“Me too, asshole.”
“What is all that stuff?”
“In addition to being a former fighter pilot, Corazón makes damn good Spanish food. Just wait until you taste it.”
As hungry as he was, shoe leather would taste good to him.
“One more thing, Onyx. Who knows that you and Descanso are involved?”
“Nobody.” Onyx looked down at the floor. “Not even her.”
Dutch smiled and grabbed the man’s shoulder like he’d done to him earlier. “I think you’re wrong about that, bro.”
Onyx shook his head.
“Did you see the spread of food in there she made for you? If you don’t think that means something, you oughta get outta the spy biz.”
—:—
Malin watched Dutch walk out with Onyx, knowing damn well he was questioning him about Sofia, who knew it too.
“What’s your background?” Malin asked, taking a second bite of the best paella she’d ever tasted.
“Flew an F-15C Eagle until I separated from the Air Force a few months ago.”
“Why did you leave active duty?”
“A lot of reasons, but mainly because the stress of how low our pilot numbers were was getting to be too much for me to handle.”
“How bad is it?”
“It isn’t a secret that the Air Force is close to twenty-five percent short of how many we should have in the a
ir.”
Malin had heard they were struggling, but she hadn’t realized the extent. “Why do you think that is?”
“Again, a lot of reasons. Vicious cycle of them extending pilots’ deployments, deploying them more frequently, and pulling fighter pilots from other squadrons to augment those going overseas. Plus, standing up squadrons of pilots flying remotely piloted aircraft like the Predator and Reaper took a huge bite out of the fighter pilot community. The number I heard quoted was over two hundred.”
“What does that number represent?”
“Ten percent of the ten percent they’re down. It doesn’t sound like much, but when we’re already low eighteen hundred, why would they snatch two hundred more?”
Malin shook her head. “What did you do in between? Any agency work?”
Sofia shook her head. “I wasn’t interested in intelligence work, not that they came calling.”
Malin did her best to control her sigh of relief, looking up when Dutch and Onyx walked back into the break room.
She almost laughed when she saw the amount of food Dutch piled on his plate before sitting down next to her.
“Oh my God,” he said after taking the first bite. “Why are you a pilot instead of a chef?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“You should do a lot more than think.”
“Working for K19 helps,” Sofia murmured.