A short while later, Punky sat with her back to the fuselage on the port side, ignoring what she suspected was a view of San Diego retreating in the distance through the circular porthole over her left shoulder. Flying out to sea in the Osprey was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and she swallowed hard to combat the nausea gripping her stomach.
As if feeling sick to her stomach wasn’t bad enough, she felt claustrophobic with an olive drab horse collar flotation device zipped up tight around her neck and held down by thin nylon webbing of the shoulder harnesses keeping her pinned to the seat. She wore foam hearing protection under a hard-sided cranial and a pair of bulky goggles pulled down to cover her eyes. In a way, she envied the aircrew who looked far more comfortable wearing flight helmets that allowed them to speak to one another over the intercom system.
Despite her discomfort, she kept an eye always trained on them. The aircrew would know long before her if they were about to ditch or make a crash landing, and she continually read their body language for signs that her fears were warranted. Chief Cooper saw her looking at him and gave her a thumbs-up, but even that didn’t seem to settle her nerves, and her leg bounced as if trying to keep pace with the massive proprotors.
After what seemed like an eternity, she noticed the aircrew talking to one another and gesturing animatedly at various items around the cabin. The taste of sour spit filled her mouth, and she leaned forward in her seat to focus on the men who had become her security blanket.
Chief Cooper walked up and spoke.
Punky scrunched up her face, unable to hear over the din of the engine noise and her double hearing protection.
He leaned close and put his mouth to her ear. “Ten minutes!”
She gave him a thumbs-up in reply, then tugged on the bitter ends of her harness to make sure she was cinched down good and tight.
Aside from the museum on the USS Midway, she had never been aboard an aircraft carrier. Punky had spent her entire life, minus the four years she’d spent at USC, living in one of the largest Navy towns in the world, and she’d still never set foot on one. Only the sober nature of her mission to stop a traitor blunted her excitement at being less than ten minutes from a ship that carried an air force more powerful than seventy percent of the countries in the world.
“Five minutes!”
Her stomach knotted. She still couldn’t hear him but had learned to read his lips.
Adam watched the CMV-22B Osprey make its approach with mild fascination. The Marine Corps had been flying the Osprey from amphibious assault ships for some time, but this was a new undertaking for the Navy, and he was curious to see how it would fare. The off-white-colored paint scheme made it appear decidedly inferior to the Marine version, in his mind.
He had come to the viewing area on the island known as Vulture’s Row to watch them launch the COD carrying the Navy pilot who had absconded with the maintenance data. On the one hand, he was happy the lieutenant was leaving the ship for the beach. But on the other, he worried what might happen when he got there.
Sure, Adam had finally managed to erase the data after being forced to make the pilot a copy, but it was only a matter of time before CAG or the skipper noticed the deception and came along looking for answers. And he hadn’t the foggiest what he might say.
Unlike the fixed-wing jets and planes that flew aboard the aircraft carrier, the Osprey approached from astern with its proprotors tilted skyward, looking more like a helicopter than a plane. He watched the enlisted landing signalman guide the tilt-rotor aircraft to the flight deck behind the number one wire, then taxi it forward in the landing area before handing off control to a yellow-shirted plane director.
The fear Adam felt when he was on the flight deck was absent high on Vulture’s Row, where he had a God’s eye view of the orchestrated chaos. But he still bristled with nervous energy and looked around to make sure he was alone before pulling out the Nintendo Switch and powering it on.
He knew he had broken protocol by sending her a second message in the same night, but he didn’t want to even contemplate the ramifications if the maintenance data the pilot carried off the boat showed clear evidence of foul play. It would be bad enough if they found out the jet’s malady wasn’t an error in the software, but it would be catastrophic if they figured out he was the one who had supplied the Chinese with the information needed to develop the weapon. Aside from taking matters into his own hands and tossing the lieutenant overboard in the middle of the night, his only solution was to tell Chen and hope she could remedy the problem. She usually did.
After entering the faux-Konami code, Adam waited for the covert communication partition to boot up and provide access to any instructions she might have sent him overnight. He glanced over his shoulder again before tapping on the icon labeled “Receive” and watched in agony as the progress bar slowly filled. His gaze fell on the Osprey while he waited, but then he saw a window open on the reverse video screen.
1 NEW MESSAGE.
He knew there was a good chance she would be angry with him for breaking protocol, but it was too late to worry about that now. He tapped on the icon to download the message and held his breath while he waited for it to appear.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it, Marine?”
The voice startled him, and Adam fumbled the Nintendo Switch, almost losing it over the side of the railing onto the flight deck below.
“Good lord, my boy!”
Adam turned to face the older, silver-haired man and came to attention. Even without the silver stars on the collar of the man’s khaki uniform shirt, he would have recognized the commander of the carrier strike group. He was a popular figure among most of the sailors and Marines embarked aboard the Abraham Lincoln, and with good reason.
“Admiral!”
“At ease, Lance Corporal.”
But he couldn’t relax. Even the bemused expression on the admiral’s face wasn’t enough to calm his surprise at the most powerful man on the ship sidling up next to him. He wondered if the admiral made it a habit of poking his head into random spaces aboard the ship, just to see how his troops responded. After all, he had his very own version of Vulture’s Row from which he could observe the comings and goings on the flight deck, why would he climb another level above the flag bridge to—
“Oh,” Adam said with sudden realization. “I’m in the wrong place.”
“Nonsense!” The admiral turned away from Adam and looked down on the CMV-22B Osprey being chocked and chained in the landing area just forward of the island. “Nobody ever comes up here to watch airplanes flying with me. I’m happy to share it with you.”
Adam glanced down at the video game console in his hand and read the message before clearing it and powering down the device. He didn’t think the admiral would pay much attention to it, but he still felt uncomfortable standing next to him. Especially after the message Chen had sent.
1. PROVIDE DETAILED INFORMATION ON NAVY PILOT.
2. BE ALERT FOR OPPORTUNITY TO ELIMINATE.
He swallowed hard and tucked the device into his pocket.
Eliminate?
Adam knew what he had gotten himself into, but he rationalized it by telling himself the Marine Corps had brought it upon themselves. They had lied to him and used him as just another warm body, subjecting him to a life of mediocrity with a fancy title. Worse, they misused his talents and took an enthusiastic teenager and turned him into a jaded idealist.