“Our guys might have been dead by then,” said Turk. “With respect.”
The conversation had been going on now for at least ten minutes. Conversation was the wrong word — it felt more like an inquisition.
“Hey, Colonel, you oughta lighten up,” said Cowboy, coming into the flight room at the end of the trailer. “Or at least lower your voice. We can hear you outside.”
“Who the hell asked your opinion, Lieutenant?”
“Just sayin’.”
“Do your sayin’ somewhere else.”
“Yes, sir.” Cowboy gave Turk a sympathetic look as he left the room.
“I know you’re a hotshot,” said Greenstreet, lowering his voice a few decibels. “But here you work for me. You got it?”
“I got it.”
“Just because I’m easygoing doesn’t mean I go for insubordination. I give an order, I expect it followed.”
Turk was at a loss for a response, wondering how Greenstreet could consider himself easygoing. Maybe because he hadn’t ordered him flogged.
“If you were a Marine, I’d have you busted to ensign,” continued the colonel.
“I don’t think you would,” said Turk. “I think if I were a Marine, you would have expected me to take out those trucks. You would have kicked my ass if I didn’t. Because my guys and my commander were in danger, and sure as shit it was my job to protect them. If I didn’t do that, and I was your pilot, you’d have me court-martialed. And I would deserve it.”
Greenstreet looked as if he’d been slapped across the face.
“Dismissed,” he told Turk.
“I don’t work for you,” said Turk, rising. “Even when I’m on the ground.”
“Get the hell out of my sight.”
Turk walked from the room at a deliberate pace. He knew he was right, and he knew that Greenstreet knew it, too. The knowledge filled him with an odd if grim satisfaction, as if he were the hero in an old-fashioned western like Shane — the misunderstood good guy never given credit for saving the day.
It was a dangerous notion, though. Different service or not, Greenstreet outranked him, and while the colonel would never in a million years sustain a charge of insubordination against him for saving the base, he surely could find a way to make things uncomfortable for him. This wasn’t the military of the Cold War, where an unreasonable officer could literally break a man just on a whim. But it was still the military, and Turk knew that by standing up to Greenstreet he was skating very close to the edge.
Still, he was right.
Getting brow-beaten had left him with an appetite. He went over to the tent that was serving as a mess area. Cowboy and Haydem, the Marine’s fourth pilot, were sitting at one of the tables when Turk walked in. Both men rose solemnly and applauded — albeit very lightly — when Turk went over with his coffee.
“Hey, Air Force,” said Cowboy. “Thanks for saving our plane.”
“Screw that. Thanks for saving the base,” said Haydem. “I hear our beer supply would have been blown up if the attack went on much longer.”
“It was nothing,” he told them. “Push button stuff.”
“We’re also applauding your entry into the brotherhood of abuse,” said Cowboy. “Now you’re one of us.”
“You’ve been christened,” said Haydem. “By Greenstreet’s spit.”
Turk laughed.
“He didn’t mean any of what he said,” Cowboy told him. “He knows you did the right thing.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Turk.
“He gets his underwear twisted up,” added Haydem. “But he’s a good pilot and a decent commander.”
“He’s a decent pilot,” said Turk, aware that he might be judging him on a harsh scale. “But as a commander…”
“He is definitely a hardass,” conceded Haydem.
“Prick’s more like it,” said Cowboy. “But it takes all kinds.”
“Our squadron’s the highest rated in the wing,” said Haydem.
“You can get good results without being an asshole,” said Turk.
“I’m not going to defend him,” said Haydem. “I’m just stating the facts.”
“And the facts are, these eggs suck,” said Cowboy.
“I heard that,” growled a Marine over by the food trays. “You think you can do better, you come up here and try it.”
Haydem and Turk laughed. Cowboy jumped up. “Hey, Slugs, I thought you’d never ask.”
Slugs — the cook — shook his head. Cowboy was well known in the unit as a wise guy with a good heart, and treated as such.
“I better apologize,” he told Turk. “Or I’ll end up like Rogers. He’s still flat on his back.”
“Jolly got that way because he ate some of the Malaysian shit,” said Haydem. “He was bragging about it.”
“Oh.” Turk realized he’d eaten with them, too, several times a day. He wondered if he was also going to get sick.
“You flew pretty well,” said Haydem. “You fly F-35s a lot?”
Turk shook his head. “Not too much.” He wasn’t sure how much to explain. “I fly a lot of different things, so, you know, variety.”
They talked about the F-35 for a bit more. Turk avoided mentioning the planes he flew, since the details were all pretty much classified. They were just discussing how much faster the aircraft might be with a bigger engine — no pilot was ever satisfied — when Cowboy came back to the table with a tray of doughnuts.
“How’d you manage that?” asked Haydem.
“Me and Slugs are friends from way back,” said Cowboy. “I appreciate his time in the kitchen. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait a few minutes and you can get some fresh coffee,” added Cowboy.
“I don’t need any more caffeine. I won’t be able to sleep.”
“You aren’t going to sleep, are you?” asked Cowboy.
“I was thinking about it.”
“No time. They’ll have us up for another mission ASAP.”
“Really?”
“What do you think, this is the Air Force?”
Turk laughed. “The Air Force was flying two and three missions a day in Libya when I was there.”
“You were in Libya?” asked Haydem.
“I’ve been in a few places.” Turk took one of the doughnuts.
“Our mysterious stranger,” said Cowboy. “Where do you keep your cape, Superman?”
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to brag.”
“He’s just a top secret man,” Haydem said. “He flies all sorts of things.”
“Flying saucers?” asked Cowboy. “They have those at Dreamland, right? That’s where that UFO landed.”
“Before my time,” said Turk. “Where’s that fresh coffee at?”
4
“As you can see, the flight pattern is exactly the same as WX2-BC, an early evasion path for the Flighthawks.” Ray Rubeo paused the video, a simulation that showed the actual path taken by the unknown UAV and the preprogrammed Flighthawk path. “Captain Mako identified it correctly.”
“Coincidence?” asked Jonathon Reid.
“Doubtful.” Rubeo touched his right earlobe, an old habit when faced with a difficult question. The gold stud earring was well worn. “The pattern is precisely the same. Not only do you have the initial maneuver, but you have the acceleration and escape as well. Any of the Flighthawk family would have acted precisely the same way, assuming that they are in autonomous mode.”
“It’s certainly not a Flighthawk,” said Breanna.
“No,” said Rubeo. He’d managed to nap a bit before the meeting, but it hardly compensated for the hours and nights he’d missed over the last two weeks. “Smaller, and faster than series Two or Three. Nor have we intercepted control transmissions.”