“Yeah, Cap.”
“Can you guys give me a little breathing room here?”
“Yeah, will do. You’ll want to climb now to five thousand and go to heading two-seven-zero, Cap. I say again, climb and maintain five thousand, heading two-seven-zero. Over.”
The squadron of Super Hornets closest to the big airliner gave the target a thousand more yards fore and aft. Reynolds and his wingman over on the 747’s port side peeled away, decelerated, and tucked in behind flight 77.
“Climbing through one, going to five, heading two-seven-zero, Navy,” Adare said, watching the Hornet on his starboard wing arc away and disappear aft of his line of sight. A moment later, his radio crackled again.
“Roger, Cap, this is Gunfighter, standing by. I’ll be right behind you. This would not be a good time to get cute.”
A long minute of silence passed.
“Hawkeye, you still standing by?” the president finally said, going private with Hawke and the Navy pilot Reynolds.
“That’s affirmative, sir.” Hawke said.
“It’s nut-cutting time, Alex. Four hundred souls. Talk to me.”
“I stand by my original assessment, Mr. President,” Hawke said. “No innocents aboard that airplane.”
“You copy what Hawkeye says, Gunfighter?”
“Aye, aye, copy that, sir, that’s affirm.”
“Okay, then Gunfighter, this is Warhorse. God help us all. I order you to your duty, son.”
“Copy that, Warhorse. Understood. Gunfighter will execute as ordered, sir. Over.”
The infrared system of the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile permits the pilot to launch his heat-seeking missiles and then take evasive action while the missile homes in on the exhaust of the target. Once launched, the missiles travel at supersonic speeds. Infrared sensors and a conical scanner in the nose cone track the target. Reflected lasers tell the missile when it has reached optimum destructive range and trigger the warhead.
Captain Wiley Reynolds thumbed the switch that armed the Sidewinders below his wings. A keening warning signal filled the Super Hornet’s cockpit. He could now fire at will. He took a long hard look at the British Airways plane silhouetted in the setting sun.
Even as his right hand moved to activate the fire control system, his gut was having trouble accepting the signals his rational mind was sending. Distorted reality. He felt just like some poor GI wandering alone in a dusty village, encountering a woman in heavy robes with a baby in her arms.
The president had nailed it. It was nut-cutting time.
It’s not a baby, goddamn it, it’s a bomb, his mind said.
Captain Reynolds pulled the trigger. The missile streaked away trailing a thin stream of white smoke.
“Hey, Navy, we twelve miles out yet?” Adare said, a raspy catch in his voice. The glare of the setting sun off the Pacific was making his eyes water and he wiped them furiously with the back of his hand.
“Getting close, Cap.”
“Ever get over to Ireland?”
“Some day. Hear it’s a beautiful country.”
“So bloody green, mate. It’s like a dream.”
“Yeah.”
“Round of Guinness on me whenever you do, Navy.”
“Appreciate the offer, Cap.”
“Hey, listen—”
Epilogue
Islamorada
THEY SAT TOGETHER ON THE SAND, ABOUT TWENTY YARDS from the tide line, watching the orange ball of the sun go down. The woman was arranging a small mound of seashells next to her, prizes from the afternoon. The sun was still hot, but a breeze was rising gently and you could smell the cool of late October that had been hiding in the heat all day. The tide was receding, leaving the firm wet sand to the seagulls. Creamy masses of cumulus clouds lay on the far horizon, and there were thin feathers of cirrus against the high western sky.
“Either the bonefish are getting smarter, or I’m getting stupider,” the man said, staring into the setting sun and saying exactly what was on his mind.
A look of deep satisfaction appeared around the woman’s eyes. The Florida Keys, just as she’d hoped, were working their magic on both of them. Just the fact that the man had gotten to this sunshine state of mind was enough to make the woman smile and run her fingers through his thick black hair, still damp from their recent swim.
“Bones are the smartest fish in the world,” Conch said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, baby. Anyway, comparisons are odious.”
Alex Hawke laughed and lay back on the sand, hands clasped behind his head. He closed his eyes against the sun and his mouth relaxed into its normally bemused half-smile. The sand beneath him was still warm. The beer in his hand was still cold. It had been a good day.
“Place is lousy with bougainvillea this time of year,” Conch said through a yawn, tracing the nasty purple weal on Hawke’s ribcage. His broken ribs were healing slowly.
“Don’t you hate it?” Hawke said.
The two of them had been here at Islamorada for almost a week, hiding from the world at Conch’s little fishing place. “Shacking up,” as Alex had put it, smiling down at her that first morning, waking up early in her bed. He said, “Never quite understood the term until just this moment.”
It was a shack, and proud of it, but it was also right on the water, a small wooden structure on a sandy beach, hidden away in a half-moon cove of dense mangroves. Conch Shell was at the dead end of a twisting sandy lane that wound its way through the thick sea grape, ending about half a mile from the main road. White bougainvillea framed the front door, and the wild garden was aflame with tropical foliage, hibiscus and oleander.
When Alex had agreed to come down, she’d gone out and bought a second-hand flats boat to go with her island getaway, a sixteen-foot Backcountry Skiff. He loved bonefishing. And so they’d spent this morning, like every morning, poling across the gin-clear flats, chasing bones.
Even if they made sleepy love upon waking, they were out on the water every morning by eight. At noon, Alex would crack open his first cold beer, a Kalik from the Bahamas, his longtime favorite. At one, they’d eat whatever Conch had packed in the basket that day. By three in the afternoon, after a swim and maybe a rum, they were ready to get out of the tropical sun. And so they did, emerging from the small bed again only when it was time to climb into Conch’s battered old Jeep and race over to Lorelei’s in time for the sunset celebration, the margaritas, and vintage Jimmy Buffett.
She lay back on the sand beside him. The rim of the orange ball would not touch the sea for another ten minutes. They’d decided to stay put tonight, order in some Chinese from Great Wall Taki-Outi. Their shoulders were touching; the saltwater was drying to a white frosting on their lips and cheeks and deeply tanned bodies.
Alex Hawke rested his right hand on her sun-warm thigh and said, “Happy?”
God.
Consuelo de los Reyes had lost her heart to this very man on this very island once long ago. No, that was wrong. She hadn’t lost it. She had given it away. Grabbed him by his big shoulders on a beach not half a mile from here and said of her rapidly beating heart, “Here, Mister, you take this damned thing and put it in your pocket.” And, now, finally, after many empty years of gradually reclaiming it, and then trying fiercely to protect it, here she was by his side on another beach, an accomplished historian trying desperately not to let history repeat itself.
“Nice day,” he said softly.
“Another lousy day in paradise.”
