“No.”
Joey tried to accept that. “Because I’m seventeen?”
“Because I don’t date,” she stated in a flat voice. “I haven’t dated in a long time. I don’t let anyone that close.”
Just shut up, Joey advised himself. You’re ahead of the game. Just shut up and be glad you’re not alone right now when it seems like the world is falling apart.
But, of course, he couldn’t. Smart and lucky just weren’t in the cards for him tonight. “Why don’t you date?” he asked.
“Look,” Jenny said, “that’s something I don’t want to talk about. I—”
When she screamed and leaped at him, Joey figured he had set her off again and he was about to have his head beaten in. Then lights of an approaching vehicle flashed against the window to his left. Turning from Jenny, wanting to protect his face, he caught sight of the huge camo-colored Suburban coming straight at him.
His scream got lost in the screech of tearing metal, his head slammed into the window, and his vision blacked out.
Turkey
37 Klicks South of Sanliurfa
Local Time 0819 Hours
The earth moved.
Lying under the RSOV, Goose felt the ground quiver and roll from the massive explosions of the 20mm cannon rounds blasting craters into the ridgeline. For a moment, all sound went away as he temporarily turned deaf. Then he heard the drumming rain of rocks and dirt clods against the RSOV.
“You okay, Sarge?”
Glancing up, Goose saw Bill Townsend crowded in under the fighting vehicle beside him. “Yeah. Anybody hit?”
“Not yet.” Bill grimaced as he shifted his wounded leg. “But they’ve got us in a tight spot.”
Goose checked the wounded man and saw Chaplain O’Dell pressing his fingers against Digby’s throat.
O’Dell looked up. Blood seeped from scratches on his face. “Thank You, God—this boy’s still with us.”
And if we could get a medical team in to him, Goose thought, he might actually have a chance. He crawled under the RSOV, turning around so he could survey the battlefield again. Switching to the main tactical channel, he heard the lieutenants and sergeants ordering their men to hold their positions, to wait out the attack as much as they could.
Clicking back to the command frequency attributed to him, Goose said, “Base, this is Phoenix Leader. Do you copy?”
“Base copies, Leader,” Remington answered.
“We’re taking a beating up here,” Goose said. “I’m looking for good news.”
“Good news is on its way, Leader,” Remington replied. “Let me introduce you to Blue Falcon Leader. He’s heading up a contingent of Marine Harriers that have been running nap-of-the-earth. The Syrians don’t know these guys are even close.”
Goose grinned grimly and took out his binoculars. “Glad to have you, Blue Leader.”
“Pleasure is ours, Phoenix. Gonna be serving up a little dish I like to call extreme prejudice on those three Syrian flyboys that have dared invade your company’s airspace.”
The Marine pilot’s casual confidence was infectious. Goose felt a little better about the situation the Rangers were in. He scanned the border with the binoculars. The three Syrian jets strafed the area again. In his mind, he was already working on plans to shore up the defense and hold the line once the Syrian air strikes were removed and the wing support provided by USS Wasp and the rest of the 26th MEU(SOC) arrived.
“Phoenix, this is Blue Falcon Leader.”
“Go, Falcon,” Goose replied.
“We have those rascally rodents in view and have carefully identified them as definite hostiles. We are preparing to engage.”
“Good luck, Falcon, and Godspeed.” Goose put his binoculars away and glanced up into the sky. He figured he must have seen the Harriers at about the same time the MiG pilots did.
Pound for pound, minute for minute in the air, the Harriers were some of the deadliest military birds of prey in close air support maneuvers. Navy fighter pilots didn’t care for the smaller and slower warbirds, but Marine pilots knew how to eke every plus out of their chosen craft.
Powered by Pegasus-vectored thrust engines manufactured by Rolls Royce, the jets measured forty-six feet, four inches long. Their swoop-winged design made them immediately recognizable to anyone who knew aircraft. The vectored thrust could be turned to ninety degrees, giving the Harrier the startling ability to lift off straight up, then launch forward. The VTOL, or vertical take off and landing, craft handled much better in short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) mode. The rolling takeoff made possible by short jump ramps aboard short aircraft carriers enabled the jets to take to the air like their namesake, a deadly British Isles marsh hawk.
The MiG pilots tried to turn tail and beat a hasty retreat back across the border. Mercilessly, the Harriers swooped up, rising above the hard deck with thunderous roars. AIM-9 Sidewinders, air-to-air missiles designed for taking out other aircraft, launched from the Harriers. With unerring accuracy, the Sidewinders locked on to the superheated jet engines of the Syrian aircraft. Two exploded only a heartbeat apart, turning into a roiling mass of orange and black flames that elongated into ovals of destruction.
The third Syrian pilot heeled over hard to starboard, trying desperately to evade the Sidewinder rapidly closing the distance. A second later, the air-to-air missile slammed into the MiG and ripped the fighter aircraft to shreds. Flaming debris pinwheeled from the sky, plummeting to the ground on the Syrian side of the border and disappearing into the smoky haze that drifted across the battlefield.
“Phoenix Leader, this is Blue Falcon.”
“Go, Falcon, you have Phoenix,” Goose responded. “That was quite a morale booster you delivered there, Falcon.”
“Our pleasure, Phoenix. We’ve heard you men have been hard up against it. We’re spearheading a bunch of leathernecks that are ready to get their land legs back if you want to invite them to the ball.”
“Affirmative, Falcon. I’m looking forward to meeting those men.”
“Set up for the meet and greet, Phoenix. You should have them
