With Hostile Intent

Chapter Four Aliens

Like a piece of meat. Delivered fresh to the fleet.

All in all, thought Lieutenant B.J. Johnson, it was a lousy way to arrive on an aircraft carrier — sitting backward, strapped down like a hunk of produce in the nearly windowless cargo compartment of a C-2A turboprop.

The C-2A was called a COD — Carrier Onboard Delivery. The COD hauled everything out to a carrier at sea that would fit into its cargo compartment — mail, food, tools, toilet paper, tires. And replacement pilots.

B.J. Johnson was a replacement F/A-18 strike fighter pilot, and coming aboard a carrier in the back of a freight hauler like the C-2A was damned undignified. And scary. It was a feeling of complete powerlessness. B.J. could hear the engines of the C-2A advancing and retarding, the throttle movements getting more abrupt, more urgent. It meant that they were approaching the ramp of the deck. The COD pilot was flying the ball. And this guy sure as hell was no smoothie. He was snatching the throttles and yanking the controls like a bear with a beach ball.

Whump! The C-2A slammed down on the deck — at least B.J. hoped it was the deck — and lurched to a halt. B.J. was thrown hard against the seat back, and appreciated for the first time why they seated passengers in the COD facing backward. It felt like they had hit a wall. A couple of seconds later, the engines were revving up again and the COD was taxiing out of the arresting wires to the forward deck.

B.J. looked over at the other replacement fighter pilot, Lieutenant Spam Parker, two seats away. The ride out to the ship had been just as hard on Spam as it was on B.J. Spam had turned a ghastly shade of white.

The aft loading door of the COD dropped open. A flood of daylight and wind and the howl of turbine engines swept into the cabin. A man wearing a flight deck cranial headset appeared in the door. He wore a yellow jersey with “VFA-36 XO” stenciled on it.

“Lt. Johnson? Lt. Parker?” He had to yell above the din of the flight deck.

“That’s us.”

“I’m Commander Davis, executive officer of Strike Fighter Squadron Thirty-six. Welcome aboard, ladies.”

Brick Maxwell poured a coffee and settled back to watch the fracas.

“Goddammit, no!” DeLancey yelled. “Not in my squadron.”

“Nobody asked if we wanted them, Skipper,” said Devo Davis. “They’re here. They’ve got orders.”

DeLancey had assembled all his senior squadron officers in the ready room — Devo Davis, the executive officer; Brick Maxwell, the Operations officer; Craze Manson, the maintenance officer; Spoon Withers, the admin officer; Bat Masters, the safety officer.

DeLancey was not in a mood to listen. “How the hell am I supposed to run a fighter squadron with women in the cockpits? You were supposed to get those orders cancelled.”

“Wing staff wouldn’t hear of it,” said Davis. “The detailers wouldn’t talk about it. Women in combat squadrons are a fact of life.”

Watching the exchange, Maxwell knew that it was an argument without end. For over two centuries, ships-of-the-line had been crewed exclusively by men. But in the early 1990s, the ban on women in combat was lifted. Warships — and fighter squadrons — were deploying with complements of women, officers and enlisted. Men no longer had an exclusive franchise in the cockpits of Navy fighters.

Killer DeLancey wasn’t buying it. He gave Davis a withering look. “Fact of life, huh? Well, thanks, Commander Davis. That’s really helpful. We appreciate that little homily about the facts of life.”

Davis’s face reddened. An awkward silence fell over the ready room. Davis took the rebuke like he always did: He stared at the far bulkhead, wearing the expression of a beaten dog.

Maxwell felt the anger rise up in him. DeLancey was violating one of the oldest tenets of command: You didn’t humiliate a subordinate in front of his peers. DeLancey was famous for violating rules, and everyone in the squadron had seen him heap scorn on the executive officer. Devo was DeLancey’s favorite target.

DeLancey had gone too far. Maxwell thumped his coffee cup on the desk, causing everyone’s eyes to swing to his end of the table. “Devo is right,” he said. “Hear him out, skipper. You don’t have any choice.”

DeLancey swung his attention to Maxwell, peering at him like he’d just discovered a new specimen of insect. “You — are telling me — that I have no choice?”

Maxwell locked gazes with DeLancey. “They’re part of the squadron. Just like Devo said. Like it or not, we have to live with it.”

“How do you propose we live with it, Commander Maxwell?”

“Treat them just like any other new pilot. No favoritism, no bias. No double standard.”

DeLancey gave him the same withering look he used on Davis. “Oh, by all means,” he said in a mocking voice. “Let’s make sure our women warriors get treated properly.” He gazed around at all the senior officers. “Listen up, all of you. You’re gonna give those two split tails the toughest assignments on the flight schedule — weather, night, whatever comes up. Give them every chance to prove that they have no business in a combat squadron. After they’ve screwed up bad enough, I can ship their asses back to the beach. Everybody copy that?”

The other officers nodded, glancing from Maxwell to DeLancey. They all copied.

Lieutenant Leroi Jones couldn’t believe it. His equipment — helmet, torso harness, G-suit, navigation bag, all his goddamn flight gear! — was in a pile in the corner of the ready room. In his locker at the back of the ready room was another set of flight gear. The name card on the locker bore another pilot’s name: Lt. P. R. Parker.

“Who the hell is P. R. Parker?”

“An officer senior to you,” said a voice behind him.

Jones spun around, startled by the voice. It belonged to a woman. She was tall, with ash-blonde hair that flowed down to the collar of her flight suit. Another woman, shorter, with bobbed, brown hair, looked up from one of the ready room chairs. “I’m Parker,” the tall woman said. “Call sign ‘Spam.’ I take it you’re Jones.”

“Why’d you dump my gear on the deck?”

“Nothing personal. I’m senior, so I took over the locker.”

“New pilots in the squadron usually take one of the empty lockers in the back room.”

“Haven’t you heard? We don’t have to use the back room.”

Jones stood there for a moment, anger boiling up inside him. He was a wide-shouldered, muscular young man who had played linebacker at Nebraska before his Navy commissioning. If this new pilot were a man, he would give the guy ten seconds to get his gear out of the locker before he got it shoved up his ass.

But in a tiny fleaspeck of Jones’s brain, a danger signal was going off. This was the post-Tailhook Navy. He already knew too many male officers who’d been hauled up on sexism or harassment charges.

Jones shook his head and began gathering his flight gear from the corner. He headed for the door. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. This squadron’s gonna love you.”

“That was really dumb. Why’d you do that?”

“Because,” said Spam Parker, “we have to establish our territory. We can’t let them treat us like inferiors.”

The two women were alone in the passageway outside the squadron ready room.

“You pissed that guy off,” said B.J. “He’s not gonna forget it.”

“That’s his problem. They’ll know how to deal with us from now on.”

B.J. hated confrontations. It was a bad way to meet your new squadron mates, she thought. “Maybe we oughta just keep a low profile for a while. You know, like new kids on the block.”

Spam gave B.J. a withering look. “You’re such a wimp. You always let someone else do the fighting for you. Then you come along and act like Miss Primble at a tea party.” Spam was nearly six feet tall and towered by a head over B.J. In her gray-green flight suit, wearing her clunky steel-toed flying boots, Spam looked like an Amazon warrior. “You want all these Neanderthals to like us. Well, guess what? I don’t care whether they like us or not.”

B.J. had to admit that Spam was right about one thing: She wasn’t a fighter. As far back as B.J. could remember, it was Spam Parker who waged war with the male military establishment.

B.J. remembered their Naval Academy days. In their third year at Annapolis, Spam brought a sexual harassment suit against an officer on the faculty. Though the matter was quietly settled outside the military judicial system, it put an effective end to the officer’s career.

She pulled the same thing after flight training, when B.J. and Spam found themselves in the same class in F/A-18 replacement pilot training at Oceana. Spam’s problems in the fighter weapons phase reached a point that an evaluation board was convened. Spam blamed her troubles on what she claimed was her instructor’s bias against women. After an investigation by the Judge Advocate General, the charge was dismissed, but it carried sufficient weight to get Spam past the evaluation board. She managed to complete strike fighter training and graduate to the fleet.

Whenever Spam went to war with the male establishment, B.J. tried to be invisible. It never worked. She always found herself guilty by association with Spam Parker, and thus ostracized. She knew that male pilots in fighter squadrons had a name for them: aliens.

In a closely knit community like naval aviation, it was a lonely existence. Nobody trusted aliens.

Despite B.J. Johnson’s plea to be assigned to a squadron on the opposite end of the planet from Spam Parker, the Navy had other plans. B.J. and Spam received orders to the same squadron — the VFA-36 Roadrunners, deployed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan.

Spam Parker hadn’t changed.

“We have to kick ‘em in the balls,” Spam said over her shoulder as she marched away. “It’s the only way those jerks are gonna learn.”

The heels of her flight boots hammered like drum beats on the steel deck. Watching her, B.J. had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She hated being an alien.

As Maxwell walked aft, along the port passageway on the second deck, it struck him again: the smell. He had served aboard half a dozen aircraft carriers. Each of the ships had possessed its own unique below-decks smell — an evocative scent of jet fuel, sweat, paint, oil, and steel.

But the scent of the USS Ronald Reagan had something else: newness. Maxwell could sense the freshly painted bulkheads, the clean metallic shininess of the ship’s recently installed fixtures. The Reagan smelled like a freshly assembled weapon. At a hundred and five thousand tons, the Reagan was the mightiest warship the world had ever seen.

He turned down a passageway toward the hangar deck ladder. Rounding the corner, he collided with a young woman wearing a gray-green flight suit. She was exiting a door that bore large stenciled lettering: Women Officers Head.

“Excuse me, Commander,” said the woman. Her face reddened. On each shoulder were two silver bars.

Maxwell glanced at her leather name tag. “You’re Johnson? One of our new pilots. Welcome to the Roadrunners, Lieutenant. I’m Brick Maxwell, the ops officer.”

B.J. Johnson looked petrified. She shook Maxwell’s hand as if it were a pump handle. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir, I’m still running into things. I’m uh… it’s my first time aboard… you know.” Her face reddened further.

“Everyone does that. I’ve still got the scars from bashing into overheads and knee knockers on my first cruise.”

B.J. looked around the passageway. “Uh, truth is, Commander, I’m lost. I was trying to find the ladder up to the hangar deck. Isn’t there a ceremony we’re supposed to attend?”

“Follow me. I was headed there myself. By the way, B.J., we go by call signs in the squadron. You can call me Brick.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, Brick.” Still red-faced, B.J. followed Maxwell to the ladder that led to the hangar deck.

White-uniformed officers were clustered around the podium. The ship’s band, also wearing dress whites, was limbering up their instruments. In the background was a parked F/A-18, angled so that the four victory symbols were clearly visible.

The ceremony was supposed to begin at 1600 hours. Maxwell saw Admiral Mellon standing with his aide and a couple of staff officers behind the podium. The admiral wore a sour look. He looked, Maxwell thought, like a man waiting for a root canal.

Killer DeLancey and Babcock, the civilian Maxwell remembered from the mission debriefing yesterday, were huddled together. DeLancey was listening to Babcock, grinning if he had just won the lottery.

Same old DeLancey, thought Maxwell. He had found a new patron.

Watching DeLancey grin and preen made Maxwell think again about his own career. Coming back to the fleet at this late stage — he’d just been promoted to the rank of commander — was definitely not your usual career path. You were supposed to work your way up the hierarchical pyramid. After serving in several different grades at the squadron officer level, then you became a department head — operations officer, maintenance officer, administrative officer.

Maxwell had skipped all that. While his contemporaries were serving in sea-going squadrons, he had gone to a cushy flight test job. And then to an even cushier astronaut billet. Now he was back in the fleet as a squadron operations officer, the third senior job in the squadron, and it was no secret that many of his fellow officers thought he hadn’t paid his dues. To them he would always be a carpetbagger.

Maxwell and B.J. took their places with the squadron officers. B.J. slipped into the back row. Maxwell stood with the senior officers, next to Devo Davis. He noticed that Davis looked red-eyed and haggard.

“You okay? You look like you’ve been on a three day bender.”

“Wish I had. This damned insomnia problem. Haven’t had a decent night’s sleep for a week.”

On signal from a flag staff officer at the podium, the band swung into “Under the Double Eagle.” As they hit the last passage, Whitney Babcock, wearing a fresh set of starched khakis, strutted to the podium. He glanced around, making sure the television crew was in place.

“With a singular act of valor, our own Commander John DeLancey has shown the world what the men and women of the United States Navy are made of. He has proven that Americans will not be daunted by acts of enemy aggression. In the finest traditions of the naval service, this fearless warrior confronted the enemy aircraft…”

Maxwell’s mind wandered. He found himself thinking about the Iraqi pilot DeLancey had shot. Who was he? Was the guy really hostile, or just inept? Did he have a family? Hopes, dreams, aspirations?

Did he deserve to die?

It occurred to Maxwell that these weren’t the thoughts you were supposed to have after combat. Not if you were a warrior. Maybe he wasn’t, he thought. At least not like DeLancey.

Babcock droned on for ten minutes. He compared DeLancey to John Paul Jones, David Farragut, and Butch O’Hare. Finally the moment came. He summoned DeLancey to the podium. “On behalf of the Secretary of the Navy, I confer upon you our nation’s third highest award, the Silver Star.”

Maxwell heard Davis groaning softly. He glanced over at him. Davis looked white. “You okay, Devo?”

“No. I’m gonna puke.” Davis abruptly stepped back and shuffled over to the below-decks ladder.

Claire Phillips surveyed the scene around her as she positioned her camera crew. A throng of curious sailors had clustered around the brilliantly lighted ten-foot square set. A pair of Super Hornet fighters were parked in the background. Seated in the middle of the set, grinning and flashing a toothy smile, was Commander DeLancey, the subject of her special shipboard interview. The session would be taped and broadcast to millions of television viewers.

Claire was still perplexed about the young woman who had stopped her in the passageway. She was a pilot, judging by the flight suit and leather patch with the wings. The woman was tall, maybe six feet or more. Her name tag read “Spam.”

“Ask him how he intends to treat women pilots in his squadron,” the young woman said.

The reporter’s instinct in Claire came out. “Why? Is there something going on we need to know about?”

The woman’s eyes flashed. “Sexism, that’s what’s going on. Despite all the crap they’re telling you, not a damned thing has changed since Tailhook.”

Claire nodded. This could turn into something. “Look, Lieutenant, this would make a great interview if you would —”

“No interview. I’ve still got a career to worry about.” She turned to leave. “Just ask the question. You might be surprised.”

Claire watched the young officer walk away. What a strange woman, she thought. Marching down the passageway with those long hammering strides. She looked less like a pilot than like a gladiator going to battle.

The camera crew was ready for the shoot. Claire took her seat on the stool in front of the Navy commander. Looking into the camera, she saw the red-lighted cue from her set director.

She began the interview with some easy questions about the action over Iraq. DeLancey surprised her. Most of her military subjects turned into monosyllabic lumps when they first peered into that big glass-eyed television camera. But not this guy. He was coming back with quick, glib answers, girnning, preening like a peacock.

Enough, she thought. Time for the hot button stuff.

She looked at him. “What did it feel like,” she asked in a hushed voice, “to kill another man?”

She knew it was a loaded question. But, hell, that was her job. Claire hadn’t earned her reputation for being a tough reporter by asking pussycat questions. It was her style to get to the gut issues. That was why her contract with the network had just been renewed at twice the old guarantee.

DeLancey seemed be considering. He turned his head so that his handsome, lean-faced profile was exposed to the camera. He was wearing his tailored flight suit with the VFA-36 Roadrunners patch and the leather name tag showing his gold-embossed wings.

“It was… difficult, Claire.” DeLancey seemed to chew on his lip, pained by the memory of what happened. “We were under attack by Iraqi fighters. It came down to a choice — kill or be killed. I had to defend myself and my wingman.”

Claire bored in. “But this wasn’t your first time, was it? Isn’t that how you earned your call sign — Killer?”

Another silence ensued as the camera zoomed in on DeLancey. He nodded his head and gave the camera a thoughtful look. “My job is to defend my country. I’ve gone up against an armed and deadly enemy four times now. I’m here to report that in each case, I won, they lost.” He nodded in the direction of the nearest F/A-18. The camera view switched to the jet, then zoomed in on the name beneath the cockpit: Commander Killer DeLancey, CO VFA-36.

Beneath the name were now four silhouettes of enemy fighters.

Grudgingly, Claire had to give him credit. The guy was taking control of the interview. Then she noticed that she had another distraction. That civilian from the Pentagon, Whitney Whoever. He was working his way over to DeLancey’s side, placing himself in view of the camera.

Time to switch to the real hot button topic. “Commander, I understand your squadron has the first two women fighter pilots to deploy on the USS Ronald Reagan.”

DeLancey nodded, his expression not changing.

“So, tell me, how do you personally feel about women in combat units?”

In the background she heard murmurs, throats clearing, whispered conversation. DeLancey gazed straight into the camera. “I’m glad you asked that question. I happen to think it’s the best thing that ever happened to the United States Navy. Women pilots are a terrific asset. In my squadron they will be treated just like any other aviators. No gender bias, no favoritism. No double standard.”

From the periphery came more murmurs, more whispers. Claire had to smile. This guy was too much. It was utter bullshit, but he had provided her with a great interview. Every armchair fighter pilot back in the states would be glued to his seat, cheering his new hero.

Time to wrap it up. “Commander John DeLancey, we thank you for your heroism, and I know your fellow Americans thank you.” She turned to the second camera. “This is Claire Phillips reporting from the USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf. Back to our studios…”

Maxwell rapped on the stateroom door

The latch inside rattled and the door cracked open. Devo Davis was wearing cotton work out shorts and a T-shirt. “That you, Brick? C’mon in.”

“What’s the matter, Devo? You sick?”

“Something I ate. Couldn’t sleep last night.”

Maxwell came in and took a look around. Davis looked awful. And he smelled worse.

It was strange, Maxwell thought, how fate kept throwing him and Devo together. During flight training, when Devo had been his instructor in the T-2 Buckeye, the two had become tight friends. Later, when Maxwell reported to his second fleet squadron aboard the USS George Washington after the Gulf War, there was Davis again, this time as a squadron department head. When Maxwell went to NAS Patuxent River as a test pilot, Devo was just up the road at the Pentagon. They partied together on weekends, went on double dates on the Chesapeake, served as best man at each other’s wedding. Now they were together again. Same ship, same squadron.

On Davis’s steel desk stood a half dozen framed photographs. One was of a pretty girl with long blonde hair, sitting on a porch swing. She was wearing a white halter, and even in the cropped photo Maxwell could see her terrific figure.

“What do you hear from Eileen?”

Davis went to the safe at his desk and twiddled the dial. “How about a drink?”

Maxwell knew what he had smelled. Davis was a vodka drinker.

“No, thanks.” There was no point in lecturing Devo about the long-standing ban on alcohol aboard Navy vessels. Everyone knew a certain amount of clandestine off-duty drinking went on aboard a carrier. Too much temperance, pilots liked to say, took away their edge. Anyway, Devo was the XO.

Davis poured a tumbler full of vodka, and then sloshed a dollop of lime juice into it. He didn’t bother with ice. He held the glass up and said, “Skol, ol’ buddy.”

Maxwell was still looking at the photograph on the desk. Davis reached over and turned the photo around, facing it backward. “Eileen filed for divorce. Two weeks ago, but she just got around to e-mailing me the news.”

Maxwell nodded. So that was it. He had known Devo and Eileen for — how long? Going on fifteen years. It was no surprise, really. He had heard the rumors about Eileen back in Virginia Beach, that she was seeing someone. Maybe more than one.

“I don’t have to tell you about how it feels to lose someone,” said Davis.

Maxwell didn’t reply for a moment. “No,” he said in a quiet voice.

“But you’re different from me, Brick. You’re one of those guys who can deal with it. You think like a machine.” Davis’s voice cracked. “But, man, I can’t handle it…I love her so much. I’ve never loved anything as much as I love Eileen. I’d do anything to …” His words trailed off, and he began to cry.

Maxwell didn’t know what to say. Brick and Devo, Debbie and Eileen. The world they had known back there in Patuxent and Washington was history. Debbie was gone, and Maxwell had the gut feeling that Eileen was now lost from Devo’s life.

Davis snuffled and turned away while he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Sorry. Fighter pilots don’t cry, right?”

“You’re human, Devo. You got clobbered from behind.”

“No. I saw it coming. But I thought we were gonna get through it.”

Davis was weeping shamelessly. Maxwell wanted to leave, but something told him to stay. Davis was a man on the verge of a breakdown.

“You talked to anybody about this?”

Davis looked at him. “C’mon, who would I talk to? The chaplain? You know better than that. DeLancey? I’m supposed to take command of the squadron in four months. You think I’d give him the ammo to ruin my career?”

Maxwell wondered if Davis knew his career was already in trouble. DeLancey had taken to making open jokes about his executive officer and his drinking problem. As far as the chaplain, well, he understood that, too. Fighter pilots didn’t confide in shrinks or chaplains. That was an option for the terminally ill and teenage sailors worried about their sexuality.

“How about Knuckles?” Maxwell said. Knuckles Ball was the air wing flight surgeon. “He’s a good guy. He can keep a secret.”

“I already told him I had a touch of flu. He’s got me grounded for a few days.”

“Maybe you oughta take some leave. Go back stateside, talk it out with Eileen.”

“No way. That would give Delancey an excuse to shitcan me. I gotta hang in here and cover my six o’clock. Besides, if I leave, there’s no one to stand between Killer and you, Brick. He’d love to shitcan you even more than he would me.”

At this, Maxwell’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

Davis poured himself another drink. “It’s true. Some kind of bad chemistry between you and DeLancey. He started running you down even before you checked in. He’s never passed up a chance to dump on you.”

Maxwell shook his head. “It’s a personal thing. He and I were in Desert Storm together.”

“Yeah? How come you never told me that?”

“It was no big deal. We just never got along, that’s all.”

Devo took a drink and shook his head. “It’s gotta be more than that. You’re one of the best naval officers I’ve ever known. The best student I had in three years as a flight instructor. The top lieutenant in the squadron when we were in VFA-83, and then you got the test pilot slot to prove it. You could’ve had any assignment you wanted. Never mind what happened at NASA, the frigging operational Navy is damned lucky to have a guy like you.”

Maxwell wanted to change the subject. “All right, tell me something. What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you take over the squadron?”

“Ask for you as my XO.”

“Seriously.”

“I am serious. You were born for this job. All I have to do is keep Killer from screwing you out of it. And believe me, he’s gonna try.”

Maxwell shook his head. “Nah, not even Killer would do that.”

“I’d bet my badge on it. He already has his favorite JOs badmouthing you, disrespecting you behind your back. By the way, that’s the next thing I’m gonna do — straighten some of those little shits out.”

Maxwell didn’t reply, but he knew Devo was right. He already knew how Killer treated Devo, and it didn’t surprise him that Killer was doing the same to him behind his back.

Davis was pouring another drink, this time straight vodka.

“Hey, Devo, what do you say we go to the fo’c’s’le and work out.”

“Don’t patronize me. I’m going to have a couple drinks, then I’m going to write Eileen, tell her…” His voice began to crack.

“The booze isn’t going to make it better. It’s just gonna —”

Davis’s face darkened and he turned on Maxwell. “Do not presume to lecture a senior officer. You can either join me in a drink, sir, or kindly get the fuck out of my quarters.”

Davis was going to tie one on. Maxwell knew it wouldn’t do any good to warn him that if he was observed by anyone — enlisted man, ship’s officer, even some do-gooding teetotaler from another squadron — he would be toast. In the New Navy they made examples of officers who flouted the no-drinking rule.

Maxwell got up. “Have it your way. Just stay in your room and don’t answer the phone, okay?”

He took the passageway up to the hangar deck, then made his way toward the ready room. At the far end of the hangar deck, next to a parked Hornet fighter, he saw the cluster of sailors, the bright lights and the camera crew. He walked over to the periphery of the set.

DeLancey and Whitney Babcock were each shaking hands with a slender, auburn-haired woman. She was gathering her notepad and attaché case when Maxwell came up.

She looked up. “Sam?”

Maxwell felt an electric charge course through him. No one had called him ‘Sam’ for years. No one but his father and —

“Sam,” she said. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

She wore her hair short now, in a pixie cut. She had the same willowy build, the graceful swan-like neck. Still stunning, he thought.

“Claire Phillips, cub reporter?”

She laughed. “Sam Maxwell, boy astronaut.”

“Former boy astronaut. Now adult fighter pilot.”

“So I hear.” She ran to him and gave him a hug. “I heard you were aboard, and I was going to find you. They’re flying us back to Bahrain in half an hour.”

Yes, he thought, holding his arms around her. It was definitely Claire Phillips. She even wore that same perfume he always liked. He remembered the way she felt pressed against him like this.

Maxwell was suddenly deluged with memories.

Back in the Patuxent River days. Claire Phillips was the smartest, sexiest, classiest girl he had ever met. She was on her first real job out of Duke, doing a piece for the Washington Post about astronauts-to-be. The commandant of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River introduced her to Lieutenant Sam Maxwell, who was competing to be in the next class of space shuttle pilots.

The interview lasted three hours, then spilled over into late dinner at the officers’ club. They closed down the bar, then went out to the marina pier to talk some more They were still on the pier when the dawn rose over the Chesapeake.

Brick and Claire became an item. For eight months they spent every weekend together, either at her Georgetown apartment or on the water at Patuxent. She wrote a series about the astronaut selection program that won her an award and a promotion to the international desk.

Claire was offered a post in Reuters’ London bureau. Maxwell, in the meantime, learned that he had been selected for a post at NASA. He had orders to Houston to begin astronaut training.

While he was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, he met another trainee named Debbie Sutter. She had red hair and a pert nose, and until her selection as a shuttle mission specialist she had been a resident cardiologist at Bethesda. Sam and Debbie were married the week after his first shuttle flight.

As if reading his thoughts, Claire said, “I’m sorry about Debbie.”

Maxwell looked at her, surprised. But then he realized, of course she would know. Claire was a reporter. It was her job to know.

“You look wonderful, Claire. I’m proud of you.”

“You should be. I’m doing what I always wanted. My fantasy job.”

“I remember. You were going to blow away Christiane Amanpour.”

“I’m doing it. Give me a couple of years.”

Maxwell remembered how hurt and angry Claire had been. She had called him one night from Teheran, crying. She still loved him, she said. Within a few months he heard that she married another journalist.

“What happened to —?” Maxwell tried to remember the name. He couldn’t.

“Chris Tyrwhitt?” She shook her head. “Didn’t work out. Too many women, too much booze. Too much competition between us, probably. We’re still officially married, but in process.”

For several seconds, neither spoke. Maxwell remembered again what good company Claire had always been. That quick, dry humor. It occurred to him that he hadn’t enjoyed the company of a woman — a civilian woman — for over three months.

He said, “I guess I never got around to explaining about —”

She cut him off. “I’m over it. Believe it or not, there really is life after Sam Maxwell.” She gave him a wry smile.

She had half an hour before the COD was to fly her and her crew back to Bahrain. Maxwell took her down to the officers’ wardroom.

He brought them a pot of coffee from the server bar. She gave him an appraising look as he sat down. “Sam, you haven’t changed a bit. How do you stay so slim and fit?”

“Same as always. A little weight training, a few miles of running every day or so.”

“Running?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine. This ship seems so jammed with people and airplanes.”

“It’s a big flight deck, about three acres worth. You have to watch out for obstacles, of course.”

She laughed and gave him another look of appraisal. For the next twenty minutes they caught up on each other’s lives. She talked about her career, how she had graduated from Sunday supplement writer to head of the Middle East desk. He told her about NASA and his shuttle experience. He skimmed over the details of his departure from the space program.

“I’ve been following your adventures,” she said. “How’s this for a headline? ‘Ace fighter pilot patrols the skies of Iraq.’”

“I like it, except that I’m not an ace. Not even close.”

“That would be your commanding officer, Killer DeLancey, right?

“Close. Four down, one to go.”

“But you were there when he shot down the MiG. General Penwell knows your name by heart.”

“How did you learn all that?”

“I’m smart and persistent.”

“You fluttered your eyelashes and got some guy in JTF staff to run his mouth.”

She laughed, and he knew he was right. That was Claire’s talent. She could get people to talk.

“What they tell me is all in the public record,” she said. “You just have to know how to piece it together.”

A thin man with glasses and a pony tail, walked into the wardroom. Maxwell remembered seeing him in Claire’s camera crew. “Hey, Claire,” the man said. “They want us on deck. Time to blast off.”

The clamshell doors of the COD were open, and the crew was loading boxes of gear into the back of the cargo plane. Claire stopped in the doorway to the flight deck and struck a pose. She was wearing a cranial protector and float coat for the flight back to Bahrain.

“Like it?” she asked.

Maxwell had to laugh. “You look like Minnie Mouse.”

She made a face. “Where is the Reagan’s next port call, Sam? It would be nice if we could… you know, meet again. Have a drink and talk. Something like that.”

Maxwell caught the reticence in her voice, the sudden shyness. He liked it. It meant that for all her hard-edged toughness as a reporter, she was still vulnerable. In a secret place, she was still Claire Phillips, cub reporter.

“We’re overdue for a port call. But after what happened yesterday in the No Fly Zone, they probably won’t announce the ship’s movement until a couple of days before we drop anchor. I’d bet on Dubai, or maybe Bahrain.” He looked at her. “Does that mean you’ll be there?”

“You know very well what it means, Commander Maxwell. Do the right thing. Ask me for a date.”

“A date? Oh.” He cleared his throat and said, “Would you, Ms. Phillips, do me the honor of joining me for dinner and drinks at a place yet to be announced?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” She deliberated for several seconds. “Oh, what the hell. I’ll take a chance.” She glanced across the deck at the COD. “Your time’s up, sailor. My plane’s leaving.”

She leaned forward and gave Maxwell a quick, non-lethal kiss. “Be careful, Sam.” She trotted across the deck, then stopped at the ramp of the COD. She waved and blew him another kiss.

The two turbine engines cranked up. Minutes later, the blunt-nosed cargo plane hurtled down the track of the Reagan’s number one catapult. Maxwell watched until the speck of the COD vanished in the milky sky.