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job. Down in San Diego. I got a job and I spent every goddamned dime on flying lessons. Later, I guess it was about two months before Pearl Harbor, I got my civilian license and signed up. They were really pressing for people. I didn't meet their two years of college, but since I had my ticket, they looked the other way, and the next thing I knew I was in flight school as a cadet."
    "You seem to have done pretty well, son."
    Whip kept his gaze on the can in his hands. "It's been a long road, Lou." He looked up slowly. "I lost touch. What happened to you?" He laughed suddenly and the crinkles appeared in crow's-feet back of his eyes, above his cheekbones. "I just never figured you for a uniform."
    Goodman grunted as he heaved his bulk to a more comfortable position. A cigarette appeared in his mouth and he scraped a kitchen match on the floor beside him to light up. "I never figured on it myself," he agreed. "Right after you disappeared, the government sent people around looking for maintenance facilities. Well, I had the bike shop, and that auto repair station, and I owned the airport and part of another one, and before I knew what the hell was happening I had contracts up the gazoo for rebuilding engines and airplanes and starting contract flying schools. Everyone knew the war was coming, Whip, and they were dishing out the money like it was coupons. Christ, I was making a bundle." A long sigh came from the man fondly remembering better days.
    "Then suddenly it was December seventh, and I wake up in the morning, and I'm an expert in aircraft maintenance. I didn't tell the army that; they told me . The next thing I know I'm sworn in as a major and they tell me I'll be fixing their goddamn airplanes, and they sent me to Pearl to pick up some of the pieces there. I told them to junk what was left, and they put me on a boat loaded everywhere with parts and pieces and a bunch of kids who were supposed to be mechanics, and — " He shrugged to bring the story to its conclusion. "I've been here ever since. Oh, I make the rounds from here to Moresby and down south, and that sort of thing, but Garbutt Field" — he thumped his desk — "this is home plate."
    Whip locked eyes with him. "They tell stories about you, Lou. They call you the miracle man."
    "Sure, sure, Whip. I build iron airplanes out of straw and scorpion crap. Don't believe everything you hear."
    "Never figured you for being modest."
    "They said it was part of being a colonel."
    Silence came gently between them for long minutes. Finally Lou Goodman shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Whip." He saw the other man look up, knowing they were about to cross sensitive ground. "I don't want to walk around it, Whip. I heard rumors.
    You know, about Melody."
    He saw Whip's eyes narrow, and the cold steel that came into his face made Lou Goodman begin to believe the stories he'd heard about Russel from other pilots. What he'd seen when those bombers came into Garbutt Field was signature enough to any pilot with experience: there had been a touch of brilliance in that flying and the man who'd led the formation. But this went beyond that. A legend had been growing in the theater about the man who flew the bomber with the death's head painted on each side of the nose, who did things with the Death's Head Brigade that should have been impossible.
    There was pain in that expression, as well, and Goodman knew they were both seeing Melody Russel. Remembering what she looked like. The young girl who adored her brother, who went everywhere she could with him until she signed up as an army nurse, and was rushed through training, and was sent overseas in the late fall of 1941. To a place called Bataan, in the Philippines.
    "I don't know too much, Lou." The words came forth strained, tinged with a bitterness that had to be there. "The last report I got was that she was captured. That last stand at Corregidor. She was supposed to fly out, all the women were, during the last evacuation.
    They