By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers) (26 page)

He tried to stand up and banged his head on the low ceiling of the DAP Hawk. Thankfully his hat gave him enough warning before he brained himself and was just shoved down low over his eyes. He worked it back loose and scooted across the deck to her.

His hand reached out tentatively and touched her on the arm. “You’re here!”

“No, this is just an illusion of me. Of course I’m here. Had to see how the other half lived.”

He’d never been so happy to—

He leaned around her control console and crushed her to his chest. To hold her for even a moment was the best—

“Hold on there.” He sat back on his heels and kept his hands on her shoulders. “What in the wide world are you doing here?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Okay? Okay! Goddamn it, Kara! All this time, I kept telling myself it didn’t matter what happened to me as long as you were safe back aboard the
Peleliu
. How dare you risk yourself out here! What if I’d already been dead? You’re not supposed to face shit like that.”

Kara brushed a hand over his cheek. “You have the most beautiful face, Cowboy. I plan to spend a lifetime looking at it. But sometimes you are as dumb as one of your horses. I already killed you once; I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

And she told him the story of the night he’d missed.

“You shot down
Calamity Jane
thinking I was aboard?”

She nodded.

And then she’d found him and flown to his rescue.

“I don’t deserve you.” It was the only conclusion he could reach.

“You’re stuck with me anyway, Cowboy. You did hear what I said?”

“Uh.” Justin tried to think of what she could be referring to. Her impossible bravery at taking the right action even when thinking he was aboard? That was even harder than merely losing your crew.

Or that he was dumb as one of his horses—

“Wait a sec.”

“Ah! The light dawns.”

“Now just hold on there.”

Kara folded her hands neatly in her lap and did her best to look sweet, innocent, and endlessly patient. He knew full well that she was sweet only when it pleased her, not one ounce innocent, and about as patient as a golden retriever waiting for a tennis ball.

“You said something about my face.”

“Did I?” Kara played innocent all of a sudden.

Well, two could play that game. “Huh, guess not. My mistake.” He rose to a low squat and turned to fall back into the seat beside her.

The punch on his arm felt like he’d just come home.

“You know, there’s one thing I can’t figure out.”

“Like how to ask a girl to marry you?” Kara teased.

“No, no. Wasn’t that.” He gave it right back.

She actually growled at him.

“Like how they knew exactly where my helicopter would be and to have a crew waiting that was capable of flying it. An MH-47G isn’t exactly a Toyota pickup. A man needs training to fly it.”

“That’s been bothering me too.” She leaned her shoulder against his as the DAP Hawk took a hard banking turn. “I didn’t know what it was until you said something, but it was like an itch.”

“One your future husband could scratch for you?”

“Asshole.”

“Love you, Kara.”

“Jerk!” But she leaned into his kiss plenty hard.

He could never tire of the taste of her or the way they responded to each other.

Even Raymond joined the round of applause from his crew by thumping his uninjured hand against the deck.

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you one and all for staying alive and sticking with me. You’re the best flight crew alive.”

They cheered and laughed; it was a good moment.

But Kara wasn’t the only one with an itch, and he’d had a few thoughts about it during his long hours as a hostage.

Kara found that it wasn’t hard to look as exhausted as she felt. She wanted a joyous reunion, a celebration of everyone surviving a difficult and challenging mission. She wanted a goddamn day off after what she’d just been through. The last time she’d slept just might have been on the car ride from Brooklyn to Maryland; she didn’t count the comatose hours during which she’d thought she had murdered Justin.

Instead she was standing beside the coffin and waiting for Michael to return with Major Willard Wilson.

They finally appeared down the far end of the hangar deck and began the long walk. It was still dark night, though dawn was coming soon. The deck was dimly lit by work lights, and the two figures moved in and out of shadow until they stopped before her.

“Thanks, Michael. Hey, Willy Nilly.” She did her best to sound genuinely disgusted. Not hard.

“Hey, honey. You doing any better? Hard thing you did yesterday, shooting down one of your own. Real tough.”

“You call me ‘honey’ one more time and you might be wearing a cowboy boot in your balls.”

“Sure thing, honey.” He grinned down at her and she barely resisted the urge to do as she’d threatened; would have under any other circumstances.

“I…haven’t been feeling well. But you wanted to get the records of the Ramon Airbase mission?”

“Yeah, I really do. I want to secure those before someone sees them who shouldn’t.”

“Uh-huh.” Kara kept her thoughts to herself as to who that might be. She turned to the coffin, keyed in the new code, and leaned down for the retinal scan. The bolts thudded aside. She swung the door wide and Major Wilson hurried forward.

On the threshold to the door he stumbled to a halt. “What the hell? You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Don’t you mean I’m supposed to be dead as a beaten horse?” Justin stood just inside the coffin’s door.

“No. Yes. No. You’re supposed to be—” Wilson clamped down on his tongue.

“I’m supposed to be in the hands of the bomb makers.”

“What bomb?” Wilson asked. “The Hamas cell was making nerve agent.”

Tom stepped out from behind the still-closed half of the door. “Funny thing, Wilson. I never mentioned what my team recovered at Ramon. Never said it was nerve agent.”

“Sure you did.” Wilson backed up and bumped against Michael.

“Neither I nor my team.” Tom stood shoulder to shoulder with Justin. “Then we analyzed who knew where the
Calamity Jane
would be landed during the operation. That’s a pretty small circle.”

“I’m guessing,” Kara joined in, “that based on their last course change, the Hamas flight crew were supposed to use the
Jane
to eradicate our ground team before they could be recovered and expose you with the information they forced from the Hamas cell buried in the American Camp.”

“Thing was”—Michael’s voice was so cold that it sent a chill up her spine—“none of them knew who you were. Just a voice on the phone. You were just a faceless moneyman to them.”

“If you hadn’t figured on using the
Jane
to make a suicide run against our team inside Ramon Airbase—” Justin began.

“—we never would have suspected you, Willy Nilly,” Kara finished.

Wilson spun to face her, his face contorted with rage. “That’s the last time you call me that, bitch! I can’t believe you were so goddamn heartless that you’d shoot down your own lover. Guess spreading your legs for him didn’t mean shit! Should have fucked you myself—just a common whore!”

And he struck out at her.

Before Kara could even think to react, a massive hand clamped down on Wilson’s wrist, stopping his fist inches from her face. Justin twisted Wilson’s arm up and back, then used it to steer the man’s face into the steel side of the coffin. Hard.

Keeping him pinned there, Justin moved up close behind Wilson. “We thought about what you were planning—to dump a nerve agent in the American Camp food supply inside the security perimeter of Ramon Airbase.”

“Hundreds of dead Americans in a place where only the Israelis could be blamed.” Tom continued the analysis, because that was the part he had figured out. “You’d break up a beautiful friendship. By causing a major international incident between Israel and the U.S., we might even have pulled all support from Israel, destabilizing the whole country. Exactly what the Palestinian Al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas would want.”

“At first, we couldn’t figure out what motivated you. Murdering American servicemen and women. Betraying your country.” Justin’s voice was thick with anger at that.

“But then I had this little idea,” Kara said lightly, as if she were shopping for a scarf.

“We’d already done complete and deep background checks on you,” Tom put in. “We knew it wasn’t family or ideology.”

“Money, you fucking creep.” Justin hadn’t eased up on Wilson’s arm, and he cried out as Justin wrenched it further.

Kara was right, seeing Justin mad was not a safe place to be unless you were on his side. The easygoing cowboy wasn’t a facade; it’s who he was. But down inside he was the baddest papa bear imaginable.

“Of course.” Tom leaned casually against the door frame of the GCS. “The Activity does have some capabilities, ones you have drastically underestimated. Your millions are gone despite the offshore account shuffle you did. Your Hamas contact is already in Kidon custody, and we expect to have your moneyman soon.”

“Even I don’t know who he is,” Wilson grunted out.

“Oh, but we do.” Tom’s smile was not a friendly one. “A renegade Saudi Prince’s Lamborghini Huracán is about to have a regrettable accident.”

“You know, Willy Nilly”—Kara got right up in his face and drawled out his nickname thickly—“we talked about what to do with you. But then someone else had an excellent suggestion.”

Tanya came around from behind the coffin. “Hello, Major Wilson. Israel, particularly Mossad, we would very much enjoy showing you our country, a very small piece of it, and talking with you there…for as long as you last.”

Kara could see Wilson’s eyes shoot wide, then Michael injected the knockout drug he’d held ready. Justin leaned in moments before Wilson lost consciousness.

His voice wasn’t a low snarl. It wasn’t a shout. It was one of the quietest and most dangerous sounds Kara had ever heard, little more than a whisper.

“You never strike a lady.”

The dawn light was washing across the sky where Kara and Justin were standing on the fantail of the
Peleliu
’s hangar deck and looking down at the ocean gently rolling out behind the big ship.

“I guess your mother was right, Justin.” Kara wished she had laughter or joy in her at this moment. It had been a lot of long hard days since the moment they’d left Brooklyn. But she didn’t dare miss the chance. She had to get this done before he flew again. It was too important to put off.

“She usually is.” Justin shifted to stand behind her. Wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest.

Safe. Safest place she’d ever been on the whole crazy planet.

“What did she say this time?”

“Your mother…” Kara tried to focus on speaking, but being in Justin’s arms made it difficult. “She said I was going to have to be the one to propose to you.”

“Did she? Don’t that beat all.”

“So Justin—”

“Nope. I’m gonna stop you right there, sweetheart.” He planted a kiss atop her head.

“But—”

“Said nope, and mean nope.”

“Justin—” He was about the most irritating man ever.

“I’m going to propose to you. But this isn’t the proper place or the proper time.”

“Oh, what is?” She tried for “arch with disdain” and feared that she landed closer to “goofy with delight.”

“I’m going to propose to you”—he nuzzled her ear—“in this place I know where there won’t be another soul for ten miles about. We’ll ride out there among the yellow and blue flowers of Texas. I will make love to you all night.”

“Outdoors?”

“Of course outdoors.”

Kara had never done that. Wasn’t really the thing in Brooklyn, but she liked the way it sounded.

“And in the morning—”

“In the morning?” she managed to prompt him dreamily. She was completely gone on this man for a reason.

“A time like now, right about dawn, when the sun glows as bright as you do, I will get down on bended knee and beg you properly to marry me and stay with me until the end of our days.”

“I’ll wear my pretty boots.”

“I’m counting on that. And I’ll offer you my granny’s ring; it will look beautiful on your hand.”

“Father’s side or—”

“Direct lineage of Annie Landau Evans Roberts. I already asked permission.”

“Oh.” Kara tried to catch her breath without very much luck. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

“I was thinking you might.”

Kara lay back against him as they watched the sun rise off the stern of the warship. They’d fly together. And when they were done, they’d ride together. Them, and their children.

“Justin?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“My answer will be yes. Just so you know.”

“Pleased to hear that.” He rested his chin atop her head so that she was fully against that wonderful broad chest of his. “There is one other thing I should mention as it is nonnegotiable.”

“And what’s that, Cowboy?” Of course he’d wait until she was total putty in his arms.

“Gotta get you a cowboy hat.”

She turned in his arms and pulled him down so that she could kiss him at the first break of day. Before their lips did more than brush, she whispered one more thing.

“You mean a cowgirl hat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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Flash of Fire

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Flash of Fire

An alarm shattered the pre-dawn silence. Not some squeaky little beeper. Not Macho Man in the Morning on the radio. And, thank all the gods there ever were, not the bloodcurdling “Incoming enemy fire” siren that Robin Harrow had heard a lifetime’s worth of during her six years of Army National Guard service—both in practice and during a pair of six-month deployments in Afghanistan.

But it was just as strident.

Wildfire!

Robin lay in her bunk a moment longer, as grunts rolled out of their own racks up and down the barracks hall, heels thudding to the floor, moans and groans sounding through the thin plywood walls.

She’d been awake and glaring at the blank darkness of the bunkhouse’s low plywood ceiling for hours, only now coming visible in the first light through the thin curtains. Awake and ready to go. Day One on the job, also Day One of the fire season. She’d lain there wondering just what she’d signed up for and how long it would take for the action to start. Part two had just been answered; not very long.

Bring it, people.

In the interview for Mount Hood Aviation, they’d promised her that when it hit she’d be scrambling. She was absolutely down with that no matter how little she actually believed them.

After the worst of the clatter in the neighboring dormitory rooms had settled, Robin dropped out of her bunk. She’d used her dad’s firefighter trick—at least her mom was pretty sure her dad had been a firefighter, so she’d watched a lot of fire movies and learned what she could. Her flight suit was pre-slipped with fire-retardant cotton long johns and the legs of her flight suit in turn were already in her unlaced boots. In thirty seconds flat she went from sleeping bare on top of the covers to lacing her boots.

She’d spotted the job opening for a temp one-season piloting job and, needing to get out of her post-service life in the worst way, answered the ad. Her time in the Guard had included certifying for heli-bucket brigade on out-of-control wildfires. It was a damn sight better than her gig in her mother’s truck stop restaurant playing the “Hi! I’m Robin!” perky waitress. She’d had way more than enough of that as a kid and teen.

Phoebe’s Tucson Truck Stop—founded by and named for Grandma Phoebe Harrow—was one of the last big independents on the routes. A massive complex that sat on the I-10 just south of Tucson. They could fuel over a dozen rigs at a time and park hundreds. Truck wash and basic service, certified CAT scales, motel if you wanted a night out of your rig, barbershop, and—the bane of her existence—Mom’s Grill.

Peddling herself as a waitress was part of the gig, or at least pretending to: tight—and too goddamn short—outfit to reveal her soldier-fit body, her light-blond hair kept short with that chopped look that men thought was so cute—and she liked for its low maintenance. She really did do it herself with a pair of scissors.

Robin double checked her Nomex pants and her leather Army boots, now that’s what a girl should wear, not some damned hot pink mini-skort. She pulled on a white cotton tee—screw the bra, she’d never liked the damn things anyway and on a Harrow woman they weren’t mandatory. Nomex jacket in one hand, personal gear bag over her shoulder, and she was good to go. Nobody was going to mess with Robin the firefighter pilot.

She headed out into the hall of the now silent dormitory. Not a soul in sight. She put on some hustle down the dark and narrow hallway. But she’d gone the wrong way and hit a dead end. Turning back she went looking for a way out of this place. The corridors weren’t long, but it was a maze worse than dodging the trucker’s with straying hands.

Despite Robin’s constant battles at the truck stop, the tips had been really good; Grandma Phoebe’s pointers on how to work money out of the late-night guys’ soused brains—and their deeply overinflated illusions of what was
never
going to happen—paid well, but…GAG!

Much to her surprise, when she told Mama and Grandma about the ad for a seasonal firefighting job, they’d shuffled her ass out the door and over to the airport so fast it had left her head spinning. Robin had always assumed she’d eventually settle into the traces to become the third Harrow woman to run Phoebe’s Tucson Truck Stop, but maybe not. At least not this season.

Robin zagged the other direction through the MHA camp’s labyrinthine barracks after hitting a second dead-end corridor. She spotted a few guys coming out of a door, holding their toothbrushes. But when she arrived, she didn’t see any women’s bathroom close beside it.

Robin gave up on finding the women’s bathroom and walked into the men’s. While she leaned over the cracked porcelain and brushed her teeth, the guys who were rushing by half-dressed gave her odd looks reflected in the sheet of scratched steel screwed to the battered wood wall as a mirror. In moments she was the only one there, staring idly at the “Jimmy + Theresa” inside a heart and a thousand more inscriptions carved into the fir-plank wall with a penknife over the years.

Robin pocketed the toothbrush and rinsed her face. If this were the AANG, grunts would all be formed up on the line by now, but the civilian world…the men would still be moving slow and the women were probably back in their rooms doing their hair. She stroked a damp hand through her short hair and she was done with that. Robin headed for the field.

Robin headed down the hall and banged out the doors ready to leap at the fire…and was staring at the gravel parking lot. Not a soul here. The lot was crowded with dusty pickups that had seen a better life a long, long time ago, an impressive array of muscle cars—enough to make a good drag race, and several motorbikes—some hot and some not. But no people.

Damn it! She’d come out the wrong side of the building.

* * *

“How was the wedding?”

Mickey Hamilton was moving too slow to avoid Gordon’s cheery punch on the arm. He’d pulled in late last night and he’d been more stumbling than functioning since the fire alarm had rousted him. He’d had enough hours of sleep, but he really needed some coffee.

“Morning, Gordon.” Mickey rubbed at his eyes, but it didn’t help. The first day of MHA’s fire season he should have been allowed to sleep in. But no-o. Sunrise hadn’t even hit the horizon yet, though it was only minutes away, and the first call had come in. Most of the team were already at the base of the airfield’s two-story control tower even though it was less than five minutes since the alarm. MHA tried to hit fifteen minutes from alarm to airborne and no one wanted to screw it up on the first day.

The rising sun was dazzling off the glaciered peak of Mt. Hood that loomed to the west. The air smelled ice fresh and pine sharp on the June breeze—especially after spending four days back home in the Eastern Oregon where the grass was already going dry and dusty. It was going to be a hell of a fire season.

He breathed in deep. Here the Doug fir and spruce that surrounded the camp rolled for dozens of miles in every direction, except up the face of the mountain which spilled glacier-cooled air down through the warm morning.

The grass strip runway split the ramshackle camp buildings behind them from the line of beautiful firefighting craft parked down the far side. Straight across stood Firehawk One. He could almost see a frown on its blunt nose because Emily wouldn’t be aboard. But his own Bell 212 was three down the row and was just as eager to get going as he was.

“Smells like a good morning to go fight a fire.”

“Avoiding the question, Mickey. Tell me, was the bride hot?”

“My sister, Gordon. Get a grip.”

“Right, sorry.”

Vern, one of the Firehawk pilots moseyed up looking about as awake as Mickey felt.

“Hey Mickey. So, was the bride hot?”

Mickey sighed. “Yeah, she was…” and he left the guys hanging for several very long seconds. “But not as hot as the Number Two bridesmaid.”

“Yes!” Gordon pumped a fist. “Details, Mickey. We want details.”

Mickey scanned the crowd gathering. MHA’s pilots, smokejumpers, and support personal were all hustling up. The team’s leaders, Mark and a spectacularly pregnant Emily, and Carly, their genius fire behavior analyst were all conferring on the platform landing one story up the control tower stairs. But they didn’t look ready to announce anything, so he turned back to his audience, which now included Steve the drone pilot and Cal the photographer.

“Suzanna Rose. Went to high school together, but we never hooked up. Saw her at rehearsal dinner and let’s just say I saw a whole lot of her after that.”

“It’s those blue eyes of yours.”

“Nah, it’s because he looks like an ex-Marine.”

“Which I’m not.” Mickey had started flying helicopters before he started driving cars. Actually, he’d flown his first helicopter on his tenth birthday and never looked back. It had been a ten-inch-long, radio-controlled wonder with red-white-and-blue racing stripes that he’d crashed and rebuilt a hundred times. He’d been fifteen before his first real bird. Had been with MHA for eight years since graduation, all of it flying to fight wildfires.

“Women don’t care.”

“It’s because you’re so pretty.” Gordon tried to pat his cheeks until Mickey fisted him lightly in the gut.

“Let’s just say it was an awesome wedding.”

“Seeing her again?” Vern, the cowboy tall pilot from Washington State.

“Nah.” Mickey tried to sound casual about it. A part of him—a past part—should have been pleased by how neatly it all worked out, but another part of him—one he didn’t know well—was disappointed. “She’s leaving for a job in Europe next week. Be gone at least a year.”

“Perfect!” was Gordon’s response, but Vern looked a little sad for him only reinforcing the feeling of disappointment that Mickey didn’t understand.

Of course Vern was biased. He’d gone and fallen in love with the gorgeous and diminutive MHA chief mechanic over the winter. Oddest looking couple, but it was working for them which was…good? There’d been a whole lot of weddings lately among the MHA top staff and it was…odd. He sighed, but kept it to himself.

“Oh, hey. You gotta see the new pilot. Emily’s replacement. She’s amazing!”

So she’d finally found a replacement? Flying without Emily Beale in the lead this season was going to be like having one of your arms amputated and no one telling you. You just kept reaching out and getting nothing but air. Of course one look at her huge belly as she stood there next to Mark up on the first-story landing of the tower and he wondered how she’d even fit between in the pilot’s seat for the candidate-interview flights.

They’d gone on for weeks. Hopefuls—all guys—showing up, sometimes several a day, trooping into the Oregon wilderness and driving up to the high Mount Hood Aviation base camp. To substitute for Emily, someone was going to have to be seriously good. She was the best heli-pilot Mickey had seen in a decade of flying and eight years on fires.

After nearly a decade of fighting fire, Mickey could see the failures almost as fast as Beale had them back out of the sky. Military-quality control, but no feel for a fire—not even the flaming steel drums set up mid-field. Weekend aviation jocks who thought that flying fire was just about taking the certification course—MHA wasn’t a place heli-aviation firefighters started, it was where they strove to end up.

And then she’d hired a female pilot. If it was anyone else than Emily Beale, you could claim gender bias, but not her. Emily only cared about finding the very best. She set an amazing standard.

“So…” Mickey turned back to the other guys as Betsy the cook worked her way through the crowd with a stack of Styrofoam and a pitcher of coffee. Everything stopped while they all loaded up, then reconvened gripping cups of Betsy’s best brew. “So, what’s the new recruit like other than hot?”