Chapter One
San Antonio, Texas
July 25, 1973
Captain Russell Jefferson ran his fingers through his dark hair and shifted his weight impatiently in the deep, soft chair. He glanced at his wristwatch. Two minutes since he had last checked. He felt the waiting room closing in on him. He was the only person in the room except for the receptionist, who was typing and seemed to have forgotten he was there. She seemed also unaware that time no longer moved. He started to say something to her, then changed his mind. He looked at his watch again and stood.
The United States Air Force uniform, its insignias and silver wings gleaming, fit Russ Jefferson's six-foot frame perfectly. Although he couldn't have been much more than thirty, his expression, hardened by conflict or pain, made him seem older.
He moved about uncertainly. He rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes darted back and forth at every small noise. Now he turned squarely toward the receptionist and said, "This appointment was for three. Are you sure he wants to see me again?"
She stopped typing, looked at him, and said, "It's only five after, Captain. The doctor will see you in a moment." She gave him a brief, understanding smile and then quickly turned away, perhaps to avoid staring at the scars. They were ugly, covering the cheek and temple at his left eye and extending above his eyebrow.
Her fingers had become a blur over the Selectric typewriter when the intercom buzzed. She picked up the phone, pushed the lit intercom button, and answered, looking at him. "You may go in now," she said as she returned the receiver to its cradle.
He thanked her, crossed the room, and opened the wide door of the office. A heavy, balding man rose from behind a cluttered desk. His thick glasses reflected light from the overhead fluorescents. "Come in, Captain," the psychiatrist said. "It's good to see you again."
The younger man didn't answer, taking the chair indicated by the doctor.
"And it's soon to be Major Jefferson, isn't it?" A perfunctory smile appeared. "Congratulations on your promotion."
"Thanks."
"When do you pin on the gold leafs?"
"A couple of weeks."
The psychiatrist sat down and began a search of his desktop. The smile didn't last long. "Things been going okay since we last talked?"
"I guess so. No problems."
"You look tanned and fit."
"A few rays at the pool. Not much else to do."
"Ah, yes, I am your last hurdle, aren't I?" the doctor said, as if they were old friends. He found the file he was looking for and opened it.
The friendly tone didn't work. Russ remained edgy. "Yes, you are," he said.
"You've come a long way. Shoulder and back surgery. Burn treatment at Wilford Hall." He turned a page, glanced at it, and put the file down. "I'm impressed."
"Impressed?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"Don't be impressed with me. I just lay there. The docs did the work."
"I'm told you were very cooperative." The doctor removed a pipe from an ashtray and began filling it with tobacco from a leather pouch.
"Did I have a choice?"
The laugh was an abrupt snort. "I suppose it seemed that you didn't. But you did well in physical therapy. That was a lot of painful work, Captain."
Russ said nothing.
"I see in your file that Dr. Pendleton recommended further plastic surgery. He said that your scars could be minimized. Perhaps two more procedures." With a pudgy index finger, he gently tamped the tobacco in the bowl. "Why didn't you let him do that?" he asked.
"I got tired of wearing bandages. Tired of stitches and staples." The pilot shrugged. "Besides, the eye works."
"You're very fortunate, you know. No permanent damage to your vision."
"Yeah. That was my lucky day, all right."
Casually, the doctor jotted a note as he asked, "How are you feeling about things now?"
"Things? What things?"
"Things we've talked about before."
Russ shifted restlessly. "Fine," he said. "Really terrific."
"You seem a bit agitated. Something happen?"
"No. I just don't think this is necessary."
"Don't you?" The doctor struck a match. He held the match just above the bowl and began puffing slowly.
"I don't know why I'm here."
"Nothing sinister. Nothing mysterious." The doctor's round face was half hidden behind the smoke. "We need to talk about your capture, Captain. Just routine."
"For you maybe. Not for me."
"We're completing our interviews with you now. All of you."
"Interviews?" A cynical smile appeared briefly on the captain's face.
"Yes. There's always much to learn from the human experience." The man behind the desk puffed again. "You and the others experienced a lot of pain during the time you were POWs."
Russ's expression did not change.
"Self-discipline, Captain. When you were released, every one of you wore a somber face until you were on the plane because you didn't want the North Vietnamese to see any expression of emotion. That's amazing control. Yes, there's a great deal we can learn from you."
"Fighter pilots have a reputation for being loose, but we do know about discipline," Russ started to explain, then wondered why he was bothering. No need getting into a useless exercise. "Doctor, is there some particular reason I'm here?"
"You've been physically treated. Your back. Your shoulders. The burns."
"And so?"
"And so the Air Force decided you should spend some time with guys like me."
"To see if we've become a bunch of psychotic cripples?"
"It could be useful. You've known a lot of mental and emotional turmoil, Captain. There may be things you want to get off your chest, things you might not want to say to a friend or a relative."
"I really don't need this." Russ stood abruptly and walked over to the window. He stared out into the glare of the Texas sun. An enlisted man in a work uniform was mowing grass.
"Perhaps you're right, but I don't think it can do any harm. Do you?" The doctor sounded nonthreatening, speaking slowly and softly. "We can finish up today."
The pilot stood silently for several moments, still looking out the window. Then he said, "Your job really sucks."
"Let's try it for a few minutes."
Russ hesitated, shrugged a reluctant agreement, and returned to his chair. He tried to find a comfortable position. "Okay. Go."
"Are you hanging out with your friends?"
"A couple of guys are still here."
"Do you spend much time with them?"
"We get together for dinner once in a while."
"How are they?"
"Okay, I guess."
"Are they feeling all right about things?"
"Yeah, except for being bugged by you guys."
"Have they received their assignments?"
"We all have."
"Your friends are returning to the cockpit, aren't they? They're going back to fighter squadrons."
"Yeah."
"But you're not?"
"That's right." Russ's tone became more defensive.
The doctor leaned forward, his chin jutting. Behind the thick lenses, his eyes were penetrating. "Have you called on Noonan's family yet?"
"Yeah. Flew up to Kansas City. Went to their home Wednesday night."
"Did you have a long visit?"
"With his mother. An hour, I guess."
"Was it difficult?"
"Of course. Don't you think it'd be difficult to talk to her after you've killed her son?"
"You didn't kill her son."
"He was my backseater. It was my responsibility to get him back from the mission."
"How did you feel after talking to her?"
"I don't know."
"Of course you do," said the doctor. "You felt better. Or worse."
"She was nice. It was hard."
"Did you feel less guilty after you talked to her?"
"No."
The doctor paused thoughtfully, and Russ knew the line of questioning was about to change. "Tell me," the heavy man finally said, "how do you feel about having been sent to Vietnam and made to fight?"
"Better than if I had been sent into the war and not allowed to fight."
"Shooting down the two MiGs. Killing two pilots. How do you feel about that?"
"Pretty damned good. They were trying to shoot me down at the time."
"And the bombing missions? Killing civilians?"
"Better them than me."
The doctor studied his pipe bowl, then looked at the younger man closely. Jefferson was discarding questions with cocky responses, a conditioned reflex. "What about the morality of the war, Captain?"
"That's for religious scholars and Timothy Leary to work out."
"Will history judge us favorably?"
"If we wrote it, it might. But winners write the history. This time we aren't writing it. We lost."
The sound of a lawn mower's small motor came through the closed windows. The doctor waited until it went away, then asked, "How do you feel about your future?"
"A little better than I did a year ago."
"You're single. Met any girls since you've been back?"
"No. Have you?"
"I'm not a hero flyboy," the doctor said with a smile. "Besides, I'm married."
"Congratulations."
"You were married."
"Yes."
"How long since the divorce?"
"A couple of months."
"Tough. Must've been difficult to come back to a marriage and—"
"I didn't come back to a marriage." Russ shifted his weight uncomfortably. "She left me more than two years ago. The paperwork got held up."
"What caused the breakup?"
"Who knows? Things."
"Let's talk about your marriage."
"Let's not." Russ's voice tightened as if his throat hurt. A different pain.
"Where were you when the marriage broke up?"
"Broke up?" He gave the doctor a contemptuous look. "You make it sound like a train wreck."
"Maybe it was. What caused the wreck, Captain?"
"She didn't like life on a remote Air Force base in the middle of a desert." The younger man's eyes were coldly locked to the doctor's. "She grew up in Beverly Hills."
"You were at that remote base when she married you. She must have seen something attractive about your life."
"At first she found it exciting and adventurous. But it turned out to be the wrong kind of excitement. The wrong kind of adventure." He arched an eyebrow. "Where she was from, excitement was an afternoon polo match. Adventure was sailing to Santa Catalina."
"And?"
"And she soon learned she didn't belong in a world where her husband's adventure is a war in Southeast Asia and excitement is staying alive." An emotional silence gripped the room. A long, empty silence. Finally Russ shrugged and said, "She told me it wasn't normal. She couldn't stay in it."
The doctor studied his pipe for a moment and then looked up. "Are you ready to face the world?"
"Isn't that your job?" Russ asked through a half-smile. "To get me ready?"
"I'll rephrase the question. Do you feel ready to reenter the world?"
"Doctor, I'm on my way to London. Embassy duty. Know a better way to reenter than that?"
"Think you're ready to handle the pressure?"
"It's the embassy. Pressure? Embassy pressure is like the pressure you work under. You screw up and you just stop at a bar on your way home and have a couple of fancy drinks with umbrellas in them. Fighter pilots work under a pressure that if you screw up, you're a smoking hole."
"You don't have to go to the embassy," said the doctor. It sounded like an accusation. "You had several choices, in fact. You could've had an assignment to F-4s in North Carolina. Practically at home."
Russ said nothing. He straightened in his chair.
"Isn't that right?"
The nod was almost imperceptible. "Yes," Russ said tightly.
The doctor paused to relight his pipe. After he got it going again he squinted at his patient and in a cold voice asked, "Why did you choose the embassy?"
Russ's eyes hardened. He looked at the doctor for a moment and then said, "Say again?"
"Why don't you want to fly?" Bright reflections in the thick eyeglasses obscured the doctor's eyes. "Why did you ask your General Kreeger to get you an assignment to the safe work of an embassy rather than return to the cockpit?"
Russ leapt to his feet and pounded his fist down on the desktop with a loud crash. A framed picture toppled. "That's enough!" he hissed sharply. He glared at the doctor for a long moment, then walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
Russ drove the rental car slowly toward the officers' club. It was early. There was time for a drink before dinner. He concentrated on his driving, not for reasons of safety but in an attempt to block out the meeting with the psychiatrist. It didn't work. The questions kept ringing in his ears. Why? Why? Why was he alive and why was Noonan dead?
It was hot and the Texas summer had been dry. Sprinklers were busy on both sides of the street, silently swinging their clear arcs in large circles. Water was nurturing and keeping the grass alive, and he wondered what would nurture him, what would keep him alive.
The shrink had hit a nerve. What caused the breakup? He didn't want to think about Jenny. He had willed his mind to not think about her. There was too much pain and he had to shut out the hurt. Why don't you want to go back to the cockpit? Why don't you want to fly? The one thing he had loved. The one thing he had done best. And he wouldn't return to it. Why had he chosen the embassy? He didn't know. Why didn't he know what he wanted?
Only a few cars were in the parking lot, and he took a space near the entrance to the officers' club. He strode into the main foyer and followed the wide hallway to the bar. It was a large, well-appointed room. He took a stool at the long L-shaped bar and looked around. The place was almost empty. Not like a fighter squadron's club. One man sat at the other end, and a couple of others shared a small table near the bar. He ordered a bourbon and water.
Russ glanced at the two officers at the table. They were wearing class B, short-sleeved uniforms and pilot wings. One was a lieutenant, the other a captain. Russ could see that the captain was describing an aerobatic maneuver by the way he was using his hand to depict an aircraft in a roll. Fighter pilots couldn't talk about flying if they couldn't use their hands. His drink was placed in front of him, and he lit a cigarette as he studied the amber liquid.
At the small table, the captain illustrating the maneuver to his friend hadn't noticed Jefferson enter the bar. He was saying, "So I was showing my student how smooth an aileron roll should be," and then he suddenly stopped talking and became quiet. "I'll be damned," he said in a lowered voice.
"What is it?" asked the lieutenant as he turned to see what had distracted his friend.
"Someone I never expected to see again."
The lieutenant turned back to the captain. "Who? The guy at the end of the bar?"
"Yeah."
"You know him?"
"Not personally. He was at Udorn when I first got there. He shot down two MiGs. We were in different squadrons and I never got to know him, but I knew who he was. Everybody knew who he was."
"Who is he?"
"That's Russ Jefferson. One hell of a fighter pilot. Maybe the best of the best. Lots of people thought he'd be wearing stars someday."
"Oh, really?" The lieutenant turned again to look at the MiG killer.
The captain sipped his drink. He remembered the day Jefferson had been shot down. He'd never forget it: May 10. Last year. The strike was one of the biggest of the war, and losses were high, but the buzz that night at the bars was about Jefferson because he was one of only a few fighter pilots who had gained celebrity status in Vietnam. Word had it that the F-4 Phantom pilot had ejected right over the target he had just bombed.
No one expected that he would ever make it back. Not ever.
"I'll be damned," the captain said again, as if he couldn't quite believe it. "Russ Jefferson."
Copyright © 2007 by Alton Rivers. All rights reserved.
