and assorted junky easy chairsâall upon dirty carpet of no particular color.
âWhat ya think, Jack?â 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.
âHomey, Skipper.â
âYa betcha, Number One.â
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.
âBrowse,â 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.
âThanks, Will,â 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 lithographsâevery one a single lighthouse.
Against gray skies and frothy seas, each portrait was a solitary lighthouse growing from jagged and rocky shorelines.
âYou still there, Jack?â called the Colonel as he walked from the kitchen.
âSkipper, these are magnificent. Magnificent.â
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 Parkerâs neck was at Enrightâs eye level. The shaft of daylight swirling in from a window fell upon the Colonelâs 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.
âLighthouses, Skipper?â Enright said softly.
âLighthouses, Jack . . . This one and that one are my favorites: Old Saybrook in Connecticut and Nubble Light at Cape Neddick, Maine.â
The tall man paused and stared at his lighthouses. In the fragment of the Colonelâs silence, Enrightâs 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 copilotâs studied patience.
âLighthouses do their work without protest, without bending, come rain or sleet or high water. And they do it standing alone.â William McKinley Parker glanced down at his ward and his closest friend. âThat appeals to me.â
âOur man in Vienna reported in an hour ago. No joy with the Russians.â Admiral Hauch wiped his perspiring forehead with his large hand. âAnd they knowâdamn near down to the wiring schematics.â The Admiral, in regulation shirtsleeves and open collar, sagged in his massive chair. âBloody bastards.â
The long table was huge in the chilly glass cage where only four weary men sat in the Admiralâs 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 stenomachineâs 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