LITMIR.BIZ

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got around to that piece of bubble gum in her pocket, it’d be too late for his pride.

      He had nothing left to lose. Except her friendship.

      Why hadn’t he left well enough alone?

      Why did this restlessness he felt have him acting on impulse? He should have waited. Until her birthday, at least. By then maybe he’d have come to his senses. He’d waited four months already, since the ship left port, and that wasn’t exactly impulsive. Hell, who was he kidding? He’d had this particular itch for more than twelve years. He’d just been too spineless to scratch it before now. So why then, when he’d finally worked up the courage, was he breaking out in hives?

      Steve climbed into the back seat and closed them off inside the Plexiglas canopy. Zach hooked up his G suit, oxygen mask and fastened the torso harness of his ejection seat. With a map strapped to the top of one knee and a scratch pad with notes secured to the other, he cinched the straps that held his legs in position. Flailing appendages could get chopped off in an emergency ejection.

      Some pilots liked the snug feeling, but it made him feel claustrophobic, at least until he was airborne and could forget about the harness altogether.

      He fired up the jet engines.

      “You sure you want to give all this up?” Steve asked from behind him as they slowly taxied to the launch, following the taxi director’s signal. Hands above the waist were for the pilot, below were for the ground crew.

      Zach smiled to himself. “I’m sure.” It wouldn’t be easy. But either way his life would never be the same.

      That was why he’d stopped by Greene’s office and submitted a request for SEAL training. If Michelle didn’t want to marry him, there’d be no use hanging around the Air Wing.

      They were launching from one of two forward positions today. Rapunzel and Skeeter from the other. The trip to Turkey wasn’t all fun and games. They’d meet up with allied forces for a week of training exercises before earning their forty-eight hours of liberty.

      That gave him between takeoff and landing to convince Michelle to come along for the ride of her life. He pulled his lucky charm from his pocket, a photo of them together at Top Gun graduation. Removing the wad of gum from his mouth, he stuck it to the back of the picture and fixed it to the dashboard.

      As he taxied into the catapult position, a square of deck angled up to deflect exhaust. A yellow vest—a catapult launch officer with Mickey Mouse ears to protect his hearing—signaled for him to extend the launch bar. Zach obliged and crewmen scurried underneath to hook the bar to the track. Zach pushed the throttle forward to full power.

      The jet shuddered as the engines roared.

      He ran an automatic check of his control stick and rudder pedals as he eyeballed the panels and gauges.

      So far, so good.

      Zach switched the launch bar to the retract setting, then grabbed the catapult hand grip in his left hand and locked his elbow. Releasing the wheel brakes, he braced his heels against the floor so he wouldn’t accidentally tap a rudder pedal.

      The launch bar tightened. The nose dipped. And the launch officer took over.

      Zach’s blood pumped with anticipation. He gripped the joystick with his right hand, but wouldn’t have control of the Tomcat until they were clear of the bow.

      “Ready to rock and roll.” Zach gave the launch officer a sharp salute.

      Like a projectile propelled from a slingshot, the Tomcat took to the horizon. Zach’s eyes remained glued to the gauges, when they weren’t rolling back into his head. His helmet stayed pinned to the headrest and his stomach was up somewhere near his throat. But his adrenaline hummed, then sang as the F-14 shot from the boat.

      He had exactly two seconds for the jet to reach 120 knots; if it didn’t, he’d pull the yellow cord between his legs. Ejecting in front of the ship could be as dangerous as failing to eject. Being keel-hauled, dragged under a 130-foot-long beam held little appeal. And little chance for survival.

      God, he was going to miss this.

      “We’re clear!” Steve whooped from the back seat, knowing the microphones to the tower weren’t keyed up yet.

      As Zach took control of the stick, the dawn promised a clear azure sky and miles of visibility. Pink cotton-candy clouds overhead and bottomless blue ocean below gave him a sense of freedom that was hard to define. Since that very first day he’d taken to the sky, he knew it was where he belonged. Just as he knew he and Michelle belonged together.

      As a fighter pilot he had to possess the right combination of nerves and daring to take off and land a thirty-eight-million-dollar jet on a moving airstrip about the size of a football field.

      Not to mention a little bit of attitude.

      Zach had all three in abundance.

      The one thing he didn’t have was the girl. And he intended to rectify that very soon.

      “Tomcat Leader, this is Two. I’ve got your ‘six’ covered,” Michelle reported in on the tower frequency, having launched right behind him.

      “‘Anytime, baby,’” Zach quoted the Tomcat motto. “Angels nineteen, recommend two-twenty,” he called back.

      “Copy, Tomcat Leader. Cruising altitude nineteen thousand feet. Airspeed 220 knots,” she rattled off the nautical miles in her soft alto static. “Two, on the way to heaven.”

      “Roger, Two, I’ll meet you there.”

      Zach eased back on the stick, taking the Tomcat up to their designated rendezvous as he wondered what the view was like from a jumbo jet. “This is your captain speaking,” he said into his mouthpiece. “The temperature in Istanbul is a balmy seventy-two degrees…. In a few minutes you’ll see Saudi Arabia coming up on your left, and to the right, Iraq.

      “Your stewardess, Steve, will be around with peanuts and all the booze your kidneys can hold. Thank you for flying Renegade Air.”

      “Practicing?” Steve asked.

      “Thought it might be a good idea.” Maybe he’d be able to convince Michelle there were friendlier skies where they could be together.

      “There’s something I gotta ask you, Rapunzel.”

      “Not today, Renegade. I’m not in the mood.”

      “PMS with wings,” Steve shared on the back mike.

      “I was just wondering how you felt about United.”

      “United? The airline?” Michelle asked.

      “Renegade!” Captain Greene’s bellow vibrated through his helmet. “I’ll bust your butt all the way down to seaman recruit if you keep talking like that.”

      “Aye, aye, sir.”

      “Smart-ass,” Greene shot back.

      “That’s an affirmative, Captain.” Zach chuckled. The captain liked a good verbal spar as much as he did—only, the senior officer had the rank to back up his bluster.

      “Right now I’ve got a bigger problem than your mouth, hotshot. I’ve got a broken catapult and a plane in the drink. Next launch in ten…” The captain paused to listen for the report, then let out a string of expletives. “Make that twenty.”

      “Roger, twenty. One and Two going on alone.” Zach hoped the poor bastards whose jet had taken a nosedive into the water lived to tell about it.

      Their flight path would take them over the Persian Gulf into the coalition-enforced no-fly zone over southern Iraq, where they’d do a little policing for Kuwait. Then over Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria until they reached their destination, Turkey.

      “Copy.” Michelle acknowledged the message.

      Zach switched to the prearranged frequency that would keep

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