“Because of the accident?”

“Yeah.”

Zen wheeled toward the Tigershark. “Flying was different once I lost my legs,” he said, talking more to himself than to Turk. “At first, I did it more or less out of spite—I had to prove to the Air Force, to everyone, that I was still worth something. They didn’t want me to come back. But they couldn’t exactly bar me. They could keep me out of a cockpit, obviously, because I couldn’t fly an F–15 or an F–22, or any real fighter. But the Flighthawks were different. My hands were still good. And my reflexes.”

“It must have been tough,” said Turk.

Zen slid his chair back to look at Turk. “Truth is, I was really, really angry. That helped. It gave me something to overcome. I like a fight.” He laughed gently, making fun of himself, though he wasn’t sure Turk would realize that. “How about you?”

“Like to fight? Well, I shot down those airplanes.”

“Not that kind of fighting.”

Turk pressed his lips together. He knew what Zen meant—dealing with the bureaucracy, with your superiors when they were being unfair or stubborn or both.

“Whatever you say is between you and me.” Zen nudged his wheelchair a little closer. “Doesn’t go out of this hangar. Nothing to your superiors.”

“You’re investigating the Sabres—”

“But not what happened with Shooter Squadron. What did happen?”

“I didn’t see anything on the hill,” said Turk. The words started slowly, then picked up speed. “I came across the ridge, checking. I had a good view of the kids there—”

“Kids?” asked Zen.

“They were definitely kids. There were all sorts of references on the ground. I could tell they were short—there was a bush, some vegetation. They were definitely kids.”

“You were moving at a hundred and fifty knots?”

“A little slower.”

“But you know what you saw.”

“It’s burned in my brain. If it was the Tigershark . . .”

Turk’s voice trailed off, but Zen knew what he was thinking: the Tigershark’s sensors were far wider than the A–10E’s, and would have captured a full 360 degrees. The computer would have examined the figures for weapons. There’d be no doubt.

Something else was bothering Turk. Zen didn’t know him very well, but he knew pilots, and he knew test pilots especially.

They were always sure of themselves. Granted, Turk was still pretty young. And back-to-back incidents like the ones Turk had been involved in had a way of shaking even the steadiest personality. But Turk was pretty damn positive about what he had seen.

So what else was troubling him?

Turk looked at the expression on the older man’s face. He was serious, contemplative, maybe playing the engagement over in his mind. The recorded images from the A–10 had been inconclusive. That didn’t help Turk.

Still, he knew what he had seen.

Didn’t he? He couldn’t repicture it in his mind now. With all this talk . . . maybe they were right.

No. No, it was just Ginella undermining him, trying to get him back.

Or had he really missed it? Had his eyes and mind played tricks?

“You think they’re right?” Turk asked Zen. “You think I chickened out?”

“Chickened out? Who said that?”

“It’s implied. Like I was too scared to fire at enemy soldiers because of everything else that had happened.”

“I don’t think that would be a fair assessment, do you?”

“It’d be bull.”

Zen studied him. “What did Colonel Ernesto say?” he asked.

Turk frowned. “She . . .” He shrugged.

“She what?”

Turk shook his head.

“What’s the personal thing going on here, Turk?” asked Zen sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“What is it with you and Ginella? One day she’s singing your praises, now she’s tossing you under the bus. What did you do to her?”

Zen couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d risen from the wheelchair and begun to walk on his own.

“What do you mean?” asked Turk.

“It’s written all over your face. There’s something personal here. What exactly is going on?”

“It’s nothing bad.”

“Whole story.” Zen had the tone of a father interrogating a child sent home from school by the principal. “Now.”

Reluctantly, Turk told Zen everything that had happened between him and Ginella, including her reaction to Li.

“There was never a quid pro quo, or anything like that,” he added. “But it was, uh, awkward.”

“Is that what’s really bothering you?”

“I did not see a missile on that hill. She can say anything she wants, but I didn’t see it. And I wasn’t affected by the Sabres. I mean, it was bad and everything—it’s terrible, but that wasn’t my fault either.”

If Turk had been a woman, the affair would clearly be a problem for Ginella. A commanding officer couldn’t have an affair with a subordinate, even one temporarily assigned.

But the role reversal blurred everything. Maybe it shouldn’t—from a purely theoretical sense, a colonel was a colonel, and a captain was a captain. But in real life, old prejudices died hard. A man simply wasn’t viewed as a victim of sexual harassment, no matter what the circumstances.

And in truth, that wasn’t necessarily the case—not legally, at least. Ginella hadn’t explicitly threatened Turk’s career.

The real problem wasn’t Ginella, it was Turk. Maybe he hadn’t blamed himself for the Sabre accident, but Zen remembered him being troubled when he landed. Maybe he’d just missed the missile on the hill—at that speed and height, it wouldn’t be surprising at all. But whatever had happened, he was definitely second guessing himself now.

Fighter pilots couldn’t have that. In the darkest moment, you needed to know you could trust yourself. You needed to be able to just do, not think.

“Are you afraid Colonel Ernesto’s going to screw up your career?” Zen asked.

“I don’t know,” admitted Turk. “I guess what I’m really—what really bugs me is somebody saying I’m a coward.”

“If you missed a missile, that wouldn’t make you a coward. That idea shouldn’t even enter your mind.”

“Well.”

“Seriously. It’s bull. And I don’t think you missed it.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about Ginella,” Zen told the pilot.

“You’re not going to say anything to her, are you?”

“Nothing that doesn’t need to be said.”

11

Tripoli

The machine called Arachne stood barely half a foot tall with its six legs fully extended, and could easily hide behind a crumpled piece of newspaper. The work module on top was smaller than a watch face, but its interchangeable sensors were more powerful than even the most advanced timepiece. One provided a 360-degree IR image, another an optical image in 10-4 lux.

In the rarefied world of advanced robots, Arachne was a superstar—or would have been, had anyone been allowed to boast of her prowess. The “bot,” as Rubeo and his people referred to her, was a hand-built terrestrial spy, able to do things that human spies could only dream of. Developed privately, she was still undergoing testing before being offered for sale to the CIA.

Where better to give her a realistic test than in Libya?

Rubeo finished the bench calibration on the third and final sensor, more critical in this application than the others—a magnetometer that mapped currents. The device had to be carefully calibrated, then gingerly handled until it was locked on the unit. The procedure was relatively straightforward for the techies who worked with it routinely, but unusual enough that the man who invented the device had to proceed extremely slowly.

Rubeo finished his checks, locked out the options panel, and then killed the power to the unit. He unscrewed it gingerly and brought it over to the bot, which was sitting on the bench in the hangar across from the larger transport bot, Diomedes.