A Delayed Triumph
Preface and Acknowledgements
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. I don't think main characters should die, at least during the series. However, the characters of the 4th season are appealing so I want to keep them too.
So what happened to the original characters, Hawke, Michael, Marella, Cait, Le Van, Tet, 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? I can't stand killing off Dom, so I haven't. And what do the new Airwolf crew members do? Who are they?
This story takes place 27 years after "Firestorm." Bits and pieces and characters of many episodes are included. This story is one of a pair with "Valediction." 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.
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: Downwinders did not have a certain, identifiable type of cancer, although some cancers were more likely than others to have been diagnosed in people exposed to nuclear fallout caused by above-ground nuclear tests.
Spoiler Alert: The plot in this story was planned before the dreadful earthquake and tsunami in Japan, although I had planned a different, local and equally plausible mechanism for the natural disaster in the story. I am so sorry that events have overtaken it. But seismologists and emergency planners know that it could as easily have been our own Cascadia Subduction Zone that produced a magnitude 9 megathrust earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. It last occurred in January 1700 and a repeat is only a matter of time.
Prologue
As soon as the Sparrow missile was launched, Stringfellow Hawke turned Airwolf and hit Mach 1 within nine seconds. It was not soon enough. The Sparrow hit General Sandower's nuclear 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 her to fly parallel to the ground but she was wobbling.
"We did it," Eddie said.
"We sure did." Hawke was wrestling with the helicopter, trying to stay airborne. "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 standard 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." He sighed. Just so quickly, it was the end. He had no way to decontaminate Airwolf and could not keep her in her present state.
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. 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 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.
With their usual efficiency, Michael and Marella had all the paperwork smoothed out and all the necessary explanations in order. Marella even flew up to Hawke's cabin to get him some clean clothes and to feed the dog. Eddie, in clean clothes courtesy of the FIRM, was delivered back to his trailer. But Hawke sat in his hospital bed nearly in despair. His bargaining chip to force the FIRM to look for Saint John would be gone. Airwolf was in FIRM control and he expected to be arrested for aircraft theft or worse.
To Hawke's astonishment, he was allowed to leave and Airwolf was ready for him. He flew her back to the Lair and hiked out to a road to hitchhike into Las Vegas. He caught a bus back to Van Nuys.
The doctors' warning before he left the hospital had been vague but alarming. Although his exposure to the high level radiation was very brief, there was fair chance of some health issue eventually, including cancer. Hawke was given a list of symptoms to watch for.
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."
"I think you two are co-conspirators now. Does that apply to you, too?"
"I hope so."
"Eddie is the real hero, and Dom too," Hawke said, with a serious tone Michael rarely heard from him. "Without Eddie's persistence and Dom believing him, we wouldn't have been there."
"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 count on you and Dom to keep quiet. What do we do with Eddie?"
"Eddie is a drunk, but he's a patriot."
"You three are all getting a presidential commendation. Of course, you can't tell anyone."
Hawke poured three glasses of wine. "Michael, I don't know what to say. We did what we had to do, and we were lucky enough to have Airwolf. Sandower figured Dom and I were just friends of the local drunk, so they questioned us using sodium pentothal, I think, 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. You beat Sandower. I would like to tell you that this will intensify the search for your brother. But honestly, I don't know what we could do that we're not already doing."
"I know. But I'll keep pushing."
"It's part of the job. I assume Airwolf needs some serious maintenance and repair."
"Your people did a pretty good first pass. Thanks for decontaminating her. We didn't have the gear to do it." Hawke took a deep breath. "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. Like I said, I've never seen anything like this."
"All right then, it's business as usual. Can I send you a list of what we need after we've gone over her?"
"We'll be ready for it. Thanks, by the way, for disabling the bugs we left in her."
Hawke laughed. "It's part of the job."
Marella broke in, awkwardly. "Hawke."
"Yeah?"
"I know the doctors gave you rather frightening warnings. Not everyone exposed to intense radiation develops cancer. You had a very minor bout of radiation sickness."
"Marella, since you're on the way to being, as Dom says, 'a doctor doctor,' that means at least as much as the scare talk. Thank you. I don't know what to think about it. Maybe I'll know I beat Sandower someday if I don't die of cancer." Hawke 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." Hawke 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 that information on the meeting for you in a day or two. Get us the shopping list for Airwolf." The three 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
Caitlin had flown Hawke into Van Nuys for a doctor's visit. The bad case of flu had lasted 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.
With String in the hospital bed, the ugly hospital gown sagging around his throat, and Cait sitting nervously in a chair by the bed, Dr. Weinstein took the other chair. He was sitting cross-legged like a kid, with the sheet pulled up over his legs, nervous if you knew the signs. Cait reached up and took Hawke's hand. She looked at him. At sixty, his hair was mostly gray. There were lines at the corners of his eyes and along his mouth. They made him look stern, until he smiled. He wasn't smiling now, but he was still beautiful.
"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, after being caught in the edges of the atomic 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 a test. That is, only if he developed a cancer that seemed to need an explanation. Cait knew the story but Sarah did not and it was still classified. He thought to himself that Sandower, finally, had his revenge.
"Yeah," he said. "I was."
"I haven't seen one of those cancers for quite a while. Most of the downwinders developed their cancer years ago."
"I think it was the last above-ground test."
"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."
Sarah embraced String, a stretch over the railing of the hospital bed, then embraced Cait. "We'll stop this thing. You're young, well, you're younger than me anyway, and you're in great shape. You have every reason to beat it. It'll be nasty, but you've been through worse. Are you with me?"
Cait put out her hand and String took it. She reached her other hand to Sarah. "Let's do it," she said.
Sarah said, "String?"
He took her hand, completing the circle. "Let's do it."
Chapter 2
In a long and complicated relationship with the medical establishment, including his critical injuries in the bombing at Santini Air twenty-five years before that almost killed both him and Dominic, String had never experienced anything like the utter misery of his first chemotherapy treatment. Within two days he was violently ill, exhausted, and then hospitalized with pneumonia. Five weeks later he did it again.
"Sarah, am I going to survive the chemotherapy?" he asked his doctor when she checked on him in the hospital during the third treatment. He had lost some hair. His coloring had become gray and translucent. He was on intensive antibiotic therapy as well, to prevent more pneumonia. It was hard to see the procedures as therapeutic.
Dominic had stayed with him all morning since Cait was flying a charter to Monterey. Their son Patrick drove up from San Diego where he was a first year medical student. He had brought his textbooks and used the time to study while String tried to read or slept hooked to the IV.
"You are unusually sensitive to it, I'll grant you. The cancer markers in your blood are diminished, though. I think it's working." She showed the test results to Patrick, pointing out the various tracked markers and chemical signatures. She had mentored Patrick in high school and along with his Aunt Marella, she was a major force behind his choice of profession. "I want to try a different anti-nausea drug. I think it should do the trick."
"Do you want to see the test results, Dad?" Patrick asked.
"Why don't you summarize it for me," he muttered.
The doctor and the doctor in training proceeded to, with enthusiasm. Hawke cringed.
Patrick stopped and rested his hand on String's thin shoulder. "You'll get out this evening, but can I get you something else to read, or sneak in something decent to eat?" he asked sympathetically.
The thought of food made Hawke shudder. "What are my chances of staging a prison break?"
"None. I'm faster and I'm in better shape. Sorry."
"I'll tell your mother that you and Sarah ganged up on me."
"Just don't tell Jeanny. She always could take me."
That made String laugh, which made him cough. "She always could," he agreed.
"But then, she's a fighter pilot. She's supposed to be tough," Patrick finished the thought.
String leaned back and closed his eyes. "Some tough, son," he said. "She called me last night in tears. She'll fly in this weekend. I've been feeling too queasy to go fishing, so she promised to go with me out on the lake. She said she'd do the rowing. Le Van is bringing the family down, next week. You are all taking very good care of me."
"Dad," Patrick said seriously, "I think it's working. If you can stand three more treatments or so, and I know that sounds pretty awful, but if you can stand it, I think you'll beat this thing. I had no idea you were a downwinder."
"I didn't have to mention it, before."
Chapter 3
"Daniel Dominic, go to your room."
"But Dad."
"Don't argue with me." This last was shouted. "And take your homework with you."
A dejected Danny marched into his bedroom and slammed the door. "String," Caitlin said softly but firmly.
Still red-faced, Hawke turned to her. He took a deep breath. "What?"
"Let's go for a walk."
"It's forty degrees out there."
"It will be okay in the blind."
He pulled his jacket over his sweater. Cait, already bundled up, was waiting for him at the door. Amok Time wanted to come along. The rangy blue tick hound preceded them through the door with perfect dignity and a flick of her tail. Hawke had felt the cold more than ever since he had begun chemotherapy. He pulled a knit hat out of his pocket, gloves out of the other pocket and put them on. "I blew it, huh?" he asked her.
"You came down awfully hard on him."
"He drives me crazier than the other kids ever did, even Le Van."
"You know why, don't you?"
"No, why?"
"He's you. He's you at ten before you lost your parents. He's you before losing Kelly, before losing Gabrielle, and before Saint John was missing for all those years and no one knew if he was alive or dead. He's you without the war and the losses and the bitterness. He's exuberant and loving and smarter than everybody. He likes music and anything to do with flying. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body. And now he's scared to death he's going to lose you."
"He looks more like Saint John or my father. He looks a lot like your father." They got to the blind and sat down on the bench he had built in it, a single wedge from the trunk of a huge old pine downed in a storm. "Should I apologize to him?"
"No. He was out of line. But I think you should talk to him. Tell him that we're doing everything we can to stop your cancer. That your doctor thinks it's working. And most of all, tell him that everyone else in his life will still be there for him, regardless. String, he worships the ground you walk on. Talk to him."
"I knew you were very wise when I asked you to marry me."
She leaned against him. "I hope nothing happens to destroy that joy. He's a beautiful person."
"Do you think I was that difficult when I was his age? I'll have to ask Dominic. He knew me before our parents died. Or I'll ask Saint John."
"Danny isn't difficult. He's just always in full flight. Learning to fly a helicopter may be redundant." Cait turned to String, embraced him, and leaned against him for a long kiss. "Are you calmed down enough to talk to him?"
"At the moment, I think I've got something else on my mind."
"Later, Flyboy."
String knocked on Danny's door. "Son, may I come in?"
"Yeah." String pushed the door open. Danny was stretched out on the bed, reading a comic. String was going to ask if he had done his homework, but stopped when he realized that that might be exactly the wrong thing to say.
"Can we talk for a little while?"
"Sure." The childish voice had a sullen tone to it. Well, no wonder. Danny sat up and crossed his legs. And waited. String chuckled to himself, recognizing the gestures. Oh lord, Cait was right. He was looking at a lankier, red-haired version of himself at ten years old.
"Danny, I'm sorry I yelled. That wasn't right, and I didn't mean to."
A little puzzled, Danny said, "Oh. That's okay. I'm sorry I left that stuff on the floor. I meant to pick it up."
"Then we're both sorry. Can I sit down?"
"Sure, Dad."
He settled himself in the chair by Danny's desk. It was small for him, and probably in a year or two would be too small for Danny, too. "Are you as scared as I am?"
The question clearly startled the boy. He gulped and nodded.
"I was your age when Uncle Saint John and I lost our parents. At least, we had Grandpa Dom to take us in. But he's all we had. Of course, Dom was enough. He was our father and mother and everything else. We were the luckiest guys imaginable. He taught us to fly.
"But this is the thing. You have Grandpa Dom too, and Aunt Toni. You have Mom and Jeanny and Patrick, and Le Van and Sherri and your niece Tiffany. There's Uncle Saint John and Aunt Ellie, and your cousins and Aunt Jo and Uncle Mike and your cousins on that side of the family. You even have Uncle Michael and Aunt Marella. You have Grandpa Tom and Grandma Jean and all your Texas aunts and uncles and cousins. You would have all those grown-ups to take care of you, except for Tiffany, of course. They would all want you. You wouldn't ever be alone." String laughed. "Maybe that's too many grown-ups, huh?"
"Naw, it's good," Danny said, with a magnanimously serious quality that forced String to smother a chuckle.
"Now, Dr. Weinstein thinks we're beating my cancer, so we hope that there won't be any problem. So let's you and me both try to stop worrying and remember that we love each other, and that everything is really okay? Can we make a deal to do that?"
Danny flung himself into his father's arms. "Deal," he said, against String's shoulder, and didn't see String slap the tears away before he wrapped his arms around his youngest son.
Chapter 4
Hawke threw a wrench down under Santini Air's newest JetRanger 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 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 her, while shoving his baseball 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 and we don't even know if it's working. Patrick was home from 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 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, then you two knock off for the day. Ellie will be back in little while, 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. Cait brought him some tea and toast when he did not come down for dinner.
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. Thankfully it was the summer and she didn't have to get Danny to school; he was staying in town with Saint John and Ellie so he could attend music camp. She pulled a robe over her pajamas, slid into her sneakers, and went to look for String.
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 resolutely 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.
"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. "Ellie, I don't think we're coming in today. Is Danny behaving? Can you spare us?"
"Danny's as good as gold. I got him to the bus for camp on time this morning. Saint John and I have the business covered for the day." Ellie hesitated. "How's String 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, Ellie said, "You know he hasn't been this sick for a long, long time. Not since the bombing twenty-five years ago. It goes on and on and on. And he can't talk it out. I've been wondering when he wouldn't be able to keep it bottled up anymore."
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, Ellie. How far did you get?"
"Just to the viewing blind. No stamina. I watched a buck graze for a while. Why don't I 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. The chemotherapy makes me sick, 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. Oh String, you're only sixty-one years old. You've got to keep trying. Sarah said 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 the kids, or anyone else right now."
Her voice shaky, she said, "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."
"A beautiful woman rubbing my back. That's an offer I can't refuse."
"Beautiful!" Cait laughed.
"You are," Hawke said seriously. "You are beautiful inside and out. You have given me a wonderful life. Together we have raised four beautiful children. You are a beautiful grandmother. You are a great pilot."
"The chemotherapy is making you silly."
"No. It's making me sick, and without you, without you and Danny and the older kids, I don't know if I would bother. But we'll carry on. Time to hit the shower."
Chapter 5
Saint John flew up after work. "Want to yell at someone different?" he asked.
"Stay out of it, Sinj."
"You're a very lucky man."
"What's your definition of lucky?"
"Having a wife like Caitlin that puts up with your moody, nasty self."
Hawke closed his eyes and leaned back against the beige cushions of the old sofa. "She is wonderful, isn't she? She's been a rock through this whole miserable business." He shook his head and straightened up. "You've got a pretty remarkable wife, too."
"Yeah, but if I treated Ellie the way you've been treating Cait, you'd have to find me a place to sleep until she forgave me."
"You're right. Ellie wouldn't put up with any of it."
"So are you going to straighten up and do right, brother? Or am I, and Mike, and Jason, and Dominic, maybe Michael — you always listen to him — are we going to have to appoint ourselves a committee for the betterment of your disposition?"
"I'd rather you bettered my lymph system."
Saint John gripped his shoulder. "I wish we could, String. I wish we could."
Chapter 6
Michael and Marella flew up to the cabin the next morning. He was sitting on the porch with his cello. Michael climbed up the walk leaning on his cane. Marella shut the white helicopter down and followed Michael.
"No chopper. Is Cait here?"
"No. I promised to 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. If I'm very good I get to go to work tomorrow."
Michael had been warned about his rotten mood. 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 said that he would beat you if you died of cancer. Well, you seem to be holding your own. And besides, you have 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, 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. And 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, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people were not killed because of you. You saved Washington. I'd call that several clear wins. Not just a game – the match."
"Point taken."
"Can we do anything for you? Sneak you forbidden food? Help you plot elaborate practical jokes?"
"You could fly me down to Santini Air and let me get back to my real life."
"Cait would have my head," Michael said.
"I'll deal with Cait."
Marella stood and placed a hand on Hawke's forehead.
"No fever."
"So there's no medical reason why I can't go to work?"
"So long as one of your family or friends doesn't deck you for being obnoxious."
"I am a perfect gentleman."
"That's not what we heard." Michael raised his hand. "I won't say from whom."
Hawke sighed. "I'll be good. Promise. Please fly me down the damn hill."
Michael and Marella exchanged knowing looks. "You owe us."
"Give me a minute to put the cello away." He turned back to them. "I owe you. We owe each other," he said seriously. "A friendship of thirty years, I'd call that family. How do you keep track of obligations in a family?" He grinned, suddenly shy. "And give me another minute to get my wallet and keys. For some reason I didn't put them in my pocket when I got up this morning."
Chapter 7
Another round of chemotherapy, the new anti-nausea medication seemed to be working, and three days later, Hawke was back at Santini Air early. There were no flying jobs to do today, although he had declined charters and lessons except for old friends and stuck to cargo runs since the signs of his cancer treatment had become obvious to any observer. Danny had spent the night with a friend since it was a school holiday due to teachers' meetings. Hawke planned to spend the day working on the scheduled overhaul of the ultra-light plane that was Mike's newest toy. Mike and Saint John were taking a few days off to drive up to Humboldt County to one of Mike's favorite rock-hounding spots, Agate Beach, then camp in splendid isolation along the Lost Coast in hope of seeing some gray whales.
Newly retired from the Air Force, Lieutenant General Michael Rivers was enjoying his leisure and his long-planned-for second career – Mike was writing books. And because everything he had ever done he had done well, not surprisingly, he wrote well. Dom's long-time girlfriend, Toni Donatelli, was a successful novelist. She had been working on her first novel when Dom and String met her, over twenty-five years before. She became Mike's informal mentor while he wrote a mystery novel. The manuscript was at a publisher. A history of the Air Force in the Second Iraq War was in the works.
Mike and his wife, Jo Santini Rivers, had traveled to visit each of their three children. Their daughter Nichelle flew helicopters part time for Santini Air while pre-law at UCLA. On their visits to children or favorite places, Jo drove and Mike typed away on his laptop. There were no grandchildren yet. They had visited the resort where they had spent their honeymoon. They had even gotten to enjoy the home in Santa Barbara that they had purchased decades before, while being stationed on a succession of Air Force bases and several interesting but mercifully limited postings at the Pentagon.
Saint John Hawke, on the other hand, still flew for Santini Air at 65 years old. It was a source of merriment for his friends that he was officially eligible for Medicare. He had become a master gardener in the years since he was rescued from Laos. And he spent nearly a month every year in the village in Vietnam where he had been imprisoned for over seven years. Before a local Vietnamese commandant had sold him to a warlord in Laos, he had become an unwilling but important part of the village community. At least half of the men in the village had been marched off by the South Vietnamese army and had never been seen again. Saint John was given to the village to do some of the heavy work as compensation. He learned how to grow vegetables and rice. He made friends there and to his own surprise, started to think of himself as a Buddhist.
Since U.S. relations were normalized with Vietnam, Saint John fulfilled his promise to return to the village. He arranged to have a water well drilled, a clinic built, and he was working on his latest project, a school. The government of Vietnam helped to train a nurse for the clinic and provided a visiting doctor. His daughter Dominique, pre-med at UC Davis, had accompanied him to Vietnam in the last three years. Joshua, his stepson from Ellie's first marriage, was a civil engineer who had plunged into the work in the village with great enthusiasm. So far Saint John was able to arrange for two young people from the village to come to study in Los Angeles for a year as exchange students.
String was desperately proud of Saint John and hoped, if he survived his cancer, to return to Vietnam with Saint John. String had been heard, however, to mutter something about his brother leaving for the war in Vietnam a California surfer and coming home a Buddhist saint. Since String himself had a half-Vietnamese son and a half-Vietnamese godson, both of whom were still fluent in their native language, he and Cait learned to speak some Vietnamese to encourage the boys to be proud of their heritage.
Caitlin was taking her turn at updating the maintenance schedule in the office. With Saint John on vacation and a difficult stunt to prepare, Cait and String had come in very early. Dom couldn't stay away from the business he had built. Despite the early hour, he sat at his old desk, reading aviation magazines and catalogs. The radio station was still on the early morning news schedule before starting music. Ellie normally came to work later in the morning. Cait walked out to where String had a gauge and several pieces of the engine spread out on a cart by the small plane. She had a portable radio with her. "String, listen to this."
"What?"
"Big earthquake in Japan. There was a tsunami."
They listened for a few moments. "That's awful," he said. "Those poor people." He listened another minute. Then, "My God. They're expecting the tsunami to hit the U.S."
"Yeah, Crescent City might get it again."
"No, that's not what I'm worried about. Saint John and Mike are camped on a beach along the Lost Coast. Those are unimproved camp sites. No tsunami sirens. No park rangers. And no cell phone coverage."
"My God, you're right," she echoed him. The office phone rang. "I'll get it." Cait ran for the office. She came back with the phone. "It's Jason, from the office in Knightsbridge."
"Jason, what can I do for you?"
"I just got a call from Jo, and then Ellie about two minutes later. Mike and Saint John are camped up on the Lost Coast. There's no cell phone coverage there."
"We were just talking about that, Jason."
"Jo called the county sheriff, but they have their hands full already with evacuations. He said they ran a loudspeaker sweep along the beach there. But that was thirty miles to cover and they weren't rescuing anyone."
"I was about to suggest to Cait that we take the Jet Ranger and run up there. She's our newest ship."
"May I make a better suggestion?"
"Sure."
"Are you up to taking the Lady? The turbos would get us there in less than an hour. The sensors in Airwolf would help us search if we have to. If we need an assist, Cait and Jo could follow with the Jet Ranger. Ellie can stay with the phones and radio in the office."
"Let me get Cait in on this. Cait, Jason wants to take the Lady up there, and then you and Jo can follow with the Jet Ranger if we need help to pick anyone up."
"String, maybe I ought to fly her. You aren't one hundred percent…"
That sick temper he'd been fighting for weeks threatened to boil over again. Hawke took a couple deep breaths. "Cait," he said, as reasonably as he could manage, "I can fly. He's my brother. Let me do this."
She looked into his face. Then gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Okay."
"Jason, how soon can you be here? I'll get some supplies together. We should let Jo know we're going."
"She's on her way to Van Nuys. I'll pick you up in about thirty minutes. Oh, Michael will be coming along. I'll pick him up on the way. He wants to fly engineer. We'll take the Company ship to Red Star to pick up Airwolf."
"It's a plan. See you in a few minutes."
The phone rang again. This time it was Le Van, from his office in the Physics Department at Sacramento State University. Cait picked up. "Mom, a friend over in the Geology Department just mentioned the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Didn't you tell me that Uncle Saint John was going camping with Uncle Mike on the Lost Coast?"
"Yeah, they are there. Your Dad and Jason and Michael are going after them in the Lady."
"Anything I can do? I could cancel my classes for the day."
"I think we've got it covered. I'll call when I have more information."
"Call my cell phone. Leave a message if I can't pick up. Or text me. You know, I don't let my students use a cell phone in class, so I can't."
"Good. We need better cell phone manners. Don't worry; those guys are survivors."
"Yeah, but Dad, Jason and Michael? Why don't we empty an old folks' home and send them on a rescue mission? With a geriatric aircraft, no less. Will Dad be okay?"
"I wouldn't ask him like that. Did you know that Grandpa Dominic decked him when he hinted that Dom was too old to perform a stunt? That was before I joined Santini Air."
"You're kidding."
"I wouldn't kid about that. How's my granddaughter?"
"She's at pre-school this morning. And we've gone two months and three days without a tantrum."
"Just wait. She'll be asking for car keys next week."
"Dad warned me about that, only in our family it's more likely to be helicopter keys. Mom, I'll be worrying. Call when you have news. Love you."
"Love you. Bye."
"Who was that?" Hawke asked, as he strode into the room to pick up his thermos.
"Le. He's worried about Saint John and Mike."
"And me. You're being tactful."
"Of course. We'll call him as soon as we have news."
The phone rang again. Hawke picked up. "Santini Air."
It was Patrick. "Dad?"
"Hello, Patrick. What's up? I'm in a hurry."
"Did you hear about the tsunami in Japan?"
"Sure did. And Le just called. Jason, Michael and I are going after Saint John and Mike in Airwolf. I gotta go. And don't ask if I'm up to it, or if we're up to it or if Airwolf is up to it."
"Yes, Dad," he intoned dutifully. "Should I drive up to wait with Mom?"
"What, is med school off today?"
"Family is more important."
"Yes it is. Mom will call as soon as we have news. Hang in there."
"Be safe, Dad."
"Don't worry. I always come back, remember? We all will. Love you."
"Patrick?" Cait asked.
"Of course. Why don't you give Jeanny a call and save her the trouble?"
"You're a grouch, you know that?" she said, and kissed him.
The white Company Long Ranger landed in front of the Santini Air hangar. Jason helped Hawke load the supplies. Dom carried a bag of sandwiches to the chopper. Hawke slid water bottles and three thermoses of hot coffee to Michael in the rear. First aid and rescue gear would be available at the Red Star lab.
"Gentlemen, are we ready?" Hawke asked. He gave Dom a hug. "Don't worry," he told him.
"The Lady will take care of you. Bring Saint John and Mike home safe."
Hawke kissed Cait. "We'll call as soon as we're on the way in Airwolf. Tell Jo and Ellie to try not to worry. And the kids, when they call again."
"You take care, hear?"
"I'm not flying alone, Cait. We'll take care of each other."
Chapter 8
Jason set the Long Ranger down by the old hangar. Members of a Company mechanic crew were just finishing fueling Airwolf. Hawke stepped out of the Long Ranger and walked around Airwolf. Then he began a preflight check as the others loaded the supplies in the old gunship.
He stopped for a moment to look at Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III. His old friend no longer wore the white clothing that was the uniform of his division when he was a deputy director of the intelligence agency known as the FIRM. But his hair had gone white as if to remember those days.
Jason Locke, his successor, never seemed to change, tall, athletic, always dressed well, with his seemingly ageless face barely showing lines after twenty-five years since Hawke had met him. His hair and mustache had gone gray. It made him look all the more distinguished. But the African American agent's retirement was imminent. Hawke wondered if the three of them were embarking on their last ride together in Airwolf.
"Let's mount up," Hawke said, as he climbed into the right seat. He was buckled up with his helmet on by the time Michael got settled. Jason slid into the copilot's seat.
"Time, tide, and tsunamis wait for no man." Michael said. "Let's go. Those two may be in real trouble."
Michael fed a flight plan to the computer that involved flying northward just offshore at close to Mach 1.
Jason and Michael conferred over some maps while String kept his attention on flying. The old ship felt wonderful to him but he could feel a rough catch in her turbos, a sort of list to starboard in her stabilizers, and a buzzing that in a jeep he would associate with a loose bolt. He would look into taking her down to Santini Air for a proper overhaul when they got back. "Do we know where they planned to camp?"
"On the beach, south of Punta Gorda Lighthouse."
"How did they get there?"
"They reserved a shuttle to the trail head."
"Well, that narrows the area to search. Michael, do we know the ETA of the first waves?"
"There, already. The first wave was due to hit around eight o'clock this morning."
"The first wave isn't always the largest," Jason pointed out.
"But it's a pretty wild coastline - dark sand, crumbly cliffs, wind. What if they were caught up against a cliff where they couldn't climb out?" Hawke checked the GPS. "Jason, would you call Santini Air and let them know we're here and searching? Sure makes things easier that the Lady isn't classified anymore." He tried to shrug the tension out of his shoulders. "We should be coming up on the area in about two minutes. Michael, get the scans going. Let's drop down so we can search visually, too."
And drop they did. It had been long enough since Michael had flown with Hawke that he had forgotten that edge of wild abandon in his flying bounded by absolute precision. Age and illness hadn't dulled it. Flying like a hawk. Soaring and stooping like a hawk.
They swooped in on the stretch of coastline where Mike and Saint John should be camped. They got a good view of the beach. Or what was left of it. "Look at that," Jason said. "Is that a wave right now, or has it swept the beach away?" Hawke slowed to a hover and dropped to five hundred feet above the water, about a quarter of the height of the mountainside above the beach.
"It looks freshly torn up," Michael said.
"It reminds me of the shoreline in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina," Jason observed. Standing water partially covered the beach all the way up to the cliff in dark gray, chaotic ponds and puddles. Logs and boulders littered the surface.
"Thermal scan running," Michael said.
They moved along the shoreline slowly enough to get a good look, but with a growing sense of urgency. "String," Jason said. "Here comes another wave."
Hawke turned Airwolf to face the sea so they all could watch the line of foam on the horizon increase in height as it rushed in with terrifying velocity. It crashed against the cliff, dashing the logs about. Something colored bright yellow was caught in it. "It's a tarp or a tent," Jason said. "I don't know what color tents Mike and Saint John were using."
"Keep those scans running. I'm hoping they saw the water pull back ahead of the wave and knew to run for high ground."
"You don't always get the water pulling back ahead of the first wave." Michael crouched over the console. Jason searched the brushy, very steep slope with field glasses.
"I've got something up on the slope – no, I think it's a coyote. Still scanning."
Airwolf swept on, all three men silent, concentrating on the search. "Deer. A doe and fawn," Michael reported. "They're running straight up hill."
"Punta Gorda Lighthouse ahead. There's some damage around the base," Hawke reported.
"The prediction was for waves six to thirteen feet in height. What we've seen looks like it was bigger," Jason said. "Of course, the size of the wave varies with local conditions."
"Here's the trailhead," Hawke called out. "I'm going to fly above the access trail, to see if they're already on the way back to the parking lot."
"Vehicle ahead, looks like a four-wheel-drive van."
"How many people in it?"
"Wait a minute… Just one."
Hawke wheeled Airwolf around. "Another pass along the shore."
Three miles south and Michael said, "Wait."
"What have you got?"
"Two life signs on the cliff. Two human beings. Let's go in for a closer look."
"I don't want to risk blowing them off the cliff. Jason, can you see them?"
Jason adjusted his field glasses. "Got them. It's Mike and Saint John. They look pretty beat up. "How do we do this?"
"We can't pull them off that surface. They've got to climb up to the break in the slope above them, you see it, about a hundred-fifty feet up, or risk going back down to the beach."
Mike heard Airwolf above the surf. He started waving one handed, while hanging on to a bush on the steep slope with the other. Jason switched the loudspeaker on. "Mike, Saint John, can you climb up to that nearly level spot above you? We can't get you where you are."
"Jason?" Mike yelled. "On the way."
Apparently Saint John was in worse shape. Mike grabbed his arm and started climbing, half pulling Saint John behind him. "String, land me up there and I'll climb down to help them." Hawke nodded and pulled back on the collective to ascend precisely to the break in slope. Hawke lowered the landing gear but he had to hold Airwolf in place on the loose gravelly slope with the rotors. Jason, on the uphill side, swung his legs out of Airwolf and slid out to the surface. He edged down until he could reach Saint John, put a hand under his arm, and helped him up the slope. Mike scrambled behind Saint John.
Airwolf blew clouds of dust. Saint John reached the old gunship and grabbed the edge of the hatch to drag himself in. His feet started to lose their grip on the gravel. String reached over and wrapped his hand around Saint John's arm and pulled him into the seat. "I've got you, Sinj," he shouted above the howl of the rotors. Saint John was soaking wet. Jason helped Mike, also cold and wet, into the jump seat, then scrambled into the rear of the cockpit himself.
"What took you guys so long?" Mike asked cheerfully."
"We stopped for coffee and to read the paper," Jason responded. "Didn't figure you'd be dumb enough to surf a tsunami." He shut the hatch.
"Is that what happened?"
"Big earthquake in Japan. We doubted you would have a radio on."
"Radio kinda defeats the point of camping," Mike pointed out. "My cell phone got soaked, if there was any cell phone coverage." Mike shook his head. "Jason, I'm sorry you couldn't go camping with us, but I'm sure glad you came to find us."
Saint John leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. "I wasn't as fast up that slope as Mike. I got caught in the first wave. Mike grabbed me and I grabbed a bush." He turned his hand over to look at an angry rash. "A thorn bush."
Hawke closed his eyes for a minute, trying to shake the picture of Saint John being swept away. "Thank you, Mike," he said with feeling. He lifted off and cleared the slope. "We're going to have to offer to help," he said, "as much as I want to get you two home." Jason called the Humboldt County sheriff and asked if any more hikers or campers were missing.
"It's a weekday in winter, so not many people were camping," the tinny voice on the radio said. "We think you've found the last two. We've got the Coast Guard here. They'll run another sweep to be sure. Thank you for the offer, Airwolf."
"Roger that. We're heading home. We're leaving their vehicle in the parking lot above the lighthouse until later in the week." Michael turned to the two bedraggled men. "What were you driving?"
"A green 2006 Subaru Forester."
"It's a green 2006 Subaru Forester," Jason repeated into the radio. "So don't look for the driver and passengers."
"Roger that, Airwolf. Safe trip home."
"Someone can run you back up here to pick it up in a day or two," Jason suggested.
"A long drive doesn't sound very appealing right now," Mike admitted. "We lost all our dry clothes and gear. We'll take you up on the offer to get the car later in the week."
"Jason, we need to get gas," Hawke said. "Is there a Company fuel depot anywhere near by? And I'd like to get some hot coffee for these two. The stuff in the thermos is lukewarm. There should be towels and a couple dry jackets in the supplies. Could you let the family know we're on the way home?"
They made their way south just off shore, on rotors, not turbos, watching smaller but still impressive tsunami waves washing in every hour or so. At Fort Bragg they saw the wreckage of at least twenty boats and two docks destroyed by the waves. They fueled Airwolf and got very welcome hot coffee and donuts. Mike and Saint John in borrowed flight suits looked dry and content napping in their seats as they approached the Santini Air hangar in late afternoon.
Hawke set Airwolf down gently, to protect his passengers and the classic old gunship. He shut the engine off and suddenly, it caught up to him. He was exhausted. His head dropped back against the seat back and his eyes closed. Saint John shook him awake gently. "String, let's not sleep in here."
Hawke jerked awake. "Oh. Right." He unbuckled the restraints.
"String, remember years ago, when you were sorry you weren't along to rescue me from Laos."
"Yeah?"
"Well, you saved me this time, brother."
Saint John thought that the happy grin on his brother's face would stay with him forever. He wrapped his arms around String's thin frame and held him tightly.
"It was all of us, Sinj," he protested. "And we wouldn't have it any other way." He popped the starboard hatch and slid out. "We've got anxious families waiting."
Saint John was staring down at the front of his borrowed flight suit. "And ticks. Sorry, String. I suspect we smeared poison oak all over Airwolf, too, before we put these clean suits on."
"You guys brought it in, you can clean it up. Only in California – you survive a natural disaster and end up covered in ticks with a case of poison oak."
"Did I mention the terrified rattlesnake I shared a bush with?" Mike asked.
"Just so long as it didn't hitch a ride home with you." The gathered family members were filing out of the hangar, led by Mike's daughter, Nichelle, wearing a blue Santini Air jacket, with her arm around her mother Jo's shoulders on one side and Dominic's on the other.
Hawke was interrupted by his youngest son's joyous shout, "Dad! Uncle Sinj!"
"What am I, chopped liver?" Mike asked.
"Hi, Uncle Mike," Danny added.
"Danny, don't touch them. They've got poison oak and ticks."
"Cool."
"No, yuck."
Chapter 9
Hawke and Caitlin sat together in Sarah Weinstein's office, their backs to the California sunlight streaming through the office window, awaiting the results of the blood test. He felt pretty good, but had learned not to trust his perceptions. Sarah sat down with a printout in her hands, looking concerned. Cait took his hand. "Well," she said. "I honestly thought we had a good chance of beating your cancer."
Hawke felt the despair start to build, but she continued, "but I expected it to take longer. String, the blood test found no cancer markers."
"You're kidding."
"No, I am not. I'm going to schedule a couple follow-up treatments and you'll have to have frequent check-ups. But I think we did it!"
Caitlin whooped in triumph and kissed him so deeply he was dizzy.
They left. Cait drove them back to Santini Air. She parked, and turned in the seat to face him. "Let's tell Dom. Then we can call the kids." She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into another deep kiss. "I don't think Sarah, for all the years she's been your doctor, would understand that you had a special prescription."
"What's that?"
"Airwolf."
Hand in hand, they walked into the hangar to tell their family the good news.
Chapter 10
The morning of the get together was as sunny as the morning when String had been declared cancer-free. A few fluffy clouds highlighted the mountains gleaming in the sun. It had been Cait's idea to have family and friends up to the cabin to celebrate String's life since he was going to be there to enjoy it. For several agonizing months, she had feared that they would be planning a memorial. The helipad behind the cabin was full. Members of the Eagle Lake String Quartet were setting up the buffet. Hawke had played his cello with the quartet for nearly twenty years, with a break while he served in the Reserve in the Iraq War. Airwolf sat like a jewel on the dock. The Airwolf teams mixed with friends from the other parts of Hawke's life. Nichelle Rivers and Miguel Santos, one of Santini Air's new pilots, shuttled people up from the Santini Air office.
Sam Roper cornered Hawke on the dock. "Is that the helicopter you used to rescue my son from the Russians?"
"Yeah. That's right – you've never seen her." Roper whistled in appreciation and let Hawke show him around Airwolf. Danny was his father's shadow and listened patiently as String explained the control panel and unique features of Airwolf. Danny had seen her before, had even ridden in her, but he seemed to be afraid, these days, to let his father out of his sight.
Jean and Tom Patrick O'Shannessy, Cait's mother and father, sat with Dom where the three of them had a patriarchs' place of honor on the porch. Toni Donatelli, Dominic's lover for over twenty years, sat next to him. Patrick, Hawke's second youngest, sat by Toni, keeping an eye on Hawke.
Patrick was taller than his father, with both his parents' slight build, Caitlin's red hair and String's dark blue eyes. He had been charged by Caitlin with seeing that his father did not bolt. He had a few key pieces of the family helicopter in his pocket; there would be no escape there unless String took off in someone else's chopper. He hoped Jason and Saint John had thought to do the same after they landed Airwolf.
Cait and her three older children, Le Van, Jeanne, and Patrick, had decided to surprise String with a sort of informal roast at the gathering. Le Van, a college professor, could hold his own at a podium. Jeanne was hesitant about speaking in public but as a naval officer, had had to learn to speak in public; she promised to do her best. Patrick was a polished speaker by nature, promising to have a great bedside manner. Danny planned to speak too, and had been practicing with Cait's help. Consulting with Cait and Michael, Patrick and Le Van had chosen some of the speakers.
Jeanne walked into the cabin to be sure the family's collection of musical instruments was safely stored in a corner of the living room. The family had used them the evening before in a favorite pastime - all of them were musicians. They spent the evening trying out classical, jazz and popular music, a family tradition since the children were skilled enough to join in. Danny was learning piano and guitar. String had selected music for the family that the youngest musician could manage.
Jeanne looked around to check on the pets. Amok Time, the dog, had retreated from the chaos to a safe spot by the hearth. She hadn't left for the woods, however, recognizing the likelihood of dropped food at the buffet table. The family cat, Huey, sensibly watched from the loft, clear of little hands and big feet.
As people arrived, Le Van was busy with his video camera trying to film everyone, while his three-year-old daughter Tiffany was giggling and getting underfoot. The toddler was dressed in lavender overalls with a violet tee-shirt and violet sneakers, at that stage of her life when she was so cute that she almost could get away with tripping the adults. Le's wife Sherri distracted her. "Tiffy," she called out, a little desperately. "Tiffy, let's show Grandpa Dom your teddy bear." The toddler retrieved her toy and ran up to snuggle between Toni and Dom, to their delight. The buffet crew smiled in relief.
Michael was set to preside over the festivities. Michael could address a Senate subcommittee in perfect confidence, but he feared he would be unable to get through his remarks without breaking up. That would be a fine turn of affairs, Deputy Director of the Firm, later of the Company, doubled over with laughter. He showed up in a white suit, vest, silk tie, hat, even white shoes. "Doing your Mark Twain impression today?" Hawke asked. "Remember, most of these folks have no idea that you once held the safety of the Western World in the palm of your hand and on your super computer in your pristine white office."
Marella, sitting next to Michael, snorted elegantly. She wore white like her husband, a remembrance with Hawke, Caitlin, and Dom of the days when Hawke had flown Airwolf for the FIRM and Michael's code name was Archangel. Their daughter Miri, home from her doctoral studies in political science at Stanford, looked on with interest. The Company had already recruited her. Her twin sister Kari was in London studying for her doctorate at the London School of Economics.
Dom planned to speak. He always had loved telling a good story, but rarely got a chance to tell any about his younger son. Toni had helped him polish the story; she was a best-selling novelist and had been a sometimes pilot for Santini Air before a heart attack grounded her two years before. Saint John, with the help of his wife, Ellie, also had prepared something to say, but like Michael, wasn't sure he could keep a straight face long enough to get through it. His daughter Dominique promised to read it if he could not. He and Ellie sat talking with Nguyen Van Minh, a fellow elder in the Vietnamese Buddhist church he had joined decades before and an old friend of his brother. Mike and Jo had been saving up a couple of excellent Hawke stories that they hoped would make him squirm.
The other speakers were either sitting on one of the rented chairs or log benches or were roaming around visiting. They represented the many phases of Stringfellow Hawke's career, or perhaps many careers. The director whose misdirection had caused Dom and String serious injuries in a botched stunt hoped that the story might be funny twenty-five years later. Blaze, an actor Hawke had doubled for in aerial stunts and later taught to fly helicopters, was going to speak; ominously, he pursued a side career doing stand-up. Doc Gifford looked forward to sharing a good Hawke fishing story. One of the astronauts String worked with in the Apollo program planned to reminisce about the Moon mission they flew together. Stringfellow Roper, Sam's son and String's namesake, finally could tell how String and Dom rescued him from Russia; the incident had been declassified at last and it was worth telling. String's commanding officer in the Iraq War, when he had rejoined the Reserve and trained helicopter pilots, was deployed in Afghanistan and could not come. He had sent congratulations on Hawke's recovery in verse laden with puns. Michael planned to read it aloud.
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.
"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 never tried."
"That did come to mind. Why?"
"As with us, your official secrets can be a little porous. We know how Hawke stopped that missile that was aimed at Moscow. If he would not mind, I should like to meet him. We owe him an enormous debt."
"I'll introduce you. Dominic Santini is here, you know. He played an equally important part in destroying that missile."
"Santini is still alive? It will be an honor to meet him."
Jason closed in on the little group. "Michael, is everything all right?" he asked softly. "Kinskcov, I didn't expect to see you here."
"Jason, remember that highly classified incident that you are not supposed to know about regarding Hawke and a nuclear armed missile?" Michael explained. "Comrade Kinskcov came to celebrate its successful resolution."
Realization dawned in his eyes. Jason raised his hands. "Of course. Pleasure to see you again, Vladimir." He walked away.
Michael led Kinskcov toward the porch where Dominic sat next to Toni and Cait's parents.
"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. I never had the good fortune to meet Elena."
"That's because, unlike your Marella, she was never in the Game. You know, Hawke gave KGB a black eye when he stole that little boy from Omrylkot Air Base."
"That little boy is thirty-nine years old 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, where Dom sat, with Caitlin resting her feet for a moment next to Toni, 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, keeping his voice low. "I'd like you to meet Vladimir Kinskcov. You helped Dom shoot at him in East Germany. Vladimir, Mrs. Stringfellow Hawke. It's OK 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."
Cait rose and graciously took his hand. "I'm glad we missed," she said. Michael laughed.
"Vladimir Kinskcov. Dominic Santini." Again, Kinskcov bowed.
Hawke looked up from visiting with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter to see someone he didn't recognize with Michael, Dom, and Cait. He knew most of the guests that his wife and children had rounded up for this supposed surprise, so he excused himself and threaded his way through his friends and family clustered in the clearing. Hawke put an arm around Cait's waist. "I'm sorry. I thought I knew everybody here," he said.
"We have never met, Mr. Hawke, although I think you took a few shots at me in a fortress in East Germany."
"String," Michael said. "This is Vladimir Kinskcov, formerly, or is it currently, in the KGB?"
"Like you, Michael, I am retired and tending to my roses at my country house outside Moscow. Mr. Hawke, I came this long way to meet you and to extend my government's pleasure at your recovery."
"That's very nice of you," Hawke said, bewilderment in his face and voice, "but you've come an awful long way for something that could have been done with a get well card. Or e-mail."
Kinskcov smiled a conspiratorial smile. "Didn't you wonder why we never retaliated for your rescue of Michael from East Germany, or for taking that little boy from us, or why, after the East Germans botched your kidnapping, we never tried again?"
"I always figured you would, eventually."
"You and Mr. Santini blew up that ICBM launched by your rogue general. You saved Moscow, and maybe the world from a nuclear holocaust. Oh yes, we knew about it. Your government knows many of our secrets, too. We chose to leave you alone. I should like to shake your hand."
Bemused, String extended his hand. "I wish someone had mentioned it to us twenty-five years ago. Worrying about it cost us some sleepless nights." He turned to Michael. "Did you know?"
"We suspected, after a while, but it was never confirmed officially. I would have told you, if I'd had any solid evidence that that get-out-of-jail-free card extended to the other side."
Hawke realized that Danny was standing behind him, expression of avid interest on his childish face. "Oops," he mouthed to Michael. To Kinskcov he said, "I'd better introduce my youngest son. Comrade, this is Daniel Dominic Hawke." Smiling, Kinskcov shook Danny's hand.
Hawke was still shaking his head when Patrick came back and rested a hand on Michael's shoulder. "Oh, of course." Michael knew very well that Hawke had figured it out by now. Grinning, he returned to his seat by Marella near the front of the gathering. Kinskcov sat down on one of the benches.
Sarah Lebow Trachtenberg brought cookies for the buffet. Kidnapping Helmut Kruger from Paraguay so that he would stand trial for war crimes in Israel had not been an official Airwolf mission and after a quarter of a century, the legalities were still muddied, so she could not talk about it. She was at UCLA for the year as a visiting professor in Biblical Archaeology and had enjoyed introducing her husband and sixteen-year-old son, Harry, to String and Dom. Harry was completely enamored of helicopters. He had taken several flying lessons already at Santini Air and hoped to have several more before the family returned to Israel. She greeted Hawke warmly. "Glad you could make it," he told her. "David," he added, extending his hand to Sarah's husband.
"We wanted to give you a wish, Stringfellow," she told him.
"What's that?"
"L'Chaim. A toast in Hebrew. It means, 'To Life.' It seems especially appropriate today."
"It does. And thank you."
Many years before in the Sonoran Desert, String asked Joachim Santos, a salt miner, why he lived there. Joachim said that he had his work, his wife to love, his children to laugh. Hawke thought that it was as fine a definition of the good life as he'd ever heard. Joachim had taken his mining expertise to Elko, Nevada, where he was a shift supervisor in one of the major gold mines. One of Joachim's daughters, Talia, was completing a degree in mining engineering at the University of Nevada in Reno and was a summer intern at a copper mine in Chile. His older son, Miguel, flew helicopters for Santini Air. His younger son, Basilio, was a fighter jet pilot for the Navy.
Basilio sat next to Jeanne on a tree stump near the porch. Jeanne, a slightly taller copy of her mother, was so much like Cait when Hawke first met her, young, ebullient, red-haired , that it was hard not to be desperately protective of his daughter; but she was, after all, a graduate of the Navy's Top Gun School. Basilio Santos was a good kid. Hawke tamped down his protective impulses for the afternoon. Joachim and his wife, Maria, sat on a bench in front of the porch, visiting with Michael and Marella.
Hawke turned to Danny and said, "I need to talk to your mother. Could you see if Grandpa Dom needs anything?"
"Sure, Dad," he said, and dashed off to his grandfather.
Another CD started on the stereo, a raucous version of the Malvina Reynolds song, "Bring Flowers." Hawke realized it was a recording of his string quartet and family and friends. They sang, "There's lots to be said/For the guy who's not dead,/For the guy who's still breathing the air./Don't wait for his wake,/But let's bake him a cake/While he's still here to eat up his share." String recognized Cait's soprano, and Saint John's slightly off-key tenor.
Laughing over the song, String stalked his wife into the kitchen and pushed her into the pantry that she had insisted on adding when the family wing was added to the cabin.
"What are you doing?" Cait asked, flustered. Her red hair had not so much turned white as turned a paler red. There were fine lines around her eyes and mouth, a legacy of laughing. Children and twenty-five years had rounded her figure a little but she was still slender.
"Since you won't let me escape, I'm kissing my gorgeous wife." Hawke proceeded to do so, thoroughly. "Come to think of it, I'd do it even if I could escape." He did it again. "Some time in a few years I might mention to Patrick how easy it was to figure out what you four had planned, and how easy it would have been to stage a break, but for now I'll let him think he's got me cornered."
"How did you figure it out?"
"You mean, besides the guest list, or watching Saint John play with the three-by-five card in his pocket or Jeanny with the printout she left in the kitchen? Or hearing Le Van practice in the guest bedroom? Or seeing Michael and Marella, all dressed in white?"
"You're incorrigible. And just to get back at you, did Mike tell you that he plans to write a book about your adventures with Airwolf?"
"Oh, good grief," he muttered. "He'll have to catch me first." Cait snagged his belt.
"You can run, but not now."
"Jason hasn't retired yet. Maybe I can get him to classify everything again…"
When everyone was seated with hot dogs or chips and a drink, Patrick gave Michael a signal. He stood and faced everyone. An eagle swept across the lake as if she were offering her approval of the proceedings. Danny and Jeanne sat next to Cait and String. Sherri and Tiffany sat on the bench in front of them. Patrick was ready to stage manage while Le Van prepared to film the proceedings. Cait leaned over and whispered a promise that Hawke would have his chance to get in the last word.
"Cait," he whispered, "Sarah mentioned that wonderful Hebrew toast. 'L'chaim – to life.' L'chaim, Caitlin."
"I know it. To life," she said fervently.
Hawke took her hand. It was going to be a long afternoon, and Stringfellow Hawke planned to treasure every uncomfortable minute of it.