Wings of Fire

EPILOGUE

Even young Bradley realized right away that it wasn't just another boat ride with his "uncles" Hal, Chris, and Dave. They had no fishing poles, no scuba gear-just the strange aluminum urn.

"Mommy is really dead, Daddy?" Bradley asked.

"Yes, son," Patrick replied.

He touched the urn. "Is she in there?" A lump formed in Patrick's throat-he couldn't answer. "Those are Mommy's ashes, aren't they?" Patrick looked at the deck of the boathow in hell do you answer something like that? "I remember in Star Wars, when Qui-Gon Jinn was killed by Darth Maul, they put him in a fire and prayed for him. Is that what we did with Mommy?"

The tears burst forth, despite every effort Patrick made to be strong. Through tear-streaked eyes, he looked at his son. "Is… is that okay, son?"

"I… guess so." He started to cry, and it tore into Patrick's heart like a sword.

"Mommy… Mommy was just like Qui-Gon Jinn," Patrick said. "She was a warrior. She was gentle and she loved us very much, and she was so smart and built wonderful things, but when the bad guys attacked, she fought like a Jedi Knight."

"She sure did," Chris Wohl said. "She was as brave as a Jedi Knight. Even as brave as a U.S. Marine."

Bradley smiled, then looked at the urn. "So we can keep this?"

Patrick tapped Bradley's chest, then his head. "Mommy's here, in your heart; and she's here, in your memory. And she'll always be there. Forever. She's not in there."

"Then why do we have Mommy's ashes in there?"

Patrick had thought about this moment since he left Libya: how to explain death to his young son. The only thing he could decide is to try to not explain too much at once. He was young; he would eventually understand.

"Brad, I told you about the soul, remember?"

"Yes," Bradley said proudly. "The soul is the tiny bit of magic that makes a person."

"Right. And what did I tell you about the soul?" Bradley looked a little confused. "Can the soul ever die?"

"You said 'no.'"

"Right. The soul can never die. Everything that we loved about Mommy was in her soul, and that can never die. Right?" The little boy nodded. "But our bodies can die. They wear out, get old, and get hurt. Doctors can fix our bodies, but our bodies will eventually die anyway. Like trees and flowers and all living things, they die."

"Like Mufasa in The Lion King?' Patrick smiled and nodded-thank God for kids' movies. "Are you going to die too, Dad?"

Patrick hugged his son, then looked him straight in the eyes. "Someday I will, son-but right now, I'm here with you, and so are Uncle David and Uncle Hal and Uncle Chris. We'll always be here for you.

"But do you know what happens when y"6u die, Bradley? Your soul is ready for a journey. Mommy's soul gets to go into another body. We don't know who, or where, or when, but it does."

"Cool," Bradley said. "She's dead, but she's not really dead." He looked up into the blue-gray sky and squinted, searching until his eyes hurt. "Is that what heaven is?"

"A soul can go to heaven too. There are lots of worlds and things to see and do for the soul. But you know what we have to do before the soul can go on its journey?"

"What?"

"We have to tell Mommy's soul that it's okay for her to go," Patrick said. "You see, Mommy doesn't want to leave you and me. She'd rather stay here. She knows how sad you are, and that makes her feel bad."

"Then she can stay here with me?"

"If you really want her to, yes, she can," Patrick said carefully. "But remember: Mommy's soul can also go into another body. Once it's inside someone else, the things that made us love Mommy, the magic that was inside her soul, will be alive again."

"So… so someone else is waiting to love Mommy?"

"Exactly, son." Damn, Patrick thought, thank God his son was smart and open-minded enough to think on his own-he was making this whole ordeal much easier.

"But I still don't want Mommy to go."

"You know that Mommy will never be far away from us-we just have to think about her, and her soul will return," Patrick said. "Sometimes when you're sleeping, Mommy will visit you in your dreams-other times, you'll be doing something else, or maybe be having a problem, and then poof! All of a sudden, Mommy will be there. But we can share the magic in Mommy's soul with the rest of the world. That way, maybe other little boys and girls can enjoy some of Mommy's soul too and love her just like we do."

"But how do we do that, if she's.. dead?"

"We have to tell her that it's okay to go on her journey to find those other people that need her," Patrick said. "Remember, her soul will never die-but we have to say goodbye. So what do you say? Is it okay?"

"I… I guess so." He looked fearfully at the urn. "What do we do?"

Patrick nodded to David Luger, and he cut the engine. Patrick led his son back to the built-in swim platform on the stem, and they knelt at the very edge. He unscrewed the cap on the urn. Bradley at first couldn't look, but eventually his curiosity took over. He peered into the urn, and his eyes grew wide with fear. The tears started to flow again, and his lower lip quivered.

"Bradley, listen to me," Patrick said, holding his son tightly. "This is a pretty grown-up thing we have to do. Most little boys can't do it. I'm a grown man, and it's hard for me to do." Bradley looked at his father, now curious to see what his father looked like when he was afraid-and he was comforted to see that he looked pretty much the same, just very sad. "You have to help me do this, son. I can't do it by myself. You have to say it's okay first, and you have to help me. Please."

To Patrick's amazement, Bradley took the urn in his hands. He looked as if he was going to simply pour the contents into the water-but instead, he stopped, then turned toward David Luger. "Uncle David?"

"Yeah, Brad?"

"Go fast," he said. "Go real fast." He turned to his father. "Mommy liked going fast, didn't she? She liked flying."

"She sure did, big guy," Patrick said with a tearful smile. How in hell did I get so lucky to have a son like this? he thought. "She sure did." He reached out, kissed the urn, and said, "Good-bye, sweetheart. I love you. Have a nice journey." He then stepped back into the cockpit and held tightly on to Bradley's life jacket as Luger gradually eased in the throttle. The big MerCruiser stern drive leapt to life. The speedometer topped sixty miles an hour, close to sixtyfive-the Cobalt was fast, but it had never gone this fast ever before. Suddenly the ocean was as smooth as glassthere wasn't a ripple as far as they could see, when moments before there was a light chop.

Bradley held the urn tightly, tears flowing dewn his cheeks. He kissed the urn, whispered, "Good-bye,

Mommy. I love you. Come see me anytime," over the loud hum of the engine, then held the urn up over his head and tipped it slightly. In the blink of an eye, the urn was empty, and he let it fly out of his hands.

The silvery ash never seemed to fall to the surface of the ocean, but gently floated upward into the sky until, several long moments later, it disappeared inside a sunbeam that had appeared through the clouds.

It seemed as if Patrick never let his son leave his arms for the next eighteen hours as they traveled from San Diego to Washington, D.C. They arrived and checked into the Hay-Adams Hotel, across the street from the White House, in a suite of rooms reserved for them by former president Kevin Martindale.

Patrick's sisters Nancy and Margaret came in a short time later; they were going to be Bradley's baby-sitters during the Night Stalkers' post-action debriefing on the Libyan conflict and their role in it. The first of several meetings was scheduled for eight A.M. the next morning in the Old Executive Office Building with the senior White House staff, followed by more briefings at the Pentagon and the State Department-and then the congressional committees and subcommittees were going to hold hearings, both classified and unclassified. There was no telling how long the debriefings were going to last-and there was no indication yet on what the final outcome might be. They were all betting on confinement-Patrick had already had custody documents drawn up so his sisters could legally take Bradley with them, just in case.

Bradley was still on West Coast time and so wasn't tired, so he, his father, and Hal Briggs walked around the White House and the Capitol Mall until after ten P.M. On their return, it was Hal who noticed the first one: a plainclothed agent standing inside the lobby across from the hotel entrance. Several members of the hotel staff looked apprehensively at them as they went past, then smiled and nodded nervously. As Patrick walked by, the first agent spoke into his sleeve. Another agent was at the top of the stairs; another was standing at the door to Patrick's suite of rooms. The Secret Service agent nodded to Patrick and opened the door for him; he stopped Hal long enough to take his.45-caliber automatic from him before he stepped into the room.

"I should have known you weren't going to be tired," President Thomas Thorn said, rising from the chair as Patrick entered. "How are you, General McLanahan?"

"Fine, sir," Patrick replied stonily. He looked at his son. "Bradley, this is the President of the United States, Thomas Thorn. Mr. President, my son, Bradley James."

"How do you do, Bradley?" Thorn asked. He extended his hand, and Bradley shook it, then stepped back to be beside his father.

"Who are those guys?" Bradley asked, pointing to the Secret Service agents inside the room.

"Those are Secret Service agents," Thorn replied. "They're called the Presidential Protection Detail. They watch out for me."

Bradley pointed to Hal Briggs, David Luger, and Chris Wohl. "Those are my uncles," he said, "and they watch out over my dad."

"I know they do-and they do a very good job," Thorn agreed. Patrick's sisters came and took Bradley into their room, closing the door behind them.

"I'm sorry about Wendy," Thorn said. "I wish I had gotten to know her like President Martindale did. She sounded like an extraordinary woman."

"She was," Patrick said woodenly.

"I'm off to Israel tomorrow, then Egypt, and probably to Libya," Thorn said. "Muhammad Sanusi is going to be proclaimed the monarch of Libya, the true Idris the Secondthat's something that hasn't happened in over fifty years, so I'd like to be there, if we can set up security in time. His first official act is going to be a call for national electionsand he says his name won't be on the ballot. He says he's happy just being a Libyan again. Libya will be a constitutional monarchy."

"So I heard."

"President Salaam asked to speak with me," Thorn went on. "She wants to normalize relations with the United States, both for herself and the Muslim Brotherhood. She hinted that she's going to step down as leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-she's nominated King Idris the Second to be its leader. She also said she's going to step down as president of Egypt." Patrick looked at Thorn in surprise. "She's going to name General Ahmad Baris as acting president until new elections are held; I think he'll be elected. What do you think?" Patrick made no response. "I wonder what Susan Bailey Salaam is going to do?" Still, Patrick said nothing.

"I think most of official Washington wants to interview you," Thorn went on. "I think you're going to get grilled for a few days. At least you picked a nice hotel for Bradley to hang out in… until you're done." He studied his hands for a moment. "But from where I sit, there's only one thing I have to know."

"I'm not going to join your administration," Patrick said. "I can't be your national security adviser."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because we both feel strongly that we're right."

Thorn nodded. "I agree." He paused for a moment, then said, "Thomas Jefferson once said that a Council of War is at the same time the most valuable thing and the worst thing for a democracy. But he did have one-and the office was right next to his, not because he consulted them frequently, but so he could keep an eye on them. I think that's what I need to do with you, General McLanahan-put you somewhere so I can keep an eye on you."

"I can't support you as part of your administration," Patrick repeated. "I'd be a serious liability."

"But you would be in a suit and tie, not in a flight suitor in Tin Man battle armor," Thorn said. "You'd be in Washington, where the bureaucrats can stifle a thought or an action more swiftly and more surely than an entire Marine division. More importantly, I can keep an eye on you. With all due respect, General, I like that idea."

Patrick looked warily at the President. He was being trapped-he knew it. It was going to be a choice between prison or some office position, locked away amid classified briefings, mountains of paperwork, and nameless, faceless bureaucrats looking for a strong back on which to step on their way up the ladder of power.

Thorn stepped over to Patrick. "Yes, sir. Keep you in line, keep you in check, pick your brain when I need to but otherwise keep a tight hold on your leash. Hell, any man who names his son after the White House's perennial maddog warmonger has got to be looking for trouble. Besides, I figure the one thing that will punish you better than hard labor in prison is a desk job. Yes, I like that idea a lot… but I'm not going to do it."

He reached into a pocket… and pulled out silver major general's stars.

"Take them, General," Thorn ordered. "There's a new base in northern Nevada called Battle Mountain Air Force Base that's almost ready to be activated. You're going to command it.

"I'm going to fill that base with all of the aircraft and weapons you've been taking from Sky Masters Inc. for the past several years-every model of the Megafortress you've designed, built, and flown over the past fifteen years, and every new air weapon you've developed at Dreamland, including the new airborne laser," Thorn went on. He turned to the others in the room. "General Luger will be your deputy commander. Colonel Briggs and Sergeant Major Wohl will command a special-ops unit based at Battle Mountain-equipped with the Tin Man battle armor technology and trained to be the ground force that mops up after the Megafortresses attack.

"The Air Battle Force at Battle Mountain will be the tip of the spear. Every conflict around the world, every emergency, every potential war zone will have one of your Megafortresses deployed there first. I think it's about time you stop freelancing and start fighting for your country again, don't you-Major General McLanahan?" "

Patrick looked into Thorn's face-then reached up and took the stars from his hand. Thorn smiled and nodded. "Very good. Nice to have you back on America's teamwhere you belong." He and Patrick shook hands to seal the deal.

"Next problem," President Thorn said. "Where is Sergeant Major Wohl?"

Pavel Kazakov's terms of his protective custody agreement allowed him two hours a week supervised release outside of his apartment, and he usually spent those hours playing golf. Akranes, in west Iceland, had two excellent courses, Thorisstadir and Leynir, and in two hours he was usually able to get in nine or more holes and lunch before being returned to his apartment.

His I today were two hulking blond Icelanders assigned to him from the World Court. Golf carts were usually not allowed in Iceland, but a cart driver kept one nearby while the three men walked the course-the cart had the heavy firepower in it, enough weapons to hold off a helicopter assault, while the guards themselves wore bulletproof vests and carried submachine guns. Two platoons of commandos were stationed around the course, also heavily armed.

Kazakov played quickly, getting in as many holes as he could before his release was up. He already had the next three shots lined up before he approached the ball; he never spent any time enjoying the spectacular rugged scenery of the small fishing village. He strode quickly to the ball every time-he already had the club selected-and he addressed the ball and swung. He never had to worry about other players on the course-the guards cleared the course twenty minutes before and after he played anyway. Kazakov stopped only long enough to take a sip of tea from a Thermos bottle to ward off the cold.

The rest room and snack bar at the turn was a simple but sturdy log cabin building, set in what looked at first to be an empty frozen tundra. There was always a roaring fire in the stone fireplace, hot tea and coffee, and a section of cakes, confections, and even smoked fish on hand. The guards checked the building out first-the staff at the snack bar had been escorted off the course, along with all the other players-and then Kazakov was allowed inside.

Kazakov sampled some of the smoked fish as he stood by the fire to warm up. "Other than playing golf itself," he told his Icelandic guard in Russian, "this little cabin is perhaps the best part of playing golf in this country." The guard said nothing-Kazakov didn't know, or care, if the guards spoke Russian-but kept on checking doorways and windows. "Why, you ask?" Kazakov went on. "Because, my Norse friend, Iceland has to be the shittiest nation on Earth. Yes, your women are very beautiful. But if this isn't the end of the Earth, one could certainly see it from Iceland. Everything about this place is stark, bland, rugged, and cold. You people all look alike-you have bred every bit of color and interesting features out of your race. You live in one of the harshest climates on Earth and you smile all the time-I don't mean you, but you Icelanders in general. You must be crazy from the cold and isolation."

The guard nodded, smiled slightly as if Kazakov had just given him a compliment, and continued to scan for intruders. Kazakov snorted his contempt and went to use the lavatory. Big dumb Norseman, he thought. Why did Iceland even bother to have a military? Who would ever attack Iceland"? And why would they not assign him a guard that spoke Russian, if for no other reason than to collect any possible intelligence? The guard checked the men's room first, then allowed Kazakov to enter.

Kazakov had just turned on the tap to wash his hands when the guard came back in to check on him. "I will be out in a moment, you big dumb Viking," he said in Russian. "Can't I even-?"

A hand grabbed his throat and spun him around. Kazakov was suddenly face-to-face with the biggest, meanest, most chiseled man he had ever seen. His nose looked as if it had been smashed several times, and he looked much older, but his steel-blue eyes burning with pure hatred could have belonged to a youngster. Kazakov tried to pry the man's hand off his throat, but he couldn't budge the fingers one millimeter.

"Good morning, Comrade Kazakov," the man said in English. "Having a nice game?" The fingers around his neck squeezed, not allowing any sound to escape. "My name is Master Sergeant Christopher Wohl, United States Marine Corps, Retired. I have a message for you from General Patrick McLanahan." Kazakov's eyes bugged when he heard that name…

… but they bulged even more when the commando held up a four-inch-long double serrated-edge T-bar push knife.

The knife easily pierced Kazakov's jacket, then his flesh, and then his diaphragm, twice, with two fast, powerful thrusts, filling the Russian drug dealer's lungs with blood. "Those are for my two men your friend Jadallah Zuwayy tortured to death." He raised the blood-soaked knife, showing the glistening wet blade to Kazakov. "And this is for Dr. Wendy McLanahan." And he plunged the knife into Kazakov's neck and slashed sideways, nearly slicing the neck in two.

The Icelandic guard stepped into the men's room just as Wohl let the blood-covered body drop to the floor. Wohl calmly took off his bloody jacket and dropped it too.

The two commandos looked at each other for a long moment; then Wohl said in Russian, "Fa abasralsa na vannaya. Prasteetye. I really fucked up your bathroom. Sorry."

"Suhadrochka. Nye za shta. Fseevo samava loochsheva," the Icelandic commando replied in perfect, fluent Russian. He handed Wohl his own clean overcoat-it fit him very well. "No problem. Don't mention it. Have a nice day."