Chapter 2

2

Lieutenant Tom Digger Schaw leaned back again his search-and-rescue Seahawk parked just forward of the ship's command island. The evening breeze generated by the Peleliu's lazy headway over the smooth sea finally felt more standing-over-a-roaring-BBQ-grill hot than tossed-into-a-blast-furnace hot, a definite relief.

"I've heard better ideas before." The Army's Night Stalkers were suddenly short a flyer for a high-priority mission. After a decade in the Navy, he knew that for these guys that meant high-risk. "I'm a US Navy SAR pilot. I do search-and-rescue. I chase submarines. And fly defense for the Peleliu. You folks are…" He didn't even know what to say to Major Kara Moretti. "…scary?"

She looked at him with a feral smile that only proved his point. "A squid not up to Army standards, Digger?"

He liked her. When he did fly support for a Night Stalkers' mission—far back support—Air Mission Commander Moretti always gave him precisely the information he wanted just the moment before he needed it. Her unique perspective flying an unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV, high above the battlespace had offered very timely information indeed. But neither her being the Air Mission Commander from on high, nor her Italian heritage mixed with a multi-generational family of Brooklyn cops, had earned her the call sign of Johnny. Her husband might be the company commander, but she was definitely Johnny Law—with the capital L.

"I'm not trained for what you guys do."

"No, but our pilot is. And you're the best squid pilot I've seen in my years aboard this ship."

Tom blinked at that. Kara was an institution here, aboard almost since the Peleliu's decommissioning and release to serve Special Operations Command. That she flew her UAV from down on the Hangar Deck didn't make her any less of a pilot. He'd been aboard for less than six months.

"Well, damn, Johnny Law, how can a boy say no to that?"

"You can't. Already cleared it with your commander," she waved her radio at him.

And indeed he could see the ship's other SAR pilot hustling across the Flight Deck. The Navy SAR bird rarely flew anywhere near Night Stalker missions, but it was always manned when there were operations off the deck in case someone went for an unexpected swim.

"Your orientation flight starts in thirty seconds. Let's go." And Kara was already hustling away.

He grabbed his helmet, fist-bumped his replacement as they passed, and tried to keep up with Kara's long legs. He saluted Major Roberts as he stumbled out of the twilight into the well-lit briefing room—the white cowboy hat so blinding to his dark-adapted eyes that he had to squint.

Just beyond him, a pint-sized woman tossed a worn Jack Carr thriller back onto the library shelf. Then she turned.

"Holy hell!" It came out as a whisper, but took all the air he could muster to say it.

She raised that left eyebrow in surprise, then shot him one of those big Irish smiles he remembered so well from their senior year. "Tom Schaw." Then she glanced down at his gear. "A squid? Couldn't cut it in the Army, Fence?"

"More like a cut above, Fin."

"Then why am I the pilot and you're my copilot?"

"Fence? Why Fence?" Kara asked. "We've always called him Digger."

"I got that for flying so low trying to spook a Chinese sub near one of our carriers. Someone said I was going to dig a hole in the waves. I dug him out, sure enough."

"Nope," Fin shook her head. "Tagged him way back. He's Fence."

Before Tom could protest, Fin's smile turned wicked.

"First time I met him, he was actually painting a picket fence. Yes, it was white. And, yes, he was doing it himself. Couldn't con a soul into helping him. Figured Tom Schaw was close enough to Tom Sawyer."

"Seem to recall you helping out."

"Only because you were doing such a piss-poor job of it, Squid."

"In the end, I'm the one who took you to the Senior Prom. I think that worked out just fine." Then she'd gone to college straight after graduation and her parents had moved out of the area. Last he'd seen of her this side of a double-handful of years. "Wait a second…"

"Ah," Fin smirked, "Fence finally found the gate, but can he unlatch it, folks?"

"Copilot? To you?"

"There it is."

Flying with the Fin? He studied her, now that his vision had adapted to the room. She looked even better in her flightsuit than she had in that prom dress that had knocked his boots off so long ago—less fantasy, more real. She still wore her curly dark-brown hair short, which drew a lot of attention to those blue-grey eyes. Her Irish eyes he'd always called them. Here she was, one of the few women in a world crowded with high-testosterone males and she stood as casually as could be with the elite of the Night Stalkers 5D.

"You done yet?" Fin teased him.

Tom considered pretending he hadn't heard and letting his attention shift to Justin and Kara. But then he thought about how that prom night had finished off. "Not by half."