Night Flight

by McKenna, Lindsay

  Stang grinned. “You won’t regret it, Curt.” Excitement rose in his voice as he opened the door and stepped outside. “Hurry.”

  “Yeah.” Curt shut the door and turned. Becky stood in the hall, dressed in her pale yellow chenille robe. Girding himself, he walked up to her. Her face was pale, eyes huge with terror.

  “You heard?” he asked, keeping his voice down so his daughter wouldn’t awaken.

  “Y-yes. Curt, it’s Sunday morning! You never fly on Sunday!” Becky’s voice was high, off-key.

  Curt walked into the bedroom. He opened one drawer and drew out a fresh flight suit. “Jack’s got authorization, Sparrow.” Slipping out of his pajamas, he pulled on a pair of briefs, a T-shirt and then the flight suit, pressing the Velcro shut.

  “Lordy, Curt,” she cried softly, coming around the bed, “you can’t fly! Not today!”

  “Sparrow,” he whispered, cradling her shoulders, “it’s going to be fine, I promise you. Jack says this is a way to get our major’s leaves. He worked all day yesterday outlining a test for the Eagle that will place it at the fifteen-hundred-foot mark every time. If we can fly that now, it will get us noticed.”

  “No!” Becky wailed, huge tears forming and streaking down her face. “No, Curt! Ya’ll can’t do this! I don’t feel good about it!” She placed her fist against her stomach.

  Frantically, Curt looked toward the door. Time was getting away from him. “Hush, you’ll wake Patty!”

  “I don’t care!” Becky sobbed, clutching the front of his flight suit. “Curt, this isn’t good! No one flies a test on a Sunday! I don’t believe Stang! I don’t think Major Porter knows about it!”

  Leaning down, he kissed her wrinkled brow. Gently he disengaged. “Sparrow, you’re upset. Everything will be all right. Trust me. It’s only an hour-long flight. I’ll be home before you know it.”

  “Curt…” she wailed plaintively as he walked toward the door.

  Jerking to a halt, he faced her. “Dammit, Becky, it’s going to be okay! Go back to bed!”

  Heart pounding so hard that she could barely breathe or speak, Becky fell to the bed. “Don’t go, don’t go…”

  Torn, Curt stood poised at the door, Becky’s sobs tearing through him. Flexing his hands into fists, he turned and walked down the hall in long, quick strides. Becky’s cries filled his ears. He couldn’t stand to hear her cry. Opening the front door, he left.

  Becky heard the door shut and reached for the phone. Her hand shook so badly that she had to dial Sam Holt’s home number twice before she connected.

  The phone rang, and rang, and rang. Holt muttered, pulling his arm from beneath Megan’s head, and rolled over on his side. What the hell time was it? 5:45 a.m. Who was calling this early on a Sunday morning? Fumbling, Sam lifted the receiver.

  “Hello…”

  “Sam, oh, Sam! This is Becky. Somethin’ terrible’s about to happen!”

  Blinking, Sam sat up in bed, the covers falling away, piling around his waist. The grayness of dawn filtered into the huge bedroom through the pale orchid curtains. Beside him, Megan stirred. “Becky, what’s wrong? You’re crying.” She spoke in short bursts, punctuated with sobs.

  Megan forced her eyes open, hearing Sam’s lowered voice. As soon as she heard it was Becky, she sat up. Pushing her hair away from her face, Megan could hear Becky’s distraught voice coming over the phone.

  “Wait,” Sam begged. “Let me get this straight—Stang says he’s got approval to fly that bird this morning? Lauren’s out of town. How could she have signed the flight orders?”

  “Ohhh, Sam, I know it sounds fishy! Please, get down to Ops. Stop them! Stop Curt from flying! I feel awful about this!”

  “Just a minute, Becky.” Sam slid a glance over at Megan. He put his hand across the phone. “Get me a flight suit out of the third drawer on the right?”

  Nodding, Megan slipped out of bed, the pale pink silk gown falling around her ankles. Worried, she listened to the conversation, her heartbeat picking up. Something was wrong. Stang and Curt were involved. She laid the one-piece flight suit on the bed and then went to the bathroom.

  “Yes, I’ll get down there as soon as I can, Becky, but it’s a good half-hour drive to Edwards. Why don’t you meet me down at Ops? Yes, take Patty over to a neighbor, and then meet me there. Wait at the front doors, and I can get you a visitor’s pass when I arrive. I’ll check with the flight scheduling office and see if Stang’s telling the truth. Now, calm down. Get ahold of yourself. You aren’t going to do anyone any good by staying hysterical.”

  Megan emerged from the bathroom just as Sam hung up. “What’s going on?” she asked huskily, watching him strip out of the drawstring pajama bottoms and climb into his flight suit.

  “I don’t know,” Sam answered grimly, filling her in on the details of the conversation while he dressed. Grabbing a pair of flight boots from the closet, he sat down on the bed. “If I know Stang, he’s lied about flight approval clearance. Curt’s swallowed it. If they take that bird up without Lauren’s okay, all hell’s going to break loose. They’ll both be in so much hot water, it’ll make their heads spin.”

  Megan scowled. “And Becky’s going to meet you at Ops?”

  “Yeah.” He quickly shoved on the black socks, and then put on the boots, lacing them up.

  “Then I’m coming along.”

  Sam raised his head, was going to say something, but thought better of it. “Look, I know Ops isn’t your favorite place, Red. You don’t have to go.”

  She reached into another drawer, where she kept lingerie. “Becky’s going to need the support, Sam.”

  “All right, hurry.”

  Hands shaking, Megan quickly slipped into a pair of dark green slacks and a warm, ivory cowl-neck sweater. Running a brush through her thick hair, she slid her feet into a pair of low-heeled shoes. Sam stood at the door, waiting for her. “God, I’m scared, Sam.”

  “I know, honey.” Holding out his hand, she gripped it. Her fingers were damp and cool. “Come on, we’ve got some driving to do.”

  As they raced through the house toward the garage, Megan asked in a taut voice, “Do you think you can stop them, Sam?”

  “I don’t know. They’ll be in the air by the time we get there. The test flight won’t last more than an hour. I’m going more for Becky’s sake, than to try and order them out of the air. This is Lauren’s territory to handle, not mine.”

  Megan felt the reassuring strength of his hand around hers. His words didn’t remove the ugly feeling surrounding her. “Hurry,” she whispered, “hurry.”

  Ops was deserted when Holt drove up to the long, yellow stucco building. Becky stood out front, her composure shredded. The dark blue wool coat made her look frail. Hearing the growl of the Eagle’s thundering engines, Holt looked up. He immediately recognized the test bird in the dogleg portion of the flight pattern.

  “Oh, Sam!” Becky cried, running down the concrete steps toward his car.

  Holt climbed out of the Corvette and embraced Becky momentarily. “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her. Looking over, he guided her into Megan’s awaiting arms.

  “Take it easy,” Megan begged her, gaze fixed on the fighter. The early Sunday morning air shook and vibrated with the sound of the thundering engines. Mouth dry, Megan felt her own fears vomit up through her. Becky trembled in her arms as she led her into Ops.

  Holt opened the door for them, and Megan led her through the entrance. The tiled floors were highly polished, the visitors’ lounge filled with plastic chairs facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across the tarmac and airstrip. Sam went directly to the flight counter, an airman immediately leaping to his feet from behind the desk. First, he’d get them visitor’s passes.

  “Come on,” she said to Becky gently, “let’s go sit down.”

  “He’s gonna crash,” Becky moaned, burying her head against Megan’s chest, “I know he’s gonna crash. Oh, Lordy.”

  Biting down on her l
ower lip, Megan got Becky to a chair before she collapsed. Deeply worried, Megan crouched down next to Becky’s bent form in the chair and tried to soothe the distraught woman. Glancing up, she saw Holt walking toward them, his face set and grim.

  “What did you find out?” Megan asked. She took the two passes he handed to her.

  Sam leaned down, placing a steadying hand on Becky’s shoulder. “The flight’s not authorized,” he said heavily. “I don’t know what possessed Stang to pull a stunt like this.”

  “What can you do?” Becky asked.

  “Nothing. Wait until they land, and then I’ll report the incident to Major Porter Monday morning.”

  The brutal, pounding reverberation of the jet landing, and then taking off again, drowned out their conversation. Agitated, Holt got to his feet. “Stay with Becky,” he told Megan, “I’m going to go outside and try to figure out what they’re doing.”

  “No!” Becky cried, struggling to stand, “I’m coming, too!”

  Megan placed her arm around Becky.

  “All right,” Holt said. He led them outside to watch the takeoffs and landings. The Eagle flashed by, gaining altitude, the air punctuated with her growl. Angry at Stang, disheartened by Curt’s willingness or stupidity in going along with him, Holt stood there helplessly, watching the bird rise into the morning air. Both pilots’ careers were in jeopardy because of what they’d done. He felt nothing but sadness.

  “Next test,” Jack demanded tightly, a feeling of exhilaration flooding him. Thus far, the Agile Eagle had hit the fifteen-hundred-foot mark five out of five times. The bird felt solid under his hands and booted feet. He listened to Merrill’s instructions.

  “Winds are getting erratic,” Curt cautioned, looking around. To his surprise, he saw Becky, Sam Holt and Megan Roberts standing out on the steps of Ops. A lump formed in his throat. Had Becky called Sam and Megan for support? He felt anger at first, and then, shame. What would it do to Becky to watch this test? Make her worse? Better? Curt wasn’t sure, a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Coming around!” Jack whooped triumphantly. “Get ready to nail that fifteen-hundred mark!” He began to ease the bird from the mandatory twelve-hundred-foot level, coming in for a landing. The winds were tricky, sometimes strong, sometimes nonexistent. Setting flaps and slats at one hundred percent, Stang knew in order to make this set of tests, he had to pull the bird in nose-high, and just this side of stall position.

  Merrill began reading out the altitude, feeling the jet quiver. Inwardly, he tensed as Stang pulled the nose extremely high. “Jack,” he warned, “you’re too high, you’re going to stall out—”

  At that moment, an unexpected gust of wind struck the Eagle. The nose reared upward. The stall warning sounded harshly through the cabin. Merrill tensed. Stang cursed. Hands and feet moving in a blur of speed, Stang tried to stop the jet from falling out of the sky. They were eight hundred feet above the ground. Damn!

  The Eagle became sluggish, even though the nose was pointed down once again. Stang couldn’t get control of the fighter. Merrill cried out, “Eject, eject, eject!” The fighter was now at four hundred feet, falling like a rock toward the earth.

  The seconds before Merrill wrapped his gloved hands around the handles of his seat to trip off the ejection sequence, he thought of Becky, and his daughter, Patty. The canopy popped off the Eagle, tumbling end over end away from the jet. In the next second, he triggered the seat, and the rockets ignited. It jerked Merrill out of the cockpit. The world spun crazily around him, the powerful thrust of the rockets jamming him savagely down into the seat. Would he be far enough away from the crash site? Would fire envelop him? Burn him alive? Would his parachute open at all? Or would he tumble out of the sky, only to hit the ground and be killed?

  Those thoughts ripped through him as the rockets carried him away from the falling jet. Becky! God, he loved her! And Patty! And then, Merrill’s entire life, from beginning to end, flashed across his tightly shut eyes.

  Becky shrieked, her fists jammed against her mouth as the first seat ejected from the out-of-control aircraft.

  Megan’s lips parted as she saw the jet flair and tip drunkenly in the air. She clutched Becky to her. Everything was in slow motion, or so it seemed. Holt had given a cry first, a cry of desperation. As the nose of the F-15 suddenly tipped upward they had all watched as the jet began falling belly first toward the runway.

  All Megan’s fears played out before her widened eyes.

  Holt had moved quickly, running back inside, yelling at the airman to alert Crash immediately. He’d pulled open the doors and watched helplessly as the jet continued to fall out of control. The second ejection occurred only seconds before the jet smashed into the ground.

  Holt threw his arms around both women, shielding them with his body. Although the crash occurred at the end of the runway, the explosions sent thunderous pressure waves, repercussions, across the entire base. Becky clung to him. Megan, tense and mute, buried her head against his shoulder.

  The jet struck the lip of the runway, bursting into a huge rolling ball of red and orange flame, the fire shooting hundreds of feet in all directions. The explosions that followed boomed savagely across the airstrip, striking Ops, the windows rattling and shaking them violently.

  Megan lifted her head and watched as the JP-4 fuel spread out like hungry, fiery fingers from the crash. Huge, roiling black clouds laced with red and orange welts of fire vomited upward. To Megan’s horror, she saw the second ejection seat begin to tumble toward the ground, the parachute streaming, not opening.

  “Sam!” she cried, pointing to it.

  Holt stood frozen, watching the second ejection seat tumble slowly, end over end, toward the earth. Nausea overcame him. Chance of the pilot, probably Stang, surviving, was nearly impossible. He’d ejected at four hundred feet. Far too low. The chute wouldn’t have time to open properly. Twisting his head to one side, Holt couldn’t watch the impact. Megan sobbed and buried herself against his chest,

  The forlorn wail of the sirens spread thinly across the airstrip, barely heard above the roar of the fire. Holt looked up as the gargantuan lime-green trucks sped toward the fiery holocaust, the men covered in hooded, silver asbestos suits.

  “Curt…” Becky shrieked, trying to tear loose from Holt’s grip.

  “No!” he breathed harshly, pulling Becky back against him. “No, there’s nothing we can do, Becky. You have to stay here.”

  “But,” she wailed, “they’re out there! Oh, my God! They’re out there!”

  A quarter of a mile away, Holt thought in anguish. He saw the first ejection seat gently strike the earth, the parachute bringing it to a safe landing. The second ejection seat had struck the earth with full impact, hidden somewhere behind the huge, rolling clouds of greasy black smoke and red tongues of flame. Who had lived? Who had died?

  “I want to go to Curt!” Becky sobbed, leaning heavily against Holt.

  Tears jammed into Megan’s eyes as she kept a grip on Becky’s arm. “No,” she whispered, “no, we can’t do anything. We have to wait…wait….”

  Never had Holt felt so powerless. He had witnessed what the tragedy had taken from Becky, her cries like a child in the middle of a nightmare. Morose, his gaze moved to Megan. Her eyes were dark with pain, her mouth compressed, and her cheeks glistening with tears. At that moment, Sam realized the awful toll that flying took on the women who loved the pilots.

  “Come on,” he told them, his voice unsteady, “let’s get over to the hospital. The flight surgeon and ambulance will be taking them over there.” Every fiber of him wanted to run down the runway and skirt the crash to get to the pilots. Already, the ambulance was close on the heels of the crash trucks. He placed his hands on the women’s shoulders and moved them away from the inferno. Tears watered dangerously in Holt’s eyes. There was absolutely nothing they could do to help. Only the asbestos-suited firemen could get near the crash, hosing it down with foam. And only after the fire was extinguished could t
hey get close enough to the pilots to find out if they were dead or alive.

  Inside, Ops had jumped to life with personnel on weekend duty, running frantically to their emergency crash stations. Holt stopped at the counter.

  “Airman, call Captain Stang’s wife. Tell her that her husband’s been in a crash and to meet us over at the hospital.”

  The airman nodded, shaken. “Y-yes, sir.”

  Holt took the Merrills’ large, roomy car and drove it over to the hospital. Becky sat curled up in the backseat, sobbing quietly. When he looked over at Megan, he slid his hand across her tightly knotted ones in her lap.

  “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

  Taking in a shaky breath, Megan shook her head. “It’s not your fault, Sam.”

  His hand tightened on hers. Fear that she would run, fear that she would leave Edwards after this, haunted Sam. Megan’s voice had been shredded with shock and anguish. There was nothing he could do but hope and pray—for all of them. The hospital loomed in front of them, and he sped up.

  Megan remained at Becky’s side in the waiting room. They sat on the plastic couch, Becky huddled in her arms. Fortunately, Becky had had the foresight to take Patty next door to be cared for before she went to Ops. At least the little girl was being spared the agony of waiting…wondering. The emergency room area swarmed with doctors and nurses, who tensely awaited the arrival of the ambulance bearing the two pilots. Her arm around Becky, Megan was numb. Holt paced relentlessly to and from the nurses’ station, awaiting the expected arrival of Melody Stang.

  Shutting her eyes momentarily, Megan wondered if either pilot had survived the crash. If so, who? She wrestled with very real feelings that it could have been Sam. Right now, she had to be strong for Becky. And for Sam. He was worried about her; she could see it reflected in his shadowed eyes. What she thought about the crash, and the effect it might have on their relationship, was probably running through his mind.

  E.R. personnel suddenly disappeared from the halls and moved through the doors marked Off Limits. Becky stopped crying, clinging to Megan, and waited. Hearing muted shouts and calls through the doors, Holt froze in the empty hall. The pilots had arrived—or what was left of them. Doctor Anna Cartwright had E.R. duty. Dragging in a deep breath, Sam forced himself to move to the visitors’ lounge.