CHAPTER ONE
Frankie~
Night ops. Her favorite. She absolutely had the best job in the Air Force. Possibly in the world. Captain Frankie D’Angelo opened the large buff-colored envelope marked TOP SECRET and read through her orders.
She was to fly blind into uncharted enemy territory and do aerial reconnaissance. In the last sixteen days, three of twelve supply planes had been shot down. Twenty KIA. Seven MIA presumed captured. Three planes lost, six others badly damaged. Thirty-six drones picked off by snipers. A catastrophic sixteen days for the US military. Her task was to fix this clusterfuck.
The mountains and the prevailing winds meant that the supply planes had no alternative but to use this route. Carefully aimed artillery had failed to take out the subterranean enemy emplacement. She was to search and destroy and if possible return with the detailed photographic data that would insure that if – make that when – ISIS rebuilt they could be swiftly destroyed.
Frankie was dressed for combat flying. Her emergency chute was a constricting bulge on top of her breasts. Her bulky G-suit restricted her mobility even more. Nothing new there, D’Angelo. Costume designed for the flat-chested male. Deal with it.
She buckled on the outsized night vision helmet and to her everything became an eerie red and gray. She strapped herself into the single-seat cockpit, which was barely large enough for her. Thick webbing crisscrossed her chest and pressed her firmly to the seat back, while giving her just enough mobility to access the instrument panel.
Unconsciously, Capt. D’Angelo became one with her plane. Infused its controls with her own paranormal phoenix energy, until it was literally an extension of her body. Calmed her breathing and her pulse, and then she was airborne.
She had the coordinates of her target, but the landscape was a blank. She was supposed to locate the secret, uncharted enemy base, neutralize it, and return to base without being taken out herself. Just the sort of assignment she most loved. It combined danger with an opportunity to handle a spanking new fighter jet that she had helped design. Perfect.
The instrument panel was a daunting mosaic of buttons flashing a dazzling pattern of bright lights. Her brain sorted them swiftly. Her gloved fingers flew over them, flicking and pressing. Frankie calibrated her speed and altitude and oriented herself to the unknown location.
The transparent canopy of the jet revealed a clear night sky turned gray by her infrared goggles. But she recognized the stars immediately. Having identified the constellation above her, she brought to her mind’s eye a detailed image of the landscape below. She had the advantage over her colleagues that she had flown these skies in both greater and lesser phoenix. The terrain was as familiar to her as her own home.
These new night vision goggles were a distinct improvement over the ones they were designed to replace. The four-scope design had been retained. But the lenses and optics had definitely been tweaked. The infrared was vastly more powerful. Not that a phoenix needed night goggles, but they were standard issue for night missions.
She recognized the rock formations and pinpointed the entrances to the underground caverns that pockmarked this region. For centuries, the inhabitants had been enlarging the natural caves and using them for defense and offense. They had an underground network of tunnels that reached for miles and could be easily provisioned. Most importantly, the enemy had access to huge reservoirs of water. They were set up for a siege.
The cockpit screen displayed patches of infrared overlaid on blank green. From memory she filled in the hills and dunes and the goat tracks that stood in for roads in this area. From the present heat signature, she estimated two dozen personnel on the surface. Probably armed with rocket blasters with infrared scopes that could effortlessly pick her plane out of the sky. Frankie hummed happily as she fine-tuned her trajectory.
With her mental map of the area, it was child’s play for her to predict where the big guns had been embedded. She probably faced old Soviet tech. Possibly the latest US issue. Global trade in weapons created many opportunities for treason. But her mission was not to uncover treason, it was to take out this death trap.
If she could see the enemy, they could see her. Instinctively Frankie banked the plane and zigzagged it through the sky. The Scud missile that intersected what had been her flight path was intercepted by a Patriot missile. The resulting shock waves created turbulence that she rode like whitewater. This was getting interesting. The night sky lit up. Her helmet deflected most of the noise.
On the ground the heat signatures were moving frantically. Random shots created bursts of light in the air. The enemy was spooked. Frankie circled back, dropped a thousand feet in a nosedive, pulled up at the last second. Only the oxygen tube connected to her helmet and face mask prevented her from passing out.
She leveled out and dropped her load. Scored a direct hit. As the bomb exploded, the landscape lit up with visible light. Dirt rose three hundred feet. Shrapnel from the destroyed guns spread out in a deadly circle. Fire blazed. Frankie whistled the victory song of her phoenix clan in a frequency undetectable by her human observers.
The trip back to the ship was uneventful. But she flew the plane as she flew all aircraft, as if it were a part of her body. The instrument panel was infused with her spirit. She channeled her inner phoenix, and executed a perfect landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier. The steel arrestor cable that caught her plane yanked her back against her seat hard enough to break bones. But she was used to that. And the G-suit compensated.
Before she could disengage her harness, the rear door to the flight simulator was wrenched open, dispelling the illusion that she was in a fighter jet. Col. Brigham’s tidy gray head poked inside. “How the hell did you do that, D’Angelo?”
Frankie unbuckled the last set of straps. Swiveled to face her commanding officer. “Do what, sir?”
Brigham backed up so she could exit the flight simulator. “Get back in one piece.”
“With respect, sir, that was my mission.” When had she ever failed to accomplish what she had been given to do?
“Every other pilot executing this mission got taken out by that Scud missile. How did you see it coming?”
Frankie pulled off her helmet. With its breathing tubes and four scopes it was heavy and made her look like the crazier kind of science fiction alien. “I didn’t see it, sir. But I know that area. It wasn’t hard to figure out where ISIS would place their antiaircraft guns.”
“Who told you where you were flying?” Brigham barked, his neat mustache bristling. “You’re supposed to have gone in blind.”
“So I did, sir. But I had the coordinates and I could see the night sky, sir. The constellations gave me the information. I’ve flown that section of desert in a dozen simulations and twice for real.” She shrugged. “I had a pretty good idea where the guns would be and when they would shoot. I made sure our bird wasn’t there, sir.”
“Dammit, D’Angelo, why can’t you teach the others to do that?”
Because they were not phoenixes blessed with a preternatural talent for mapping the sky and the land. There was virtually nowhere on the globe that she had not flown. And where she flew, she retained a map. “I have a photographic memory for landscapes, sir. Just something I was born with. The Air Force has honed it. But we can’t teach people to use what they haven’t got, sir.”
She unzipped her G-suit and stepped out of it. This one was full of electronics that had tracked her breathing, heart rate and galvanic skin response. Two technicians appeared and saluted.
“Yes?” barked Brigham.
“We need blood and urine samples from Capt. D’Angelo,” murmured the braver of the two airmen.
“Go ahead. Debriefing next, D’Angelo. Five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Five minutes later she was ready. Brigham was hovering in the hallway. That was an unwelcome and unexpected honor.
“Come along, D’Angelo.” Brigham strode down the hall to the debriefing room. “I suppose your brothers and your sister have photographic memories too?”
Frankie effortlessly kept pace with the shorter officer. His dignified gray head came up only to her chin. “Yes, sir. And my father, sir. The D’Angelos are natural pilots because of it.”
Three of her four brothers and her twin sister were or had been Air Force officers. Her father, heavily decorated five-star Gen. George D’Angelo, had retired after an illustrious career. Phoenixes had a natural affinity for flight and warfare. All the D’Angelos were Air Force legends. She had every intention of breaking all their service records.
Outside the debriefing room, an airman saluted them and opened the door. Col. Brigham went in and sat down at the head of the conference table. Frankie followed. She took her seat. Let the games begin.
“Dammit, D’Angelo, you’ve screwed up our stats again,” complained Maj. O’Brien who had designed the simulation. “But if it was a for-real mission, you’d get another medal.” It sounded complimentary, but O’Brien’s tone was bitter.
“Thank you, sir,” Frankie replied primly.
The debriefing lasted just short of a lifetime. Frankie would have appreciated being allowed to rehydrate. But no one had provided her with a glass. She sat politely and correctly answering questions and giving her opinion, while her body temperature rose to fever pitch and her mouth dried.
George Washington. Good thing she was a flipping phoenix, or she would faint. She knew that this minor torture was passive-aggressive punishment for besting the male pilots who had failed the simulation. Was it her fault she was better than the other test pilots at predicting when and where attacks were likely? Or that she made better suggestions for improving the aircraft?
Finally, Col. Bingham had had enough of the repetitive questioning. He leaned back in his chair. “I think we have enough data now, O’Brien. I’d like your final report next week at this same hour. Any other business?” he inquired in a tone that meant there was to be none.
Silence followed his question. “Very well, dismissed.” Brigham rose.
They filed out of the room. Frankie turned to go to get some water. Brigham spoke quietly for her ears alone. “I’d like a word with you, D’Angelo, when you’ve had a drink.”
Thank goodness Col. Brigham was in her corner. “Yes, sir.”
Ten minutes later she was facing him across his empty desk. Except for a single landline the polished surface was bare. “I’ve put you up for promotion, D’Angelo. I thought you should know.”
“Thank you, sir.” She tried to look pleased. It was difficult when she knew that any male officer with her record would have had their promotion long ago.
He frowned slightly. “There is some feeling that you’re trading on your family’s reputation, D’Angelo.”
Van Buren! What a load of bull. “With respect, sir, my record speaks for itself and does not need any reflected glory to enhance it.” She pushed a little phoenix music into her statement to make it register.
It was absurd that in the twenty-first century she or any other woman needed to prove she was as good as a man at her job, when in fact she was better by some distance. But the military remained a bastion of male privilege. She didn’t feel badly about using her powers of persuasion to convince Brigham that his view of her merits was the correct one. She deserved her promotion on her own achievements.
Brigham nodded. “I’ll make them read your file. We should know one way or another by the time you are back from your leave. You’re off to Texas, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give my regards to your father. A wedding, is it? One of your brothers?”
“I will give your message to Dad, sir. My youngest brother Grant is getting married.”
“Grant, Grant D’Angelo,” Brigham murmured. “What’s his rank?”
“Grant’s a civilian, sir. He’s an operatic tenor. Fairly famous. But he is marrying an Air Force officer.”
“Is he?” Brigham grinned. “Your father will be pleased. Do I know her?”
“Capt. Genevieve Carson, sir. She’s serving as a military attaché at the US Consulate in Frankfurt, sir.* Before that she was with Combat, sir.”
“Hmph. He could do worse. Well, you enjoy yourself, D’Angelo.”
“Thank you, sir.” She stood and saluted and about-faced.
Half an hour later she was on a transport plane headed to Galveston with her Harley. With luck she would be home in Grape Creek by lunchtime tomorrow. This was her first opportunity to get home since Christmas. Her extended clan was gathering in Grape Creek for Grant and Genevieve’s wedding.
Genevieve Carson had been friends with her and her twin since the second grade. This marriage had Frankie’s full approval. She only hoped that Grant had changed his playboy ways and would be the kind of husband her friend deserved. It was going to be so great to have another sister. And when Grant transformed his mate into a phoenix, that would make the three-way sisterhood even more awesome.
Last Christmas had been spoiled for her by the presence of her new sister-in-law’s brother. Her brother Harrison’s wife, Tasha, didn’t have much in the way of family. Just her adoptive brother Cameron. Capt. Cameron Reynolds of Special Forces.
Frankie could have done without his damn bear shifter legs under the D’Angelo harvest table. But Mom and Dad had invited him. She had had to spend her entire Christmas holiday dodging Reynolds. She and Cam had a history. But she was so not going down that road again. General Custer. He’d had his chance and blown it. She didn’t give second chances.
But there was no reason that Reynolds should be at Grant’s wedding. Capt. Special Fricking Forces presumably was on some top-secret mission of earth-shattering importance. She would be able to enjoy Harrison’s daughter Quincy and Tasha’s daughter Rebecca in a blissful Cameron-Reynolds-free zone.
Frankie closed her eyes and leaned back against the vibrating wall of the transport. The unpadded bench she was sitting on was designed to pack the maximum number of troops into the aircraft. Comfort had not been a consideration. But Frankie had spent her entire life in the military. She could sleep anywhere.
*Christmas Flame