possibility that her orders meant a war was starting. She was thinking of the last time she had seen Major General Bradley B. Scheib.
“You’re out of uniform, Colonel.”
She smiled at the general. “So are you, sir.”
She was standing nude in the bathroom doorway while he lay on the thoroughly rumpled king-sized bed. The motel was a little on the seedy side, but Karen hadn’t minded that. Over the months since she’d fallen in love with Brad Scheib she’d become accustomed to being furtive. It even added a touch of spice to their relationship. Brad was married; she’d known that from the outset, but she knew how to make him happy and his preppy socialite wife didn’t.
The Air Force brass did not like it when an officer had an affair with a married officer. But there was this handsome hunk of a man, so serious, so troubled when she’d first met him. And now he was smiling and contented. At least, most of the time when they were together. But he wasn’t smiling at the moment.
She went to the bed and snuggled beside him. He wrapped his arms around her. For long moments neither of them spoke a word.
At last he half-whispered, “I’m up for the deputy director post at the MDA.”
Delighted, she asked, “That means a second star, doesn’t it?”
He nodded. Only then did she realize how grave his tone was.
“You want the job, don’t you?” “I sure do.”
“So you’ll be moving to Washington, then. It’s okay. I can get there often enough.”
“I don’t think so, Karen,” he said.
She suddenly understood where he was heading, but she didn’t want to believe it. “What do you mean?”
“There’s going to be an investigation.”
“Of you?”
He shook his head. “Of you. My wife…” His voice trailed off.
“She ratted you out?” Karen felt anger seething up inside her.
He wouldn’t look into her eyes. “No. She ratted
“What?”
“She got one of her Georgetown friends to tip off the AG that you’re having an affair with a married officer. She didn’t say with who. She’s too devious for that. She expects you to finger me once the AG investigation starts.”
Karen pulled away from him. “The Advocate General’s office is coming after me?”
“They’ll want to know who you’re sleeping with.” His voice was misery personified. “If you tell them, I can say good-bye to the MDA job and the second star.”
“But if I don’t...”
“They can’t do much to you,” he’d said. “A slap on the wrist, that’s all.”
A slap on the wrist, she thought. They bounced me out of the B-2 squadron and gave me this bus driver’s job with a bunch of tech geeks. Some slap on the wrist.
But now this bus she was driving might be heading into a shooting war. Karen almost smiled at the irony of it.
Colonel Christopher saw that Lieutenant Sharmon and the communications officer were staring at her.
“You heard our orders?” she asked. Sharmon said, “I got the navigation data. Fed it into the flight computer.” He looked uneasy, almost scared.
“Good. We’ll need a couple of refuelings on the way. Must be a ten-, twelve-hour flight.”
Nodding, the navigator said, “Approximately ten hours, Colonel. They’re workin’ out the refueling rendezvous points at Andrews. They’ll send the fixes while we’re in flight.”
The communications officer, red-haired Captain Brick O’Banion, said grimly, “Looks like we’re flying into a war.”
Karen felt her insides clutch. “Looks that way,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. “All right. Call the tech chief up here. This isn’t a test flight anymore.”
As the plane’s first engine rumbled to life Delany complained, “Christ, it’s colder inside this bucket than outside.”
Harry agreed. Cold and damp. Not good for my back, he thought as he followed Delany and the rest of the laser team past the color-coded pipes and gleaming stainless steel tankage toward the cramped compartment that was their station during takeoffs and landings. His nose twitched with the faint iron tang of iodine. Like dried blood.
A leak? Harry asked himself, alarmed. That’s all we need; the damned stuff is corrosive enough to damage your eyes and lungs.
“Wally!” he called to Rosenberg, three bodies ahead of him. “You check the tank pressures yet?”
“Last night,” Rosenberg called over his shoulder. “Like I do every night before a mission. We all went over the whole damned system, remember?”
The night before, Harry and the rest of the team had inspected every part of the laser system, from the bulbous turret in the plane’s nose to the COIL fuel tanks in the tail. Every pipe. Every electronics console. Every gauge and switch and display screen. Routine. They’d done it the night before every flight.
“Check ‘em again,” he said.
“Now?” Rosenberg turned around to face Harry, forcing Taki Nakamura to sidle past him in the narrow passageway.
Harry thought, If I make him check the pressures now it’ll delay our takeoff by half an hour or more. The new pilot won’t like that. He can check it while we’re flying out to the test range.
“Once we’re at cruising altitude,” he said.
Rosenberg nodded, muttering, “There’s nothing wrong with the friggin’ tank pressures.”
Yeah, Harry retorted silently. There was nothing wrong with them when the damned rig blew up in the desert, either.
They got to their compartment, sat in the padded seats, and began to strap in. There were twelve seats, six facing six. They had been scavenged from a commercial airliner, but the compartment was so tight that they couldn’t recline; the seat backs were smack against the bulkheads. The safety straps were Air Force issue: not merely a lap belt but a harness that went over the shoulders as well. Diminutive Taki looked like a lost little waif in the gray webbing.
The intercom hummed briefly, then, “Mr. Hartunian, could you come up to the flight deck, please?”
Harry’s brows shot up. “What the hell for?” he wondered aloud.
“Maybe she wants to give you a flying lesson,” Delany wisecracked.
“Or maybe she’s lonely up there,” said Rosenberg, with a smirk.
She’s got a copilot, a communications officer, and a navigator up there, Harry thought. All men. And all of them a lot younger than me. She’s not lonely.
Puzzled, he unlocked his safety harness and went to the forward hatch of the compartment. As he did, he heard the whine of the second of the plane’s four turbojet engines start up and quickly turn into a roar. The plane began to vibrate noticeably.
Ducking through the hatch, Harry made his way past the plane’s minuscule galley and up the ladder that led to the flight deck. A lanky young black lieutenant was on his feet up there, tall enough that his closely cropped hair nearly brushed the overhead. Harry had never seen him before this morning. He recognized the communications officer, though: a stubby little red-haired captain seated at his board full of dials and screens, headphones clamped to his ears.
The lieutenant introduced himself. “I’m the new navigator, Lieutenant Sharmon. You must be Mr. Hartunian.”
