The problem was her legs. Her damned legs wouldn’t move. Why?
Like a blind person feeling in the darkness, she explored her surroundings. On either side rose a rough, gritty surface, like a rock wall. Her hips and legs seemed to be wedged between the two vertical surfaces.
In short and painful movements she managed to sit up. After an agonizing effort, she managed to draw her knees toward her. She seemed to be at the base of some sort of crevice. In the darkness she couldn’t determine how far up the walls of the crevice extended. Nor could she see in front or behind. For all she knew, she was perched at the lip of an abyss.
She was alone. That much she was sure of, and the thought made her rejoice. In the black stillness, she could hear nothing but the sound of her own breathing. When she tumbled down the mountainside, she must have dropped into this ravine. They lost her in the darkness.
They would wait until daylight, she guessed; then they would resume the search.
B.J. took an inventory. Bruises, abrasions, sprains, but nothing seemed to be broken. When she touched her head her fingers came away with a wet stickiness, which she traced to a nasty cut above her temple. Probably the blow that knocked her unconscious.
Her eyes were adapting to the darkness. She pulled out the water canteen. Still intact, thank God. Wetting her bandanna with water from the canteen, she dabbed at the wound on her head. The damp cloth on the open cut made her wince.
The signal mirror was in pieces, smashed during her tumble down the slope. Likewise the handheld GPS. When she flicked the power button, the little LCD screen remained lifeless. One of the pencil flares was broken in half.
Then she noticed the PRC-112 mobile radio. The most valuable escape-and-evasion item — and it had failed her. Why had she bothered to keep the useless device? It was deadweight. Now the radio’s hard case was cracked open. The thing must have taken a hit during her plunge down the mountain.
Okay, no GPS, no radio. So much for the high-tech magic the Navy gave pilots who were shot down. She was down to old-fashioned compass and map. Kit Carson in Indian country.
Before throwing away the useless radio, just for the hell of it, she decided to try the power button one more time.
When she poked the button, she heard something. A hissing sound.
The tiny power light on the radio was glowing red. It was working.
“This is Runner Four-one on Magic channel. Anybody home?”
Leroi Jones listened for half a minute. It was his second attempt on the SAR frequency. He had tried calling the Tomcat crew and gotten nothing. Same thing with B. J. Johnson. Nobody home. No one down there was monitoring the frequency with their PRC-112 radio.
One more time. “Tomcat Five-one,” he said, using the call sign of the F-14 crew. “Runner Four-one calling. Do you guys read me?”
Another half minute. Still nothing.
What the hell, thought Jones as he switched his primary UHF radio back to the AWACS frequency. It was worth a try.
He stifled a yawn as he squinted into the eastern sky. Even the hundred-percent oxygen flowing through his mask didn’t make up for the lack of sleep. The emerging sun was just touching the horizon, framing the rim of the Gulf of Aden.
It had been a short night. At zero-three-hundred they’d been alerted for the mission. Blackness still covered the sea when he and his wingman, Flash Gordon, catapulted from the deck of the Reagan. Twenty minutes later they were established on the CAP station, twenty thousand feet over Yemen.
Jones could hear the other flights checking in with the AWACS.
“Rover Four-one, on station.”
“Roger, Rover,” came the voice of the controller in the AWACS. “Stand by for an update.”
“Bluetail Five-one, confirm the picture for us again.”
“Picture clear, Bluetail.”
“Tomcat Four-oh is ready,” reported the F-14 with the TARP package.
“You’re cleared to enter the AOR, Tomcat. We show zero threats. You’re good to go.” AOR was for “area of responsibility,” the target area of the previous day. The Tomcat would make a high-speed photo pass, hoping to pick up traces of the missing pilots.
Jones wondered why they were bothering. A thin morning fog veiled the valleys and plateaus. Peaks and ridges were protruding through the fog blanket, giving the landscape the appearance of a Jovian moon.
Not a sign of human existence.
Jones couldn’t help thinking about B. J. Johnson. He liked her for the way she handled herself during the bad times when she was the only woman in the squadron and no one was giving her a break. Himself included, he recalled. He wished he had been a friend to her. Like the others, he had kept his distance from the alien.
Of all people, he should have known what it was like to be an alien. He was the only African-American pilot in the squadron, one of four in the entire air wing. Not a big deal in the Navy these days, but not so long ago it had been a very big deal. He knew what it was like to always have to prove yourself. To prove that you weren’t there because you were getting special treatment.
You should have been her friend.
It was too late. If B.J. was still alive, she was either hiding or captured. Jones knew in his heart there was no way that she had survived. Someone would have seen the chute. She would have made contact with the emergency UHF radio. B.J. was scattered in the earth with the debris from her Hornet.
The Tomcat crew was another matter. Both chutes had been spotted, and after the shoot-down they had made a brief transmission on the SAR frequency. Then nothing, which was a solid clue that they had been captured by the gomers. Short of an all-out invasion, there was nothing that could be done to get them back. It was in the hands of negotiators.
Yeah, B.J. was dead. But what the hell, one more shot. Just in case.
“Runner Five-two, stay with Sea Witch,” he said to Gordon, a mile abeam in combat spread. “I’m gonna try the SAR channel one more time.”
“Copy, Leroi. I’ve got Sea Witch covered.”
He keyed the mike and used B. J. Johnson’s call sign. “Yankee Two, this is Runner Four-one. Are you up?”
Silence. It filled his earphones like a stillness from the grave.
“B.J., damn it, this is Leroi. If you’re alive, answer up!”
Seconds passed. Nothing.
It was a waste of time. Useless.
He was reaching for the channel selector to return to the tactical frequency when a voice came to him, distant and weak. “I hear you, Leroi. Please don’t go away. I’m alive.”
CHAPTER NINE
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Startled sailors jumped out of the way as the Navy captain in the battered leather flight jacket, cigar jutting from his teeth, stormed through their midst. Astonished, they watched him clamber up the ladder to the O-3 level, taking the steps two at a time.
At the top of the ladder Boyce swerved around a corner, nearly bowling over a female yeoman carrying a stack of files. He mumbled an apology and bolted on down the passageway.
At the flag intel compartment, he saw that Maxwell had beaten him there. He removed the cigar and stood gasping for breath. “She’s alive.”
Maxwell grinned back at him. “I heard.”
Boyce barged on through the door to the intel compartment, hauling Maxwell along by the sleeve.
Admiral Fletcher, hunched over his desk, looked up as they entered. On either side, peering over his shoulders, were Guido Vitale and Spook Morse. At the far end of the compartment, arms folded over his chest, stood Whitney Babcock.