A Time for Patriots

“The afternoon before we first went to the Knights’ compound.” Charlie could see Patrick’s face turning dark, and she added quickly, “He told me he got permission from you to ask Jason and me to check him out in the CID. You gave him permission, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but… I don’t want him training to pilot the CID anymore.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, a bit of confusion in her face. “But he’s really good in it, a real natural. You should have seen him doing hacky sack with a—”

“No ‘buts,’ Charlie,” Patrick said. “The CID was designed as a one-man killing machine, and the last thing Brad needs to be exposed to now is more killing.” He remembered his close friend Hal Briggs, and how the normally cool, calm, collected Air Force security expert and Army Ranger literally went berserk when he entered combat aboard a Cybernetic Infantry Device — he eventually ran into a massed assault by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and was killed in battle while trying to destroy Iranian nuclear missiles. “No more CID training.”

“Okay, Patrick.”

Patrick spun on a heel without another word and departed.

“He looks totally stressed out,” Charlie said to Whack.

“He’s putting a lot of pressure on himself, and he’s going to burn himself out if he’s not careful,” Whack said. “Good suggestion, Charlie, him getting out of town with his son. I hope he’s smart enough to take it.”

Scottsdale, Arizona

A few days later

It was an absolutely spectacular flight from Battle Mountain to Sacramento Executive Airport for Patrick, Gia, and Brad. Patrick planned the trip as a dual cross-country lesson: Brad had to make stops at three different airports spaced at least one hundred miles apart, at least one of which had to have a control tower, and he had to draw up a flight plan and annotate a sectional chart with the route of flight, visual checkpoints, and timing points. He also had to file a VFR flight plan, get a complete flight briefing by phone, talk to flight service to open and close his flight plan, and give and receive an in-flight weather observation to Flight Watch. Although Brad knew how to fly on instruments-only and was adept at using the advanced avionics in the P210 turbine Centurion, he had to demonstrate that he could navigate using “dead reckoning”—using time, the compass, and landmarks on the ground to determine where he was.

Patrick’s two sisters, Nancy and Margaret, still lived in Sacramento and still ran the little Irish pub downtown that had been in the McLanahan family for three generations. After Patrick, Gia, and Brad arrived and were settled in, the five made a visit to the historic family memorial complex at the Old City Cemetery, just six blocks south of the state capitol. So many McLanahans had been buried in the cemetery over the past 150 years that many called it the “McLanahan Cemetery.” For the past fifteen years, the cemetery no longer had room for any more burials, so Patrick’s father, a retired veteran city police sergeant with thirty years wearing a badge, was the last of the McLanahans to be interred there — Patrick’s wife Wendy’s and his brother Paul’s inurnment markers were in the historic family columbarium erected at the cemetery, as were vacant niches for the rest of the family.

Patrick and Brad spent a long time touching Wendy’s marker, as did Margaret and Nancy with Paul’s, with Gia respectfully looking on. Finally, Patrick kissed his wife’s and brother’s markers and patted them reassuringly. “I think it’s so sweet that you decided to keep Wendy here, instead of bringing her to Arlington National Cemetery,” Margaret said as they left the cemetery. “What an honor, for you and her to be laid to rest at such a historic place as Arlington, if you chose.”

“It would be,” Patrick said, “but I wouldn’t be buried anywhere else but here, with the rest of the family. And this place is older and just as historic as Arlington.”

The next morning, Patrick loaded Gia, Brad, and his sisters into the P21 °Centurion, and they flew to Deer Valley Airport near Scottsdale, Arizona. Patrick’s mother, Maureen, lived in an assisted-living facility nearby. Patrick’s arrival became a major event, not only for his mother but also for every resident of the facility. They were invited for dinner with the residents, but Patrick hardly had a chance to eat because everyone wanted their picture taken with and an autograph from the famous aviator and general.

Patrick had registered them in the Scottsdale Princess Hotel using his middle name, Shane, instead of Patrick so they were able to enjoy a much greater level of anonymity as they sat out at the pool bar with drinks. Brad had gone upstairs to watch TV and chat with his friends back home, and Gia was on her way to a twelve-step meeting in Scottsdale. “This is very nice.” Patrick sighed as he settled in with his second Balvenie single-malt Scotch. “The air and the temperature are the same, but Battle Mountain doesn’t have anything as grand as this.”