PROLOGUE

      COMMANDER GWENDOLYN BRETT adjusted the power levers on her P-3C-Orion aircraft as another gust of wind racked the airframe. Lightning lit up the night sky over the Philippine Sea and she wished they’d finished the mission hours earlier.

      Terrorist insurgents in the remote southern islands of the Philippines hadn’t shown their hand until the last possible moment before she had to turn the plane around while there was still enough fuel to make it back to base. Besides streaming live video to government troops on the ground, her crew got their location, captured excellent photos of their camp and transmitted them via satellite to be disseminated to the intel weenies who’d figure out what it all meant.

      They’d completed the mission; now she had to get her crew back to base.

      Alive.

      Thirteen souls, including herself.

      That awareness kept her from letting the monotonous drone of the four turbo-prop engines lull her into drifting off—into thinking about anything other than the flight...

      For some reason, the image of Drew as she’d driven off just before deployment had haunted her all day. She’d wondered why he’d bothered, why he showed up at the hangar. He’d said, no one should go off on deployment alone. He’d given her a friendly hug.

      They were friends, in spite of all the hell they’d put each other through as young junior officers. So why had his platonic hug been worse than if he’d tortured her with a kiss, reminded her of all she’d lost when they’d divorced five years ago? More important, why was she allowing thoughts of him now, during a key mission?

      The old mesh fabric pilot’s seat gave little support to her spine, and she shifted her position, trying to stretch her lower back.

      “You’ve got to do those ab moves I told you about, XO.” Her copilot’s gentle chiding made her smile.

      “No amount of exercise is going to shave the years off me, David.”

      “Aw, ma’am, you’re still young.”

      She chuckled, even as the sharp stab of a lower back spasm made her wince. Simple tasks that she’d managed through brute strength as a junior officer were becoming more difficult as her birthdays added up.

      Thirty-seven was young in the civilian world, but not in the navy.

      She was tired of the constant reminders of the years passing too quickly. When she got back from deployment she was going to follow her best friend, Ro’s, advice and get herself back into the dating scene.

      Not that she’d ever been in the dating scene. Because of Drew. Because they’d been together since flight school in Pensacola, Florida.

      From the beginning they knew their marriage faced more challenges than most—long deployments, geographical separation, war. Hurdles that wouldn’t go away until one or both of them resigned from the navy. Drew didn’t have the passion for flying that Gwen did and they’d agreed that she’d stay in while he got out. They both assumed Gwen would eventually resign her commission and fly for a commercial airline.

      They’d survived three intense years after Drew got out of the navy and went back to school to earn his doctorate in Physical Therapy. His PT practice had thrived after only a year.

      As his career took off, so did hers. Unfortunately, their marriage tanked.

      She still mentally kicked herself for not seeing the inevitability of their divorce. That would’ve saved them both so much emotional distress. Very few dual-active-duty couples made it for the long haul. Factor in how young they’d been when they got married, and the odds had never been in their favor.

      The long deployments and wartime assignments had been hell for both of them, but her performance earned her top marks and led to this tour. The ultimate goal all career officers chased after—the command tour.

      Serving as the Executive Officer of Patrol Squadron Five-Two, the Grey Sharks, she’d had two more months until she’d become the commanding officer. A coveted twelve-month stint that had taken her entire career to reach and taken her marriage with it.

      Her squadron’s mission was to conduct reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare all over the globe. They provided real-time intelligence to operational ground forces and operational commands, no matter which theater they flew in. Often her missions kept civilians safe from unspeakable terrorist events. Sometimes it was simply reconnaissance. Other times, Gwen’s aircraft carried weapons, or helped others aim their weapons on the enemy target.

      “See the flashes, XO?” David pointed starboard of the nose, to where sharp points of light lit up the not-distant-enough horizon.

      “They’re not happy. Good. That’s our job.” She referred to the insurgents who were shooting off AAA, antiaircraft artillery, in an effort to take her aircraft down.

      “We’re too far away for those triple-A rounds, Commander,” one of the radar operators said over the ICS or intercommunications system.

      “And we’re going to keep it that way, crew.” Gwen spoke into her microphone as she eyed her fuel levels.

      She glanced over at her copilot, his profile relaxed but alert in the starboard seat. Young and supersmart, he reminded her of Drew and of herself. Once again she lamented that they’d been so young when they started out in the navy and in life. Too young to know how to make a marriage work.

      She contracted and relaxed her abs and her glutes. It eased the discomfort in her lower back.

      At least she and Drew had remained good friends. That was more important than a marriage, in so many ways.

      Drew hadn’t been impressed with her selection to command. He was proud of her, unquestionably. He’d supported her through the wartime deployments—by getting her mail, doing basic admin stuff a spouse often did, handling household responsibilities. But they’d been divorced for five years when she left last month. Neither of them had remarried, but she expected he’d be the first one to make that leap.

      He’d wanted to start a family. She’d wanted to wait.

      Tonight, at the end of a long mission, flying through a hell of a storm, she wondered if she’d been nuts to stay in the navy, to go through so much, for this last operational tour. Had it been worth it, giving up so much to become a commanding officer?

      Lately she’d begun to suspect that she’d lost more than her marriage in the process. She didn’t know who she was anymore, except for her military vocation. If she hadn’t screened for command, would she have stayed in to make the twenty-year mark required for retirement?

      “Shit! Incoming starboard, three o’clock! Probable missile!” The aft observer’s scream in her headset shattered her thoughts.

      “Confirmed surface-to-air. Son of a bitch!” The radar operator validated that the sighting wasn’t another aircraft or fireworks.

      Cold dread gripped her.

      “I see it. Hell, it’s closing, XO!” Her copilot had his hands on the yoke, his head swiveled around to the right as he sighted the missile off their starboard side.

      Preflight intel confirmed the existence of AAA during their mission brief, but never mentioned manpads—portable surface-to-air missiles.

      They had an incoming that could blow them all to bits.

      She heard