His personal and household belongings were already neatly packed in boxes and awaiting transport to the closest Goodwill or dumpster. He knew Mr. Sebastiani would pick through them first, pulling out his electronics to keep for himself or his kids. Jason didn’t give a shit. The rooms were cleaned, and the kitchen and bathroom scrubbed down.
He looked at the kitchen bar counter where a stack of envelopes sat crisply. All his utility, cell phone, Internet and cable bills were paid up to the end of the month, and he would drop them in the outgoing slot when he checked his mailbox one last time. He was expecting a letter and hoped it would arrive before he departed. Next to that stack of bills was a manila office envelope with his landlord’s name on it. Within was the final month’s rent, in cash, with an extra thousand dollars for the clean up to come. A small note was tucked inside.
Mr. Sebastiani, I’m sorry for the mess I’ve left you. Use my deposit and this extra cash to cover the new paint and carpet. I really enjoyed staying here. Jason.
His eyes moved further down the counter to another small group of items that the police would need when his body was discovered. His driver’s license, social security card, an official copy of his birth certificate, and his passport sat on a small piece of parchment:
Dear Concord Police Department: I have no living relatives. Please simply cremate my remains. After that, I really don’t care.
Earlier, he decided that he would leave the front door cracked open slightly so a fellow tenant, or Mr. Sebastiani himself could easily gain entry once they heard the bang. For the first time in his life, he considered with dark satisfaction that his house was in order. He turned to the table and surveyed what was in front of him: a take-out menu for Szechuan Village Chinese restaurant; a newly opened bottle of Hennessy XO with shot glass; his cell phone, the TV remote and his Glock. He had called in his order for food 20 minutes ago, so being lunch hour, he expected it to come late. He poured himself a shot while he turned on the TV for the last time.
What the hell, he reasoned; the food won’t be here for another half-hour anyway. He went straight to his favorite program, the History Channel, and was instantly pleased to see a part of his life that he had left behind. “Wings Of Tomorrow,” his favorite military documentary series was on, and the F-1 Cyclone stealth fighter was the episode’s focus. He downed the shot, picked up the bottle, moved to the couch and put his feet on the coffee table.
Jordan’s plane. He checked the time on the screen and cursed to himself that he had already missed half of the one-hour episode.
“. . .And to this day, the speed, ceiling and mission of the Cyclone is classified by the Department of Defense. Industry officials were free to release the average speed of the plane as Mach 3.8, which makes it the fastest on Earth; however, there are rumors that the engine technology designed by WEPS can put the plane upwards of Mach 4 or 5. But no one, save the pilots, designers and builders themselves will ever know.
“Sales and exports of the F-1 are prohibited by Congressional law even to our closest allies. But it’s not to say that other nations haven’t tried to find out, and have even used clandestine means to possess its secrets. Just last year, seven Lockheed-Martin employees involved in the jet’s production plant were convicted of conspiracy to sell trade secrets, blueprints, and samples of the plane’s composite materials to China. The men were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison without parole.
“China is by far the biggest solicitor of information concerning the F-1. One Pentagon official stated that if China were to incorporate the F-1’s abilities and power plant into their own stealth fighter program, it would shift the balance of air superiority in the world.”
Jason downed another shot.
“It’s just a matter of time,” he spat. “You can’t keep secrets from the Chinese; they have too much money. Sooner or later, for the right price, someone is going to just hand them the fucking plane. There’s no such thing as national loyalty anymore; that shit’s out of style. It’s all about money.”
“Amazingly, the Navy has a near perfect safety record with the Cyclone; in fact, in the last four years since its maiden flight, only one plane has suffered a casualty. And in that casualty an American hero was lost.
“No,” Jason breathed pleadingly. “No, no, no! Don’t make me watch this.” He reached for the remote but just couldn’t turn it off.
“That tragedy occurred just three years ago when a squadron of F-1s from the carrier USS George Washington was on patrol north of Taiwan in the East China Sea. It was at night and in stormy conditions when a freak lightning bolt hit one of the five F-1s. The plane exploded instantly at 55,000 feet. The escalating lightning storm caused the group to disperse and head back to the carrier.
“This incident shocked the U.S. Navy and the country when the pilot was identified as Lieutenant Jordan Li, the world’s only modern combat ace, who in his first year serving in the Iranian War, shot down no less than 12 Iranian fighters. He also destroyed countless strategic positions and had a 97 percent success rate on bombing missions.”
“NO!!! WHY DO I HAVE TO SEE THIS!?” Jason jumped to his feet, winding back his arm as if to hurl the shot glass at the TV. Then a photo of his brother flashed on the screen. He was wearing his flight suit, holding his helmet and smiling from a Navy F-35C cockpit. Jordan’s slicked-back hair, sharply chiseled face and almond-cut Asian eyes was displayed in several Navy file photos, yet they looked more like modeling shots. Jason dropped down to the sofa from weakened legs, his tears spilling forth.
“How can this be on right now?” he whimpered, pressed within the torment that he had long suppressed.
“Lieutenant Li was already a superstar in the naval aviation community when his plane was struck down that tragic night. The Navy and the nation lost a proven hero. He was only 26.” The segment pulled to commercial with Jordan’s face gradually fading out. Jason turned off the TV and put both hands to his quivering face. He lied full out on the couch as the anguish poured over him like hot sand.
Jordan Li was not only his brother, but his childhood guardian, high school protector, and college mentor. Four years older, Jordan had to be a man at a very early age. After the death of their parents when they were in elementary school, Jordan helped raise him with 60-year-old Uncle Yu, their father’s brother and only blood relative in the Bay Area.
When the boys moved in with their uncle in Richmond, it was Jordan who acted as their second father. His sense of responsibility, justice, and temperance guided Jason through the years, protecting him, nurturing him, and making him strong and independent. They promised to never leave each other throughout life; it was a promise so strong that Jason tried to emulate as much of his brother as he could.
Following in Jordan’s footsteps to UC Berkeley, Jason graduated with honors in computer engineering and joined the Navy, while Jordan was already a rising star as a navy aviator cadet. After scoring nearly perfect on his Aviation Selection Test Battery, Jason entered the naval pilot pipeline, hoping to be stationed with Jordan and fly missions together from the same aircraft carrier.
As he began the arduous 48 months of Naval Aviator Cadet training, Jordan was already making a name for himself in the fleet. In his first two years as an F-35C Lightning III combat pilot, Jordan’s magnificence in the Gulf of Oman was noticed early. Stationed onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in only his second mission, his three-plane detachment was jumped by a squadron of seven Iranian Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker fighters. He shot down two planes and forced a third to ditch in the gulf.
On his third mission against Iranian ground targets, he destroyed two Flankers and completed his ground support bomb drop,
