One of the Boys by Merline Lovelace Page B

Lisa’s question over the next week. He needed some time to sit back and assess just what he felt for the woman who filled his mind and hardened his body at the oddest moments. Unfortunately, the pace on the Stealth project picked up to such an intense, frenetic level that Jake had to settle for observing Maura across a conference table littered with drawings and computer runs and post-test analyses.
    Twice he managed to get her alone for a cup of coffee, if sitting in the crowded cafeteria under the watchful eyes of half his staff could be considered alone. Each time he found himself more bemused than ever by her analytical engineer’s mind and sensuous, laughing femininity.
    The team racked up two spectacular successes. On the second test shot, the missile made a clean release and flew straight and sure to the target. Maura cheered with the crowd of onlookers when the concrete wall blossomed into a cloud of dust.
    A third test of the modified missile, this time armed with a conventional warhead, was just as deadly. After that success, the entire team threw themselves into the next critical phase. Now that they understood the characteristics of the missile on the F-15, a known, stable platform, they planned to test it on the Stealth itself.
    Sleek, black and shaped like a pointed boomerang, the Stealth flew into Eglin three days before the scheduled test. Working night and day, contractor and in-house personnel fit mounts in the fighter’s internal weapons bay to hold the modified missile. To her surprise, Maura learned that Jake himself would fly the first Stealth test.
    He was one of the few officers at Eglin qualified on the F-117 Nighthawk. She learned he’d commanded the first operational Stealth squadron. Jake had left that squadron to assume duties as deputy commander for operations at Eglin.
    As the day of the test approached, she viewed it with a growing mixture of excited anticipation and nervousness. Somehow the knowledge that Jake was going to be in the cockpit made it seem less of an adventure. More than ever before, she began to appreciate the deadly serious aspect of the test business. A good number of the test pilots who’d pushed their machines to the edge of the performance envelope, and then beyond, had died in the attempt.
    During all the years she’d spent in design, helping to produce the next generation of fighters, Maura had never felt the vulnerability of the man strapped into those supersonic designs as personally as she did now.
    She was a bundle of raw nerves when she and Pete grabbed seats in the viewing area the day of the test.
    â€œDon’t worry,” he told her for the third time. “Jake knows this plane. He can handle anything the Stealth has to offer.”
    They sat side by side in the darkened Central Control Facility, eyes glued to the screen. The chase plane’s wing-mounted camera clearly displayed the F-117 to the assembled crowd. With its distinctive boomerang shape, flat undercarriage and blackradar-absorbing paint, the Nighthawk sat like a small thundercloud at the end of the runway. Its coated canopy windows reflected the sun’s rays, hiding any sign of the single pilot from Maura’s anxious eyes.
    Her nails dug into her palms as both planes taxied down the runway, then lifted off into the blazing noonday sun. Every second seemed to last a lifetime. She followed each terse exchange between pilot and tower, between lead and chase, between test controller and drop pilot. A tense, expectant silence filled the small gallery until Jake’s voice came over the speakers.
    â€œTwo minutes to launch.”
    Afterward, Maura would shudder every time she recalled the next terrifying sequence of events. One moment, Jake was counting off the seconds to launch. In the next, she and the entire control facility watched, horrified, as the launcher descended through the bay doors and the missile detached.
    Lifting in a lethal arc, the modified