Brother's Keeper. Joaquin De Torres
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the bottle, moved to the couch and put his feet on the coffee table.
Jordan’s plane. He checked the time on the screen and cursed to himself that he had already missed half of the one-hour episode.
“. . .And to this day, the speed, ceiling and mission of the Cyclone is classified by the Department of Defense. Industry officials were free to release the average speed of the plane as Mach 3.8, which makes it the fastest on Earth; however, there are rumors that the engine technology designed by WEPS can put the plane upwards of Mach 4 or 5. But no one, save the pilots, designers and builders themselves will ever know.
“Sales and exports of the F-1 are prohibited by Congressional law even to our closest allies. But it’s not to say that other nations haven’t tried to find out, and have even used clandestine means to possess its secrets. Just last year, seven Lockheed-Martin employees involved in the jet’s production plant were convicted of conspiracy to sell trade secrets, blueprints, and samples of the plane’s composite materials to China. The men were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison without parole.
“China is by far the biggest solicitor of information concerning the F-1. One Pentagon official stated that if China were to incorporate the F-1’s abilities and power plant into their own stealth fighter program, it would shift the balance of air superiority in the world.”
Jason downed another shot.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he spat. “You can’t keep secrets from the Chinese; they have too much money. Sooner or later, for the right price, someone is going to just hand them the fucking plane. There’s no such thing as national loyalty anymore; that shit’s out of style. It’s all about money.”
“Amazingly, the Navy has a near perfect safety record with the Cyclone; in fact, in the last four years since its maiden flight, only one plane has suffered a casualty. And in that casualty an American hero was lost.
“No,” Jason breathed pleadingly. “No, no, no! Don’t make me watch this.” He reached for the remote but just couldn’t turn it off.
“That tragedy occurred just three years ago when a squadron of F-1s from the carrier USS George Washington was on patrol north of Taiwan in the East China Sea. It was at night and in stormy conditions when a freak lightning bolt hit one of the five F-1s. The plane exploded instantly at 55,000 feet. The escalating lightning storm caused the group to disperse and head back to the carrier.
“This incident shocked the U.S. Navy and the country when the pilot was identified as Lieutenant Jordan Li, the world’s only modern combat ace, who in his first year serving in the Iranian War, shot down no less than 12 Iranian fighters. He also destroyed countless strategic positions and had a 97 percent success rate on bombing missions.”
“NO!!! WHY DO I HAVE TO SEE THIS!?” Jason jumped to his feet, winding back his arm as if to hurl the shot glass at the TV. Then a photo of his brother flashed on the screen. He was wearing his flight suit, holding his helmet and smiling from a Navy F-35C cockpit. Jordan’s slicked-back hair, sharply chiseled face and almond-cut Asian eyes was displayed in several Navy file photos, yet they looked more like modeling shots. Jason dropped down to the sofa from weakened legs, his tears spilling forth.
“How can this be on right now?” he whimpered, pressed within the torment that he had long suppressed.
“Lieutenant Li was already a superstar in the naval aviation community when his plane was struck down that tragic night. The Navy and the nation lost a proven hero. He was only 26.” The segment pulled to commercial with Jordan’s face gradually fading out. Jason turned off the TV and put both hands to his quivering face. He lied full out on the couch as the anguish poured over him like hot sand.
Jordan Li was not only his brother, but his childhood guardian, high school protector, and college mentor. Four years older, Jordan had to be a man at a very early age. After the death of their parents when they were in elementary school, Jordan helped raise him with 60-year-old Uncle Yu, their father’s brother and only blood relative in the Bay Area.
When the boys moved in with their uncle in Richmond, it was Jordan who acted as their second father. His sense of responsibility, justice, and temperance guided Jason through the years, protecting him, nurturing him, and making him strong and independent. They promised to never leave each other throughout life; it was a promise so strong that Jason tried to emulate as much of his brother as he could.
Following in Jordan’s footsteps to UC Berkeley, Jason graduated with honors in computer engineering and joined the Navy, while Jordan was already a rising star as a navy aviator cadet. After scoring nearly perfect on his Aviation Selection Test Battery, Jason entered the naval pilot pipeline, hoping to be stationed with Jordan and fly missions together from the same aircraft carrier.
As he began the arduous 48 months of Naval Aviator Cadet training, Jordan was already making a name for himself in the fleet. In his first two years as an F-35C Lightning III combat pilot, Jordan’s magnificence in the Gulf of Oman was noticed early. Stationed onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in only his second mission, his three-plane detachment was jumped by a squadron of seven Iranian Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighters. He shot down two planes and forced a third to ditch in the gulf.
On his third mission against Iranian ground targets, he destroyed two Flankers and completed his ground support bomb drop, crippling a supply depot. On his sixth mission, he shot down his fifth plane, making him the only combat ace in modern times; and by his tenth sortie, he had shot down nine enemy planes, maximizing the F-35’s cutting-edge sensors and WEPS-designed air-to-air missiles. Jordan Li was already a legend at the age of 26, and nothing could have thrilled and enthralled his younger brother more.
During that same year, Jason had completed his qualifications in carrier take-off and landings as part of the Carrier Training Wing, aboard the USS Nimitz off San Diego. Like his brother, Jason completed all of his aviation training at or near the top of his class, earning glowing evaluations from the staff of Naval Air Training Command, who gave similar marks to Jordan just three years prior. Jason transitioned into the 23-week Advanced Strike pipeline, which would secure his spot in an F-35C fighter. His dream to join his brother in the fleet was coming to fruition.
But that all changed when at the latter part of his second year of carrier duty, Jordan was recruited by then DSC head canvasser Commander Rudy Miller. He was given the chance to train in the new F1 Cyclone stealth fighter, and join the ultra secret Black Crow Squadron. At the end of Advance Strike training, Jason received orders to Naval Air Station, Lemoore, California, home of VFA-122-the Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) where he would begin training and mastering the F-35C. It was the same FRS that trained Jordan, and the command treated Jason as if he was the brother of a celebrity.
As his training on the newly modified F-35 continued, contact between the two brothers grew more and more infrequent. On one phone call, Jordan said that the security surrounding his training was so tight, that he had to delete his Facebook, Twitter and e-mail accounts, as the Navy warned that these sites were constantly monitored by cyber squads looking for information that could be useful to enemy analysts.
DOD scientists, commanding officers, and aviators were heavily targeted, so they communicated via cell phone exclusively. It didn’t take long before the calls and the texts by Jordan began to dwindle. Jason realized that his brother was flying combat and national security missions, and had neither the time, nor the privacy to engage in the social habits of earlier years. This left Jason to find his own life and professional circle among his fellow aviators. Unknowingly to him, his elder brother was learning and perfecting the dark dynamics of black ops missions from the sky.
Jason blinked hard. He sat up and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. He reached for the bottle and simply raised it to his lips, taking a long swig, remembering when they told him the news.
“Son,” started Commander Leon Guerrero, full of remorse; “There’s been an accident.” It took only two sentences by his squadron commander to throw Jason into a screaming, crying spasm. Three fellow officers had to restrain him as he howled, wheezing with tears and disbelief.
“HE CAN’T BE DEAD! HE CAN’T