Kara Ramey was dressed in a white blouse. Her hair was red and hanging in long loose curls resting on her shoulders. Her skin was fair. Her eyes were emerald-green and inviting. Kara looked at her menu.
“Wow,” Nolan said again, but this time he was looking at Kara, not at the windows.
A waitress arrived at their table. She was a cute woman in her mid-twenties with dark hair. She was wearing a white button-up shirt with a checkered handkerchief around her neck which looked like a festive tie.
“Good evening,” the waitress stated. “What can I get y’all to drink tonight?”
The lieutenant commander detected a Texas accent and asked, “Where in Texas are you from?”
“Houston,” the woman responded.
“Dallas,” he replied, pointing at himself using his thumb.
“It’s great to have more of us Texans on board,” she said, smiling warmly at the pilot. “Remember the Alamo,” she joked.
“What’s the Alamo?” Nolan shot back with a coy smile.
The waitress smiled at him and asked, “What would y’all like to drink?”
Once the drink order had been taken, the waitress removed the single flower from the vase in the middle of the table. She retreated behind a door leading to the centralized kitchen.
While they were waiting, Hail asked the pilot, “So, how long have you been in the military?”
He gave the question some thought before answering, “Ever since I was 22 years old. So, that would make it about fourteen years. I took ROTC in high school and entered the Navy right after college.”
“Let me guess,” Kara said, “Texas A&M University?”
“Man, you must have a crystal ball or something,” Nolan replied. There was a slight southern twang in the jet pilot’s speech which Kara found interesting. Very few Texans from Dallas had any twang at all these days, since Dallas was much more metropolitan and less rural.
“What is this all about?” Nolan asked. “I mean, this ship and these youngsters picking me up in an expensive helicopter? What’s going on?”
Hail looked first at Kara and then to Gage. They looked back at Hail and smiled.
“What?” the pilot asked.
“This information thing works the same way as in the Conference Room,” Hail informed Nolan. “We answer a question of yours. Then you answer a question of ours.”
“Ah, we still doing that? I thought that we were all friends now?” Foster Nolan asked.
Hail told him, “The answer to your question is that this ship — my ship is a sophisticated cargo ship that hauls thousands of tons of nuclear waste to my repurposing plants scattered around the world. We repurpose nuclear waste to burn in my traveling wave reactor power plants that we also manufacture.”
“So, what does that have to do with the kids pulling me out of the drink in the Sikorsky Seahawk?”
“Sorry, that was your question, and I answered it. So, it’s my turn,” Hail said. “My question is, do you want to stay on this ship, or do you want to go back to your Navy carrier?”
Foster Nolan hadn’t had much of a chance to think about his future. Up until Hail had asked this question, he had assumed that he was here for the day. Then he would return to his own ship. Now that he thought about it, going back to his squad would be ugly. After all, he had disobeyed orders and had attacked a North Korean hotel. To compound his insubordination, he had been shot down, losing the 337 million-dollar aircraft. Chances were, he would be court-martialed and thrown into the brig. Best scenario, he probably would never fly jets again for the Navy or any other branch of the military. Hell, he would be lucky if he got to fly commuter flights for Delta.
The lieutenant commander rubbed the stubble on his chin before cupping his jaw with his right hand. He huffed once and asked, “Do I really have a choice?”
“I think so,” the beautiful woman responded. “I believe we have some latitude and a bargaining position with the Armed Forces.”
“How’s that?” Nolan asked the CIA agent.
Kara looked at Hail, and Hail gave her a little nod.
“Well, Marshall here, has started taking on military types of projects. And currently, he doesn’t have anyone in an advisory position with any military background. Many of the methods he uses in completing his projects use air-based assets. You, being a pilot, have specialized knowledge in those areas. Thus, you could be of significant use to him.”
Nolan shook his head and said, “I don’t really get what you’re talking about. What types of projects are you referring to? Why does a cargo ship need an advisor in military avionics and tactics?”
Gage, Kara and Hail looked among themselves again. It was a conspiratorial look of three people deciding the extent of information they could divulge, especially to a person who could very well be headed back to his aircraft carrier within the next hour.
“Do you have any family or any other personal issues that would prohibit you from staying on board?” Hail asked.
He was going to protest and repeat his question prior to remembering the rules regarding information exchange.
“No. No wife or kids. I had a twin brother, but he was killed in The Five.”
The faces staring at him looked shocked.
“You had a brother who was killed in The Five?” Gage asked.
“Yeah,” said the pilot. He then dropped his head and looked down at the assortment of silverware that was set neatly in front of him.
Everyone at the table knew about The Five. Hail assumed that the only people in the world who had never heard about that terrorist attack were the entire population of North Korea. The Five, the lieutenant commander referred to, was a mass terrorist attack that took place two years ago. Five terrorist organizations had shot down five commercial aircraft, using five shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, within five minutes of one another and in five different countries. The combined death toll had been 1716 people.
Hail broke the silence by saying, “I lost my entire family in The Five — my twin daughters and wife.”
Before Nolan could offer his condolences, Kara added, “And I lost my mother and father in The Five.”
“Holy hell!” Nolan said finally.
The long moment of silence was broken by the waitress who arrived with the drinks. She placed the various beverages in front them and asked, “OK, so what will y’all be having for lunch?”
Gage, Marshall and Kara all ordered, while the lieutenant commander looked over the menu.
When the waitress had finished jotting down the orders on her electronic tablet, the pilot told her, “I will have the spaghetti and meatballs.”
She said, “Very good, it will be done in a jiff. If you need anything just put the flower in the vase.” She turned and walked back toward the kitchen.
“Is she single?” the pilot asked.
“Yes, she is,” Hail responded.
“So, what does this cargo ship have to do with military projects for the CIA?”
Hail said, “Nope, it’s my turn. You just asked about the status of Jacky, the waitress.”
“But—” Nolan began. Hail cut him off.
“What do you think would happen to you if you were to return to your squad?”
The question caught Nolan off guard. It took him a moment to assemble an answer. “I don’t know for sure,” he said in a crestfallen tone. “I would probably be washed out. Maybe serve some time in the brig.”
“Is that something that you want to do?” Hail asked. It seemed like a dumb question, but maybe the lieutenant commander was into paying for his mistakes as part of some skewed code of honor.
“No, if I didn’t have to go back and face all that drama, I’d rather not. There is no longer a future for me in the Navy. And to tell you the truth, I have already done everything I wanted to do for Uncle Sam.”