Secret of the Scroll (Greg McKenzie Mysteries) by Chester D. Campbell Read Free Book Online

thought about trying to stop a few times, but it wasn’t until back in the summer that something brought it all home with agonizing finality. My closest friend in the Air Force, Lt. Col. Breezy Hollo, a lovable Hungarian with more talent and drive than anyone I’d ever known, flew in on leave and spent a few days with us. We sat out on the lawn for hours and talked and laughed and puffed our smokes. I noticed Breezy had a nasty cough but thought nothing of it. A few weeks later I got the message: he was dead of lung cancer.
    When Jill did not stir. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
    “Wake up, sleeping beauty. Your coffee’s waiting.”
    She rolled onto her back, yawning with full sound effects. “What time is it? My, that sun is bright.”
    “What do you expect at ten o’clock in the morning?”
    “How long have you been up?” She pushed her pillow against the headboard and scrunched into a sitting position.
    “Since about nine,” I said. I handed her the coffee cup. “I walked up to the road and got the paper. They started delivering it again right on schedule. I don’t know why I still pay for the damned thing, though, after what they did to me.”
    She reached over to give my hand a squeeze. “You want to know if they’re talking about you again. But they’ve got plenty of other dirt to dig in now. Maybe they’ll leave you alone.”
    “I should hope so. What are your plans today? I guess you’ll need to get in a little flying time soon.” She kept her Cessna 172 at Cornelia Fort Air Park , not far from Hermitage.
    “I’ll get in a few hours in a day or so. I’d better head to the grocery this morning.”
    I pushed myself up from the side of the bed. “Since we have no milk, I guess it’ll be instant oatmeal for breakfast. As soon as I eat, I’ll go over to Sam’s and get your bag.”
    “Good.” She picked up the coffee cup and gave me a sly grin. “Who knows, I might entertain a shopping trip later, if you insist on dragging me off to the mall.”
    “Who’s dragging whom?” I said.
     
    It was after eleven when I arrived at the Gannons’ brick ranch with its manicured lawn. Even this time of year, when the grass had stopped growing, it looked trim and green, bordered by white and purple pansies. I envied Sam’s dedication to his yard work, but the operative word there was “work.” Bending over a spade did not appeal to me.
    Sam ushered me inside. He had all of his travel brochures and guidebooks in one stack on the dining room table, rolls of film from the trip arranged in another area and a conglomeration of souvenirs beyond that.
    “Nobody can say you didn’t make it to Israel ,” I said.
    Sam shrugged. “You’re the one that documented it all with your movies. I can’t wait to see what you shot.”
    “I’ll have to do some work with it first. I bought a new program recently that will let me edit it right in the computer.”
    “I haven’t even mastered e-mail yet.”
    I laughed. “I’m sure it’s a lot easier than flying airplanes.”
    “That reminds me.” Sam motioned me to follow him. “Come on in the den. I want to show you something in the new Air Force Magazine .”
    The colorful monthly put out by the Air Force Association runs a lot of nostalgia pieces on musty old wars designed to jog moss-covered memories. Sam had found an article about a B-26 bomb run back in 1952. The mission involved the 8th Bomb Squadron, the outfit he had flown with out of Kunsan Air Base in South Korea , known then as K-8. It was a hairy tale of one engine shot up and a wing ventilated by 30-caliber fire during a bombing run.
    An Oklahoma farm boy, Sam had gone into the Air Force right out of ag school. After Korea , he graduated to KC-135 tankers, eventually moving up to skipper a monstrous C-5 transport. He had met Wilma at the U. of Oklahoma , where she was in a nursing program. They were married following the Korean unpleasantness and had lived a nomadic service life for