Operation 2 No Fly Zone
Green
Green was not having a good fucking time.
A power-tripping TSA agent pulled his carry-on off the belt and set it aside.
Grated nerves, sharp and hot, crawled up the back of his neck.
It wasn’t enough that he was about to get on a plane—a death trap with wings—now some airport cop with latex gloves was pawing through his shit as if she was auditioning for a role on How to Catch a Smuggler.
“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked around a clenched jaw.
The agent glared, smacking on her gum, as she kept digging.
Green stood there with his fists balled at his sides. Around him, bins clattered, agents barked orders, people shuffled and argued back, babies cried, and the PA announced a gate change every few seconds.
It was all too overstimulating, and the pressure of the upcoming flight felt like invisible hands squeezing his ribs.
The agent pulled out a black metal case and held it up between two fingers with a knowing glare, as if she was sure human remains were hidden inside it.
Green exhaled through his nose. “It’s my hair clippers. Not autopsy tools.”
Beside him, Ruxs, who was incapable of not escalating a problem until it was an absolute disaster, chimed in with a straight face.
“You’re looking in the wrong place, mam. The thirty grams of cocaine is shoved up his ass.”
Free, Tech, and Day choked and gasped so hard it drew the attention of most of the people around them.
Green snapped his head around, horror and fury hitting in the same punch. “That’s not funny, Mark.”
The TSA agent’s eyes widened before she motioned over a man—who looked like a regular customer at the airport Cinnabon—wearing a starched white shirt with a polished brass nameplate, badge on his hip, and supervisor stripes on his shoulders.
He put his hands on his hips and asked with bass in his command, “Sir, I’m gonna need you to step outta line and follow me into the private room behind me?”
Green closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling as if he was about to lose his shit…after he knocked out his partner.
He opened them again, staring straight at the agent who was now only a couple of feet away.
“I’m not stepping into any goddamn room. Because if you even think of sticking something up my ass, the next place that something’s going is in your fuckin’ mouth.”
“Jesus Christ,” Day muttered, half-laughing.
He knew how hostile that sounded, but it was too late to take it back.
His nerves were already strung tighter than piano wire. Then the thought of getting violated in a side room by some Jack Black lookalike before being loaded onto a flying coffin had pushed him off the cliff he’d been dangling over.
Before the supervisor could click on his radio and call for backup, God put his big arm up, catching his attention.
He flashed his badge, his deep voice carrying the kind of authority that made any man in an official capacity question his own.
“We’re law enforcement,” he said, turning to the rest of them. “You guys keep your damn mouths shut and show your badges.”
Everyone complied.
Day pulled his out with an annoyed huff. Free, Steele, and Tech did it while still laughing. Ruxs showed his with a shit-eating grin and a wink directed at him.
Green dug his badge out, glaring at his partner as if he said one more word, he’d dump his ass like yesterday’s garbage.
A TSA captain was summoned over. He stared hard at each badge, Green’s bad attitude, God’s bulk, then the group of them that were now clogging up the checkpoint, and decided they weren’t worth the headache, waving them through.
“See?” Ruxs muttered at Green as they grabbed their things. “A little comic relief got your mind off the flying, right?”
Comic relief!
Green cut him a glare that promised retribution.
God was last to step into the body scanner. The machine beeped.
Green was still bristling, especially when he saw the shift in the female TSA worker who’d given him such a hard time.
Her face had softened as she gazed at God. It was as if somebody had flipped on her erotic switch.
The agent batted her eyes and pointed at the badge still in God’s hand and the beanie on his head. “Um, those need to go in the bin.”
God tossed his badge in, slid off his hat with his usual maddening swagger, then ran one hand through his long thick hair.
The woman stared, biting her bottom lip as though she was trying not to voice her nasty thoughts.
Seriously? Green rolled his eyes.
God was the kind of ridiculous-hot that was infuriating.
At six-four, all muscle, intense green eyes framed by long lashes, and Fabio hair flowing down his back, made him look like some ancient war god disguised in Timberland boots and dark denim, traveling by way of Atlanta International instead of his chariot.
The agent wasn’t the only one gawking. The soccer mom behind him gave her pixie cut a self-conscious pat while she checked him out.
“Here we go,” Ruxs said under his breath to Day.
“Shut up,” Day muttered.
God went through the scanner again with no issue.
When he came out, the woman stepped a little closer, tilting her face up at him. “Don’t forget your, um… your—”
“My wallet, boots, belt, phone, and badge?” God said smoothly. He winked and pushed one side of his thick tresses behind his ear as he collected his things. “I remember, honey.”
The woman flushed so hard Green thought steam might come off her. “Have a good flight.”
“You’re shameless,” Day gritted after God took his hand.
God scoffed. “What did I do?”
Green didn’t care. His brain had already moved on.
By the time they got to the gate, boarding had started. People were filing down the jet bridge, smiling and laughing, oblivious, as if they’d never seen one of the Final Destination movies.
A flight agent at the counter was calling the group numbers in an irritatingly cheerful voice, while the other scanned the boarding passes.
Green slowed.
Then stopped.
He went to the window and stared at the plane.
It was enormous, its white body stretched long and wide, the wings jutting out like blades. It looked too big to leave the ground and too heavy not to fall out of the sky.
Every time he’d seen one flying overhead, he had the same thought—that should not be up there, and I’ll be damned if I ever get on one.
It was too much metal. Too many parts. Too many opportunities for something to snap, fail, combust, depressurize, or explode. And the countless windows down the side were too small for him to climb out of in case of an emergency.
“I’m not getting on that casket with refreshments. That’s how they lure you in…with those fuckin’ honey roasted peanuts.”
“Hey.” Ruxs came up behind him. “Let’s go.”
Green shook his head.
A thin sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He could feel it easing under his collar and down the back of his neck. His hands were damp, clenched around the handle of his carry-on.
His heartbeat was too fast, too hard, thumping in ugly, shallow bursts as if it were trying to warn him.
“I’ve got a bad feeling,” he said.
Ruxs frowned. “What kind of feelin’?”
Like if he got on that thing, the door would seal and there’d be nowhere to go, nowhere to run or hide if there was danger. He couldn’t handle not being in control of his life. Green shook his head again, faster. He started pacing because standing still felt worse.
“I’m not going.”
“The hell you’re not,” God said from the gate door.
Green didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to see God’s face or the command in it.
“I need both of you there,” God said. “Now untuck your fuckin’ balls and get on the plane.”
“Steele is more than capable to back Ruxs if he—”
“Steele is my brother, not my partner,” Ruxs cut in. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Green swallowed, shame and anger warring in his chest.
He hated this. Hated that it made him appear weak.
“You know I don’t like flying,” he whispered harshly.
“I know you don’t,” Ruxs said, lowering his voice. “But you said you’d do it. You took the Valium, right?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“Okay, give it time. It’ll kick in before the layover. Then you can just sleep the last leg.”
He’d taken it right before he’d left home. It wasn’t doing a damn thing but making his tongue feel thick while his brain continued to scream for him to run.
God was getting more visibly agitated by the second. Day, Tech, and Free, on the other hand, looked entertained. Which only made Green more homicidal.
“I’ll drive and meet y’all there,” he muttered, taking a few steps back.
Day laughed. “You mean meet us there next week?”
“Honestly,” Tech said, adjusting the strap of his bag, “the odds of dying in a car crash are about one in a hundred. But dying on a plane is so rare the odds couldn’t even be calculated last year. So yeah, driving makes more sense.”
Green turned on them with a scowl sharp enough to kill on spot. “All of you fuck off.”
The gate agent lifted the microphone. “Final call for boarding.”
Perfect. A countdown. Exactly what his nerves needed.
“I’m going to my seat,” God said. “You both better have your asses on that plane before it takes off.”
He turned and walked away, not looking back, because of course he did. Just walked casually into that death portal as if he were getting on a ride at an amusement park.
Green dragged both hands through his hair and started cursing. Quietly at first, then louder when it didn’t help. “Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck that plane. Fuck this whole trip.”
Day laughed harder. “You didn’t happen to just watch Cast Away, did you? I mean, sure, everyone else died, but Tom Hanks does make it off the island…four years later.”
Green lunged for his lieutenant before he could think better of it.
Ruxs caught him around the waist and hauled him back against his chest.
“Day,” Steele called over his shoulder while heading down the jet bridge, “leave him alone.”
“I’m just saying,” Day said, still grinning as he boarded.
Free examined Green with that fascinated expression he got when certain human behaviors offended his brilliance.
“During the westside bust, you jumped from a second-story balcony onto a moving SUV, with three men shooting at you, and didn’t die… but you can’t get on a commercial flight where you have, statistically, a one in eleven million chance of dying? I’m so confused. And I’m never confused.”
Green was furious that everyone kept acting as though his fear wasn’t understandable. God wielded two Desert Eagles handguns at the same time but had a crippling fear of rodents.
The gate agent stared at them with strained patience. “I have to close the doors now.”
Free and Tech went through the door, leaving him and Ruxs.
The airport turned too quiet.
The gate area was mostly abandoned. The glass windows reflected only the two of them, and beyond it sat the huge, waiting, steel-bellied animal with its mouth open, ready to swallow him whole.
Something caught his eye below the wing.
Movement.
“Oh shit.” He jabbed at the window. “What are they doing? See! I told you! There’s some mechanical shit happening.”
A cluster of men were moving, lifting and shifting things in and out of the underside of the plane.
Ruxs sighed. “Those aren’t mechanics. They’re the guys who load the luggage and people’s pets and shit. There’s nothing wrong with the plane.”
Green tried to breathe slower.
He couldn’t.
He kept staring anyway, waiting for smoke, sparks, a premonition, or the tiniest sign that would justify him turning around.
Ruxs stepped in front of him and cupped his warm hands against his cheeks.
The joking was gone, there was no grinning, taunting, or smartass comments. Just that hard, steady look he gave him when he was telling him he had him.
Then he kissed him.
It wasn’t soft or pretty. It was firm and grounding, cutting through the doubt and noise in his head. Enough to make his surrounding narrow down to Ruxs’ mouth, hands, and his heat.
When Ruxs pulled back, he kept his hands on Green’s jaw, thumbs stroking along his cheekbones.
“You can do this,” Ruxs said quietly.
He grabbed fistfuls of Ruxs’s sweatshirt, needing more to hold on to.
“I’m right here with you,” Ruxs said. “You’re not doing this alone.”
Green swallowed hard.
“You’re fierce as hell, and you know it. If anything happened, you’d be the first motherfucker on that plane trying to save everybody else.”
That was the humiliating part.
If the plane did go down, if something failed, if the cabin filled with smoke or a terrorist tried to break into the cockpit, he knew exactly what he’d do.
He’d fight. He’d help. He’d shove his fear down like he did on missions, long enough to drag people out, hold pressure on wounds or break something open with his bare hands.
Ruxs leaned in until their foreheads touched. “This is just another kind of danger for you to conquer. And I’m with you.”
Green held on tighter.
He shut his eyes for a long second. His breathing was still rough, his chest still tight, but Ruxs was close enough for it to no longer paralyze him.
When he opened his eyes again, Ruxs gave him that crooked grin, the one that always managed to sneak under his armor.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I promise to put your mask on first before I put on mine.”
Damn him, that got through. He didn’t laugh, not really, but it did make his mouth twitch.
“You fuckin’ bastard,” he huffed.
Ruxs took his hand and led him towards the jet bridge.
“Come on, handsome. Let’s go wreak havoc on the West Coast.”