Ghost Recon

A second message from the Red Cross caught him by surprise. Bo Jenkins's father had passed away. Last report was that he'd been stable, but he'd taken a sharp turn for the worse. Part of Mitchell wanted to hold off telling Bo so that the man's head would be in the mission. The other part said that wasn't fair and that Bo deserved to know immediately.

Then again, given what was at stake, Mitchell needed every Ghost operating at peak performance.

He sat there a few moments more, putting himself in Bo's place.

And that got him thinking about his own father, who was probably back home, using his router to round off the corners of his casket.

A young lieutenant with what Sergeant Alicia Diaz called a Cocoa Beach crew cut — bleached blond with highlights — watched her leave the VIP stateroom opposite the wardroom. She smiled perfunctorily, noting the gold wings above the lieutenant's left breast pocket. He was cute, so she asked, 'Are you a pilot?'

'I'm a naval aviator. There's a difference.' He offered his hand. 'Jeff Moch.'

She took it. 'Mach, as in Mach Five?'

'No, it's spelled with an O.'

'Be cooler with an A, as in my name: Alicia Diaz.'

'That's pretty smooth. I heard something about you guys trying to defect to the navy.'

'Vicious rumors.' She hesitated, unsure of what to add, then suddenly blurted out, 'So, Lieutenant, what is the difference between a pilot and a naval aviator?'

He snickered. 'Naval aviators get shot off the front end of aircraft carriers. We use tail hooks and arresting wires to land. Pilots just kind of float in.'

'Okay…'

'Naval aviators have to figure out where their landing field went after they fly away. Or worse, if it sank. Pilots know their landing field's right where they left it.'

'Not a big fan of the air force, then, huh?'

'I didn't say that. But I've never met an air force pilot who could stop a train without using guns or bombs.'

'Stop a train? What do you mean?'

'You got time for a story?'

Diaz looked around. 'I'm stuck here for twenty-something hours till we reach the strait.'

'Right. Okay, so once you solo at Pensacola, the unwritten rule is you got three days to stop a train. You can't do it before you solo because it ain't legal, and up till then you always had some hard-ass instructor riding along.'

'So how exactly do you do this?'

'Well, if you never noticed, Florida's flat, so it's easy to find a nice twenty- to twenty-five-mile stretch of railroad track to watch. And here he comes, Seaboard Coast Line's seven ten P.M., running late.'

'But you're right on time,' she said with a smirk.

'You bet. Now I have to come in high to clear the pines. At the last minute I slip down, opposite rudder to aileron — drops my bird like a rock — and I turn off my navigation lights, bleed off speed to just 120 knots — flap speed — and swoop in twenty feet over the track.'

'Is this where I go, whoa…?'

'Let me finish. Then, and only then, I turn on my landing light. Now it's just me and that train, two lights coming right at each other.'

'You really did this?'

He nodded. 'The engineer sees that single light coming at him and he's wondering, Did the traffic coordinator screw up? Switchman error? Is it another one of those crazy kids from Pensacola? He hits the brakes, can't take the chance. As he's listening to his whole train rumble and screech, I thunder right over his head, gone, UFO style, beam me up, Scotty.'

Moch was only half as cute now. It was hard to see his eyes within that swollen head. 'There's no way you guys get away with that.'

'You're right. I got a letter of reprimand, which got pulled when I graduated, because the navy saw I was crazy enough to get shot off an aircraft carrier.'

'So as a reward they put you on a sub. Yeah, they really like you.' She wiggled her brows.

'No, I'm here because of you. Lieutenant Schumaker and I are flying the Predator. I'm telling you, she's one badass little bird.'

Diaz had worked with all sorts of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in her career, and none were what she'd describe as badass. That was a phrase she reserved for people, not machines. She shrugged and said, 'Uh, we've packed our own UAVs. As a matter of fact, the captain's going to field a brand-new drone on this mission.'

'I heard that, but our Predator still has greater speed and range than your drones. We launch right from the vertical tube. Subs rigged like this have ten-thousand-foot periscopes, so to speak. Trust me, you'll be glad we're up there. Now what's your story?'

Diaz adopted a singsong tone, deciding she would have a little fun with this jock. 'Well, sir, I certainly don't have the talent to be a naval aviator, but I like playing around with ranges, working numbers in my head for projectile drop and wind compensation. I like slowing my heart rate, taking a deep breath, letting half out, and squeezing off the round between beats. I like listening to old Bee Gees songs and watching some bad guy's brains splatter over a fifty-foot area from the kinetic energy imparted on impact. I call that a woman's touch.'

Moch blinked hard. 'Alicia, why don't you step into the wardroom, fill a chair, and let me buy you a cup of our fine navy coffee?'

She chuckled under her breath. 'You don't have any bourbon?'

Mitchell found Jenkins in the torpedo room, along with Beasley, Hume, and Smith. The men were doing another inventory of the gear and double-checking batteries.

'Bo, can I speak with you?'

'Yes, sir.'

They crossed over to one corner of the room, where Mitchell leaned on the bulkhead and said, 'So it's the future, and you're captain of your own Ghost Team.'

Initially, Jenkins was confused, but finally his brain caught up to the moment. 'Okay, sir, but, uh, I made it through college?'

'Yeah.'

'Damn, that's good.'

'Play along. So you're captain, and it's the day before a huge operation. You know that you need every guy with a clear head. You know you can't afford any distractions. But you also know that there's news from home that will affect several members of your team. What do you do? Do you give them the news? Or do you wait until after the mission?'

Jenkins swallowed, took a deep breath, and he could no longer look Mitchell in the eye. 'I don't say anything, sir, because the mission is more important. The news can wait.'

Mitchell thought a moment, then slowly nodded. 'Bo, I'm not trying to take myself off the hook.'

'I know. I had a dream about him last night. Do you believe in the afterlife?'

'Haven't made up my mind yet. But for now, we're the only ghosts I believe in.'

'What about fate?'

'Bo, we have to believe that what we do matters. I don't think it was all figured out for us. I could've stayed home, worked on cars, built furniture, but I decided to change things. I did that. Not fate.'

'Yeah, but maybe there are all these doors in our lives, and we're moving through them. Some close behind us, and some don't. Sometimes we control them. Sometimes not.'

'Who knows, Bo.'

'When I left Alaska, the door closed all the way, and I knew my father was going to die. He was sick for a long time. I'm okay.'

'You're sure.'