CHAPTER ONE

Albert Calavicci stared out the rain-soaked window as the plane touched down on the tarmac in Orlando. The first grayness of dawn filtered through the clouds. It was time to move on. He had spent twenty long months haunting Balboa Naval Hospital and the streets of San Diego like a mourning shade, a last, shattered remnant of a long-forgotten world. It had been twenty months of painful operations and excruciatingly slow recoveries and test after test after test. Twenty months of familiar faces and old haunts, and friends and colleagues trying to be kind. Twenty months of psychological torment that could have taught the Viet Cong a thing or two about cruelty.

It was over now, he reminded himself. He had a clean bill of health, even if he did still have to somehow pack another fifteen pounds onto his rail-thin frame. The doctor who had managed his case for almost two years had said thirty would be better, but there wasn't really much chance of that. Nevertheless, Al had a piece of paper certifying him fit for duty, and his reassignment orders were tucked into a pouch in his kit bag. He was bound for NASA, with a chance at piloting one of the Apollo missions, and he was going to forget.

That was priority number one: forgetting. He had to move on, or he knew he was going to go under. It had been touch-and-go those first six months, when he had hovered listlessly between life and death. He had somehow survived everything that had been thrown at him over there, and then come home to discover that his reason for holding on was gone. For four of his six years of wretched captivity he had been living for nothing, clinging desperately to a dream that was just that: a dream, a spectral and frail unreality. When he found that out it had stripped away his interest in survival. Despair more profound than any he had experienced in Vietnam consumed him. He didn't exercise, he didn't read, he ate so little that they had to keep him on a nutrient drip. He must have gone through five psychiatrists.

Then, one morning in early November, he had woken up angry. Angry at Johnson, who had escalated the war in the first place. Angry at his squadron commander for leading them into action prematurely on the day his plane had gone down. Angry. Suddenly his recovery proceeded by leaps and bounds. He began to put on weight. He drove the nurses crazy pulling out his I.V. when it hampered with his daily exercise regimen—the one he had perfected in the tiny cell at Briarpatch. Soon he was well enough for the never-ending string of corrective surgeries. The subsequent pain and immobility stunted his healing, but he bounced back as quickly as he could, and much quicker than they thought he would. He was angry, and his rage made him strong. He was angry at the VC, angry at Major Quon, and angry at himself. Especially himself. And he was angry at the bastard who had taken advantage of Beth.

Somehow when he played it out in his mind it was never Beth's fault. Gord Chaney at the Quartermaster's told it differently: how she had turned into a tramp, prancing around town in short skirts and makeup, how she had known the guy less than two and a half months before shacking up. Al didn't believe him. His version of events was closer to Caroline Downing's. Carrie had been one of Beth's best friends, and she painted a much more sympathetic picture. As the plane taxied towards the terminal Al replayed her words in his mind.

"She tried so hard to believe you would beat the odds," she had said; "but she was clutching at straws, working double shifts in the burn ward just to keep herself out of the house. She wanted to believe you were alive, but it had been two years of nothing… and then she lost a young Marine. She really thought he could make it, even though there was no way. When he died… she lost her last bit of hope, Al. She'd tried so hard, but she just couldn't hold on any longer. And she met this great guy, a lawyer, out on the Marina on April Fool's Day just after the kid died. I guess she just needed to be happy again."

Poor Beth. If only he had got word out to her somehow. If only he hadn't antagonized Quon and the other scabs so that they'd kept him off the POW lists. If only that Marine hadn't died. If only that goddamned leech hadn't been waiting in the wings, ready to pounce…

The if onlies didn't matter anymore, he told himself sternly. He was going to fly a spaceship to the moon. And, God, he was going to forget.

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The apartment the Navy had set up for him was conveniently located for the motor pool guys in a small residential area just off the base, but it was inconveniently far away from anywhere Al might actually want to go. He griped about this to the Marine who had picked him up at the airport and insisted on carrying his kit bag up the three flights of stairs for him. The kid mumbled anxious apologies. Great. Another wet-nosed rookie in awe of the war record he wanted to bury deep in the not-so-distant past.

Despite his belligerence on the way up, Al realized as he closed and locked the door that he was exhausted. The eight-hour flight, the twenty-five minute drive and the seventy-stair climb had left him sore and weary. The realization angered and humiliated him. Time had been he could spend the whole day in the air—actually flying, too, not just flirting with the stewardesses—and still stay up the whole night with Chip and the guys… or more often a wild-minded girl. He was getting old.

Annoyed at the thought that he had shipped out a young man and come back an old one, Al went through to the small bedroom. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the Navy had been considerate enough to provide him with a double bed. He started to open his kit bag, wanting to unpack, but suddenly he felt far, far too tired. He stowed the meager luggage in the bottom of the closet and went into the bathroom. Hell would freeze over before he admitted he was too tired to shower.

Someone had had the sense to provide soap, shampoo, toothpaste and a new toothbrush, which saved Al going back into the other room to dig for his own toiletries. He made quick, efficient use of all four articles and six and a half minutes later he came out of the bathroom, stowed his clothes in the wicker hamper at the end of the short hallway, and crawled into bed. The soft cotton sheets settled soothingly over his bare skin.

Just before sleep overtook him, he remembered that he hadn't eaten since the layover in Phoenix at midnight. Naught, naughty Calavicci.

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Cape Canaveral was at once the most intriguing and the most frustrating place Al had seen in years. There was always something to do, something new to learn… and some stupid test they wanted him to undergo.

After two weeks of being poked, pricked, prodded and evaluated by every surgeon NASA could find, buy, borrow or steal, Al was beginning to wonder why he had bothered to leave Balboa. Finally, though, he was—again— pronounced fit-for-active-duty-but-to-thin, and then it was on to the good stuff. Of course, after every session on the machines designed to test his equilibrium, his reflexes, his visual acuity, his problem-solving faculties or his response to G-forces there was more bloodletting, pressure-taking and general violating of his personal space, but it was easier to bear because the other proto-astronauts were subjected to the same indignities.

There had been talk, back in 1970, of canceling the last three Apollo missions and focusing NASA's efforts exclusively on Skylab. If there hadn't been a series of disastrous top-secret operations out on the Delta that year, they probably would have scrapped them. As it was, however, Congress had found itself scrabbling for ways to distract the public, and a quick infusion of cash into the ever-popular (and essentially peaceful) space program had been one of those publicity stunts. Apollo 18 had gone up, more than a little behind schedule, just over six months ago. Apollo 19 was slated for launch in May, and Apollo 20 would go up in just over a year.

How he had got this assignment Al didn't know. Most of the guys in the space program had been with it for years, eagerly awaiting their turn to go up. Yet as soon as he had expressed the most cursory interest in turning his attention towards the stars the wheels of military bureaucracy had started to turn for him. Now he had a one in three chance of being chosen, if he could just make the grade. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck: the first such luck he had had in fifteen years.

It was some compensation, too, for the suffering he had gone through as a result of one of those failed missions back in the spring of '70. Charlie had a little lady by the name of Titi, physically nothing more than an overgrown girl. One day in late '69 she had turned from a necessity-driven soldier of the sort who would sneak a guy a couple extra ounces of water when the temperature rose above a hundred and ten degrees into a black-eyed machine of vengeance—he had never found out why. Then in the spring she had gone chieu hoi. Except Titi was playing the double agent, and she had engineered a bum setup for a squadron of SEALs using Quon's pet captives as bait. The trap had been sprung beautifully, the only downside being the low American casualty count. Titi had made the only actual kill: the young squad commander. She had come back a hero, and as a reward Major Quon had let her…

Al tried not to think about things like that. He was in Florida again, the state where he had spent some of the best times of his life. The nightlife was almost as good as he remembered, too. He had bought a car his first week, a brilliant green Ferrari that could do zero to ninety in twenty seconds. Al didn't think he'd ever forget the look on the salesman's face when he'd come out of his office after calling the bank to confirm the cheque. Money had never been plentiful before, and even excruciatingly tight at times, but with six years' salary, per diem, and compensation pay waiting for him untouched, Al had come home to find himself almost embarrassingly well heeled. He'd made full wages on minimum expenses during his months in and out of hospital too, and now for the first time in his life he had all the money he wanted.

All the money he wanted, and nobody to spend it on. At least, that was how it had looked in California, but he wasn't in California anymore, and he was determined to change that aspect of his outlook, too. There was no shortage of charming and gorgeous female company, and Al hadn't spent a night alone since the first one. Of course, it was a different girl every night. Variety was the spice of life, and if there was one thing Al wasn't ready for it was settling down.