The Warbirds Read Free

the chance to command and prove his ability. However, the same generals kept a stable of colonels in reserve, ready to take over the reins from their fellow colonel who faltered or drew up lame.
    And Shaw knew that the activities of Lieutenant Jackson D. Locke had the potential to get him relieved of duty.
    He picked up the hotline to Locke’s squadron, and made a mental note to count the rings before the duty officer answered. The phone had not even completed its first ring when it was picked up; all very satisfactory.
    “Have Lieutenant Colonel Fairly report to my office ASAP,” he ordered. “And have Lieutenant Locke in my outer office on the double.”
     
    Jack Locke buffed at his boots with unusual ferocity, bringing them to a high shine.
    “I don’t think that’s going to save your butt this time,” the duty officer, Captain James “Thunder” Bryant, observed.
    Jack looked up at his friend and grunted before returning to his task.
    “Have you told Colonel Fairly yet? The boss doesn’t need any surprises this early in the morning.”
    “He isn’t in yet. He flew late last night with Johnny Nelson. He should be here in five minutes or so.” Locke’s dark blond hair flew back and forth to the beat of the brush strokes. He tried very hard not to sweat, even though he had reason to…Thunder picked up the rhythm and beat a tattoo on the desk, adding to Jack’s discomfort. “Knock it off,” he said, throwing the brush into its box. “I think I’ve really stepped on it this time.” He glanced out the window toward the empty spot reserved for the squadron commander’s car, biting his lower lip.
    A group of pilots and their backseaters straggled up to the duty officer’s station, a chest-high counter in front of a scheduling board, garnering Thunder’s attention. While Thunder gave the crews a last-minute update on the weather and field conditions, Jack focused his gaze on the concrete ramp in front of the building, studying an F-4 waiting on the expanse of concrete that reminded him of a beach without sand or water, with the hint of its purpose hidden over the near horizon and lost to his view. “God, I love that beast,” he muttered. “How the hell did I ever let last night happen?”
    Getting into the cockpit of a Phantom had been a long and tedious road for Locke. Now it was all in jeopardy. Jack’s turn in Egypt had been less than a success. Within a month, he had been thrown out of the Officers’ Club for practicing carrier landings on a beer-sloshed table; arrested for speeding on base in a dilapidated Ferrari he had recently bought from an Egyptian; and reprimanded for being too aggressive on the gunnery range while practicing dive bombing. He prayed everything would blow over in a few days. Other things in his life had…He had been washed out of the Air Force Academy because he flunked military science. He still couldn’t take the subject seriously. But he had learned from it, and pushed himself even harder at Arizona State, where he enrolled to finish college. It had been a walk-through after the discipline of the Academy. The Air Force’s ROTC program at Arizona had opened another path into pilot training. The advice of his ROTC instructor, an unrestrained fighter pilot, hadproved good so far; “If you keep your boots shined and your hair cut short, you can screw off until you make captain. After that, you’ll have to play the game.”
    Locke had thrown himself into pilot training and finished at the top of his class, but when the assignments came down, all the choice F-15 and F-16 slots went to Academy graduates. Locke went on a drunk, in the privacy of his apartment, but didn’t give up.
    Another instructor, a cynical, overweight lieutenant, kept him on track. “Bide your time and use the F-4 to your advantage. It’s an old fighter but a good one. If those pricks that got the F-15s and 16s can’t fly, being a Zoomy isn’t going to help them. You can fly better than any student