At the top of the steps she paused and lifted closed eyes to the merciless sun and hauled in a great gulp of the syrupy air as if it were pure oxygen. After a moment, when her head seemed to have stopped swimming, she clattered down the steps and headed for the shimmering terminal buildings. Halfway there, in spite of the heat, she broke into a jog.
Inside the stuffy cabin, Cory was putting himself through the necessary mental fortifications to deal with the awful heat. It was an exercise he’d learned long ago, and one that had gotten him through far worse circumstances than these. Mind over matter, that’s all it was. Mind over matter. The air was only unbreatheable if he thought it was.
Seeing Samantha again was only unendurable if he let it be.
Originally designed to carry around thirty passengers, the restored cabin had been reconfigured to hold maybe half that many. The furnishings were spartan, but the seats were wide enough to accommodate even Tony’s massive shoulders, and set far enough apart to afford a lanky six-footer like Cory adequate leg room. By mutual and unspoken agreement, he and Tony selected seats across the aisle from each other about halfway up the sloping cabin and set about stowing their bags in heroic silence.
Having secured his precious cameras to his satisfaction, Tony again took off his sunglasses and hooked the earpiece in the neck band of his shirt. He took off the bandana, wiped his face and neck with it, then sank into his seat with a heavy sigh.
After a moment he sat up again restlessly and looked over at the man in the seat across the aisle from him, the man who was most likely the best friend he had in the world, and who he admired and respected probably more than any other living human being. Nevertheless, and in spite of the fact that the man had a good five years on him, Tony more often than not felt a big-brotherly need to look out for and protect this man. And, at the moment, he felt a strong urge to throttle him.
When looking over a couple more times failed to get his attention, Tony tried shifting around and clearing his throat—not too subtle and a little bit childish, sure, but in Cory’s case, it usually worked.
This time, however, Cory went on staring straight ahead at nothing, absolutely still but in no way relaxed, neck and shoulders rigid with tension.
Tony leveled a black scowl at him. He considered himself to be normally a good-natured soul, but his aggravation levels were rising rapidly. They were rising because he was trying to work himself up to doing something completely alien to his masculinity and that he was resisting with every macho bone in his body. And he was becoming royally ticked at his buddy for making all that necessary.
He was about to do something guys, in his experience, simply don’t do, which was ask a guy friend a personal question.
“So,” he said, after clearing his throat a couple more times and finally hitching himself around in his seat in the heavy, flopping manner of a landed marlin. “What’s with you and Amelia Earhart?”
Cory jumped as if he’d been a million miles away—which he probably had been, mentally—and threw him a frowning look. “Who? Oh—you mean—”
“You know damn well who I mean.” Tony jerked his head toward the tumble of buildings beyond the wavy window glass. “What’s the story?”
Cory took off his glasses and went to polishing them on the tail of his shirt, an activity Tony recognized for the delaying tactic it was. “You heard her. I’m just a friend of her family. Her father’s…actually.” He put the glasses back on and pushed them up on the bridge of his nose. Since his nose was slippery with sweat, they slid right down again.
“Friend of the family, my foot,” Tony said, and was rewarded with a sideways look and a lopsided grin.
“Your foot?”
Tony shrugged and grinned back. “I don’t know, my mom used to say that. I guess it was the best she could do, since Gramma wouldn’t let her swear. Anyway, you get my drift. You and I go back quite a ways, too, buddy. I was best man at your wedding, in case you’ve forgotten. What’s maybe more germane to this discussion, I was there during your divorce. I stood by you—”
“Not too much standing involved, as I recall, unless you consider perching on a bar stool—”
“Hey, I was there, that’s what counts. Ready and willing to lend you a shoulder if you needed one.”
“The way I remember it, you were the one needing a shoulder—not to mention a ride home, and on one memorable occasion, at least, bail.”
Tony gave an affronted snort. “Don’t try to sidetrack me, Mr. Wordman. Whatever was between you and Amelia Earhart had to be something major. Hell, you know me—when it comes to understanding women, I’m no Dr. Phil, and even I felt it. Out there. Just now. The way the sparks were flying back and forth, it’s a wonder you two didn’t set the damn plane on fire.”
Cory didn’t reply, just gave him a hard, steely stare, a look that normally would have had Tony backing off. This time it didn’t work, and after a moment Cory put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
It took a long, slow ten-count before Tony succeeded in throttling back enough to press on in a calmer, quieter voice. “Look, man, you know me, I don’t butt in where it’s not my business. But this isn’t exactly a picnic in the park we’re going on. I mean, here we are, heading into a place that’s supposedly so dangerous no commercial airline or boat or bus service is even willing to take us there, supposedly to interview a major terrorist who, if he had his druthers, would probably just as soon kill us as look at us. If you’ve got history with the woman we’re trusting to get us in and out of there alive, I think I ought to know about it.”
There was a long, suspenseful silence, during which Tony watched, with a sinking feeling in his gut, the little muscles working in the side of Cory’s jaw, and wondered if he was going to have to start looking for a new best friend.
Then, to his great relief, Cory straightened abruptly and said, “You’re right, you do.” Tony let out a silent, careful breath.
He waited, heart thumping, while Cory glanced over his shoulder toward the terminal buildings, again took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes. Put the glasses back on. Leaned toward him across the aisle and spoke in a soft, conspiratorial way, although there was no one else around to hear.
“You know I was a prisoner in Iraq, right?”
“Yeah, sure—about ten years ago, wasn’t it? Special Forces went in and got you out in the middle of the Second Iraq War. Didn’t you win the Pulitzer with some of the articles you wrote about it afterward?”
Cory nodded in a dismissive way. “So you probably also remember there was another guy rescued same time I was. Tomcat pilot—he’d been shot down over the no-fly zone between the two Gulf wars. Given up for dead. They’d had him for eight years, and nobody knew.”
“Holy jumpin’ jeezits,” Tony exclaimed, whacking the armrest with an open palm, “I remember that! I was working in Richmond at the time—I think it was maybe my second or third big assignment—they sent me to Andrews to cover his return. Had all us media people corralled away from the action behind a chain-link fence so we wouldn’t interfere with the big family reunion. Never got one decent shot. Let’s see…I seem to remember he had a wife…a daughter…”
Cory nodded, took a breath and let it out. “He did. And that pilot out there, Samantha Bauer—” he dipped his head toward the windows “—Amelia
