Brink of War

5

Lunch was pretty decent, probably better than decent by Russian standards. There was something that looked like beef stroganoff in one dish on a hot serving-line buffet and I filled up on that. I saw Sheila watching me and grinned evilly at her. We had a deal ― no more burritos before flying ― but I figured that the Russian version of beef stroganoff wasn't included in that agreement. Last time I'd splurged on Mexican before flying, she said she was either going to start carrying a gas mask or get a new pilot.

I was surprised at the crowd. There were a lot of the same faces as the night before, all evidently wanting another look at the tame Americans.

I shot my sleeves a couple of times, showing off my fake Rolex. I figured they wouldn't know the difference.

Anna was there again, too, and promptly attached herself to my side.

It was good to see her, and my reaction to her was even stronger this time.

Even when your mind knows somebody is probably a Russian spy out to pick your brain for everything you ever knew about the national defense strategy, it's still nice to see a good-looking chick sitting next to you at lunch. Sheila's tame American attache turned up as well, all big white teeth and crinkling blue eyes of him. He was maybe an inch taller than me and looked like he worked out a lot. Still, I figured I could take him if I had to.

"So, you are flying again this afternoon?" Anna asked. She pulled a dish of fresh rolls toward me, nudging me slightly. "Homemade ― the very best bread in Russia," she said proudly.

"Yeah, another flight this afternoon." I reached for one of the rolls, felt the thin, butter-glazed surface crack under my light pressure.

Man, these fellows knew how to cook!

"You like flying?" she asked. "That's a good thing, yes?"

I started to answer, but my mouth was still full. I swallowed hastily, then said, "A very good thing. There's nothing better in the world than flying, and the Tomcat's the best aircraft to do it in."

Sheila's American attache spoke up now, putting in his two cents' worth on the value of naval aviation. Like any of us really cared what he thought.

"You know, the Russians have made some big strides in developing their own version of carrier aviation," he said. He turned to smile charmingly at Sheila. "But everything they fly is a single seater. A big mistake, in my estimation." His smile left no doubt that he was talking about her as a RIO in particular.

I stifled the irritation I felt crowding the back of my throat. Man, she wasn't falling for his line, was she? How obvious could you get ― he was damned near trying to look down the front of her uniform.

But much to my surprise, my normally savvy RIO was buying it. Big time, from the fawning look she gave him. It really makes me sick, the way that some women are.

"That's so nice of you to say, Brent," she cooed. "Really, I'd have to agree with you on that."

I heard a slight, muffled giggle to my right. I looked over at Anna.

She was shaking her head slightly in disbelief.

I grinned. It was as though she could read my mind, and was agreeing with me about the sheer idiocy of Brent's run on Sheila.

"You know, Brent," I said loudly, cutting off the love fest that was starting across the table from me, "you'll probably be interested in this afternoon's engagement as well. It's a bombing run, you know? Like when you come in fast and hard on a target and try to pop your load off right on one spot."

Sheila's head shot up and she fixed me with a glare. "All you have to do is drive," she said, reminding me of our respective roles in life. "The timing is up to me. And I can handle my end of things just fine, thank you."

Brent shot a puzzled glance back between the two of us, then shrugged.

"I understand there won't be much to see, though," he said.

Sheila shook her head. "No, you won't be close enough to see ordinance on target, not unless you're in the observation plane. And I don't think you can wangle that." Brent smiled. "Well, I guess I'll just have to rely on you to tell me all about it when you get back down."

Oh brother. He was really laying it on.

"That's not true, is it?" Anna said mildly. "Skeeter says he has a lot to do with whether ordinance gets on target. Don't you?" She turned those big, doe-like eyes up at me, smiling slightly.

"That's right," I affirmed. "Back in the old days, most of the ground attack aircraft were single seaters. One man can do it all," I said, letting my voice emphasize the word man slightly.

"One man still can," a new voice chimed in. I looked up to see Illya Kyrrul standing over me, smiling broadly. Geez, what was this? Everybody in the world seemed to be having a hell of a time around me, all taking potshots at my Tomcat. Well, I didn't have to put up with this.

"We'll see what the best way to do it is this afternoon," I said, pushing myself away from the table. I turned to Anna. "You were going to show me those historic etchings out in the front passageway, weren't you?"

Her puzzled eyes met mine for a moment, then her face cleared and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Of course ― the etchings."

As we paced off toward the door, I turned to shoot a victorious smirk at Sheila. I guess that proved where she stood in the pecking order of things. I had a real life Russian spy after me, whereas all she could muster up was a stupid old American civil servant. Once we left the banquet hall, Anna could no longer contain her amusement. Her light, silvery laughter seemed to tinkle against the walls inside the cavernous entrance. "These etchings ― I have heard about that!" she said, as though delighted to find a quaint American expression in actual use. "It is a joke, yes?"

"A joke of sorts," I agreed. "But I was interested in these pictures." I pointed to the massive gilt frames lining the walkway down to the banquet hall. "Tell me about them." "All heroes of the Mother Land," she said briskly. "Afghanistan, of course. Even World War I and World War II. The Great War, we call it, the first one." She began to walk me down the hallway, telling me the little she knew about the men in the pictures. At the end of the hall, she turned back to me and laid one hand on my chest. "I must thank you ― you are helping my reputation as a spy immensely," she said mischievously. "My superiors will be convinced that I am so clever in getting secrets from you, meeting alone with you like this. But of course, there is nothing to it, yes?" She shrugged helplessly, as though acknowledging the absurdity of our positions. "We managed to fool my superiors ― and your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend ― she's just my RIO," I said.

She paused to consider this. "Then why do you care if she acts foolish over the other American?" "Just because she's looking stupid," I said. "That guy ― hell, he's nothing. She could do a lot better than that if she wanted."

"Perhaps I could scare up a Russian spy for her." Anna twinkled, then laughed again at the horrified expression on my face. "Oh, don't be so silly. It is hard enough these days to justify one's job. I am grateful that you have made it that much easier for me. Now, these other pictures…"

I couldn't figure it out. Maybe what she said was true, that everyone was so desperate to look like they had a job in this new Soviet economy that simply being alone with an American aviator was sufficient to secure her reputation as a devious Mata Hari in this new pecking order. But she hadn't asked me anything about flying, anything about tactics or my squadron, or anything at all that might possibly relate to military intelligence. Sure, she'd mentioned the bombing run, but it was evident from her questions and her comments that she really didn't know anything about military matters. Maybe she was just what she said she was ― an agricultural spy, like industrial espionage or something.

Anyway, I was glad to be away from Sheila and Brent. We'd have some words when we got alone in the cockpit. She could be sure of that.

All too soon it was time to make our way back to the airfield and go through our very thorough preflight. Even though she'd been acting like an ass over lunch, I knew Sheila was as determined as I was not to get caught with another stupid trick like the altimeter. We preflighted everything, even the things that weren't on the checklist. Like the altimeter. Like the clock. After a while, I felt pretty stupid staring at the digital face and comparing it with the sweep of the second hand on my fake Rolex.

Finally, we were both satisfied. We motioned to the ground technicians that we were ready to strap in.

This time, we'd be judged not on ACM ― Aerial Combat Maneuvering ― but on our performance at both the MiG and the Tomcat's secondary mission ― bombing. The pods slung on our wings were also capable of recording all the relevant data for a bombcat, as our aircraft was formally called when in this configuration.

In addition to the simulator pods on our wings, our bombing runs would be monitored by an observation team airborne over the IP ― the Impact Point.

The MiG and the Tomcat each had one real five-hundred-pound bomb slung under the wings, and this time Illya was going to see just how badly outclassed he was. I'd scored first in every bombing practice run on the range since I left the training pipeline, and I wasn't about to let some Commie bastard show me up this time. Not after the cheap tricks he'd pulled on me so far, for I was convinced that he was behind the altimeter reset as well.

The Tomcat is even better on bombing runs than a MiG. It's like comparing a Hornet with a Tomcat. The sheer power and massiveness of the Tomcat, which makes it less maneuverable in the air than either of those, makes it the preferred platform for carrying ground ordinance. The Hornets and the MiGs simply don't have the power to carry much, and that's the real reason that Hornets will never replace Tomcats completely in the battle group. They drink too much gas and they don't carry enough weapons.

I'd studied the charts of the area extensively and knew the approach to the IP was surrounded by low hills and a couple of higher peaks. Sheila had used her tactical decision aids to plot in the best course, allowing for evasion of the imaginary SAM sites that ringed the area and giving me some room to maneuver in case we ran into any surprises. I'd looked it over and signed off on all of it, although in truth she was the better mission planner of the two of us.

As soon as the cockpit was secured over our seats, Sheila said, "You want to tell me what all that was about?"

"Well, we still want to make sure they haven't tampered with anything," I said, deliberately misunderstanding her question and answering as though she was referring to the extended preflight. "Can't be too careful around these Russians, you know."

"You're the one who ought to be careful," she snapped. "And don't think the admiral doesn't notice you playing patty-cake with that Russian.

Didn't Lab Rat warn you about that? When are you going to quit thinking with your little head?" "There's nothing going on with her," I said hotly. Partly because it was true, and partly because it pissed me off that there wasn't. Anna had given every indication that there could be, and I was a little annoyed that the current circumstances ― like being inside Russia, for God's sake ― prevented me from following up on the clear signals she was giving off. The things a man has to do for his country.

"Besides, what about you and Brent?" I pitched my voice a little bit higher as I said his name, imitating her Minnesota accent. I've always been good at that, and it drives her up a wall.

"What, the career American diplomat?" she snapped. "And just what could be suspicious about that?" "Oh, nothing," I said airily. "He sure seems to be sucking up to you, though."

"Sucking up? Since when do you care who I talk to?"

"And since when did you become my own personal hall monitor?" I demanded.

That settled it for a while. The yellow shirt gave me the signal to taxi, and I let off the brakes and jammed the throttles forward, not caring if it jolted her in the backseat. After all, she'd agreed on one thing ― I got to drive, not her.

Sheila subsided into an angry muttering, but I could feel her movements in the back of the aircraft ― sharp, short, and staccato.

Clearly, she was pissed. That made me come to my senses a little.

"Listen, it's none of my business," I said. "Let's just forget about it and fly the mission, OK?"

"I will if you will," she answered, a sweetly saccharine note in her voice. "Just be careful about which stick you're grabbing up there, OK?"

"That was a shitty thing to say," I snapped.

"Can dish it out but can't take it?"

I gave up my attempt to restore harmony in the cockpit. Regardless of how she pissed me off, Sheila was a pro. Let her deal with her own snit, as long as it didn't affect the mission. I took off well short of where I had the time before, rolling into the air with a sharp, crisp motion. I grinned, wondering whether Sheila or Tombstone would give me the most grief if I pulled a hot-shit approach when we came back in, waiting until the last minute to lower my landing gear. Sheila, probably, I decided. Based on Tombstone's earlier reaction on our first engagement with Illya, he'd probably find at least some public reason to claim it had all been part of the plan. I knew Sheila wouldn't let me off so easily.

We ascended to eleven thousand feet, circled for a moment, then at the signal headed off for the IP. The Tomcat was its normal, beautiful self, purring under my fingertips like ― hell, don't start thinking like that, I told myself. This was a Tomcat, not a cute little Russian agricultural spy.

I descended smoothly to six thousand feet, following Sheila's directions smartly, almost anticipating each command. The heads-up display was feeding me information from her plot, showing me when the turns were coming up. The radar detection envelopes of the imaginary SAM sites were painted in yellow on the display, indicating that they were all in normal search patterns. If and when the game controllers decided we were entering the fringe of a detection envelope, we might see the indicators turn red as they switched into a track mode.

"Down another one hundred feet," Sheila ordered. "Put a little bit more of the hill between us and the site."

I complied immediately, nosing down even farther to the ground.

Now, this was more like it. No imaginary deck to come up and smack me in the face, just the sheer pleasure of flying low enough over the countryside to get a good look at it. Even at almost Mach One, you can make out the general details. It seems like you're going so much faster when you're this near to the earth.

Now, what I really like is flying nap of the earth, so close that you can almost reach out and touch the trees. The Tomcat, at least on the later variance, has excellent terrain-following radar that can keep you locked at practically any altitude near to the earth. The only thing you have to watch out for then is power lines and telephone poles, which can increase the pucker factor by the next order of magnitude during night bombing runs.

"Problems," Sheila said. The yellow envelope of the easternmost SAM site turned red on my display at the same time. Her ALR-67 receiver beeped out its warning.

"I thought we were low enough," I said.

"We are ― it shouldn't be getting us." Sheila's voice was calm, a shade more terse than normally.

"Well, evidently it is," I said. This is one of my great failings as a member of the team, my tendency to point out the obvious to someone who already knows it.

"You think I can't see that?" she snapped. "Get down a little lower ― you comfortable with that?"

"Your wish is my command." I nosed the Tomcat down, a gradual descent rather than a sharp one this close to the ground. Finally, at two thousand feet I steadied up. "How's that?"

"It's still got us ― I can't figure it out ― wait! It's got to be there." She clicked in a targeting symbol that was reflected immediately in my heads-up display. "It's part of the game," she explained rapidly.

"It's got to be ― an unbriefed SAM site, just to test our reactions."

"Well, get me the hell out of here," I said. "I'm not carrying any HARMS."

HARMs are specialized missiles that weren't part of our normal load out. Instead of being heat-seeking or IR, a HARM would home in on a hostile electronic emission and blow the hell out of the transmitter.

Sometimes it was just a soft kill, but a soft kill was good enough. You'd knock out the radar in a SAM site and the crew, if there were any left alive, would be reduced to manual targeting. It's a hell of a problem against a high-Mach aircraft.

"Hard right ― you see those hills ahead? Cut in between the two middle ones. I think that'll give us shielding, but we won't be in the envelope of the northernmost site."

I complied, following her directions as quickly as she put them into the heads-up display processor. "Will we get there on time?"

"I think so ― goose it a little bit, will you?"

Now that was impressive. I knew that in the backseat Sheila was quickly recalculating our inbound route, redoing the time-distance problem in her head without the assistance of the detailed planning charts she had earlier. But I had some degree of confidence ― if anybody could pull it off, she could.

"Back to two three zero," she ordered.

Sure enough, as soon as I executed the last turn, the red fire-control radar signal subsided into a cautionary yellow. Nothing else lit up either, indicating we were clear of everyone's detection envelope. I breathed a sigh of relief. "How far off are we, timewise?"

"About ten seconds. I think we can make it up."

I eased the throttles forward a little more, exceeding our briefed speed. The terrain was still familiar, although I was seeing it from a different angle than we'd planned. Our computer-aided decisioning tools are really incredible these days. The bombing run simulator allows a pilot, in essence, to prefly a mission, maneuvering the computer screen with his joystick through the terrain surrounding the IP. You can program it to paint in SAM sites and detection envelopes too. Back on the Jefferson when we first briefed this mission, I spent a fair amount of time on the computer flying all around the briefed IP. I knew this alternate route pretty well, at least enough not to be confused by the change in terrain.

"Ten seconds," Sheila warned. "Descend to eight hundred feet."

Now, this was more like it. We were skimming along now, still well clear of the forest and the low surrounding hills, but my sensation of speed increased dramatically.

"Five seconds." I could see it now, just as it had been briefed the concrete bunker surrounded by a number of trucks, obviously old derelicts that they pressed into service for realistic training. I made a course correction, lining up solidly on the bunker.

"Two seconds," she said.

I kept my finger poised over the weapon selections switch.

One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi. I toggled off the bomb.

The Tomcat jolted upward as five hundred pounds of dumb steel left its wing, and I corrected immediately to maintain level flight. As the weapon peeled up, I jerked the Tomcat up hard, rolling away from and out to the side of the missile's lofted flight path. This close to the ground, it's important to put as much distance between you and the impact point as quickly as possible so that you don't get caught up in the shrapnel or blinded by the cloud from the explosion.

"That looked solid," Sheila said from the backseat. I could hear the relief in her voice.

"Good on putting us back on course," I said.

I felt the Tomcat burble as it descended, returning to ground from the realm that was rightfully hers. As I started my lineup, I saw the MiG parked on the flight line, heat still wafting off its wings, a bird of prey on the ground.

We ran through the shutdown checklist quickly but thoroughly. An enlisted man mounted the boarding ladder to help us out of our ejection harnesses, and it wasn't until his face was close to mine that I realized he was one of our own.

Sheila left the aircraft first, but I wasn't far behind. I jumped down off the aircraft, skipping the last step, and started my triumphant approach on the waiting gallery. Brent, Sheila's diplomatic trained dog, and Anna, my very own personal Russian spy, were waiting.

As was the MiG pilot, that asshole that had tripped me just after we'd arrived. He wasn't any better looking on the ground than he had been in the air.

"Nice going, buddy," I said, and offered him my hand. "Too bad you were off course."

These Russians, man. What sore losers. The guy spat out a stream of Russian at me and started to grab me. Sheila and Brent intervened. I started toward the guy, then caught sight of Anna's pale, stricken face.

"What, we got some sort of cultural misunderstanding here, Sheila?" I said.

"You think that new boyfriend of yours can explain just what the hell's going on?"

Brent still had one arm on the Russian puke's upper arm. The guy was struggling ― like I said, real sore losers. "It's you who're going to have to do some explaining, mister. Big-time and now."

I laughed. "I'm supposed to let him win? That wasn't part of the deal, no way. If that's what diplomacy is about, then you can just-"

Sheila turned around and clamped one hand over my mouth. Say what you will about the chicks, this one had a grip that wouldn't quit. She found the same spot in my gut that she'd roughed up before and planted her elbow there again. Harder, this time.

"Shut the fuck up, Skeeter, and let me handle this." When she gets that tone of voice going, she gets dangerous.

I shut up. Sheila turned back to Brent. "Explain." At least there was no lovey-dovey stuff in her voice that time.

"Your young hotshot there needs to learn to read a map," Brent spat out. He jerked back on the Russian one last time, then relinquished his grip to a couple of other Russians. He took a moment to straighten his tie and jacket, and probably unwind the underwear that was in a knot.

"I navigated. I had to make a last-minute course correction to compensate for a SAM site, but we were right back on the proper approach within seconds." I had a feeling Mr. Smoothy wasn't going to be making much more progress with my backseater.

"Then you made a mistake. There wasn't a SAM site in this scenario."

"What's the point of it as a tactical test if every possible checkpoint is briefed? That's no way to train," Sheila shot back. But I could see from the look on her face that our thoughts were running in parallel. Judging from both Brent and Illya Kyrrul's reaction, something hadn't gone right.

More than that. It had gone very, very wrong.

"You were off the briefed approach by more than five miles," Brent said. He shot me another one of those looks that clearly indicated who he thought was at fault, despite Sheila's explanation. "Remember, this is a Russian training exercise, not Top Gun school in the States. Every evolution is briefed. No surprises."

"Then what was with the SAM site?" I asked. Both of them glared at me. Fine. I was flying the damned aircraft and I couldn't ask a simple question?

"You were way out of line," Brent said. "You were in the airspace around a research facility. And when you pulled your little jaunt off course, you got even farther away. What you hit was not a target. It was a small agricultural village."

"No." Sheila's voice was stunned and cold. I could understand why, if what Brent was saying was true.

But it had to be true, didn't it? After all, he was one of ours. We might expect the Russians to lie to us for some reason, but this gouge was coming from our own people.

"You didn't happen to wonder why there were people walking around outside?" Brent snapped.

"I didn't see anyone," I said, already feeling like I ought to be able to come up with some sort of plausible alternative explanation. What he was saying just didn't make sense. There was no way that Sheila was that far off the briefed plan, no way. "And I did a flyby for BDA and I didn't see any indication that that sight was anything other than a good ol' target. Here ― look at the charts." I started pulling out my briefing sheet from my kneeboard, the handy device that snaps around your upper leg and holds all the mission briefing crap. "Look."

Brent brushed the chart away. "You hit a civilian village. There's no way around that one, mister. And I don't care what you say ― after yesterday, we all know how careful you are about regulations and briefed restrictions."

"But look." I tried again, waving the chart around in the hope that I could get someone ― anyone ― to look at the info we'd been given for mission planning, our approach plan, and every other detail. "Look."

Stone-cold impassive Russian faces stared back at me. It finally sunk in that no matter how right I felt, Sheila and I were in big big trouble.

"Was… was anyone killed?" Sheila asked. "How much damage was there?"

Brent studied her for a moment, then shook his head. "You were lucky.

Everyone was out in the fields, watching for the aircraft to fly by. When they saw you making an approach on their village, they ran. The damage to the structures is pretty bad, but no one was killed."

I felt a surge of relief, then suspicion. "Wait ― everyone was out of the houses and buildings? Absolutely everyone? No one stuck in the can, or working overtime, or trying to filch something? Even the crooks were out watching?" My turn to shake my head. "Doesn't compute, buster. Don't tell me you're buying that load of crap."

"You bet I am. And you better, too. Because if one person ends up dead, one person seriously injured, there's going to be all hell to pay.

You can count on it. So irregardless of how improbable you find it, you count your lucky stars that they were all outside."

I was just about to tell him that irregardless isn't really a word ― what he meant was regardless, and if he had any sort of education beyond which fork to use on salad and which one to stick up his butt, he'd know that. I'd almost gotten the last comparison worked out when the Russian pilot got free from his buddies.

Kyrrul bolted past Sheila and Brent like a tornado. I started to move too late.

The first punch landed square in my gut, knocking the air out of my lungs. I doubled over, caught the second punch with the underside of my chin, and felt my feet leave the ground.

Russians were all over us now, pretending that they were trying to pull Illya off of me, but it sure as hell didn't feel like it. Trying to help me up, they kept nailing me in the gut again. Somebody stepped on my fingers, and another one landed a boot in my ribs.

I shouted, and finally made it to my feet. My lungs were starting to work again. Sheila and Brent were peeling the Russians off of me one by one, but making slow progress.

"Stop it. Now." The voice was so cold it froze every one of us where we stood. It took a moment for it to sink in with me that it was Admiral Magruder.

Another command echoed out in Russian and, if I had to guess, said exactly the same thing. No one was moving now, not even Illya.

I tried to straighten up as Admiral Magruder walked up to me. He might have found a clever way to cover up the altimeter/altitude screw-up, but I had a feeling this one wasn't going to go away that easily. I made it straight enough to at least look like I was standing at attention.

Admiral Magruder bent down close to me. He's a little taller anyway, and I was hunched over. "Shut up. Not another word, you understand. Follow me."

I know orders when I hear them, and I was relieved to have to obey those. If he could get me off that flight line without being lynched, I was going to be real grateful. And surprised.

We made an interesting little parade. Admiral Magruder leading, me limping along behind and trying not to vomit. Sheila was behind me, sort of keeping one hand on my back to make sure I didn't keel over. Behind her was Brent, I think, although I couldn't have sworn to it. Gator Cummings, who'd turned up somewhere around the same time as the admiral, brought up the rear. Anna had disappeared into the crowd sometime after the first punch was thrown.

The admiral herded us all into a military transport vehicle of some sort, the Russian equivalent of a Jeep or Humvee. We rode back to his quarters in silence. He motioned us out of the vehicle and we followed him into his quarters. He still hadn't said a word.

Finally, back in his sitting room, the admiral seemed to calm down.

He pointed at a chair. I sat. Next thing I know, he's handing me a stiff drink. I took it, held it for a minute, not entirely sure that he really wanted me to drink it.

"Drink. It's not poison. I brought it with me." The admiral's face didn't even flicker, although everyone except maybe Brent knew how much against most Navy regs that was.

I drank. Bourbon ― not my favorite, but it'll do. The liquid coursed down my throat, smooth and friendly, and finally hit the pit of my much-abused gut.

"The rest of you?" the admiral asked. He received a chorus of no's from Brent and Sheila. He poured one for himself, then sat down on the couch across from me. "Tell me what happened."

I let Sheila do the honors while I nursed my bourbon. She got it all right, but left out a few details. Like what an astounding job she'd done getting us back on the proper approach path. I filled those in, and was kind of hurt when she looked like she didn't appreciate my help all that much.

"I see," the admiral said after she'd finished. He shut his eyes for a moment, then said, "And what is State's opinion?"

Brent mumbled something about diplomatic relationship, the usual crap you hear from State. The admiral listened to him for a while, his eyes still shut. He was so still that I thought for a moment he'd fallen asleep.

Then he sat straight up, nodded at Brent, and said, "Thank you for your assistance. We'll take it from here."

"Admiral, I-" Evidently no one had ever explained to Brent about arguing with admirals. There's really just one rule ― you don't.

"That will be all." The admiral said it quietly, but he made it damned plain to these military ears that Brent was expected to pop tall then quickly haul butt. I was hoping the admiral might have to make it even clearer than that, but Brent disappointed me by getting the word. He was out of there with a quick "we can talk tomorrow," and then the door shut behind him.

For once, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut. I opened it once, caught Sheila's look, and figured out that I'd been right the first time.

Finally, the admiral spoke. "For what it's worth ― not much right now, I suspect, not at least to the Russians ― I believe you. Something went wrong, just as it did with the altimeter. When we finally track down the error, it'll be something that we didn't understand ― the distance in meters instead of yards and miles, something the Russians can use to absolve themselves of the blame." "Why?" Thank God Gator asked the question. Sheila and I were in too much trouble to be talking. "Why would they invite us here and then set us up?"

"I can think of a couple of reasons," the admiral answered. For a moment, something dark darted behind his eyes, a look of grief and pain that I'd never seen on a flag officer's face before. Just a flash, then it was gone. "Some of them concern the United States and our diplomatic relationship with Russia and the former Soviet states. Nothing like being magnanimous about a screw-up to make us in their debt."

"I don't call getting beat up magnanimous," I said.

"A little higher level issue than what happens to your carcass," the admiral answered. "There are other reasons as well, some of which may concern you. And some of which may have to do with me alone. I don't think we need to go into them right now. But until we're back safe on an American flight deck, I want your mouths shut. Completely. Not even a ' comment.' You understand?"

The admiral drained his glass in one gulp, and I followed suit. Then he stood, a clear dismissal. We trooped back out front to find the transport vehicle and a driver waiting for us.

We didn't talk on the way back to our quarters. The driver dropped Sheila off at the women's quarters, then Gator and me at our building.

Once we were inside, I turned to Gator, wanting to get his take on it.

Gator held up one hand. "Not here. Not inside. Go to bed, Skeeter.

You've got a couple of long, quiet days ahead of YOU."

I could see his point. I mean, everything we'd ever heard about Russia indicated that they probably had the whole building wired for sound.

Maybe the admiral's quarters, too, although come to think of it, we hadn't discussed anything too damned sensitive in there, either. Just those vague allusions about it having to do with him alone maybe. And maybe he had some toys from Lab Rat, something that would tell him if his quarters were bugged or something.

Whatever. The one thing that worried me wasn't something that any RIO could give me much help with. I mean, whatever good they are in the air, in the end they're just passengers.

So far, I was two-for-two for screwed-up missions. I was the pilot, I was the one responsible for getting us where we needed to be to execute the mission. And after a hosed-up altimeter and bombing run, all I could think of was ― what next? The next time, would it be something in the jet engines themselves? Maybe a little FOD planted somewhere that could get sucked into a turbofan and blow it ― and us ― to bits? Or something in the hydraulics, a pinhole leak that wouldn't show up until we'd been airborne for a while.

Well, whatever it was, I'd have to be ready for it alone.

I finally got to sleep, cold shower and all. The weather woke me up at 0300, wind battering against the glass, billowing the thin curtains hung on either side of it. The rain came next, hard and pelting. Rain ― hail and sleet more likely, as cold as it had been today.

I pulled the blankets back up over me, snuggled down and tried to get warm. Still too cold to sleep. I finally got up and pulled out the rest of my clothes from the flight pack and carefully arranged them on the bed as an additional layer. A few minutes later, the weather still battering my quarters, I drifted off again.