After the mock execution, he had truly believed that he was ready to die, and
that had made it easier to endure everything that had followed. But he had
been given a second life, one that included not just Julie but a new daughter
and the chance to start with a clean slate.
Yet he’d come back to this life, and some day it would take him for its
own. He would lose everything and the two people he cared about most would
have to go on without him. He wasn’t just playing with his own life, but with
theirs.
That thought hurt worst of all.
“Coyote?” He rolled over again. It was Tombstone, looking haggard and
drawn with a uniform that looked like it had been slept in. “They say you
check out fine, Coyote. You’ll be flying again in no time.”
“Yeah?” He couldn’t muster any enthusiasm.
Magruder took a step toward him and stopped. “Hey, look, man, I wish I’d
been out there with you guys. Maybe if CAG had let me go up there things
would’ve been different.”
“Sure,” Grant said. “You’d be dead and he’d be alive. Hell of a trade,
huh?”
After their confrontation outside CAG’s office Coyote had cooled down
enough to realize that Magruder hadn’t deliberately turned his back on him,
but the gulf between them was still there. Even as tired as Tombstone plainly
was, Coyote could see that same wistfulness in his friend’s eyes. Magruder
wanted to recapture something in the past, something he’d lost … the same
thing Coyote still had but would gladly have given up in exchange for the
chance to live in peace with his family. That gap between the two men could
only get wider the way things were going now.
Tombstone forced a feeble smile and broke the long, awkward silence.
“Hey, look, the least you can do is try to bribe me to give you a good
efficiency report. I mean, what’s the good of being best buddy to your new
CAG if you don’t use it, huh?”
“Damn it, Stoney, leave me alone!” Coyote exploded. “Just leave me the
hell alone!”
Magruder took a step back, as if recoiling from a blow, and his face grew
hard. “I would if I could,” he said harshly. “I’m sorry you seem to think
I’ve suddenly become the enemy or something. I never wanted that.” He
paused. “I came down here because I needed you. I was thinking about Korea,
and I realized how much our friendship always meant to me, how it helped keep
me sane sometimes. But even if I can’t have your friendship anymore, I still
need you. We’re up against it, Will, and I need help sorting out what to tell
the admiral.”
“I can’t help you with that,” Grant said quietly. He wanted to say
something more, to try to explain or apologize, whatever it would take to get
past the empty look in Tombstone’s eyes. But Magruder didn’t give him the
chance.
“That dogfight yesterday … it was a good trap, but it didn’t work. The
Russians screwed up and didn’t finish you guys off when they probably could
have. I want to know why. If we end up going up against them again, I need
to be able to make them screw up again and give us a chance to win. Without
some kind of edge we’ll never pull it off.”
“What do you want from me?” Coyote asked. “We fought, we got our asses
kicked, the cavalry showed up. That’s all I know.”
“Come on, Will. You were up there in that dogfight. In command, for all
intents and purposes. I wasn’t there, and all I’ve got to go on are the
reports from the Hawkeye and a few vague ideas. Why did the Russians pull
those planes out?”
He shrugged, unable or unwilling to come to grips with the question
himself. “Ask Batman. Or Ears.”
“God damn it, Will, I’m asking you! It’s your instincts I need. Your
nose for tactics. The Hawkeye report makes it look like they pulled those
planes out because our Hornets were forming up over Jeff. Was that it? Were
they screening their carrier, or did they just think they didn’t need the