Both CIA men beamed at her appearance in the room, she had that effect on men. The two USAF officers had not met her before and appraising eyes sat atop their smiles.
“Wow… foxy!” thought Caroline whilst Patricia’s was a single mental syllable.
“Shit.”
It was bad enough being crewed with a pin-up, but this girl was built for sex and had the looks to match. Patricia wasn’t plain but it got to be a pain in the ass having guys salivating over someone else all the time.
With her long legs, midnight blue ruffled silk shirt and tartan skirt, Svetlana crossed the room with the elegance of a catwalk model and planted kisses on the cheeks of her guests in customary Russian fashion before sitting unselfconsciously, cross legged on the floor and chatting away happily. She gave the American aircrew the majority of her attention but flirted outrageously with the men in good humour, so by the time Constantine returned the ice was thoroughly broken. Pretentiousness was not one of Svetlana’s vices.
During the meal Patricia probed Svetlana, seeking to see how deep the girl went intellectually. Patricia had an engineering masters in fibre optic avionics and specialised in fly by wire technology, she began talking about it and found the Russian girl was genuinely interested; ten minutes later they were into some fairly deep technical talk.
Caroline sat back and watched the scene around the table, the food had been excellent, the wine perfect, the company superb and the smoky flavour of the old cognac she was twirling around the bowl of her brandy snifter was delicious. She was taking another sip when she felt a foot slide up the inside of her calf and she looked down quickly but the foot disappeared. Max was sat opposite and she stared at him, quite taken aback but he was leaning across the table sharing an anecdote with Constantine, on her right at the head of her table. As the next possible culprit she looked hard at the Russian, but when he felt her gaze he looked over his shoulder at her and smiled before automatically including her in the story, he was guileless and she could not believe it was he who had attempted to play footsie with her. Scott was at the far end of the table and too far away so she shrugged to herself and dismissed it as an accident rather than a calculated act.
Svetlana espied Pc Pell going into the kitchen for his food and she left the table, dragging him into the dining room and making a space for him before bringing him a plate piled high with meat and roast vegetables. He reluctantly left to relieve his colleague roaming the grounds once he had cleared his plate.
As evenings went, it was a thundering success but at 1am Constantine showed them to their bedrooms, the new working day was only seven hours away, a concession allowed by Pc Stokes who normally banged on the bedroom door at 5.45am.
The following morning Patricia, Caroline, Scott and Max made their way separately to the kitchen for coffee. The two CIA men had elected to come along the previous evening for the PT and run, whilst alcohol was clouding their better judgement. Daggers were looked at Svetlana when she breezed in and out cheerily, having collected her morning coffee.
“She drank exactly what we had, it is not fair,” grumbled Scott.
“They had less sleep than we did too,” put in Patricia.
Scott looked over the rim of his mug at her.
“How so?”
“Didn’t you hear them… bloody noisy?”
Max was almost the last one to reach the realm of Java heaven. “Who the hell was making love until 3am?” he asked, eyeing them all accusingly. “Jesus H… someone’s a screamer.” As he filled a mug to the brim.
“That wasn’t love making Max.” Caroline informed him. “It was Olympic standard rutting… but no one in this room was involved!” She managed to grin as she continued.
“I think it was doctor and patient night, I saw Svetlana walking to the bathroom in a surgical gown… open back.”
“Really?” Both CIA men had jumped four levels in the wake-up stakes.
“Uh huh… she has a butt like two hardboiled eggs with suntans, and a dogs paw tattoo on the right.”
“Slut tags.” Pat scoffed.
“Meowwww.” Caroline responded to her navigator with censure in her tone.
‘Tramp stamps.” Pat offered again with no hint of apology and sipped her coffee before adding. “Well I think she must be a vampire or something, you know… drawing life energy from stolen bodily fluids.”
“Fellatio” interjected the other woman.
“What’s fellatio?” enquired Max.
Caroline deadpanned.
“It’s a Latin term for a form of birth control… us girls practised it a lot in college.”
Max’s blank look reduced both aviators to fits of giggles.
Scott had been trying to keep a straight face.
“Max wouldn’t know about that, Mrs Reynolds is a devout Catholic.” And the giggles turned to full-blown laughter.
Constantine entered the kitchen, looking just as fragile as the Americans did.
“Thank Christ… there is a God.” Scott muttered as he appeared.
The Russian looked at him as he reached for an empty mug. “Pardon?”
“We were just discussing the possible existence of bionic wangs in the vicinity; Major… it seems they do not exist.” Caroline informed him.
Patricia winked at him.
“More’s the pity,” as she and Caroline left for the garden and warming up exercises.
“Scott… what’s a bionic wang?”
“It’s a 24/7, self-sustaining piston drive unit, never happen, Major.”
“Ah.” He replied and ingested caffeine gratefully.
After breakfast, Caroline took Svetlana off to the RAF station for a briefing, equipment fitting and then a one hour flight in the F-117X Nighthawk; the last half hour was a ground hugging flight across the Highlands.
The cockpit ‘windows’, as Svetlana thought of them, were lined with transparent plasma screen material. She was amazed at the information the screen held for the pilot. Whatever information was programmed into the system could be displayed there. Whatever the satellites, AWAC, JSTARS or its own sensors saw was projected on the screen as a symbol with range and speed below.
Too far away to see with the naked eye, an RAF Nimrod was heading in to Kinloss and the range to it counted down. Using the side stick Caroline banked to the left and the Nimrod’s symbol crabbed sideways until it reached the trailing edge of the right hand screen where an arrow icon appeared, pointing aft.
The Nighthawk’s own data was also projected but there was nothing new in that. The whole set-up gave the pilots ‘at a glance’ information without having to lose situational awareness by looking down at instruments.
If Svetlana thought this was standard for all Nighthawks, Caroline did not disabuse her of that impression; the system still had some bugs in it that needed to be ironed out before the rest of the F-117A fleet could be upgraded.
This was the R&D unit's testbed airframe, pressed into operational service for the upcoming mission, losses in the F-117A wing were mounting and by using this Nighthawk it spared the loss of another of its Nighthawks, however temporarily.
They crossed the Moray Firth at wavetop height heading northwest and then lifted to clear Kinnairds Head and drop down the other side to skim across Dornoch Firth.
Caroline’s voice sounded in her ears.
“Look… no hands!”
Her eyes smiled at Svetlana above the oxygen mask as the Nighthawk’s navigation computer flew it towards the first pre-programmed waypoint.
The Nighthawk banked steeply to the left and the land closed in on either side as they entered the mouth of the River Shin. The river curved between high ground until they were heading almost due north and the river widened out into the lake of the same name.