"It's half past ten," she said.

"Time marches on."

"My God!" she said. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

"You sonofabitch!" she said, and swung at him.

He caught her wrist, and she fell on him.

"I told you not to call me that," he said.

And then it happened again.

[-VIII-]

The Daleville Inn

Daleville, Alabama 2005 9 February 1992 The rain was coming down in buckets, and First Lieutenant C. G. Castillo, who had gotten drenched going from the Apache to Base Ops and then drenched again going from Base Ops to his car, got drenched a third time going from where he had parked his car to the motel building.

The Daleville Inn was full of parents and wives who had come to see their offspring and mates get their wings pinned on them, and one of these had inconsiderately parked in the slot reserved for Room 202.

As he walked past the car and started up the stairs to the second floor, the car in his slot flashed its lights at him and then blew its horn.

He was tempted to go to the car and deliver a lecture on motel parking lot courtesy, but decided that was likely to get out of hand and satisfied himself with giving the driver the finger as he continued up the stairs.

He was standing at his door, patting the many pockets of his soaking-wet flight suit in search of his key, when he heard someone bonging their way up the steel stairs. Then he sensed someone standing behind him.

"I was just about to give up," Beth Wilson said. "I've been sitting out there since six."

"I was afraid of this," he said.

"Afraid that I'd be here?"

"Or that you wouldn't," he said.

"We have to talk, Charley."

"Oh, yeah."

"Just talk. Nothing else."

"Would you believe I expected you to say something like that?"

He found the key. He opened the door, waved her through it, followed her in, closed the door, and only then turned the lights on.

"You could have turned them on before you pushed me in here," Beth said. "I almost f

ell over your wastebasket."

"But no one saw the general's daughter and the affianced of Righteous Randolph in Castillo's room, did they? As they would have had I turned the lights on first."

"You're soaking wet," Beth said. "Where have you been?"

"Where would you guess I've been, dressed as I am in my GI rompers?"

"You haven't been flying?"

Tags: W.E.B. Griffin Presidential Agent Thriller
Source: readsnovelonline.net