196---
Los Angeles' main airport was busy -- even more so than the bustle it enjoyed in peacetime. Military personnel scurried from one terminal to the other, some alone, others sharing final farewells with weeping families. The feeling in the air was not that of the merry expectancy of a vacation, but rather the heavy realization that many of these men embarking on tours of duty a hemisphere away would not be coming back, that many more would return alive but damaged either physically or mentally. This knowledge enshrouded the entire facility, strangling out the excitement of adventure and leaving only an empty, cloying fear.
In the middle of this confusion yet clearly apart from it, a tall man in an Army uniform stood bracketed on one side by a middle aged Italian in a battered flight jacket, and on the other by a frightened looking boy with long, blond-brown hair.
"... and write at least once a week," Dominic admonished, adjusting the bronze-haired soldier's tie minisculely for effect. "You don't have ta' give out any secrets to let us know how you are."
Nineteen-year-old Saint John Hawke slapped his hands away affably, readjusting first the tie then his jacket with short, jerky tugs. "I know, Dom. Don't worry, I'll keep in touch."
"Ahhh. Knowing you, we'll count ourselves happy for the occasional postcard." Santini stood back a single step and studied his foster son through misty eyes. Saint John made for a handsome soldier, he decided, throat swelling with pride at the sight of the tall, powerfully built young man with the strong jaw and sharp gray eyes. He compared the brave but grieving fourteen year old who had come to live with him in Van Nuys, to the self-confident soldier who stood before him now, and nodded to himself. No doubt about it, Alan, he mentally told his deceased friend, Saint John's grown into a fine man.
He rested his hands on the broad-shoulders, having to reach up to do so, and feeling solid muscle under the green cloth. "Your dad would have been proud of you, boy. I am."
Saint John gulped, his Adams apple bobbing and his voice growing husky. "I'm gonna miss you, too, Dom. Both of you." He shifted toward the silent boy on his right, giving him a forced smile. "So, hey, String, aren't you going to tell me to flame a Viet Cong for you?"
The boy didn't answer at first, simply stared back with his lower lip scissored between his incisors. "You won't have to," he said at last in surprisingly even tones. "I'm gonna be over there with you soon to do it myself."
Dominic opened his mouth to protest, the words stopped when the soldier tousled String's long hair. "Not for a while you're not! At least not until you fill out a bit." He laughed and snagged the boy's belt in both hands, giving it a playful tug. "Besides, you're only fifteen! You've got to graduate high school then you're going to go to Berkeley, remember? Dad set up that college fund for you to be an engineer."
"He set one up for you, too," Stringfellow Hawke retorted, voice starting to quiver. "You only went one year before you j-joined up."
"Gotta do my duty," the young soldier replied simply, expression begging understanding but also containing a trace of enthusiasm for the adventure he was undertaking. "I've got to do this, String."
Wide blue eyes continued a desperate scrutiny of his elder brother's face, and reflected in that gaze Dominic could see all the pain of expected loss that filled his own soul. "Saint John ... I...."
Saint John opened his arms and Stringfellow threw himself into them, burying his face against his brother's green uniform jacket, the both of them clinging to each other as though they'd never let go. Tears gathered in Dom's eyes too. Saint John and his brother had lived with him for five years now since the death of their parents, and the boys had become like his own sons -- as dear to him as Sally Anne had been. He slipped one arm around Saint John's back, the other across String's shaking shoulders, pulling them both against him. His family.
"We're gonna miss you," he croaked, hardly recognizing his own voice.
Saint John sniffed and raised his head from where it rested against his brother's hair, a fond smile lighting his lean features. "You take care of yourself. And String."
"I'll take care of him," Dom swore, allowing Saint John to back away but leaving his hand possessively on the boy's skinny back. "You just take care of you."
The older Hawke nodded gratefully, and touched his brother on the arm. "Good-bye, kid."
String watched silently while the new soldier picked up his duffle bag and started toward the gate. "I'll join you soon," the boy swore under his breath, and Dom cast him a sharp look, striving to see under the pall of loss that had shadowed the youthful features since his brother had announced his enlistment. They stood there side-by-side, watching as Lieutenant Saint John Hawke made his way through the crowds and toward the plane that would carry him first to Tokyo then Saigon. Dominic Santini wiped his eyes again, wondering if this was the last time he'd ever see his older son again.
***
It was a very troubled Jason Locke who joined the Airwolf Team for lunch that afternoon, having assumed the task of the courier who was to ferry Airwolf's replacement parts. "I don't understand," he finished summing up the events of his meeting with Donald Newman. "When someone of Archangel's stature disappears, the Company pulls out all the stops on finding him. Almost every other project is put on a back burner, but Newman is preventing us from following up on our best lead."
"He's not really preventing it from being followed up," Saint John pointed out fairly. "He's just preventing you from doing it."
"Isn't there some kind of sectional ethic involved here?" Mike asked, poking curiously at a ham-on-rye sitting amidst a sea of potato chips.
Jason regarded his own sandwich soberly. "Not with something of this magnitude. And Newman mentioned a belief that Archangel vanished voluntarily, maybe even defected."
"That's impossible." That was Saint John Hawke, sprawled comfortably in one of the visitors chairs next to Jo's desk. "Michael was meeting my brother."
Jason went still, only his eyes moving to meet the pilot's. "Apollo thinks it's possible Stringfellow was collaborating."
Offense brought Hawke up very straight, blue-gray eyes flashing through slitted lids. Despite the shade, his eyes were very like those of his younger brother, if usually less revealing, the family resemblance having manifested most strongly there. "String collaborate on a defection? My brother wouldn't do that, Locke."
"Tell it to Newman," the black agent snapped back. He caught himself, fingering his mustache agitatedly. "To tell you the truth, I got the impression Newman didn't really believe it, either. It felt more like a line he was using to keep me out of the investigation."
Saint John subsided into his chair, only partially mollified by his friend's qualification. "He'd better not believe it. String's no defector."
"Don't mess with the big guy's baby brother!" Mike gibed, breaking the tension by giving Saint John a friendly nudge. He held up both hands as though reading a newspaper. "Extree! Big Brother Blasts Boss for Bro! Pictures at-- Oooph!" This last was in result of Saint John nudging him back rather more forcefully. Mike subsided, rubbing his stomach. "Okay, okay! I was only trying to help!"
Hawke shook his head pityingly, while Jo, obviously grateful to the Air Force Major for easing the friction between her two friends, rolled her eyes in a heavenward appeal. "I'm surrounded by juveniles," she groaned, breaking off at the look on Locke's face. "What is it, Jason? There's more, isn't there?"
Locke nibbled his sandwich, using the action to hood his eyes. "I don't know. It was just a feeling I had that Newman wasn't being honest with me."
"So what else is new?" Mike asked rhetorically, scowling at a spot of mustard on his jeans.
Jason dabbed his lips on a paper towel before answering with careful words. "No, I don't mean the standard need-to-know policy, and it wasn't even normal administrative top dog games. This was...." He trailed off, shaking his dark head again. "I've got a bad feeling on this, brothers, and how do you argue a feeling?"
They ate in silence for several minutes, digesting the thought more than the food. Finally, Jo shrugged. "I think you're going to have to make any decisions on trusting Donald Newman, Jason; after all, you know him better than any of us do. The first time I met him was three months ago at the hospital. He was the one who told me that Uncle Dom was dead. I thought he was a hospital administrator until I saw him again later with you." She scowled. "I should have known the Company would have its fingers in anything that had to do with Airwolf. Even that."
Rivers slurped at a Coke, his bland expression generated by many years of dealing with the military mind. "With an on-going project, the Company knows about anything that goes down. Like Big Brother." He cast Saint John a glance. "I mean Orwell, not you."
Hawke ignored the remark to cross his legs at the ankle. "I've met with the man a few times since I came back. He's an administrative stuffed shirt but he didn't seem to be too bad of a guy."
"I didn't like him at first," Jo interjected, "but I assumed it was only because of the association with Uncle Dom's death. He was quite nice to me when we worked together on that mission you boys did in Scotland."
"I remember that one vividly," Mike groaned, rubbing the still visible scar on his forehead. "Bottom line, Jason: are we on or off the case?"
"My bottom line," Saint John stated flatly, food forgotten on his plate, "is that my brother might be in trouble. There is no way I'm backing off this until I know String's okay. And that any mission he might have taken was his idea, not Briggs'."
Abandoning the remains of his pickle for a steaming cup of coffee, Jason considered, staring into the dark brew with an expression of deep concentration. "Apollo ordered me off of Archangel's disappearance; he didn't say we couldn't continue looking for your brother. And if the cases happen to overlap...."
Saint John took a vengeful bite of his sandwich. "Fair enough," he mumbled after a hasty gulp. "Mike and I finished what calibration on the salvaged modules we could do here. Now that you've brought the replacements we needed, we're heading out to the Lair to begin installation this afternoon."
The phone rang. Jo grabbed for a napkin, nearly upsetting her iced tea. With one hand she righted the plastic glass, with the other she snatched at the receiver. "Santini Air."
"Jo?" came a slow Texas drawl on the other end. "This is Caitlin O'Shaunessey."
Jo covered the receiver with her palm, mouthing to Locke, "It's Caitlin." A punch of the button activated the speaker. "Have you and Ramon come up with anything on Ling-Ling's?" she asked aloud.
"What about your friend in forensics?" Saint John called from his seat.
The other woman's soft accent hardened. "Can't tell you. According to VNPD's Lieutenant Grodin, pressure from the top squashed our inquiries on every single level. Even all the information my friend, Jack, gleaned from the cars is missing. This smells like the Firm's work."
"Not all the Firm, Miss O'Shaunessey." Locke leaned closer to the speaker. "Thanks for trying. We'll take it from here." He reached to hang up, stopping at the outraged feminine sputter on the other end.
"Don't you dare!" Caitlin yelled. "I worked with those two for almost two years -- they're both friends of mine. If you think you're cutting me out of this case now, you've got another think coming!"
That won smiles all around. "We wouldn't think of it!" Hawke called, a note of gratitude softening his slightly nasal tenor. "I'll page you the minute we know anything."
"Fair enough," the woman said, signing off.
In the sudden vacuum, the team exchanged a helpless look. "So ... what do we do now?" Mike asked, pushing away his food.
Jason shrugged. "Nothing much we can do until we hear from Pamela."
***
Los Angeles' main airport was busy -- even more so than the bustle it enjoyed in peacetime. Military personnel scurried from one terminal to the other, some alone, others sharing final farewells with weeping families. The feeling in the air was not that of the merry expectancy of a vacation, but rather the heavy realization that many of these men embarking on tours of duty a hemisphere away would not be coming back, that many more would return alive but damaged either physically or mentally. This knowledge enshrouded the entire facility, strangling out the excitement of adventure and leaving only an empty, cloying fear.
In the middle of this confusion yet clearly apart from it, a tall man in an Army uniform stood bracketed on one side by a middle aged Italian in a battered flight jacket, and on the other by a frightened looking boy with long, blond-brown hair.
"... and write at least once a week," Dominic admonished, adjusting the bronze-haired soldier's tie minisculely for effect. "You don't have ta' give out any secrets to let us know how you are."
Nineteen-year-old Saint John Hawke slapped his hands away affably, readjusting first the tie then his jacket with short, jerky tugs. "I know, Dom. Don't worry, I'll keep in touch."
"Ahhh. Knowing you, we'll count ourselves happy for the occasional postcard." Santini stood back a single step and studied his foster son through misty eyes. Saint John made for a handsome soldier, he decided, throat swelling with pride at the sight of the tall, powerfully built young man with the strong jaw and sharp gray eyes. He compared the brave but grieving fourteen year old who had come to live with him in Van Nuys, to the self-confident soldier who stood before him now, and nodded to himself. No doubt about it, Alan, he mentally told his deceased friend, Saint John's grown into a fine man.
He rested his hands on the broad-shoulders, having to reach up to do so, and feeling solid muscle under the green cloth. "Your dad would have been proud of you, boy. I am."
Saint John gulped, his Adams apple bobbing and his voice growing husky. "I'm gonna miss you, too, Dom. Both of you." He shifted toward the silent boy on his right, giving him a forced smile. "So, hey, String, aren't you going to tell me to flame a Viet Cong for you?"
The boy didn't answer at first, simply stared back with his lower lip scissored between his incisors. "You won't have to," he said at last in surprisingly even tones. "I'm gonna be over there with you soon to do it myself."
Dominic opened his mouth to protest, the words stopped when the soldier tousled String's long hair. "Not for a while you're not! At least not until you fill out a bit." He laughed and snagged the boy's belt in both hands, giving it a playful tug. "Besides, you're only fifteen! You've got to graduate high school then you're going to go to Berkeley, remember? Dad set up that college fund for you to be an engineer."
"He set one up for you, too," Stringfellow Hawke retorted, voice starting to quiver. "You only went one year before you j-joined up."
"Gotta do my duty," the young soldier replied simply, expression begging understanding but also containing a trace of enthusiasm for the adventure he was undertaking. "I've got to do this, String."
Wide blue eyes continued a desperate scrutiny of his elder brother's face, and reflected in that gaze Dominic could see all the pain of expected loss that filled his own soul. "Saint John ... I...."
Saint John opened his arms and Stringfellow threw himself into them, burying his face against his brother's green uniform jacket, the both of them clinging to each other as though they'd never let go. Tears gathered in Dom's eyes too. Saint John and his brother had lived with him for five years now since the death of their parents, and the boys had become like his own sons -- as dear to him as Sally Anne had been. He slipped one arm around Saint John's back, the other across String's shaking shoulders, pulling them both against him. His family.
"We're gonna miss you," he croaked, hardly recognizing his own voice.
Saint John sniffed and raised his head from where it rested against his brother's hair, a fond smile lighting his lean features. "You take care of yourself. And String."
"I'll take care of him," Dom swore, allowing Saint John to back away but leaving his hand possessively on the boy's skinny back. "You just take care of you."
The older Hawke nodded gratefully, and touched his brother on the arm. "Good-bye, kid."
String watched silently while the new soldier picked up his duffle bag and started toward the gate. "I'll join you soon," the boy swore under his breath, and Dom cast him a sharp look, striving to see under the pall of loss that had shadowed the youthful features since his brother had announced his enlistment. They stood there side-by-side, watching as Lieutenant Saint John Hawke made his way through the crowds and toward the plane that would carry him first to Tokyo then Saigon. Dominic Santini wiped his eyes again, wondering if this was the last time he'd ever see his older son again.
***
It was a very troubled Jason Locke who joined the Airwolf Team for lunch that afternoon, having assumed the task of the courier who was to ferry Airwolf's replacement parts. "I don't understand," he finished summing up the events of his meeting with Donald Newman. "When someone of Archangel's stature disappears, the Company pulls out all the stops on finding him. Almost every other project is put on a back burner, but Newman is preventing us from following up on our best lead."
"He's not really preventing it from being followed up," Saint John pointed out fairly. "He's just preventing you from doing it."
"Isn't there some kind of sectional ethic involved here?" Mike asked, poking curiously at a ham-on-rye sitting amidst a sea of potato chips.
Jason regarded his own sandwich soberly. "Not with something of this magnitude. And Newman mentioned a belief that Archangel vanished voluntarily, maybe even defected."
"That's impossible." That was Saint John Hawke, sprawled comfortably in one of the visitors chairs next to Jo's desk. "Michael was meeting my brother."
Jason went still, only his eyes moving to meet the pilot's. "Apollo thinks it's possible Stringfellow was collaborating."
Offense brought Hawke up very straight, blue-gray eyes flashing through slitted lids. Despite the shade, his eyes were very like those of his younger brother, if usually less revealing, the family resemblance having manifested most strongly there. "String collaborate on a defection? My brother wouldn't do that, Locke."
"Tell it to Newman," the black agent snapped back. He caught himself, fingering his mustache agitatedly. "To tell you the truth, I got the impression Newman didn't really believe it, either. It felt more like a line he was using to keep me out of the investigation."
Saint John subsided into his chair, only partially mollified by his friend's qualification. "He'd better not believe it. String's no defector."
"Don't mess with the big guy's baby brother!" Mike gibed, breaking the tension by giving Saint John a friendly nudge. He held up both hands as though reading a newspaper. "Extree! Big Brother Blasts Boss for Bro! Pictures at-- Oooph!" This last was in result of Saint John nudging him back rather more forcefully. Mike subsided, rubbing his stomach. "Okay, okay! I was only trying to help!"
Hawke shook his head pityingly, while Jo, obviously grateful to the Air Force Major for easing the friction between her two friends, rolled her eyes in a heavenward appeal. "I'm surrounded by juveniles," she groaned, breaking off at the look on Locke's face. "What is it, Jason? There's more, isn't there?"
Locke nibbled his sandwich, using the action to hood his eyes. "I don't know. It was just a feeling I had that Newman wasn't being honest with me."
"So what else is new?" Mike asked rhetorically, scowling at a spot of mustard on his jeans.
Jason dabbed his lips on a paper towel before answering with careful words. "No, I don't mean the standard need-to-know policy, and it wasn't even normal administrative top dog games. This was...." He trailed off, shaking his dark head again. "I've got a bad feeling on this, brothers, and how do you argue a feeling?"
They ate in silence for several minutes, digesting the thought more than the food. Finally, Jo shrugged. "I think you're going to have to make any decisions on trusting Donald Newman, Jason; after all, you know him better than any of us do. The first time I met him was three months ago at the hospital. He was the one who told me that Uncle Dom was dead. I thought he was a hospital administrator until I saw him again later with you." She scowled. "I should have known the Company would have its fingers in anything that had to do with Airwolf. Even that."
Rivers slurped at a Coke, his bland expression generated by many years of dealing with the military mind. "With an on-going project, the Company knows about anything that goes down. Like Big Brother." He cast Saint John a glance. "I mean Orwell, not you."
Hawke ignored the remark to cross his legs at the ankle. "I've met with the man a few times since I came back. He's an administrative stuffed shirt but he didn't seem to be too bad of a guy."
"I didn't like him at first," Jo interjected, "but I assumed it was only because of the association with Uncle Dom's death. He was quite nice to me when we worked together on that mission you boys did in Scotland."
"I remember that one vividly," Mike groaned, rubbing the still visible scar on his forehead. "Bottom line, Jason: are we on or off the case?"
"My bottom line," Saint John stated flatly, food forgotten on his plate, "is that my brother might be in trouble. There is no way I'm backing off this until I know String's okay. And that any mission he might have taken was his idea, not Briggs'."
Abandoning the remains of his pickle for a steaming cup of coffee, Jason considered, staring into the dark brew with an expression of deep concentration. "Apollo ordered me off of Archangel's disappearance; he didn't say we couldn't continue looking for your brother. And if the cases happen to overlap...."
Saint John took a vengeful bite of his sandwich. "Fair enough," he mumbled after a hasty gulp. "Mike and I finished what calibration on the salvaged modules we could do here. Now that you've brought the replacements we needed, we're heading out to the Lair to begin installation this afternoon."
The phone rang. Jo grabbed for a napkin, nearly upsetting her iced tea. With one hand she righted the plastic glass, with the other she snatched at the receiver. "Santini Air."
"Jo?" came a slow Texas drawl on the other end. "This is Caitlin O'Shaunessey."
Jo covered the receiver with her palm, mouthing to Locke, "It's Caitlin." A punch of the button activated the speaker. "Have you and Ramon come up with anything on Ling-Ling's?" she asked aloud.
"What about your friend in forensics?" Saint John called from his seat.
The other woman's soft accent hardened. "Can't tell you. According to VNPD's Lieutenant Grodin, pressure from the top squashed our inquiries on every single level. Even all the information my friend, Jack, gleaned from the cars is missing. This smells like the Firm's work."
"Not all the Firm, Miss O'Shaunessey." Locke leaned closer to the speaker. "Thanks for trying. We'll take it from here." He reached to hang up, stopping at the outraged feminine sputter on the other end.
"Don't you dare!" Caitlin yelled. "I worked with those two for almost two years -- they're both friends of mine. If you think you're cutting me out of this case now, you've got another think coming!"
That won smiles all around. "We wouldn't think of it!" Hawke called, a note of gratitude softening his slightly nasal tenor. "I'll page you the minute we know anything."
"Fair enough," the woman said, signing off.
In the sudden vacuum, the team exchanged a helpless look. "So ... what do we do now?" Mike asked, pushing away his food.
Jason shrugged. "Nothing much we can do until we hear from Pamela."
***