Tiger's Claw

WARBIRDS FOREVER INC.

A FEW DAYS LATER

Brad answered his cell phone on the first ring—he had found out that Tom Hoffman and many in his front office liked to use the cell phones as pagers, and answering the phone on more than the second ring was a big no-no. “Yes, Colonel Hoffman?”

“Brad, it’s your dad,” Patrick McLanahan said. “I just wanted to check in and see how things are going. Did you have a good day today?”

“I don’t know, because it’s not over yet.”

“Not over? It’s after nine P.M.!”

“I know,” Brad moaned. “But I have a written test on the Piper Aztec first thing tomorrow morning, and then I’ll have a flight review, like a Civil Air Patrol Form 5.”

“Getting checked out in an Aztec?” Patrick asked. The Piper Aztec was a light twin-engine low-wing airplane, very easy to fly and economical to operate. “It sounds like great progress. What did you do this week?”

“What haven’t I done?” Brad exclaimed. “Not only am I doing the flying stuff, but I’m constantly being called away for something else. There are tests for everything around here: linesman, security, aircraft ground handling, safety this and safety that. But I’m interrupted every ten minutes by Mr. Hoffman texting, calling, paging, or bellowing for me to do something.”

“Sounds a lot like Civil Air Patrol. Did you pass all the tests?”

Brad took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Yes,” he said finally. “The linesman and ground handling were actually easy—the guys back at Battle Mountain had already taught me most of the stuff.”

“Good work.”

“But once I passed the test, I have a bazillion tasks to do, all before the mechanics show up at seven o’clock.”

“Seven A.M.? What time do you start every day?”

“Five A.M., if I’m lucky,” Brad said. “And I just got back to the room a few minutes ago. But I’ve got to study for the Form 5.”

“You’re taking a flight review in an Aztec? What’s that for?”

“The multiengine rating.”

“Multiengine? You’re doing multiengine stuff already? What about single-engine?”

“I already passed the check ride for the single-engine commercial certificate.”

“You did? Congratulations!” Patrick exclaimed. A commercial pilot’s certificate would allow Brad to fly for compensation, a big first step in any aviation career. “Wow, that was quick! You’ve been there for less than a week and you got your commercial license! Outstanding! Why didn’t you call or text me?” Brad didn’t say anything. “Man, you must be beat.”

“I’m exhausted, Dad—‘beat’ doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Brad said. “Along with all the studying and flying, I’m running all over this place doing errands. I have to check the calendar online every hour for schedule changes, because if I’m late for anything, Mr. Hoffman screams in my face.”

“You were late for something?”

Brad rubbed his eyes in exasperation. “I didn’t check the online calendar the first night, and I didn’t know I started at five A.M.,” he said.

“But you knew about the online calendar, right?”

Brad sighed again. “Yes, Mr. Hoffman gave me all the log-in stuff,” he admitted. “But I was so tired after I got here, I just went to bed. He told me to look it all over before we met up in the morning, and I thought he meant we were going to meet up when the employees got coffee and donuts at seven A.M. I was going to get up early to go online—I didn’t know I’d be starting at frickin’ oh-dark early and have two hours of stuff to do before work began!”

“I’ll bet that won’t happen again,” Patrick said.

“Everybody is my boss, even the nonlicensed mechanics,” Brad blurted out. “I miss out on the donuts every morning because they’re gone before I have a chance to get to the break room, I usually miss lunch, and I’m having one of my energy bars for dinner because I haven’t had a chance to go shopping.”

“I’ll put together a CARE package and either overnight it to you or fly it out myself, if I have the time,” Patrick said. “What else do you need?”

“Everything,” Brad said. “I live on break-room coffee, which I make most of the time because Colonel Hoffman drinks it by the gallon and never wants to run out. My bed is a rusty old contraption that looks like it was recovered from a hundred-year-old shipwreck, and my mattress is aircraft flight control packing material.”

“I’ll bring out an inflatable mattress too—it’ll be better than packing foam,” Patrick said. “Drop me a text or an e-mail and let me know if there’s anything else you need. How’s your room?”

“It’s a storeroom, which I share with a couple dozen aircraft tires, cases of oil piled up to the ceiling, sheet metal, janitor stuff, and tools,” Brad replied.

“But it’s okay?”

Brad looked around his room, with its one bulb and looming boxes surrounding him, and shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said grudgingly. “It’s better than the tents out in the field during Second Beast.”

“And you’re doing all right?”

Brad hesitated again. “I guess,” he said finally. “I am just so friggin’ tired. Mr. Hoffman has tests for everything—two, three a day on everything imaginable. I’m up and down answering pages and driving back and forth between all the hangars he’s got out here.”

“But you’ve already got your commercial pilot’s license, and you’re going for a multiengine rating! That’s great! I can’t believe how fast you’re going. You must be doing well.”

Brad paused again, this time much longer; then, in a low voice: “Dad, I’m not sure if I can do this.”

“What?”

“Dad, I know I can do intense flight training, and I can work, but . . . but I’m not sure if I can do both,” he said. “I mean . . . I’m really tired, like crazy tired. I don’t have time to eat, and I get maybe four or five hours of sleep a night.”

“Mr. Hoffman says that’ll all change after you’re checked out in his planes and familiar with the routine,” Patrick said. “It won’t always be twenty-hour days. Besides, you’d have to pull a few all-nighters if you were in college, believe me.”

“I feel like I’m being hazed, as if I was back in the Beast,” Brad said. Patrick narrowed his eyes—he’d never heard Brad use this whiny tone like this, and he was angry and concerned at the same time. “I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere. Yes, I got the commercial pilot certificate, but I don’t see that as much of an accomplishment—there are a lot of people knocking out their commercial license in two or three days around here. I study and take tests all the time, but except for the Cessna 182 I’m not doing any real flying.”

“Brad, you’ve only been at it less than a week—Mr. Hoffman told me his basic program is a minimum of five months,” Patrick said. “You’ve got to give it a chance.”

“I’ve read those flight training magazines. They say I can get my licenses and ratings in the same amount of time, and I can live in an apartment and don’t have to do chores and errands—nothing else but fly and study.”

“I know there are plenty of flight schools out there,” Patrick said. “I don’t know if we could have afforded them, but we could’ve given it a shot. But remember, the reason we chose Warbirds Forever was because you’d have the opportunity to get checked out in some of the huge array of planes Colonel Hoffman has out there.”

“I thought it was because Colonel Hoffman is doing work for you.”

“He is, but he offered the opportunity and built a program just for you,” Patrick said. “Besides, I know he’s a great instructor and aviator.”

“I haven’t flown with him yet. I fly with a different instructor almost every time.” He paused for a few moments, then he said, “Dad, isn’t there something else we can do?”

“You don’t like it there? Sounds to me like you’re doing pretty well.”

“I’m really dragging, Dad,” Brad said. “I shouldn’t have to be everyone’s slave just so I can get a few ratings.”

Patrick didn’t like hearing his son talk like this—it sounded as if he was giving up. After dropping out of the Academy, Patrick was afraid that his son was developing an unhealthy quitter’s mind-set. “Here’s the situation, Brad,” he said in a deep monotone, trying not to sound angry. “You have what’s left of a college fund. I wish it had been bigger, and we’ve already expended a lot of it with Warbirds Forever, but there it is.

“You’re an adult and can make your own decisions about what you want to do and how you want to do it,” Patrick went on. “Choice one: you can use what’s left of the money on any school you want. I don’t like the idea of borrowing money for college, but if we have to, we will. Two: you can take the money, minus taxes and penalties, and use it for whatever else you want, like flying or travel. I hope you don’t do that, but it’s up to you. Or three: you can give Warbirds Forever another shot. We’ve already paid the money—you might as well stick it out, get as many certificates and ratings as you can, then make a decision when it’s time for the next tuition payment in three months.”

“Three months!” Bradley groaned. “Oh, man . . .”

“Brad, you made a commitment, and Tom Hoffman has built a great program for you based on that commitment,” Patrick said sternly.

“You can ask him to refund the money for the flying I haven’t done yet.”

“I could, but I won’t,” Patrick snapped. “He made a commitment to you, me, and the folks he hired to train you. Do you think your instructors just appeared out of thin air? Tom had to recruit and hire them. Some of them have families that rely on that income. Do you think it’s right for them to get laid off just because you’re weary? A lot of those guys have second and third jobs, and some had to relocate to get the job. If you quit, they lose their jobs.” Brad said nothing.

“So what’s it going to be, Brad: stay or quit? I think you should stay, but it’s up to you.” Still nothing from Bradley. “Give me a call when you make up your mind. I’ll fly out this weekend either to drop off your CARE package and air mattress, or pick you up and bring you home. Talk to you later, son.” And Patrick hung up.

Patrick decided to let Brad think about it over the weekend, but he hadn’t heard anything, so a little before eight A.M. Monday morning, Patrick landed his turbine pressurized Centurion at Reno-Stead Airport and taxied over to the main Warbirds Forever hangar. He was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Bradley, who trotted out onto the tarmac wearing ear protectors and an orange reflective safety vest and carrying marshaler’s batons. “Hey, Brad,” Patrick said after he was led to his parking spot and shut down the engine.

“Hi, Dad,” Brad said. They didn’t embrace or shake hands. “How was the flight?”

“A little bumpy already,” Patrick said. “I needed to speak with Colonel Hoffman, and I didn’t hear from you, so I thought I’d bring the air mattress and some goodies for you.”

“Thank you.”

They stood in awkward silence for a few moments, then Patrick asked, “Made a decision yet?”

“I don’t really have much choice, do I?”

“You do, and I’ll support any decision you make.” Brad’s cell phone beeped, and he looked at the display. “You’re being paged?”

“For about the hundredth time this morning,” he said. “Do you need fuel? Should I top it off?”

“Depends—are you going back with me, or staying?”

The cell phone beeped again. Brad looked at the display with a rather concerned expression, then at his father. “I gotta go,” he said. He looked at his father, once, the weariness evident in his face, but he nodded. “I’ll top it off for you.”

“Okay, Brad,” Patrick said. That should mean he was staying—the turbine P210 couldn’t hold two men, all Brad’s belongings, the CARE package, the air mattress, and full fuel tanks, and Brad knew that. Patrick retrieved the CARE package and the air mattress and headed inside.

On his way there, he saw Brad hurrying out of Tom Hoffman’s office. “I’ll put this stuff in your room, Brad,” he said.

“Thanks, Dad,” Brad said over his shoulder, then quickly disappeared.

Patrick found Hoffman at his computer, with the TV on in a corner. The office was Spartan, with just a desk, two chairs, and a couple bookshelves crammed with technical manuals. The walls were filled with photographs, plaques, and memorabilia from his twenty-six years in the U.S. Air Force. “When are you going to invest in a real office, Tom?” Patrick asked.

“Don’t need one,” Hoffman replied. He nodded at his laptop computer. “My entire life and business is right here.” He glanced up at the television. “What do you make of the Chinese acting up in the South China Sea, General?”

“I don’t find it credible that the Coast Guard helicopter was shot down by mistake,” Patrick said. “If they were recovering pieces of that Poseidon, the crew of that Coast Guard helicopter would have seen them doing it. Downing that helicopter bought them several hours to search for wreckage.”

“So you think China was involved in the P-8 crash too?”

“I don’t have any details, but I don’t believe in coincidences,” Patrick said. “There’s no doubt that China is laying claim to the South China Sea and building up their air and naval forces there quickly. I think we’re going to see many more unexplained occurrences, mistakes, and accidents out there. Beijing thinks as long as there’s no solid trail leading to them that we won’t do anything.”

“Well, we’re not doing anything,” Hoffman said, “so it appears their strategy is working. What do you make of the Chinese president laid up and the vice prez taking over?”

“Zhou was starting to get up there, so I’m not too surprised,” Patrick said. “We’ll see how the new guy does. He’s much younger, just a little older than President Phoenix, and Gao was educated in America. Other than that, I don’t know much about him.”

“I don’t like seeing all these Chinese military units gearing up all of a sudden,” Hoffman commented, “but I guess with a sudden change in leadership and the uncertainty in the country, that’s bound to happen.” He nodded at the packages. “Stuff for Brad?”

“He’s running short of some things, and he moaned about his bed, so I brought an air mattress for him. Mind showing me where his room is?”

“Of course, sir.” Hoffman got up, grabbed the air mattress, and led the way.

A mechanic was just leaving the room carrying a box of airplane parts when Patrick and Hoffman arrived. Patrick looked around. “Brad described it pretty well,” he said.

“Best I could do, General,” Hoffman said.

“No, no, this is okay, Tom,” Patrick said. “Maybe it’ll give him a little incentive to finish his training and get out there to make some money to afford his own place.” He set the box of food and clothing on Brad’s bed, and Hoffman threw the air mattress beside it. “How’s he doing, Tom?” Patrick asked.

“You were right—he’s a good stick, a good student, and a good worker,” Hoffman said. “But I’ll be straight with you, General: I sense an attitude about him.”

“What kind of attitude?”

“An attitude that he’s better than this, like he doesn’t deserve the life he’s leading,” Hoffman said. “I see it in him when he works around here: that he thinks he’s too good for all this.” Patrick said nothing; Hoffman noticed his grim expression and shrugged. “I’m giving it to you straight, General. I’ve led aviators and techs for over thirty years. I know what I’m talking about.”

“I appreciate that,” Patrick said. “Character and attitude matter as much as skill and knowledge—they’re all connected. Brad has to pass muster on all of it. I leave it to you to determine if he’s good enough for your program.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Patrick nodded; then, after a short pause, he said, “Brad seems to think you’re riding him especially hard.”

“Yes, I am,” Hoffman said bluntly.

Patrick blinked. “You are?”

“You bet I am,” Hoffman said. Patrick had to struggle to quash a rising feeling of anger in his chest; Hoffman obviously noticed it right away. “General, you can’t swing a dead cat by the tail around this place without hitting a genuine prima donna. Guys spend millions of dollars on flying toys, and they want me to train them on how to fly them. They don’t want to know anything about the aircraft or its systems—they just want to fly a sharp-looking, hair-on-fire badass jet. Unless they’re completely unsafe, I’ll take their money, train them, and let them fly away. If they’re not interested in learning more about the jets they fly, that’s their business.

“But I have a great opportunity to avoid all that with Bradley,” Hoffman went on. “Frankly, sir, Bradley’s on the very cusp of being a prima donna. He’s a good pilot, but the problem is: he knows he’s good. He also knows he’s General Patrick McLanahan’s son. He does the work and he can fly.”

“What exactly is he doing?”

“Every time I page him and he walks into my office and I tell him to do something, I get the hairy eyeball,” Hoffman explained. “If the order doesn’t involve flying, he gives me the look. I get a strong vibe from him almost every time.”

“Is he disrespectful?”

“No, not outwardly or verbally—you would have gotten a call from me much earlier if he was,” Hoffman said. “He does the same thing with the mechanics and the techs, and they’ve pointed it out to me. And every time he does it, it makes me want to load him up even more with nonflying crap to do.”

“Load him up? Why?” Patrick asked.

“To see if he’ll quit, like he quit the Academy,” Hoffman said. “From what you’ve said, sir, Brad is a tough, athletic, and dedicated young man and student. You know I’m an Academy grad, and I still do liaison and orientation activities, so I know the Academy. With his sports and Civil Air Patrol experience, he should have had the Zoo nailed, even if he was getting hazed pretty badly by upperclassmen who knew who his father was. My opinion is that perhaps he didn’t want the Academy as badly as he thought . . . or, if I may say, sir: as badly as you wanted it.”

Patrick choked down a strong twinge of indignation . . . but he knew Hoffman was probably right. “Maybe so, Tom,” Patrick said. “It couldn’t have been harder than he expected because he was getting ready for it for a year—he knew exactly what to expect.”

“My point exactly,” Hoffman said. “Brad busted out during Second Beast—that’s the field portion of summer camp, ten times as hard as First Beast, which is pretty damned intense. He probably had First Beast nailed, but all of a sudden he’s up to his eyeballs in mud and grief and he’s not comfortable, so he got in some upperclassman’s face. I’ve seen it a hundred times.” Patrick said nothing—because he knew Hoffman was probably spot-on. “You want me to stop bugging Bradley and just treat him like a student, sir? I’ve got enough other guys around here to do the busywork, and he is doing pretty well with the flying stuff, so I can push him a bit more on his ratings and get him some more stick time.”

Patrick shook his head immediately. “I’m not going to tell you how to run your business or your training program, Tom,” he said. “Truth is, over the years I’ve probably—no, I have—been too easy with him with all the travel and assignments I’ve had, with Brad living with his aunts and grandmother after Wendy was killed, and maybe he hasn’t had to sacrifice as much as other kids. No, you keep on doing what you’re doing. Let’s see what he does. He said he has his single-engine commercial ticket already, and he’s working on his multiengine?”

“Like I said, he knows how to fly.”

“And we can keep this conversation between us.”

“Tell him if you want, sir,” Hoffman said. “Tell him I expect him to be positive, proactive, and engaged. I want him to start acting like he’s part of a team. Right now he thinks he’s just an errand boy. As long as he feels that way, he always will be. You can’t tell someone to be a team player or to be positive and proactive—they’ve got to want to be that themselves. I think, eventually, he will join the team—we’ll just see if he can gut it out long enough. But at least you should know that’s he’s a good pilot and a good worker. He’s just got to ditch the ’tude.”

“I hope he does, Tom. I hope he does.”

“Same here, sir.” They left the storeroom and headed toward the main hangar. “So, any word about your Excalibur proposal?”

“A few requests for additional information, background checks on some of the engineers, and that’s about it,” Patrick said. “You can probably expect a visit by the FBI or Department of Defense on your background and those of the instructors you propose to use, and maybe some more information on the training program.”

“Already have—I turned over five boxes of stuff to the Defense Investigation Agency. No problems that I’m aware of.”

“Good,” Patrick said. “But the silence is deafening—I haven’t heard no, but not a yes either. At least I haven’t heard volleys of laughter yet from the Pentagon.”

“It’s a good plan, sir,” Hoffman said. “But DoD is not accustomed to buying old equipment, even if the idea makes sense and is doable. But I’ll be ready to swing into action when you give the word. I’ve got a list of pilots ready to go through training, mostly ex-B-1 crewdogs but a few civilians. It’s a pretty geriatric bunch, but they’re all well qualified and eager as hell.”

They walked through the main hangar out onto the parking ramp. Bradley was just climbing down from a ladder after fueling the right wing and was carrying the Jet-A hose and the ladder to the other wing. “When you’re done, check the pressure on those tires—I see a little bulge,” Hoffman yelled out to Brad. “And don’t forget to wash the windows.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad responded . . . and then Patrick saw it, that little expression that silently said, “Anything else, master?” Hoffman looked at Patrick, who nodded—he had seen it too.

“The ’tude,” Hoffman said to Patrick in a soft voice. He shook his head, then smiled wryly and shook hands with Patrick. “I’ll see you later, sir,” he said in his usual booming voice. “Have a nice flight back.” And he left Patrick alone with Brad.

“What did Colonel Hoffman say?” Brad asked.

“Nothing,” Patrick replied. “We put your stuff on your bed.”

“Thank you,” Brad said stonily as he started up the ladder, fuel nozzle in hand. He laid a protective neoprene mat over the wing to guard against any damage to the deicing panels on the wing’s leading edge, then uncapped the fuel port and began feeding jet fuel into the wing fuel tank. “Are you heading home right away?”

“We have our Monday department head lunch meeting at eleven o’clock,” Patrick said. “Then it’s the meeting with the board of directors. Mondays are always pretty busy.”

“It’s pretty much the same around this place,” Brad said morosely. “The pilots fly in and they want it all done snap-snap, and Mr. Hoffman kisses their kneecaps and then barks at me. If he’s not giving me yet another menial job to do, I have to read another tech manual and do another test. It’s the same routine every day.”

Patrick could feel the anger rising in his chest, and he was about to do some barking of his own, but then his intraocular monitor flared to life. The late Dr. Jon Masters had replaced one of Patrick’s corneas with a tiny electronic device that acted like a large high-definition computer monitor, allowing Patrick to use a computer and access the Internet anywhere without any other hardware. Patrick scowled at the back of Brad’s head, then stepped away to answer the call. “Patrick here. What’s up, Kylie?”

“Just got an e-mail from the Pentagon,” his assistant, Kylie, said. “I forwarded it to you. The undersecretary of the Air Force for acquisitions wants to see you, Dr. Oglethorpe, and Colonel Hoffman immediately in the national security adviser’s office.” Dr. Linus Oglethorpe was Sky Masters’s new chief engineer, replacing the late Jon Masters, and the head of the Excalibur design project.

Patrick quickly read the e-mail, his excitement rising. “Get us airline tickets for this afternoon, Kylie. I’ll double-check with Colonel Hoffman to see if he’s free.”

“The Pentagon is sending a plane for you, Patrick,” Kylie said. “It’s already on the way. It’ll be here in a few hours. I’ve sent a text to Colonel Hoffman too—I assume he’ll be flying back with you in the Centurion.”

An even better sign, Patrick thought. “I’ll be back within the hour. Can you throw some clothes and travel stuff in a bag for me, and make sure my laptop has all our latest presentation materials and budget sheets? And check on Dr. Oglethorpe to make sure he’s ready to go—you know how he can be.”

“Will do, sir,” Kylie replied, and she hung up.

Patrick hurried back to Hoffman’s office, but his assistant, Rosetta, said he had already left for home to pack and said he looked very excited. Patrick stepped quickly back out to Brad and the Centurion. Brad was busy cleaning the windshield, and he had a portable compressed nitrogen bottle with him ready to help one of the licensed mechanics fill the tires if they needed it. “What’s going on, Dad?” he asked.

“We’re on our way to Washington to talk about the XB-1 project,” Patrick said. “Colonel Hoffman is coming with me. The Pentagon is sending a jet to pick us up in Battle Mountain.” Patrick called up a weight-and-balance and flight plan form on his intraocular computer system. “I’d better check the weight and balance with Colonel Hoffman—he’s a pretty big guy.”

“I think you’ll be okay,” Brad said. He finished checking the tires a few minutes later. “Just as I thought: the tires were fine,” he said.

“Brad, you seem to be doing an awful lot of complaining today, and when I spoke to you on the phone the other day,” Patrick said as he worked, accessing the programs using a virtual tactile keyboard on his intraocular display—it was always comical for Brad to watch his father poke and swipe at empty space and see his eyes dart back and forth as he worked. “You may think you’re getting a raw deal here, and I’ve given you your options. Just don’t make other people’s lives miserable.”

“I don’t complain to anyone.”

“See that you don’t,” Patrick said. “And it’s not just your words but your attitude that gets people down. You have to at least act like your work and your study mean something to you. If all folks around here see of you is this bummed-out moaning mumbling Eeyore, you bring everyone down, and that’s the impression of you that you’ll burn into everyone’s brain.”

“Is that what Colonel Hoffman said?”

“That’s what I’ve noticed around here myself in the short time I’ve been here, and I don’t like it,” Patrick said, “looking up” from his virtual computer to glance at his son. “You know what it’s like to be a team player, whether it’s Civil Air Patrol or football. You also know that the team needs the support of every member, even if you’re not doing exactly what you’d rather be doing. You didn’t grumble about being a ground team member in Civil Air Patrol, even if you’d rather be flying; you didn’t complain when you were benched or when you played special teams instead of first string.”

“But that was different—I knew what I was doing back then,” Brad said. “I was usually the leader or captain. Around here, I’m lower than whale poop on the bottom of the ocean.”

“You may not remember when you first joined Civil Air Patrol or were a junior varsity football player, but I do,” Patrick said. “You always sat in the back of the room, never wanted to get called on, had to be told how to do something a dozen times, and would panic when the others would turn and look at you or whisper about something stupid you said. It’s the same now. You’re the new guy, and you have to prove yourself all over again, just like you had to do working at Sky Masters.”

“Colonel Hoffman doesn’t like me,” Brad said. “He gives me stupid busywork stuff to do. He knows I’m here to fly, but he gives me menial errands to do instead.”

“Brad, remember our conversation about me working for the board of directors of Sky Masters?” Patrick asked. “Just like the board, Colonel Hoffman is the boss—he can treat you any way he likes and tell you to do anything he wants. He’s providing flying, simulator, and classroom time in exchange for work. If you don’t like the way he treats or teaches you, you’re an adult and you have a vote: you vote with your feet. Just politely quit, pack up your stuff, give me a call, and we depart the fix and go home. I think you’d be squandering a great opportunity, but if you’re truly unhappy here, you should get out before you get fired or start making others just as miserable as you are. I’ll help you figure out what your options are after that.

“Because you’re an adult, I’m not going to tell you what to do, just give you my advice: if you’re going to stay here, you should work to become a team player and a trusted, valued employee. Start acting like a team member and maybe Colonel Hoffman will treat you better.”

Several minutes later, Tom Hoffman came out of the main hangar with a single suitcase. “The wife is infinitely better at packing than I am,” he said. “Brad, Jerry Melton is in charge until I get back. Get with him if you have any questions about the calendar. Sondra will be in charge of your flying, ground school, and test calendar.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad responded. As Hoffman was hurrying past him, Brad caught a glimpse of his father’s expression, and he looked back at Hoffman’s lone bag. It took only a few moments for Brad to catch on. “Don’t you need your laptop on this trip, Colonel?” he asked.

Hoffman shook his head in disgust of his own forgetfulness. “Damn, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed onto my neck,” he said.

“I’ll get it for you,” Brad said. Patrick’s mood brightened considerably. “I’ll grab some bottles of water for you too for the flight back to Battle Mountain. Do you want a Thermos of coffee for the flight, sir?”

“Yeah, coffee sounds good,” Hoffman said distractedly as he searched his pockets for something else he thought he might have forgotten. “The Air Force coffee they serve on the plane is probably crap.”

“Got your wallet, sir?” Brad asked.

Hoffman touched the rear pocket of his slacks where the wallet should have been. “Oh, cripes. It’s probably in the console of my pickup.”

“I’ll get it,” Brad said. “Oh, one thing, sir: the wireless router we’re using on the east side of the main hangar is an older dash-G model.”

“A what?”

“It’s second generation, but the newer ones are much better,” Brad went on. “I can get us a newer WIMAX 4G router for practically nothing. It has better range through the metal walls and much faster speeds. It’ll extend network coverage even out to the parking lot and the ramp.”

“I don’t know about routers—all I want is for my wireless to work,” Hoffman said gruffly. “Tell Rosetta what you just told me, and tell her I want you to fix it by the time I get back.”

“Yes, sir.” Brad shot a sly smile at his father, then trotted off.

Hoffman noticed Patrick looking directly at him with a smile. “What are you grinning at, General?” he asked.

“Nothing, you old fart,” Patrick said, his whole day suddenly bright and shiny. “Nothing at all.”