“Where can I watch?” Caroline asked.
Jamal asked one of the ensigns to escort her outside.
Outside, she slid on her sunglasses. “How fast do you go?”
“I’ll average around five hundred miles an hour,” Greystone replied.
She shot him a smile. “Nice.”
“The Hornets are catapulted off aircraft carriers at one seventy, but are built to fly at Mach speeds,” Jamal explained. “Greystone loves to push them to their limits. He has no fear. I try to instill a healthy amount of fear, you know, to keep my aviators alive, but not this one.” He shifted to Greystone. “Ready to have some fun?”
“Let’s do it, J-man.”
He tossed Caroline a nod and a grin before making his way to the landing strip where the jets waited. He said hello to his chief tech, asked about the jet, then he pressed his palm against the side of the craft. As he walked through the pre-flight inspection, he focused up. There was zero room for error.
Thirty-minutes later, he was ready, the bird was ready, and the cloud-free skies and light winds meant thumbs-up. He climbed into the cockpit, pulled on his helmet, and connectedit to the oxygen line. Then, he fired up the engines, closed his eyes, and listened to those babies purr.
For the next hour, two if he was lucky, he would become one with the jet. If he didn’t the results could be disastrous.
With the tablet strapped to his thigh, he went through his pre-flight checklist. He finished by rotating the stock in both clockwise and counterclockwise directions, looking over his shoulders to verify that all flaps were responding as they should. He glanced to his left. There stood the aircraft marshaller directing him toward the taxiway. As he inched the machine forward, excitement pulsed through him, but he kept himself in check.
Focus up.
He checked in with Air Traffic Control. “Tower, this is Cobra requesting permission to depart.”
“Cobra, this is Tower ATC. Proceed via taxiway two-A to runway one and hold.”
“Copy. Cobra proceeding via taxiway two-A to runway one with a hold.”
He taxied forward, turned right onto the taxiway for two thousand feet, then made two lefts onto the runway and braked.
“Tower, this is Cobra requesting take-off on runway one.”
“Cobra, you’re cleared for departure. Godspeed.”
He set his sights on the end of the runway, throttled up the turbines, released the brakes, and relaxed into the chair as the massive craft accelerated. Faster and faster he raced down the runway until he pulled back on the stick, and the forty-seven-thousand-pound aircraft rose into the sky.
Here we go. Wheels up, baby.
He glanced down at the flight map on the tablet, following it to the letter. Higher and higher he flew. Like him, the jet was built to go faster, so he let it. When he attained a cruising speed of five-hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet, heglanced around. The sky was bright blue, cloud free, and the visibility went on forever.
DC disappeared behind him as he rocketed south over Virginia. At these speeds, he could be in Florida in as little as ninety minutes.
This is great.
The intensity, the focus, the freedom, the control, the power. All of these made him feel invincible. But he wasn’t fooling himself. One misjudgment could cost him his life… and the Navy seventy million dollars.
He reviewed the maneuvers detailed on the tablet, took several deep breaths. He yanked the stick back and flew straight up for two thousand feet while executing barrel rolls. The G-forces challenged his body, but the pressurized flight suit and his specialized breathing pattern kept him from blacking out. Then, he looped around and returned to where he’d started his ascent, adding a cobra maneuver. He continued his training by performing a variety of minimum radius turns, sudden climbs, and rapid descents, with and without barrel rolls.
An hour and a half later, he’d finished his run and had clocked the hours required to stay current. A smooth landing was his welcome back to earth.
For those precious minutes in the sky, the cluster fuck of the Haqazzii terror mission, the shitstorm of his now dead uncle and cousin, and the ordeal with Stan had faded to black. All that had remained were his feelings for Caroline, as clear as the skies he’d just flown in. They were real, they were deep, and they were forever. He was all-in, and he wanted to take their relationship to the next level… or to as many levels as she could handle.
When he brought the jet to a stop on the tarmac, he cut the engine, removed his helmet, and climbed out. Waiting nearby was his chief technician.
“How’d she do, sir?”
“Great. She handled the speed like a beast.” Grey shook his hand, continued on to the two people waiting for him in front of the building. Jamal and Caroline. She looked like a natural in the borrowed flight suit. Her radiant smile sent a bolt of lightning charging through him.
