7

       August

       East Africa.

      O’Neill sits beside Lake Victoria. He is waiting for her—the female agent who responded to his sign.

      O’Neill is at peace, perhaps for the first time. He has found he likes Africa. He understands now what Craik meant about its size, about its smell, the look of it. He has no feeling of coming home; to the contrary, it is the most alien place he has ever been. Yet it brings him peace.

      She will wear green, and if something is wrong she will also wear a red scarf. This is not the sort of tradecraft they taught him at the Ranch, but Ranch tradecraft is not designed for Africa in the 1990s; it is designed for Europe in the 1970s. He smiles to himself. The wonder of it is that any of what they taught him actually does work here. The cops-and-robbers of counter-surveillance, for example. Most of the psychology of recruitment. It is like being a Boy Scout and finding that what the Boy Scout Manual says about building a fire really does make flame, even if nobody in his right mind would ever make it that way.

      Perhaps, when he goes back, he will teach about Africa at the Ranch.

      He sees a green dress coming toward him. It is still far away, but he can see the swing of her, her size, and he can see that she does not wear a red scarf.

      O’Neill rises and goes to meet his future.

      Which is Alan Craik’s future.

       Near Newport, Rhode Island.

      “You’re over-controlling.” Rafe’s voice was calm, devoid of criticism, an LSO voice.

      Alan eased up on the stick, flexed his hand, and tried to keep the little gauge that measured rate of climb centered on zero through the turn. The single-engine plane wobbled slightly, very like a horse that knows it has a novice at the reins.

      “See the runway?” The question seemed superfluous—the ancient runway of Quonsett Reserve Naval Air Station almost seemed to fill the viewscreen. “Center up. Ease up on the stick. The plane will fly just fine without you.”

      Rafe spoke to the tower one more time, but Alan’s entire concentration was on the airplane and the runway. The runway, which had seemed miles long a moment before, now seemed to flow beneath him at the speed of light.

      “Throttle down.” Rafe seemed to be running a checklist. Alan looked at his flaps and saw they were at full. His momentary glance broke his concentration on the stick, and the plane wobbled. He corrected automatically and was delighted to find that he had recentered. The plane dropped lightly; the altimeter ran slowly down toward zero, and the plane touched, less than a third of the way down the runway. Alan wanted to shriek with joy, but Rafe smiled wickedly and said, “Full power.”

      Alan reacted automatically, running the throttle to full before the speed fell below thirty knots.

      “Touch and go. Flaps up.” Alan ran the flaps all the way up with one hand, trying to watch the airspeed while keeping the plane centered on the runway. The airspeed needle passed through fifty-five knots and he pulled back lightly on the stick. His eyes flickered to the rate of climb; he was trying to hold on five degrees, with reasonable success. The plane began to climb away. Rafe spoke to the tower again and turned to Alan. “Nice job. You might have a stick hand, at that. Now ascend to 5500 and turn on course 172 for Naragansett. We’ll land there for lunch.”

      The plane was Rafe’s. He kept it at Quonsett while he attended the War College. As a senior 0–4 with no kids and a busted marriage that so far hadn’t cost him alimony, he could maintain the sleek Cessna 182 in top condition and decorate the dash with gauges that were meaningless to Alan.

      “You landing on the altimeter?” he asked casually, fiddling with the pocket on his windbreaker.

      “Is that wrong?”

      “Unfortunately, it just broke.” Rafe grinned and taped a piece of cardboard—he had been planning this, the sonofabitch—over the altimeter dial. “You liked flying with me off the boat, you get to learn my way.”

      Rafe’s way was unnerving. Alan watched the ground, then started to glue himself to the angle-of-climb monitor. The airfield was down there, visible, and Alan was well into the approach, yet he felt lost. He kept waggling the wings to get a better view of the ground, and once, he almost panicked when he saw that he was in a 15degree descent instead of being level, but he fought the machine and himself and at last achieved lineup with the runway.

      “How’s Rose?” Rafe asked.

      Alan took a deep breath. “Rose was pregnant,” he said. “She lost the baby.”

      He watched the runway and made a minute correction.

      “Never try to correct so close to the ground!” Rafe shouted, and the wheels touched. He modulated his voice. “Nice landing, Buddy.”

      “She fell down a ladder during sea trials on her new project.” Alan was thinking of Rose, the pale face on the hospital sheets, the limp hand in his, the averted face. No tears. Rose.

      “Fucking A, Alan, that sucks.” With the engine at idle and no slipstream, the utter honesty of Rafe’s comment struck him. That was how it had been at the squadron. Confrontation, joy, sorrow—all right there. Not a lot of bullshit. “She taking it out on you?”

      Two nights before, he had tried to make Rose talk about it and he still saw her gesture—hands raised on each side of her head, fingers spread, blocking out sound, sight, him; her voice, I’ll deal with it! Just let me deal with it! The hands, the voice shutting him out—

      It was Rafe’s turn to try to smile, wryly now. “You don’t hide things very good, Spy.” He unbuckled his harness. “Get a hundred hours’ real time and you can solo in my plane. You’ll be a good pilot. Just stop paying such close attention to everything.”

      Words to live by. Just stop paying such close attention. Right.

       Houston.

      Rose tears down the corridor and out a fire door, banging the handle with both palms to get it out of her way. The rental car waits in the parking lot and she almost runs to it. Drive as fast as she dares to the airport, dump the car; run to the check-in, only ten minutes to spare, slam down the ticket, run for the departure lounge—

       If only I can stay busy. If only I can move fast enough. If only—

      Work is a drug. She hates the evenings and the nights. Evenings, there isn’t always enough work to keep her mind from going back to it.