He pressed send and brought the phone underneath the cranial to his ear, straining to hear the ringing over the engine and hydraulic noises reverberating through the cabin. He probably could have waited to make the call, but he couldn’t help but feel as if there was an invisible timer counting down to something horrible happening. Something he needed to stop.

“Hello?”

“Jug!” he shouted. “It’s Colt.”

“Colt? Where are you? Sounds like you’re inside a blender.”

He gave the agent another sideways glance, saw her knees bobbing up and down with nervous energy, and reminded himself to choose his words carefully. “Just landed in North Island.”

“COD?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The blender.”

Jug laughed, apparently sharing his view of riding as a passenger instead of piloting the plane himself. “Smitty told me you had something you needed my help with, but he wouldn’t say what.”

“Yeah, I do. I can fly up to Inyokern and be there in a few hours—”

Jug interrupted him. “Sounds serious.”

Again, Colt glanced at the NCIS agent before responding. “It is.”

“Well, don’t come to China Lake. I’m at Point Mugu for the weekend.”

Colt felt himself deflate. “Mugu?”

“I’ll explain later. Can you come here?”

He sighed with relief. “Sure. I’ll call you later.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket, then placed his hands on his knees and looked out at the base through the rear opening to wait for the lumbering cargo plane to stop. When it did, he didn’t waste any time in unstrapping from his seat and removing the safety equipment he had been forced to wear. The sooner he found a ride to Montgomery Field, the sooner he could figure out what the hell was going on.

He watched the NCIS agent fumbling with the buckle and hesitated. Part of him wanted to be as far from her as possible, but another part felt obligated to help his fellow prisoner escape.

“You need help, ma’am?”

When she didn’t answer, he leaned down and twisted the center of the buckle, releasing the shoulder straps and freeing her from the seat.

“Thank you,” she said.

They locked eyes for a moment before he broke away and made for the rear of the plane as the pilots shut off the engines and the massive propellers slowed to a stop. He lifted the parachute bag containing his flight gear from the deck, slung it across his back, and dropped down from the ramp. The ocean breeze washed across the sprawling naval air station and cooled the perspiration that had accumulated on his skin during the short flight, and he took a moment to get his bearings before setting off for the hangar fifty yards away.

“Lieutenant!”

He heard her call out to him but ignored it. They had forged a bond of solidarity during the flight from the Lincoln, but he still felt uncomfortable being so close to her. There was something about what she had said when she approached them on the carrier that bothered him.

I’m with NCIS and looking for a pilot who might have been the target of sabotage last night.

Though he didn’t see how it could have been sabotage, he was the only pilot who had flown the night before and had had something extraordinary happen to him. And he couldn’t allow anybody to keep him from finding out what.

“Wait, Lieutenant!” she shouted again. “You’re in danger!”

He froze in his tracks.

23

Punky watched the pilot stop and slowly turn to look at her. He had been kind to her on the flight from the ship, but he seemed overly eager to get away from her, an all-too-often unfortunate byproduct of her being a law enforcement officer. Of course, normally only the guilty ran.

“What do you mean I’m in danger?”

If the story the Marine pilot had told her was true, she was almost certain Lieutenant Bancroft was the pilot she had flown out to the carrier to find, but she wasn’t quite ready to answer his question. She walked quickly to close the gap between them so she wouldn’t have to yell across the ramp. “What happened to you last night?”

She saw his eyes glass over as he recalled a memory she could tell he’d just as soon forget, then he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

He opened his mouth but quickly closed it.

“Who’s Jug?”

His eyes narrowed, then he turned and continued walking back to the hangar. She took a deep breath and looked up into the clear, blue sky, second-guessing her decision to press him for information. She was certain she was on the right track, but she knew she couldn’t bully her way into getting the answers she needed. If she wanted to find KMART and stop him before he succeeded in killing somebody, she needed to get Colt to trust her.

“Wait,” she said. “Colt!”

Again, he stopped and turned back, dropping his parachute bag on the tarmac.

She held up her hands in a calming gesture. “The Marine pilot you were talking to on the ship? Smitty? He told me you might be the one I’m looking for.”

Colt’s eyes closed, and his head drooped in resignation.