Free Fallout by James W. Huston Page B

with MAPS right away and moved to Germany. Very lucky. Very hard job to get. I have many hours and much maintenance experience. When I got there, they told me about this. I was very interested. They told me to do work on it.”
    “What do you think?” Luke asked.
    “About coffee? Is terrible.”
    “No, the MiGs.”
    “I need to see maintenance records. I need to see how much hours are on the engines. They don’t last that long. Russian engines run very hot. But if engines work good, I think they will do.”
    “Did you get the numbers?”
    “Yes. We will be able to reconstruct the entire history of the airplanes. We keep track of all MiG-29s in the world. We keep duplicate maintenance records for all planes so we can track failures and times. No question,” he said, downing another deep gulp of the hot coffee. He looked at the serial numbers. “I am afraid of many of the engines. They are old numbers and may not have too much hours left on them. You make sure in planning you have money for many engines. They only fly four hundred hours before need overhauls.”
    Luke frowned. “When the U.S. bought these planes from Moldova, they bought the spare parts, too. I hope there are also some spare engines.”
    “Yes, there are. But you will need more.”
    “Where are we going to get extra engines?”
    “
I
get them. You pay for them, but we can get you anything. You forget that MAPS is half Russian. Owned by company that makes MiGs. They want to sell lots of parts. They make them, so we can buy them. You just have to be
able
to buy them.”
    “I need you to do some things for me.”
    Vlad looked across at him. He glanced down at his grubby little notebook with Russian writing and numbers in it. “Anything.”
    “I need an estimate of the costs of refurbishing the MiGs, bringing them up to NATO specs, and the expected cost of maintenance for five years on an annual basis.”
    “Yes, yes,” Vlad said as he wrote in his notebook with a stubby pencil, the kind one might find at a golf course.
    “And then, if you can, I need an estimate for MAPS to train Thud and me to fly the MiG-29, in Germany or Russia or wherever.”
    “Germany. Much easier.”
    “Okay. How long it would take—”
    “For TOPGUN instructor? Ha! You could fly now. No question. I could tell you in five minutes things you need to know. Fighting in air combat would take longer, and learning weapons. But flying? Easy. Very forgiving airplane. And no fly by wire. No computer tricks. What you ask for from the stick is what you get.”
    “Still, for a syllabus—the kind the German Air Force went through when they got the MiG-29s from the East German Air Force.”
    “Sure. MAPS would do that for free, if we do business.”
    “Would MAPS actually be able to contract to do the maintenance for us? Here? In Nevada?”
    Vlad’s already red eyes grew more intense and cloudy. “Yes,” he said, but with some reservation, Luke could see. “I want to do it. I want to come to Nevada to do the maintenance, train your own people, take care of everything for you.” Vlad reached down to his beat-up brown leather briefcase and pulled it onto the small table in front of them, nearly knocking over his half-full coffee cup. “I have something for you.” He pulled out two thick manuals and handed them to Luke and Thud.
    “What is this?” Luke asked.
    “Pilot manual for MiG-29.”
    Luke stared at the manual. He was skeptical. He opened it to an arbitrary page and began reading. The English was excellent, and it had all the diagrams and charts in the right place. He was shocked. “Outstanding,” he said.
    “Good. So do we do business?”
    “I don’t know yet. I have to get the U.S. government to approve all this. They own the MiGs and have to agree to lease them to us.”
    “You have money?”
    “I think so. We’ve had interest from investors.”
    “You have a lot of money?”
    “What do you mean by a lot?” Thud asked.
    “Many millions. You won’t