"I'm starving."

"Here, have another bag of peanuts. And there's coffee in this Thermos. Must have been the pilot's."

"Coffee!" Clara felt like she had died and gone to heaven. She fell upon the Thermos holding the heavenly black liquid and poured some into the plastic cup that screwed onto the top. Taking a sip, she closed her eyes at the feel of the hot, sweet brew rolling over her tongue. She usually took hers with cream as well as sugar, but under the circ.u.mstances just getting coffee at all was a miracle.

"Would you like some?" Guiltily she looked over at McClain. He was munching his peanuts, fiddling with the radio that was emitting mostly static. He'd put on the headphones, so she didn't think he could hear her. She touched his shoulder, and he looked around inquiringly as she proffered the cup. He took it from her with a nod of thanks and drained it, grimacing at its sweetness. Then he pulled the headphones off one ear and pa.s.sed the cup back over at the same time.

"There's not much happening on the airways."

"Oh, really?" Clara was just barely interested. She was far more concerned with savoring the last of her peanuts and another cup of coffee.

"Maybe there's interference because of the mountains."

"Could be."

"Or maybe they've ordered radio silence."

Clara swallowed. She tried not to think that they were still being chased, but of course they were. If anything, the search would be intensified. They had stolen a National Guard rescue helicopter, for G.o.d's sake. "They can see us on radar." The realization burst on her with a sickening flash.

McClain looked over at her, inclined his head once. "Yeah."

"Will they... shoot us down?"

He laughed suddenly, his eyes gleaming a warm green as he looked at her. "Poor Clara, you're not having much fun, are you?"

"Unless you call being faced with a choice of roughly two dozen ways to die fun, then no, I'm not."

"Trust me. I'll get you out of this in one piece. If it's humanly possible." The last words were said under his breath.

Understandably enough, she didn't find that rea.s.surance particularly rea.s.suring. Probably because she was beginning to suspect that it might not be humanly possible. She smiled rather hollowly at him, then lifted the cup to her mouth for another drink of coffee as she stared out the windshield at the landscape below.

The helicopter was swooping first low then high, following the contours of the mountains, keeping not far from the tops of the trees. The scenery was breathtaking, golden sunshine beaming down on hillsides covered with a variety of deciduous trees in their autumn finery. Other hillsides were shaded in various hues of greenish blue from the pines and other evergreens, gorgeous blue lakes, ribbonlike rivers and roads, even a range of snow-capped peaks in the distance, the tallest of which McClain identified as Mount Mitch.e.l.l. In the face of so much beauty it seemed impossible that their lives could be in such danger. Clara embraced the sense of unreality thankfully. It kept her from being scared out of her mind.

"Where did you learn to fly one of these, anyway? In the marines?" She was just making conversation, idle conversation to keep her mind off the chilling possibility of dozens of unfriendly radar screens tracking the tiny blip that represented their helicopter. They seemed so alone, so far away from everything soaring over the mountains. But they were not.

"Yeah. I flew a couple of Med-evacs. Then I got put out of business."

"How?"

"Shot down by the Cong. Haven't flown since. I'm surprised I remember how. I guess it's like riding a bicycle. You never forget."

"Were you a prisoner?" Her eyes were wide as she looked over at him. She'd read what POW's had suffered in Vietnam.

"For a couple of months. Then a buddy and I managed to escape. I made it back to the front lines eventually; I'd been wounded, thought I would be sent home. No such luck. They patched me up then turned me into a LURP."

"A what?"

"A LURP.Recon. The bra.s.s figured that since I'd managed to get out of the jungle with a more or less whole skin, I could just as easily survive in it for a while and keep an eye on what the Cong were up to. There were quite a few of us in there. The problem was, we didn't have any contact with each other."

"What happened to your buddy?"

"What buddy?"

"The one you escaped with."

McClain's voice was very even. "He tripped over the wrong wire about two miles from our lines. There weren't even enough pieces of him left to carry out."

Clara felt as though a tremendous fist were crushing her heart. McClain sounded so matter-of-fact about it that she knew he must have suffered terribly. In the brief time she had known him- it had been a little more than two days and yet it felt more like two years- she had learned that he kept his emotions under iron control. The less he showed, the more he felt. It was hard communicating with a man like that, but she was beginning to learn the trick of it.

"I'm sorry," she said as evenly as he had. If she offered him tears and a shoulder to cry on he would turn on her in anger, she knew.

"Yeah. Things like that happen in war. It could just as easily have been me. But it wasn't, so I figured the next one might get me. But nothing did, and I made it home. My mother was real happy about that."

"You have a mother?"

He looked around with that glimmer of a grin. "What'd you think, I was hatched? Of course I have a mother. Everyone has a mother."

"What I meant was, is she still living?"

A crooked smile curved his lips. "Oh, yeah. You couldn't kill my Momma with an axe. She lives on a farm in Tennessee, same one my sisters and I were born and raised on. Since my dad died she's been raising chickens, and does pretty well for herself."

"Tell me about your family." Clara was fascinated. Somehow this was not the kind of background she had pictured her daredevil spy as having. A mother whom he called Momma with obvious affection, a chicken farm, and sisters? "To start with, how many sisters do you have?"

He grinned, shooting a sideways look at her. "Five. All older, and all bossy as h.e.l.l. It was like growing up with six mothers. When I joined the marines I thought that if I just had one drill sergeant to boss me around I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven."

"What are they doing now? Your sisters?"

He frowned a little. "Janey, the oldest, she's eleven years older than I am, lives on the farm next to Momma's with her husband, Bill, and four kids. Mary Ann, who's two years younger than Janey, is a travel agent in Casper. She's divorced with three kids. Sue and Sally, the twins, are three years younger than Mary Ann. They have seven kids between them, and they run Powder River Ski Resort with their husbands. And Betty, my youngest sister, is three years older than I am. She has four kids and lives with her husband on the farm next to Momma's."

"My goodness," Clara breathed, a little in awe at the thought of such a family. It had just been herself and her mother almost since she could remember; she'd always secretly wanted a big family, brothers and sisters to squabble with and confide in, lots of noise and chaos. Her childhood seemed so bland in comparison to how she imagined his must have been.

"What about you? Tell me about your family."

Clara shook her head. "There's just Mother and me. Daddy died when I was five. I always wanted brothers and sisters. I used to get lonely, especially at the holidays. Christmas was the worst."

"Christmas with my family is a madhouse," McClain said cheerfully. "I never go anymore. All those kids drive me up a wall."

"Don't you like children?" She was shocked. The only children she'd ever been around were Lena's, and despite their constant peccadilloes she loved them dearly. That was the thing that bothered her most when she considered the growing possibility that she might never marry: she would never have any children of her own. The thought hurt.

"Sure I like them- one or two at a time. When you're talking eighteen strong, the decibel level alone is enough to flatten a marine battalion."

"I'd love it!" She spoke with the sudden conviction that she would. He looked over at her oddly.

"You know, you probably would. So why don't you have kids of your own, then?"

Clara felt her cheeks redden. He had touched on a sensitive area, as he always seemed to. He seemed to have an uncanny knack for zeroing in on her weak spots.

"I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I kind of think I need a husband before I have babies."

"So why don't you have a husband? Oh, that's right, you're looking for Mr. Irresistible, aren't you? I forgot."

Clara shot him a narrow-eyed look. "What's keeping you from getting married?" Determinedly she lobbed the ball into his court. "Or are you?"

He shook his head. "Not hardly. I grew up with a gaggle of women, remember. I'm not in a hurry to saddle myself with another one."

"What about Gloria?" She drew the name out in a way that made it synonymous with Bimbo. As soon as she did it she could have bitten her tongue off, but she couldn't help herself: something about that name made her want to throw up. Or, she told herself in a brief burst of honesty, maybe it wasn't the name at all but the vision it conjured up of a sultry blonde curled up in bed with McClain.

He picked up on the cattiness in her tone. That teasing smile flickered, and the glint in his eyes brightened them to the color of peridots.

"My, my, baby, you sound like you don't like Gloria. You haven't even met the girl. Not jealous, are you?"

"Over you?" Clara felt angry color wash up her neck even as she hooted. "Fat chance."

"No, I wouldn't say that," he mused. "Gloria's not a bit fat. If anything, she's on the thin side. You know, one of those slim, elegant blondes."

Clara silently ground her teeth. He was trying to get a rise out of her, the goat, and he was succeeding. Picturing Gloria as a slim, elegant blonde- something she had always wanted to be, with no luck outside the color of her hair- was almost worse than picturing her in bed with McClain.

"So where is Gloria now? And why didn't Rostov pick on her instead of me?"

McClain looked a bit uncomfortable at that. Then he grinned. "To tell you the truth, Gloria was out that evening. As a matter-of-fact, she'd been out for several evenings prior to that. Gone home to her mother."

Clara hooted. "Couldn't stand you any longer, huh? I don't blame her."

McClain still looked cheerful. "Me neither. But you know something? I was kind of losing my taste for slim, elegant blondes, anyway. I like a little more meat on my women."

It took a minute for that to percolate through Clara's brain. When it did, she looked over at McClain a little uncertainly. What did he mean by that? But he was looking at the instruments and his expression told her nothing.

They were swooping down over a valley, having come across a rolling stretch of mountains. Below were a few farms interspersed with the trees. Clara looked down at them wistfully. How nice to be safe at home...

"Clara." The way he said her name immediately alarmed her.

"What?"

"Look toward the east."

She did. What she saw made her heart jump into her throat. A flotilla of helicopters had materialized on the horizon, flying toward them, skimming over the ground. The helicopters were army green.

"Oh my G.o.d!"

McClain manipulated the lever and the pedals, and their helicopter did a sudden swooping turn. Clara felt her stomach fall at the suddenness of it, but her heart remained firmly lodged in her throat.

"McClain." The voice came crackling over the radio. It was the first sound they had heard besides static since hijacking it. Clara felt panic start to build inside her. Beside her, McClain adjusted the earphones and spoke into the mouthpiece.

"McClain here. Who is that?"

"Bill Ramsey. McClain, we have orders to shoot you down."

Clara felt her blood drain toward her toes. Oh G.o.d, to die in a flaming ball of wreckage plummeting toward earth...

"General, I have a civilian pa.s.senger on board. A woman." His voice was perfectly even.

"I'm aware of that. I also find it hard to believe you're mad-dog crazy enough to slaughter a hospital full of innocent people, shoot a cop, steal a police car and then a helicopter without a h.e.l.l of a good reason. So I'm willing to give you a chance to tell me your side of it. You will accompany us to Camp Lejeune, where you will land your chopper and surrender to me. I trust I make myself clear, McClain?"

"Clear as a bell, General."

"And McClain," the general's voice had an implacable note, "I hardly need to warn you that if you appear to be trying to escape, I will obey my orders immediately."

"Understood, General."

The radio went silent except for the soft crackle of static. McClain turned the helicopter about. Immediately the flotilla of helicopters resolved themselves into six, and they positioned themselves in a vee around their prisoner. With another helicopter leading the way, they flew southeast, toward, Clara a.s.sumed, Camp Lejeune.

"Jack," her voice quavered, "what's going to happen now?"

McClain's jaw was set. He sent her a look out of eyes that no longer sparkled, but were hard and cold.

"We've got a chance. General Ramsey was my C.O. in Nam. We called him Wild Bill. He's a son of a b.i.t.c.h, but he's a fair son of a b.i.t.c.h. It takes guts to disobey an order, and his orders were to shoot us down. As long as he remains in charge of us, we'll be all right."

"But will he turn us over to someone else?"

Clara spoke in a tiny voice. Puff, apparently sensing her growing fear, roused himself from his nap on the jumpseat in the rear and walked over to jump in her lap. At his rumbling question Clara rubbed his head, and he settled down into a ball on her lap. McClain looked down at him, seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. They spoke not another word until they were within sight of Camp Lejeune.

"Better get dressed, Clara."

Clara had forgotten that she was clad only in a blanket. Her cheeks flared at the thought of presenting herself in such garb before a bunch of tough marines. Sliding off the seat, she moved to the rear and dressed quickly. Her clothes were still clammy, but she didn't suppose it made a difference that she was immediately chilled to the bone. Pneumonia was way down on her list of things to worry about.

"Your turn." She slid back into her seat, reaching for the controls with only a little trepidation. At this point crashing the helicopter was not one of her major worries either. He threw her a quick, encouraging grin, then stepped back to dress himself. He was back in moments, taking over the controls.

"I feel sort of like a frog in winter."

He was trying to cheer her up, Clara knew. She smiled at him. "Me, too."

The radio crackled, making Clara jump. "Set her down on the helicopter pad behind the terminal, McClain."

"Will do, General." McClain's voice was even. But his knuckles were white on the joystick.

"Oh, Jack, I'm scared!" The words burst involuntarily from Clara as he set the helicopter down on the tarmac. The machine was immediately surrounded by a platoon of marines with rifles at the ready. McClain looked at her, eyes dark, hand still on the lever. Above them, the whirling blades drowned out all outside sound.

"I'll do my best to get you out of this. If they interrogate you, just tell them the truth. That's all we can do now."

"Interrogate me?" Clara didn't like the sound of that. Her eyes were wide and desperate as they met his. He stared at her for just a second, his jaw set, and then he was leaning toward her, his big hand cupping her head as he pulled her toward him. His mouth found hers, kissed her roughly. She twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all her might.

"Let's go, McClain!" The shouted command was accompanied by a loud banging on the closed metal door. McClain reached up and pulled her arms from around his neck, kissed her quickly one more time, then moved toward the door.

"Stay back behind me," he said, and then he was sliding back the door. Hands immediately reached in to grab him. He was pulled down onto the tarmac out of sight.

"Be careful of the lady. Like I said, she's a civilian," Clara heard him say to the armed contingent outside the door. Then she was walking forward too, clutching Puff, and to her surprise found that the soldiers were quite respectful as they helped her down, even holding her elbow to steady her descent.

"Sorry, ma'am, we have to search you," someone said, and then hands were run over her, impersonal despite the intimate places they touched.