Sign, Seal, Deliver

Circling the aircraft, Michelle scanned the overall structural integrity of the jet. After she inspected the hydraulic gauges, she moved on to check the tires. And more importantly, she made sure the tailhook was pointed down. If the hook couldn’t catch the arresting wire and the jet couldn’t be diverted to a land base, the pilot had to fly into a steel-mesh-and-canvas-net barricade strung across the deck. A terrifying experience she could do without.

“You okay? You seem distracted,” Skeeter observed.

“Well, you know Captain Greene.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

“I thought maybe you and Zach had a fight.”

Michelle didn’t respond at first, needing the few moments it took to round the plane and come up on the nose again. But finally she had to satisfy her curiosity. “What makes you think Zach and I are fighting?”

“For one thing,” Skeeter answered, “he keeps looking over here with those soulful blue eyes of his.”

Michelle feigned indifference, but from the look on her RIO’s face, Skeeter wasn’t buying it. She pushed on the nose of the Tomcat to make sure the cone wouldn’t flip up during the catapult launch and crack the windshield.

Her gaze darted toward Zach’s plane a few feet away. They made eye contact from where he crouched on the wing checking an access panel. But he didn’t offer a jaunty salute or wave as he normally would have.

The corner of her mouth turned up in a sad smile. “He always looks like that.”

“Maybe when he looks at you. Personally, I don’t know what you see in him,” Skeeter said.

“Nothing,” Michelle denied automatically. Skeeter was probably the only person she knew who wasn’t taken in by Zach’s charisma. “In fact, I’m putting in for a transfer when we get to Turkey. I’m thinking about joining the Nintendo generation and retraining to fly the F/A-18 Hornet,” Michelle confided. The thought hadn’t even occurred to her until she shaded her eyes to watch as one of the newer, more maneuverable jets landed on deck.

The pilots were younger, from a generation where working mothers were the norm, and less likely to see a female flier as a threat. Hell, as sobering as the thought was, they’d probably think of her as mom.

Motherhood. With thirty approaching at Mach speed, she couldn’t deny thinking about it a time or two lately. Mostly with regret for what would never be.

A son with dark hair and blue eyes, toddling after his daddy…or a daughter, slipping her tiny hand into a much larger one…

“What about an F-14 squadron on the East Coast?” Skeeter asked.

A tidal wave of homesickness washed over Michelle for her home state of Virginia. For her mom and dad.

For forfeit fantasies.

“You don’t really want to fly with Bitchin’ Betty, instead of me, do you?” Skeeter persisted.

Michelle forced her attention back to her RIO, who was referring to the soft feminine voice of the computer system in the newer aircraft. The Hornet and the Super Hornet didn’t need a navigator. The pilot viewed operating systems from a four-inch screen with a touch pad, instead of having to scan countless dials and gauges.

The jet was equipped to do the job of two planes—the fighter and the attack bomber—while utilizing only one-quarter of the personnel. In a few short years fighters like the F-14 Tomcat would be as obsolete as bombers like the A-6 Intruder. And so would she. Why hadn’t she seen the writing on the wall sooner?

“If you stayed with the F-14, I could ship out with you.” Skeeter sounded a little desperate. And no wonder. As a pilot, Michelle had more options than her flight officer did. An NFO qualified to ride in, but not drive, a plane.

In Skeeter’s case, she was too short. Skeeter had received a waiver for the back seat only after proving she could reach the farthest control, the handle that jettisoned the canopy during an emergency ejection.

The Navy had built its planes decades earlier to accommodate males from five-six to six-three. Michelle’s height and build worked in her favor. “You’d want to do that?” she asked, weighing Skeeter’s feelings against her own motives. She didn’t want to hurt her dear friend with careless words or deeds. It wasn’t necessary to make up her mind right now.

“We’re a team, right?”

“Teammates,” Michelle agreed, but wondered in the end if she wouldn’t be moving on. She stole another glance at Zach, gabbing with a grape, a person wearing the purple vest of aviation fuels. The young enlisted woman appeared to hang on his every word. The knot in Michelle’s stomach tightened.

She knew what that girl and others saw when they looked at Zach, his movie-star looks for one thing. The charm that radiated from every pore for another.

But what did she see in him? Nothing…

Except that he was everything she wasn’t. A better pilot. A better person. And she resented him for it. And some resentments took a lifetime to overcome.

Michelle climbed onto the left wing to check the rudder. Was it possible to be jealous of and in love with your best friend?

WITH ONE LAST LOOK in Michelle’s direction, Zach put on his helmet and pulled down the visor, then climbed into the cockpit of his Tomcat.

It was already too late for his heart. And as soon as she got around to that piece of bubble gum in her pocket, it’d be too late for his pride.

He had nothing left to lose. Except her friendship.

Why hadn’t he left well enough alone?

Why did this restlessness he felt have him acting on impulse? He should have waited. Until her birthday, at least. By then maybe he’d have come to his senses. He’d waited four months already, since the ship left port, and that wasn’t exactly impulsive. Hell, who was he kidding? He’d had this particular itch for more than twelve years. He’d just been too spineless to scratch it before now. So why then, when he’d finally worked up the courage, was he breaking out in hives?

Steve climbed into the back seat and closed them off inside the Plexiglas canopy. Zach hooked up his G suit, oxygen mask and fastened the torso harness of his ejection seat. With a map strapped to the top of one knee and a scratch pad with notes secured to the other, he cinched the straps that held his legs in position. Flailing appendages could get chopped off in an emergency ejection.

Some pilots liked the snug feeling, but it made him feel claustrophobic, at least until he was airborne and could forget about the harness altogether.

He fired up the jet engines.

“You sure you want to give all this up?” Steve asked from behind him as they slowly taxied to the launch, following the taxi director’s signal. Hands above the waist were for the pilot, below were for the ground crew.

Zach smiled to himself. “I’m sure.” It wouldn’t be easy. But either way his life would never be the same.

That was why he’d stopped by Greene’s office and submitted a request for SEAL training. If Michelle didn’t want to marry him, there’d be no use hanging around the Air Wing.

They were launching from one of two forward positions today. Rapunzel and Skeeter from the other. The trip to Turkey wasn’t all fun and games. They’d meet up with allied forces for a week of training exercises before earning their forty-eight hours of liberty.

That gave him between takeoff and landing to convince Michelle to come along for the ride of her life. He pulled his lucky charm from his pocket, a photo of them together at Top Gun graduation. Removing the wad of gum from his mouth, he stuck it to the back of the picture and fixed it to the dashboard.

As he taxied into the catapult position, a square of deck angled up to deflect exhaust. A yellow vest—a catapult launch officer with Mickey Mouse ears to protect his hearing—signaled for him to extend the launch bar. Zach obliged and crewmen scurried underneath to hook the bar to the track. Zach pushed the throttle forward to full power.

The jet shuddered as the engines roared.

He ran an automatic check of his control stick and rudder pedals as he eyeballed the panels and gauges.

So far, so good.

Zach switched the launch bar to the retract setting, then grabbed the catapult hand grip in his left hand and locked his elbow. Releasing the wheel brakes, he braced his heels against the floor so he wouldn’t accidentally tap a rudder pedal.

The launch bar tightened. The nose dipped. And the launch officer took over.

Zach’s blood pumped with anticipation. He gripped the joystick with his right hand, but wouldn’t have control of the Tomcat until they were clear of the bow.

“Ready to rock and roll.” Zach gave the launch officer a sharp salute.

Like a projectile propelled from a slingshot, the Tomcat took to the horizon. Zach’s eyes remained glued to the gauges, when they weren’t rolling back into his head. His helmet stayed pinned to the headrest and his stomach was up somewhere near his throat. But his adrenaline hummed, then sang as the F-14 shot from the boat.

He had exactly two seconds for the jet to reach 120 knots; if it didn’t, he’d pull the yellow cord between his legs. Ejecting in front of the ship could be as dangerous as failing to eject. Being keel-hauled, dragged under a 130-foot-long beam held little appeal. And little chance for survival.

God, he was going to miss this.

“We’re clear!” Steve whooped from the back seat, knowing the microphones to the tower weren’t keyed up yet.

As Zach took control of the stick, the dawn promised a clear azure sky and miles of visibility. Pink cotton-candy clouds overhead and bottomless blue ocean below gave him a sense of freedom that was hard to define. Since that very first day he’d taken to the sky, he knew it was where he belonged. Just as he knew he and Michelle belonged together.

As a fighter pilot he had to possess the right combination of nerves and daring to take off and land a thirty-eight-million-dollar jet on a moving airstrip about the size of a football field.

Not to mention a little bit of attitude.

Zach had all three in abundance.

The one thing he didn’t have was the girl. And he intended to rectify that very soon.

“Tomcat Leader, this is Two. I’ve got your ‘six’ covered,” Michelle reported in on the tower frequency, having launched right behind him.

“‘Anytime, baby,’” Zach quoted the Tomcat motto. “Angels nineteen, recommend two-twenty,” he called back.

“Copy, Tomcat Leader. Cruising altitude nineteen thousand feet. Airspeed 220 knots,” she rattled off the nautical miles in her soft alto static. “Two, on the way to heaven.”

“Roger, Two, I’ll meet you there.”

Zach eased back on the stick, taking the Tomcat up to their designated rendezvous as he wondered what the view was like from a jumbo jet. “This is your captain speaking,” he said into his mouthpiece. “The temperature in Istanbul is a balmy seventy-two degrees…. In a few minutes you’ll see Saudi Arabia coming up on your left, and to the right, Iraq.

“Your stewardess, Steve, will be around with peanuts and all the booze your kidneys can hold. Thank you for flying Renegade Air.”

“Practicing?” Steve asked.

“Thought it might be a good idea.” Maybe he’d be able to convince Michelle there were friendlier skies where they could be together.

“There’s something I gotta ask you, Rapunzel.”

“Not today, Renegade. I’m not in the mood.”

“PMS with wings,” Steve shared on the back mike.

“I was just wondering how you felt about United.”

“United? The airline?” Michelle asked.

“Renegade!” Captain Greene’s bellow vibrated through his helmet. “I’ll bust your butt all the way down to seaman recruit if you keep talking like that.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Smart-ass,” Greene shot back.

“That’s an affirmative, Captain.” Zach chuckled. The captain liked a good verbal spar as much as he did—only, the senior officer had the rank to back up his bluster.

“Right now I’ve got a bigger problem than your mouth, hotshot. I’ve got a broken catapult and a plane in the drink. Next launch in ten…” The captain paused to listen for the report, then let out a string of expletives. “Make that twenty.”

“Roger, twenty. One and Two going on alone.” Zach hoped the poor bastards whose jet had taken a nosedive into the water lived to tell about it.

Their flight path would take them over the Persian Gulf into the coalition-enforced no-fly zone over southern Iraq, where they’d do a little policing for Kuwait. Then over Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria until they reached their destination, Turkey.

“Copy.” Michelle acknowledged the message.

Zach switched to the prearranged frequency that would keep their cockpit conversations private just in time to hear Michelle chewing him out.

“Must you provoke him like that?” she demanded.

Michelle took Captain Greene a lot more seriously than he did. She took life a lot more seriously. So how did he prove he was serious enough about her to take on more responsibility? She’d be good for him. And he’d be good for her. Why couldn’t she see that?

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

“Are you calling me uptight?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Now you’re mixing up your fairy tales. That’s ‘Cinderella.’”

Zach chuckled. “United. Think about it. Lead’s breaking for a G warm-up.” He banked the jet right ninety degrees, diving one thousand feet in a 4G maneuver to test his reaction times.

Four times the force of gravity meant he now weighed eight hundred pounds and his movements were harder to control. When the aircraft’s weight sensor detected the increase, air from the engine rushed in, inflating his anti-G suit and squeezing the lower half of his body to keep blood pumping to his brain and to keep him from passing out. No one could ever accuse a jet pilot of thinking with his lower extremities.

At least not while flying.

“Renegade, checks out okay,” Zach reported.

“Magician, okay.”

“Two breaking.” Michelle followed his lead.

Zach gave her enough time to pull off the stunt, but she didn’t report back right away. “Two?”

“Roger. Skeeter, okay.”

“Rapunzel, okay.”

She’d hesitated a moment too long. “Two?” he asked again.

“Let’s put the pedal to the metal,” she responded.

“Negative, Two.” A body reacted differently to the G force from one day to the next. And as far as he knew, she’d skipped breakfast. As squad leader, if he suspected a serious physical impairment to her flying, he could order her back to the carrier. She wouldn’t like it. But he’d do it. “Run through that G warm-up again.”

“What—”

“Humor me. That’s an order, Two.”

“Two breaking for another G warm-up,” she answered back with a little too much sass.

Just the way he liked it.

Zach craned his neck to watch her jet bank, then dive against the backdrop of blue sky.

“Rapunzel, checks out okay,” she reported back, right away this time.

“Skeeter, okay.”

“Copy, Two. Recommend Mach I.” The speed of sound.

“Roger, Tomcat leader. I concur.”

Zach maintained a somber mood for the rest of the flight. It went against his nature, but playtime was over. They were without backup. And it wasn’t that long ago he’d been a raw ensign flying sorties over Iraq. That thought was enough to sober him up fast.

F-14 Tomcats were fighters. So he hadn’t participated in bombing runs. Though he’d thrilled to the experience of hair-raising dives and recoveries in trainers, he wouldn’t trade his fighter for a bomber or the new fighter/attack bomber like the F/A-18 Hornet for the world.

It would be even worse than a jumbo jet.

Give him a good dogfight any day, the last arena of gentleman warfare. There were rules of engagement, and both pilots had chosen to be there.

“Tomcat Leader, this is Tower. We have a bogey 800 knots and closing.”

“Single?” Zach queried the tower and his RIO at the same time. “Magic Man?”

“Got him on the screen,” Steve answered first. “Looks like a single.”

“I see him, too,” Skeeter reported.

“Eyes open,” Zach ordered.

“One o’clock, MiG-28. Headed straight for us,” Steve supplied as the more maneuverable Russian-made aircraft bearing the red, white and black colors of Iraq broke through the clouds and into their line of vision.

Nothing to lose his breakfast over, Zach surmised. Since the Gulf War, Iraqi and American fighters did everything they could to avoid confrontation with one another. Zach didn’t expect today to be any different.

“He’s not supposed to be in the no-fly zone. Let’s chase him home,” he ordered, maneuvering his jet into a split S, a quick U-turn that would bring him in low on the bogey. He craned his head to the left as he turned right.

“Copy. Got you covered, Tomcat Leader.” Michelle followed his lead.

Dogfighting had changed little since WWI, but it wasn’t as easy as it looked on the big screen. First you had to get in the control zone, the cone behind the other jet. And you could only attack from the same angle of plane. A dogfight lasted all of sixty seconds or less. After that first minute survival rates dropped dramatically.

At any given moment a pilot handled a dozen or more calculations in his head. In training they practiced juggling tennis balls and solving mathematical equations at the same time. A well-trained fighter pilot’s instincts were so honed he could fly without thinking and concentrate on making split-second decisions.

The MiG pilot had enough maneuvers to keep them on the edge of their seats as they raced through the skies at speeds that exceeded the sound barrier.

“This guy’s pissin’ me off. Why isn’t he leaving the zone?” Zach questioned the Iraqi pilot’s motives. “Let’s see if we can get him to panic and run.” He zeroed in on the target. “I’ve got a lock!” The beep of the HUD—heads-up display—confirmed it. “He’s bugging out.” The MiG sped ahead just as alarms blared in the cockpit. “Shit! Surface-to-air missiles.” They were about to cross over into Iraqi airspace.

“Radar’s trying to get a lock,” Steve confirmed.

“We’ve got bells going off here,” Michelle warned.

“Bug out!” Zach ordered as he switched to evasive tactics.

“Affirmative.” Michelle took the lead in the turn.

“Renegade, MiG’s in pursuit,” Steve informed him.

“What does this guy think he’s doing?” They were back in the coalition controlled airspace, the no-fly zone over southern Iraq and Kuwait.

Something wasn’t right. Zach felt it in his gut.

If this was all for shits and giggles, the MiG pilot would have bugged out by now. This guy was playing cat-and-mouse as if he wanted to get caught. Which could mean only one thing—this MiG was the cheese. So they’d better keep their eyes open for more enemy fighters.

“Tower, this is Tomcat Leader—”

“Keep your cool, hotshot,” Captain Greene broke in with instructions. “See if you can lead him out over the gulf.”

“How much fuel do we have, Magic Man?”

“Not enough for this shit,” Steve answered even before calculating the amount of fuel in exact pounds. Dogfighting was the difference between a Sunday drive and drag racing when it came to fuel consumption.

“Keep an eye on it for me. Copy, Tower. Two, whaddya say we make a MiG sandwich. Can you get behind this guy?”

“Affirmative. I’m pulling around behind.”

“Renegade, two more bogeys closing in,” Steve warned.

“Copy. What’d Iraq do—send up their whole damn air farce today?” The Iraqi fighters wouldn’t be led out to sea, and keeping the three jets out of southern Iraq and away from Kuwait forced them all deeper into the Republic of Iraq. But every time the Tomcats gave up chase the Iraqi fighters came back around. “Tower, recommend radio Saudi for some backup from the Air Force.”

“Negative. We’ve launched four of our own. ETA, ten minutes. By the time the Air Force gets off the ground, we’d already be there.”

“We’ve got two bogeys on our tail,” Skeeter reported.

“Gotcha covered.” Zach slammed on the air brakes. Pulling back hard on the stick, he maneuvered the jet in an over-the-top back flip known as an Immelmann—named after the WWI German flying ace who’d invented it.

Then he rolled in behind the lag MiG.

Lag pursuit required a patience Zach didn’t possess right now. He opted for lead pursuit. Taking a high yo-yo shortcut through the other pilot’s circle, he cut off bogey number three from Michelle.

Meanwhile, she lured the MiG directly behind her into a rolling scissors, a dizzying Ferris-wheel form of pure pursuit that pulled as much as eight G’s. But with a little luck and a lot of skill she would eventually put her Tomcat behind the MiG.

That took care of bogey number two.

And left number one, the lead MiG open to come in behind either him or Michelle. Zach was the easier target. He made sure he kept it that way.

Everything happened fast and furious with three MiGs and two Tomcats vying to lock on to enemy craft. Zach’s head moved on a swivel, trying to keep up with his jet. Steve rattled in his ears, tracking both friend and foe.

Michelle dropped below two thousand feet before she managed to get into the cone zone of MiG Two. As soon as she did, MiG One lined up behind her.

“He’s trying to get a lock.” She sounded composed and in control, pulling from her bag of tricks a countermaneuver for every maneuver the MiG tried.

God, she was good.

The way she kept her cool made him hot all over. “Shake your tail feathers, baby,” Zach ordered. He wanted her safe. And he wasn’t about to play games with her life. “Tower, where’s that backup?”

“ETA, eight minutes.”

“We’re over Iraqi-controlled airspace,” Steve warned.

G’s slammed Zach’s body. Winds buffeted the plane. Alarms rang in the cockpit and throughout his head.

“He’s got a lock.” Michelle put her Tomcat into a barrel roll, launching chaff and flares to confuse any heat-seeking missiles. “I can’t shake him.”

“I’m lining up right behind him.” Zach had two MiGs on his tail now. The one directly behind him locked on. He launched a confusing barrage of chaff and stuck like glue to the MiG riding Rapunzel’s six.

The bogey kept on her.

Sweat gushed from every pore of his body, soaking through his flight suit as he sucked down oxygen from his face mask.

Hold him off, sweetheart.

Lock on, lock on, he demanded of himself.

The HUD showed the bogey in the “pickle” and beeped. “Yes! Enough of this shit. Tower, I’ve got a lock.” Zach’s thumb hovered over the trigger of the Sidewinder, a close-range air-to-air combat missile. “Permission to fire.”

“Do not engage,” Captain Greene spouted policy. They were not to fire unless fired upon.

“He’s all over Rapunzel’s ass!”

Then it happened. His worst nightmare.

The MiG fired, scoring a direct hit.

The tail of Michelle’s Tomcat burst into flames. Her plane spiraled toward the ground.

“Eject! Eject, dammit!” Zach shouted.

CHAPTER THREE

One month later

LIEUTENANT PRINCE’S OFF-BASE RESIDENCE,

Miramar, CA

“EJECT, eject, dammit!” Zach awoke with a start. Heart thumping, sweat beading his forehead, he kicked free of the tangled sheets to sit on the edge of the mattress.

The glaring red numbers of the electric alarm clock on the nightstand flashed twelve noon.

He didn’t give a rat’s ass what time it was, or what day, for that matter. If it wasn’t for the nightmares, he’d just as soon stay in bed. With a shaking hand, he reached for the half-empty bottle of bourbon, poured two fingers into a dirty glass and slammed it down in one swallow.

Resting his head in his palms, he tried to keep the forming headache at bay while the liquor burned a hole straight through his gut.

The pounding in his head became insistent before he realized someone was knocking at the door.