“No.” Eli shook his head and slipped into the right seat, ending the conversation. “We won’t.”

Jed sighed and slid into the captain’s seat, using a rag to begin mopping blood from the windscreen. “All kidding aside, if you want to bail out when we’re in range of Pax River, I can do this solo. Seriously, I got this.”

“Nope,” Eli said, wiping down the control panels and instrument clusters. He managed a tight smile. “You go, I go. We’re in this together, brother.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX

COCKPIT

TRANSAMERICA FREIGHT BOEING 717 N6677L

LEVEL AT SEVEN THOUSAND FEET

1654 HOURS LOCAL

Jed realized he was holding his breath and exhaled.

“You’re looking great, Sword One,” came the almost-annoyingly collected voice of the pilot in Jed’s ear. “Right on course.”

“Roger,” Jed said, not sure what else to say.

“Sword Two, do you understand your duties here?” the ground pilot asked.

“Yep,” Eli answered. His voice had taken on the more familiar, fatalistic tone Jed loved about his teammate. “I’m gonna work the flaps when you tell me, and I see how to do that. I’ll lower the landing gear when you tell me, and I see how to do that also. Then I back up Jed on the yoke, and I put my hand on top of his on the throttles.”

“You got it, Sword Two. Well done,” the man said. “How about you, One?”

Jed sighed. “Do what you tell me and try not to die,” he said. So far, it actually had proven to be pretty easy. He simply changed what the pilot directing him had called the “heading bug” on his main display and pulled the throttles back a bit until the airspeed settled on two hundred and twenty knots on the main display. It seemed like the plane was pretty much doing all the work.

He looked out the side window, relieved to see blue water of the Chesapeake Bay below them in all directions now. The controller and pilot told them they’d be approaching from the southeast, over the water the entire time until they made the runway, and no one had to tell him the reason for that. They were landing on runway 32, which the pilot explained meant they would be on a heading of 320 degrees on final approach.

“Okay, One, we’re gonna try something here,” the pilot in his ear said.

“What’s that?” Jed asked, feeling his anxiety rise again.

“We’re going to make a descent, but I want you to do it without the autopilot on this time.”