Red Thunder (5 page)

He came out of the fireball hoping to make Entebbe in Uganda... but
he couldn't see anything. The ship was filled with dense smoke. They
all would have been unconscious or dead without the emergency oxygen
masks. He had to find a way to clear the smoke from the cabin.

"He brought it down to about forty thousand and had another problem.
How do you make a hole to the outside, when the whole vehicle is
designed to prevent that? Can't open the door against the cabin
pressure. Can't even use the emergency explosive hatch bolts without
disarming a safety system, which was no longer disarmable because of
all four computers going down.

"But he did punch a hole in a window, and the smoke got sucked out.
So there he was, twenty thousand feet over the jungles of central
Africa. Nothing but green, far as the eye could see. No hope of making
it to Entebbe. Very little maneuverability in the VStar, even when
things are going right. There were enough hydraulics surviving to steer
the beast, a little, and that was about all he had going to him.

"So he rocked it to the left, looked out the window, and put the
damn thing through a three-sixty roll, which no one had ever tested in
a wind tunnel but anybody in his right mind would have said couldn't be
done. While he was upside down he spotted a line of red earth through
the trees, almost directly below him. Might be a runway, might not. He
put the ship into a turn twice as tight as the manufacturer
recommended, pulled about seventeen gees for a few seconds, blacked out
along with everybody else... and when he came to, lined the ship up
toward the red line.

"Turns out it was a runway, bulldozed out of the jungle and used by
bush doctors, ivory smugglers, and such. And about half the length
needed for a VStar rollout.

"Reconstructing it, later, the tire marks began just about ten feet
from one end of the runway. There were branches and leaves stuck in the
landing gear. The chutes and the brakes stopped the ship with its nose
gear twenty feet past the other end of the runway. Hitting a water
buffalo with the nose gear probably slowed it down a bit, too."

Travis had brought the
California
down at dusk. There were
no lights at the field, so the first Americans didn't get there until
the next morning. It was the ambassador to Congo and some of his staff,
and a small contingent of U.S. Marine embassy guards. There had been no
radio contact, so no one knew what to expect.

"The ambassador stepped out of his helicopter and into the remains
of a fine African barbecue. The crew had raised enough money among them
to pay for the water buffalo, and they had cooked it and danced and
drank long into the night. The farmers and herdsmen from the area all
had souvenirs of some kind. Space suits, crew seat cushions, packets of
Tang, bits and pieces of the instrument panel...

"So they killed another water buffalo, and the embassy staff, the marines, the
California
crew and passengers feasted all day and toasted everything they could
think of in buffalo blood mixed with vodka. And she sits there still."

"You're kidding."

"You doubt the Pig?"

"No. But I don't get it. NASA gave him a medal... but they made a much bigger deal out of other ships that almost crashed."

"Going all the way back to
Apollo 13
," Pig confirmed. "Not much they can do if the mission
really
goes balls-up. Three astronauts burned to death on the pad in
Apollo One. Challenger
blew up on live television. No way to soft-pedal those.

"The
California
wasn't much of a news story for a lot of
reasons. It was over before the media even heard of it. It was remote.
Nothing to show but that big old whale sitting in the dirt. NASA found
the image embarrassing. Everybody was okay, so what's the big deal?
Give him a medal and move on. Nobody's career would be advanced by
making a big deal, except Broussard's... and nobody quite knew what to
do about him."

"Why not? He sounds like a hero to me."

"Oh, he was. Maybe the biggest hero NASA ever had. One hell of a bit
of flying, and they still drink toasts to him in astronaut bars...
quietly.

"You didn't ask me how he made the hole in the spacecraft. The one
that sucked the smoke out and let him see. The hole that saved the
California
and crew."

"I was going to.

"It was hushed up. No one on the crew wanted to talk about it, and
neither did anyone higher up in the bureaucracy. But these things leak.
The Pig learned of it years ago, and because of his great respect for
Colonel Broussard, seldom tells it. But I sense you mean Broussard no
harm."

"Of course not. None of my business."

"Quite so. Broussard made the hole with a nonstandard piece of astronaut equipment known as a Colt .45 automatic."

We both just let that one hang there for a minute. A pistol? For what, protection from space aliens?

"He might have got away with it if he hadn't told the inquiry board
himself. Not one of the passengers or crew said a word about it in
their debriefing. They knew they were alive because of the gun and
Broussard's piloting skills.

"I have it from one of the inquiry board members that Broussard told
the debriefers he just 'felt naked' without a piece of some sort. So
he'd carried the weapon on all his previous flights."

Travis became the sort of problem bureaucrats hate. There were those
who wanted to kick his redneck ass out of the astronaut corps, a few
who would like to send him a bill for the
California.
But he
had saved a lot of lives, and those he saved promised a really ugly
fight in the media if Broussard was punished in any way.

"So they did what the military customarily does when a man screws up
so badly he ends up being a hero," Pig said. "They gave him a medal and
a promotion, and swept the dirty details under the rug."

"Okay," I said. "But that doesn't really explain—"

"Why he's an un-person? No, of course not."

"So why is he?"

Pig grinned, and shook his head.

"I said I'd tell you about the medal, Spacemanny," he said. "Wild
horses could not tear the rest of the story out of me. I have too much
respect for Broussard, a real 'Right Stuff' dude if ever there was
one." He waved, and was gone.

I guess that was enough to think about for one night, anyway.

IT WAS A week later, and it was the worst kind of day,
for me. Low eighties, lots of sunshine. It was the start of spring
break and every other car was a rental convertible full of college
girls hurrying to get a Florida sunburn on their Minnesota skin in the
few days they had. They were dressed minimally in bikinis and thongs.
All of them on the lookout for handsome, suave beach bums like me and
Dak.

Actually, the "bums" part was all we could manage so far. But there
were wet T-shirt contests to attend, nightclubs to crash with our
first-rate false ID, beers that needed chugging, gutters that needed to
be puked in. Everything about the day cried out for me to be outside
taking part.

Instead, Dak and I were holed up in room 201 with the drapes and the
sliding glass patio doors closed and the air conditioner on in an
attempt to block out all the distractions. It wasn't working that well.
Every time we heard a horn honk or a girl's high-pitched laugh from
just outside we both looked longingly at the curtains.

"We go out there," Dak said, "we doomed. We're just going to get
'faced and blow the whole day, and tomorrow with a hangover and maybe
part of the next day."

"I know that," I said, irritated. "Hell, I remember last year. Do you?"

"Not much," he admitted.

Last year had not been anything to be proud of. Our friendship was
new at the time, and both of us had been severely depressed at being
turned down at half a dozen colleges. I knew a guy who produced Florida
drivers' licenses as good as the real ones, so we invested some money
meant for tuition, then went barhopping for three days and nights. No
need to get into too many sordid details. A lot of it will be hazy
forever, and just as well. I was sick for days.

"Girls up here at Daytona mostly a bunch of second-raters, anyway," Dak said.

"Right. All the pretty girls go to Lauderdale or Key West."

"You got that right."

Dak said a dirty word, then snapped his laptop computer shut.

"Look, no offense, but this place would depress that Crocodile Hunter guy."

"Yeah, but..."

"No, let's don't open the curtains, we'd never be able to resist it.
I know a place we can go and study and not be distracted. Well, not by
babes, anyway."

"Where's that?"

"Have I ever led you astray, amigo? Don't answer that. Come on, let's go."

What the hell. I closed my computer, too.

We left my room and the first thing we saw was my mother coming up
the stairs at the other end, looking determined. She was carrying her
long-barreled target pistol, checking the loads in the cylinder as she
walked. She looked up and saw us, frowned, and looked even more
determined.

"Jesus, Mom," I whispered as she tried to pass between us and the
maid's cart Aunt Maria had left there on the walkway. I grabbed her arm
and held on. "Didn't you say you would—"

"No time for that now, Manuel."

"It's drugs again, right?" It had to be drugs. If it was
prostitution she wouldn't have bothered with the artillery, just told
them to get out. Johns don't want any trouble.

But sometimes drug dealers just didn't care.

"Let us call the cops, Mrs. Garcia," Dak said. He already had his phone in his hand and had dialed 91. Mom pushed his hand away.

"I don't want cops, Dak honey. They get too many calls like that,
next thing you know they're closing you down as a public nuisance.
Don't worry, Manuel, I'm not going to shoot them unless they want an
argument."

"Oh, great." I saw Aunt Maria hurrying toward us, holding Mom's fine
old Mossburg gingerly. Maria doesn't like guns. Mom loves guns, as long
as she's the one pointing and shooting them. I stepped around Mom and
took the shotgun from Maria.

"Which room, Maria?" I asked.

"That one, 206. They've had six visitors in the last hour. I thought—"

"Yeah, it probably ain't a Mary Kay convention. Maria, you and Dak
stay back. Dak, you hear shooting, you press that last 1, okay?"

"
Loud
shooting," Mom said, holding her pistol pointed at the sky. "This thing doesn't make much more noise than a cork gun."

She was downplaying it a little, but the revolver really wasn't very
noisy. It was only a .22 but it looked strange, being a match weapon
saved from the days when Mom liked to shoot competitively, and had the
time for it.

How good was she? If you asked her to shoot a mosquito in the air,
she'd ask if you wanted a head shot, or one through the kneecap.

She looked at me, took a deep breath, and nodded. We'd done this
sort of takedown before. It was that kind of neighborhood. I moved the
maid cart off to one side so it wouldn't get in our way. Mom rapped on
the door with the gun barrel.

"This is the manager, Mr. Smeth. Open up, please." Later I got out
the check-in slips and saw he really had signed in with that name:
Homer Smeth. We get an amazing number of Smiths, but this was the first
one who didn't know how to spell it.

"Buzz off. We're busy."

Mom knocked once more, got more or less the same answer, and nodded to me. She slipped her master key into the lock.

I reached up into the brickwork and pulled the little hidden toggle
there. It was connected to a bolt that held the inside chain-lock plate
to the wall. When the bolt was pulled, it looked like the door was
chained securely, but it wasn't. I'd installed that little item on most
of our rooms. Saves having to bust down the door. Lots cheaper.

I nodded at her, and she turned the handle. The door swung open and
she stepped in, the gun held in front of her. I stepped around her and
did my best to glower at them.

Homer Smeth was sitting at the desk, a baggie of white powder open
in front of him. He had been busy measuring out doses with a razor
blade and putting each dose into one of those tiny Ziplocs that, so far
as I can tell, are not good for anything but dope.

Heroin? Probably coke. It made no difference. Neither were tolerated
at the Blast-Off. Sitting on the bed partially dressed and watching
television was Homer's sidekick, the guy he had checked in with a few
hours ago. With him was a girl who looked about fourteen except in the
eyes, which were a lot older.

"Now we told you when you checked in we didn't allow dealing in this
place, Homer," Mom said. She waved the gun, indicating the door. "Y'all
better pack your things and go."

Homer just stared at her with his mouth slightly open. It looked
like he had about a pound of powder on the desk. He was mixing it with
baby laxative. The couple on the bed didn't move, either.

At last Homer seemed to work it all out. He smiled, showing the two
missing teeth I remembered from when I checked him and his scumbag
friend in. He held up one of the little bags of dope.

"Don't get your panties in a twist, sister. How 'bout a couple snorts of this?"

Mom didn't hesitate. The gun came up and barked once, and the tiny
plastic bag between his fingertips vanished. Fine white powder floated
in the air like chalk dust. He stared at the empty space, once more too
stoned to quite realize what had happened. All three of them were doing
the stupidest thing a dope dealer can do, which is sample the product.
At the Blast-Off, we didn't even get a very good grade of narcotics
trafficker. And that's a good thing, because with
those
dudes we'd have been in a gunfight, and
those
dudes carried more firepower.