"Boring, though, straight and level all the time, no fun stuff," the Marine allowed, with a show of false distaste. Flying in VMH1 was an honor for a captain, and command of it was the Corps' way of showing confidence in his abilities. "I ought to know in another two weeks. Be nice to see some Redskins games in person again."
"What's up for tomorrow?"
"Right before lunch, practice low-level insertion, paperwork in the afternoon. I have to do a ton of it for the Air Force. Well, they own the damned aircraft, and they are nice about maintaining it and giving me a good flight crew. I bet airliner pilots don't have to do this, though." Those lucky bastards just had to fly, though their brand of flying was about as exciting as a paint-drying race, or maybe a grass-growing marathon.
Chavez hadn't yet gotten used to British humor, and as a result the series television on the local stations mainly bored him. He did have cable service, however, and that included The History Channel, which had become his favorite, if not Patsy's.
"Just one, Ding," she told him. Now that she was close to delivery time, she wanted her husband sober at all times, and that meant only one beer per night.
"Yes, honey." It was so easy for women to push men around, Domingo thought, looking at the nearly empty glass and feeling like another. It was great to sip beer in the club and discuss business matters in a comfortable, informal setting, and generally bond with his people but right now he was going no farther than fifty feet from his wife, except when he had to, and she had his beeper number when they were apart. The baby had dropped, whatever that meant-well, he knew it meant that delivery was imminent, but not what "dropped" signified. And now it meant that he could only have one beer per night, though he could be stone sober with three… maybe even four…
They sat in side-by-side easy chairs. Ding was trying both to watch TV and read intelligence documents. It was something he seemed able to do, to the amazed annoyance of his wife, who was reading a medical journal and making some marginal notes on the glossy paper.
It wasn't terribly different at the Clark home, though here a movie cassette was tucked into the VCR and was playing away.
"Anything new at the office?" Sandy asked.
At the office, John thought. She hadn't said that when he'd come back from out in the field. No, then it had been "Are you okay?" Always asked with a tinge of concern, because, though he'd never well, almost never-told her about the things he did in the field, Sandy knew that it was a little different from sitting at a desk. So, this was just one more confirmation that he was a REMF. Thanks, honey, he thought. "No, not really," he said. "How about the hospital?"
"A car accident right after lunch. Nothing major."'
"How's Patsy doing?"
"She'll be a pretty good doc when she learns to relax a little more. But, well, I've been doing ER for twenty-some years, right? She knows more than I do in the theoretical area, but she needs to learn the practical side a little better. But, you know, she's coming along pretty well."
"Ever think you might have been a doc?" her husband asked.
"I suppose I could have, but-wasn't the right time back then, was it?"
"How about the baby?"
That made Sandy smile. "Just like I was, impatient. You get to that point and you just want it to happen and be done with it."
"Any worries?"
"No, Dr. Reynolds is pretty good, and Patsy is doing just fine. I'm just not sure I'm ready to be a grandma yet," Sandy added with a laugh.
"I know what you mean, babe. Any time, eh?"
"The baby dropped yesterday. That means he's pretty ready."
"'He'?" John asked.
"That's what everybody seems to think, but we'll find out when it pops out."
John grumbled. Domingo had insisted that it had to be a son, handsome as his father was-and bilingual, jefe, he'd always added with that sly Latino grin. Well, he could have gotten worse as a son-in-law. Ding was smart, about the fastest learner he'd ever stumbled across, having risen from young staff sergeant 11-Bravo light-infantryman,.S. Army, to a respected field intelligence officer in CIA, with a master's degree from George Mason University… and now he occasionally mused about going another two years for his Ph.D. Maybe from Oxford, Ding had speculated earlier in the week, if he could arrange the off-time to make it possible. Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass - an East L.A. Chicano with a hood from Oxford University! He might end up DCI someday, and then he would really be intolerable. John chuckled, sipped his Guinness, and returned his attention to the television.
