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“Kiss me,” she said. “You’re still talking too much.”

They kissed again, this time with passion. Hohendorfs diffidence began to fade, and soon they
were grappling at each other. Neither was fully conscious of clothes being feverishly undone; of flesh meeting eager flesh; of…

Entry.

Morven had managed somehow to unlace one of her hiking shoes. Now she kicked it off and pulled her leg free of the restricting jeans to make it easier to pull him deep into her. She gave a loud sigh that was at once of pleasure and of long-awaited satisfaction. Her body worked sinuously beneath him and she kissed him as he moved within her, making whimpering noises all the while.

Hohendorf knew now that he had wanted her from the very moment he had set eyes upon her. He had wanted to feel her body next to his. He had wanted to feel himself going into her. He had wanted …

An unbelievably powerful force took hold of him. He seemed to swoop upon her, lifting her off the ground and squeezing her to him as he felt his whole being flowing into her. She hung on to him tightly, body trembling, answering his urgency with her own. She shuddered against him for what seemed an eternity.

At last, bodies clasped tightly to each other, each gave a long, drawn-out sigh before they relaxed slowly against the grassy earth. While in the bushes about them, the dark seed pods exploded.

“Morven, Morven,” he said gently, and kissed her softly upon suffused, enraptured lips.

*   *   *

“We’d better make ourselves presentable,” she said at long last.

Their bodies were still locked against each other. “This is a popular walk. We might shock some poor soul who’s come up here for the view.”

“We’re far away from the path.”

“Not that far. Come on, you.”

He moved reluctantly. Then his diffidence made a return. “Are you sorry?”

“Do I look it?” She began dressing.

“No.”

“Then I’m not. QED.” She paused to look at him. “Are you?”

He stared at her still radiant from their love-making.

“No,” he said softly. “I am not.”

She smiled. “Good.”

After they were fully dressed again, she began laying out the food. It was now his turn to smile. He enjoyed watching her. Her every movement, her voice, brought pleasure.

“What are you smiling at?”

“I’m smiling at you.”

“Then stop it. You’re making me blush.”

“You’re beautiful when you blush. You’re beautiful when you don’t blush.”

She stopped, then leaned over to kiss him. “Get the wine.”

He did so, opened it with a flourish, then poured
some into two glasses he had taken out of a small, well-padded cardboard box.

“I’d expected plastic cups,” she said, taking the glass he handed her.

“Fighter pilots are trained to be ready for every eventuality. Or so they tell me.” He raised his glass. “To us.”

She raised hers, looked at him over the rim. “And were you ready for this? Did you expect it?”

“What do you …? Oh no. I did not expect anything. I brought the wine because—”

She was laughing at him. “Oh Axel! If you could see your face. So shocked.” She leaned forward again, nearly spilling her wine. “I think,” she continued seriously, “I’m falling in love with you.” She gave him a quick peck on the lips then leaned back again, against the bole of the tree. “Now let’s eat.”

“I think I am too.”

“In love with you?”

“No,” he said, equally serious. “With you.”

She stared into her wine for a long moment. “Let’s eat.”

When they had finished the wine and the food, they leaned together in contentment, shoulder to shoulder against the tree.

“What actually happened to Richard Palmer and Neil Ferris?” Morven asked. “Mark never told me. He said there were educated guesses, but he never explained.”

Hohendorf rested his head against the tree.
“What happened,” he repeated. “G-loc. That’s what happened. The crash recorders confirmed what nearly all of us had already suspected. The inquiry will go on for a long time to check every detail and to make quite sure, of course, but that is what we believe.”

“What is … what did you call it …?”

“G-loc. It means G-induced loss of consciousness. Some modern jet fighters can turn so quickly and tightly, if you are not G-prepared, you lose consciousness during a very high-G turn. It can take perhaps as long as four minutes before you are again properly awake.”

“My God,” Morven said quietly. “How dangerous your job is.”

“Nonsense. Considering what we fast jet pilots do, I think we are some of the safest people in the world. You would not get me to fly an airliner, for example.”

“Why not?”

“I like the fast reactions of my ship. It is almost as if I am thinking with it. The airplane is just another part of myself. I think it, and I am there. With an airliner … it is different. I am not suited.”

“You sound almost as if someone is trying to persuade you.”

“My wife. My father-in-law. They have tried. It is old history.”

“What about your cousin? How does she feel about you, and about Johann?”

Hohendorf thought about it for a while. “Erika,” he began. “Erika understands. Of course like everybody else, she worries; but she would worry if we drove trucks. She knows it is what we love to do. She would never try to stop it. But AnneMarie—”

Morven put a finger upon his lips. “Sshh. Let’s not talk about her any more.”

He gave her a gentle look. “No. Let us not. I am very happy with you, Morven. I have written to my mother about you. I know she will like you also. I never dreamed …”

“There you go. Talking again.”

She silenced him with a long kiss.

The Baltic.

Beuren and Johann Ecker were heading back to base after a long patrol, keeping low. For months now Beuren had taken the Tornado down to thirty feet, with barely a qualm. His control down on the deck, while lacking Hohendorfs style, was good. Beuren seemed to be a man transformed. Perhaps the poor showing during Red Flag had been the turning point. Whatever it was, it had worked.

Ecker did not expect Hohendorfs kind of artistry from anyone except Hohendorf himself. But Beuren was doing very well. The previous months had shown it. It was possible that he had felt intimidated by the other’s brilliance. With Hohendorf gone
to the new special unit, Beuren had had room to flower.

Ecker glanced out at the rushing gray of sea, seemingly mere inches beneath his feet. A uniform drabness had wiped out the horizon, and sea and sky were one and the same. Over on two-nine-zero, a ship that had been on the radar for some time appeared suddenly, apparently floating in the air. It was a common illusion under such conditions and your instruments were the only things you believed.

Ecker checked the altitude read-out. The Tornado had gone lower. They were now at 20 feet and doing 500 knots.

“A little more height, Willi,” he advised calmly. Nothing to worry about: the aircraft flew steadily. But a little prudence …

There was no response from Beuren.

“Willi,” Ecker murmured in the same calm voice. “Take us back up to 30 feet.” He glanced out of the cockpit. The greyness seemed to have become denser.

Still no response.

“Willi, are you OK?” Ecker glanced at his instruments. The Tornado was definitely creeping lower. “Willi! Pull-up!”

There was a sudden cry of anguish from the front seat and the Tornado jerked skywards. It began to roll.

“Willi, we are upside down! Roll 180.” At least they were now a few hundred feet up, but that would
not last for long if Willi didn’t come to his senses … “Willi, roll 180 and pull up. We’re diving.”

After what seemed an age, the Tornado shakily rolled the right way up and climbed unsteadily. It levelled out at 5000 feet. Whimpering noises were coming from the front office.

Oh God, Ecker thought in horror. Willi’s gone.

“Willi,” he said as calmly as he could, “give her to me. We’ll let her take us home, but you’ll have to put us down. Willi? Do you understand?”

The aircraft was now in a gentle dive.

“Willi!”

The Tornado slowly came out of its dive.

“Take her,” Beuren was saying. “For God’s sake—you take her.”

Ecker swiftly activated the aircraft’s autocontrol systems. “You’ll still have to put us down, Willi. Do you understand?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know what happened.”

Scheiss,
Ecker thought. Just when I believed he was doing fine.

The Tornado found its own way home. More by luck than good judgment Beuren got them down. It was the heaviest landing Ecker had experienced in his entire career. He fully expected the landing gear to buckle, but somehow it survived.

As soon as he could, Beuren reported to Wusterhausen.

“I request to be grounded, Chief,” he said.

Wusterhausen looked at him balefully. “After that landing, I’m not surprised.”

“I mean permanently. I don’t want to fly any more.”

Wusterhausen’s eyes narrowed. “Do you realize what you’re saying, Willi? This will ruin your career. You’re a good officer—”

“I’m a lousy pilot. You nearly lost an aircraft and crew out there today, and the only reason I’m standing here talking to you, is because Johann Ecker was on the ball. I’m quitting before I kill someone.”

“You won’t change your mind?”

“No, Chief.”

“Very well. Send Ecker in to me. Put everything in your report.”

“Yes, sir.” Beuren saluted, and left.

Ecker entered a few minutes later, and Wusterhausen could see by his face just how serious it was.

“Well, Johann?”

Ecker described all that had occurred. Wusterhausen listened grim-faced. Then: “Is this what was worrying you and Hohendorf all those months ago? The fact that Willi Beuren was losing his nerve?”

“Axel had a hunch, Chief. It was I who convinced him he should not destroy a man’s career on a mere hunch …”

“Instead, you chose to put two lives and an aircraft
at risk. Suppose it had been someone else in the back seat, who did not have the luxury of being forewarned? At least you were on your guard. I expect my officers to come to me with such problems, Johann, and leave it to me to decide who is fit to fly, and who isn’t.”

“We—”

“Don’t interrupt. You’ll say you were thinking of Willi. Do you believe what has just happened to him was a favour? Don’t interrupt! You should both have trusted me. Now you may speak.”

“You’re absolutely right, Chief. But it was a very difficult thing to do.”

“And do you think I
like
grounding my pilots? Willi is a good officer. His career will change, but it needn’t be over. Neither of you had any right to keep something like this to yourselves. Hohendorf has the makings of a squadron commander, I would have expected him to understand. I know how hard it must have been, but sometimes, an apparently harsh decision proves to be the best for all concerned.” Wusterhausen paused, then went on in kinder tones: “Don’t fall into the same trap twice.”

“No, Chief.”

“Fine. That’s all, Johann. I’ll need your report, of course. At least, Willi’s wife still has a husband, and his children a father. Which is a lot better than sitting here trying to think of the right things to say in letters to his family. Thank you. It was good work.”

Ecker began to leave.

“Johann …”

Ecker paused by the door, looked back.

“You were both nearly killed out there today, Johann, yet when that man came in here to ask me to ground him, I could see it was breaking his heart. Knowing the reality, why do we do it?”

Ecker turned to face his commander. “I asked Axel the same question once. Because we love it, he said, and because we’re needed. Luckily for us, both reasons coincide.”

Wusterhausen stared at him. “Philosophers on my squadron. What next?”

“Axel’s not on your squadron anymore, Chief.”

“No,” Wusterhausen agreed soberly. “He’s not. More’s the pity.”

In the aftermath of the tragic November One flying
accident, while awaiting the results of the official inquiry, most newspaper editors were anxious for a follow-up. One tabloid daily ran a story alleging drunken parties at the base, and scandalous behavior, taking the recent Ball as a pretext. Another had somehow got word of the flying rivalry between Selby and Hohendorf, and even the latter’s romance with the former’s sister, and blew both up into a lurid tale of sexual jealousy and near-lethal airborne feuding at the taxpayer’s expense. No names were mentioned, of course, but Selby had no difficulty recognising himself and Morven.

Discussing the piece with Kim on the telephone, he discovered that clearly Reggie Barham-Deane’s hand must have been at work. The newspaper had to have got its story from somewhere, and
Kim admitted that she’d talked with Reggie: she might well have mentioned something.

“We were having drinks, for God’s sake, Mark. Daddy arranges these little get-togethers. Reggie’s always there and I can’t exactly refuse to speak to him.”

“But why
Morven
? Why did you have to tell him about Morven?”

“Did I? I suppose I must have. I’m sorry, Mark. I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

“A secret? It’s not even true. She danced with him at the Ball, and they went down to the harbor together the following morning. That’s all there is to it.”

She made skeptical noises but she didn’t argue. “Anyway, I do blame myself. I should have known better than to tell Reggie
anything.
After all, he’s just the sort of man to try to make trouble for you. In fact he even warned me once that he’d do just that.”

Selby frowned. It wasn’t himself he was worried for. None of these stories did anything to help November One. A campaign for its closure was developing. The media were so rabid that even Hohendorfs birdstrike had finally made headlines: his survival being presented as no more than a lucky chance. Selby didn’t know how serious all this was, but he saw every day that Jason was worried. And when autumn came and Parliament was in session
again, God alone knew what the November One opponents would get up to.