“What?” he said as he threw open the door.

“You always greet a lady like that?” Abby O’Neal said.

Phillips’s mouth literally hung open. He stared at her, amazed not only at her presence but at what she was wearing. She had come in and dropped her heavy overcoat on the floor. Beneath it she wore a miniskirt with a skimpy tank top.

“Ab, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Okay, where is she? In the shower? You were doing her in the shower?” She came up to him, stole his towel and hugged him, and covered his mouth with hers.

Phillips wasn’t complaining, but he could hardly take it all in. Self-possessed Abby O’Neal was not one to show up unannounced in a seedy motel room, least of all wearing call-girl clothes. She majored in business suits and workout clothes. A miniskirt and tank top…?

“This is Abby O’Neal’s evil twin, right? Where’s Abby?” “Right here,” she said, hitting the light. She maneuvered him to the bed, her mouth on his, her hands on him, pulling him closer. Her clothes dropped to the floor, more by her hands than his. She had him on his back as she climbed on top and drove him into her. He shut his eyes, then opened them to see her face, her eyes half-shut. Her lips were parted, her breathing coming in gasps.

It seemed like forever, it seemed like a heartbeat. He lost himself, lost the Navy, the Piranha, the Japanese, the Dolph-Inn, and for an achingly sweet moment there was only Abby and him, and the boundary line where he ended and Abby began had become blurred in his union with her.

“I have to go to sea,” he was saying to her.

“I know, that’s why I’m here, idiot.”

Phillips pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. Abby wrapped herself in the bed’s comforter. He went to her rental car and got her overnight bag, from which she pulled out her sweatshirt and torn sweatpants that she’d cut off into shorts, her comfort clothes. Once they were settled on the couch, he pressed her for what was going on, stealing a glance at his watch, knowing that with her there it would be a miracle if he went back into the manufacturing facility. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t let him, it was that when she was with him he didn’t want to do anything but be near her, talk to her, touch her hair. He told her she would be responsible for Piranha being late to sea, and she said “good.”

“So, what’s going on, really?” he asked. “I heard from some people in Norfolk. They say this Japanese thing is heading for a confrontation at sea. Maybe war. And that it was going to be a submarine battle, because the Japanese navy is all submarines, and I knew you were getting ready to go to sea, and I knew you were working around the clock, and, not being stupid, it hit me. This ship is the newest in the fleet. You’re going out there to fight—”

“Well, no one knows if—”

“Bruce, don’t patronize me.”

“All right. Yes, we’re going to sea, we’ll probably do nothing but go in circles around Japan, and if you want to know the truth, by the time we get there this will all be over. The Pacific fleet boats will probably be force enough, and I seriously doubt that anything will come of this whole thing. It’s a tempest in a teapot.” He pulled her toward him and stroked her hair. She looked up at him, eyes looking into his. Of course, she didn’t believe him. She sank into the couch and into him. It was ten hours later that he was able to pull himself away from her and go back to the ship.

NORTHWEST PACIFIC

The F-14 tossed in the violence of the storm. The clouds around them were black, the rain pounding against the canopy. When the intercom came on Pacino could barely hear it, even though Shearson was screaming.

“Admiral! We’re not going to make it!” “I thought you said we didn’t have enough fuel to divert. I thought we’d had to commit to the carrier.”

Pacino could barely get it out.

“Sir, we don’t. But if we’re going into the drink we’d better do it outside of the radius of the storm, and goddamn well upwind where it’s already been. If we ditch in this sea we’ll last minutes, maybe less. We’d better decide now, because we’ve been dodging the bigger storm cells and it’s been burning our fuel. We only have enough gas to make one approach. That’s not enough for the book. We need to have at least a half-hour reserve or we’re supposed to abort.”

“No, Shearson. Take it in. As long as you have navigation capability, you get this plane in to the carrier.”

Pacino waited, the plane beginning to bounce so hard it slammed his helmet against the port sill, then the starboard.

Directly above them a flash of lightning exploded.

The plane jumped, Shearson struggling for control. The plane dived, then took a starboard roll, then a sharp port spin. The lights of the instruments were dark, Pacino realized. The lightning must have hit them. Shearson managed to pull the jet out of the spin but the cockpit was blacked out.

“Have you lost power?” Pacino asked, wondering if the panic he felt was in his voice.

“I’m bringing it back, Admiral. Lightning tripped the instrument bus off the line.”