there. But until this has a chance to settle out, I don’t want you in
the no-fly zone.” He looked at Batman. “You’ll see to the scheduling?”
“Aye, aye, CAG,” Wayne said. He sounded unhappy.
“All right, then. Case closed, at least for the moment. You’re all
dismissed.”
The four from Bird Dog Flight filed out of the office, but Coyote didn’t
leave. “You have a problem?” Magruder asked him when the door closed
behind Garrity.
“More than you can imagine,” Grant said. “But a couple of immediate
concerns. Don’t you think you could’ve been a little nastier? Like maybe
call off Christmas or something?”
“We’ve had this talk before, Will,” Magruder said with a sigh. He leaned
back in his chair. “CAG staff’s not like being in the squadron, not even
like being squadron CO. You know how I feel about Batman and Malibu. And
those two kids are going to be hot when they get some seasoning, as good
as we ever were.”
“Better, maybe.”
“Maybe. But I can’t be their buddy anymore. Neither can you. our
responsibility isn’t to the individuals, or to the squadron. it’s to the
whole Air Wing, to the Jefferson, and to the mission. If this incident
had resulted in Americans being killed due to friendly fire, I’d’ve been
forced to recommend relieving them of duty. A court of inquiry. You
think I’d want something like that hanging over Batman? Next to you,
he’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t like it much,” Coyote said quietly. “Sometimes I think I wasn’t
cut out for this staff shit. Maybe I should’ve turned you down.”
“You can’t sit in the cockpit forever, Coyote,” Tombstone told him. He
jerked a thumb at a mug that sat on the corner of his desk. A dozen
cigars stuck out of it, still in their original wrappings. They had
belonged to Tombstone’s predecessor as CAG, the man who’d taught him at
Top Gun school years before. He kept them on his desk as a reminder of
the lessons the man had taught him, both at Top Gun and later, when
Magruder was his Deputy CAG and Jefferson was sailing into the Norway
crisis. “Stinger Stramaglia made my life a living hell when I was his
deputy. But he also taught me that if I didn’t grow I’d end up being
left behind. The first time I realized just how big this damned job was
I almost cracked. All I wanted was a chance to strap on a Tomcat and go
up with the Vipers again. Trouble is, that isn’t an option. Sometimes
you have to sit behind the desk and cope with all the petty little
details so the other guys can get in the air.”
“I’m just not sure I can cut myself off from everything that’s gone
before,” Grant told him. “I’m not a machine.”
“Neither am I. I’m worse. I’m the CAG.” Magruder looked away. “You said
there were a couple of things bothering you. What else?”
Coyote frowned. “Just wondering if you knew what you were doing with
Mason.”
“By rights, I should’ve grounded him. I have the impression he saw
exactly what he wanted to see out there, and we damn near lost an
American air crew. I took it easy on him because. .. well, because I’m
not a machine. He’s got the makings of a good aviator, but he needs some
drudgery to put things into perspective.”
“I read his file. He’s got friends in high places.” Magruder raised an
eyebrow. “His sponsor when he applied to Annapolis. Sammie Reed
represented his district and made the recommendation.”
“Well, well. Our brand-new Secretary of Defense.” Magruder shrugged.
“If I read Mason, he isn’t the sort to run for help just because he gets
his ears pinned back.”
“Yeah, but you know how these things get out. He mentions it in a
letter, somebody back home gets outraged, phone calls get made. ..”
“You really think it could be a problem?”
“Come on, Stoney, wake up and smell the avgas! George Vane resigned as
Secretary of Defense because of policy disagreements with the President.
Mostly the Kola deployment, but also all the damned social experiments.