The Glass Lady by Douglas Savage Read Free Book Online Page A

and assorted junky easy chairs—all upon dirty carpet of no particular color.
    â€œWhat ya think, Jack?” inquired the Colonel, who had laid his precious box and pads atop the sorely nicked table in the dining room. The table was cluttered with a day or two of dirty dishes.
    â€œHomey, Skipper.”
    â€œYa betcha, Number One.”
    Colonel Parker handed Enright a cold beer, still in the can, which the tall man had fetched from a kitchen cramped to the point of being crummy.
    â€œBrowse,” Will Parker invited cheerfully with a wave of his own can of beer. He moved about and tidied up the single large room which had the back porch and dining room at one end and the living room at the other.
    â€œThanks, Will,” Enright smiled. He could not find a single model airplane.
    Enright moved about the airy little house. Along one wall, broken by the arch leading to the tiny kitchen, was a line of framed photographs, large and institutional. They were the usual fare of squadron portraits with thin boys posing proudly before F-4 Phantom and A-6 fighter planes. In the background were rice paddies.
    Turning to the long, unbroken wall opposite, Enright saw other framed images running the length of the long room. But these were dressed in finely crafted frames made from expertly mitred barn siding. And the colors were sparkling in the daylight of afternoon.
    Jacob Enright sucked in his breath, warm with beer. He surveyed a dozen elegant photos and lithographs—every one a single lighthouse.
    Against gray skies and frothy seas, each portrait was a solitary lighthouse growing from jagged and rocky shorelines.
    â€œYou still there, Jack?” called the Colonel as he walked from the kitchen.
    â€œSkipper, these are magnificent. Magnificent.”
    Enright stepped sideways to study the long row of lighthouses. He shook his head slowly as he felt the tall man stand at his side in the afternoon sunshine.
    The thin pilot turned his face to the older man at his side. Colonel Parker’s neck was at Enright’s eye level. The shaft of daylight swirling in from a window fell upon the Colonel’s face. It accented the deep lines and hollow cheeks. The long face was firmly set in a strange weariness. The warm gray eyes within angular shadows were tranquil, even sad.
    â€œLighthouses, Skipper?” Enright said softly.
    â€œLighthouses, Jack . . . This one and that one are my favorites: Old Saybrook in Connecticut and Nubble Light at Cape Neddick, Maine.”
    The tall man paused and stared at his lighthouses. In the fragment of the Colonel’s silence, Enright’s beer-befuddled mind could hear the cruel sea breaking whitely at the feet of the stone towers before his face. He knew when his command pilot was still in transit through a thought. So he waited with a copilot’s studied patience.
    â€œLighthouses do their work without protest, without bending, come rain or sleet or high water. And they do it standing alone.” William McKinley Parker glanced down at his ward and his closest friend. “That appeals to me.”
    â€œOur man in Vienna reported in an hour ago. No joy with the Russians.” Admiral Hauch wiped his perspiring forehead with his large hand. “And they know—damn near down to the wiring schematics.” The Admiral, in regulation shirtsleeves and open collar, sagged in his massive chair. “Bloody bastards.”
    The long table was huge in the chilly glass cage where only four weary men sat in the Admiral’s council. Two men sat at each side of the conference table with the presiding Navy man at its head. Beside him, a young Marine sat at attention while his fingers rested poised upon his stenomachine’s black keys. Disinfected, dehumidified, hypoallergenic, double-filtered air gushed rhythmically from the glass vents overhead and in the glass floor.
    Commander Mike Rusinko of the Navy sat beside Colonel James Cerven of the Air Force. They