Under Fire

Chapter Three

During the ride over to the hangar area, Maggie said little because she was on a seesaw of emotion. They stopped at Ops and retrieved their flight gear, and she loosened up a little. Just getting to fly eased the tension that was always coiled tightly inside her. She’d been born that way. Flying was the only thing that erased her restlessness. Maggie always had to be moving, whether it was physically or mentally. Insomnia, upon occasion, was her best friend.

The truck delivered them to the hangar and Wes walked at her side, his duffel bag containing his helmet and oxygen mask slung across his left shoulder. He liked Maggie’s flowing stride and those long legs of hers.

“How tall are you?” he asked.

“Five-eleven. You?”

“Six-five.”

“You’re a tall drink of water.”

“Might say the same of you,” he returned, catching her smile. Maggie was relaxing with every step toward the fighter sitting just outside the hangar doors. Wes saw her name just below the opened cockpit. Her air crew was waiting expectantly; the ladders were hooked alongside the fuselage so they could climb up into the double cockpit.

“A woman in your air crew?” Wes asked.

“Chantal Percival is my chief, and she’s the best in the Navy, in my opinion. I fought hammer and tong to get her assigned to me and my jet when I got here. She’s been with me the two years I’ve been at Miramar.”

“Pretty lady,” he mused. “That’s an observation, Donovan, not a sexual comment.” Even wearing a dark green T-shirt, which outlined her full breasts to perfection, Chantal was definitely a head turner.

Maggie remained silent. Then she introduced Wes to her air crew. Salutes and handshakes were exchanged. To her surprise, Chantal seemed immune to Wes’s good looks and charm. How was that possible, when Maggie’s own heart seemed completely attuned to his every word, look and smile? All business now, Maggie signed off the discrepancy log Chantal handed her, then made the visual walk-around inspection of her aircraft. In the meantime, Wes had climbed into the back seat and was getting help with his array of harnesses from one of her other ground-crew members.

Wes settled back, thanking the young petty officer who had helped him. The rear seat of a Tomcat was a familiar friend, and he strapped the knee board around his left thigh and began his preflight checklist. From time to time, though, he raised his helmeted head to observe Maggie in action.

In her cockpit, which was directly in front of his with his instrument panel between them, she tucked her red hair beneath the skullcap. Even after slipping on her helmet—white with a pair of red eagle wings painted on the front—she wouldn’t be mistaken for a man. Wes smiled to himself and absorbed her profile as she gave last-minute instructions to Chantal, who stood on the ladder next to her. He hadn’t realized how classic the line of her profile was until she turned.

Shaking himself internally, Wes decided there was a definite mystique to Maggie. Her features intrigued him. A man could spend the rest of his life mapping out her face and expressions and always be pleasantly surprised by something new about her. Few women had that kind of mystery.

Slow down, buddy. You just got out of a divorce that’s still hurting you. Wes frowned and forced himself to concentrate on what he was doing. This was no time to resurrect his marriage, ex-wife or the light of his life, his daughter, Annie. Still, when Wes lifted his head and saw Maggie smile, his heart took off on its own flight as his mire of emotions suddenly dissolved beneath the warmth conveyed in her eyes and beautifully expressive mouth.

In no time, Maggie had the Tomcat anchored at the end of the runway, ready to take off. Dana and her RIO, in another F-14, had taken off twenty minutes earlier. They would be “the enemy,” stalking Maggie and Wes and trying to shoot them down over the restricted airspace north of the station. It would be up to Wes to spot them first and give Maggie the needed information to evade any surprise attack—and to give her the advantage that could enable her to “shoot down” Dana’s aircraft electronically. Once a “kill” was registered, they would go on to the next test.

Wes listened idly to the control chatter. They were Red Dog 103 today, their call sign. He liked Maggie’s firm, husky voice. Smiling beneath his oxygen mask, which was strapped tightly to his face, Wes brought down both the clear plastic and dark visor across his upper face. Both visors fit like a puzzle piece against the top of his oxygen mask. Maggie had done the same thing. Now they looked like genderless beings. Up in the air, Wes ruminated, tinkering with all his instruments to make sure they were up and operating properly, a person’s sex really didn’t matter at all. He was curious about Maggie’s flying and combat ability.

“You ready back there, Bishop?”

“Roger.”

“I’m requesting afterburner takeoff.”

“To see if I can stand the heat in the kitchen?”

She laughed. “No. I know Dana Turcotte too well. She’s liable to attack as soon as we get into the restricted airspace north of here, and I want all the altitude I can get. Go in high so you have the look-down, shoot-down advantage. If anyone’s coming out of the sun, it’s going to be us, not her.”

Silently Wes applauded Maggie using “us” instead of “me.” Good. She thought in terms of a team; wasn’t ego bound like a lot of combat pilots. “Sounds good to me. Let’s turn and burn.”

What a difference between Hall and Wes! Maggie didn’t say anything, concentrating fully on the forthcoming takeoff, with the F-14 shaking and howling around them. Compared to Hall, Wes sounded a hundred percent more confident in that rear seat. Hall was twenty-four. Bishop’s five years of experience were already making her feel less edgy. Getting permission for takeoff, Maggie notched the twin throttles beneath her left hand into the afterburner range.

The sudden acceleration pinned her against the ejection seat, and Maggie smiled, relaxing beneath the incredible G’s as they built up. Cat screamed down the runway, feeling solid beneath her hands and feet. The F-14 was the Navy’s premier fighter, an unequaled tool in the military arsenal. The sleek twin-tailed fighter rotated smoothly beneath her gloved hand. In seconds, they were thundering straight up into the pale blue sky, clawing for thousands of feet of altitude within seconds.

Wes sat back and enjoyed the ride. In minutes they reached forty-five thousand feet, flying high above the California desert. He was already leaning forward, his eyes narrowed on the array of various radar screens in front of him. Each type of radar performed a different function, and much depended upon his alertness and experience in using them.

“How many minutes before we hit the restricted area?” Wes asked.

“Five minutes. Anything on the scopes?”

“No, clear.”

“Dana’s just about as sneaky as I am. Expect the unexpected with her.”

“Okay. You said her last name was Turcotte?”

“Yes. Why?”

“When I got my first RIO assignment five and a half years ago, I flew with Griff Turcotte, the Turk.”

“I’ll be damned, you know Griff. Yeah, he and Dana have been married for two years now.”

“I hope it’s happier than his last marriage. He went through hell with his first wife.”

“It’s a happy, solid marriage from what I can tell.”

“Good.”

“How long did you and the Turk fly together?”

“Two years.”

Maggie was constantly rubbernecking, revolving her head from left to right, her eyes scanning the flight instruments or hunting the sky above and around them for possible enemy aircraft. “Griff shot down one of those Libyan jets. Were you with him?”

“Yes.”

Maggie nodded. Good, she had an RIO with combat experience. That couldn’t hurt their chances at Red Flag, only improve them. She opened her mouth to ask him if he had anything on radar when he spoke up.

“Nothing on the scopes yet.”

She smiled. “Are you a mind reader? I was just going to ask.”

“Comes with the territory. No RIO wants his pilot on his back asking questions constantly. It interferes with my concentration.”

“I like your style, Bishop.” And she liked him. By now, Maggie had surrendered to whatever her body and heart were up to when it came to Wes. She was too busy flying and concentrating to try and explain her feminine responses to him.

“So far, I like yours, too.”

“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Maggie warned, trying to keep the pleasure of his compliment out of her voice. Wes, she decided, was just one of those guys who was able to make personal contact with every person he met, making them feel special and wanted. That’s all it was, Maggie thought, disheartened. “We’re going to enter the restricted zone in thirty seconds.”

“Roger. Thirty seconds.” He tensed, his eyes glued to the radar screens.

Below them, Maggie could see the brown desert with the tiny dots of green here and there that were Joshua trees, cactus and hardy brush-type plants. Concentration intensified as her eyes flicked between her instruments and the sky around them.

“Got a bogey at five hundred feet coming up at us at two-four-zero. Thirty miles away.”

“That’s her!” Maggie quickly switched on her rocket and missile selectors. The HUD display lit up, a geometric crisscross of colored lines that gave her specific information on terrain as well as when she was in firing range.

This was almost too easy, Maggie thought. Dana was showing herself too early. Bishop kept up his information to her, keeping her filled in on the situation so she could make proper assessment. At twenty miles, she electronically signaled the firing of a Sparrow. It was a heat seeker, so Dana, in order to escape it, would have to do some avoidance flying.

“She’s lost the Sparrow,” Wes reported after a minute.

“Damn. That means we’re going to have to go on deck and hunt her down the hard way.”

“Afraid so.”

“Hang on.” Maggie banked the fighter and they gracefully arced from high altitude down to five hundred feet off the desert surface.

Wes watched from the back seat, fascinated with Maggie’s hunter attitude. He knew a lot of pilots who would stay a long way away from their targets and just trade missiles with the enemy aircraft. Not her. She was going to flush out and hunt her “enemy” down. The thermals were pronounced, and the F-14 bumped and thumped along violently in the curtains of heat rising from the desert. The ground flashed by them, a blur of brown and green. The air turbulence became so bad that his teeth chattered, and it felt as if they were riding in a milk-shake machine. Still, Maggie held the fighter steady, snaking close to the ground, hunting out her adversary with the help of his radar screens and verbal information.

For three hours, they worked together and tested each other. When they landed back at Miramar, Wes ruefully noticed that the armpits of his flight suit were dark with perspiration. Maggie said little to him until they were on the ground and walking back to the hangar to hitch a ride to Ops. Dana had landed ahead of them and was already in a vehicle waiting for them.

“Great flight!” Dana congratulated Maggie. “You’re a tiger at low altitude. I thought for sure I could hide behind those hills and outfox you.”

Maggie climbed in and grinned, the warmth of the genuine compliment flowing through her. “Gotcha four out of five times.”

“Not bad,” Dana agreed with a laugh. Her RIO, Lieutenant Jeff Smith, shook hands with Wes.

Maggie introduced Wes to everyone and the van trundled slowly toward Ops. Wes sat supremely confident, seemingly unfazed by the rigorous three-hour flight she’d put him through. When he turned and looked over at Maggie, there was devilry in his eyes and he smiled.

It was a brazenly confident smile, and Maggie knew it. Still, his high spirits were infectious, and her mouth curved a bit in response. Dana, who sat behind her, placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, don’t forget, we’re having dinner at Molly’s tonight at 1900.”

“Not to worry. I’d never forget a night Molly cooks.”

“She’s your other friend?” Wes guessed.

“Yes. A test-flight engineer who is six months pregnant. Molly works at Ops as a ground instructor in aeronautical physics. Dana and I are going to be ‘aunts.’ We can hardly wait.”

Wes saw the enthusiasm leap into Maggie’s eyes when she talked about her friend’s pregnancy. Idly, he listened to the two women chat, collecting and gathering bits of information about Maggie.

After filling out the mandatory flight reports at Ops, Maggie leaned back in her seat at the same table with Wes in one of the debrief rooms on the first floor. “I want you to read my assessment on you before I hand it in to my boss, Commander Parkinson. I think that’s only fair.”

Wes nodded and took the report. He pushed his toward her. “Better read mine, too.”

“Should I be worried about what you’re going to say?” Maggie did care, she discovered, what Wes thought of her as a pilot. If only she could read his mind to see if those dancing blue highlights in his eyes when he looked at her were for her alone, or a look he bestowed on everyone.

“I could ask the same of you.” Wes was curious how she rated his performance in the cockpit. More than anything, he wanted the chance to work with Maggie. She was one hell of a pilot behind the stick, woman or not.

With a shrug, Maggie leaned back in the chair, his report balanced on her knee. “You know you passed,” she told him drolly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty good at what I do.”

He saw her waiting for him to say something about her performance. “And so are you.”

Relief flowed through Maggie, though she tried to hide it by lowering her head to read his report.

Wes smiled at her reaction, but said nothing. Afterward, they traded reports. Maggie got up, pleased about Wes’s praise of her flying ability. “I’ll take these to the commander and seal the deal.” She came around the desk and offered her hand to him.

The urge to step forward and plant a long, hot kiss on Maggie’s lips, instead, was very real for Wes. However, he gripped her hand and was pleased again by her firm, returning shake. Pushing an F-14 through tight maneuvers was physically demanding, so he shouldn’t have been surprised by her strength. It only made Maggie more alluring.

“Let’s celebrate,” he found himself saying as he reluctantly released her hand. “Let me buy you a beer over at the O club.”

Her fingers tingled where he’d touched them. Prickles arced up her hand and into her wrist and lower arm. Maggie was amazed and overwhelmed at the same time. Sure, men had kissed her, but Wes had merely reached out and shaken her hand. Her response to him was heated. Trying to recover, Maggie nodded and unconsciously touched the hand he’d shaken. A beer sounded heavenly. Flying at high altitude and on one-hundred-percent oxygen for hours on end always made flight personnel very thirsty afterward. And beer was the drink of choice after a long, demanding flight; the only thing that seemed to quench the thirst.

“I’ll take you up on it. Thanks.”

Inordinately pleased with himself, Wes glanced at his watch. They had two hours before Maggie was due at her friend’s house for dinner. Good.

* * *

Maggie chose the quieter dining room to drink a beer with her new RIO. She received a number of gawking looks from fellow pilots as Wes walked past the bar area toward the dining room.

“I hope you know what you’re in for, Bishop.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Those jocks in there are going to tease you to death, now that you’re flying with me.”

“I’ve been known to take a couple of hits on the chin and live to tell about it. I think I’ll survive anything they lob at me.”

Maggie liked his laid-back approach to life. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she countered, then asked the hostess for a booth in a corner where they could have some privacy. At this time of day, few people were eating. The bar, however, was elbow to elbow with jocks.

After Wes ordered the beers and Maggie paid for them, he leaned forward and said, “Okay, tell me about yourself.”

She sipped the beer, suddenly unable to relax. “I get jumpy when a guy starts hitting on me with twenty questions.”

“This is different. I’m your RIO for the next three months.”

“Do you always get what you want, Bishop?”

“No, but I try.”

Chuckling, Maggie stretched her long legs out across the leather seat of the booth and relaxed. She supposed it didn’t look very military or even socially acceptable to do it, but she didn’t care. “I’m a pretty private person.” Why did he want to know about her? Maggie shrugged the question off. Wes was the kind of guy who no doubt established a personal relationship with each person he had to work with. Somehow the realization was a blow to her heart.

“The Cherokee are like that, too,” Wes said. “They don’t like their pictures taken because they think it steals a part of their soul.” He cocked his head, studying her. “Is that how you feel when talking about yourself?”

“You amaze me with your perception,” Maggie replied, meaning it sincerely.

“As if men can’t have some of what you women have?”

A smile tugged at her mouth. She drank some more of her beer and reached for the basket that contained chips and pretzels. “Caught red-handed.”

“You’re a little bit of a female chauvinist.”

“Guilty as charged. I’ve got to try and watch that tendency.”

“Who sold you a bill of goods that all men were insensitive to you as a human being?”

Maggie quirked her mouth. “Not my father, that’s for sure. I came out of a family where women are looked upon as equals, Wes. There were four girls, and my parents taught us that we were just as strong, intelligent and capable as any man. Maybe it’s the Celt blood in our veins—you know, over in England and Ireland, up through Roman times, our women fought as warriors beside their men.”