Michael Malone - Weebly

At the airport hangar, Brickhart bid "adios amigos"
to the three government men, whom, in his contempt, he
had called interchangeably by various combinations of
their nebulous names. His CO pal who had lent him the
demolition team had also sent, at the commander's
request, a present, one that the old naval fighter had
carried, in its straw-cradled crate, tenderly in his arms
on the ride back down the bumpy road chased by fire.
He took it from the car.
Now at eleven o'clock at night, his uniform muddy
and sooty but his eyes still pure and blue as a frontier
sky, Hector Brickhart gave thumbs up from the cockpit
of his borrowed single-engine plane.
Then, guided back to the base by firelight and
moonlight, grinning and his heart in a dance, the
commander dropped dead on target a little incendiary
thermite bomb with a high explosive charge that shot
fire roaring through the woods at a run. He did it for
fun, for a last fling before returning to the deathly
earnestness of business cartels that he didn't much
understand and didn't much like. They spoke a different
language. Not that he would have to put up with their