Purpose of Evasion Read Online Free

Guth-erie’s office,” he said, handing it to Stephanie.
    She wiggled her brows in anticipation, making him laugh, and moved aside with the phone. A bright, ingenuously sexy woman, at thirty-seven Stephanie Shepherd still had the freshness of the University of Denver journalism student who had caught Walt’s eye at an Air Force Academy mixer nearly twenty years ago.
    “Wish we were going with you, Daddy,” Laura pouted, glancing at her father’s luggage next to the door.
    “Me too,” Shepherd said warmly, “but you know—”
    “Yeah, I know, I can’t miss school.”
    “I’ll miss you, princess.”
    “You’re going to miss the finals too,” Laura said, referring to her upcoming gymnastics competition. She was standing next to the television when Willard Scott’s folksy weather report segued to an update of the morning’s top news stories.
    “A terrorist bomb exploded aboard a TWA 727 jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, yesterday,” the newsreader somberly reported. “Authorities said those responsible are believed to be supported by, if not actual agents of, Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi. The explosion tore a hole in the fuselage, killing four American passengers who were sucked out of the plane, and fell fifteen thousand feet to their deaths.”
    Laura turned to her father, her face a bewildered mask. “How can people do things like that?”
    “They’re uncivilized, sweetheart,” Shepherd gently explained, turning off the television. “They don’t play by the rules the way we do.”
    The child nodded sadly, a dozen questions in her eyes, then she took Jeffrey’s hand and headed for the bathroom.
    “The interview’s set for this afternoon,” Stephanie announced brightly, hanging up the phone. She worked as a reporter for the Capitol Flyer, the base newspaper, and Andrews was in the congressman’s district.
    “I hope he voted for the ERA,” Shepherd teased.
    A horn beeped outside. Their faces tightened apprehensively. They looked at each other for a long moment, then kissed.
    “Something else you’re going to miss,” Stephanie whispered as their lips parted.
    “You bet; twenty years with a sex-crazed journalist isn’t the sort of thing that just slips a man’s mind.”
    “Walt,” she admonished gently, unable to suppress a girlish giggle. “I meant our anniversary.”
    “I know,” he said more seriously. “We’ll do something special as soon as you come to England.”
    They were still embracing when the children returned and the horn beeped again. Shepherd kissed and hugged each of them, then hefted the luggage and went out the kitchen door to the air force van in the driveway.
    AN HOUR LATER, Major Shepherd and his weapons systems officer, Captain Al Brancato, were at their lockers in the squadron life support room, donning flight suits, helmets, and inflatable G-suit harnesses that girdled their legs and torsos; then they strode down the flight line to a khaki and brown camouflage-patterned F-111F bomber. It had low visibility markings with black stencils. The tail code read: CC-179.
    TAC had finally finished the reshuffle and they had been transferred to the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Lakenheath Royal Air Force Base in England.
    Brancato was a gregarious man whose taut physique shaped his flight suit. Like most aviators, he adhered to a fitness program of aerobic exercise and workouts in the squadron weight room, where a sign cautioned: THE FORCE IS WITH YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Gravity was the force, and aviators who flew high performance aircraft viewed G-induced loss of consciousness as a lethal adversary. Well-developed musculature acted as a natural G-suit, augmenting the inflatable harness to raise G-tolerance and prevent GLC.
    For the last eight years, Brancato had been Shepherd’s alter ego and wizzo. The latter in more ways than one.
    “Name the island that has a quarter of a million less inhabitants today than it did a hundred years