Under Fire

“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.