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EIGHT

DIEGO GARCIA

The flight fro one, with two in-air refueling hookups on the way Major Jay Petkunas was looking forward to putting his B-1B Lancer boround Camp Thunder Cove, the secluded island’s Air Force and Navy base, was considered one of the best postings in the ht hours of rack ti some fun in the sun

As he set the bo, he looked out the sideat the U-shaped coral atoll The thin strip of land around Diego Garcia’s central lagoon covered just twelve square miles A dozen Navy ships were anchored in the protected harbor, and the rest of the bo one side of the twelve-thousand-foot runway, facing an array of cargo planes and refueling tankers in front of them

His copilot, Captain Hank Larsson, as currently flying the plane, futilely craned his neck to see the view and said, “How do the beaches look?” This was Petkunas’s third trip to the island but Larsson’s first

“You’re not tired?”

“I can sleep on the sand I have to work on my tan”

Petkunas, as dark-haired with an olive coave his pale blond copilot a skeptical look “Good luck with that You better hope they have a huge supply of aloe for when you fry that translucent Swedish skin of yours”

“I have sunblock to keep ”

“Is your sunblock rated for nuclear radiation? Because that’s what you need” The two cohed Petkunas radioed the control tower “Thunder Cove tower, this is Bats 12 requesting clearance to land We have a vaht will do to him”

“Bats 12,” a woot plenty of sun to—”

Her voice cut out abruptly At the same tiines fla the cockpit in an eerie silence

The joking attitude instantly disappeared, and the crew flipped back to the professionals they were

Petkunas calmly took hold of the control stick and said, “I have the plane”

Larsson let go of his own stick and replied, “You have the plane”