Jinx - 27

[Another very complicated plot] Bud answered his cell phone while flying with Harm in his stearman. Mac asked them to meet her and then told H that Lt Tess McKee was killed when her F-14 hit a flock of birds during a low level flight practice mission and spun into the ocean. McKee had held on long enough for her RIO, Lt Peter Ayers, to eject. She had been recommended, by several members of congress, to be appointed as the first female member of the Blue Angels. Ayers was then the last surviving member (out of 8) of the Howler squad, who accidentally blew up a mosque in gulf war. SadDAM claimed that 100 were killed. Intel later confirmed that a radio link to the missile had shut off and SadDAM had parked a SAM missile truck right in front of the mosque. H visited Annie Pendry and Josh, wife of deceased pilot friend Lucas Pendry and helped her around the house. Josh had his arm in a cast from a hockey injury. A reporter came to Annie asking about a supposed "Jinx" of the squadron and seemed to know information about the mosque, which Luke had sworn her to secrecy about. B "ticked-off" H by buying into the "bad Karma" of the unit so was assigned some "busy work" in a brusque manner. Later he asked H if he was "still mad at me," and H said "I was never mad at you B, it's M who is always complaining about you." Staying at Annie's, H had a dream of being in a bar and talking with his old friend Luke who told him that it was alright if he wanted to "be with" Annie, but to "not start anything that he didn't intend to finish." H's long time feelings for Annie began to come to the surface and they kissed several times. She was offered a transfer to the Baltimore area but didn't know if she was going to take it. She finally told him that she had decided to "go for it" to get her life back on track. She said that she would call H when she was on her feet.

Ayers was assigned on a mission with pilot Lt Vanderway and panicked going through a storm, then was hit by lightening which started a fire. They landed ok but Vanderway told the captain he didn't want to fly with Ayers anymore because he was a jinx. The captain told him to not talk of it again because "this stuff feeds on itself, and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy." H bristled at an obnoxious reporter trying to find a "scoop" over the Jinx aspect so told M that he was going to "take a couple of days." He stayed with Annie fixing up the house and pursuing their relationship. She wondered to him if Luke would want her to have another relationship, "especially if it was with you." M appeared at the house and caught them kissing. M informed H that Ayers had turned in his wings when he was asked to fly the missing man formation the next day for McKee's funeral. B tailed him to a mosque where H caught up with him. B calculated that of the 7 Howler crashed since the Gulf War, 6 of them were on Islamic holy days. The funeral was on another Holy day and "I wouldn't want to fly either," B said. H finally convinced Ayers that it was up to him to "put an end to this or it will destroy the Howlers." No one would fly with him so H said that he would. H pulled the missing man then went for the "standard" refueling practice. During the refueling the basket hit and broke the Plexiglas canopy wounding and partially blinding H. Ayers was panicking and demanding to eject but H ordered him not to. They diverted to El Toro and Ayers had to talk H down reading out the instrument values to him. H landed "blind" and afterwards Ayers found that a Plexiglas shard had fouled his ejection mechanism and his seat wouldn't have fired so Hs "would have fried" him. H told him that he would fly with him anytime because he was "untouchable."