“Who said I was put on the bricks?” Andy asked with a touch of defensiveness.
“Everybody say so. The word on the street is you got in big trouble for something or maybe had a fight with Hammer.”
“I was getting my pilot’s license and several additional ratings.”
“I know it didn’t take you no forty hours a week for a whole year to learn how to fly. And your ratings took what? Maybe two, three weeks each? So what was you doing the rest of the time? Just running women and watching TV?”
“Maybe.”
“You gonna tell me what you did to get suspended?” Macovich persisted.
“No,” Andy said sullenly, deciding he might as well allow the rumor to persist because no one, including Macovich, could know the truth about Trooper Truth.
“Well, no one would guess you’d have a messed-up life. Anybody looking at you would think you’re the happiest son of a bitch in town,” Macovich added with a prick of jealousy.
“We need new pilots.” Andy changed the subject. “Right now, you and I are the only ones left.”
Macovich followed Andy’s gaze outside to the big helicopter and began to entertain a suspicion.
“I bet you want to fly the governor,” Macovich accused him from behind a cloud of smoke.
“Why not? Seems to me you could use a hand,” Andy nonchalantly replied as he instantly decided to approach the governor on the matter. “The First Family certainly ought to have more than one pilot, and what the hell do you do when it’s not VFR conditions?” he added, referring to Visual Flight Rules, which meant that weather conditions were good enough to fly by sight instead of instruments.
“Find some excuse for why the helicopter can’t take him wherever it is he wants to go,” Macovich replied. “I usually tell him there’s a maintenance problem or radar’s down.”
“You’ve got a four-thirty and you only fly in pretty weather?” Andy couldn’t believe it. “That thing was made to fly through clouds. Why do you think it’s got auto-pilot, IIDS, and EPHIS? Not to mention that smooth-as-silk rotor system. Hell, you could roll that bird like an F-sixteen. Not that I’m recommending it,” Andy was quick to add, since it was illegal to perform acrobatics in a helicopter. “But I have to admit, I did roll it on the simulator down in Fort Worth when I was at the Bell Training School. Slowed down to about a hundred knots, pointed the nose down at two thousand feet, pushed the cyclic all the way to the right, and around I went.”
The idea of being upside down in a helicopter gave Macovich a bad reaction and he inhaled as much smoke as he could to calm his nerves. “You one crazy ass,” he said. “No wonder you got suspended. Unless”–it suddenly occurred to Macovich–“you really wasn’t suspended but are up to something. On some secret project. Wooo!”
“Speaking of secrets,” Andy artfully dodged and deflected, “I wonder who Trooper Truth is.”
“Yeah, well, you ain’t the only one,” Macovich replied. “The governor wants to know something fierce, and he’s ordered me to figure it out. So if you got any ideas, I sure would ‘predate your passing them on.”
Andy didn’t reply.
“I’m curious, myself,” Macovich went on. “How’d he know about Tangier Island and what we was doing out there, huh? I read all about it in one of his columns on that web of his. It’s like he was there watching the whole thing.”
Andy said nothing, because he did not want to lie. Macovich turned his dark glasses on him as yet another suspicion hovered over his thoughts.
“You ain’t Trooper Truth, are you?” Macovich pressed him.” ‘Cause if you are, I promise to keep it a secret, long as you understand I got to tell the governor.”
“Listen, what makes you think I wouldn’t tell the governor myself if I knew who Trooper Truth was?” Andy sidestepped the question.
“Hmmm. I guess that’s a good point. If you knew, you would tell him and take all the credit,” Macovich considered.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Then who you think it is? I know it’s passed through my mind that maybe Major Trader’s doing it.”