Al Jihad

my recollection. Maybe he had a couple of daughters, maybe he didn't, but damned if I could remember.

What had she said? That the colonel said I was the best Marine in the corps?

Stupid ol' Charlie Dean. I ate that shit with a spoon. The best Marine in the corps! So I helped her 'steal' a plane and kill a bunch of convicted terrorists that Libya would never extradite.

If we were caught I would have sworn under torture, until my very last breath, that no government was involved, that the people planning this escapade were a U.S. Air Force deserter and an ex-Marine she hired.

I loafed around Capetown for a few more days, paid my bills, thanked the widow lady, gave her a cock-and- bull story about my sick kids in America, and took a plane to New York. At JFK I got on another plane to Los Angeles.

When the taxi dropped me at my apartment, I stopped by the super's office and paid the rent. The battery in my car had enough juice to start the motor on the very first crank.

I almost didn't recognize Candy. He had even gotten a haircut and wore clean jeans. 'Hey, Mr. Dean,' Candy said after we had been chatting a while. 'Thanks for giving me another chance. You've taught me a lot.'

'We all make mistakes,' I told him. If only he knew how true that was.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen Coonts is the author of eight New York Times best-selling novels, the first of which was the classic flying tale Flight of the Intruder, which spent over six months on the New York Times best-seller list. He graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in political science, and immediately was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy, where he began flight training in Pensacola, Florida, training on the A-6 Intruder aircraft. After two combat cruises in Vietnam aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and one tour as assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz, he left active duty in 1977 to pursue a law degree, which he received from the University of Colorado. His novels have been published around the world and have been translated into more than a dozen different languages. He was honored by the U.S. Navy Institute with its Author of the Year award in 1986. His latest novel is Hong Kong. He and his wife, Deborah, reside in Clarks- ville, Maryland.