Strike Eagle

Chapter 15

“Mr. Vice President, we’re on a tight schedule.…” Lieutenant Colonel Merke quietly urged Adleman up the stairs while keeping a smile on her face.

Adleman continued to shake hands with the enlisted men and officers who had gathered around the stairs to Air Force Two.

Merke tapped Adleman’s elbow and kept her voice low. “Sir, thunderstorms are forecast for the Clark area. We need to rotate.”

Adleman nodded while continuing to talk. “The President and I cannot say enough about the importance of the job you are doing — underpaid, overworked, and putting your life on the line for your country. We are working on these compensation problems, but for those of you who are giving the best years of your life serving our country, America salutes you!”

Adleman straightened and threw the crowd a full-handed salute, bringing back memories of Reagan and Clinton at their best, playing up to the cameras. The men and women went wild.

As Adleman entered the plane he turned to Merke, flushed. “That’s the way to leave them — cheering for more.” He rubbed his hands together and made his way back to the suite. “Any word from Washington?”

“No, sir. The President is still in critical condition, and there’s been no change.”

“How about repercussions from Rizular? Has word gotten back on how he feels about us landing at Clark instead of Manila?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” As they reached the back of the plane, Lieutenant Colonel Merke handed Adleman a sheaf of papers. “Here’s the latest situation briefing … and here”—she handed him another bundle—“are some memos to sign. Flight time is approximately two and a half hours; we’re expecting to encounter some weather.”

Adleman grunted and glanced over the papers. He entered the suite and said, “Make sure I’m awake a half hour out of Clark. If reading this doesn’t put me to sleep, I’m going to try and catch a nap before we land.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he shut the door Adleman felt uneasy, as if he were forgetting something. Maybe he was starting to take this job more seriously.

Yolanda stood outside the main gate. The morning rush hour was over, and only a few people were straggling onto the base.

Signs in English and Tagalog warned her that only personnel on official business were allowed on the base. A contractor’s entrance was visible twenty-five yards away. Filipino and American soldiers manned both gates.

A half hour before she had told her father she was going to the market, to walk around and clear her mind. Pompano had smiled at her and encouraged her to get up and around — she thought that he was happy that she wasn’t moping, rebelling.

She didn’t know what he would do to her if he learned her true destination.

Someone jostled her elbow. She looked around. “Excuse me.” The man who had bumped into her was already walking through the gate.

As she approached the gate she felt a light drizzle begin. She looked to the sky; the clouds seemed to have come closer to the ground. She hurried her stride to the gate.

A uniformed Filipino stepped from the concrete guard shack as she approached, took one look at Yolanda, and waved her through.

She clutched the yellow pass and moved quickly through the fence. The Filipinos entering the base streamed toward a row of buses, but they first approached a brown-shirted man, who seemed to give out directions and point them to specific buses. Yolanda was heading for the man when she heard a voice behind her.

“Hey, wait a minute!”

Yolanda turned, feeling suddenly cold. The drizzle had increased to heavier drops.

“Hold up.” A uniformed American ran toward her. He wore a blue beret, a gun holstered at his side, and camouflaged fatigues. The American kept one hand on his beret and the other hand on his holster. He huffed up to her.

“Excuse me, could I see an ID?”

Yolanda looked puzzled. “He said I could enter.”

“Yeah, and he didn’t check your ID either. Dependent or not, it’s a rule, miss.” He smiled amicably.

“Excuse, please?”

He started to say something, then looked at her closely. He frowned. “Say … you are a dependent, aren’t you?” Yolanda thrust out the yellow sheet of paper. The military policeman’s eyes widened. He took the sheet and scanned it. “Well I’ll be dipped.…” He squinted at Yolanda, then down at the sheet. “Yolanda Sicat?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not a dependent?”

Yolanda answered slowly. “I do not think so.”

He looked her up and down, then slowly handed the sheet back to her. His voice suddenly sounded gruff. “I’m sorry. Uh, I could have sworn you were a dependent. I mean, you look like an American.” He stopped, embarrassed and unsure of what to say next.

Yolanda took back the visitor’s pass. She lowered her eyes and stood there. The rain continued to increase in intensity. The policeman backed up.

“Sorry … Go on, then.” He turned and jogged back to his post.

Yolanda turned and headed for the man shepherding people onto the buses. She took her place at the end of the line, under an awning. The intensity of the rain had increased, so that it was difficult to see the main gate from where she stood.

When Yolanda’s turn came, the brown-shirted man whirled to her. She stood at least a head above him. She shoved the yellow visitor’s pass at him.

“I wish to visit Lieutenant Steele.”

“Lieutenant Steele?” The man lifted a brow and studied the paper. “Do you know where he live?”

“No.”

The man set his mouth. “Not married?” Yolanda looked surprised, but shook her head. The man brightened. “Okay. Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. Blue line, that bus over there. Look for many two-story buildings with a sign out front: BOQ.” He nodded to the third bus in line.

“Salamat po,” said Yolanda, but the bus dispatcher was already helping the next person in line.

She paid the one peso fare and settled back near the rear of the bus, which soon filled with Filipino workers and American youths.

Yolanda looked out the window as the bus rounded the long runway. Although the giant American base was not more than five miles from where she lived, she felt as though she were in a totally different world. Everywhere the grass was cropped close to the ground — a shame, she thought, for this would have provided a huge grazing area for water buffalo.

The buildings were all well-kept and painted, yet no one worked outside them. It was all puzzling to her.

But whatever the difference between the two worlds, she knew that she must not let it affect her meeting with Bruce. He seemed to be an honest, decent man … nice-looking, and he treated her well. But her father’s wishes must come first.

She closed her eyes. My father’s wishes, she thought. But he is not even my real father!

The thought left her cold, unsure of what was happening. Things had seemed to be so secure in her life: the knowledge that someday she would attend the University of the Philippines, thinking that it was her father that had raised and protected her.

She opened her eyes, but couldn’t see through her tears. Discovering that she really was an outsider tore her apart. The lie she had lived through the years only intensified her feelings — telling her childhood friends that she had never known her mother, when it was her father she had never really known.

What kind of man would rape her mother? Knock her senseless, so that she would never regain consciousness?

No wonder that Pompano — yes, he was her father! — was driven to get back at the Americans.

She too felt the anger, the blind white rage.

It was the only thing she could do, to save face and to ensure that her girlhood dreams were not dashed … to meet with Bruce and explain, however hard it was, that they could not go on seeing each other.

Cervante let the phone ring twenty times, then slammed the receiver down. “Booto!”

He glanced at his watch. Pompano should have gotten the flight times by now, he thought. If I am to start the harassment, I cannot afford to wait for the old man.

He lit up a cigarette, the last one in the pack. He crumpled the container and threw it across the room. Sucking on his cigarette, he thought through his options. He could not allow the HPM weapon to just sit in the jungle. It worked and was ready for use. But without the incoming flight information Pompano would provide, the HPM would be a mere random operation. He knew that was what he had originally wanted, but that vision of the 747 flying overhead had sparked his imagination. Bringing down an entire plane!

He glanced at the phone. The sooner he had the flight schedule in hand, the sooner they could start the operations. Cervante finished his cigarette.

By this afternoon he would be back in action, operating the HPM weapon.

Catman had the speakers cranked up to the max, playing vintage Toto.

The rock group played the type of technorock that Catman couldn’t get enough of. He’d seen them once, playing a concert in Phoenix during their 40th reunion tour, and the live concert hadn’t differed at all from his CD. They were that exact, that … perfect. Like executing a belly roll, a pilot turning a supersonic fighter around in the opposite direction from where he was looking, checking a blind spot. At over one thousand miles an hour. A technically correct, technically perfect maneuver in the hands of a shit-hot fighter pilot. The best.

Catman had just pushed out of the bed and begun to flip through his CD collection when a curt knock came at the door.

He ambled to the door and swung it open, wide.

She stood no more than six inches away, just under the overhang.

“Uh …” It was all he could manage to get out. Behind him came the erotic beat of Toto’s “Rosanna.”

The girl held out a wet sheet of paper to him. “Excuse, please. I am looking for Bruce Steele.”

“Bruce, uh?” Catman gathered his wits about him and tried not to stammer. Of course, he thought, the house girl. There is a God in heaven. He swore to himself that he’d attend Sunday School for the next twenty years. “Come on in and get dry. Sure, you’re looking for Bruce — uh, I’m his roommate.”

She hesitated before entering. “You are not Charlie.”

“Charlie? No, no. I’m Catman, Ed Holstrom. Call me whatever you like. Bruce, Charlie, and I are all getting a house — I’m really his roommate.” He stopped talking and just grinned. Thank you, Charlie, for picking out this woman. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The girl stood at the door, uncertain whether to enter. Catman just watched her, drowning in her large brown eyes, relishing her long, black hair. It was time to make his move. And to think he had almost turned down this assignment to Clark! He grinned like a goofy puppy … until he realized that they were he was at a Mexican standoff. He tried to make her feel at ease by sticking out his hand.

“I didn’t catch your name. If you want to come in, I’ll let you know the kind of food I eat, how much we’ll be paying you, and that sort of thing.” Catman stood aside to allow her to enter.

She frowned and ran a nervous hand through her wet hair. “Excuse, please. I do not understand why you will be paying me.”

“For doing the house. You know, making the beds, cooking the meals, cleaning up.…”

The girl slowly shook her head and took a step backward, into the downpour.

“Hey, wait …” Catman felt suddenly foolish. “You’re not coming here to interview as a house girl?” His voice trailed off.

“No.”

“Aw, crap. I mean, I’m sorry. Really. Look, come on in, before you drown out there.”

Once inside, she shook her hair, allowing the long, dark strands to fall at her side. Water dripped onto the carpet.

“Why are you looking for Bruce?”

She tightly grasped the yellow sheet of paper. “It is very important. I must see Bruce Steele right away. He gave me this to come onto Clark Air Base if ever I needed to see him.”

“He’s not here. Bruce was selected to escort the vice president of the United States into your country. The vice president, you know, the number two guy for all America? Bruce is just too busy right now.”

Yolanda’s eyes widened. “Then … he will not have time for me?”

“Not for a while, I’m afraid.”

“Then you must bring me to him. Now.”

Catman chewed on his lip. “You can’t wait?”

She shook her head.

Catman stared back. He couldn’t tell her age, but she couldn’t be more than a few years younger than he. With infinitely more innocence, and a boatful of persuasion to boot.

Catman had always been a sucker for good looks.

He squinted at the rain still pounding down outside. Visibility had been reduced to a quarter mile, and the clouds seemed to be descending to around five hundred feet. If anything, they’d delay Bruce’s flight just to see if the weather would turn around. If he called a taxi and they hurried, they just might be able to make the squadron briefing room.…

Catman turned for the phone. “Stand by one minute.”

Thirty seconds later he was assured that a taxi would pick them up in less than five minutes. He briefly thought about changing clothes and getting an umbrella, but quickly shoved the idea. Umbrellas were for wimps. He knew that was the real reason why pilots in flight suits didn’t use them: preservation of the species.

Major Kathy Yulok hated her dark green Nomex flight suit. Within her she knew it didn’t really matter, but that wasn’t the point.

As an SR-73 pilot she was authorized to wear the bright orange flight suit that marked her as something special. It seemed to proclaim: Here is a person a cut above everyone else, with quicker reactions and steadier hands than you. It was the most explicit ego-stroking device she had ever seen in her operational career.

But it was something she didn’t take lightly. Her thoughts drifted to her dad, his Wing carousing around in their “green bags,” special people because they flew fighters. She remembered seeing a poster with the caption “I dreamed I was the hit of the ball in my Nomex flight suit.” In the same way she knew she didn’t have to prove herself, explain to someone that no, she was not just a tanker pilot, when she wore her orange flight suit.

It wasn’t a big deal, but it was what she had earned.

And now, being forced to wear a green bag just so no one would know that she was a SR-73 pilot didn’t make her any happier.

But it was a simple matter of “need-to-know.” No one but the SR-73 pilots had a need-to-know about the time of their next classified flights, or even that the plane was still being flown; so here she was, slumming.

She stepped out of the crew van and briskly climbed the stairs to the Kadena Officers’ Club. Her flight wasn’t for another few hours and she had slept in, so this really wouldn’t be breakfast. But the dietician always insisted on a high-protein, low-fat meal just before the flight. Just in case.

“Paper, ma’am?”

Kathy smiled down at the voice. A thin, brown-skinned youngster held up a copy of Stars and Stripes. The boy was here every morning without fail, hawking copies of the American printed paper. Kathy suspected that what he earned might be the only money the boy’s family saw. She dug in her knee pocket and fished out two dollars. “Keep the change.”

The boy bowed as he sat when she flipped him the money. “Thank you, ma’am.”

She started reading the front page while walking into the club. Finding an article on Indonesia, she almost missed the door to the special dining room for SR-73 pilots — a left turn, instead of a right, once inside the main entrance.

Yolanda followed Ed Holstrom through dark hallways; some of the ceiling lights were not working. She could just make out paintings on the walls — murals, like those on the sides of buildings in Angeles City, except that these pictures were of planes, flying high over the countryside. The murals mixed in with an unusual smell — food and some sort of fuel; this place seemed so strange to her.

They turned a corner and entered a bright room. A group of men and women, all dressed in the same baggy green jumpsuits, were clustered around a table. Large pieces of paper covered the table, and one of the women was taking notes.

Ed Holstrom called out, “Yo, Assassin.”

Yolanda spotted Bruce — he had looked up, startled. “Catman.” Then when he spotted Yolanda, his eyes widened. He said, “Just a minute,” over his shoulder as he moved toward her.

She saw Charlie at the table. He waved and flashed a grin at her, then went back to studying the maps on the table.

Bruce set both hands on her shoulders.

“How did you get here?”

“Ed Holstrom. And this.” She folded the yellow visitor’s pass in her hands.

“What’s up? Are you all right?” Yolanda kept quiet; she looked up at him. Bruce glanced around the room as if he were searching for something. He nodded with his head. “Over here — we can talk.” He led her to a row of computers, set apart from the rest of the room. Plaques and emblems of all sorts of strange things — sleek planes with tiger heads, large planes with impossibly large bellies — covered the walls.

Bruce leaned up against a counter holding the row of computers. He moved his head close and said softly, “How’s your dad? Has he cooled down any?”

Yolanda shook her head. “Father is still very upset with you — and me.”

“That figures.” Bruce drummed his fingers against the wooden counter. Someone yelled from another room; the men by the table all laughed, and Yolanda felt her cheeks grow warm.

Bruce drew in a breath. “Well, how long do you think it will take for him to cool down? I don’t mind meeting you away from the sari-sari store, but I’d really prefer to have your father’s blessing on this.” He lifted a finger and ran it lightly down her arm. “I don’t want you running around behind his back — not on account of me.”

She slowly shook her head. “Bruce …”

A voice interrupted them. “Assassin, get the lead out. Wheels up in thirty minutes.”

Bruce rubbed his hand against her arm and smiled. Yolanda drew in a breath. He doesn’t even know me, she thought. What my dreams are, what my future holds.

She lowered her eyes. “Bruce, you are a very nice man. We have not spent much time together, but from what I have seen, you have a, what you say”—she stumbled for the word—“good … future ahead of you.” Yolanda started to talk fast. Frightened that her words might well up into tears, she tried to put the other people in the room out of her mind. She stared at the zipper on Bruce’s green jumpsuit.

“My father and I have had plans for many years for me to attend the University in Quezon City. This is very important to me. My father is selling the sari-sari store so we can go down to Manila and get another store set up before school starts. I will have a chance to spend time with him.” She looked up and set her mouth. “This is something that I want very much. I cannot turn my back on my father, go against his wishes.”

Bruce spoke for the first time. “His wishes?”

“Yes. And mine.”

He was silent. “Yours…?”

“And mine,” said Yolanda firmly.

“Are you sure about this? Is this what you really want?” Yolanda nodded stiffly. Bruce grasped her lightly by the shoulders. “Yolanda, look at me — tell me this is what you want.”

She hesitated. “This is what I want.”

“And us?”

“With us, it cannot be.”

Bruce dropped his eyes and smiled bleakly. He rubbed her shoulders, halfheartedly it seemed. “If you’re sure that’s what you want. I just can’t believe that you would change your mind so fast. And … what about your father forcing you? He seemed so hostile, it’s hard for me to believe this decision is what you want.”

Yolanda bit her lip. Bruce was right, but she knew it was her decision — she could go against her father if she wished, but there were too many dreams, too much time invested in what she really wanted.

For if she went against her lifelong desires and kept on with Bruce, would she not, as Bruce’s father had implied, be following Bruce only to get back to the United States?

“Hey, Assassin!”

“Just a minute!” Bruce returned hotly. Then to her, “I’ve got to get going.” He sounded defeated.

Yolanda spoke softly. “My … my father is not angry at you, Bruce Steele. He does not even know you.” She was at a loss for words. “My father is a member of an, an anti-American group, the Huks, an organization of … patriots. It is not important why this is so.” She closed her eyes, remembering Pompano’s hushed voice as he told about her mother’s being brutally raped. “But his anger is against all Americans, not you in particular. You are a fine man, Bruce Steele, and I do not want to hurt you.

“Your friend, Ed Holstrom, thinks very highly of you. He told me that you were personally chosen to escort the vice president of your country. You have many such friends. And what I have seen, and from what you have told me about your way of life, it truly is amazing … but, it is not for me.”

Bruce stood silent, his mouth set.

A voice came from outside the room. “Assassin—get your ass out here!”

Yolanda put a hand on Bruce’s chest. “I wish you the best, Bruce Steele.”

Bruce smiled tightly. When he spoke, his voice just about cracked. “Time to kick the tires and light the fires, then.” He reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “Thanks …. I guess.” He strode away.

Yolanda turned and watched him move to the table in the center of the room.

A bald, bullet-headed man stuck his head into the room. He growled at Bruce. “It’s about time, Romeo. Charlie’s out there keeping the van warm for you. Get a move on.”

Bruce lifted a dark brown bag and swung it over his shoulder. When he reached the door he hesitated, then walked quickly out of sight without looking back.