Page 58 of Call Sign: Thunder
Zach had wasted enough time. He pushed to his feet, ready to head back to base.
“Sit back down,” the guy demanded.
Out of patience, Zach paused with his hand on the door knob. “No thanks. I already have a superior officer. I don’t need another one.”
Only after he delivered his parting comment did he turn the door knob and find that they were locked inside.
Spinning around, he was ready to argue with the guy behind the desk, but the man added, “Semper Fi,” stopping Zach in his tracks.
“How? Did Benson tell you I’m a marine?”
“No, just an educated guess.”
Remembering his own observations from before, Zach added, “I suspect you are good at making those.”
“Oh? Tell me why you’d say that.”
“You’re an observer, and this whole interaction feels more like an interrogation than a job interview.”
The man leaned forward across the desk before seriously adding, “You aren’t wrong, and that’s the only reason you aren’t already in your car driving home. Now…” he paused before adding a more polite, “Please, take a seat.”
Zach was on edge. Being under the microscope while not knowing what was going on will do that to a guy. Then he thought of Allie. He was enough of a realist to know she wouldn’t be happy living in military housing, moving from base to base on a captain’s salary. Today may end up turning into a colossal waste of time, but he was here. He might as well hear more.
After he was reseated, he was reaching for his resume when the man cut him off. “I don’t need anything on paper. Just tell me about yourself. When did you enlist? Where have you been deployed?”
Zach wasn’t really sure how much detail the interviewer wanted, so he kept it brief. “I got my bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois but I’ll be honest, my GPA wasn’t great. To get the best civilian jobs I knew I’d need to get my Masters and that just didn’t interest me.”
“What did interest you?” he interrupted.
Zach worried that his truthful answer was about to disqualify him from whatever the hell job opening he was there for, but after hesitating, he answered truthfully. “Flying. I was pretty set on joining the Air Force and even started the commission process with them before graduation, but the competition was hot and with my grades… well, I could sense that I might be at risk of not making the final cut in the pilot program. Luckily a Marine recruiter caught wind of what I was looking for and he paid me a visit on campus a month or so before graduation.
“Things clicked into place after that. I got my commission and joined with the rank of second lieutenant. I flew through flight school and was just about to get shipped to Afghanistan when I was approached to help fill a gap they had for helo pilots. At first I wasn’t interested, but they were calculating enough to drop me off with a group of Marine Raiders for a few weeks where I got an up close picture of what flying helicopters would be like and that’s when I switched.”
“So you have training to fly both fixed-wing and helos?”
Zach thought he heard a bit of awe in the guy’s voice which made him proud.
“Yep. If it lifts off the ground, I can pretty much fly it. I have thousands more hours in helos than fixed-wing craft now, but I’m careful to keep my flight times high enough that I’ve kept all of my flight certifications current.”
“Which certs do you have?” he asked, no longer trying to hide his excitement.
“Em… all of them…”
“That’s not possible. They make you choose specialties.”
“Yeah, but after I got my gold wings, over the course of my ten years in the Corp, I’ve been able to cycle through every certification program between deployments.”
“Holy shit…”
Whatever else the guy was going to say was cut off by the sound of the door lock disengaging and the woman who’d been sitting behind the reception desk stepped into the room, a lit cigarette in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.
She crossed to the desk and handed the folded paper to the man while rattling off a bunch of nonsensical information.
“Bing says he has that report ready for you when you’re ready. Doc has called twice for you — something about needing to sideline Wrath ASAP, and the Royal Guard checked in to let you know the Queen made it to her appointment.”
“Great. Thanks, Lou,” he said, opening the paper, reading whatever message was on it, and then handing it back to the woman named Lou. She’d turned to leave when the guy instructed her to, “shred it.”
The crusty woman turned back, an exasperated look on her face. “For Christ’s sake, do I look like a fucking rookie? I wish you’d stop insulting me.”
