Chapter 34
495 Words
Chapter 34
“I thought I might be useful.” Alice had pulled off the conveniently padded strap that had slipped down over her forehead to anchor her in place during the catapult takeoff. As her seat faced backwards, there would have been no support for her head during the immense acceleration.
Daniel wondered just how much had been done to this particular aircraft to make it aircraft-carrier capable. Trap hook, head straps, structural reinforcements. All he knew was it was the only small business jet that could get them across the northern Pacific Ocean in a single pass without landing for refueling, and that could travel at nearly the speed of sound while doing it.
“Useful,” Daniel managed. He’d learned a dozen words in Korean, which thankfully he hadn’t needed. He’d actually been banking on his French or German being sufficient as Kim Jong-un had been educated in Switzerland. Alice had picked up the language for the fun of it, one of the reasons for her transfer to the North Korean desk at the CIA. She did know more about the Supreme Leader than most Americans, maybe more than most people on the planet.
“Do you know anything about basketball?”
Daniel just shook his head. He knew there was a team based in D.C., but that was about all he really knew. He hadn’t attended but one or two games in college.
“Major Henderson,” Alice leaned across the aisle toward him.
Daniel became dreamily mesmerized by her long, elegant neck and thinking of the way she moaned quietly when he kissed her there. He slid his feet forward and they hugged ankle to ankle.
“Are you a basketball fan?”
“Sure. Don’t have much time to catch games, but I follow it.”
She aimed one of those radiant Alice smiles at the Major.
Daniel felt drifty as he considered the possible uselessness of being jealous of a happily married man who could probably beat the crap out of him using only one pinky. Daniel tried to imagine their battle, himself in heavy armor with an array of lethal weaponry and Major Mark Henderson, the most decorated pilot in SOAR with his pinky. Daniel made a couple bets with himself on how many seconds it might or might not last. Under ten seconds before Daniel was down and done? Fifty-fifty. Under twenty seconds? No contest at all. He’d be a little smear on this amazingly comfortable seat that was rapidly sucking the willpower out of his bones.
“Did you know,” Alice continued in her sweetest voice to Mark, “that Kim Jong-un became a crazy basketball fan while going to school in Switzerland? And that channel 56 is running the UCLA versus USC game right now?”
Long before any seatbelt sign turned off, Mark had the two guests on the rear sofa and they were all noisily involved in the game on the large-screen TV.
Emily leaned into the aisle toward Alice and whispered, not that the other guys would have heard anything, “That was very well done.”
Daniel’s sleepy brain wondered if his virility was in question because he didn’t troop back to watch the game as well.
Probably.
- Writer
