With his arms perpendicular to his sides, Harry pulled the trigger in his right arm mount and booted up the turbines. Vectoring his arms down slowly, he lifted off, the weight of the back jet thrusting his upper torso forward at a slight angle. With his left hand, Harry bumped the turbines down a notch, then adjusted the trigger, playing with the controls.

Rising about a meter and a half above the ground, Harry made a large arc over the open training field. His pulse raced, and he couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face. This eighty-second flight blew every single one of his boyhood fantasies to smithereens.

Take that, Stan Lee! Harry might not be a self-made superhero, but this experience came awfully close. Pushing his newfound ability, he followed the nearest tracks range before he returned to Musgrove’s lorry, bumping down the power as he lowered himself to the earth.

Harry let out a full-blown whoop when Musgrove removed his helmet and arm mounts.

“It’s a fairly exhilarating experience, is it not?” Musgrove’s mouth twitched.

“Brilliant,” Harry agreed.

“You took to that well, Captain Benson. If you ever leave the military, I can always use another test pilot. For that matter, so could the critical care teams throughout the Highlands.”

Harry stepped away.

Musgrove, however, was not a man to be put off. He placed his business card in Harry’s MTP pocket. “Think on it.”

Elise neared the end of the pool, her strokes cutting cleanly through the water. The tip of her fingers grazed the end wall, and she performed a flip turn and pushed off, heading in the opposite direction. Sixty-seven more laps until she reached her daily goal.

Letting her mind free flow during the next five laps helped clear the heartache festering inside her. Here in the pool, time suspended, keeping the worries of her upcoming field-agent tests and medical appointment at arm’s length.

She loved the water and had swum almost daily during her youth in her parents’ heated pool. When she returned home for brief visits, she often made use of it.

Six laps into her swim, an arm plunged into the water and grasped her shoulder. Elise inhaled water and stood up, coughing and blinking chlorine from her eyes. Pushing her goggles onto her forehead, she took in McFarlane’s dripping sleeve.

“Lady Elise, Master Sammy has gone missing,” McFarlane said as water dripped from his arm onto the concrete.

“Again?” Elise fairly growled.

“Aye.”

“I don’t suppose you could locate him without my help?”

“No, my lady. We’ve looked.”

Elise sighed and hoisted herself from the pool, water pouring off her body onto the pool deck and speckling McFarlane’s highly polished shoes. Not one of the staff had any imagination when it came to finding a small boy.

“Where have you looked?” Elise reached for a towel on one of the lounge chairs.

“The public rooms.”