Declared Hostile - [3]

VFA-54 Hells Angels (200) “Hobo” FA-18E RR 6

VFA-16 Firebirds (300) “Ridgeline” FA-18C RR 5

VFA-62 Hunters (400) “Arrow” FA-18E RR 8

VAQ-144 Gremlins (500) “Comet” EA-18G RR 1

VAW-129 Sea Shadows (600) “Condor” E-2C RR 2

HSC-18 Rustlers (610) “Flintlock” MH-60S RR 4

HSM-76 Whalers (700) “Harpoon” MH-60R RR 3

Strike-Fighter Squadron SIXTEEN (VFA-16) Officers

CDR Jim Wilson Commanding Officer Flip

CDR Jennifer Schofield Executive Officer Annie

LCDR Ted Armstrong Operations Officer Stretch

LCDR Sam Cutter Maintenance Officer Blade

LCDR Rich Freeman Administrative Officer Ripper

LCDR Kristin Teel Safety Officer Olive

LCDR Chester Brown Maint. Material Control Officer Chet

LT Mike Rhodes Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor Dusty

LT Mark James Training Officer Trench

LT John Madden Quality Assurance Officer/LSO Coach

LT Eric Williams AV/ARM Division Officer Killer

LT Jacob Jensen Airframe Division Officer Big Jake

LT Ryan Rutledge Line Division Officer Ghost

LT Conner Davis Personnel Officer Irish

LTJG Tiffany Rourke Schedules Officer Macho

LTJG Joe Kessler NATOPS Officer/LSO Jumpin’

ENS Quan Smith Material Control Officer Quan

ENS Shane Duncan Intelligence Officer Wonder Woman

CWO4 Christian Short Ordnance Officer Gunner

Map

PROLOGUE

(Over the Yucatan Channel)

Doctor Leighton Wheeler suppressed a yawn as he arched his back and stretched his arms. With nearly two hours to go in the cockpit of the Beech King Air, he fought the urge to sleep. Mercifully, a half-moon high above kept him company and provided a horizon out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, but he lightly slapped his face to stay awake. He knew he was now, at this 1:00 am hour, in the trough of human performance, and he had to concentrate on his gyro horizon and altimeter. Five hundred feet — even with altitude hold engaged, it was unnerving to be so low over the black water underneath. He figured it didn’t make much of a difference. One hundred feet or one thousand feet; it looked the same over a dark ocean. He was tired, and the energy drink he had downed before take-off was now wearing off. He considered another one, but the physician in him rejected the idea. He twisted off the top of a plastic water bottle instead and took a long swig. He carefully replaced the top, and as he put the bottle back in the cup holder, he glanced at his fuel… a little over 2,200 pounds with 453 miles to go and fifteen knots of wind in his face. He would make it, but barely.

Wheeler twisted the heading select switch to 324, and the aircraft rolled gently right as it steadied up on course. Nothing out here, he thought, unlike the Yucatan Channel some forty minutes earlier. He had not been able to avoid flying right over a half-dozen lights below him. Not knowing what they were had bothered him, but they were most likely fishing boats, Cuban and Mexican. He knew it was too early for the motor and sailing yachts, most of which spent the winters in and around the Virgin Islands, and the Belize yacht traffic was another month away at least.

The moon illuminated the low scattered clouds, so typical above Caribbean waters. They cast splotchy shadows on the surface below. Wheeler knew the next hour would be boring, so to pass the time, he thought of his favorite subject… himself.

A youthful forty-seven years old, Wheeler owned, with three partners, the Women’s Cosmetic Center, the top plastic surgery clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. They offered everything from rhinoplasty to Botox… the whole gamut of services, many on an outpatient basis. The overwhelming majority of the procedures were boob jobs, with augmentation surgeries leading the way. For nearly two decades the Women’s Cosmetic Center had offered hope and delivered results, with the ladies (and their men) gladly paying top dollar for their services. It was a gold mine.

Just last month two of Wheeler’s clients had brought in their teenage daughters for consults. Cullen, his own teenage daughter, wanted him to perform an augmentation for her 16^th birthday — to a tasteful C-cup that would “allow her clothes to fit better,” an argument that was part of the tried and true cover story. He certainly wasn’t about to let his lecherous partners touch her. Cullen would go to Atlanta with her mother, Tammy, for the procedure, allowing time to recuperate before her birthday party next month.

Tammy. A former homecoming queen at Alabama, Tammy had never allowed anyone to augment her—not even her husband, despite how much he had wanted to add some strategic curves to her tall and leggy figure. She was all for her husband performing plastic surgery for other women, and Wheeler had done work on several of her girlfriends. He had even had an affair with one of them that Tammy probably knew about but didn’t press him on. No, all was perfect with Tammy: hair, makeup, body, clothes, house, kid, husband… in that order. Between the Garden Club, the Tri-Delt national vice-presidency and innumerable shopping trips to Atlanta and Nashville, Tammy had little time for her husband. That was all the excuse he needed.