A/N: Thanks to everyone for coming back to be entertained by my imagination and love for a show that didn't run nearly long enough. And thank you, KJ, for correcting my misspelling of Parris Island in Ch. 1. Duty noted and fixed.

Chapter 2

Vella La Cava

VMF 214 HQ

The meeting with General Moore — this can't be good

With Jim on his way to the ops shack with General Moore and a bottle of Scotch recently liberated from the Espritos Marcos officers club, Greg stopped at Kate's tent to invite her to join the party. It was more of an order and less of an invitation and he hoped she'd see it that way. Since the general had specifically requested her presence, it was doubtful she'd balk at the summons. Every time he tried giving her orders, she dug in her heels.

Still, he'd never seen her hesitate at the opportunity for a story and even though he didn't know what was going on, the fact Moore had flown out here personally meant this one had the potential for front page news written all over it. Newsworthiness aside, the feeling of unease that accompanied Moore's arrival lingered like a ghost hovering just beyond Greg's peripheral vision. If he looked, there'd be nothing there. He pushed the feeling aside. Damned if he was going to start borrowing trouble when the 214 usually had it to spare.

Greg pushed aside the mosquito netting at the supply/VIP/AP field office tent and paused for a moment to enjoy the view. After the turn-out drills, Kate had stripped out of the borrowed flight suit and changed into a sleeveless white shirt and loose shorts fashioned from cut-off fatigues. Her long hair curved in a braid over one shoulder and she wore no makeup. She sat on her bunk, petting Meatball, who was sprawled across her lap and carrying on like no one had ever given him any affection a day in his life. Sun streaming into the tent highlighted the fine bone structure of her face as she laughed, scratching the dog's ears while he whipped his tail in ecstasy.

Neither the utilitarian fashion nor lack of cosmetics hid the fact she was drop dead gorgeous. The day two months ago when she'd stepped off that transport onto La Cava soil, he'd pegged her as little more than an attractive nuisance. She was still a knockout. She was no longer a nuisance.

Greg's eyes ran the length of her bare legs. Toned thighs tapered to sculpted calves and ankles that were delicate without being fragile. Those legs were definitely her best asset and that was saying a lot about a girl who had excellent assets from top to bottom.

"Get down, knot head," Kate said to the dog and kissed him on the nose. "Go do whatever it is you do all day."

The bull terrier trotted jauntily out of the tent. Greg swore the dog was smiling.

XXX

"Hurry up, Moore's waiting for us."

Kate looked up from bending to tie her boots. Greg stood in the doorway of her tent, backlit by the morning sun. She blinked at the brusque announcement—no "The general would like you to join him" or "If you have a minute, could you come with me?" Typical. Her relationship with the Black Sheep's CO hung in an ever-shifting balance of public versus private as neither of them wanted to put the latter on display. Half the time, he called her only by her last name and gave orders like she was one of his men. Not that she listened. The other half, well, that was nobody's business.

She took a minute to admire the contours of the T-shirt stretched taut across his chest and the hard muscle of his upper body. His dark hair was windblown, his eyes drowning pools of aquamarine and his easy smile as his gaze raked over her hinted at the dimples that flipped her heart rate up a notch. The man was fine to look at.

She narrowed her eyes. And that smile was a great big red flag. Not that he didn't usually smile when he saw her but that grin, combined with the absolute confidence of his body language, meant he expected her not to argue with whatever was on his mind.

"What brings Moore all the way out here?" she asked, nursing a futile hope this would be nothing more than a photo op or some trivial bit of overblown news being released to the press to distract them from recent, darker issues. Moore's arrival in a front area base, and the fact he'd requested her presence, could mean a lot of things and none of them were good. She reached for a pair of long trousers. "Give me a minute and I'll change—"

"Don't. Those shorts look good on you." It was both a command and a compliment.

Kate knew there was no sense repeating her initial question, just like she knew how her shorts figured into the equation. Her hope of a simple press conference vanished like smoke. Something big was brewing and if Moore, with his well-known eye for the ladies, was kept off balance by her length of bare leg, he might disclose more information than he intended. This approach had worked before and Kate wasn't above trying it again. A girl had to do what she could for her country.

Silently, she finished tying her boots, grabbed a notebook and pencil from the trainwreck of her desk and together, she and Greg headed out.

XXX

The fact Greg steered her toward the ops shack, not the Sheep Pen, was another indicator this wasn't a social call—like anyone would come to La Cava on a social call. Still, Moore usually welcomed the camaraderie of the pilots in the base's rough-hewn little bar after business had been dealt with. Kate was only mildly surprised when Greg ushered her into ops and she found a bottle of Scotch and four glasses sitting on a table. Jim had already done the honors and two fingers of the amber liquid in each glass glowed in the sun spilling through a window. Kate glanced at her wristwatch. It was early for a drink, even by Black Sheep standards, but that only emphasized the seriousness of whatever had drawn General Moore out here.

"Miss Cameron, good to see you again." Moore rose from the table and shook her hand. Kate didn't miss his fast, appreciative evaluation, especially the lingering glace at her legs. "You're looking lovely as usual. Life with these renegades seems to agree with you."

Kate returned the general's firm grip and gave him her most charming smile. "Life with these renegades is never dull." Behind her, Greg chuckled and pulled out a chair for her.

She settled into it without pulling back up to the table, stretched her legs to cross at the ankles and watched with satisfaction as Moore struggled to keep his eyes off them. Good. If her presence kept him just a bit off balance, all the better for it. The fact they were in the ops shack, drinking Scotch at 0930 hours and her presence had specifically been requested had her slightly on edge. Generals were not in the habit of including the press in campaign strategy briefings, yet she was almost certain that was where this was headed.

Her growing apprehension mirrored the low-level tension radiating from both Greg and Jim. Neither man showed it outwardly. Except for the time of day and Moore's presence, they could have been participants in a high stakes poker game. Even Moore's usually genial countenance had a grim set. This had all the makings of an off-the-books assignment and if the 214 was being pulled into it, it had to be something tailor-made to their skill set. Kate was intimately familiar with that skill set, having experienced nearly every element of it—from bar room brawling to impersonating a superior officer—personally.

"I'm pulling the Black Sheep off routine patrols in the slot for the immediate future," Moore said without preamble.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Greg set his drink on the table. "We're still encountering enemy squadrons pushing into Allied airspace."

"They're just feinting, they don't have the ground or air power to back it up," Moore began. "The Zekes your boys are splashing are the last remnants from outposts the Allies are clearing. Navy intelligence has confirmed a troop pullback by enemy forces."

"Navy intelligence," Jim snorted. "There's your first mistake."

Kate swallowed a smile. If the general was looking for military decorum, he'd come to the wrong place. On first glance, Greg looked relaxed as he leaned back in his chair but the set of his jaw and tension in his shoulders belied the intensity that marked everything he did. Jim was a deliberate study in everything that was unmilitary—unshaven, out of uniform, slumped in his chair and looking mildly hungover. He caught her studying him and winked. She rolled her eyes.

"Those Tojo patrols don't feel like a feint when they're busting our chops at five angels." Greg chose his words deliberately. "If we're not up there, who's gonna keep them from blowing up the beach cabanas on Espritos again? I hear that didn't go over so well the first time."

Moore scowled. "The 219 on Choiseul will handle patrols over the northern section of the slot. They'll be backed up by a squadron off the Lexington."

"Great," Jim drawled. "You're sayin' it takes two outfits to replace the Black Sheep? What are we gonna be doin' in the meantime?"

"The Black Sheep will be flying recon missions over these coordinates." Moore unrolled a map on the table to face the two men and indicated an area with his index finger. Tension snapped through Greg like a hot wire, his reaction only visible to Kate because she'd made a hobby of studying his body language. Jim jerked back like he'd been burned. She rounded the table and stepped between them. Both men shifted aside to give her room. She studied the area Moore indicated, then drew in a quick, surprised breath.

"There's nothin' out there to reconnoiter," Jim said, the defiance in his voice edged with a trace of fear. "Nothin' but a whole lot of shark-infested water. Is this Lard's idea to finally get rid of us?"

Greg scanned the map. His jaw clenched tighter, if that was possible. He planted his palms on the table and looked at Moore.

"Those coordinates are just a few clicks east of where Gil McBride's squadron went down," he said. "Jim's right, there's nothing out there but empty ocean. What the hell are my boys supposed to do? Drop flowers and say a prayer?"

Sarcasm etched his words but the gravity of his tone sent a shiver down Kate's spine. Major Gil McBride and the entirety of VMF 237 had vanished without a trace during a storm nine days ago. Their last radio contact indicated they'd encountered rough weather and hoped to set down on Rendova to ride it out. They never made it. The entire squadron, 16 men and 16 planes, had never been seen or heard from again. The wholescale loss of so many pilots at once had rocked every fighter base in the theatre to the core. Even the Black Sheep, who weren't known to stand on ceremony unless women or alcohol were involved, attended a memorial service on the beach, led by a visiting chaplain. Kate could still hear the boys' voices breaking as they sang ragged verses of "Amazing Grace."

"Navy intelligence—" Moore began, only to be interrupted by another snort from Jim. He glared at the lanky Texan, who shrugged indifferently, "—has picked up a faint SOS signal being broadcast from the area where McBride made last contact. There's a chain of islands too small to be named in the vicinity and it's possible—," he sighed heavily, as if doubting what he was about to say,"— though admittedly unlikely, survivors from the 237 made it to those islands and found a way to signal for help."

No one spoke. The ceiling fan creaked overhead and mechanics' shouts from the line carried on the humid air.

"It's possible, and not unlikely it's a Japanese trap to lure Allied forces in and pick them off like ducks in a shooting gallery," Greg said finally. "When McBride's squadron went down, rescue and recovery didn't find a damned thing. They finally had to turn tail and run because the Japanese drove them out."

"The weather has been hateful since then," Kate said. "It's been nothing but one big storm after another. Even if the men made landfall, they must have been injured. Without fresh water or food . . ." Her voice trailed off. There was no need to state the obvious. No one could have survived nine days under those conditions.

"Either way, gentlemen," Moore glanced at Kate and added, "and press, the SOS is faint but clear. Someone—or something—is out there and we need you to find out what's going on."

"Why the Black Sheep?" Greg asked. "What about the hotshot Navy boys on The Lexington?"

"I can't use a carrier-based squadron for this. The Lexington's out of range and bringing her closer would call too much attention to the area. Besides, your boys have a reputation for getting into and out of places they aren't supposed to be so this shouldn't be asking too much. You can drop down on the deck under radar and sweep the islands to see if anyone's down there."

"Yeah," Jim muttered. "On the deck, under the radar, in perfect gun range. You can bet those riceballs will be waiting. Next thing you know, you'll be sending someone out to look for us."

"What's the timeline?" Greg asked. "If Jim's right and Tojo is playing tricks with that signal, trying to lure us in, all we need do is ignore it. I don't see any need to rush into this."

"On the outside chance someone is alive out there, we can't ignore an Allied SOS," Moore said flatly. He looked like he was biting his tongue to keep from saying anything else.

Greg gave him a look.

Jim gave him a look.

Kate dropped her pencil. Without leaving her chair, she uncrossed her legs, bent, stretched them prettily, picked up the pencil and recrossed her legs. Very slowly.

Moore threw his hands in the air. "Okay, okay! Admiral Halsey is losing his shit about this. He plans to move part of the Third Fleet into the Coral Sea and their route will take them straight through the waters where that signal's coming from. He wants to know what's going on out there and he wants to know yesterday. You fly your first mission tomorrow at 0630."

"What makes you think the 214 can find something when no one else could?" Kate asked. "Why send them out after all this time?" She didn't say what they were all thinking: back in the states, sixteen families were picking up the pieces of their lives and moving forward, the telegram bearing the words "Missing in action, presumed dead" tucked in family Bibles as parents, wives and sweethearts prayed for a miracle that wouldn't come.

Moore looked somber and when he spoke, he kept his eyes on her face only for once.

"The initial rescue mission was plagued by Japanese patrols in the air and on the water. Our boys spent as much time trying to keep themselves from becoming casualties as they did looking for any of McBride's men. Between the weather and the enemy, they had limited resources. And there was no SOS then. Colonel Lard felt it was expedient to call off the search when nothing was found after 24 hours. The SOS was only reported a few days ago by a flattop passing south of Rendova. They scrambled a squadron but nothing was visible and they couldn't delay to stay and search."

"In other words, the initial search was aborted early and now this mystery SOS has popped up and Lard is feeling guilty he may have left McBride's boys out to hang." Kate held Moore's eyes without flinching. It was his own fault he'd wanted her read in on this. While she appreciated being included, that didn't mean she'd let him off the hook.

"Yes, Miss Cameron. That's exactly what I mean and you can spin it however you want, after the mission is finished. Until then, I wanted you to hear the background because you have an uncanny way of ending up in the middle of everything this unit does." He stopped just short of saying, "Whether you belong there or not."

"Why didn't Colonel Lard come to brief Greg in person?" she challenged, then muttered, "Not that I'm disappointed."

"The colonel is indisposed," Moore said. "It seems K.C. Cameron's recent story about the 214's spectacular performance in the Ulithi raid made his ulcer flare up so badly he was admitted to the infirmary. The doc advised him to avoid stress until it gets a chance to heal, so I volunteered to come out to this rock. This isn't something I'd trust to a radio call, even if your scrambler did work."

"Our scrambler works fine," Greg said. "The problem must be on your end."

Moore opened his mouth as if to argue, shut it, opened it again and moved on. "I want the Black Sheep to find whatever's sending that SOS. If it's what's left of McBride's squadron, drop supplies and we'll organize a rescue. If it's not, blow it up so Halsey can get on with this war."

For a moment, the general looked weary beyond his years. "Off the record, I don't think anyone's alive out there. It's been too long and conditions have been too brutal. I can't explain the signal. It might be a piece of malfunctioning equipment from another wreck that washed up on the shore after the 237 ditched. It might be Hirohito's idea of a joke. But we need answers and we need them in a hurry."

Moore finished his Scotch and stood. Greg, Jim and Kate followed suit.

"I don't need to remind you gentlemen—Miss Cameron—this is a top secret mission," the general said. "Japanese forces in the area think the Allies have given up and pulled out of that sector. They won't be expecting the Black Sheep."

"With all due respect, sir, no one ever expects the Black Sheep," Kate said.

"What if it's not the 237 and it's not Tojo?" Jim asked.

Moore looked at him. "What else is there?"

No one spoke. Kate splashed another round in their glasses. Raising hers, she smiled grimly. "Slainte. Looks like you're going ghost hunting."

XXX

1900 hours

A South Pacific sunset — and ghosts

"Do you think anyone from the 237 is still alive?" Kate would have preferred to talk about anything other than that morning's meeting with General Moore but the weight of the Black Sheep's pending mission hung heavily over both her and Greg.

From the jeep's driver's seat, Greg looked out over the expanse of the Pacific. The final rays of the setting sun highlighted the rugged planes of his face and painted the last moments of daylight with gold. In the distance, the base was quiet and the air cooled as twilight pressed in. Kate savored the moment. They had so little time to be truly alone together and it seemed a shame to waste it on talk of war, yet it was impossible to shrug out from under the weight of their duties.

"Do you believe in ghosts, Cameron?"

Kate poked him in the chest. "Don't you know a gentleman doesn't answer a lady's question with another question?"

He laughed and caught her wrist, holding her easily even though she made a show of trying to pull away. "No one's ever called me a gentleman before. And you're no lady." His voice dropped to that low, husky timbre that made Kate realize she probably wasn't going to get an answer to her initial question. At the moment, she was willing to let that slide.

"How dare you say I'm not a lady?" Her indignation was soft, more invitation than offense.

"You drink like a Marine and swear like a sailor and throw a punch like Micklin." Greg released her wrist and stroked one hand up her arm, his fingers slowing to trace her neck and ear.

"I wasn't nearly as much trouble until I fell in with your lot," she said.

"My lot? You're blaming all of us?"

In answer, she leaned in and brushed her lips across his. "Just . . . one . . . of . . . you." She kissed him again, more deeply, reveling in the heat of his mouth.

"Damn it, Katie."

Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes. In the back of the jeep, Meatball thumped his tail and whined softly.

Slowly, reluctantly, Greg pulled back. "I wish we could stay up here, sweetheart, and forget this damned war exists."

"But . . ." Kate knew there was an inevitable but. A relationship in the middle of a war did not lend itself to lengthy, undisturbed romantic interludes. Even if they stayed, one of the boys would inevitably track them down because someone was trying to kill someone else or the mess tent was on fire. It had happened before.

"But I need to figure the approach vector for those islands. And talk to Micklin and Hutch about loading 500 pounders just in case we find something that doesn't need to be there." He pulled her in for a final kiss. "And I need to do all of it without telling the boys what's going on. They'll hear it at the briefing tomorrow morning and that's soon enough. If I tell them tonight, they'll be seeing ghosts left and right and no one will get any sleep."

As they drove back to the base, Kate realized he hadn't answered her initial question. She hadn't answered his, either.

XXX

The next day

Ops

0600 hours

Here we go

The Black Sheep, like most of the men and women serving in the South Pacific, were no strangers to maritime ghost stories. In an area where air and watercraft were downed and sunk as a matter of routine, there was no lack of violent death. This provided a ripe breeding ground for tales of pilots and seamen come back from the dead. Sometimes it was to the benefit of the living. Sometimes it was not.

When Greg briefed the boys on the mission at 0600, a ripple of unease shifted through the assembled pilots. Boots scuffed the floor nervously as the men muttered among themselves. Kate perched on a table at the edge of the room, nursing a cup of coffee and silently praying the boys didn't let their superstitions get the better of them. As a unit, they were formidable against flesh and blood foes but she'd seen them stumble when facing something they felt was touched by unknown forces.

"Knock it off," Greg barked. "This is just another recon mission. We get in, we get out. Lard wants my report on his desk by 1200 hours so we're not monkeying around. When we get there, we go on radio silence. If someone is trying to send a signal, I don't want them trying to talk over you meatheads. A Flight, you'll provide cover while B Flight flies a search grid. We're looking for anything and I mean anything that might indicate someone is alive down there. Any questions? Then mount up."

If the men had questions, they kept them to themselves. The same could not be said for their opinions.

"Ghosts stay in one place if they have unfinished business," Bobby Boyle said as the pilots shifted toward the door.

"Business like sending an SOS?" Bob Anderson looked skeptical. "No incorporeal being is tapping out dashes and dots. If the signal is real, it's coming from human hands."

"Yeah. Human hands holding chopsticks," Jerry Bragg added. "This sounds like we're flyin' into a trap."

"Ghosts wouldn't send an SOS. If they're ghosts, there's nothing left to rescue," Casey said practically.

"You heard the man, mount up!" Jim snarled and the pilots turned as one and jogged toward the flight line.

Greg made his way from the front of the room and Kate slid off the table to meet him at the door.

"Good hunting," she said softly.

He kissed her on the forehead and was gone.

To be continued—