"Roger that," Karen said.

When the chopper was hovering less than three feet off the ground, LaFavre and one of the EMTs grabbed Nash as Wilder passed him out on the side with the good skid. Despite his pain, Nash looked embarrassed about being passed from chopper to ground like a bag of potatoes. LaFavre tipped his cap at Lucy, then grabbed Wilder's offered hand, put a foot on the good skid, and jumped on board.

Beyond them was Bryce, still white as a sheet but now surrounded by about twenty people, including Mary Vanity, who was offering him anything he wanted. He'd be fine, Lucy knew. He'd go to dinner on this story for years.

She, on the other hand, was not fine. Something had gone very wrong up there and on this shoot, there was no chance it was an accident. "Stephanie," Lucy said, not bothering to look behind her. "Go get that cable and bring it to me. Then go to the base and pick up Karen and Wilder, and while you're there find out what happened to that skid. I want to know everything. Go. "

Stephanie went.

Lucy surveyed the scene, looking for anything, anybody who was out of place. Bryce was already expanding under the attention. Nash had closed his eyes and was wincing as an EMT and Doc checked his torn hands. LaFavre was in the hovering helicopter, and as she watched, he bowed at the waist, touching the brim of his cap in salute.

Next to him, Wilder was braced in the door, looking straight at her.

Lucy picked up her apple and bit into it again, thinking, It was supposed to have been you on that skid. Whatever was going on, he was in the middle of it. And she was going to find out what it was before somebody killed him.

Then the helicopter lifted off again and she went to find out what the hell Bryce had been doing on that skid.

Wilder broke eye contact with Armstrong as Karen lifted the chopper and turned it toward the airfield. She'd looked mad as hell tearing into that apple, which couldn't be right; he'd just saved her star's butt. And LaFavre had given her his Cajun bow and a. salute. What more could a woman want?

On the other hand, it was Armstrong. Not an easy woman.

LaFavre leaned close so he could be heard, the light reflecting off his aviator sunglasses. "J. T. Wilder. Always causing trouble."

"Swamp Rat LaFavre. Everything was fine until you showed up."

"Watch who you call Swamp Rat." LaFavre sat down in the seat and Wilder joined him, trying to avoid the splatter of Nash's blood. "Just came out to check on the actress you promised me."

"Did you see what happened?" Wilder asked.

"Yep."

"So what happened?"

LaFavre shrugged. "Don't know. Skid broke while your man was on it."

"You ever hear of a skid giving out?" Wilder asked.

"I've heard of everything that can go wrong with a chopper going wrong." LaFavre leaned over to inspect the right skid of the Jet-Ranger. "We ripped a skid off one of the Little Birds in the 'Stan sort of like that. Hit the roof of a building during extraction of a team." He turned to Wilder. "You mean that wasn't planned?"

"Nope."

"Well, that sucks." A sly smile crossed LaFavre's face. "So how are those actresses?"

Wilder thought of Althea. "Dangerous."

"Right. I could use some of that danger. That little blonde in the car, woo-hoo. Hot, very hot."

"Yeah," Wilder said, trying to sound offhand. "Did she look familiar to you? Like maybe she was in some movie about the Navy?"

"Blow Me Down," LaFavre said. "Ran a lot on late night Showtime. I have the DVD. Second ensign on the right in the shower scene. A truly fine piece of cinema." He nodded toward Karen. "What's the story there?"

"I tried that route," Wilder said. "You don't want to go there."

LaFavre laughed. "Ah, my friend, but you do not have my charm, wit, and good looks."

Wilder watched the land speed by below them, thinking that since he was now undercover, he should probably question Karen. Of course, he wasn't going to be good at it-his first ex had always said he had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Which he had considered kind of a compliment, because a sledgehammer could be a damn effective tool. Still, he could try charm. He grabbed a headset and spoke into the intercom. "Learn to fly in the military?"

"Nope," Karen said. "Took a correspondence course from an ad in the back of a comic book."

LaFavre snorted.

Great. A wise-ass pilot. He'd lived with one of those. "My ex-wife was a chopper pilot." He'd never used that line before with a woman, but it seemed the only thing he could say here to get some common ground; this wasn't exactly the bar at the officers' club.

"Lucky her."

So much for charm. Next to him, LaFavre was silently laughing his ass off.

"Yeah, real funny," Wilder said to him, pulling the mike away from his mouth. "Let's see you do better."

LaFavre looked out the door of the chopper, noting landmarks. "We're a minute out." He grabbed hold of the stanchion between the front and back doors and swung himself out and around from back seat to front, taking the copilot's seat. "You got clearance, my dear?"

"I'm not your dear, and I'm cleared," Karen said.

"I could take it in if you'd like," LaFavre said. "Tower knows me."

"I'm sure Tower does," Karen said. "But it's my aircraft."

"Whatever you say, my darling."

"I'm not your darling."

Better than TV, Wilder thought and listened while LaFavre got shot down over and over again until they were hovering about ten feet over the runway. A military Humvee drove slowly out toward them and halted, just on the other side of a red line painted around the contractor's area. A guard was manning the.50 machine gun in the Humvee's turret and there was no doubt he had live ammunition loaded in it. Wilder knew what that red line meant: Don't cross or get shot. Beyond the red line were the helicopters of Task Force 160, at least those that weren't deployed, and from the scant numbers it appeared that most were overseas. Wilder wondered how many of those Nighthawks and Little Birds parked there he'd flown in over the years. He could see a handful of people in flight suits working on the choppers. Several glanced his way, most likely wondering the same thing Wilder was: Why the hell was the right skid hanging like that?

A civilian mechanic from the contractor's hangar wheeled out a contraption that looked like a metal sawhorse. He put it on the tarmac and then he moved about twenty feet away from it and began making hand and arm signals, guiding the helicopter in. Karen positioned the chopper and then descended on the mechanic's signal. Wilder noted that the normally loquacious LaFavre was silent during the maneuver, which meant it had to be difficult. The sawhorse braced against the right side of the bird as the left skid touched down. The mechanic ran forward and used a couple of bolts to secure what remained of the right skid to the device. Done, he once more went to the front of the chopper and signaled to Karen with a finger across his throat, a signal Wilder had never been particularly thrilled with in any situation.

"Nice," LaFavre said to Karen, which amounted to an effusion of praise for him.

Karen was unimpressed. "You can get out now."

"Certainly, my sweet."

"I'm not your sweet."

LaFavre got out as Karen began hitting the switches, turning off the engine with much more vigor than was needed. Wilder hopped off and took a look at the right skid. The front skid extension from the body of the helicopter was broken, the metal twisted.

"Looks like the bolt blew out," the mechanic said.

"Happen often?" Wilder asked, having flown hundreds of hours in helicopters and never heard of it.

"Never seen it before."

LaFavre was on his knees, taking a closer look at the break point. "Anybody want to hurt your actor?"