No Return

72

Commander Forman stared out the window of his office over Armitage Field, fuming. It had been a stupid idea from the beginning. He had told Laredyne as much. But they had been insistent, and in the end, Forman had thought, What harm could it do? At worst, they’d be right where they were before the flight, and at best, they might have turned things solidly in their favor.

What harm could it do? Forman shook his head in disgust. The twisted pile of metal that had once been an F-18 proved how faulty that line of thinking had been.

Pilot error. That’s what he had put in the report, and in a way it hadn’t been a lie. If the pilot had followed Andersen’s protocols, he would have never tripped the glitch in the software the engineers at Laredyne had yet to find a fix for. The error then triggered a massive systems shutdown. That son-of-a-bitch pilot had decided on his own that a test run meant trying everything out instead of following the road map he’d been given.

And now Andersen himself was a problem. Forman had thought he’d played the lieutenant commander perfectly, taking an interest in the man’s career, promising a transfer to a Pentagon job, then using the influence that had gained him to guide Andersen when he wrote the protocols. Then, after the crash, Forman had moved quickly to solidify Andersen’s culpability, creating what he thought was going to be the perfect scapegoat.

But the lieutenant commander hadn’t stuck to his script. His task had been simple. Make sure Wes Stewart wasn’t a problem. Forman had picked up early on that Andersen had some underlying resentment toward his old friend. But no, instead of shutting Stewart up, he had actually turned on the commander.

Still, it wasn’t the end of the world yet. They just needed a few more days. Once the Senate Appropriations Committee vote was over, Forman could finish the mop-up operation and move on to more important things. Like discussing how his actions deserved an even cushier post-Navy job at Laredyne than the one he’d been promised.

And if things did take a bad turn, he had Andersen to throw into the fire.

His desk phone rang. He punched the speakerphone button.

“Yes?”

“Call for you, sir. Mr. Wesley Stewart.”

Forman paused. Stewart. The other problem. The commander had yet to figure out if he really needed to do anything about him yet.

“Put it through.” He picked up the handset. “What can I do for you, Mr. Stewart?”

“We need to talk.”

“Talk? About what?”

“I want you to release my friends.”

“Your friends? I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t? Well, how about this. Jamieson. Know what that means?”

Forman sat up. He did need to take care of this problem.

“Interested in talking now, Commander?” Stewart asked.

“I don’t know what it is you think you know, but if it’ll help clear things up I’ll meet with you. Why don’t you come to my office and we can-”

“I have a better idea. Be in the parking lot behind the La Sonora restaurant at seven-thirty tonight. Alone.”

“Really. I don’t think we need to …” Forman didn’t finish the sentence.

The line was already dead.