if you see something that bugs you, tell Hayes. He’s the resident spook.”

Crumb knew the whole story about Hayes. “I will. Too bad about his discharge.”

“Yeah.”

“How will I know which one is Vlad?”

Thud smirked. “Just follow your nose. He’s down with the jets. Speaking of which, let’s go down there and get a sandwich.”

They walked downstairs into the main hangar area, to a small deli that some of the employees had carved out of a space at the back. They’d scrounged an old refrigerator, and on the counter next to it were mayonnaise, bread, mustard, and some meat and cheese that had come together as something of a center of gravity where people could fix lunch sandwiches. Luke asked Thud, “How’s the Officers’ Club?”

“Almost done. I’ve got a new name: 94th Aero Squadron.”

“What’s that?”

“The only Navy ace of World War I flew for them.”

“Perfect. Who’s going to head it up?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, glancing at Crumb. “But Crumb here would be a good candidate.”

“Thanks for volunteering, Crumb,” Luke said, his voice full of feigned appreciation. “Thud’ll tell you all about it.”

Crumb frowned and smiled at the same time. “So… it really is just like the Navy? You check in and they start dumping all the shitty little jobs on you right away? It’s like I never left! What just happened? Am I now the coffee mess officer?”

“You’re the O’ Club officer. In charge of all the petty little details,” Thud said. He turned to Luke. “That reminds me; the guy from my father’s company is here to interview. He’s waiting topside.”

Luke was unenthusiastic. “Remind me why we need to hire this guy.”

“He just heard about the company and asked my father if he could come interview with us.”

“Right. But what exactly does he bring to it? What’s his area?”

“Said he’d do anything.”

“What does he do for your father?” Luke asked.

“Security guard.”

Luke finished putting his sandwich together and glanced over his shoulder at Thud with a “you’ve got to be kidding me” look. “We’re set for security. Remember? It’s part of our contract. We can’t just hire some minimum-wage flunky to join them. Why are we doing this?”

“I told my father we’d interview him. My father likes him.”

“Here we go,” Luke said, with a tone of having been offended in a way that was anticipated, “We do things just because your father hints at it?”

“Hey, the way I see it, if my father asks us to do something that isn’t illegal, we do it. If he tells us to hire somebody, we will.”

“Fine, you interview him. Hire him. I’ve got too many things going on.”

“Nope. We’re going to interview him together.”

“Says who?” Luke asked, annoyed.

“Says me.”

“What is this, a mutiny?”

“No, just some friendly advice.”

Luke slapped his sandwich onto a paper plate and headed to his office. Before he could take one bite, Thud walked back in with a middle-aged man whose gut was hanging so far over his belt that Luke couldn’t even tell what his huge brass buckle said. He was wearing a black baseball cap that had “51” on the front in numbers so large they could be read a hundred yards away. It was the kind of baseball cap you would see at a tractor pull. It sat on top of his small head like a dunce cap. It appeared to be made out of Styrofoam, or the cheapest polyester possible. It puckered in the front and had mesh around the sides to the back. He showed absolutely no inclination to remove it as he walked into Luke’s office.

The man was about five feet ten and weighed at least two hundred fifty pounds. He had a swollen, serious look on his face and watery eyes behind silver-framed glasses. Luke stood up. “Hi. My name is Luke Henry.”

“Raymond Westover, sir,” the man replied in a low, confident voice. He took Luke’s hand with his own small, pudgy one.

“Sit down, please,” Luke said, pointing to the chair in front of his desk. He rubbed his hand on his flight suit to remove the man’s sweat. Thud sat next to Westover across from Luke. “So. You want to come to work for the Nevada Fighter Weapons School.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re here.”

Luke smiled. “Like why men climb mountains—because they’re there.” He looked at Thud. “Who said that? Was it Sir Edmund Hillary? Or… that guy whose body they found frozen like an Otter Pop on Mount Everest a couple of years ago? What the hell was his name?”

“Mallory, I think.”

“Yeah.” Luke returned his gaze to Raymond. There was no recognition in his eyes. “What do you mean, because we’re here?”

Raymond looked around, pointed to the floor, and said enthusiastically, “Because you’re here. Here, meaning… here.”

“Tonopah?”

“Exactly. Tonopah.”

“What’s so special about Tonopah?”

Raymond’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know?”

“Sure. A perfect airfield,” Luke said, knowing it wasn’t what Raymond had in mind.

“Sir, I understand why you guys want to be here,” Raymond said, looking back and forth at the two principals. “I’d just be excited to work out here in the desert.”

Luke decided to do it a different way. “What kind of work did you have in mind?”

“Security. I’ve been a security guard for over thirty years now, sir. Never had an incident on my watch.”

Luke nodded understandingly. “Unfortunately, our security is being handled by a private company. The DOD had to sign off on them. They have lots of experience in this sort of thing. They do their own hiring.”

Raymond was visibly disappointed. “I can do anything. I’m pretty handy. I can fix toilets, replace electrical outlets, things like that.”

Luke nodded again. “Well, we don’t really have a handyman. I’m not sure—”

Thud jumped in. “How about a deli?”

“What about a deli?” Raymond asked.

“Would you be willing to build and maintain a deli for the aircrew and maintenance people to eat at during the week?”

“I don’t know much about that,” Raymond said, thinking it over. “I’ve never been much of a cook. Glenda always fixes my lunch.”

“Who’s Glenda?”

“The little lady. Thirty-one years.”

“Bring her. She can make the food, and you can take care of the deli and other things. You can do it as a team. Do you think she’d be interested?”

Raymond considered it. “She may very well be. She’s kind of just knocking around the house right now. Sort of looking for something to do, now that the kids are gone and all.”

“Can she cook?”

Raymond nodded vigorously enough for the jowls on his cheeks to move. “Yes. She can cook very well.”

Luke couldn’t resist. “So, Raymond,” he said, “what’s up with the hat?”

Raymond looked at Luke intently. “Area 51.”

“What?”

“Area 51. It’s out here. It’s all here.”

“UFOs,” Luke said, finally understanding. He glanced at Thud, who was trying not to snicker. “You follow UFO sightings?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve even written articles for UFO Today.”

“That’s what you meant by ‘here.’ ”

“This is one of the places that the UFOs have landed. It’s well documented. I’m thinking maybe I’ll see some.”

Thud turned in his chair and looked hard at Raymond. “Can you and Glenda do the work on the deli without that interfering?”

“Yes, sir. Extraterrestrial Highway is driving distance from here, but I won’t have to go there all that much. I think you can see more from here, frankly,” he said in a tone of secrecy. “I think more happens up here than over at that Groom Lake. That’s been picked clean. They know people are expecting things over there. I think I’ll be more likely to see something—”

“Thanks for coming,” Thud said, standing up. He shook Raymond’s hand.

Luke also stood and shook Raymond’s hand. “We’ll give you a call as soon as we decide,” Luke said.

“Look forward to it.” Raymond’s mind had started to work. “How big a deli you anticipate?”

“We hadn’t really thought about it,” Luke answered. “But the more I do, I think something with tables and chairs, maybe even an outdoor patio.”

“Maybe even a jukebox,” Thud said.

“That would be great.” Raymond nodded. “I can build anything, you know. I’d like to get right on it if you guys are ready. Just give me a call.” Raymond waited for one of them to say something, then realized they weren’t going to. He turned and walked out of the room.

When his footsteps died away, Thud turned to Luke. “Sorry. I had no idea he was off.”

Luke smiled. “He’ll be fun to have around. The students will love the whole UFO thing. We’ll have to make sure he keeps copies of UFO Today around the deli. Think he can handle it?”

Thud nodded. “My dad said he was a steady employee. He just has some weird ideas.”

“Put him to work. Sure hope Glenda can cook—”

Just then Hayes came into the office, breathless. “I’m going to forward a call. It’s important,” he said.

The phone rang, and Luke glanced at his untouched sandwich and picked up the phone. He was annoyed that he hadn’t had more warning of whatever it was that was so important. “Yes, sir,” he replied as Hayes and Thud looked on. He nodded, listening. “Where? Why there? Yes, sir. No, not a problem. Yes, I am, sir. Very much, sir. Thank you. Yes. Good-bye.”

Luke put down the phone and smiled. “We’ve got our first students,” he said. “That was the Undersecretary’s office. We have four students for the first class, four foreign students.”

“Where from?” Thud asked.

“Pakistan.”

Hayes frowned. “Pakistan? Why?”

“What’s the matter with that? They fly American airplanes. They face India on the other side of the border. They’ve had two wars with India, and they still kill each other over Kashmir about every day. And the kicker, probably the reason that we got the deal, is… what’s the front-line fighter for India?”

Hayes nodded. “MiG-29.”

“Exactly. So if you were Pakistan, where would you go for training?” Luke stood. “Now we just have to get the other twelve students lined up.”

Hayes wanted more information. “What were you writing? You wrote something down when you were talking on the phone.”

Luke turned around quickly, recalling just that. “Oh, yeah. He gave me the name of their OIC. Head pilot. A Major”—he looked at the piece of paper and tried to read his own writing—“Riaz Khan, of the Pakistani Air Force.”

“Khan?” Hayes said, frowning. “I hope he isn’t any relationship to the Khan who’s the head of the ISI.”

“What’s that?” Luke asked.

“Internal security division for Pakistan. Sort of their FBI and CIA rolled into one. They’re mean and nasty. And they’re deeply involved with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Thud was lost. “Who?”

“The Islamic ruling party of Afghanistan. They’re very dangerous. Plus, I don’t need to remind you, it’s the Taliban that hid and defended Osama bin Laden for so long.”

The humor had drained out of Luke’s face. “You think we ought to be worried about this?”

Hayes considered. The last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize the first class. “The Undersecretary is responsible for their security clearances. It’s not really our problem. But I sure as hell would have picked some other students if it had been up to me.”

“Does this go on your to-do list?” Luke asked.

Hayes nodded. “I got a real uneasy feeling when I heard Pakistan. Khan’s a common name in Pakistan. Chances of him being related to the head of the ISI are pretty low. But still, I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought. Next time I talk to the Undersecretary’s office, I’ll remind him that we’ll need copies—written copies—of the clearances for all the students, including the Pakistanis.”

“Fair enough,” Luke said. “Guess what they’re going to do for jets?”

“Fly their F-16s from Pakistan?”

“Nope. They’re going to lease four F-16s from the California Air National Guard. How clever is that? Let’s put that on the agenda for the next department heads meeting. Maybe we can set up some kind of a pipeline so other foreign students can do that. Why don’t you get on the horn with the air national guard units west of the Mississippi to see if they’d be up for that. We can have a list.”

“You got it,” Hayes said. He was about to leave, then turned toward Luke. “You wouldn’t mind if I just did a little checking into this guy, would you?”

“How?”

“My brother.”

Luke nodded. “Good idea. Can’t have too much knowledge.”

Luke stood in front of the energy-charged room in his khaki flight suit. Russian pilot wings were embroidered on his nametag, with nfws and stick embroidered underneath the wings. He wore the newly designed NFWS patch on his right shoulder, with a black background and a gray F/A-18 in the foreground. Superimposed over the F/A-18 was a MiG gunsight. It was an F/A-18 caught in a MiG gunsight, a reversal of the TOPGUN patch, which has a MiG-21 caught in an American gunsight. Luke’s round patch read around the outside, nevada fighter weapons school. It was the same patch that would be handed out to graduates of his school. One patch for each graduate. It was Luke’s hope that this patch would be worn as proudly as the TOPGUN patch was worn by the few who earned it.

The newly completed ready room was on the second deck of the hangar. It still smelled of fresh paint. All except one of the newly hired instructors were there. They were all wearing their NFWS flight suits with Russian insignia. Each had completed the ground school and at least his introductory flight in the MiG-29. Several had completed the syllabus. For the first time the squadron was intact. All but one of the pilots were aboard, and all the administrative and maintenance people were in place.

The ready room itself was a study in aviation decor. On one wall it had silhouettes of every major fighter airplane in the world, in the same scale. Hanging underneath the silhouettes at the end of twelve-inch dowel rods were models of each fighter, built to perfection, all in the same scale.

Luke stood at the lectern, his hands on its sides, and got everyone’s attention. “Good morning,” he said.

They all smiled. “Good morning, Skipper,” one said loudly.

“Do we have to call you ‘Skipper’?” another asked.

“Absolutely. As each of you knows, this company will be run exactly as a Navy fighter squadron is run. We will have pilot duties, instructor duties, collateral duties, a chain of command, and thirty days of vacation a year. One big difference, though, is we will pay you exactly twice what your counterparts in the Navy are paid. Your pay is based on twice the published Navy pilot’s scale for the same rank. That makes it very easy to track. It should also make you want to write your congressmen to convince them that Navy pilots are underpaid. Feel free.” He smiled.

“Are we all here?”

“Everybody except Stamp and Lips,” Luke replied.

“Stamp’s coming?”

“Yep. And get this: Who knows what Stamp’s doing right now?”

“Some air show thing?” Pug asked.

“Yep. He’s flying a plane that has smirnoff vodka painted on the side. Anybody know what kind of plane?”

“Seventeen.”

“Yep. A MiG-17. He and his partner own two of them. They fly them in air shows. Hot deal, but not quite like flying as a TOPGUN instructor in MiG-29s. He’ll be here next week.”

“Is he quitting the MiG-17 thing?”

“Nope. He’s going to do that on the weekends. He’s going to live in San Jose, where he’s based, and commute here in his MiG.”

“What?” Sluf asked.

“As I told most of you when you checked in, including Sluf, if you want, you can commute to work here in your own airplane. We have plenty of ramp space, and it means you can live anywhere nearby that you want to,” Luke said. “You can commute here every day if you want, in your own biplane or Learjet. Whatever you want.” He watched them nod. “So now let me get going. Welcome! Thanks for agreeing to be part of this new school. I can’t tell you how excited I am about it, and after talking to each of you, I know you are as well. It is one of the most exciting developments in fighter aviation in twenty years.

“We have six weeks to get ready for the first class. The demand from international Navies and Air Forces is enormous. We’ve received calls, letters, e-mails, faxes from all over the world asking for space in a class. Brian Hayes, our intel officer, whom many of you know…” He pointed. Hayes was sitting at the duty officer’s desk, and raised his hand. “Brian is also our acting admin officer. He’s the one in charge of school quotas, student enrollment, clearances, and the like. Ever since the Nevada Fighter Weapons School Web site went active, he’s been getting thousands of hits a day. Word is out.

“Another thing that has surprised me is the demand within U.S. forces. TOPGUN’s tough to get into. But an awful lot of pilots want to go, and an awful lot of squadron commanders want their pilots to go. We all know that. And since they changed the setup at TOPGUN, where squadrons don’t send their pilots through until they’ve completed their squadron tour, the squadrons don’t get any immediate benefit from sending anyone through the school. Well, here we’re going back to the old model, where squadrons send a pilot or two in a given year, and they return to their squadrons to teach the other pilots what they’ve learned. What I didn’t anticipate, at least not at the demand we’re seeing, was that the DOD would spring for the money to send them.”

He went to a slide in his PowerPoint presentation. It was a picture of their MiG-29s sitting outside the hangar with their new angular, choppy desert camouflage and the black star markings. “One thing driving the demand, frankly, is the fact that we fly MiG-29s. Everyone wants to fly against a MiG-29. Some of you may recall back in 1999 when the German Air Force brought six MiG-29s over to Red Flag, at Nellis. They were the prettiest girls at the dance. Everybody wanted to know everything they did, how they did it, their specifications, their maneuvering diagrams—everything. Demand has, if anything, increased since 1999. In six weeks we start meeting that demand.”

“You think we can actually be ready in six weeks?” Sluf asked. Sluf had joined them from the Forest Service. After his tour as a TOPGUN instructor, instead of flying for the airlines he’d gotten a job flying tanker planes to fight forest fires.

“Sluf, I really appreciate your participation in this meeting. As a reward”—Luke smiled—“I’d like you to be in charge of facilities. Hangars, foreign object damage walk-downs, roads—all that good stuff.”

Sluf put his head back and rolled his eyes. His black hair reflected the light because of the hair gel he always wore. He laughed. “I get it. The first dissent is met with the assignment of a shitty little job?”

“Welcome to the Navy,” Luke replied.

“This isn’t supposed to be the Navy!” Sluf protested.

“No, seriously, I really appreciate you volunteering for that difficult job. As to your question, we will be ready. We’re going to have to work eighteen-hour days six days a week. We’ll take Sundays off because I think it’s smart to rest. When September first comes around, we’ll have sixteen fully trained instructors, a syllabus in place, the airspace reserved, and we’ll be ready to go.

“We’ll take two weeks off before the second class, which, I am proud to report, is also full. We expect to fill up every class for the whole year before January one.”

Pug, one of the instructors who’d been flying 767s for Delta three weeks before, was troubled. “This whole thing turns on keeping these MiGs flying. What do you know about MAPS? Can they pull this off?”

Luke looked at Vlad, who was sitting in the back listening to every word. “Vlad, why don’t you talk about maintenance for a minute? Most of you have met him, but this is Vladimir Petkov, a former Russian MiG-29 instructor who now works for MAPS.”

“What’s his call sign?” Sluf asked.

Ted Bradley—Rain—jumped on that idea. “How about Commie?” He laughed.

Vlad did not laugh. He was angry. “I was not Communist. I was against Communist. To be called that would be insulting.”

“All the more reason,” Rain replied, looking around for support.

Luke was uncomfortable. He didn’t want a rift. “We may follow a lot of Navy traditions here, but call signs that insult people will not be one of them,” he said to Rain, who looked chastised. “How about we call him Vlad? That okay with you?” he asked.

“Vlad is good.”

“Good. Come up here and talk about the maintenance.”

“Good morning,” Vlad said awkwardly. His hair was plastered to his head, and those in the two front rows could smell him. They curled up their noses and looked at each other, wondering how someone who was such a hygienic wreck could know much about anything. “I’m Vladimir Petkov. We have six of the MiGs ready to go now. The other two will be finished within two weeks, and of course the two-seater has been ready. The ones that are flying are holding up good. The desert air is good for them, and everything is on schedule. They are durable airplanes, but we will certainly have failures. We expect eighty-five percent flying at any given time, and enough spare parts to have a twenty-four- to forty-eight-hour turnaround for any airplane the breaks down. I do not think we will have a problem.”

“Thanks,” Luke said as Vlad returned to his seat. “I have given each of you two notebooks. The first is the instructor’s manual with a syllabus. That’s what we will be doing between now and the first day of class. Some of you have been here and have completed a good part of that syllabus. The rest of you need to catch up and make sure that you finish it before classes start. The pilots who finish the syllabus first will act as instructors for the remainder of the syllabus for the others. It will be a large team effort, but I’m sure we can do it.

“We will be going from basic familiarization of the MiG-29 to NATOPS sign-off—which of course stands for Nevada Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization.” He smiled, referring to the Navy NATOPS that everyone knew about, the Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization. “The reason we’re doing things the old Navy way is, even though we hated some of the Navy ways, we’re all familiar with them and we know what works.

“The second book that you have is the proposed student syllabus for our first class through the Nevada Fighter Weapons School. It is, as you can see, based on the TOPGUN syllabus. We’ve made some modifications. There isn’t much air-to-ground work. Our objective here is to teach not strike warfare but air-to-air combat. We will do a little air-to-ground, but that’s not our focus.”

Luke looked around at the excited faces. “A couple of other things. As the squadron progresses, we expect to be able to do some road shows. If MAPS can support us, we’ll be prepared to take our MiGs overseas. It’s something that very few others have been able to do, but if we can arrange for the appropriate tanking—which will also require us to modify our airplanes—we can work anywhere in the world.”

“We can start our own war!” Sluf said. “Shit hot!”

“Good old Sluf. You know, you should have stayed with the forest service. At least that way all you’re going to kill are a few trees. Always there with a good idea.” Luke continued, “We’ve got a lot to do, a lot to talk about, and we’re going to be doing most of it for the first time. There will be some bumps in the road, I guarantee you. But give me some room to maneuver and we’ll figure out whatever needs to be figured out. Let’s get this school under way.”