Outlaw

That was her purpose. Her reason. Her why.

She just hoped her message had given Langley the clues they needed to access the information before it was too late.

Her teeth started chattering, and her body convulsed from the cold and the awkward position they forced her to suffer. She didn’t know how long she had been there or how long they intended to keep her there, but she clung to the hope that Shen Yu’s defiance would not be in vain.

The door flew open a second time, and a shadow rushed toward her. She flinched at the noise but couldn’t see the punch that hit her square in the face. Her head snapped back, and she lost her precarious balance on the edge of the wooden block, falling backward onto her bound hands. Unable to break her fall, her head struck the concrete and opened yet another wound in her frail skin.

“You sit!” the guard yelled.

He bent over and grabbed her breasts, violently dragging her back into a seated position on the wooden block. “No move!”

Even after the guard released her, she felt his clammy hands squeezing her, and her stomach turned at the inability to prevent him from doing whatever he wanted with her. Even through the throbbing at the base of her skull, she felt a surge of adrenaline and clarity.

Then he hit her again.

Her head rocked back once more, and her nose broke with a flash of pain, but she kept her balance and remained stationary on the block. She glared up at him through the hood and dared him to hit her again.

He did.

Blow after blow, she felt new variations of pain she had never experienced before. He hit her broken nose several more times, and she felt a tooth losing its struggle to remain in her mouth. When the guard stopped, he ripped the hood off her head.

Without warning, he dumped another bucket of ice-cold water onto her battered body, and she inhaled sharply through her teeth and clenched her jaw. The guard behind her replaced the hood and kicked her between the shoulder blades, sending her flying off the wooden block. Her face hit the concrete floor and threatened the loose grip she had on her sanity.

She struggled to breathe through the rough fabric pressed tightly against her bloody nose and mouth and could sense she was losing her battle to stay conscious. She fought against it, struggling to focus on her firm belief that she had not been forgotten. Langley and the might of the entire US military would pour all their energy into locating her and bringing her home. All she needed to do was hold out.

But do they know I’m even missing?

She clenched her jaw at the thought. Of course they knew. She hadn’t shown for her return flight to Los Angeles. Monty had received her coded email. They knew she was in danger. They would come for her. That knowledge comforted her, but she also sensed the warm and welcoming promise of blacking out blanket her body.

So, Lisa gave in.

13

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)

East China Sea

Colt sat strapped into the armed ejection seat with his oxygen mask covering his face. He was parked in the area just forward of the carrier’s superstructure with his Super Hornet’s tail hanging out over the deep blue water and his main landing gear tires pressed up against a raised piece of metal ringing the edge of the flight deck, known as a scupper.

His jet was chained to the flight deck, and a yellow shirt walked up and patted his chest to show he was taking control. The aviation boatswain’s mate instructed the brown shirt sailors to break down his aircraft and remove the chains, securing him to the deck of the ship. He looked around in awe at the organized chaos of cyclic operations, then up into the sky at the jets circling the Ronald Reagan like frigates waiting to roost.

Unlike in early carrier aviation, where the ship’s straight deck required planes to take off to make room for landing aircraft, the angled deck of a modern aircraft carrier allowed both to occur at the same time. So long as the landing area was clear and launches were only conducted on one of the two bow catapults, jets from the previous event could begin the process of returning home to mother.

The jet to his left moved forward and inched along at a crawl toward the landing area where it would line up behind the number four catapult on the port side of the ship. Colt watched it for a moment, then craned his neck upward at a pair of Super Hornets orbiting overhead. When he looked back down, the yellow shirt indicated that his chains had been removed and began moving his hands in slow arcs to control the pace at which he taxied. Colt’s control of the jet was intricately linked to a man he had never met.

After moving only a few feet, the yellow shirt tapped his cranial — a protective head covering that resembled an armored radio headset more than an actual helmet — and pointed at another yellow shirt in the landing area. The new taxi director raised his arms above his head and waited for Colt to turn and look at him.