Free Top Gun by T. E. Cruise

that I grew up with housekeepers….
My
mom was hardly ever home.”
    “Hey,” she began, looking very serious as she hung up the phone. “Let’s get one thing straight right now. I’m a
superior
mother.”
    “I’m sure you are,” Gold placated.
    She stopped him. “No offense, cutie, but I don’t need you to be sure, because
I’m
sure. I have made some
supreme-o
sacrifices for my kids. When the network wanted to bump me up to be their Paris correspondent—a job my professional peers
     would have killed for—I turned it down because I didn’t want to raise my kids outside of the U.S.A., and because as a single
     parent I didn’t want to be apart from them for months at a time. It was for the sake of my kids that I decided to leave New
     York: I wanted them to have a goddamned backyard to play in. It was for them that I decided to try my hand at free-lancing,
     so that I could be there for them.”
    Gold held up his hands in surrender. “Okay! You’ve convinced me! I apologize.”
    Linda smiled, calming down. “Apology accepted.”
    Gold listened as she made her call, telling her housekeeper in fluent Spanish that she would be home in about an hour, depending
     on the traffic. When she’d hung up, Gold moved the telephone back to the nightstand, saying, “You know, it’s funny you talking
     about being there for your kids, and your kids being there for you. I just found out something about my own father I never
     knew. Before I ran into you this morning, Tim Campbell put this bug in my ear about something he and Pop were involved in
     a lot of years back. Campbell told me to ask Don Harrison about it, so just before we left the trade show—while you were finishing
     up your note-gathering—I managed to collar Don long enough to get the story.”
    “Story about what?”
    Gold paused. “This is probably going to piss you off, but I’ve got to say it: What I’m about to tell you now is not for publication.
     It’s totally off the record, or whatever the phrase is, okay?”
    Linda spread her arms wide, her breasts rising, her nipples looking rouged against her pale skin “In case you haven’t noticed,
     I don’t have my notebook and pen,” she said coolly. “But would you like to frisk me for a wire?”
    “Come on, Linda. You know what I mean.”
    “I suggest you thoroughly explore all the usual hiding places…” She went up on her hands and knees to present him with her
     heart-shaped bottom.
    Gold lunged and bit her on the ass. She squawked in outrage, spinning away to the foot of the bed and facing him.
    “Now that I have your attention,” he began, exasperated. “Once upon a time we tried not to keep secrets from one another,
     but this is different. I’ve got responsibilities to the company. I need to know the ground rules on what I can tell you concerning
     GAT, and what I can’t.”
    Linda thought about it. “Fair enough, considering what I do for a living, and the book I’m currently working on,” she admitted.
     “How’s this: Unless you tell me otherwise, or I specifically ask, I’ll always assume that our conversations are off the record.”
    “Okay…” Gold reached for his cigarettes. “As I was saying, this all took place back in the fifties, when GAT and Amalgamated-Landis
     had individually come up with the industry’s first jetliner prototypes, and both firms were competing for orders from the
     airlines. It was about this same time that the CIA and the Air Force approached my father about the possibility of GAT designing
     and building a high-altitude spy plane that could be used over the Soviet Union….”
    He hesitated, watching Linda, wondering just how much detail about this to go into with her, because it was this same spy-plane
     project that had broken up their romance back when Gold had been a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. Gold had been set
     to leave the military in order to settle down with Linda in Los Angeles, but then the CIA had tapped him,