Valediction
Airwolf and her characters belong to the copyright holders, Bellisarius, etc. No copyright infringement is intended. I appreciate the opportunity to let good characters come out to play after their original program has ended, leaving all those loose ends. It's series TV. I don't think main characters should die during the series, although they can have a very hard time. However, the characters of the 4th season are very appealing and worth keeping. So what happened to the original characters, Hawke, Michael, Marella, Cait, Le Van, and Dom after Hawke and Dom were nearly blown to pieces in the helicopter bombing and died, or maybe not, but disappeared from the scene?
This story is one of a pair with "A Delayed Triumph." Some scenes are repeated with slight differences. The make-up of the Hawke family is slightly different in each. The two together are an experiment in using the same material to achieve a different tone and outcome.
This story takes place twenty-seven years after the episode "Firestorm."
Characters and events from various episodes are included. There are many new characters of my own, because everybody got married, had kids, the kids are grown and some have had a child of their own.
Caveat: blowing up a nuclear warhead really blows it up in the sense of a simple explosion - it does not ignite a nuclear explosion.
Caveat 2: "Downwinder" cancers are less specific than portrayed.
Warning: Main character death.
Prologue
As soon as the missile was launched, Stringfellow Hawke turned Airwolf and hit Mach one within nine seconds. It was not soon enough. The Sparrow hit renegade General Sandower's nuclear-warhead-tipped missile, instantly igniting a 1-kiloton nuclear blast. Airwolf was caught in the edges of the blast zone and tumbled over twice. After a terrifying loss of altitude, Hawke managed to wrestle the gunship to fly parallel to the ground but she was wobbling.
"We did it!" Eddie said.
"Yeah we did." Hawke said, barely paying attention as he wrestled the unresponsive controls. "Eddie, turn on the scrambler."
"The what?"
"The scrambler. Upper left."
It came on with nothing but static. "We're lucky we weren't blown out of the sky, but I think our electronics are fried."
He thumbed the radio on his instrument panel, "Archangel."
Marella's voice came back, clearly confused.
"Hawke? Why aren't you on a secure channel? If this isn't urgent, we have a situation here."
"That's why I'm not scrambled. I'm flying out of that situation. Where can I set her down? It should be where my passenger and I can get some assistance, and I'll need a clean-up for my ship."
A moment of silence. "You're in that much trouble?"
"Oh yes."
"Do you know where Fremont Canyon is?"
"Yeah."
"We have a FIRM clinic there, and a hangar. Can you get there?"
"I think so."
"Land there. We'll have a team to meet you."
Technicians in radiation suits went over Airwolf while Hawke and Eddie were stripped of their clothing, were scrubbed thoroughly, and spent a few days in bed getting intravenous treatment of potassium iodide and DPTA. Hawke was relieved to talk to Dom, who was recovering from his bullet wound in the community hospital.
The doctors' warnings were vague but alarming. Although his exposure to the high level radiation was very brief, Hawke had an elevated risk of consequences in the future, including cancer. He was given a list of symptoms to watch for.
Sitting in the hospital bed, with what his doctors told him was a very mild bout of radiation sickness, Hawke sighed bitterly. It was the end. He had no way to decontaminate Airwolf and could not keep her in her present state. He expected to be arrested while he sat hooked to an IV in the clinic. His last hope of finding his brother would be gone.
Michael and Marella, with their usual efficiency, smoothed out all the paperwork and established all the necessary explanations. Marella even flew up to Hawke's cabin to get him some clean clothes and to feed the dog. Eddie, also in clean clothes courtesy of the FIRM, was delivered back to his trailer.
Hawke was astonished to be released and more astonished to find Airwolf waiting for him. He flew Airwolf back to its hiding place in the Lair and hiked out to a road to hitch a ride into Las Vegas. He caught a bus back to Van Nuys.
Michael and Marella were waiting for him at the cabin when he got home. He went behind the bar to open a bottle of wine. The unusual silence finally got to him. "Well?"
"The President wants to meet you and Dom and Eddie."
"I'm an aircraft thief, remember?"
"You're about to draw a get-out-of-jail-free card."
"Aren't you co-conspirators now?"
"We're hoping we're covered by your amnesty. Is Eddie up to a meeting?"
"Eddie is a drunk."
"He's also a hero."
"He is that," Hawke said, with a serious tone Michael rarely heard from him. "Without his persistence and Dom's willingness to listen to him, we wouldn't have been there. They're the heroes."
Michael acknowledged that with a nod. "You were there too. By the way, I've never seen a classification this high on anything. We're in on it only because we dealt with you initially after the blast. The people who know about it in Washington probably can be numbered on two hands. I can depend on you and Dominic to keep quiet. What do we do with Eddie?"
"I wish I knew. Impress the importance of it on him. He's a patriot."
"You three are all getting a presidential commendation. Of course, you can't tell anyone."
"And?"
"This took a sleight of hand that I would be hard-pressed to describe to you, but all three of you are getting a life-long medical plan, with emergency care and doctor's visits, and more substantial care at the VA. I've never seen anything like this. The paperwork, contact people, and so forth should be ready for you within a few days."
Hawke poured three glasses of wine. "Michael, I don't know what to say. Eddie, Dom, and I did what we had to do. We were lucky to have Airwolf. Sandower figured Dom and I were just friends of the local drunk, so they questioned us using, I think it was sodium pentothal, and locked us in a shed. His people were zealots, not soldiers. Breaking out was easy, even though Dom took a round through the shoulder."
"You seem to make your luck. I would like to tell you that this will intensify the search for your brother. But honestly, I have followed up on every lead we have uncovered on POWs left in Southeast Asia. I don't know what we could do that we're not already doing."
"I know," he admitted. "But I'll keep pushing."
"That's how the game is played. I assume Airwolf needs some serious maintenance and repair."
"Your people did a pretty good first pass on it. Thank you for decontaminating her. We wouldn't have had the gear to do it. Michael," he said seriously, "I don't understand. Why didn't you grab Airwolf? I handed her to you. I had no choice."
"The President said the country is safer with Airwolf in your hands, and we'd bloody well better not take her from you. I don't know how long that will last, but for the time being, you get to hang onto her. I don't know if other agencies will be told, and don't abuse it."
"Do we still have our bargain?"
"The White House says the bargain stands. They'd like to find the last of the POWs too. Like I said, I've never seen anything like this."
"All right then, business as usual, sort of. Can I send you a list of what we need after we've gone over her?"
"We'll be ready for it. We noticed you'd found the bugs we left in her."
"That's how the game is played."
Marella said, "Hawke, I know the doctors gave you a frightening warning. Not everyone exposed to intense radiation develops cancer. You had just a touch of radiation sickness."
"I don't know what to think about that." He drank some wine. "Just let us know when and where we're supposed to meet the President. It will mean a lot to Dom and Eddie." He stopped to sip the wine, turned to look at the picture of Saint John, Dominic and himself over the bar. "As for the future, I can't see past finding my brother."
"Fair enough," Michael said. "We should have information on the meeting for you in a day or two. Get us the shopping list for Airwolf." They drank in companionable silence. "Hawke, you won't let me live this down, but may I shake your hand?"
Hawke shrugged. "Michael, this has been a very, very weird week." He extended his hand.
Chapter 1
Saint John knew what the phone call was at seven o'clock in the morning. "It's time," Caitlin told him.
"Is he conscious?"
"In and out. Marella says it will be soon."
"On the way.
Dom was dressed and waiting in his small apartment at the back of the house. He had moved in with Saint John and his family when he turned 85, still independent, but grateful to be close to help if he needed it. He had stopped flying completely only five years before that. Saint John gave him a hug, then assisted him out to the jeep to make the short drive to Santini Air. Dom looked all of his ninety years. He leaned on his cane. His white hair stuck out beneath his red Santini Air cap. As Saint John started the car, Dom put a hand on his arm. "Saint John, this has been an awful year. Soon he won't be afraid. Soon he won't be in pain anymore."
Jo was at the airfield already, running the pre-flight on the helicopter so they could take off as soon as they got there. All three settled their aviator sunglasses as the chopper rose into the bright morning with Jo at the controls.
Chapter 2
Almost exactly a year before, Caitlin had flown Hawke into Van Nuys for a doctor's visit. The bad case of flu had lasted over a week and he still couldn't keep his eyes open. The usually genial Dr. Weinstein was not upbeat on this smoggy morning. She poked at the swollen glands in his throat, took a blood sample, and finally insisted that he be admitted to the hospital. He received a blood transfusion and medication and felt well enough two days later that he was anxious to be released. She walked into his room, looking solemn, and asked him to call Caitlin.
Cait climbed out from under the new Jet Ranger to take the call. She had been expecting String's request to pick him up at the hospital. She didn't expect the doctor's request for a meeting. She cleaned up and drove to the hospital with an eerie prickling sensation at the back of her neck.
A restless and annoyed String was sitting up in bed with the ugly hospital gown sagging around his throat. Cait sat nervously in a chair by the bed as Dr. Weinstein took the other chair. Cait reached up and took Hawke's hand. She looked at him objectively for a moment. At sixty, he was still as agile as a kid, still with a taut neck and deep blue eyes. Soft gray hair had replaced his brown hair. The lines around his eyes and around his mouth made him look stern, except when he smiled. He was not smiling now, but he was still beautiful. Not that a hospital gown flattered anybody.
"So, Sarah, what's up?" Hawke asked.
"String, were you a downwinder?"
"What's a downwinder?" Cait asked, when Hawke did not answer immediately.
"Someone downwind of an above-ground nuclear test," Dr. Weinstein answered.
Hawke remembered the briefing he had received twenty-seven years before, about being caught in the edges of the explosion of General Sandower's nuclear missile. In that long, long ago meeting, the FIRM's security experts and doctors had suggested that it would be best to simply acknowledge that he had been in Southeast Nevada or Southwest Utah during an above-ground nuclear test, that is, only if he developed a cancer that suggested the need for an explanation. Cait knew what had happened, but it was still classified, and Sarah was not authorized to learn about it. "Yeah," he said. "I was."
"I haven't seen one of those cancers for quite a while. Most of the downwinders who were going to, have gotten their cancer already."
"I think it was the last above-ground test, in the eighties."
"Well, that's a piece of lousy luck. Look, with chemotherapy we have a decent chance of stopping it. I'd like to get started on it as soon as possible. We're going to have to discuss what to do and make a treatment plan."
Cait remembered that conversation as if it were a bell tolling. The year of hell had begun.
Chapter 3
Six months before Cait's morning call to Saint John, Hawke threw a wrench down under Santini Air's newest Jet Ranger so hard that the tongue snapped off on the concrete. He climbed down the rolling platform and ran into the bathroom. His sparse gray hair stuck out from under his Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. His skin was nearly the same color as his hair. He slammed the bathroom door. The sound of his retching was clear through the door. Caitlin waited for him, hands clenched together.
When he didn't come out for twenty minutes, she knocked on the door. "String, can I help?"
"No!" he shouted. "Dammit, Cait, let me alone!"
She flinched. Dominic Santini came out from the office. "What?"
Cait put a hand on his arm and led him back into the office. "He's sick again today." She started to cry and put a hand over her mouth. "He won't let me help."
Dom put an arm around around her, while shoving his Santini Air cap off his white hair with the other hand. "You know he's not mad at you. He's just mad. He feels lousy, and he's scared."
"I know. All this misery, and we don't even know if it's working. Patrick was home from medical school and he yelled at him, and Jeanny called and he yelled at her."
Dom mouthed a "Wow." Hawke never yelled at his daughter. The young Navy aviator currently stationed at the Top Gun School in Fallon, Nevada, was almost his double. He loved all his children, but Jeanne and he never seemed to have to discuss anything - there just was a perfect understanding between them.
A ragged looking Hawke, back in his street clothes, walked into the office. "Cait, look, I'm sorry."
"Oh, Honey, it's okay."
"No, it's not. Dom, can you spare us while Cait flies me back up to the cabin?"
"Sure. Sure," he said, but Hawke went gray again and ran for the bathroom.
"He should have never come to work the day after a treatment."
"If he admitted that, Cait, he'd be admitting he's vulnerable." They heard the toilet flush, and the water running. "Let him take that stuff to stop the nausea and lie down on the cot in the office for a little while, then you two knock off for the day. Jo will be back, and I can hold the fort until then."
Cait kissed his cheek and sat down to wait for Hawke to emerge.
The forty-five minute helicopter flight home passed in tense silence. Hawke sat with his hands clenched. The nausea had abated enough for him to make it to the landing on the dock, but he ended up on his knees, dry heaving into a bush by the path up to the cabin. Then he climbed the stairs to the bedroom and lay down. He did not come down for dinner, although he ate the tea and toast Cait brought him.
In the morning, Cait awoke and realized he wasn't in bed next to her. She panicked, listened for him in the bathroom, and couldn't hear him anywhere in the house. Usually if he got up before her he started coffee and breakfast, but the familiar smells were absent. She pulled on a robe over her pajamas, slid into her sneakers, and went to look for him. The sound of the ax behind the house led her to the woodpile. "Will we have enough wood if there's an early winter?" she asked. The pile of cut logs was on a level with his shoulders and threatening to come crashing down in a wooden avalanche. She walked around Hawke as he continued to hack at the logs without speaking . She started to stack the cut sections in the wagon. Hawke put the ax down and grabbed his t-shirt self-consciously and pulled it on.
"I'm going for a run," he said, and took off down the path.
"String," she said, but he was out of the clearing and into the woods. "Hard-headed idiot," she muttered, and stacked the wood that would not fit in the wagon in the woodpile behind the path.
When Hawke did not return to go to work, Cait called the office at Santini Air. "Jo, I don't think we're coming in today. Can you spare us?"
"Sure. Saint John and I have it covered. Mike was planning to come in later." Jo hesitated. "How's he doing?"
"Not a good day. He's pretty upset."
"Can't say as I blame him."
Cait unexpectedly started to sob. "He won't talk to me."
The phone was silent. Finally, Jo said, "You know, he hasn't been this ill since that helicopter bombing twenty-five years ago. This is worse. It goes on and on and on. And he can't talk it out. He keeps it bottled up."
Cait looked up. "He's coming back. I'll call you later." She hung up.
Hawke was soaked in sweat but looked calmer. "I'm sorry," he said. "Were you talking to Dom?"
"No, Jo. How far did you get?"
"Not very far. No stamina. I've been sitting in the old blind. A buck came by to graze and I watched him. I'll take a shower and try to get some sleep. I didn't get much last night."
"String," she said, as he turned away. She covered her face with her hands and tried to smother her sobs as they started. She felt his arm as he put it around her shoulders.
"Cait, please don't."
"String, I am so scared."
"I am too. This chemotherapy makes me sicker and sicker, and I don't think it's working. Maybe I ought to just drop it and let whatever happens happen."
In terror, Cait whirled in the circle of his arm to face him. "No. You can't say that. String, you're only sixty-one years old. Not yet. You've got to keep trying. Sarah thought that the cancer markers were down in your last blood test."
He rested his sweaty forehead against her hair. "I'm no good to you, or me, or Dom, or anyone else right now."
"You are always good to me. Don't ever say that." She petted his back. "Of course, you are a pain in the neck, sometimes."
"Only in the neck?" he asked, humor back in his voice.
"Well, since you mentioned it… String, take a shower and lie down on the bed. I'll rub your back."
"That's an offer I can't refuse."
Chapter 4
Two months before Cait's morning call to Saint John, Sarah and the oncologist acknowledged that chemotherapy was no longer working. Hawke had asked Saint John to come up to the cabin. Caitlin sat next to String on the sofa, holding his hand. She was wearing her aviator sunglasses indoors. He was wearing a gray sweat suit that hung on him. Since the last chemotherapy treatment a month before, his hair had begun to grow back in a fine gray fuzz.
Saint John knew what String was going to say, and wished he could leave, hide, somehow put off knowing what he would know in the next few minutes. He sat in the overstuffed chair facing String and Cait. Desperately, he delayed it. "String, did you know that Dom and Jo have been going to mass every morning, for the last couple months? They each light a candle for you every morning."
"Dom mentioned it. I'll thank them." String's voice was steady. "Sinj, there's no point in dragging this out anymore. I'm going to enter hospice."
Saint John heard his own voice like it was at a distance. "How long?"
"A couple months. It's hard to say."
He was ready for it, but for a moment he could not catch his breath.
"I'm worried about Dom."
"I am too. He may be living with us, but you're not just his son, you're his best friend." In a moment of insight, Saint John knew what he had to tell his brother. "The two of you, crusty old chopper jockeys, have a secret, you know."
"What secret?"
"Most of what you've done for the last thirty or forty years has been for love."
"For love?"
"You stole Airwolf for me. You worked for the Firm to find me. Airwolf brought Cait to you. You used Airwolf to create a family and besides the relatives, you added friends to it, and all the while, Dom was with you. You created that string quartet for the love of music. We get you two together and listen to the bad jokes, mostly Dom's, of course, and all the while, we're all wrapped up in your love for us. You and Dom have been son and father and best friends for over fifty years, and fathers to the rest of us, even to me. Even to Michael." Saint John took a deep breath. "String, it won't stop just because you're not here. Love doesn't end."
"Sinj, I'll need you to take care of everybody for me. We all seem to be centered up here at the cabin. I guess we're a clan."
"It's not the cabin. You're the heart of it, String."
"But that's the beauty of a clan. Everyone takes care of each other. Just look out for them, okay? And Sinj," he paused. "It's almost over, but I'm going to need your help to get through this last part. It's going to be awfully hard. Can I count on you?"
"Of course you can, brother," Saint John said, not certain how, but knowing he had to, for String. "What can I do this morning?"
"Would you help Cait call the kids, after I've spoken with the doctor?" Caitlin was trying not to break down. She rested her face against String's shoulder.
Saint John stood up and wrapped his arms around String. "Sinj, I don't want to go," String said, against his brother's chest, "but I'm out of time."
String opened the cell phone. His beautiful cellist's hands were shaking, the only sign of nerves he had shown that morning. "I can't get it, Cait," he muttered, and handed the phone to her.
"That's okay. I've got it." Her voice was thick and scratchy. Saint John watched her as if she were calling the executioner. She found Sarah's office number and gave the phone back to String.
Chapter 5
The enlarged helipad behind the cabin was necessary for a cabin with access only by four-wheel-drive jeep trail and for a family in which everyone flew. Saint John set Santini Air's newest Bell down next to String and Caitlin's ship. Michael and Marella's white helicopter was at the back of the pad by the trees.
Stringfellow Hawke lay on a cot in the living room of the cabin. The hospice nurse's aide had been up two days before to help String wash and shave. He'd slept through most of it. He was dressed in his light blue pajamas. A sheet and blanket were pulled up to his chest. He looked clean and peaceful against the white pillow. He had lost so much weight that the years and the lines in his face were smoothed away. Hawke's pale gray hair had grown back since the last chemotherapy treatment three months before. A little of the honey brown was left. Caitlin could see in his face the beautiful young man she first met in the Sheriff's office in Pope County, Texas.
The canula was nestled in Hawke's nose and the oxygen tank clicked periodically. Cait sat by him, holding his left hand. Their three children sat near Cait on chairs that had been pulled close to the cot. The eldest, Le Van, was their adopted, half-Vietnamese son. He was an associate professor of physics at Sacramento State University. Their daughter Jeanne, a navy fighter jet pilot, was home on compassionate leave before her second deployment to Afghanistan. The youngest, Patrick, was a first-year medical student in San Diego. Jeanne and Patrick had their parents' slight build, their mother's light red hair and their father's blue eyes.
The cabin door was open and the window blinds were pulled up, so String could look out to the lake, should he wake up. The family's collection of musical instruments had been moved into a corner to make room for everyone. Le Van had a video camera and he got up periodically to take a few moments of film. He put the camera on the counter behind him and sat down by his wife, Sherri.
After helping Dom up the porch stairs, Saint John embraced Cait and walked around the bed. "String. Brother," he said. He bent and kissed String's forehead.
String's eyes opened to slits. "Sinj," he whispered.
Saint John pulled up a chair and sat next to Cait. Jo sat next to Saint John, arm hooked through his arm. Saint John's blonde hair had gone gray in the twenty-five years since his rescue from a prisoner of war camp in Laos. The lines were very deep on his face. Family life with Jo had been good to him, but he had never expected to outlive his younger brother. Their children, Dominique away at college at the University of California, Davis and Tony, at Berkeley, had been home two weeks before to say good-bye to their Uncle String.
Dom reached out and cupped String's face with his hand. "I'm here, son." He bent and kissed his cheek, rested a hand on his shoulder. His face was wet and he made no attempt to blot the tears.
Standing close, Dom could just hear String say, "Dom."
Dom said, very softly, "I'll be along soon, String. You won't be alone for long."
Jeanny hugged Dom around his waist and rested her head against him. She stood up to help him get settled in a chair next to her.
Patrick hugged her, then rested his hand very gently on his father's shoulder. "Dad, we're here with you."
Hawke's hand tightened on his wife's hand. She leaned close to him. He may have said her name, but it may just have been a breath. Caitlin lifted String's hand to her lips. She said softly, "String, if you need to go now, it's all right." She brushed his hair off his forehead. "It's all right."
Chapter 6
After making the decision to halt treatment, String had flown into town to see Dom. Dom would not accept the decision at first. "Why are you quitting?" he demanded.
"It wasn't working anymore, Dom. They've run out of drugs to give me. There aren't any clinical trials that would work. The stuff was making me sick and it wasn't doing any good. Honestly, right now I feel better than I have in six months."
"Maybe getting it out of your system will let you beat the cancer."
"I'm not a good candidate for a miracle," he said, with humor.
But Dom's voice broke. "I'll pray for one anyway. Children shouldn't die before their parents." String wrapped his arms around Dom and Dom returned the embrace.
"I don't know how to get through this. Please help me. Dom, how can I leave Cait and the kids?"
"I don't know, but I'm gonna keep praying for you."
"I'm counting on it."
Chapter 7
Michael and Marella flew up to the cabin the week after Hawke decided to enter hospice. He was sitting on the porch with his cello. Michael climbed up the walk leaning on his cane. Now retired from the Company, Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III had finally begun to look his age. His blonde hair had turned white. His limp had grown worse. Marella shut the white helicopter down and followed Michael.
"No chopper. Is Cait here?"
"No. I promised I'd be good so she went to work."
Michael sat down on the bench, while Marella sat on the top step of the porch stairs. "Is that driving you crazy?" he asked.
"You know it. Everyone is so solicitous I feel like a little boy with measles. Do this. Don't do that." Hawke snorted. "Richard Feynman, when he was dying, said, 'I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.' He nailed it."
Michael thought there was something different about him. Peace, he realized. The tension was gone. He thought Hawke had made his peace with what was happening to him. It was disturbing. He remembered what he wanted to ask him. "String, what happened to Eddie?"
"Eddie? Oh, Eddie. Well, after we got treated for radiation exposure he spent a week in the VA hospital, getting dried out so he could meet the President. Remember, he did fine in the meeting, but about a year after we got back from Washington, he was down to only one bottle in the trailer. So he drove to that bar he always went to, about five miles from his trailer, got drunk, bought a bottle, and started home with it in his lap. It was a rainy night. As near as anyone could tell, he flipped the jeep, was thrown out, and ended up in an irrigation ditch. He drowned in about six inches of water."
"I'm sorry."
"That was over twenty-five years ago, Michael. Dom was pretty torn up. He really thought that Eddie had turned the corner. But you know, he was a hero, and he met the president. That's not bad. He never got to use that fancy medical plan you negotiated for us." String shifted uncomfortably. "I hate it, that Sandower beat me, in the end."
"But he didn't," Marella objected. "You lived to have a family and to see them grow up. You have a granddaughter. Sandower never did. You rescued your brother, or at least made it possible to rescue your brother from that POW camp, and he has a family, and he went back and did wonderful things for that village in Vietnam where he was held for so long – he's considered a great man there, and it's all thanks to you. You and Saint John both served with distinction in the reserve in the Iraq War. But more to the point, the world did not have World War Three. Millions of people were in danger and you and Dom and Eddie stopped it. At the very least, you saved thousands of people in Moscow. String, when you and Dom destroyed those Space Guard nuclear warheads over Washington, you saved thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands. You saved Washington. I'd call that several clear wins. Not just a game – the match."
"Point taken."
"Can we do anything for you?"
"What you're doing now. Talk to me. Let me remember who I was, for as long as I can. And help Cait through it."
"Not Saint John or Dom?" Michael asked.
"You know them. They wouldn't accept it from you."
"That's never really changed, has it?"
"No, it never has."
"If you need anything to stay comfortable, call me," Marella said. "Hospice usually provides enough medication, but I don't want you to, well…" Hawke couldn't recall when he had seen Marella at a loss for words.
"You don't want me to suffer, Dr. Coldsmith-Briggs," he teased her gently. Leaving the FIRM for her pediatric practice had been the career choice that allowed her relationship with Michael to flourish. Hawke always felt proud of her for doing it. "Believe me, Marella, I've had enough pain, even discomfort. Thank you for giving me some peace of mind on that score."
Michael took a deep breath and asked one more, loaded question. "Hawke, do you believe in an afterlife?"
String leaned back against the cabin wall. "A few months ago, I would have said no. Now…I can't imagine not being here. I imagine looking after Cait, looking after the kids, looking after Saint John and Dom, looking after you. I'll want to know how everyone is doing. I want to know how things come out. Will NASA find life on another planet? How does global warming work out? I want to see Jeanny and Patrick with their own families, and Patrick get his medical degree. I want to see our granddaughter all grown up. Obviously, that doesn't hold up to any logical analysis. But it's comforting. Is that a belief in an afterlife?"
"I don't know. Don't look after me too closely."
"I'll take that under advisement," he said dryly, and turned the tables. "Do you believe in it? Or anything like it?"
"I don't know how to talk about it."
"Fair enough." Michael and Marella rose to go. "Michael."
Michael turned back to him.
"Thirty years of a friendship. Sometimes we were so busy sniping at each other that we lost the meaning of it. But it's a real friendship, outside my family, the most important in my life. Thank you. Both of you. "
Michael stepped back onto the porch. "Sometimes we did lose sight of it." He wrapped his arms around Hawke. "But I won't forget."
Marella followed her husband and embraced both of them. "We won't forget."
Chapter 8
Two days after Michael and Marella's visit, Patrick drove in from San Diego, Le Van picked Jeanne up in Fresno where she was stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore and drove to Van Nuys. Saint John flew up with Jo and Dom. Musical instruments were pulled out of their cases. The electric piano was placed on its stand. Music stands were set up. Everyone opened their folder of sheet music and the Hawke family became an ensemble.
String anchored the classical, jazz and popular music with his beloved Stradivarius cello. Patrick, an accomplished cellist, also played a viola when with the family. Jeanne played the violin, having chosen it with her choice of career – a cello was too cumbersome to move from air base to air base or ship to ship. Le Van had taken piano lessons reluctantly, but had fallen in love first with drums, then with the clarinet. He played in an amateur jazz ensemble at his university. That left the piano to Caitlin, who had taken lessons throughout her childhood and was able to keep up with her talented husband and children. She had the best singing voice in the family. Jo often sang along. Saint John, who had played electric bass in a high school rock band, had returned to it for a different type of music. Dom preferred to be the enthusiastic audience. As String said, "Making music is too important to be left to professionals."
The music went on most of the afternoon. Everyone stopped for soup and sandwiches. Le called his wife and wished their three-year-old daughter goodnight. He passed the phone to Cait and Hawke to listen to the toddler's, "Night night." The call finished with Tiffany's great grandpa Dom blowing a kiss into the phone. Then they all returned to the music, well aware that it was the last time they would play with String.
Chapter 9
Still in the glow of worn-off chemotherapy, before the cancer sapped his strength any more, Hawke stalked his wife through the cabin and caught up with her on the porch.
"What?" Caitlin said, as he seized her and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss deepened. He placed his hands on her waist and pulled her against him.
"Time to go upstairs?"
Cait didn't ask if he was well enough. She took his hand and led him to the bedroom. It had been weeks since they last tried and that had not worked out well. But with pent-up longing, String was pulling his sweater off over his head as he climbed the stairs.
"God, you're beautiful," he said, as he lay down beside her. "You're so beautiful."
Cait got up on one elbow. "I thought you were beautiful the first time I saw you. You still are."
"Cait, let me love you."
They slept wrapped in each other's arms. Cait stirred, realizing her arm under his neck was numb. She pulled it out gently. He reached for her in his sleep and slowly woke up. "I could stay like this forever."
"Yeah, I could too," she said, not realizing that tears were running down her face, catching the moonlight that came through the window.
String touched her damp cheek. "No tears tonight, Cait. Let me love you again."
And so they did.
Chapter 10
The blessed break from his illness lasted for nearly a week. Cait awoke to an empty bed. The smell of coffee filled the house, but there was no sign of String. She grabbed her robe and stuck her feet into sneakers. He wasn't fishing and he wasn't behind the house at the woodpile. On a hunch she went to the old blind, where he went to watch wildlife. She heard the harsh sound of his weeping before she found him sitting there on the bench. "Oh, Honey," she said as she slipped in and wrapped her arms around him. He rested his face on her shoulder.
"Yesterday I thought I'd made my peace with it, but this morning, I feel lousy again," he said, against her neck. "Up, down. One day I'm okay, the next day I'm not. I can't stand it."
They clung together while he took deep breaths and tried to get control. "Cait, listen to me for a minute," he said at last. "I didn't want you to see me like this. It's hard enough on you."
"All I want to do is look at you. Nothing about that is too hard."
"Cait, you're still a young woman. I hope, if you meet someone, well, it's okay. You shouldn't mourn for me forever."
"String, don't say that."
He cut her off. "You won't be disloyal to me, if it happens. Be careful, be safe, but I want you to have joy in your life. I'm going to talk to the kids about it."
"You're a hard act to follow," she said, and couldn't stop the tears.
He stood up and took her hand. "Let's go have coffee."
Chapter 11
Two weeks before Cait's morning phone call to Saint John, Le Van and his wife Sherri brought their three-year-old to say goodbye to String. They drove down from their home in Sacramento. String had been having a good day. He cuddled Tiffany and for a little while, Le Van had the illusion that he was going to recover; but String was so thin, spidery, in baggy gray sweats leaning back against the cushions on the old, beige sofa, that he looked strange and childlike.
"String, did I ever thank you for taking me in? When it turned out I wasn't Saint John's son?"
"Sure you have. But I keep telling you, I didn't take you in. You and I made a family. As far as I was concerned, we were family before Saint John came home. I should thank you for making Cait and me grandparents. Dom is completely in love with his great granddaughter. We are so proud of you." "He grinned. "My son, the doctor."
Le Van laughed. "And I can't even write prescriptions. But Patrick will." He embraced him around his daughter.
Sherri had taken pictures of String with Tiffany. The toddler wore violet overalls with a flowered tee-shirt and lavender-colored sneakers. Her dark brown hair took after her mother, a shiny cap of curls. When they were ready to leave, Sherri started the video camera again. Le Van held Tiffany so she stood on his knees, bouncing. He said to his daughter, "Remember Grandpa, Tiffy." Le Van's voice broke. "Remember Grandpa." Then Le Van set his daughter on the floor so she could run over to the sofa to give a sloppy goodbye kiss to her delighted grandfather.
Chapter 12
A week before Cait's phone call, Mike Rivers had called to ask Caitlin if Hawke could manage a ride in Airwolf. She assured him that Hawke would love it. She handed the phone to String and listened to the sudden alertness and the strength in his voice when he told Mike that he would be ready and waiting that afternoon.
Cait helped Hawke pull on jeans and a sweater. Everything was too big, but she cinched his belt tightly enough to keep the jeans from sliding off.
Mike and Jason Locke moved String down the porch stairs with his arms slung over their shoulders and settled him in the left seat. They fitted headphones over the earpieces of his aviator glasses since they were more comfortable than the cumbersome Airwolf helmet. Mike lifted the beautifully maintained old gunship off the helipad and the familiar howl filled the sky.
In the clear and sunny afternoon, Mike piloted Airwolf to circle the Lair in the Valley of the Gods. He turned the controls over to Hawke and for a few minutes, String played through the sky like a bird of prey. The turbos were too much for him and he let Mike take over to shoot across the valley, roll, and come back.
An hour later, String was exhausted but smiling, as Mike and Jason brought him back to the cabin.
Chapter 13
Michael and Marella's visit three days before Cait's call to Saint John was much harder. String was in pajamas, lying on a cot in front of the fireplace on the first floor of the cabin. He had collapsed since his ride in Airwolf. He looked withered against the bedding. His face lit up with pleasure as his old friends walked in. Michael leaned on his cane and took String's hand. "Hello, Hawke," he said, as cheerfully as he could manage. "You're looking better."
Hawke muttered, "Than what?"
Michael pulled up a chair for Marella and one for himself to sit close to Hawke. Marella reached out and brushed the soft gray hair off Hawke's forehead.
Only Michael would have asked this, "Hawke, are you afraid?"
He thought it over so long that Michael thought he wouldn't answer. Finally he said, "No. I'm ready."
"Are you hurting right now? Marella can help."
"No. Got me pretty drugged."
Michael said, "I'm going to miss you." He took Hawke's hand in both his hands and held it. "I'm going to miss you."
"I know."
"Call us when it's time," Marella told Cait. After fifteen minutes, they left.
Exhausted, Hawke slept.
Chapter 14
Later that evening, String moved restlessly and uncomfortably. The eyedropper dose of synthetic morphine that the hospice nurse had left with them helped. He lost the look of distress and settled into sleep or stupor. Jeanne, Patrick and Le Van and his wife had gone to bed. Cait sat by String in a pool of lamplight.
She caressed his hair. He must have been dreaming. He murmured, "Airwolf." His hand groped for something. "Cait?" She took his hand. "Cait. Take Airwolf and go get Saint John. Please. He's in Laos."
It took her a minute to realize he was reliving events a quarter of a century old. "Jo already brought Saint John back, String. He'll come up to see you in the morning."
"Oh. Okay. Will Dom come?"
"He's coming too, String."
"That's good, then." He dozed for a short time. "Cait. I love you. Tell the kids, I love them." Cait kissed him on the lips, kissed both eyes, and rested her face on his hair.
"I'll tell them."
"Cait?"
"String?"
"Am I dying now?"
"Soon."
"That's okay." That was accompanied by a smile of such sweetness. "Love you."
Cait held his face between her hands. "I love you. I'll miss you. I'll love you forever." She kissed him again.
Chapter 15
The morning of the memorial get together was as sunny as the morning Stringfellow Hawke died. A few fluffy clouds highlighted the mountains gleaming in the sun. The helipad behind the cabin was full. At Cait's request, dress was casual. Mike Rivers and his wife Rachel assisted Jo, Cait's mother Jean, Le Van's wife Sherri, and Jason Locke's wife Elizabeth in setting up a buffet near the porch.
Airwolf sat like a jewel on the dock. The old Airwolf team mixed with friends from the other parts of Hawke's life. One of Santini Air's new pilots shuttled people up from the Santini Air office. The members of the Eagle Lake String Quartet had seen the cabin in the days when they practiced there with String, but they were fascinated by Airwolf. Friends from his days as an astronaut on the Apollo program, from his work as a test pilot, from the film industry, and even from Vietnam milled around the porch and waterfront. Cait's brothers and sisters and some of their children had come from Texas.
There was a program, printed out and distributed to everyone, but no minister; instead, Michael was to preside, although he feared he would be unable to get through it. All three of Hawke's children planned to say something. Dom planned to try to talk about the twelve-year-old orphan he had taken in fifty years before, and had loved as a son all his life. Marella would share a declassified Hawke story. Doc Gifford was scheduled to tell about fishing with String. The film industry was represented by an actor for whom Hawke had flown as a stunt double. An astronaut from the Apollo Program who had flown the module on the mission in which String piloted the orbiter planned to reminisce about Hawke's days with NASA. Sam Roper, from Hawke's days flying Hueys in Vietnam, had a remembrance of Hawke in Vietnam. String's commanding officer in the Reserve in the Iraq War had been unable to leave his deployment in Afghanistan, but he sent a reminiscence of their time training helicopter pilots. Stringfellow Roper, Sam's son and String's namesake, was eager to tell about how String and Dom rescued him from the KGB.
A tall, slightly stooped, gray-haired man in a suit of European cut walked tentatively up to Michael and Marella. Marella's eyes widened. "Comrade Kinskcov," she said.
He put out his hand. "Marella, Michael."
"Vladimir," Michael demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"Didn't you ever wonder, Michael, why, after the East Germans tried to take Hawke and Airwolf, they never tried again? Why we in KGB never tried."
"That did come to mind. Why?"
"As with us, your official secrets can be a little porous. We know how Hawke stopped the missile that was aimed at Moscow. If no one would mind, I should like to stay for the memorial. We owe him an enormous debt. Twenty-seven years after the event Hawke has given his life for us. For the peace of the world, too." Kinskcov shook his head. "He was, from all our reports, a remarkable man."
"Yes, he was. Dominic Santini is here. He played an equally important part in destroying that missile. Let me introduce you. I think he would appreciate that you took the trouble to come."
"Santini is still alive? It will be an honor to meet him."
Michael led Kinskcov toward the bench where Dominic sat next to Patrick and Cait. "How is the family, Vladimir?"
"My children are well, Michael. My son is in the army. My daughter is a translator. Her English is better than mine, and she is fluent in Arabic. My wife passed two winters ago."
"I'm sorry, Vladimir. I never met Elena."
"That's because, unlike your Marella, she was never in the Game. You know, Mr. Hawke gave KGB a black eye when he stole that little boy from Omrylkot Air Base."
"That little boy is thirty-nine and will be speaking this afternoon. He's here with his own family and his parents."
Kinskcov gave Michael a heartfelt grin. "I am old enough to be glad about the reunification of any family. I hope you will introduce me to Saint John Hawke, as well. I hear he is to receive honorary citizenship from the government of Vietnam. What an extraordinary family."
The two old spies walked together, chatting amiably. Coming up to the bench, Michael whispered to Patrick, "We have some old spy stuff to discuss. It's still classified. Could you give us a couple minutes?"
Patrick chuckled. "What did Dad call you, 'Superspy'? I'll go check on the guests. Nearly everybody should be here by now."
"Cait," Michael said, "I'd like you to meet Vladimir Kinskcov. You helped Dom shoot at him in East Germany. Vladimir, Mrs. Stringfellow Hawke. It's okay about the top secret classification – she knows about it."
Kinskcov clicked his heels together and bowed over her hand. "It is my honor, Mrs. Hawke. Allow me to express my condolences and those of my government on your great loss."
Cait rose and graciously took his hand. "I'm glad we missed," she said. Her soft voice couldn't hide the scratchy remnant of too many tears.
"Vladimir Kinskcov. Dominic Santini." Again, Kinskcov bowed.
"Mr. Santini, this is an enormous honor for me. I wish I had met Mr. Hawke as well. As I have been telling Michael, you may have wondered why no further attempt was made on Mr. Hawke or Airwolf after the dreadful mess the East Germans made of that kidnapping. We knew of the great service you performed for us and for the world when you destroyed the nuclear missile aimed at Moscow. Our government chose to leave you alone after that."
Dom seemed to have shrunk since String died. "I don't know if your briefing covered it, but Hawke wasn't just my colleague; he was my son. You've come a long way to say something kind to us. Thank you."
Patrick came back over and rested a hand on Michael's shoulder. "We'll be starting soon."
"Of course." Michael returned to his seat by Marella near the front of the gathering. Kinskcov sat down on one of the benches.
At his family's urging several years before, Hawke had recorded some of his original cello compositions, along with pieces played with the semi-professional string quartet he had joined after he gave up flying Airwolf. They had named the group the Eagle Lake Quartet, after the lake by the Hawke family's cabin. The erratic schedule of film stunt flying and the interruption for the Iraq War sometimes made it hard to keep up with the string quartet; nevertheless, Hawke had played with them for nearly twenty years. The CD played softly in the background.
When everyone was seated, Michael made his way to the makeshift podium. He cleared his throat, and while he hesitated, a bald eagle swept over the lake, calling its eerie raptor's cry. Caitlin felt that they had received a benediction. String's presence was strong in this place that he loved. She closed her eyes and tried to feel him there.
Chapter 16
The next morning, part of the family climbed into Airwolf. Jeanne was at the controls with Cait in the copilot's seat and Dom flying as engineer. Patrick sat in the jump seat. Le Van and Sherri, Saint John and Jo followed in the Santini Air Jet Ranger.
Hawke had asked that his ashes be spread from Airwolf over the forest behind the cabin. Despite all the happy hours fishing on the lake, his parents had died there. Solid ground, the trail where he used to run in the morning, the hidden places where Tet and later dogs had hunted and were buried, the blind where he watched the deer, the trees reaching toward the sky, all seemed less haunted than the water.
They hovered over a grove of old growth trees about a half mile from the cabin. Patrick cracked the hatch and poured the ashes out to be consigned to the air and the forest by the ship's downdraft. Stringfellow Hawke would always be in the place he loved, near the people he loved. They hovered a little while longer, then flew back to the dock to go on with life.