“The GPS is off-line?” Lieutenant Sharmon looked shocked.
The iron gray-haired tech sergeant standing behind the counter made a face that was halfway between apologetic and disgusted. He was more than twice the lieutenant’s age and had spent most of his time in the Air Force making young shavetails look good.
“The system went off-line a couple hours ago, sir. All the satellite links are down. Must be those damn northern lights.” Then he added, “Sir.”
From the other side of the flight control center, Colonel Christopher could see the alarm on Sharmon’s face. She walked across the worn tile flooring toward him.
“Something wrong, Lieutenant?”
Sharmon shook his head, his brows knit into a tight furrow. “The GPS is down, ma’am.”
Christopher almost smiled, but she held herself in check. “Then you’ll just have to navigate without it.”
“I guess I will, ma’am.” Sharmon clearly was not happy with that prospect.
Christopher stepped away from the counter and the listening tech sergeant, motioning Sharmon to follow her.
Lowering her voice, she asked, “Do I call you Eustis? And you don’t have to be so formal; you can drop the ‘ma’am’ business while we’re on duty together. Just call me Colonel. Unless there’s bigger brass around, of course.”
She remembered how some of the wiseasses at the Academy used to call her Chrissie, just to rile her. She had kept her temper under control, hidden, until graduation day. That’s when they found their shoes had been glued to the dorm ceiling, all of them. They had to attend the graduation ceremony in bedroom slippers and flip-flops and got reprimanded for being out of uniform. They never tumbled to the possibility that five-foot-four Karen Christopher could reach the ceilings of their rooms while they slept.
Lieutenant Sharmon made an effort to smile. “Thank you, ma… uh, thank you, Colonel. My middle name is Jon. Without an aitch. My friends call me Jon.”
“All right, Jon. That’s what I’ll call you. We’re not friends yet, but maybe we will be.”
He did smile, faintly. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“Now, don’t sweat this GPS business. It’s just a crutch anyway. You’re a trained navigator. You can get us to our correct position out over the ocean without it, can’t you?”
“Yes… uh, Colonel. But I’d feel a lot better with the GPS to back me up.”
Christopher said, “You’ll do fine, Jon. This is just a milk run anyway. We run a racetrack pattern while the nerds play with their laser. So don’t sweat it.”
“Thank you, Colonel.” Sharmon still looked unconvinced.
Christopher nodded at him once, then turned and headed for the meteorology desk. Poor kid looks scared to death, she said to herself. Then a voice in her head warned, He’s not a poor kid and he’s not your friend. He’s supposed to be a navigator and you’re supposed to be his superior officer. Keep it that way.
Her copilot, Major Obadiah Kaufman, was already at the weather desk, looking red-nosed and bleary-eyed. Either he’s had a late night, Christopher thought, or he’s got some bug—which he’ll pass on to the rest of us, for sure.
“No metsat data,” said Major Kaufman, in lieu of a greeting.
He was a round butterball of a man, not much taller than Christopher herself. She wondered how he passed his physicals, he looked so out of shape. And miserably unhappy. So would I be, she thought, if I got bounced out of the pilot’s job for some stranger.
“What do you mean, no metsat data, Obie?”
Kaufman’s bloodshot eyes flared at her use of his nickname, but he immediately clamped down on his resentment.
The harried-looking female captain in charge of the meteorology desk confirmed from the other side of the counter, “The weather satellites went down a couple of hours ago, Colonel. We don’t have anything for you except the local weather forecast, from the base’s met instruments.”
“All the metsats are down?” Christopher asked. It was hard to believe.
“The whole civilian satellite system is down, ma’am,” said the captain. She looked frightened, as if the system failure would be blamed on her.
“What about our own metsats? Are they down, too?”
“No, ma’am. The milsats are operational. But the comm system’s overloaded. Swamped. Data requests from everybody, all at once. They’re running half an hour late. More.”
Christopher studied the captain’s face for a moment. The younger woman looked as if she expected to get reamed out by the colonel.
“Give me the latest you’ve got, then,” Christopher said mildly, “and update me as soon as you get more data.”
“Yes’m.” The captain looked distinctly relieved. Major Kaufman took out a large red-and-white-checked handkerchief and snuffled into it. Looks like he swiped it from an Italian restaurant, Christopher thought.
Kaufman mumbled an excuse and headed for the men’s room. Colonel Christopher decided not to wait for him and left the control center together with Lieutenant Sharmon, he tall and gangly, she petite and graceful. Both in Air Force flight suits, plastic helmets cradled in their arms. As they headed out toward the flight line, Christopher thought, This could be an interesting flight. “Interesting” was a term she reserved, like other fliers, for situations that were either hairy or downright terrifying.
Out on the flight line it was gray and raw; the wet wind gusting in off the water sliced right through Harry’s goose-down coat. It made his back ache sullenly. He squinted up at the clouds, low and dark, thick with moisture. A low gray bank of fog blanketed the far side of the airfield; he couldn’t even see the end of the runway. Harry wondered if they’d have enough visibility to get the plane off the ground. Nothing seemed to be moving out on the flight line. No planes were taking off; everything was as quiet as a tomb except for the low moan of the wind.
We moved to California to get away from this kind of miserable weather, Harry thought as he trudged out toward the ABL-1 plane. Had enough dark, cold winters in New England. It’s dry in California; even when it rains it’s never bleak and nasty like this. When we wanted snow we drove up into the mountains.
Harry remembered teaching his two daughters to ski. They loved the snow. Why not? he asked himself. They never had to shovel the stuff off a driveway. Wonder what they’re doing now? Probably taking a dip in the pool. Sylvia liked to swim. She spent more time in that damned pool than she did in bed with me. And after the accident...
He reached the plane. The huge 747-400F loomed above Harry like a giant aluminum iceberg. He stopped at the foot of the narrow ladder that led to the plane’s innards and tried his cell phone again. Victor Anson had made it painfully clear that he wanted to be called each time Harry and his crew flew a mission.
But the damned phone was still on the fritz. Harry scowled at it. Modern technology at its finest, he grumbled silently. It can perform nineteen dozen different functions and none of them are working.
The flight crew was climbing aboard up front, by the plane’s bulbous nose. He saw the new pilot and a tall, lean, black lieutenant with her. They ride first class, Harry thought. We ride coach, in the back of the plane. He shrugged. He’d met the new pilot only briefly the night before, when she’d introduced herself to his team. She was good-looking, that was true. Rosenberg had barely kept his eyes in his head.
Delany and the rest of the Anson team trudged across the tarmac and started climbing the stairs and entering the plane. Wally Rosenberg, last in line, noticed Harry trying to work his phone and cast him a snide grin.
“Calling our new flygirl?”
Fuck you, Harry thought. Aloud, he answered, “Phoning the boss.”
“Levy? He’s prob’ly heading for coffee break. It’s an hour earlier back in sunny California.”
“Not Jake. Anson.”
Rosenberg’s brows rose. “The big boss?”
“The man whose name’s on our coveralls. Yeah.”
“You talk to Anson?”
