Lloyd, will you tell me what the hell this is all about?”
Buckley chuckled. “As a matter of fact, Anson, we were hoping you might be able to tell us. I know that you’re theoretically retired, but do you think you could get your aging bones off to Washington first thing tomorrow? The White House has called a meeting of high honchos and overlords to discuss our likely response to the—ah—event, and we’re bringing in a little cadre of special consultants who might just be of some help.”
“That’s pretty short notice,” the Colonel heard himself saying, to his own horror. The last thing he wanted was to sound reluctant. Quickly he said: “But yes, yes, absolutely yes. I’d be delighted.”
“The whole thing came on pretty short notice for all of us, my friend. If we have an Air Force helicopter on your front lawn at half past five tomorrow morning to pick you up, do you think you could manage to clamber aboard?”
“You know I could, Lloyd.”
“Good. I was sure you’d come through. Be outside and waiting for us, yes?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“Hasta la mañana,” Buckley said, and he was gone.
The Colonel stared in wonder at the phone in his hand. Then he slowly folded it up and put it away.
Washington? Him? Tomorrow?
A great goulash of emotions surged through him as the realization that they had actually called him sank in: relief, satisfaction, surprise, pride, vindication, curiosity, and five or six other things, including a certain sneaky and unset- ding measure of apprehensiveness about whether he was really up to the job. Fundamentally, he was thrilled. On the simplest human level it was good, at his age, just to be wanted, considering how unimportant he had felt when he had finally packed in his career and headed for the ranch. On the loftier level of Carmichael tradition, it was fine to have a chance to serve his country once more, to be able to make oneself useful again in a time of crisis.
All of that felt very, very good.
Provided that he could be of some use, of course, in the current—ah—event.
Provided.
The only way that Mike Carmichael could keep himself from keeling over from fatigue, as he guided his DC-3 back to Van Nuys to load up for his next flight over the fire zone, was to imagine himself back in New Mexico where he had been only twenty-four hours before, alone out there under a bare hard sky flecked by occasional purple clouds. Dark sandstone monoliths all around him, mesas stippled with sparse clumps of sage and mesquite, and, straight ahead, the jagged brown upthrusting pinnacle that was holy Ship Rock— Tse Bit’a’i, the Navajo called it, the Rock with Wings—that spear of congealed magma standing high above the flat arid silver-gray flatness of the desert floor like a mountain that had wandered down from the moon.
He loved that place. He had been entirely at peace there.
And to have come back from there smack into this— frantic hordes jamming every freeway in panicky escape from they knew not what, columns of filthy smoke staining the sky, houses erupting into flame, nightmare creatures parading around in a shopping-mall parking lot, Cindy a captiveaboard a spaceship from another star, a spaceship from another star, a spaceship from another star—
No. No. No. No.
Think of New Mexico. Think of the emptiness, the solitude, the quiet. The mountains, the mesas, the perfection of the unblemished sky. Clear your mind of everything else.
Everything.
Everything.
He landed the plane at Van Nuys a few minutes later like a man who was flying in his sleep, and went on into Operations HQ.
Everybody there seemed to know by this time that his wife was one of the hostages. The officer that Carmichael had asked to wait for him was gone. He wasn’t very surprised by that. He thought for a moment of trying to go over to the ship by himself, to get through the cordon and do something about getting Cindy free, but he realized that that was a dumb idea:
Buckley chuckled. “As a matter of fact, Anson, we were hoping you might be able to tell us. I know that you’re theoretically retired, but do you think you could get your aging bones off to Washington first thing tomorrow? The White House has called a meeting of high honchos and overlords to discuss our likely response to the—ah—event, and we’re bringing in a little cadre of special consultants who might just be of some help.”
“That’s pretty short notice,” the Colonel heard himself saying, to his own horror. The last thing he wanted was to sound reluctant. Quickly he said: “But yes, yes, absolutely yes. I’d be delighted.”
“The whole thing came on pretty short notice for all of us, my friend. If we have an Air Force helicopter on your front lawn at half past five tomorrow morning to pick you up, do you think you could manage to clamber aboard?”
“You know I could, Lloyd.”
“Good. I was sure you’d come through. Be outside and waiting for us, yes?”
“Right. Absolutely.”
“Hasta la mañana,” Buckley said, and he was gone.
The Colonel stared in wonder at the phone in his hand. Then he slowly folded it up and put it away.
Washington? Him? Tomorrow?
A great goulash of emotions surged through him as the realization that they had actually called him sank in: relief, satisfaction, surprise, pride, vindication, curiosity, and five or six other things, including a certain sneaky and unset- ding measure of apprehensiveness about whether he was really up to the job. Fundamentally, he was thrilled. On the simplest human level it was good, at his age, just to be wanted, considering how unimportant he had felt when he had finally packed in his career and headed for the ranch. On the loftier level of Carmichael tradition, it was fine to have a chance to serve his country once more, to be able to make oneself useful again in a time of crisis.
All of that felt very, very good.
Provided that he could be of some use, of course, in the current—ah—event.
Provided.
The only way that Mike Carmichael could keep himself from keeling over from fatigue, as he guided his DC-3 back to Van Nuys to load up for his next flight over the fire zone, was to imagine himself back in New Mexico where he had been only twenty-four hours before, alone out there under a bare hard sky flecked by occasional purple clouds. Dark sandstone monoliths all around him, mesas stippled with sparse clumps of sage and mesquite, and, straight ahead, the jagged brown upthrusting pinnacle that was holy Ship Rock— Tse Bit’a’i, the Navajo called it, the Rock with Wings—that spear of congealed magma standing high above the flat arid silver-gray flatness of the desert floor like a mountain that had wandered down from the moon.
He loved that place. He had been entirely at peace there.
And to have come back from there smack into this— frantic hordes jamming every freeway in panicky escape from they knew not what, columns of filthy smoke staining the sky, houses erupting into flame, nightmare creatures parading around in a shopping-mall parking lot, Cindy a captiveaboard a spaceship from another star, a spaceship from another star, a spaceship from another star—
No. No. No. No.
Think of New Mexico. Think of the emptiness, the solitude, the quiet. The mountains, the mesas, the perfection of the unblemished sky. Clear your mind of everything else.
Everything.
Everything.
He landed the plane at Van Nuys a few minutes later like a man who was flying in his sleep, and went on into Operations HQ.
Everybody there seemed to know by this time that his wife was one of the hostages. The officer that Carmichael had asked to wait for him was gone. He wasn’t very surprised by that. He thought for a moment of trying to go over to the ship by himself, to get through the cordon and do something about getting Cindy free, but he realized that that was a dumb idea:
Similar Books
