Excerpt

Chapter One

0530 East Coast of Puerto Rico,
Casa del Sol Resort

"Daddy, Daddy, it's daytime! C'mon let's go launch the rocket," said Troy after bursting into his parent's room. After what seemed like an eternity with no response Troy tried to wake his dad again.

"Wake up, Dad. You promised." Troy got a few grunts but no response and ran out of the room to grab his model rocket and launching equipment.

"Steven, you'd better wake up," said Cindy, his wife.

"I've had to listen to you guys talk about building that rocket for the last three months. If you don't get up now not only will you lose credibility with your eight year-old but I will be mad at you forever for waking me up at 5:30 am on my vacation!"

Troy hopped back into the room with his rocket and a severe case of bed-head hair. Steven said, "Okay, okay. Troy, put on your shoes and brush your teeth." trying to appease the two most important people in his life and while buying a little more time to wake up.

"Don't leave without changing into your new shorts and shirt," Cindy added. Only a mother would be concerned with how her kid looked at dawn on vacation.

Now more coherent, Steven said, "Let's launch that rocket as soon as the sun is up... just like we talked about."

0530 20,000 feet over the Caribbean.

Lieutenant Jim "Granny" Grantham said "Tophat 110, on station, 1+45, two souls." with his best professional voice. He was trying to cover up the boredom of spending another three hours airborne with nothing exciting to do except spending another three hours airborne.

"Beaner," said Granny to Lieutenant Commander James "Beaner" Rodriguez, "I don't want to sound ungrateful but what the hell did we do before the Berlin Wall fell and we had eight years of a Democrat president. I mean we've flown in circles for the last two months. No missile shots, no dog fighting, no low-level flying, no good movies, nothing. I mean the junior guys don't even talk about the fun stuff anymore. All I think about is what I'm gonna do between these boring flights. I mean I can only read so many books and lift so many weights. Doesn't boredom become just as dangerous as combat?"

Beaner let Granny's remarks digest a few seconds so he could sound more authoritative. Granny was right that boredom could kill. Then again, Beaner remembered the days when he lost a few friends to fatal accidents because they were flying around the clock to make sure the Berlin Wall fell. Beaner said, "Look Granny, we have three hours up here alone with no distractions.

You concentrate on flying; I'll concentrate on the radar and radios. And every now and then I'll give you some what-ifs so you'll be prepared for your mission commander exam."

"Okay," Granny said. Under his breath he muttered, "When am I ever going to do something exciting like what I signed up for?"

Sixty miles outside of Washington, DC in a mountain cabin.

"What about Miller and Fiedler? They owe me," thundered President Donohoe. "God damn it, I went on 60 Minutes to save their candy-ass bill."

"They won't return our calls, Mr. President," said Trey Linville, a low-level staffer.

The President was fuming. He launches his re-election campaign next week and he has no Party support from either the House or Senate and the usual donors are not contributing as much if at all.

"Is anyone on my side? What about Mansfield, Jepson, Hochelder, Steinem? Hell, I made those guys," the President paused as he scanned his advisors for any signs of confidence.