BEALETON, VIRGINIA
Sandra Carmichael turned off Route 17, taking 644 eastward. Following the signs, she soon came to a private air park. She drove past the sign advertising orientation flights on weekends, May through October.
Terry Keegan was waiting for her. There wasn’t much activity on a Friday morning in April.
Sandy found him where he said he would be: with his head in the accessory section of an odd-looking, cherry red airplane. It had a racy, pugnacious appearance, from its chrome spinner to its round tail. She approached him from behind but he sensed her presence.
“Isn’t it great?” Keegan enthused. “I’m a one-third partner in this beauty. Beech built 781 of them and even though there’s a few hundred still flying, they’re real spendy.”
Carmichael was mildly curious. “Why’s that?”
“Well, this is the Beech Model 17, better known as the Staggerwing because of the negative stagger of the top wing. It’s a classic from the golden age of aviation. It dates from 1932, so it’s an antique. You can fly to any air show in the country and automatically park with the exhibitors so you get to see all the other planes up close. Then you can fly home faster than most current light planes.”
“How fast is it?”
Keegan patted the propeller. “She’ll do an honest two hundred miles per hour straight and level, and she’ll outcruise some Bonanzas. In fact, Staggerwings won a lot of races in the 1930s. But she lands at about forty-five, so there’s not many places you can’t get into.”
Carmichael thought she should feign interest. “How old is this one?”
“It’s one of the last twenty, built in 1947.”
Carmichael looked into the cabin and emitted a low whistle. “Boy, it smells like a new car!”
“Yeah, we had the seats reupholstered last year. Mohair and leather were factory standard, so that’s what we got. Carries five people and all the luggage you can stuff into it.”
“Terry, are we going to fly or what?”
The former submarine hunter could not suppress a smile. “Hey, Colonel, why do you think I asked you to meet me here?”
Having already performed the preflight inspection, Keegan helped Sandy into the right seat, then settled in the left. After priming the Pratt and Whitney R985, he turned on the fuel pump, checked left and right, switched the magnetos to Both, and called out, “Clear prop!” The Wasp Junior settled into a throaty rumble. He waited a few minutes, allowing the engine to reach operating temperature.
The pilot closed his door and, satisfied with the pressure and temperature gauges, eased on some throttle. The Beech rolled toward the downwind end of the grass runway, ess-turning so Keegan could see around the nose.
After a final check, Keegan smoothly advanced the throttle. The tail came up and he tracked straight ahead, nudging right rudder to keep the Beech in the center of the strip. Lift quickly overcame gravity as thrust defeated drag and the Staggerwing galloped off the earth behind 450 horses.
The landing gear retracted into the well with a thump-thump as Keegan adjusted power for cruise climb. Headed northeast, he pointed out Warrenton broad on the port beam with Calverton at ten o’clock. He turned to the Alabaman. “Hey, you’re a military pro. There’s Manassas ahead of us and Fredericksburg down there to the right.” He grinned slyly. “Here there be rebels, Colonel.”
Sandy squirmed in her seat and adjusted the earphones. She appreciated Virginia’s verdant vista, but she had other things on her mind. “Terry, you know we’re sending a training team to Chad.”
“Yeah, I heard something about it. I’m glad I’m not going there!”
She turned her head toward him, removed her sunglasses, and looked into his eyes.
He grimaced. “Oooh no…”
“Now wait a minute,” she interjected. “You wouldn’t have to be there all the time. In fact, you wouldn’t have to be there much at all. We just need somebody in the area who could, you know, help out if need be.”
Keegan laughed, then lapsed into his Irish brogue. “Colonel darling, sure and you’re talkin’ about a dustoff on a hot LZ!”
She conceded, “Well, yeah, something like that. It’s not that we actually think anything will happen, Terry. But you know the admiral’s policy. We never leave any SSI people in a position where we can’t get them out, even if we have to do it ourselves.” Terry can’t refuse the admiral, she reminded herself. She knew that Mike Derringer lived by the creed: loyalty down breeds loyalty up.
Terry nodded, scanning the instruments. “Roger that. Remember me? Last Chance Keegan they call me. As in, Guatemala. As in, Pakistan.”
Sandy thought better of pressing the matter so she changed the subject. “You know, my youngest daughter thinks she wants to fly. But she can’t decide if she would rather go with the Air Force or Navy.”
Keegan recalled the naval aviation axiom. Air Force: flare to land, squat to pee. He decided against expressing his service preference. Instead, he observed, “And you an Army family? What’s the matter with that girl?”
Carmichael curled her lips. “Oh, Emily wants to fly jets. Then she wants to pilot the space shuttle.”
“Ah-ha.” Keegan let it go at that. Privately, he disdained females who only saw the military as a way into NASA. He had never known a woman aviator who wanted to bomb and strafe more than she wanted to fly the damned shuttle.
Finally he turned and looked at his passenger. “Tell me more about Chad.”