"Whoa. Wait five minutes and I'll take you. I need to run home for my flight-line badge first." All order efficiency, Kathleen pivoted on her heel, military bearing starching through her. "We'll still be there long before they land. Renshaw's slated with Supervisor of Flying duties tonight. You can wait in the truck on the runway with her. Lori, can you watch the kids until I get back?"
"Uh, Julia?" Shelby called, still on the bottom porch step. "I'll baby-sit."
While Shelby's offer seemed the easiest route, Julia hesitated. Zach had finally convinced the teen to meet with her mother today. They couldn't lose critical ground now just because Julia's life was splintering. "No need, hon. Go ahead to Pam's. I don't know how late I'll be."
Given the scene she already knew was inevitable, the security police might well arrest her anyway. Not that she cared. What more could she lose? She would never be uppermost in his mind. For a man like Zach, the job would always come first and this secretive stunt proved her needs would always take a back seat to the needs of his troops.
Even if Zach skimmed to that runway unscathed, she'd already lost another husband.
* * *
"Shit! Climb!" Zach yanked back the stick, pushed up the throttle. Adrenaline pulsed.
Blood pounded through his veins as the plane shot through the haze.
All the while, his spider-tingle instinct screamed they were off course.
Which meant he didn't know where the hell they were.
Or where those mountains peaked.
Clouds whipped past his windscreen. The visible reality of rattling full-power speed had nothing to do with flying games and everything to do with staying alive. Of making sure Julia didn't face the hell of another front-porch visit.
Climb, damn it. He urged the plane as if his force of will could shoulder it higher, faster.
A part of Zach shouted for him to savor images of Julia if they were going to be his last.
But he couldn't afford the distraction.
Focus. Fly. Get the plane above MSA, minimum safe altitude, only used in an emergency when the plotted flight plan went all to hell.
That spider tingle told him this qualified.
Seconds later, he nosed out of the haze.
A mountaintop crested through the clouds.
Realization gripped him in an arctic fist. The spider tingle had been dead-on. Sure death loomed, shrouded in the haze below if they hadn't pulled up.
Zach continued to climb, banking away from the mountain range below. Adrenaline blasted through his veins. More visions of Julia spun through his mind. Sure he'd known there would be risks involved in this flight, but he'd never expected to cut it so close.
"Colonel," Bronco barked over the interphone, "confirm we're on three-two-zero radial."
Zach checked the dial. "Confirmed. Cutter?"
"Three-two-zero checks on mine as well." The copilot swiped an arm over his sweaty brow.
"Bronco, pull up the MFD." The multifunction display screens would provide additional navigational information for instances when normal radio-based air navigational systems failed. Which was next to never. Ground stations were supposed to be internationally standardized, damn it. "The plot out our course the old-fashioned way."
Other than the mix of steady, overly controlled breaths, silence hummed over the airwaves. Later, he would let the reality of what could have happened roll over him.
Later, after he'd held Julia, after he'd lost himself in her smile, in her softness, in her body.
Bronco's soft whistle of surprise cut the silence. "Well I'll be damned. We don't appear to be plotting on our planned track line."
The answer to why hovered in Zach's mind, just within reach. Answers for Julia. He kept his hand steady on the stick, mind on the job. "Are we diverging at a regular rate?"
"Confirmed."