watched wide-eyed as his wing man, and good friend, somehow did the impossible. Honed from years of some of the best flying Nitalli had ever seen, McKay altered the 767’s path, its downward trajectory painfully slow. To an untrained eye it would have seemed that the F-18 was having no effect, but Nitalli saw it, the shift as they plunged through the seconds, the falling feet. McKay’s fighter was like a sheep dog herding a charging bull, subtle pressure applied expertly. Nitalli counted it down in his head. Three, two, one. The interlocked aircraft narrowly missed the southern wall of the embassy complex, plunging spectacularly into the Tigris River. Water shot every which way like the footstep of a titan, drenching a wide swath of the coastline. Nitalli said a silent thanks to his friend, the man who’d saved his career. No one else would’ve gone to bat for him, telling the admiral that he’d take care of the free-spirited Italian-American.
