Danny had brought his figurative right arm, Chief Master Sergeant Ben “Boston” Rockland, along with two troopers, John “Flash” Gordon and Chris “Shorty” Bradley. He had a pair of Ospreys as well—one had come over with him on the Whiplash M–17, and the other had been part of a demonstration that Flash and Bradley were conducting in Germany when Danny got the word to get over to Sicily in a hurry. The Ospreys were available as transportation in the unlikely event he had to go over to Libya.
He doubted he’d need them. Nor did he anticipate needing more people. Most of his team was in the States on a training mission with U.S. Special Operations Command, and he decided to let them be for the time being.
“Pretty island,” said Boston, surveying the suite they’d been assigned at the NATO base. “Piece of shit command post, though. Barely fit a desk in either of these rooms.”
Boston wasn’t exaggerating. Space at the facility was at a premium, as were simple auxiliary services like getting the floor washed—the ones in front of them were brutal.
“We’ll have to make due,” said Danny. “You sent Flash over to the security?”
“Yeah, he’s talking to the NATO people now. They have our Air Force guys, an assigned team from DoD working for OT, and Eye-tralians.” Boston had a smug grin as he mispronounced the word. “You going to call Nuri back from vay-kay?”
“I think we’ll survive without him.”
“Probably be help ordering dinner.”
“We’ll survive.”
Nuri was Nuri Abaajmed Lupo, the lead CIA officer with Whiplash. As an Italian-American who’d spent part of his childhood in Italy, Nuri spoke excellent Italian. He also had a decent amount of experience in the Middle East. But he was on his first leave in two years, and Danny saw no need to interrupt it.
“Probably knows where all the hot babes are, too,” added Boston.
“Find someone to clean the floor, Chief,” growled Danny. “I have work to do.”
14
Sicily
The high of his A–10E flight having been punctured by Ginella’s scolding, Turk took his bruised ego back to his own small office on the base. He found it locked, with a guard in front of the door.
The Italian MP did not know what was going on or even why he was there, specifically. But he did know that his orders were that no one was to enter. And Turk fit the qualifications of “no one,” even though his name was handwritten on the door.
He went over to the hangar where the team was working over the Tigershark and Sabres, but no one there seemed to know anything about it. Turk was on his way to General Talekson’s office when his satellite phone rang; it was Colonel Freah.
“Colonel, am I glad you called,” he said as the connection went through. “I’ve been locked out of my office.”
“Yeah, it’s routine,” Danny told him. “Part of the investigation, Turk. Don’t worry about it. How are you holding up?”
“OK, I guess.”
“Did Colonel Ginella hook up with you?”
“Uh, yes sir. I, uh, checked out two planes for her.”
“Two? Great.”
“I didn’t think to check with you. I—”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Technically, Danny wasn’t in Turk’s chain of command anyway. “She talked to me about it, then went through channels. I think it’s a good idea for you to be, uh, useful if you can. Assuming you want to be. Do you want to fly with her?”
“Yeah, I will. Good squadron. I don’t know how short-handed they are.”
“You’re familiar with the planes?”
“Yes, sir. I flew them before they did, actually.”
“Well, good. Keep checking with the team to see if they need you for testing, but otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, you’re good to go.”
“Thanks,” Turk told him, even though he figured the odds of getting back into one of Ginella’s planes were infinitesimal now. He was thankful that she hadn’t told Danny what had happened.
Not yet, anyway.
Danny told him about his office, suggesting he stop by “once we’ve gotten some furniture and figured out where the restrooms are.”
“I will.”
“If you want time off—”
“Actually, I’d prefer to keep busy,” said Turk.
Turk eventually found his way back to the hotel, exhausted from the day and in need of a serious change of scenery. Once again he thought of Ginella’s travelogue. But arranging a trip to the mainland seemed like too much of a hassle.
He went down to the bar and bought two beers, then smuggled them back upstairs to his room, feeling more than a little like a felon, though all he was doing was cheating the self-pay refrigerator out of a sale.
He flipped through the channels for a while. Most of the programs were in Italian, naturally, though after a few spins he found a movie in English with Italian subtitles. It was one of the early Terminators, the first, he thought, with Arnold Schwarzenegger before he became governor material.
Turk hadn’t seen the movie in years and years. It was nice how the storylines in movies were always so clear: good versus evil. Good did good. Evil did evil.
You might have one flip around, or in a complicated movie, two or three. But in the end, you knew who was good.
Real life was always trickier. You might be a hero one second, then literally in the middle of a disaster the next.
He couldn’t help but think about the Sabre attack. He’d seen a few screwups in his time, a couple of crashes, though never with anyone getting hurt. One time he’d come close to having to bail out of an aircraft. Ironically, it was an F/A–18, not an Air Force jet—he had been taking it up for NASA on an instrument run, testing a recording device—they had a new instrument to measure vortices off the wings. He was out over the Pacific when one of the engines decided it didn’t want to work for some reason. Then the other one quit.
Fortunately, he had plenty of altitude and options. Among them was trying for a miraculous restart, as he called it now—he got the first engine to relight somehow, then hung on long enough to get into Miramar, the Marine air station in San Diego.
On final approach the engine quit again.
That caused him a little consternation. He’d been a little high and fast in his approach, perhaps unconsciously thinking the engine would blow, and that helped. Still, he barely managed to get the wheels onto the edge of the strip.
A lucky day. He might have plunged into the bay.
Or really gone off, and hit houses in the city.
He hadn’t thought about either possibility at the time. You didn’t—you just flew the plane, went down your checklist. Do this, do this; try this, now this, now this. Contemplating consequences was a luxury you didn’t have.
So much so that when people congratulated him later, Turk wasn’t even sure what the hell they were talking about. As far as he was concerned, the incident was a tremendous pain. He had to find another way back to Nellis, where he’d started the flight. And talk to a dozen scientists, most of whom were actually interested in the instrument the plane had carried, not the engine system.
For some reason, he’d never drawn a NASA assignment again. Coincidence?
The Terminator ended—or didn’t end, as it would go on to spawn a huge string of sequels. Turk went back to flipping through channels.
He stopped on the scene of a fire. He watched a row of houses burning, fascinated. They were in a small city. The sky behind them was dotted with black smoke, swirls rising like thick tree trunks in the distance.
Only gradually did he realize that he was watching an account of the Sabre accident. There were shots of ambulances coming and going. Then a close-up of a victim on a stretcher.
A woman, eyes closed, head covered with a bandage already soaked through with blood.
A small child, already dead . . .