in proving he wasn't.
'This a boy's game, or can a girl play?'
Troy turned; it was Jenna Munrough. He almost didn't recognize her in shorts and shades rather than a green flight suit.
Someone passed the ball; Troy caught it, dribbled once, and snapped it off to Jenna.
She caught it and shot it in with almost a single motion. One of the other players grunted his approval as it went in.
The guy with the short, blond Mohawk got the rebound and slammed the ball through the hoop.
This time, Jenna was under the hoop.
She scooped up the rebound as one of the guys grabbed and missed.
She passed it to Troy.
He found himself wanting, more than ever in this game, to make this shot. What was it about boys and girls that makes a guy want — no, need — to make the shot while the girl is watching?
The ball bounced off the rim and Mohawk reached for the rebound.
Suddenly, Jenna was between him and the ball.
As he leaped up and came down empty, she shot up and slam-dunked the ball.
Troy seized the rebound and scored, and suddenly the two Falcon Force teammates were teammates on the dusty patch of desert.
jenna missed her next three shots in a row, but Troy scored two. This was not to say that anyone was really keeping score as Troy and Jenna scrimmaged against three other players. Ultimately, the trio of others probably outscored the two Falcons, but everyone played well. Jenna startled the guys with her skill at first, but soon they were treating her not as a girl in a boys' game, but as just another player to be guarded.
When it was finally over, and as everyone shook hands and said 'Good game,' it was Troy's turn for a surprise.
'Buy y'all a beer?' Jenna asked as she wiped the sweat from her face with the T-shirt she had been wearing over her tank top.
'Umm… thanks… but I got some stuff I gotta take care of… Rain check?'
He had no 'stuff.' He did have an aversion to this sort of camaraderie with a teammate — a female teammate — especially one with whom his relations had, until very recently, not been good.
There had long since ceased to be a gender gap on the court, but the ritual of 'having a beer' meant something completely different when two people were from opposite. Sides of that gap. Beyond that was Troy's sense of that 'something' that apparently existed between Jenna and Hal.
'Rain check.' Jenna smiled broadly as though her suggestion had been far less complicated than what Troy had read into it. 'See you at the briefing in the morning.'
With that, she was gone.
As he picked up his gear, Troy noticed his watch. It was still too early to phone California, but by the time he finished his shower, he figured that his mother would probably be up.
Nobody was home when he called home, so Troy decided to phone his father at work. 'Office Tech, this is Carl.'
'Hi, Dad, what's up?'
'Troy… is that you? Good to hear you. Where are you?'
'Sunny Sudan. Actually, the sun's down, but it's still Sudan,' Troy said. His father seemed to be in a good mood. After the usual exchange over what time it was, Troy asked his father about how business was.
'Little slow,' Carl said. 'Y'know, ups and downs, but everybody still needs paper… and ink for those damned computer printers. You have to spend more on the damned ink than you do for the printers….. What are you doing? Are you flying much?'
'Most days. Had a day off 'cause they've got a big thing going that doesn't involve us… can't talk about it.'
'Yeah… I understand,' Carl said. 'When you comin' home?'
'Can't say. You know these open-ended enlistments. Used to be that there were tours of duty, y'know. Now, nobody knows. It will be a while.'
'Take care of yourself.'
'I will.'
Troy signed off with the usual niceties and tried his mother. Still nobody home. She didn't like carrying her cell phone.
He started dialing Cassie's cell phone, stopped after the 310, hesitated, and dialed again.
'Hey,' Cassie said, sounding distracted.
'Hey, babe, it's Troy.'
'Wow, hey… what's up?' Cassie said after a pause. 'Just thought I'd give you a call.'
'Cool… that's great,' she said, sounding distracted. 'What time is it over there?'
As he answered, he could hear her telling someone that she was talking to Troy.
'Where you at?' he asked. 'Who you with there?' 'Yolanda and Trina, everybody's in the office today…..
Yolanda wants to know what you're doing over there.' 'Flying jets.' That was the simplest way to describe it. 'Yolanda says 'cool,' wants to know when you're gonna give her a ride in one.'
'Tell her if she shows up here, I'll try to squeeze her in.'
'You gonna squeeze me in, big guy?' Cassie asked. 'You know it, girl.'
'When you comin' home?'
'I don't know… this thing keeps dragging on.' 'What's going on that it's taking so long?'
'Endless supply of bad guys, I guess… can't say more than that….. I sure am looking forward to… y'know… getting back there and squeezing you in and…'
'Me too, big guy,' Cassie interrupted hurriedly. 'Listen, I gotta run. Talk to you soon… love you lots.' Troy was about to reply in kind, but Cassie had already hung up.
Chapter 13
'Didn't think we were on for the Dhuladhiya mission,' Jenna drawled as she caught up to her Falcon Force teammates heading for a rare late-evening briefing. 'Thought it was a strike mission. I thought I was a snooper, not a shooter.'
'I heard that Harris wants us to snoop on the shooters,' Hal said. 'I guess we'll fly in right after they shoot, and snoop on what's left.'
'At least we had a day and a half and a good night's sleep,' Troy Loensch added. He was walking behind them slightly, keeping an eye open for the kind of groping that he expected was going on between them, but saw none. Groping? Maybe he was reading too much into it. She had, after all, merely patted him — even if it was on his ass.
They arrived in the briefing room, finding it unusually full. The forty-eight hours of downtime had become thirty-six hours, and now it was over — before the second of the two good nights of sleep for which they had hoped.
The strike mission was due to launch at 0300 so that they would be over the target in the predawn darkness. Indeed, Harris had decided to have Falcon Force fly a poststrike assessment package.
The 334th Air Expeditionary Wing planning staff, standing in the front of the room, looked exhausted. They had pulled an all-nighter and had been working all the next day. After they unveiled their master plan, they could all sleep — while the aircrews went to work.
There was an air of excitement in the room, the anxious excitement born of the anticipation of a larger- thanusual mission. After the conference at Joint Task Force headquarters, General Harris was anxious to prove that his airpower could do the job, and he was making it a maximum effort.
There were two fighter/ground attack squadrons assigned to the 334th. Between them, they could muster
