Bad gamble, Pierre.
Tango shouted over his shoulder. “Close the goddamn door, Rosa. We’ve got a long flight, my favorite piece of poontang. And Tango is so gonna nail you with his monster harpoon. I’m gonna fuck you right up against your console the whole way to base.”
Gutz twisted hard to stare at Tango.
Blind shock. Easy to see in profile from his position behind them.
Pierre had known that Rosa slept with Tango Torres. Apparently she’d also slept with Gutz Gutierrez without letting on to either one. And now she’d kissed him like she meant it? What the hell?
“First in front, then behind, then I’ll give you primetime Tango right up your perfect ass.” Torres kept checking over the flight instruments, wholly unaware of his copilot’s attention.
Gutz’s shock slid over to fury.
Frozen in the aisle two steps behind the seats, Pierre saw the motion.
His shout was instinctive—and incredibly stupid.
Gutz had pulled out his sidearm. But he was right-handed and sitting in the right-hand seat belonging to the copilot. He had to bring his weapon clear of the control yoke and fully around his body.
Pierre’s shout was enough warning for Tango.
In a single action, Tango looked at Gutz, registered the fury so deep only death could wear it, yanked his sidearm, and shot Gutz in the head.
Blood splatter painted the side window lurid red.
Gutz’s dying shot went wild, shattering the windscreen directly in front of Tango.
In turning to shoot his copilot, Tango had twisted far enough to spot Pierre.
He tried to keep turning, but was trapped by his seat harness from bringing his weapon to bear.
Pierre stumbled backward, tripped, and landed flat on his back. Padded by the parachute, it was only remarkably painful.
Tango switched hands to aim around the side of the pilot’s seat.
His shot passed through where Pierre’s heart had been half a second earlier.
Pierre rolled left and tumbled down the stairs to land facedown on the cargo deck.
Everything hurt, but he was safe—Tango had to fly the plane.
But it would take Tango mere seconds to engage the autopilot, then he’d come hunt Pierre down.
The wide-open door beckoned. Though the ocean was so close that survival would be a fool’s gamble.
He looked at the open door. Remembered the feel of Rosa Cruz in his arms for even a moment.
Dying was going to suck.
But if he jumped, Tango might still get away with stealing the Ghostrider. Better to destroy it than let such a powerful weapon fall into the wrong hands.
A quick scan of the deck and he couldn’t spot his stray sidearm.
The solution wasn’t hard once he refocused inside the plane.
He leapt to his feet, then remembered Tango’s gun and ducked.
Still clear.
It took three hard kicks to break free the final mirror assembly on the laser, the mirror that turned the final beam ninety degrees to send it shooting out through the hull. The broken piece now dangled out of the way and the laser was a wide-open weapon aimed at the inside of the cargo bay itself.
He ducked behind the weapons officer consoles.
Perching in Rosa’s chair, he could feel his fingers echoing hers. She’d drilled the keystrokes into him until they were reflex.
Targeting? Didn’t matter. Lock in whatever was set.
Burn power? Max.
Burn time? Continuous.
Fire?
“Damn straight!”
He punched the button just as a shot rang out.
The supersonic shockwave of the bullet snapped close by his ear.
Near miss.
Around the back of the console, he did a racing dive over the broken laser assembly and out the open door.
He hit the air at three hundred knots.
The monster thirteen-foot-diameter, six-bladed propeller spinning at a thousand RPM passed within an arm’s length.
The plane’s broad tail within two.
He yanked the ripcord and the parachute harness tried to gut him.
One wrenching heave, three seconds of float time, and fifty-seven feet later, he slammed into the chilly California ocean water like it was made of steel.
21
“Why hasn’t Tango reported?”
Taz’s stillness said that she had the same question.
JJ studied the northern skyline.
The planned escape route for the Ghostrider had been straight down the channel. There were so many military flights in this area that one more, even one below the radar, was unremarkable. Sometimes hiding in plain sight was the best practice.
And in thirty-six hours, none of it would matter. That was all the time he had left. It was all he needed.
Then, on the far horizon, he spotted a black dot, moving low and fast just as it should be.
“Radio trouble?” But he knew it was wrong even as he said it.
Taz shook her head. He’d always liked that her instincts checked with his. When it mattered, they rarely disagreed. Moments later he could see her scanning motion stop as she too locked onto the dark blemish low against the horizon.
There was their bird.
The Ghostrider was supposed to be headed south between the island and the mainland.
But it wasn’t “making any trees.”
He remembered his father using that phrase on their small sailboat on Camanche Reservoir in the hills above Stockton. If two boats were approaching each other, the trick was to watch how the other boat moved compared with the background. If it seemed to be moving faster than the trees behind it, then it would pass in front of you. Slower, it would be behind. When it seemed to sit dead still against the background but kept getting closer it meant that your angle of approach and speed worked out for a collision course.
He hadn’t learned the math until he’d joined the Air Force and he’d forgotten the details by now.
But one thing was certain: the Ghostrider was coming quickly in their direction—exactly in their direction.
22
Tango Torres stood at the open passenger door, the frame edge in one hand and his M9 pistol in the other.
“How did it all go to shit so quickly?”
No one answered him, of course. The gunners were gone, even the one who’d snuck up behind them in the cockpit. No chance to identify who.
Rosa too. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She’d been tasked with making sure they dumped everyone else except herself.
She’d been two-timing him with Gutz?
That was the total shits.
He hoped Gutz was miserable in the sack.
Had been…
Shit!
Sharing the same holes, even with his best friend, was just a gross thought.
And now his best friend was dead too. Gutz had tried to shoot him. Over a piece of tail! Even one as fine as Rosa’s shouldn’t have made that happen.
Well, he still had to save the plane or the general would be some kind of pissed. The whole plan hinged on delivering this Ghostrider.
He stepped back from the door and closed it.
Double-check. No one by the big guns.
He crossed between the laser and the M102 howitzer to make sure that Rosa hadn’t magically reappeared at weapons control.
Tango made it two steps before a searing pain sliced into his leg.
He screamed as he collapsed backward.
The whole outside of his left leg was charred flesh—burned!