Night Flight (20 page)

With a cocky salute, Jack gave Lauren his best sympathetic smile laced with understanding, and pushed off from the desk. Chuckling to himself, he strolled back to his desk. Porter was going to wonder how in the hell the photo was taken. She’d realize Major Malone wouldn’t pose for this kind of thing. So, she would treat the photo, the situation, as real. And then, all hell would break loose between her and Malone, making her less focused on her job here at Design.

Maybe, if she screwed up a few times in a row, General Dalton, who had a keen eye on the project, wouldn’t worship the ground she walked on. Porter was capable of making mistakes. He was just going to help her commit a few. If he could get her removed as head flight engineer on this project, then Fred could be put in her place. And Fred was far more apt to give him higher flight rating scores than Porter.

Sitting back down, pretending to be busy with paperwork, Jack laughed heartily to himself and watched Porter across the way. Her jaw was tight and her face was pale. Good, she was in just the right mood and emotion he wanted her in for this flight. Unlocking a drawer in his desk, he pulled out his notebook, gleefully jotting down his observation.

Wait until Porter got a hold of Major Malone tonight after work. He wished like hell he could be a fly on the wall for that fight! Actually, Judy, the little waitress at the cafeteria, took the photo—for a twenty-dollar bill slipped to her by Melody. And Judy promised never to divulge her part of the plan to anyone. A phone call the night before to the Cooper woman had cinched the deal. Melody considered the hundred dollars well-spent money that would give them tenfold dividends toward his career. An excellent business investment.

Of course, both had thought Liza would do it for nothing, but she was shrewder than they’d anticipated. No matter. It was worth it. Liza had come strutting into the cafeteria the next day, leaned over Malone and asked for his autograph. He was the copilot who flew the space shuttle to Florida. She wanted the autograph for her small son. Would he give her one? Of course he would. What pilot could resist such a sweet, irresistible request from such a stunning, sexy-looking woman? None could. So, Judy got two great photos of him smiling up into Liza’s comely face.

Melody had shown him the photos last night, beside herself with pride. Liza had purposefully leaned down, her breasts lightly brushing Malone’s shoulder. What a hell of a photo! And it was going to screw up the testing today, he was sure. If Porter wasn’t up for the test, it still made Holt look bad. And that’s all Jack wanted. Melody filed the other photo for later use. The wrong photo at the right time in someone’s career could sandbag them. Never could tell when it might come in handy at some future date. At that instant, Holt swung through the door.

Stang pretended to be busy, covertly watching the pilot. Holt looked strained, the shadows worse beneath his eyes. Good, both of them were going to be bears in the cockpit this morning. Mentally rubbing his hands together and congratulating himself and Melody, Jack could hardly wait for the test flight to be flown. It was going to be a humdinger. His job was easy—he’d be one of the observers. The video crew was going to videotape the test, as usual. He couldn’t think of two nicer people to screw up and get on videotape today.

“Hey, you look like hell,” Stang sang out so that everyone in Design could hear it.

Sam ignored Stang. He was late because he’d overslept. Dammit! Jerking open a drawer in his desk, he pulled out the flight test program he was to fly with Lauren. Grabbing a cup of coffee, he went directly to her desk.

“Sorry I’m late, Port,” Sam said as he perched his hip on the corner of her desk. “You look terrible.”

“Not today, Sam,” she groaned. “I’m not up for a lot of teasing.”

Sipping the scalding coffee, he saw the tension around her mouth and eyes. Ordinarily, Lauren was gregarious and filled with laughter in the morning. “Fair enough,” he muttered. “Looks like we’re both in the hurt locker today.”
Hurt locker
was a navy term he’d picked up while going through navy test pilot school. It meant the person was in deep trouble.

Glancing up at the pilot, she snapped, “Look, all I want is to get this flight over with as soon as possible. You do your job, I’ll do mine.”

What the hell was wrong with Lauren? Sam eased off the desk and took her warning as real. She was uptight. Was she angry because he was late? She was a perfectionist about being on time, about flying things right the first time around. Was Lauren worried that he was in the cockpit with her, never having forgotten the rain incident last week?

Edgy, Holt glanced over at Stang. His head was bent and he was working diligently on a report. Merrill looked unhappy and tense. This was working up to be a ball buster of a Monday. And then, Sam focused back on Megan. Was she worried about his flight this morning?

As he went back to his desk after picking up Lauren’s flight requirements on the test landings, Sam kept thinking about Megan. Should he call now and reassure her? Maybe she was in as foul a mood as everyone here at Design and would refuse to talk to him. And then he’d be in deeper hock with her. Maybe he should call her after the test. Sam sat down, pulling a pen from the sleeve pocket of his flight suit. More than anything, he didn’t want to leave Megan anxious and worrying. Yes, he’d call her afterward. That way, he’d have the time to talk without having to hurry to complete the test.

Megan stood at the window of her classroom. It was 8:00 a.m., and she could see a few planes flying the pattern around the airstrip in the distance. She knew what an Eagle looked like, and she didn’t see one in the pattern. Not yet. Gnawing on her lower lip, she forced herself to turn away from the window and devote her energies to her children.

Earlier, Jamison had called her into his office, his face flushed with anger. But he kept it out of his voice. In a clipped tone he’d told her Hamilton now had her proposal. Megan inquired about the Stangs and whether they were going to get Scotty tested. Jamison said he hadn’t heard what they were going to do, but until they made a decision, she would teach. Why were the Stangs hesitating? It made the luncheon date with Melody Stang this coming Saturday that much more important. Something was up, but Megan couldn’t get a sense of what.

She returned her attention to her class. They were busy coloring their paper dinosaurs. Moving to each desk, she would praise the child, touch their head or shoulder to reinforce her words and watch their faces light up with pride as they showed her their effort. Most of the dinosaurs were poorly cut out, the crayon colors scribbled in all directions. Megan wryly reminded herself that the children were being creative, moving with the flow of how they felt with each color.

She stopped at Patty Merrill’s desk. The dinosaur was cut out in huge lops, part of the tail and two legs missing, as if she didn’t care if it were cut out properly or not. Black crayon in her fist, she bore down hard on the paper. Every other child was using bright, vibrant colors. Worried, Megan crouched down, her hand on Patty’s small shoulder.

“Why just black, Patty?”

“It’s how he feels today.”

“Oh?”

“Bad day,” she said, putting even more pressure on the crayon. It snapped in half.

Megan saw tears form in Patty’s eyes. Quickly, she pulled a tissue from her pocket, gently dabbing her cheeks. “Was the dinosaur having a bad day, or are you having one, honey?”

Sniffing, Patty hung her head, stared at her dinosaur and refused to speak.

“Maybe,” Megan suggested softly, “if you color the rest of him with bright colors, your day will go better. Would you like to try it?” At that moment, she heard the throaty growl of an F-15 taking off in the distance. Was it Sam? Was the test beginning? Inwardly, Megan chastised herself. She’d been around bases too long, able to identify the type of plane that was flying by sound alone. Desperately, she forced herself to address Patty’s problems.

“I don’t want to! Mommy’s black. Daddy’s black. Everything’s black,” Patty said, her lower lip protruding.

Rubbing Patty’s shoulder, she placed a red crayon in her hand. “Sometimes, honey, parents do have bad days. The best way to help yourself is color your world differently.” Megan wasn’t going to infer that Patty had to make her parents happy, or that it was her fault. “Go, try some red, or maybe yellow, for sunshine. I’ll bet if you do, your day will go better. Why not try it and see?”

Reluctantly, Patty made a long red line on the dinosaur. Her pout receded. She took the yellow crayon from Megan. “Yellow for sun?”

Rising, Megan smiled. “That’s right. And green for grass and trees. You could even have a rainbow dinosaur, if you wanted. Think how happy your day would be, then.”

Patty shrugged. “It’d get black when I got home.”

Hiding her reaction, Megan said nothing and moved on to the next child. All the old feelings she thought were gone forever came back. She remembered sitting in her fourth grade class and dreading the ringing of the bell telling all children that it was time to go home. The nausea in her stomach was nonstop from the moment that bell rang—it just got worse as the school bus approached her house. By the time she stepped off the bus, Megan was close to vomiting. Sometimes, when her mother’s drinking was worse than usual, she would run to the bathroom and do exactly that.

With a shake of her head, Megan stood in the middle of her classroom. Coming back to Edwards to face old ghosts was much worse than she’d ever anticipated. Patty’s problems had dug out her own childhood. And Sam…Taking a breath, Megan tried to push his smiling face and easygoing nature away.

It was impossible. She heard the F-15 jet engines grow louder. That meant the fighter was parallel with the runway, barely a half a mile from the school complex. It took everything Megan possessed not to run to the window and look to verify what she already knew. Hands growing damp, she turned her back on the windows and tried to escape her fear. Sam was testing the brakes on the bird. The last time, they’d caught on fire. Megan knew what could happen if the wheel well fire spread and was not caught quickly by the fire crews. The aviation fuel in both wings could ignite, killing everyone on board.

“Another round of tests down the drain,” Jack muttered, sitting at the Design table with fifteen other people. To his delight, the F-15 hadn’t been able to make the fifteen-hundred-foot marker even with the reinforced brakes installed.

Lauren jerked her head toward him. She was sitting midway down the long, rectangular table littered with ashtrays, foam cups filled with coffee, calculators and papers. “Captain, I didn’t ask for your assessment of today’s test!”

Stang heard the anger vibrating in her voice. He had to be careful. Adding a brilliant smile, he looked at everyone. “Hey, I’m just as disappointed as you are.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re so disappointed,” Holt snarled, “why don’t you come up with a better idea on how to anchor that bird at fifteen hundred feet?” He was disappointed in his own flying performance. And he knew Port was, too, but she hadn’t said anything. Two out of the seven tests were blown by his lousy flying.

“Look,” Bill Hodges, the civilian test pilot soothed, “it’s just one of those days when nothing goes right. Let’s chalk it up to that and put our heads together on how we can get this bird slowed down enough, without going into a stall situation, to nail it at fifteen hundred feet.”

Running his fingers through his hair, Sam realized with a sinking feeling that the session wasn’t going to end quickly. He wouldn’t be able to call Megan and alleviate her fears or worry. Damn. That made him even more irritable, if possible. The knot of fear in his stomach was still with him. During the flight, it felt like he was carrying around a twenty-pound stone in his gut. His flying showed it. He was sure Lauren was going to grade his lackluster performance fairly. Last time, she hadn’t—this time, she would have to.

“Well,” Stang murmured, “I believe I’ve got the answer.” All heads turned to him, expectant. He saw disbelief and anger in Porter’s eyes. Holt grimaced. Jack’s mouth lifted into a broad smile. “You flight engineers have overlooked one intrinsic factor.”

“What?” growled Lauren, taking the insult personally.

Jack picked up a plastic model of the F-15 sitting on the polished maple table. He pointed to the engines at the rear of the plane. “Simple. I suggest we redesign part of the engine shape. Right now, the afterburner exhaust nozzles are round. How about we make them square? That might create a flaplike surface that might slow the bird down enough for a short landing. A round nozzle doesn’t add that much drag, a square one would.”

“He might be right,” Sam said, thinking out loud. Turning to his right, he saw Lauren pondering the suggestion. “Design could make a model with the redesigned exhaust nozzles and test it in the wind tunnel. The computers would tell us if it has possibilities.”

Lauren nodded. It would be just like Stang to have sat on this idea for weeks, making her military and civilian team look bad, just so that he could time his suggestion to make himself look very good. Right now, they were behind schedule, and General Dalton wasn’t happy. He had let it be known that she was instrumental in keeping this testing on time—or else. Hatred for Stang soared through her. Just looking into his eyes, Lauren knew he’d been sitting on this design change idea for quite some time.

General Dalton would read her report, single out Stang and sing his praises. Yes, there was more than one way to get noticed and make points with the higher-ups. Lauren grudgingly gave Stang his due. The bastard was the purest kind of political animal she’d ever had the misfortune to work with. He ought to run for president.

“Okay,” Lauren said, buttonholing her civilian counterpart across the table, “let’s do it—now. I want all test pilots to stay after this meeting. We need to discuss the nozzle shape in minute detail. Then, I want all flight test engineers in here after that, and we’ll go over the particulars of redesigning, making up new software for the program, and getting a model into the wind tunnel as quickly as possible with the redesign. Questions?”