Last Flight

It was pretty chilly in New Mexico, but it was a good kind of chilly. It was a dry kind of chilly, without a hint of snow anywhere in the air. And that was all Cyrus could have hoped for.

Also it was much closer to Texas. Much grief as his home gave him, it was still home. It felt good to call Catalina a few hours ago, from the airport phone booth. Though if he was being honest with himself, most of that good had come from hearing Catalina’s voice again. He’d missed her more than he thought he would. That might take some hard considering, once he was done with this and back in his hotel room. It might be time to make a decision on something he’d been avoiding thinking about.

That said, he’d needed to talk to her about this last guy. And the answers she’d given on how to approach this had been hesitant, almost wary. There was a story there, and hopefully the guy could clear it up.

Santa Fe was old. Someone had told him once it was the oldest city in the USA, and he believed it. A lot of it was modern now, but the trip through the city center showed a lot of older buildings, most of’em at least partially Spanish looking. Lots of construction around, lots of stucco on the main streets. The place looked to be doing its best to try and stand out from the rest of the cities he’d seen.

Cyrus wasn’t sure why. And he didn’t have time to give it much thought.

The place he was looking for was on the outskirts of town. He tipped the taxi driver well to wait for him at a nearby diner, and walked the remaining quarter of a mile down a street full of bungalow style houses, with lawns full of car parts and random junk and little plastic windmills that blew in the nonstop wind, and made clacking noises that reminded him of a horse walking on stone. He could feel eyes watching him from the twitching curtains on either side of the street, but nobody came out to harass him, or ask him his business. Part of that might just be the cold; now that he was out of the main part of the city, and away from the tall buildings that cut it, the wind was merciless.

Still not as bad as Aspen, though.

His legs were aching by the time he found the right house. They’d been aching since he took an unexpected sled ride down a mountain. So when he knocked on the door and the man inside didn’t point a gun at him, shoot him, or otherwise involve some variety of ballistic device into the conversation and just said “Come on in,” Cyrus felt a wave of relief that almost bordered on delirious joy.

“Howdy,” Cyrus said, as he looked up and down the short hall, and saw cluttered stacks of aviation magazines, old model kits, and framed photos. A couple of doorways lined each side, and an ancient radiator knocked and hissed, piping heat into the air and making Cyrus’ life so much easier.

“Through here,” came the voice again, through the close left doorway. “Can’t say I recognize your voice, friend. Have you come to kill me?”

“That’s a hell of a question,” Cyrus said.

“That wasn’t a no.”

“I’m not planning to kill you, no. Please don’t make me,” Cyrus bluffed.

The voice chuckled. Definitely a male voice, though higher pitched than most. “Then you better come on in. And hey, Merry Christmas. We’re almost there, you know.”

Cyrus planted his cane carefully and peered through the doorway. Then he relaxed, and walked in, easing down on the sofa in what looked to be a small living room.

The man across from him was wheelchair bound. His arms were thin and trembling. The room had a faint smell of ammonia and medicine, that stink of the unwell who couldn’t always keep themselves clean at all times. He had a wild blonde mustache, unkempt, and stubble all up and down his neck where some attempt at patchy shaving had taken place. He did have a well-trimmed crewcut, though. And a happy smile as he looked Cyrus over from head to toe.

“Charles Waller, I assume?” Cyrus asked.

“Chuck.” The man grinned, showing a mouthful of dentures. “Want some eggnog? I can get it from the kitchen right quick. Well, not right quick. Takes me a little time to get around these days.”

“That’s mighty tempting, but I reckon I’ll pass,” Cyrus said. “Got off a flight an hour ago. Takes a while for my stomach to settle after that.”

“Aw, I’m sorry. There’s nothing better than being up there, watchin’ the world go by.” Chuck got misty-eyed. “Couldn’t have done that if I had air sickness. Wouldn’t have gotten in the sky, if it weren’t for the Air Force.”

“You made Captain pretty quick, going by what your service record said.” Cyrus had only glanced at the plaques outside, but no small amount of them had medals, and certificates of achievement.

“Lost it all just as quick, too.” Chuck’s smile faded. “Bernice lied about me. I never laid a finger on her. Or did anything like what she said I did to Josie.”

“Josie… Josanna. Your daughter, right?” Cyrus remembered. And he also remembered the other things about this file. So he was glad that Chuck here was denying it, and really, really hoped that he was on the level. Because those charges and the reason for that court martial were why Cyrus had left this interview for last. And why he’d refused eggnog.

“Josie’s my daughter.” Chuck smiled, but it faded. “Well, not any more, technically. She’s her momma’s. Last I heard Bernice had dropped her off with her mother, so she could go off to Chicago with that feller I caught her knocking boots with. Did he make the file?”

“I don’t think so,” Cyrus said.

“Not really much to tell, there. Just some random fellow who was in my bed when I wasn’t. I don’t hold a grudge against him, but I admit I’m a little sore about the lady who I thought was my one and only. But when I kicked him out and yelled at her, she went to the neighbors and told them I’d hit her. And the Air Force can’t have one of its Captains going around beating their wives, so it was… suggested… that I retire early.”

“If things fell out like the way you’re implying, I don’t blame you for that.”

“For that.” Chuck said, giving him a look, seeming to sharpen and gain focus. Bomber’s focus, pilot’s focus. Cyrus felt himself being considered again. “You were enlisted?”

“I worked for a living.” Cyrus offered a faint smile. “Still do. Just not for the Army.”

“Then you’re here about Guatemala. And the stuff we did there.”

Cyrus found himself remembering Catalina’s hushed voice in his ear, the phone receiver cool and chilly against his earlobe. “Be careful. I’m not sure what story they want to tell about it, up here. Best to watch your words.”

“Guatemala’s a part of it,” Cyrus admitted. “But the main part is I’m here to offer you a job.”

“I’m not going back,” Chuck blurted out. “I can’t go back there. Not after what we did.”

“To Guatemala? No, the job’s nowhere near there. Maybe just as dangerous, though.”

Chuck snorted. “Wasn’t dangerous a bit. To me, anyway. Only reason I crashed is because the engine shorted out on me. It was a shitty little prop job we got from some nose candy mafia down around there. I had to check it out myself, and I thought it looked fine, but I was a pilot first and a mechanic second, and I should have gotten a second opinion on it instead of going drinking with the boys. But given the spooks we were working with, I didn’t want to run the risk that they’d get intel I didn’t passed on, and get told not to tell me. It was… we didn’t trust each other, down there.”

“The file’s a little light on details about Guatemala,” Cyrus said. “I know a lady who escaped from there. She won’t talk about it much. All I know is that it got bad.”

“Bad. Yeah.” Chuck’s lips twisted. “Most of it’s in my book. But I don’t reckon I’ll live to see it, so I can sum things up for you a little. If you’re game.”

Cyrus looked around at the tiny room, the snug little house. At the peeling wallpaper, and the layer of dust over most surfaces. He could nail it down now, the feeling he’d gotten since he saw the stacks of magazines that filled half the hall. This was a man who was waiting to die, and doing the bare minimum to keep comfortable and entertained until he went.

On the one hand, that made him good for the mission. Sort of. On the other hand, he might not have the motivation to keep going until it was done. Cyrus hated being manipulative, but he told himself that Chuck seemed to need a confessor right now, and if he said something that Cyrus could use to make him care about Rusty and the other kids, well, okay. They weren’t exactly drowning in a surplus of candidates for the breach team. Every body could make a difference.

And he WAS a little curious about why Catalina was quiet about this part of her life.

“Go on, shoot,” Cyrus said. “I’m here for another few hours. Got nowhere else to be.”

“So back around the time Korea started for us, nineteen fifty or so, this guy Arbenz won an election down in Guatemala. He had Russian ties. And he started taking the country down a Communist way. And eventually he got powerful enough he started seizing land held by US interests, gearing up to go full red, and being Russia’s pawn in this hemisphere. That was what we were told. I think some papers did a story on it at the time, this was… yeah, it was fifty-four. February, when a man came around to offer me a job. A man like you. Well… nicer dressed. He smiled more. Definitely never served.”

“I can grin if you want to,” Cyrus offered.

“Nah. It’s all right.” Chuck sighed. “I didn’t have many prospects at the time. I’d been drinking and dreading Valentine’s day alone. And I’d gotten into a dust-up with a fellow at church, so I wasn’t welcome there for a spell. I figured a few months abroad fighting commies would set me straight. Boy was I wrong…

“Anyway. By March it was all settled, and we shipped over. Pretty place, Guatemala. We were bivouacked out in the boonies, me and the other pilots. Bunch of greenhorns, mostly. Me and Pat were the only ones who had over twenty hours of flight time. Some had washed out of the air force. Pat had been retired, he’d been flying planes before there WAS an air force. He’d done his time against the Krauts, back in the forties, and against the Japs back when they were screwing China over. He had the best stories. Everyone else was a kid. And I wasn’t much more than a kid myself, but still… ah, I’m getting off track.

“It was Pat who clued me in that this was a CIA operation. Probably down from the President himself. We were going to nip another commie takeover in the bud. Shut them down before they got going, and distracted us from settling stuff in Korea. So we trained with the planes we got, and I showed the greenhorns the ropes. We had a few knock themselves out of the program, some literally. One poor kid died. They told us they’d send him back stateside for a funeral, and at the time I bought that. Now I wonder…”

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“The Army made us all sorts of promises too,” Cyrus said. “But they didn’t lie to me when I was out on spook business. They flat out told me that if I died out there, I’d be MIA. They’d compensate my family, make sure the money was straight, but they’d have to lie to their face.”

Chuck sighed again. “The older I get the more I realize that it’s all down to people, you know? There’s no institution that’s better or worse than the people that make it up. It all comes down to who’s sitting in the cockpit and steering the flight you’re on. You gotta hope that they’re on the level, or if they’re not, you punch out and try for someone better as soon as you can. And I should have punched out. Because the CIA was nowhere on the level on this one.”

“So how’d they fuck you over? Pardon my french.”

Chuck laughed. “Air force is still armed forces, even if you army fuckos try to talk shit. French is a-okay here. You’re all right. What was your name again? Shoot, I don’t think I asked.”

“Cyrus,” he said, and offered his hand. Chuck shook it, smiling. But then the smile faded.

“From here, the story gets worse,” Chuck told him. “Honestly I should give you the manuscript and let you see how it goes. But…”

“Yeah,” Cyrus got it. This was like being on the other side of a confessional. “Go on.”

“I wasn’t even supposed to fly out there,” Chuck said, eyes sliding left as he looked back into his memory, sorting things out. “But one of the greenhorns got stinking drunk the night before we got called up. We didn’t exactly know when go-time would be. And I got called in to fly, while this kid named Ted was on the bombs.” Chuck laughed. “Hand-tossed bombs, like Pancho Villa, you know? I know some of the other teams had better planes. Modern stuff. We weren’t anywhere near that. We were to handle the outskirts, the secret communist training camps and the armories they had ready to go when the revolution hit. But all the serious resistance was going to be dealing with the cities and larger towns, so we’d have a clean sweep of it. There weren’t… there weren’t supposed to be any civilians.”

Cyrus began to get a notion of where this was going. He kept quiet.

It was a minute or two before Chuck got going again.

“They’d send us out at night, when we started. Two times we flew out, hitting where they told us to hit. Third time… third time wasn’t the charm. The engine stalled. We went down. Ted died. I broke my back. I woke up in a doctor’s office, out in the boonies, with a ward full of people crying and dying all around me. People I’d bombed.”

Cyrus licked his lips. “Were they communists? Rebels?”

“Not one. Not a fucking one.” Chuck closed his eyes. “We’d used up the crate of bombs by then. They didn’t know we were the ones who’d done it. They assumed the asesinos had shot us down.” Chuck opened his eyes, and the ghosts in them made Cyrus look away. “Do you know,” Chuck continued, “I got chosen for that mission partially because I’d taken a few years of Spanish, back in school? And I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d been ignorant. Because we hadn’t been bombing commies at all. They were farmers, subsistence farmers whose only crimes had been going in to settle land the government had given them so they wouldn’t starve to death. We’d been blowing up houses and barns and churches. We’d been blowing up churches,” Chuck said, and the loathing in his voice was raw and ugly.

“You didn’t know,” Cyrus said.

“Between you, me, and Jesus, that’s the only reason I didn’t eat a shotgun the first chance I had,” Chuck said, grimly. “I knew I had to find out why. And I knew I had to tell people. And maybe… maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe this was all some horrible accident. So I waited, and I pretended not to speak Spanish, and I healed. And I couldn’t walk, but I tried to keep myself together. It was hard. It was painful, and I thought I might die anyway sometimes. But I listened, and I learned, and I got a picture of what was happening. And it was worse than I’d thought.”

“Tell me.”

“It was all over some fucking bananas.”

“What?”

“We went in there to topple a guy called Arbenz. Arbenz might or might not have been a commie sympathizer, but that’s not what got him killed. See, the guy before him, a fellow called Arevalo, he had sold a US fruit company a lot of land down there. And he’d taken land he wasn’t supposed to take. He’d taken the best farming land, and when Arbenz got elected, part of the reason he did was because people were starving. It had been pretty bad. He didn’t sell people on a red dream, he sold them on being able to feed their kids. And after a few years, he took back the land that United— that the fruit company hadn’t used. He even paid them for it. They sued, and it was a whole thing, but the fruit company wasn’t happy. And that’s when the CIA called us in.”

“Oh shit.” Cyrus could see why this guy wasn’t too happy about being lied to. Yeah, you expected that with the services and with big government agencies, but bombing churches over a COMPANY? That was pretty bullshit.

“We were bombing people who had moved onto the land, so when the… the company moved back in, they wouldn’t have to deal with as many squatters.” Chuck looked down. “It was worse in the city, worse in the towns. Arbenz didn’t go down without a fight. But with the CIA backing the rebels that took him down, and with planes in the sky when he didn’t have any… well.”

“Well,” Cyrus said. He’d seen firsthand what air support did for a war.

“Two weeks I was there, give or take. And the actual fight didn’t last long. But that’s when the death squads started their work.”

“What?” Cyrus was pretty sure he hadn’t heard that right.

“Arbenz had been popular. The rebels decided they had to make sure they rooted out resistance before it started. They’d grab people, take them off to be questioned. Tortured. Sometimes killed. Sometimes their bodies would be returned, sometimes not. I heard accounts from down the hall, from new guys coming into the ward who’d been tortured. And not always guys. Women. Children.” Chuck closed his eyes.

This was it. This was the in. Cyrus knew he could use this, get Chuck seeing things his way. Get him on the job. There would never be a better time. This would be offering the man absolution, and right now, as he was, he’d take it.

Cyrus thought about it, in that space of seconds as Chuck looked away, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He thought about it.

And he knew he’d never be able to live with himself if he did that, if he exploited this poor son of a bitch when he was at his weakest.

So he waited, and tried not to think about how much they needed a pilot for the breach team. And how he didn’t know how long Rusty and Beth could last without him.

Chuck gathered himself. “The death squads are how they found me, I think,” he said. “Someone must have told them there was a gringo out this way in the hospital. We had some troops officially there by then. Peacekeepers, stuff like that. One of my handlers showed up with a couple of privates, and gave me this whole spiel about how I’d done right to keep my mouth shut, that commie spies were everywhere.

“Not a single moment, while I was recovering, did anyone say a damn thing about communism. Not one damned thing! They talked about surviving this. They wondered where they would live now. They wondered what they were going to eat. They wondered how they’d find jobs, and afford medicine. They wondered if they’d be grabbed and raped or murdered or worse. They didn’t… these weren’t communists. They were just refugees, now. And I’d help make them refugees in their own fucking country.

“Shit,” Cyrus said. It had been different in Korea. This was way worse. “No wonder they lied to you.”

“I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut, until I got back stateside with a fat check for my troubles. Bought a place here, and started typing. And a year ago, I finished. I wrote a book about it. And I started shopping it around to publishers.”

“No shit?” Cyrus blinked. He’d tried writing one himself, once. It hadn’t gone so well, writing had been harder than he’d thought. “When’s it coming out?”

“It was supposed to be published in October. Then I got a call from the publisher. They dropped it. And told me that I should probably never try to sell it again, or talk to anyone about it. And two weeks after that, I started noticing people watching my house.”

A few days ago, Cyrus would have rolled his eye at the notion. But then someone had tried to dynamite an avalanche onto him in Colorado. Sometimes paranoia was justified. “Who do you think they are?”

“I don’t know. Both the CIA and United Fr— the Fruit company, I mean, both of them have something to lose. We weren’t supposed to talk about our operation. I figured I’d get in a lot of trouble for publishing this, maybe even end up dead, but I figured that would happen after it came out. Now…” Chuck stared into his eye. “Now I see they were on the ball for something like this. And I don’t think anyone is going to know the full story. And I hate that. I hate that worse than anything. I think… I think I’m going to Hell, Cyrus. And I deserve it.”

The tears were back, and Cyrus put a hand on Chuck’s shoulder. The guy grabbed it with one of his own and sobbed, tears soaking into his beard. It made Cyrus a little uncomfy, but he pushed it aside. He’d been told repeatedly growing up that boys shouldn’t cry, it was unmanly, but sometimes you HAD to. And if some old bastards thought that it was unmanly, then fuck’em. They weren’t the ones who had to deal with all this shit! They were usually the ones who CAUSED the shit.

He waited until Chuck finally let go of his hand, pulled out a towel and mopped his face. Only then, once he was sure Chuck was through, did he decide he could talk now without being the worst kind of heel.

“I know someone who can help,” he said. And he knew he had some serious arguments ahead, that Gable might not want to stick his neck out that far for this guy, but it was the right thing to do. And they NEEDED a pilot. “And this job’s about saving kids. I can vouch for it personally. You won’t need to drop bombs on innocents, won’t need to drop bombs on anyone. We just need aerial reconnaissance, and transport for a commando team.”

Chuck stared at him, hope warring with suspicion in his eyes. “Who’s it against? How do I know you’re on the level?”

“I can’t say who it’s against. And you don’t have to buy it from me. You can come and see what we’re all about, and if you think we’re not, then you can go back home. This one’s voluntary. But, uh… no books. I have family on the line, here. No books. Got it?”

Chuck stared at him, through him, those bomber’s eyes weighing him on unseen scales. “One book,” he decided. “You get the truth of what happened down there to someone who’ll publish it, and get them to pull the trigger. And I’ll do your job, if you’re truthful about this.”

Cyrus gnawed his cheek. “I can’t guarantee that. I’d… shit, I’d have to ask it up the chain. Will you at least come down and see our operation? Hear what we need done? At the very least, you’ll be in the middle of the most well-guarded spot in the southwest. Ain’t no fruit company going to spy on you there, I can guarantee that.”

Chuck considered him again, and his eyes softened. “You’re for real. All right mister Cyrus. Let me get my things. Including the manuscript.”

Cyrus blinked. “You don’t want a day or two to wrap things up? I mean, I could arrange this when we get to the airport, probably, but…”

Chuck shrugged. “It’ll be here when I get back, or it won’t. Rent’s paid up for the next few months, and my neighbors like me. I trust them to make sure nobody burns the place down. And if I don’t return, well… I’ll have bigger things to worry about in front of St. Peter, so the matter’s moot.”

“All right,” Cyrus said. “I’ll help you pack.”

It didn’t take long. Though Cyrus hadn’t come here planning to push a wheelchair back to the diner, and his legs ached the first few minutes in. He had to one-hand carry one of the suitcases too, and the way his lower back started throbbing after the first ten minutes, he knew that it’d be a long and painful flight back.

This was why he didn’t see the green-eyed man until it was too late.

They were getting back into the outskirts around downtown, just a couple blocks away from the diner, where Cyrus could see the taxi parked and waiting, when one of the passers-by staggered, and dropped a Christmas tree. It hit the ground with a BANG, and it was loud, far too loud.

The tree hadn’t made the noise. But there was something else in the man’s hand.

Cyrus stared at the shooter, caught a glimpse of bright green eyes staring over a red and white peppermint scarf and a hat pulled low, before the man scooped the tree up and ran down an alley.

But there was smoke in the air, that smell of cordite and powder, and then there was a gurgle. And Cyrus looked down, to see Chuck staring back up at him, neck twisting in agony as he clutched at his chest. Clutched at the red, spreading stain against his blue coat.

“Shit!” Cyrus let go of the suitcase, and hurried around. The other people on the street were looking around, looking his way, but he didn’t care.

Chuck gurgled and clutched at him.

“Medic!” Cyrus yelled. “Shit, I mean Doctor! DOCTOR! Someone call a Doctor!”

Chuck gurgled and stretched out a hand. Cyrus tried to take it, but Chuck swiped it away, and pointed.

Cyrus looked, and saw pages in the wind. The suitcase, he remembered, and he looked over to where he’d dropped it. He saw that it had broken open. He saw clothes spilled out on the sidewalk. And page after page, being torn away by the cold Santa Fe wind and scattered out into the night.

Chuck gave once last gurgle, and Cyrus sat down on his ass, as sirens started in the distance, and the dead pilot’s only hope for redemption was blown away forever.