“So what’s the story with you two?”
“What’s to tell?” she replied. “I fell for him, I thought he fell for me. But he’s got his work, and that’s pretty much his whole life right now.”
“You said ‘right now’ like you don’t really believe it.” She looked at Dev, angry that he’d said it — and angry that he was right. “Listen, Annie, if you say women talk about men like I know men talk about women, then men and women are more alike than they are different, right?” Annie said nothing. “So the only thing you can be certain about is that you can’t change a guy. Dave Luger will be the same as long as he wants to be, as long as whatever he gets out of work is more important or more pleasurable than what he gets from other people. It sucks, but that’s the way it is.”
“So what do I do about it?”
“Annie, everybody does the same thing,” Deverill said earnestly. “You’re here in this hot tub for the same reason that Colonel Luger is there in the lab — because whatever you’re looking for here, whatever you hoped to find here, is better than waiting alone in your apartment for a man who will probably never come.”
“If I want to be here, then why do I feel so bad about it?”
“Because you have feelings,” he replied. “You care about him. You care about what he might think. But you have to trust yourself. Trust your feelings.” He paused, regarding her thoughtfully, then asked softly, “You love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You probably haven’t slept with him, but you love him anyway.” She was going to say something angry at him, but she couldn’t — because, dammit, he was right. “Maybe it’s the real thing, then,” he went on. “Maybe you feel guilty because you don’t really want to be here.”
“I should follow my feelings, then.”
“Absolutely.” She rubbed her eyes, then hid them. It seemed as if she was embarrassed to be sitting there with him, afraid she was showing how stupid and naive she was. He drained his wine, then reached for his bathrobe, preparing to leave. “Shall we?”
“Yes.” But instead of leaving, Annie put her hand on his arm, firmly, forbidding him to move. She moved close to him, her face a little fearful but excited at the same time, and she reached under the surface of the bubbling water and found him. Despite their very serious, very nonsexual discussion, it sprang instantly back to life like the trouper it was.
“Annie?”
“You said follow my instincts,” she said. She crouched. above him, still holding him, then kissed him warmly, deeply, as she maneuvered herself onto him. “I’m following my instincts. This … is … where I want to be, right … now.”
TWO
Nellis Air Force Base,
north of Las Vegas, Nevada
“Jee-sus, look at those suckers haul ass!”
It seemed as if the entire crowd of about two thousand onlookers said the very same thing as two sleek aircraft came into view on final approach to Nellis Air Force Base’s main runway. Even from ten miles out, they were clearly visible. Yet unlike most large aircraft, such as airliners or military jet transports, this aircraft didn’t seem to be flying slower than normal — in fact, like the fighter jets that escorted it, it seemed to be going very fast indeed.
It used the NATO nickname “Backfire.” But in the Republic of Ukraine it was known as “Speka,” meaning “heat,” and that described the Tupolev-22M perfectly. It looked like a very large jet fighter or a small, compact bomber, with a long pointed nose, sleek lines, variable-geometry “swing” wings, and two very big, very noisy afterburning engines. It carried a wide range of weapons, including all of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ air-launched weapons. It had half the payload of the B-1 bomber, but much greater speed and range; and it was air-refuelable, which meant it could attack targets anywhere on the planet on short notice with minimal support. It was sleek, fast, powerful, and even sexy-looking. All of these factors made the Backfire bomber arguably one of the world’s most devastating attack planes.
There were many reasons for Ukraine not to have anything to do with the Backfires, or any expensive offensive weapon system, for that matter. Ukraine, the largest and most populous ex-Soviet republic besides Russia, had one of the smallest gross national products in industrialized Europe — every bit of its industrial output was needed to maintain its fragile existing infrastructure and maintain a modicum of a decent life for its citizens, with hardly anything left over for exports, long-term capital improvement, or warfighting. Despite its geographical and strategic importance, Ukraine spent a fraction of what other countries its size spent on defense, and it would be difficult to maintain the fleet of relatively high-tech planes.
Upon splitting off from the Commonwealth, Ukraine’s entire strategic attitude had changed as well. Ukraine declared itself a “nuclear-free” country, isolated itself from the ethnic and economic turmoil engulfing most of eastern Europe and the Russian enclaves, and resisted joining any outside military alliance. Ukraine had few outside enemies except for its tenuous relationship with its former parent, Russia, so the long-range supersonic Backfires had been considered nothing more than a useless, dangerous money pit. In fact, plenty of countries, including several Middle East countries, had offered as much as one billion dollars each in hard currency for the planes. So they had been too expensive to fly, not apparently vital to the security of Ukraine, and worth billions in badly needed cash.
But times quickly changed, and Ukraine had found it could no longer afford to live in splendid isolation. Russia became more and more reactionary and more aggressive against its former Soviet republics, increasing the pressure on its neighbors to join the new Commonwealth — what many saw as the rebirth of the Soviet empire — or suffer its wrath. When Ukraine had refused to renew its membership in the Commonwealth and at the same time applied for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia had exploded.
In 1995, Russia had staged a series of deadly attacks against military bases in several of its former republics, including Moldova, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Russia had called these bases “suspected terrorist training facilities” and threats against Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, and had accused their former republics of persecuting ethnic Russians. The Russian attacks had been swift and devastating. Only when Russia had attacked NATO warships on the Black Sea had anyone tried to oppose the Russian war machine. Rebecca Furness, at the time the first female combat pilot in the United States Air Force, and her tiny Air Force Reserve unit from Plattsburgh, New York, had flown a series of precision strike raids deep into Russia that had helped stop the conflict before it flared into a general east European thermonuclear war. Patrick McLanahan, flying the original EB-52 Megafortress, had done the same in defending Lithuania against attacks by neighboring Belarus and Russia.
Already devastated by a slow economy, no foreign investment, and a general lack of confidence in its reformist government, Russia had finally refrained from any more military forays for several years. It was completely unable to influence events concerning former close friends Iraq, Serbia, and North Korea. Russia, whose landmass spanned almost half the globe’s time zones and whose natural resources were unmatched by any country in the world, was quickly becoming a third-rate power.