investigation to date had uncovered that she had been seen in the vicinity of every one of the half dozen near-disasters the movie had experienced so far. She was the only crew member who had been. As unlikely a saboteur as she seemed at a glance, the facts all pointed at her.
Today’s plan had never included actually taking her up flying with him, particularly since she’d been seen fooling around near this bird earlier this morning.
Steve was going to be rip-snorting mad that Archer had had an impulse to go through with the flight, to see if she would actually put her neck on the line. His logic had been that no sane saboteurs put themselves into a position to die, after all. He’d assumed that, since she was willing to go up with him, she either wasn’t the saboteur or knew his helicopter was not tampered with. Wrongo, buddy.
What the hell had happened to his bird back there, anyway? Steve was sure to ask, and he didn’t have a clue. He’d headed down that valley, the explosions had started and the next thing he knew, none of his flight controls were functional. There hadn’t been any noises like something had broken. The helicopter hadn’t lurched as if something related to the flight controls had given way. Nothing had hit the aircraft to his knowledge.
Frankly, he was eager to tear into the guts of the bird and figure out exactly what had happened. He’d gotten an aircraft mechanic’s license in his spare time a few years back that helped him to converse with his maintenance crews intelligently and diagnose and deal with mechanical problems while airborne. But he’d never even heard of something like this, let alone seen it.
How in the hell did Marley know to shake the stick from side to side like that to break loose whatever was obstructing its movement? Was she the saboteur, after all? If so, why would she cut it that close? He’d barely managed to turn the bird in the nick of time. Were he one iota less strong or less quick in his reflexes, the two of them would have died in a blazing fireball against that cliff. His rotor blades hadn’t missed the mountain by more than a few feet.
All of a sudden, he became aware of his legs feeling weak as he walked to the back of the hangar. His knees were shaky, and his whole body felt like a rag doll’s. And he was thirsty. So thirsty that it was abruptly all he could think about. Startled, he put a name to his symptoms.
Shock. He was in mild shock. Jeez, that had been close. The adrenaline that had gotten him home in an unnaturally calm, hyperaware mental state deserted him all at once, leaving him wrung out and wobbly as hell. His breathing was too fast, his pulse too shallow, as he opened the door to Steve’s office and ushered Marley inside.
No surprise, Prescott didn’t offer him a seat when he stepped into the ex-Marine’s office. Aww, hell. Theater though this might be, this was gonna suck.
Archer stood at attention out of habit, not that he’d often stood at attention to get reamed out during his military career, which had been exemplary to date.
Prescott asked grimly, but with admirable restraint, “Care to tell me what happened out there?”
Archer glanced at Steve to see which one of them Prescott was addressing—him or Marley. Him. Yup, Steve was planning to keep up the charade of acting like she wasn’t a suspect.
Too bad he had no idea how to answer Steve’s question. He opened his mouth with the intent to say something brief like “No excuse, sir” or “Lemme tear apart the bird and I’ll get back to you,” but Marley dived in before he could get a single word out.
“He just did what I asked him to. When I saw the combat unfolding, I saw an opportunity to push the shot and get a more extreme perspective on the battle. The footage I got is spectacular. I’m so grateful he followed my instructions to the letter.”
Archer didn’t know if his jaw or Prescott’s fell open farther. What the hell was she doing? He didn’t need her to take the fall for him like this. Steve wouldn’t actually fire him. After all, he was here at Steve’s request to help the guy with an urgent problem. And Steve couldn’t fire her. She wasn’t in his chain of command. She worked for the director of photography, not the stunt crew.
Glaring at her, Archer bit out, “I take full responsibility for going off our flight plan and off course, sir. She had nothing to do with...”
Marley interrupted, “If Mr. Turnow doesn’t love the footage we got, I’ll take full responsibility for it.”
Prescott looked back and forth between the two of them suspiciously. Archer knew better than most just how smart a man Steve Prescott was. And the guy smelled a rat. He thought Marley Stringer was behind the near-crash.
Thing was, he wasn’t about to talk openly with Steve about the mechanical failure in front of her. For now, his hands were tied. They had to fake out Marley and pretend the flight control failure wasn’t out of the ordinary. That no one was thinking about sabotage.
“Archer, if you ever pull a crazy stunt like that again, regardless of what your camera operator asks you to do, I’ll fire you so fast your head spins. You got that?”
Wow. Steve had really mastered that whole quiet, menacingly restrained thing since the last time they’d been together. In his younger days, Steve would have yelled his head off. Archer sincerely hoped Marley was taking note and figuring out that now would be a good time to lie low for a while and cut out the shenanigans.
The ex-Marine growled, “Get out of my office. I’ll take this up with Adrian. He can decide what to do with you two mavericks.”
Marley opened her mouth to say something—whether an apology or more arguments on his behalf, Archer couldn’t tell. But he recognized all too well the tight set of Steve’s jaw. It was time to make like the wind and blow. He gripped Marley by the elbow and hustled her out of Prescott’s office in spite of her protests.
He hauled her all the way out of the hangar and out of their boss’s earshot before turning her loose and demanding, “Why did you leap to my defense and not tell him what really happened? What the hell was that?”
“That was me saving your ass,” she snapped.
“But— Why?” If she was the saboteur, why didn’t she let him take the hit for not finding the flight control problem before they took off? Wouldn’t it hurt the movie more to have a highly experienced pilot like him get fired? If she wasn’t the saboteur, he’d nearly killed her, for God’s sake.
One thing he did know, she’d been legitimately scared to death up there. He might have called her bluff, and she might have called his, but she understood full well just how close they’d both come to dying today.
“Give me just one reason why you covered my ass like that,” he demanded.
“I have no idea why I did it.” She gazed up at him, and she did, in fact, look genuinely perplexed. Almost as perplexed as he was. He shoved a hand through his short hair.
“The footage I shot really is phenomenal,” she offered. “Adrian Turnow’s going to go nuts over it. It’s one of a kind.”
“For good reason. No rational pilot would ever do what we did today.”
“What happened up there?”
Right. Like he was going to talk with her about it. No way was he giving her the satisfaction of watching the aftereffects of her handiwork. He was not going to admit that she’d scared the bejeebers out of him, or that he
