It wasn’t the crew chief, a wiry dude. It was a bigger man. The ladder was on his side. The sound if she jumped on the other side—too loud. She could just go down the ladder. But she so didn’t want to talk to whomever. She sank down in her seat, the top of her head below the rim of the cockpit. Maybe this guy hadn’t caught sight of her.

Within seconds it was there, the rap on the fuselage like a knock on a kettle. She stayed down, hoping. Maybe whoever it was would get that she wanted to be left alone. But no, but no, but no, she could hear steps coming up the metal ladder.

“Extra.”

It was the weapons loader from the run, the congratulator on the rock path in the snow.

“Drew,” she said, trying to push the envelope and papers behind the flight-control-systems panel.

“What’s that?”

“Some orders.”

“You got orders?”

“No, I mean, well, not … uh. I—Drew, I’m supposed to not be talking about it.” She could be referring to the special-access assignment. She could.

“No problem,” he said. “Sorry.” Then his eyes got different. Seri’s joking came to her.

“Do you need any help? I mean, I’m sorry about Frank.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, I was just, you know, thinking about that.”

“Here?”

“Seemed as good a place as any.” She needed to get out of the cockpit. She started to stand up, but his hand stayed on her shoulder; actually, it traveled, and it was holding her arm, then her wrist.

“Let me help you,” he said.

She looked nervously down the hangar. It was empty.

“Sure, thanks.” That was better. Refusing, confronting—best avoided.

But this was the man who complimented her “tasty kill.” Through the interference of all the emotions that had followed his words, she’d forgotten them and saw she shouldn’t have, because now he was carrying her down the ladder, saying something, but doing too much mumbling. She felt a little like the bride on the threshold, a little like the injured party. On the hangar floor his kissing was tender. He seemed to be pushing for something from her that was sex but more than that. She wasn’t fighting him. She’d been wanting wrong kisses since that night at Walter Reed. The dead, those Tinker Bells, they made her want this even more. Let’s get lost. This man was taking her. She hung back in the strength of him; she was going to have to balk at some point, but he was so insistent she started thinking she wouldn’t have to be the one to stop him, the crew chief would appear, the hangar would get busy, as it always did—and sure enough—“Get the fuck away from her, you sick fucker.”