“Understand you and Lieutenant Partnoy had a serious accident,” he said when she sat down. “Sorry to hear about it. Terrain here is dangerous. Simplest thing can turn ugly.”

“We shouldn’t have been out there.”

“Probably. But not definitely. I’ve seen much dumber moves.”

She smiled a little. He tilted his head as if he were saying, Ease up on yourself.

“Captain, this is the situation,” he began. “Special Operations has a need for a fixed-wing pilot, specifically a female. They’ve evaluated your accident out of Andrews, and there’s no pilot error. Think you handled it well, given the systemic failure your aircraft exhibited. This one, this accident, there’s a process there, but all I can say is, this is a request of such a nature that they—they want us to proceed from this end. And there are some other parameters, details I’m not even privy to. Suffice it to say, you fit these parameters, along with about two other pilots. Both of them happen to be in Iraq. There’s a selection process. Part of it takes place here. The second stage, if you make it through the first, would suspend your deployment. We’d have to ship you back home for a while.

“This is a special-access program, and right now, that’s all I can say about it.”

She’d heard about these. Not known anyone well who’d gone through any. Some assignments could last a week, others a year. Or more.

“Would the mission be based out of Bagram?”

“I don’t know.”

“Any time frame?”

“That I don’t know either.”

“Can I opt out?”

“Yes, at this stage in the process you can. Though, apparently, if the two other pilots don’t work out, you may be sitting here again with me.”

“How much time do I have to say yes or no?”

“Forty-eight hours. But, Captain, security on this is need-to-know. So, if you think you’re going to have time to discuss it with anyone, think again. You can’t. On the other hand, if you want to think it over carefully for yourself, that seems to me to be a good idea. No need for you to give me an answer right this minute.”

She stood up.

He did too.

“Please convey to Jeffrey Watson’s colleagues over at DynCorp my sincere condolences.”

“I will, sir.”

She climbed into the cockpit. She watched her crew chief walking back toward the morning light. Years of kindness to crew gave her this time alone at the back of the hangar with no mission. It wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t strictly disallowed. Actually, no one to her knowledge had ever thought to do it, or, if they did, gotten caught. Sometimes things wigwagged out of notice that way. She put her head back and closed her eyes.