Outlaw

Without warning, a fist slammed into her stomach and knocked the wind out of her. The invisible hands holding her up prevented her from doubling over from the blow, then dragged her limp body across the floor. Before she could recover from the punch, they picked her up and set her down in what felt like a box.

They crossed her ankles and drove her down onto her knees. Even through the pain, it felt different than the concrete floor she had been sequestered to. They pulled her body back so her buttocks rested on her heels and pushed until the pressure against her ankles became unbearable.

Before she could shift her weight to find a modicum of comfort, they bent her body over at the waist and brought her hooded face within inches of her knees, her thighs pressing against her bruised breasts. The hands twisted her arms and pulled them behind her back before abruptly letting go. She tried sitting up but met solid wood pushing down on her from above.

She fought against it, but the wood continued driving her down until her battered face pressed against her knees. Then, she heard the latches fall into place as her captors locked her inside the cramped box.

Lisa waited until the room outside was silent before probing her surroundings. She tried moving her hands to her sides, but they were pinned above her lower back. Her ankles screamed in pain, but no matter how she tried shifting her weight, she couldn’t relieve the pressure. With every attempt to gain an ounce of succor thwarted by the wooden boundaries, Lisa’s heart raced, and she struggled to avoid panicking.

At last, she gulped a painful and ragged breath.

And she screamed.

15

Mace 210

Navy FA-18E Super Hornet

East China Sea

Colt felt his jet lurch as the last of his Mk-83 general-purpose one-thousand-pound bombs fell away. He snatched back on the stick, straining under the G-forces to raise his nose above the horizon, then banked left and looked over his shoulder at the smoke marker bobbing in the water. A second later, his bomb detonated on top of the smoke with a disappointingly small splash.

“Two one zero, off safe,” Colt said, before glancing at his fuel and turning his focus ahead of him to spot the other air wing jets circling the target. “I’m Winchester and on ladder.”

“Nice hit,” Cutty said.

“Thanks, sir.” He climbed to twenty thousand feet to orbit overhead and wait for the others to finish dropping their bombs. Without bombs or extra gas, Colt had little else to do but watch the sun set over the horizon and find the ship. Unlike Air Force pilots, who could count on the airport being in the same place as when they left, Navy pilots could only fly to where they thought the ship would be and hope it was there.

When deployed in international waters, the aircraft carrier steamed in a self-declared operating area to give pilots a general idea where she could be found following their missions. Where exactly she was within that area changed based on the weather and winds. But for each launch and recovery, pilots were given a PIM, or Position of Intended Movement, that was a best guess.

“One zero five, in hot.”

Colt watched Cutty roll in on the smoke marker and release his final bomb. From his position overhead, he could just make out the dark speck racing toward the water and impact just shy of the bright red smoke.

“One zero five, off safe,” Cutty said with an obvious tone of disappointment, then quickly added, “Don’t say a word, Colt.”

“I would never, sir.” He grinned behind his oxygen mask and rolled out to point his nose at the PIM.

“Uh-huh.”

Colt reached up to select the “air-to-ground” master mode and put his radar in surface search. If they weren’t operating under an emissions control restriction, the carrier’s TACAN would be on, and he could pinpoint its location with ease. But he knew better than to rely on somebody else to get him back home.

Colt looked down at the color moving map between his legs and saw nothing but blue with a few specks of green uninhabited islands dotting the vast ocean around him. The spot in the upper left corner of the display that normally showed his bearing and range from the carrier was still blank. He groaned.

“Anybody picking up the TACAN?”

“Nope,” one of the others replied.

Colt tuned his radio to the frequency monitored by the air wing E-2D Hawkeye. “Tiger, two one zero.”

“Go ahead.”

“Any idea where the aircraft carrier is?”

“Say status of timber.”

“Green,” Colt replied, letting the controller know his datalink was functioning normally.

“Stand by.”

He brought up his Situational Awareness display and watched as the Hawkeye populated it with air and surface contacts, including the aircraft carrier ten miles from the PIM he had scribbled on his kneeboard. He selected the track file and calculated his bearing and range from the ship.

“Gracias,” Colt said.

“De nada.”