Merline Lovelace - Match Play

“The old man wants to see you, Harper.”

Nodding, Luke detoured to the suite of offices tucked in one corner of the massive hangar. He figured the colonel was waiting for an update on the check ride just completed and prepared a rundown in his mind.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Colonel Don Anderson waved him into the office. Big, barrel-chested and as strong as a Brahma bull, Anderson had been part of the initial B-2 cadre. In the decade since, he’d racked up more hours than most pilots did in a lifetime. Customarily gruff and to the point, Anderson jerked his chin at the stranger seated in the chair angled in front of his desk.

“Harper, this is Mike Callahan. He’s with the government. Callahan, Captain Luke Harper.”

The stranger rose and offered his hand. His square-shouldered bearing suggested he’d spent at least one hitch in the military. The embroidered sharpshooter’s patch plainly visible above his visitor’s badge indicated he wasn’t someone to mess with.

“Harper.”

Callahan’s grip stopped well short of bone-crunching but something in the man’s narrow-eyed, assessing look stirred an instinctive and wholly atavistic response in Luke. Without warning, the skin on the back of his neck prickled.

“Callahan’s got all the necessary security clearances,” Anderson said. “I want you to show him our operation. Bring him back here when you’re done.”

“Yes, sir.”

Wondering what this was all about, Luke stashed his flyaway bag with the colonel’s exec and walked Callahan toward the hangar bay.

“I don’t know how much the colonel told you about our detachment—”

“He indicated you’re one of several recently established forward operating locations. Before that, B-2 crews flew combat missions from your home base at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. Must have made for a helluva long haul.”

“It did,” Luke admitted. “It also made for a surreal life. A pilot could roll out of bed, kiss his wife goodbye, fly a thirty- to forty-hour combat mission against heavily defended targets halfway around the world and return home in time to take out the trash the next morning. Even with forward basing, we spend a lot of time in the air.”

Callahan’s glance dropped. “I don’t see a ring. No one to kiss goodbye in the morning?”

“No one special,” Luke replied, ruthlessly suppressing the image that leaped into his head of a laughing, loving Dayna. He’d had his chance with her and blown it. It was just his own tough luck he hadn’t found anyone else in the years since.

“So how long does it take to prepare for one of these marathon missions?” Callahan asked.

“If we’re lucky, we get three or four days advance notice. That gives us time to study the target, plan our ingress and egress routes and adjust our sleep and eating patterns to maximize our alertness in flight.”

“I can see sleep, but eating?”

“The air force shelled out big bucks to dieticians to determine optimal liquid intake and the best ratio of carbs versus protein to sustain long periods of activity.” Luke had to grin. “All those experts finally concluded we’d found an optimal mix in our traditional bomber dogs. Hot dogs doused in chili,” he explained. “We warm them in the cockpit heater.”

Shouldering open a door, he led the way into one of the two cavernous hangars the Brits had turned over to the B-2 detachment. The aircraft Luke had just flown occupied center court, being serviced by the ground crews.

“Our birds remain undercover at all times while on the ground. We want to keep their advanced design and special ‘low-observable’ characteristics away from prying eyes. In flight, they’re damned near invisible. Pretty slick, aren’t they?”

And then some! Mike Callahan had jumped out of plenty of planes during his stint as an army Ranger but he’d never seen anything as lethal as these black boomerangs. They were immense, with a wingspan of at least a hundred-and-fifty feet, yet their flat fuselage and long, sloping cockpits made them appear saucer-thin from the side. The darkened cockpit windows seemed to follow the two men like a predator’s eyes as Harper led the way across a hangar floor painted and buffed to a bright sheen.

“The B-2’s unique bat-wing shape and the special coating used on its skin are designed to deflect radar waves.” Harper slapped a hand against the cowling of one of the four powerful engines. “And these babies are so quiet they wouldn’t wake your grandma from her afternoon nap if we flew over her house at a hundred feet.”

A slight exaggeration, Callahan guessed wryly, although Harper’s description of how the engines dispensed their exhaust across the top of the wings to shield the aircraft from heat-seeking missiles below brought the seriousness of its mission into sharp focus.

As he listened to the pilot explain the details of his unit’s operation, Mike assessed the man behind the uniform. Rogue had stated unequivocally that any feelings she’d once harbored for Harper had died years ago. She was also confident that his presence at RAF Leuchars wouldn’t throw her off her game. Mike trusted her judgment on that. Like him, she’d competed in countless nerve-bending competitions. She knew better than anyone else what would—or wouldn’t—impact her performance.

The question that now had to be answered was whether her presence would impact Harper’s mission if the press IDed him as Dayna’s former lover and came sniffing around the captain. Mike had discussed the situation with his commander when they’d met earlier. The more he saw of the B-2 operation, the more he agreed with the colonel’s decision to take drastic measures to shield the detachment from prying eyes.

From the pride in Harper’s voice as he described his bird and its mission, Mike guessed the pilot was not going to like those measures.

That became instantly apparent when the two men returned to the colonel’s office. Responding to Mike’s subtle nod, Anderson dropped the ax.

“I told you Callahan here works for the government. His sources told him that you once had a romantic relationship with one of the golfers competing in the Women’s International Pro-Am Charity Golf Tournament at St. Andrews.”

Harper was quick. Surprise blanked his face for mere seconds before giving way to wary comprehension.

“That’s right. Dayna Duncan. I didn’t realize our one-time relationship was a matter of government interest.”

Harper leveled a hard stare in Mike’s direction before turning back to the colonel.

“I can see the complications to our detachment’s mission,” he conceded reluctantly. “Someone in the media is bound to recognize me and start snooping around to find out why I’m in the U.K.”

Anderson didn’t waste words. “Then you’ll understand why I’ve arranged to have you reassigned to the 3rd AF Executive Support Unit, with detached duty here at RAF Leuchars, effective immediately.”

“What?”

“You’ll act as liaison with the British VIP support section across base. That way, if asked, you can say with absolute honesty that you’re attached to the RAF unit. You’re still current on the C-21 Learjet, which is one of the aircraft they use to transport VIPs, so it shouldn’t be a difficult transition.”

“To hell with difficult!”

Harper’s disgust at being relegated to the status of a flying cabdriver overcame his ingrained respect for authority and rank.

“I’m scheduled for a run over a heavily defended target in two days and you’re going to pull me to haul VIPs around the capitals of Europe?”

Anderson hadn’t earned his eagles without learning how to use them. Even Mike felt the ice when the colonel leaned forward.