“Yeah,” Garry said. “She was always serious.”

When they were kitted out, they hopped into the van that would take them to their aircraft. The crew chief — a round, glum man of around fifty — showed him the aircraft forms; everything looked good today.

Garry’s F-16 stood waiting for him: fifty feet of sleek gun-metal grey, its colour darkened by the muddy sky. Garry walked around the bird and kicked the tyres, made sure the right weapons were loaded, and checked the oil. The weapons pods were two fat, sleek torpedoes slung under the wings.

He climbed the ladder that dangled from the cockpit, and perched for a moment on the canopy rail. He held onto the ledges and swung his legs into the foot wells, like James Dean hopping into a convertible. He finished up semi-reclining in the hardened seat pan, with his legs straddling the instrument console, his feet planted on the rudder pedals.

The F-16 was his idea of an airplane: a single-seater, single-engine bird in a tradition that dated back to the P-51 from the Second World War. And its primary mission was air-to-ground, which would give him the chance to fly at five hundred feet, the ground rushing by, the sensation of speed startling.

Garry thought his blood must be fizzing in his veins, loud enough for Jake to hear.

The preparations continued. He snapped an air hose to his G-suit, to swell the bladders that would keep his blood from pooling when he pulled Gs. He fixed clips at his shoulders and hips to his parachute risers and the seat kit with its survival gear, all of it contained within the seat pan. He pulled tight his lap belt, lifted on his helmet and fitted his oxygen mask.

The crew chief called up. “Rail clear?”

Garry gave him a thumbs-up.

The canopy came down, a clear polycarbonate bubble that slid down over him and locked into place, smooth as something out of Flash Gordon. He activated the seals to pressurize the cockpit, and set the climate controls to a little cooler than the flat desert air outside. He was in his own world, already cut off from the ground, the cockpit so tight and cramped around him it was as if he had donned the bird like some immense Batman suit.

He strapped on his knee clipboards, and set his switches to their start positions.

He called the crew chief. “Fore and aft clear, fire guard posted, chocks in place?”

Roger that, Garry. Ready for run-up.

He turned on his electrical power, and hit the jet fuel starter, the small engine that would turn over the main motor, the GE-100. He advanced the throttle from off to idle; the engine surged with a throaty roar.

When he was ready to taxi, the fire guard removed the chocks from his landing gear. The crew chief directed him forward, waving his hands back behind his head.