From the phone: “They're banking toward you. Vectored to intercept.”
Lori brought the plane about. Red held on to Marksman's belt and braced as he dropped the door. Barren earth flashed by, the plane's shadow bouncing up and down over ravines like a swallow fluttering in the dusk. The wind blasted him as Marksman dropped to his knees, pushing the door the rest of the way down. It seemed to vibrate in the fury, but the hinges held. If the door tore off, it'd run down the fuselage right into the engine. Freezing air whipped down Red's back and filled his blouse, sucking the breath from his lungs.
The horizon came down as Lori leveled off. Red yanked Marksman back from the edge. The MIGs were only dots now, an arc of gray mist marking their trails. He put the phone to his ear and shouted, “Jamming off!” Then tapped Crawler on the head.
“They're homing!” said the Hawkeye, with a vibrato of adolescent fear. “They've gotâ”
Red bounced against the bulkhead as the SAM leapt from the tube, the hiss of motor exhaust breathing heat into his chest. The rocket left the door and disappeared aft. Had it tumbled in the slipstream? Or even had a chance to acquire its target in the turbulence?
The MIGs banked sideways away from each other, ejecting white-hot flares like drops of liquid sun. Red held the bulkhead and inched toward the door. The SAM came back into view, arcing upwards toward one of the planes, closing so quickly the MIGs now looked slow. The SAM appeared as if it would pass behind the MIG's tail, but took a sharp turn at the last second and hit the centerline of the fuselage. The MIG rolled forward, broke in the middle, and dropped out of sight behind them, falling in two burning chunks of metal.
“Splash one!” Red shouted, slapping Sergeant Crawler on the back. He stumbled over something in the aisle. The empty tube. Crawler already had a second SAM ready. “Start jamming again!” Red shouted into the phone. The rushing air was so loud he couldn't hear, even with the speaker pressed against into his frozen ear. He ducked into the cockpit, slamming the flimsy privacy door behind him. “Where's the other MIG?” he asked.
“Headed home,” the radar operator said.
Red dropped onto one knee. “You sure?”
“I'm reading his damn logbook. I'll tell you if he comes around. Good job.”
Thank you. Please come again.
Something slapped the wall. Marksman was on the floor, Lanyard and Crawler each holding onto one of his boots. He hung halfway out the plane, pulling up the door. It closed and he cranked the handle hard, sealing it. The cabin was quiet again except for the hum of Crawler's vuvuzela. A paper napkin floated down in front of Red's face like a toy parachute. He snatched and crumpled it. He hadn't seen the pilot eject. The distance was so short, maybe the poor bastard didn't have time. Or maybe lax maintenance and no replacement parts kept the seat from working.
He stretched a boot over the throttles and dropped back into the copilot's chair, setting the phone on the console in front of them.
“Come to two-six-five. I'll talk you into Balad,”
the radio operator said.
Lori blurted, “We're headed to the carrier.”
“
Negative. Come to two-six-five.
”
“What're you doing?” Red asked. Her face was flushed. Sweat dripped from her chin. She kept blinking, shaking her head.
“One tank's bingo fuel,” she muttered. “Must've taken ground fire. Only got a third left on the one Crawler filled. The carrier group's closer. Jim's almost dead. Who knows what Balad's got. I'm putting us down on the carrier.”
“Lori, that's crazy. Even if you could, they'll blow us out of the sky if we even fly close.”
The veins in her neck bulged again, like back at the airport. She probably hadn't slept for days. When was the last time she'd eaten? They'd probably pumped her full of drugs. No way she was thinking straight now.
“It's on the carrier, or in the water next to it,” she said. “Even if they have to fish us out, we get Jim to someone that can help. And we're on American soil.”
Red tried his calmest tone. “Lori. You can't do that.”
She turned toward him and flapped a hand. “What you gonna do, Tony? Got anyone else that can fly this thing? Now tell that bitch what we're doing. Then they blow us out of the sky or we land on the carrier. Their call.”
“But you'll kill us.”
She twisted her grip on the wheel. “Conversation's over.”
“Red,” Ali called, an arm extended, waving him back. He took Jim's T-shirt and pressed it to the scarlet mound of bandage atop his friend's chest.
Jim pointed a bent finger at the phone. “Give it to me.” Jim took it in his hand and shut it like a billfold.
What the hell?
“Sir, we needâ”
“You need to listen,” Jim wheezed. One eye was open, moving as if trying to focus, to find Red. “They won't shoot us down. But she can't land on a damn carrier.”
“I know. She's not thinking straight. She looks like hell. Doc should take a look. She's . . . broke.”
One side of Jim's mouth rolled up in a smile. “Then you've got no choice. Sounds like we're landing on the carrier.” He pushed the phone into Red's chest. “Don't ever let them think they've got the power. Higher, I mean. Or whoever's in the control center. Once they pull the trigger on an op, you're the one in charge. The rest can go to hell.”
Red went back to the copilot seat. His boots fell like stones as he walked. Lori was sweating even more profusely. He passed her a canteen, got a tense nod. Hit redial and the Hawkeye gave him the radio channels. Jamming was off, so they could use it now. He placed headphones over Lori's head. They pushed her hair down, exposing darker roots.
An F-18 escort pulled next to them. The pilot waved and the radio crackled in Red's ear.
“Guido here, on your starboard.”
Red waved.
“Can I talk you out of this?”
“You may not have to,” Lori said. “We're low on fuel. But I'm not putting down in the water.”
“Whatever. You'll probably miss the carrier. Don't undershoot. Ramp strike's a bitch. Follow me. The strong headwind will help. The ship's steaming away, full power. Since your normal landing speed is around one-ten knotsâ”
“You know that?” Lori asked.
“Not for sure. But that'll give you a deck speed around sixty knots. We'll arrest you with nets. It'll be sudden.”
Lori frowned. “How sudden?”
“You're gonna crash . . . twice. Once on the deck and again in the net. The headwind's your friend.” Guido gave more instructions. She couldn't aim for the tail of the carrier. Aim past it. “We set you up, you fly it into the deck. Just hit the damn thing. I'll yell to go around if you're going to undershoot. Once you hit, throttles back, controls forward. No touch-and-go's with a net. Carrier's ten minutes out. Follow next to me.”
The late morning sun was still low in the east. At least it would be to their backs. The carrier was a fleck of copper atop a sea of molten lead. As they got closer, the ocean turned frothy. White water churned from the ship's stern.
Guido helped Lori line up and drop the flaps. “Go in gear up. The deck's foamed,” he said.
Red had everyone strap in. The small plane didn't have enough seats for the prisoners in the baskets, so Crawler shoved them into the head, one atop the other, still tied in the fetal position at the bottom of their woven grass wombs.
Soon to be tombs?
Richards and Ali doubled up in one seat. Jim was upright now. Ali tied his blouse around his chest and chair, like a safety harness. Amin was strapped in, forehead wrinkling as if trying to open his eyes, moving the bloody foot across the lavender carpet, brushing it with highlights of crimson. Crawler tucked the busted crate behind the last row of seats.
Red sat back in the copilot chair and crossed himself.
“Do that for me, too,” Lori said, a pale pinkness flushing her cheek. The F-18 bobbed up and down outside the window.
“Why's Guido moving like that?” Red asked.
“He's not.” Her lips stretched thin. “We are. I'm trying to follow him in.”
“Listen, if you miss, put us in the water. I'llâ”
“Shut up.”
It would be over soon enough. No way they'd all survive this. If she was able to hit the deck, maybe a few of the team would live. Probably the ones near the wings, where the fuselage was strongest. If they ditched, they'd hit the water at over a hundred knots, so it might as well be cement. With the wind turning up the waves they'd be under in minutes. If the plane broke apart, seconds.
It was his fault, letting the pilot get killed. Penny, Jackson, and Nick would be raised by his parents. At least Tom had mellowed in his old age. Maybe he wouldn't screw them up too badly.
“You know I've seen this before,” Lori whispered under her breath. “Remember?”
“What?”
“I was in your seat. The real copilot was puking his guts out. But then the captain was Navy, and our plane had a tail hook, so it wasn't the same.”
The story felt familiar, as if Red had heard the joke before but couldn't remember the punch line. He closed his eyes and tried, but the memory was like a butterfly that landed all too briefly, then flew away. He tried to picture Lori in the copilot seat, but all he could see was her determined eyes as she emptied the 9mm into the guards at the warehouse. How smoothly she had caught Amin's neck with her handcuff chain. “Who are you?”
“Sorry if I let you down,” she said.
That's not what he'd asked. “Father Ingram said he'd be praying. He's an old Navy guy. Maybe God will listen to him.”
The fuel gauge had a sliver of space between the bottom pin. Lori said, “I'm gambling we'll have enough to do a trial run.”
The carrier was huge and flat-topped. A superstructure rose from one side reaching seven stories into the air. The island, the Navy called it. It was topped with antennas and whirling radar dishes. The flight deck was divided into two main runways, one near the front pointed straight ahead with twin catapults sunk into it for launching aircraft. The separate landing runway, the one at which Lori steered the plane, angled nine degrees to one side in case of an accident upon approach. The damaged plane would be less likely to endanger other aircraft on the deck. A likely scenario, currently. And the Navy, in their forethought, had provided the courtesy of spraying a thick white layer of fire retardant foam in anticipation of their arrival.
But no other aircraft were on deck. It was like a ghost ship. Except for two white uniforms on an observation platform, nothing was moving. Having lined up her approach and flared close to the deck, Lori pressed the throttles forward and performed a go-round. Not bad, a little far to port, trying to stay clear of the island.
“Pretend it's not there,” Guido said. “Up close, all you'll see is the butt of the flight deck. Pretend there's a big red dot there. Run right into it.”
Red cinched Lori's harness, then his. Final approach, if they had enough fuel to make it. The wheel in front of his face travelled in and out, twisting, mirroring Lori's movements. Sometimes when it moved, the aircraft didn't, as if she was feeling the wind, listening to its thoughts, reacting before it changed. It was a battle between will and fate, woman and nature, skill and doubt.
The morning sun shot pink on the contrails of two airliners crossing high above. On the water it paved a golden highway over windswept sea, like a sandbar emerging after ebb tide. The red dot grew, rose, then fell. She flared.
The tail hit with a crack as loud as Marksman's rifle. A flash of light shot through the fuselage as the back of it ripped off behind the bathroom. The plane pitched forward, dropping the cockpit hard, digging Red's harness into his shoulders till the belly smacked the deck, driving him back into his seat. Pain shot up his spine to the crown of his head. Screeching, crumpling metal was under his feet. Foam sprayed ahead like a hundred fire hoses. A thick glob of it splashed on the steel net, approaching fast, not slowing, right where his window hit.
The sun warmed Red's cheek. Cold air blew down his neck. Pain shot through his arm. He opened his eyes. He was in the copilot seat, but his shoulder was twisted. Someone was going to have to put it back in its socket.
Where is Lori?
Boots holding a smallish man in blue fatigues were standing on the console between them. How was he doing that? The sun glinted off the multi-display, cracked. Damn, the roof was gone. Red leaned back and hit something hard and hot against his scalp. A cable from the net. Behind were the crumpled remains of the canopy, the orange morning sun burning his eyes.
Lori?
He leaned around the boots on the console. Yellow-clad arms were lifting her out over the nose of the plane on a stretcher. Red unhitched the harness with his good hand. A drop of blood fell from his nose onto the catch.
The boots turned around. “Whoa. Hold on theyah, sport,” said a corpsman with a deep southern drawl.
Red brushed his hands away.
“Hey, sit down or I'm gonna have toâ”
Red crawled over the controls toward the nose of the plane. A shard of glass sliced his palm. “Lori!” he called, blood running over his lips. His reflection in the multi-display showed his nose had been flattened sideways.
Not again.
The corpsman jumped in his way. “She's okay,” he said, grabbing Red's shoulders. “A slice on the forehead. A dozen stitches and she'll be shiny. Now, you need to sit down orâ”