Elsa was resetting the Command Module Simulator for the support crew. The astronauts were conferring morosely with one another on the other end of the hangar. It was the general consensus that Apollo was doomed, and that Yardley and Calavicci were gone on a fool's errand. Elsa was more optimistic. No, that was not quite the word, but she believed fervently that as long as you fought hard enough you would succeed in the end, and she knew that Al would fight.
The hangar door opened, and Lieutenant Taggert came in.
"Fellas, would you look at this!" he crowed. "Papers just arrived—you won't believe it!"
The other astronauts gathered around, relieving him of the load of newspapers from across the country to which the base subscribed. Taggert ducked out of the throng of men, all of whom were exclaiming over whatever it was they were seeing.
"And one for the proud girlfriend!" Taggert exclaimed, jogging over to Elsa and giving her a copy of The Washington Post.
There on the front page, looking pensive and ascetic as he held one hand to his head, apparently caught in the act of doffing his hat, was Al. He stood next to a grinning Yardley on the steps of some impressive old building, in his immaculate dress whites with a distant look in his grave dark eyes. He looked so handsome and impressive that for a moment all that Elsa could do was stare. Then her eyes found the headline.
War Hero Finds New Battlefield, it proclaimed. The subhead continued in the same vein: Hanoi Survivor Turns NASA Crusader. Puzzled, Elsa started on the first paragraph. A lifelong defender of the American way of live, Lt. Cmdr. Albert Calavicci appeared before a Congressional committee Thursday to stand up for a national dream. A former pilot and decorated Naval officer, Calavicci has set combat aside in favor of exploration. He is one of seven NASA hopefuls vying for a spot on Apollo 20, the final moon mission. A recent land equipment failure resulted in an indefinite delay in the launch of Apollo 19, originally slated for May of this year. Threats to the program's funding prompted the hearings at which Calavicci features as a star witness.
"We can fight or we can quit," said Calavicci, who spent six years as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. "I don't think the American people are ready to give up on us."
Although records of the committee proceedings will not be made available to the press until a decision has been reached, NASA Associate Administrator of Manned Space Flight John Yardley indicated that Calavicci's testimony was riveting. "With men like him NASA can't lose," Yardley told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday.
The committee will rule on the subject of NASA's funding and the future of the Apollo program when they reconvene on Monday. Critics of Apollo…
It went on to address the issue in more depth, but there was nothing else about Al. Elsa frowned at Taggert, who was smiling broadly.
"Ain't it something?" he said. "There's a piece like that in every major paper in the country. Looks like you've caught yourself a superstar."
Elsa stiffened. From Al she would put up with a certain degree of male nonsense, but not from these other idiots!
"Lieutenant," she said firmly; "I am working. Take your comments and go away."
Taggert chuckled at shook his head. "Wonder if Calavicci knows what he's caught," he murmured. Then he moved to join his peers before Elsa could react.
Angry, she turned back to her console, but when no one was watching she stole another long look at the paper and the enchanting photograph of the man who would soon be her husband.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAfter four days of being unexpectedly accosted by reporters at the strangest moments, Al though he had seen it all. As the car approached the little plane on the airstrip outside the city he realized that he hadn't. There on the runway was a little black car, and leaning against its hood was a leggy woman wearing a conservative suit and carrying a stenographer's notebook and a needle-sharp pencil. Dancing in attendance was a photographer with all the nervous energy of a hummingbird.
"Damn," Yardley said mildly as their own vehicle pulled to a halt. "Give her what she wants. We won't leave without you."
"You sure you have that kind of time?" Al asked with a salacious smirk, his eyes taking in the curves of the reporter's body.
Yardley chuckled. "You're not safe to be out," he said. Then he cracked his door. "I'll be in the plane."
Al grinned spiritedly. Yardley was a great guy, a really great guy. The kind of guy you could have a little fun with but still look up to. The kind of guy you could trust.
He retrieved his kit and the garment bag containing his dress whites before sidling over towards the woman.
"Why, hello there," he said. "What can I do for you, beautiful?"
She whipped out a business card, and he set down his kit bag to take it.
"Myrtle Wetherspoon, Chicago Sun-Times," she said, her voice sultry and at the same time professional. "And if you're Lieutenant Commander Calavicci, then you can give me a couple minutes of your time."
"You betcha," Al said. He knew the drill. First she'd ask about his place in the NASA organization, then for his opinion of Congress and of the ruling, then maybe how he liked his new peace-oriented role and whether he would consider combat duty again, despite his experiences in Vietnam. Overall, his war record seemed to be an interesting adjunct to the issue that every paper had mentioned in passing, but none of them had raped in detail.
So he wasn't at all prepared for this woman's approach.
"Our readership is very interested in your story," she said. "Let's be frank: Apollo is old news. Going to the moon, that's routine now. But you, Commander, you are news! Everybody wants to know more about you, but my colleagues are all afraid to ask."
"And you're not," Al said warily.
"Definitely not. Could I pass up a scoop like this?" she asked.
"Apparently not, since you stalked me to the airport."
She waved her hand dismissively. "I couldn't find you at any of the hotels," she said.
"That's because I was staying with a friend," Al said. A warmth suffused his chest. That was exactly what Yardley was: he was a friend. Albert Calavicci had a friend!
"Oh!" She looked pleased, as if this was an accolade to her investigative efforts. "Anyway, I wanted to interview you privately, since I understand this is a part of your life that you wouldn't want to bring out in a press conference."
"And what makes you think I want to talk to you about it?" Al asked, shoving the card into the back pocket of his uniform pants and retrieving his bag from the tarmac.
"Come on, Commander! It's too good to pass up! Daredevil Naval pilot with a checkered past, captured by the VC, tortured for six years, now you're an astronaut! Not just any astronaut: the one who single-handedly saved the Apollo program! How has your time as a POW changed your outlook on life? To what degree do those experiences isolate you from the other astronauts? What obstacles are you facing as a result of that incarceration?"
Al gaped for a moment, then chuckled. "That's a good one. You're funny, dollface."
"I'm not joking Commander Calavicci. People are really interested in getting inside your head. Getting a first-person account of life in the infamous Hanoi Hilton." She fixed him with an inexorable journalist's eye.
"I'm not the best person to ask for that," Al said dryly. "I spent less than a year there, and most of that in solitary confinement. A really hilarious incident involving a stool convinced the VC that I was too dangerous to be kept in a camp with such well-established lines of communication."
She snapped her fingers and began to make notes. "That's exactly the kind of details people are curious about," she said. "Would you care to elaborated on the circumstances that led to your transfer?"
Al was startled to realize that he actually paused to consider the request. "No!" he said, more abruptly than he had intended to.
Myrtle was not so easily swayed. "And where did they move you to?"
"Xom Ap Lo, thirty-five miles out of Hanoi," Al replied. "We called it Briarpatch."
"Why?"
"You know Brer Rabbit?" Al asked.
"No." She wore a very blank look that gave Al back some sense of control over the situation.
"Well, there's a story about how Brer Fox set a trap and caught Brer Rabbit. He was angry enough to kill, but Brer Rabbit said 'Hang me or drown me or eat me for dinner, but don't throw me in that briar patch, Brer Fox! Please don't throw me in the briar patch!'. So of course, that's just what the Fox did. Then Brer Rabbit scampered away laughing. 'You're a fool, Brer Fox!' he called. 'I was born and raised in the briar patch!"." Al smirked at the lost expression on the woman's face.
"I don't understand what that has to do with a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp," she said.
"Then allow me to explain," Al said graciously. "The camp commander—we called him Frenchie 'cause he spoke English with a thick French accent—he was a miserable weasel, but he was smart. Very smart. And his favorite trick was giving you enough rope to hang yourself, the wiley bastard. Just like Brer Rabbit did to Brer Fox. We'd always fall for it, too, like the miserable suckers we were. So a couple of us started up a joke about how he was born and raised in the briar patch. Besides, that place was a backwater Cracker hell. No electricity, no running water. Sewage holding pond seeped through the groundwater into the well. Add to that the local flora—Briarpatch is the perfect name." He smiled sweetly. "I hope that isn't too much information, darling."
She was scribbling madly in shorthand. "Not at all! Not at all!" she said eagerly. "So you spent the rest of the war there?"
"I spent ten and a half months there," Al corrected her. "Then I was handpicked as a special guest by one of the VC's heroes." As soon as the words were out he regretted it.
She pounced like a cougar. "You were moved to another prison?"
"No," Al said flatly. Prisons had rules. Prisons were accountable to the government—a government that even under Ho Chi Minh had some regard for propaganda and international appearances. Men in the prisons were fed twice a day. Men in the prisons had a change of fatigues and blankets in the winter and a regular ration of hot water.
"Where did they take you?" Wetherspoon pressed.
Al shook his head. "You'll excuse me, but we're due in Orlando in a couple of hours. I really have to get going."
Her face wilted with disappointment. She smelled a real scoop, but she couldn't have it. He wasn't going to let her have it. "But—"
Al patted her cheek condescendingly. "Look, if you're ever in Florida drop by the Space Center. I'll show you a good time and we can have a nice little visit, okay?"
She shook her head in disbelief, but seemed too derailed to comment as he strode off.
Al felt his legs trembling as he approached the plane. The memories were still too close to the surface. He could feel the sun on the back of his neck, although the sky above Washington was heavily overcast today. He could hear the noises: the VC going through their combat exercises on the other side of the compound, and beyond that the laughter of the village kids, the ones who would sneak up when you were helpless in the tiger cage and throw rocks and dog dung at you, and sometimes, when you were very weak or your wrists were shackled to the bars, creep near enough to poke you with sharpened bits of bamboo, lancing boils and blisters, digging in your sores, tearing open fresh scabs. Or who on hot days, when the sun burned strong enough to cook with and the air was heavy with the oppressive jungle humidity, would come up close with coconut shells full of water that they would suck noisily at or spray each other with, while your tongue felt like a hunk of leather and your mouth tasted of blood and bile and dust. He remembered one such day, when he hadn't had water for so long that he couldn't remember what moisture tasted like and the pain in his dry kidneys was like knives dipped in acid. Those little black-eyed brats had come up, taunting him, and instead of pretending that he could ignore them he had broken down. He had sobbed and wept and begged for just a little water, just a little water, just enough to wet his tongue, just a drop on his swollen, fissured lips. He had begged until his throat was raw and the inside of his mouth began to crack and bleed, before a guard heard the noise and came to chase the kids away. It had been two more wretched days before any rain had fallen.
His throat was dry, and his voice cracked as he greeted Yardley and stowed his baggage. There was a bottle of water in a cup holder between the two passenger seats, and he took it without bothering to ask permission, draining half the contents in one long inhaling motion. That helped, but he still needed something to chase away the ghosts.
"Hey, can I take her?" he asked, glancing covetously at the front of the small cockpit, where the Air Force pilot was waiting patiently for the all-clear from his passengers.
"Who, the reporter?" Yardley asked, looking up from the budget he was drafting. They had a hundred million to spend on Apollo now, granted by the committee much to Al's surprise, and Yardley looked to be trying to stretch it as far as possible.
"No, the plane. Can I fly the plane?"
Yardley didn't seem to know how to take the request. "I don't know, Calavicci," he said. "I don't much like flying under the best conditions, and it's been a long time since you—"
"Not that long, sir," Al said hastily. "I had to go through full re-certification in San Diego."
"I don't know, Calavicci. Better not."
"Sir, please! I've done everything you wanted me to, haven't I? We got our money. Please, let me fly her." It was a need, just like the night two weeks ago when he had awakened from nightmares and needed intimacy with Elsa. He needed to fly again.
Some of the desperation he felt must have leeched into his voice, because Yardley's expression shifted marginally. "What do you think, lieutenant?" he asked.
The young pilot turned around, wearing a radiant smile. "I'd love to be copilot to Commander Calavicci, sir! It'd be an honor!"
Al punched him affectionately on the shoulder. "Lay it on a little thicker, kid," he said. "I don't think I've got a cavity yet."
"All right," Yardley consented. "Hurry up and get switched around."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMFlying wasn't like riding a bike. It wasn't like driving a car. Those were paltry symbols of independence. Flying was freedom in its purest form. In the air, there were no problems. Nothing existed but the sun and the clouds and the primeval spirit of liberty. Not even the eager chatter from the boy next to him could disrupt Al's joy. Everything was forgotten in the sublime glory of flight.
He didn't realize until he climbed out of the cockpit and dropped to the ground, ignoring the steps rolled up for Yardley, just how much he had forgotten. There was a small throng of reporters waiting to mob him as soon as the air traffic men let down their guard. And on the edge of the group of Air Force officers waiting to welcome the triumphant delegates was a petite, gorgeous redhead with a lab coat over her emerald-colored dress. As Al strode away from the plane she came running to his arms with a joyful Hungarian exclamation. He caught her and swung her around in a moment of bliss that the photographer from the Miami Herald captured exquisitely for publication on the front cover of the morning edition.
Neither Al nor Elsa realized the picture had been taken. They were too enthralled by one another. She had not realized how important his presence was to her until she felt his absence, and for him it was the kind of homecoming his heart had ached for for longer than he cared to admit, even if it was a different homecoming and a different woman. His lips found hers with ravenous abandon, and they lost themselves in the embrace, oblivious to the hoots and catcalls from the soldiers and the eager ogling of the press. And still less aware of Yardley's self-satisfied smile as he took in the spectacle in its entirety.