Page 24 of Ace

He searched her face, his eyes lighting. “Off to Tandora.”

Colton nodded. “I thought you’d say that. Like I said, we have a jet. I guess Gianna will be your co?”

“As you know she can.”

“I do know that. But have y’all flown together since JAG, like in the same plane? Can you work together?”

His expression was comical to Dex, but Gi crossed her arms. “And why wouldn’t we be able to?”

Colton’s eyebrows rose. “Two words.” He held up two fingers. “In-flight training.”

Dex snorted and Gianna looked away, but he was laughing before he could stop himself. “Gianna’s totally matured since then. It may have been difficult to come in second to me all the time, but she’s settled into the copilot seat now and she’s comfortable with it.”

Her mouth dropped open, but her eyes were laughing along with him. “I’m not gonna let you rewrite history. We can go look at the plaque on the wall to see who graduated top of our class and who was second.” She held up two fingers.

Colton had sped up their craft.

“Anything wrong?”

“No, but this little stretch of water right here—”

A helicopter flew overhead, close. It had the Mantukese flag painted on its side.

“This is technically contested territory right now.”

“Want me to go out on deck and wave to them?”

“I should have brought my Texas flag.” Colton laughed. “But really, this is kind of a big deal. I’m just going to power through here and hope they’re not willing to create an international incident about a yacht.”

His radio crackled. And a male voice droned on in Mantukese. Then switched to Vietnamese. The voice went through all the major Asian languages before switching to English. “You are in Mantukese waters. Stop your boat so that we may do a search. Attention. Stop your boat.”

Colton threw the throttle all the way forward. He pointed. “See that string of islands. We just have to cross between them.”

The islands came closer all the time, but not as quickly as Dex would have liked. Gianna squeezed his hand. They moved to the window. The helicopter flew low, the door opened.

“Are they thinking of sending a guy onboard at this speed?”

Gianna shook her head. “Surely not.”

“Fly…”

“Yeah.”

“Evasive measures might be needed.”

“Hold on.” He swerved the boat hard to the right. When the helicopter followed, he straightened out. But the bird crept closer again. Really, there wasn’t much more they could do except race for international waters.

Then the loud and welcome sounds of fighter planes tore through the air.

The helicopter slowed its pace.

Two jets circled high in the air and prepared to return.

“I hope those are ours.” Gianna squinted.

“So do I, little lady, so do I.” Colton adjusted the controls and eyed the horizon with a soft whistle. The man was ice. Throw some pressure at him, and his calm increased.

The jets passed by again, lower, the sound thunder in Dex’s ears. He smiled.

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