Tom Clancy's HAWX

Chapter 28

"Troy Loensch to see Jenna Munrough."

She surprised herself by how quickly she was on her feet when she heard his voice in the outer office. In the eight months since the Svartvand takeover and the termination of operations in Guatemala, Loensch had been on two high-profile assignments for which he had become somewhat of a legend within Firehawk.

"Hail the conquering hero." Jenna smiled, stepping out of her private office.

There he stood, the tall, muscular hunk who had become the worst enemy of Cambodian MiGs over the Gulf of Thailand during those past few months.

"I heard you were in the building," she said, giving him a hug. "How come y'all didn't send me an e-mail lettin' me know you were coming in from the field?"

"Wasn't sure of my schedule," he said. "Didn't really know until yesterday when I'd be coming in."

"Well, your reputation precedes you," Jenna said. "I want to hear all about it. Let's go get a cup of coffee."

In those eight months, she had sat at her desk and at boring meetings over at the Pentagon, reading the communiques of his exploits and jealous that she was at the controls of nothing more powerful than a Porsche 997 Carrera. Of course, a car that can do zero to sixty in less than five seconds is not just a car.

"Mr. Loensch," Jenna's secretary said timidly as her boss and the famous fighter pilot started to walk away. "Could I get you to… ummm… y'know… sign this… autograph this?"

She handed him a copy of the corporate magazine with a picture of Troy standing next to an F-16 on the cover.

"Sure, I guess so," he said, obviously still unaccustomed to his celebrity status.

"Hail the conquering hero," Jenna repeated, half-mocking him.

There were more smiles and glances of recognition as Jenna and Troy made their way through the hallways on their way to the Firehawk executive coffee room.

"You really made a name for yourself out there over the Gulf of Thailand," she said as they sat down to savor their paper cups of French roast. "Just as you did in Guatemala, and in Zambia, too."

"Cambodian pilots aren't the best." Troy shrugged. "Zambia was pretty easy. The fight was pretty much a ground operation, and the guys from DefenseCo rolled that up pretty fast. Guatemala was just plain weird."

"How do you mean?" Jenna asked.

"I guess I was pretty naive in those days. One morning, I was fighting a Zapatista Su-25. I knew that Svartvand had supplied it to them, but in my mind, the pilot was a bad guy… any guy trying to kill you with Aphids is a bad guy, right?"

"Sure, y'all would naturally think of someone trying to kill you as a 'bad guy." "

"Well, here I am that same night. I sit down to a nice dinner in a pretty fancy steak house, and I start talking to the guy next to me… and it's the guy. The guy who tried to kill me in the morning is the same guy who is asking me to pass the salt and pepper."

"That's the world of the PMC." Jenna smiled. "It's all just business. No hard feelings. By the sounds of what you did to the Cambodian Air Force over in the Gulf of Thailand, you seem to have gotten over your naivete."

"Yeah, guess so. But since Guatemala, I haven't sat down to dinner with anybody that had spent his day shooting at me."

"Speaking of dinner," Jenna asked. "What are you doing for dinner tonight?"

"Harris has me down for some kind of meet and greet, but that's early, so I could probably do it around eight o'clock if that works for you?"

"That works for me." Jenna smiled. "Where are you staying… I can pick you up at your hotel."

To Jenna, the conquering hero looked vaguely vulnerable as he stood in front of the Marriott Courtyard in Arlington waiting for his chariot and its charioteer. She imagined him as a puppy dog in need of a good petting — or as a small deer as viewed through the eyes of a tigress.

Jenna had mixed feelings. Was she heading for trouble with the thoughts she was thinking of Troy? There were many reasons to keep this idea filed under "what if," as it had been since Las Vegas. Most of these other reasons contained the word Hal. On one hand, she found Troy hands-on sexy in that bad-boy sort of way that is often so appealing, but on the other, she knew that bad boys can be a lot of fun.

Jenna had mixed feelings about Hal, too, though. The fire was definitely gone from their relationship. Both of them had moved on emotionally. She knew there were many reasons why she shouldn't be moving on in the direction of Troy Loensch. She knew that boring people like Hal were good in the long term, while bad boys were always a potential for trouble.

"Business must be good here at the home office," Troy said, looking over the Carrera. "Very nice-looking ride… and a fine-looking chauffeur too."

Jenna was pleased that he thought her to be "fine-looking," but felt a little peevish that this comment was an afterthought tagged on to his gushing about the Porsche.

"Where are we going for dinner?" Troy asked.

"Didn't feel like D. C. traffic tonight," Jenna said. "Thought we'd head out sixty-six. Feel like country food tonight, y'all. I made a reservation at a little place out on Fox Mill Road — chicken-fried steak and hush puppies and all. Sound okay?"

"Sounds good to me."

When they got past the Beltway on 1-66, she glanced in her mirror and depressed the accelerator with the pointed toe of her Jimmy Choo and opened up the Carrera. If he liked the car, she'd show him the car. She noticed a smile. She also noticed a bit more than a glance at her leg.

"Nothing like a jet," she said casually. "But if y'all gotta be on the ground, it's the way to go."

"I asked around about Hal when I was in Herndon this afternoon," Troy said. "They said he's not at Firehawk?"

"Oh, yeah, I shoulda mentioned," she said apologetically. "Thought you probably heard. Yeah… Hal took a job with Escurecer, y'know, the PMC. He's been with them about three months… based out of their Alexandria office."

"Didn't know that," Troy said. "Guess it's my fault for not staying in closer touch."

"Y'all aren't very good about answering your e-mails," Jenna said in a mock scolding tone.

"Yeah, I'm a bad boy."

Jenna thought about saying something about how the teacher would have to punish the "bad boy," but she bit her lip.

"So, why'd he leave?"

"Escurecer offered him a job that has some flying involved," Jenna explained. "He really wanted to get back into the air….. That and umm, y'know… Fire-hawk has this thing about not wanting employees married to other employees."

This time, Jenna bit her lip after she let slip something that she wanted not to have slipped.

"Married?" Troy asked "Who? Wait… you guys got married?"

"No, not yet." Jenna shrugged. She hadn't planned to be discussing wedding plans with the conquering hero tonight, but she knew she was foolish to delude herself into believing it would not come up. "We've been together a long time… talking about it… so it was finally time to commit."

"Congratulations." Troy smiled.

She was pleased to have detected a trace of disappointment in his tone.

"Didn't notice a ring," Troy said, glancing at her hand.

"Oh, it's at the jeweler… umm… getting sized," Jenna lied.

The ring was in her purse.

"Is Hal gonna be joining us tonight?" Troy asked after they had been seated at the restaurant.

"No, he's out in New Mexico for a training thing…. not sure exactly what… He can't talk about it, y'know."

The dinner conversation grew more and more relaxed, measured in increments by the number of drinks they had. It had started out as typical co-worker chitchat. They talked at length about Firehawk. Troy spoke of mutual acquaintances with whom he had worked in the field, and Jenna regaled him with amusing and occasionally ridiculous stories of home office politics.

"Glad that you and Hal are finally making it…. urn… official," Troy said at a break in the conversation.

"Girl's gotta think about her future," Jenna said. "Biological clock, y'know."

"So you're thinking of having kids?"

"Probably… sure… I guess."

"Can't picture Falcon Two all settled down in the suburbs with a minivan and soccer practice." Troy laughed.

"Where do you picture me?"

"Well…" Troy felt himself going red.

"Yeah," Jenna said. "You and me both."

"I'm sorry I didn't… y'know… back in Las Vegas that time."

"I'm sorry too," Jenna said. "But you were right…. Hal and me…"

"Doesn't mean that I haven't wished that… things…. well, would have gone different… and if you and Hal hadn't been…"

"He's a rock," Jenna said. "He's the kind of guy that a girl thinks about as a father of her children. He's solid… he's a good guy."

"What about me?"

"I'm sorry, but when I think about you, I see this crazy dude taking shots at SAM sites… the dude who smoked all these MiGs over there… a dude who's gonna be impossible to tie down. Did you ever think about settling down, y'know, really settling down?"

"Well…" Troy's expression told all that needed telling. The notion of settling down was an anathema.

"And what about monogamy?" Jenna said. The wine was talking. "How many girls do you have waiting for you in all your ports of call?"

"What is this? Twenty questions?" Troy said indignantly.

"I'm sorry," Jenna said soothingly. She reached across the table and gently took his hand. She felt him willingly let it be taken.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "It was none of my business… it's the same things that make you not husband material that make you so very… very appealing to me."