By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers) (7 page)

All day the
Peleliu
had raced south, the poor old ship proving that her bones were still good and powerful. Kara had avoided the many questions from SOAR and Navy personnel alike by retreating to her cabin and doing a face-plant that didn’t begin to recover what the last three sixteen-hour days of flying had taken out of her.

When she finally climbed out of the sack, Lola and Trisha were headed for a pre-breakfast run…so Kara headed for the showers. She really didn’t need questions at this point, especially ones she suspected she wasn’t allowed to answer. She swept through the breakfast line taking anything portable—carefully not looking toward Connie and Claudia at one of the half-filled mess tables—and headed for the GCS container.

Once inside, she pulled down the black case from the top shelf, keyed in the security code, and opened it.

There at the workbench, she ate as she prepped the ScanEagle with the instrument packages she wanted. With only seven and a half pounds of useful payload on the RPA, she had to be very selective.

So, she had to figure out how to put aloft the best package, with no idea of what she needed ahead of time.

A day-and-night camera, but not the hi-resolution gear because it weighed too much, and imaging radar.

She was tempted by the radiation and bioweapon sensors, but that would only satisfy her own curiosity about what The Activity might have been hunting.

The rest of her payload was given over to a high-speed ELINT package. In addition to receiving radio signals from the team, it would gather any Electronic Intelligence on a broad spectrum of frequencies and could even provide limited signal jamming of the “enemy” if necessary.

When she was done, Kara tucked the ScanEagle back in its crate and locked it. Instead of being three feet square by twenty-five long and weighing nearly two tons when loaded for flight—like the Gray Eagle’s coffin—the ScanEagle’s crate was a foot square by five long and weighed less than her rucksack loaded for a 10K hike. Despite the military having switched over to metric, it was still easier to think in feet than in meters.

The four of them now stood out in the fading sunset, the first one she’d seen in days. They were on the huge aircraft elevator that moved helicopters between the flight deck and the hangar deck. The steel platform stuck five meters out from the side of the ship and was half again as long. The elevator had been lowered to the hangar deck position.

No need to go up on the flight deck and expose her little baby to inquiring eyes. It was a funny juxtaposition to launch such a tiny aircraft from such a massive ship.

“This little beauty is something few folks get to see.” Kara triple-checked that they were the only personnel in the area.

Justin hovered close behind her, just like Michael and Willard. Kara felt as if she were center stage, rather than standing on the aircraft elevator platform that stuck out the side of the
Peleliu.

Justin had helped her wheel out the ScanEagle’s launching platform. It was a light trailer with a single center rail. It looked much like a heavy-duty crossbow tilted up at the sky.

She snapped open the case, lifted out the main body, and set it on the rail.

“As far as I know, there are only three other black box ScanEagles and they’re all in SOAR. I heard hints that there was one more in use by some wildland firefighting outfit. How’s that for a crazy rumor, huh?”

* * *

Justin noticed that while Willard laughed, Delta Operator Michael Gibson was even quieter than usual. Wasn’t that interesting? Justin tried to imagine why a wildfire outfit would need what he was looking at and came up blank.

He’d worked with a normal ScanEagle before. It was as long as a manure shovel and as big around as a horse’s muzzle—and about as lumpy. A pair of delicate, swept-back wings stuck out five feet to either side.

In three minutes, Kara had the wings pinned on, the little vertical winglets sticking up from the wingtips like exclamation points. The ScanEagle sported a rear propeller with a diameter no longer than his elbow to his fingertips.

All of that was normal.

But the body wasn’t thin-sheet aluminum. He rapped a knuckle on it, black composite laminate. And the body was all strange angles. Even the ScanEagles in the 5D were stealth.

This fascinated Wilson in a way that the inside of the GCS coffin hadn’t.

And clearly his interest and obvious attention was being soaked up by a Kara eager to teach willing pupils.

But there was more than that.

And Justin wasn’t enjoying it much.

He could see Kara warming up to Wilson.

And Justin could feel that weird edge that some guys had, the ones who only dated married women…or tried to take a woman as soon as they saw she was with someone else.

Worse, she was falling for it. He’d thought her too smart for such ploys and found the bitter taste of disappointment a harsh reality.

Justin considered tossing the guy off the railing—they were still ten meters above the ocean and no one would really miss him, would they?—or nudging him into the propeller that Kara had just started on the little RPA. Then he could spend the rest of his shipboard “visit” in sick bay—assuming the blade didn’t catch anything vital.

Instead, he awaited his moment.

Kara warned them, then hit the launch switch, and the ScanEagle zipped aloft and was quickly lost to view in the settling twilight.

“Normally, it auto-launches to a thousand feet up and circles, waiting for me. This time I have Tago scooting her away from the
Peleliu
just as fast as she’ll go.”

Willard cut Justin off by stepping forward to help return the launcher back inside the hangar deck. Justin bit the inside of his cheek rather than smashing a fist into Willy Wilson’s.

They all turned for the GCS coffin.

Justin held the door while waving Willard and Michael inside, and then he shut it in Kara’s face before she could enter.

The hangar deck was otherwise empty. The fading daylight, combined with the distant work lights, made soft shadows. Through with her speed run, the
Peleliu
’s engines were back to an idle. It was almost peaceful. Justin’s pulse was anything but, hammering against his skull so hard he wondered that it didn’t echo around the hangar deck.

Justin hadn’t put his hands on Kara the first two times. This time he did.

He slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her tight against him. And when he leaned down to kiss her, she turned out to be more than ready; she was unexpectedly eager. Her arms went around his neck and hung on.

What he’d intended as a reminder of their first two kisses and a promise of more to come roared right into full flight.

She pulled him in and took a step back until she landed against the container’s door with a thump without breaking their connection. He didn’t need more of an invitation to pin her body there with his. Her curves fit against him in wonderful ways that made him think of…nothing. His senses were on full overload, and his brain was not receiving any blood at all.

His hand, with no guidance from his disconnected and dying brain, decided on its own to find out how soft her hair was. The other scooped down to her behind and encountered hard muscle in that ever-so-feminine curve that had been shaped perfectly to fit his palm.

Her mouth was as sweet as her lips, and her hunger was as ravenous as his own.

When she slid a leg up the back of his thigh, he forced himself to pull back until he had a palm on either side of her head against the steel door.

She brushed her hands over his chest.

His entire body vibrated with need for her, but she wasn’t looking up at him. She was looking at her hands stroking over his T-shirt and driving him crazier than a stallion separated from a herd of mares by a ten-foot fence.

“He is a little obvious, isn’t he?”

Willard.

“Aw shoot! I shoulda known.”

“Known what?” She finally looked up at him. Her dark eyes glittered with amusement.

“Captain Kara Moretti doesn’t miss a thing.”

* * *

Kara looked back down at Justin’s chest, not so much to admire it—though she could feel that exceptional fitness through the thin T-shirt, right down to six-pack abs—but more to hide her own thoughts.

She hadn’t meant to set up Justin to be jealous, though she was flattered that the situation had done so. More than flattered, she wanted another kiss like that one the way she craved a slice of New York pizza or a corned beef sandwich from Fierro Meats down on Carroll Street when she’d been deployed too long between leaves.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Mess up my hair.”

“I already did.” He made brushing motions at it.

She liked the way it felt, could imagine him doing that after they’d made love.
Huh! When did you decide you were gonna do it with this tall Texan, girl?
Didn’t matter. She was going to. Same unit or not.

“No, Justin, I mean mess it up for Willard. Be quick though.” And rested her forehead against his chest. Oh God, she could nestle in right here and never leave.

Instead of just scrubbing his fingers over her hair, he dug his fingers in deep and drove them upward along her scalp. He turned it into a head massage with a delightful scritching by his fingertips.

Then he planted a kiss right on the top of her head and stepped back.

“You now look like a woman who has had something wholly inappropriate done to her.”

“Next time I want you to actually
do
something wholly inappropriate.” Kara shoved her mussed hair back over her shoulder and then ran a hand down her front, wondering quite when her heart had started beating so fast.

“That”—Justin moved to hold the door for her as soon as she keyed in the entry code—“is something I can promise to deliver at the earliest opportunity, ma’am.”

* * *

Willy’s disappointment was obvious, but then he shrugged and clapped Justin good-naturedly on the shoulder.
Best man won
and all that crap.

Justin managed not to flatten the asshole, instead offering him a friendly smile—the kind a coyote offered right before it tried to eat you. Then Justin turned away and caught Michael looking at him.

It was a whole different look.

Justin wondered if Michael was about to flatten
him
.

But Colonel Gibson had married Claudia Jean Casperson of SOAR and in the same unit that Michael was Delta liaison to. Why would he cut up so stiff?

Duh!
Because it appeared as if Justin really had done something inappropriate—without caring if he embarrassed Kara.

Justin tipped his head toward Wilson’s back—the man had moved forward to stare at the ScanEagle’s flight track on the screen—and tried to indicate that they were baiting him. Or at least that Kara was.

Michael looked at Wilson, then Kara, then back to him.

Finally, he offered a slow nod.

A nod that told Justin exactly how carefully this particular D-boy was going to be watching the way he treated Kara. Going forward from here, Justin knew he was on probation at best. Then Michael turned his silent attention back to the multiscreen displays as if nothing had happened.

Justin wondered if learning to be scarier than a mad bull under full steam was a standard part of Delta training. Even if it wasn’t, Justin had no question who would win if Michael Gibson faced such a beast.

No way did Justin want to be ticking off that man.

“Oh brother. These must have been some very bad men.” Kara watched the feeds from the tiny ScanEagle zipping low over the central Negev at sixty knots.

“My guys? Why?” Major Willard Wilson had done a whole macho
You win
thing with Justin that had almost earned them both a broken nose. No, not Justin. He was playing the “guy” game; he was simply playing it too well for her taste. Then she had spotted the look that Colonel Gibson aimed Justin’s way and actually felt sorry for him. Still, punching Major Wilson, even if he was a superior officer, was a tempting prospect.

“Well, your guys too, just for being associated with you. But I was referring to the Israelis. What evil did these guys do to get assigned to a goddamn nowhere place like Ramon Airbase? There isn’t shit growing out here. Just desert and rocks. Probably failed to suck up and kiss ass to some officer about as wonderful and kind as you.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

Tago nodded that he was ready from his station at the Gray Eagle’s controls. He was keeping it high aloft as a communications relay down to the ScanEagle.

The Central Negev showed what might be called a sagebrush about once every ten meters, and they all looked dead. The hard hills had been sculpted by wind and the rare rainfall into tortuous slopes and deep, dry wadis harsh enough to make a moonscape look friendly.

And since it was three hours after full dark, any colors that might be there had gone monochrome green under the ScanEagle’s infrared camera gaze. It looked about as welcoming as the home crowd watching the Mets when the Phillies were tromping on them.

To reach Ramon Airbase had taken three hours. Parking an American warship close off the Sinai Peninsula would certainly draw Egypt’s and Israel’s attention. LCDR Ramis had brought them within two hundred kilometers. The ScanEagle had spent two hours zipping along close above the waves under
Tosca
’s watchful eye, swinging wide to avoid both any shipping lanes and the Egyptian border.

Both RPAs could each stay aloft for the better part of two days on a single load of fuel, so that wasn’t an issue. Kara going mad with impatience as she watched mile after unchanging mile was rapidly becoming an issue. She expected premature brain death to set in any time now.

Once the ScanEagle was ashore, another hour sliding down through the Negev had tested everyone’s patience. You could taste it in the air despite the powerful air-conditioning in the GCS coffin.

“I’m guessing,” she told the others, “that if The Activity guys on the ground were unwilling to use a strong signal, they must be inside the air base perimeter. If they were outside, they could walk up into the hills and send a signal aloft from a steep-walled valley and feel fairly confident that they couldn’t be discovered.”

“You’re going to… Of course you are,” Justin answered his own question.

“Of course I am.”

* * *

Justin didn’t even know why he asked.

Kara Moretti was the woman who punched through problems. If that meant jumping a stealth RPA into the middle of an Israeli air base to get the job done, that’s what she’d do.

But he could see these last hours had really stressed her. All they’d done was exhaust him.

What would be a good distraction, a good brain reliever for her?

“You know, Major Wilson, I’m puzzled by something.”

“What’s that?”

“How does an Upper West Side guy like you end up in a group like The Activity?” Justin said it straight, but—

“Yeah, Willy Nilly.” Kara picked up on the question instantly as Justin knew she would. “I thought those guys had some standards.”

Justin knew that nothing at the moment cheered her up as much as razzing Wilson.

“Superior skills,” Wilson sneered back.

“Like superior to a gerbil? Or maybe a Yorkshire terrier?”

Justin tuned them out and let himself watch Kara fly as the two of them continued to banter.

All of the flying he’d watched her do prior to this had been very standard, high-altitude, grid-pattern or circling passes.

But now she was in it. Her tiny craft was hugging streambeds, flying so low it had to hop up to clear a barrier guardrail along a road she crossed.

She ducked under a power line hanging so low that even a Little Bird wouldn’t try it, and she did it all clean.

“What else have you flown, Kara?” Justin cut off Wilson in mid-whine. Wilson looked thankful for the reprieve, but that hadn’t been Justin’s intent.

“Gray Eagle, Predator, ScanEagle. Flew Global Hawk a couple times. Why?”

“Well, sweetheart.” He couldn’t believe that had slipped out, but forged ahead before it would sound in any way unnatural. “You fly like a helo pilot.”

“I do?” She was surprised, but didn’t bobble the flight for even a split second. Good thing considering that her present flight elevation was a bare wingspan above the rough terrain.

“Like a cross between Trisha and…” He couldn’t quit identify it.

“You,” Michael said quietly.

Justin glanced over, but the Colonel appeared to be serious. He turned back to watch Kara’s maneuvers, and there was little he could have done himself to improve them. The attacks were more aggressive, but the flight was so smooth that they almost didn’t show.

“I watch you fly a lot when we’re on a mission.” Her voice was soft.

Which was almost daily with the 5D.

“You’re really amazing to watch fly, Cowboy.”

“Aw shucks, lady. Now my head no longer fits in my hat.”

Kara went silent and concentrated as she closed in on the base.

Justin could feel the other two guys looking at him strangely, but he didn’t turn to see. He was too busy watching poetry in motion as the ScanEagle honed in on its target.

* * *

Kara ran down the final wadi that twisted and turned its way toward the perimeter wall that encircled the base.

She tried not to think about what Justin had said. She could feel him flying with her, even though he sat in an observer chair. Could feel the way they would have flowed down the narrow canyon if he were the one in control and she were the one watching. It was as if they flew it together and that—

The ScanEagle broke into the clear.

The perimeter wasn’t just a fence, but rather a towering wall topped with razor wire and cleared of even the occasional dead shrub for ten meters either side. With the Israelis’ hard-learned but absolute paranoia, the entire perimeter probably had motion detectors inside the walls and land mines outside. Of course, since Israel hadn’t signed the Ottawa Convention of 1997 banning the use of the evil little devices, any more than the U.S. had, why the hell not.

She wished that the ScanEagle could release one of its tiny kin like a Wasp or other micro aerial vehicle, but they didn’t have that capability yet. She’d have to take the ScanEagle over the razor wire.

Kara set up to fly a circuit around the base while remaining a hundred meters outside the perimeter fence, but would bet on having no luck on any frequency. It simply wasn’t going to be that easy.

The last three nights had embedded the air base in her mind’s eye, no need to look at the maps. Two long runways and a taxiway cut roughly east-west across the desert. To the south huddled a small community of the forsaken Israeli soldiers.

Fortified aircraft hangars, hardened against aerial attack with protective layers of dirt and rock, lined the twisting taxiways close by the airfield. Midfield boasted the largest building of the entire complex. Either side of it was framed by lines of Apache helicopters, fast and lethal craft sold to the Israeli Defense Force by the U.S. If they ever wanted to invade the Sinai again, or rebuff the Egyptians if they were crazy enough to brave the Negev, Ramon Airbase had plenty of firepower on hand.

To the northeast were two clusters of buildings unconnected by taxiways. Farther out, close against the perimeter fence, was the American Camp, mostly trainers and aircraft mechanics. Their fences were even higher than the perimeter fence, even against the Israelis. They had an Olympic swimming pool, bigger than the one for the much more numerous Israeli community. The American Camp was connected to a long and highly defensible perimeter road. The IDF weren’t the only paranoid ones out here in the desert.

It had taken Kara some time to get over the inherent disorientation of her job. She was sitting in the GCS coffin, Tago at her side and Justin close behind her at the secondary sensor control panel. He had rapidly proven that he was a fair hand at making sure she saw critical data.

She had reserved a screen for him. He kept it populated with whatever he felt was most critical and correctly chose what she needed almost as often as Tago. She’d be watching infrared, and he’d slip in a visible-light view that showed the nighttime streetlights of an upcoming town to avoid. Or a tactical display showing a pair of F-16s doing a lazy patrol along the Egyptian border.

Willy hovered and Michael watched so silently he might as well not be there.

But Kara was mostly aboard her little UAV, flexing her wings to skim close along the side of a towering mesa or sliding into a winding wadi to catch an updraft and soar upward with no need for additional pilot control, the world’s winds supporting her flight.

She often felt she was looking down from on high, not watching screens in a steel box. The disconnect was a deeply evocative experience that was better than sex with, well, most men. Given a choice, she knew which she’d rather be doing. This.

But instead of slipping comfortably along the perimeter fence, she was riding on the swell of heat that had accompanied Justin’s kiss—

Dammit!
That man!
He was definitely causing her problems.

Focus back on the view!

There was one more cluster of buildings at the air base. It was to the northeast, close beside the runway and well separated from the American Camp. Two slender access roads of gravel were all that connected it to the rest of the complex.

If there was something nasty going on, she’d wager it was there. Even one of the hardened hangars wouldn’t be as good a bet; too many curious personnel in the surrounding plane bays.

She checked the clock.

One minute to midnight. The Activity team should be trying on the hour—the witching hour.

Well, my little ScanEagle broomstick, let’s take a flight.

* * *

It didn’t sound as if Kara had meant to say that aloud. Justin liked hearing the little mutterings to herself that she made as she flew.

If Tago heard them, he gave no sign. He looked so totally absorbed in flying the Gray Eagle as a high communications platform that the outside world didn’t intrude.

That man!

Focus back on the view!

ScanEagle broomstick…

She offered intriguing glimpses into her thought process. It was also rather cute because she appeared to be wholly unaware of it.

Then, without warning, she turned a sharp ninety degrees to her previous course, slipped upward on the wind, and crossed the perimeter fence.

Wilson cursed in surprise.

Justin made sure that the Electronic Intelligence package was displayed on her auxiliary screen as well as sending audio to the speakers. But if there was any alert from the tower or security, the ELINT didn’t pick it up.

“What the hell, Moretti? That’s not the plan we—”

Before Justin could think, he was out of his chair and had Wilson up on his toes. He did it by pinching with his thumb and forefinger on either side of Wilson’s throat. He moved in until they were nose to nose despite Justin’s greater height. He kept his voice low and even, the way Dad always had right before he tanned your behind.

“Y’all asked the lady to do a job. Now, I would like to suggest that you keep your trap shut and not disturb her concentration. Are you trying to make this mission fail by interrupting the pilot’s concentration?” He resisted the urge to pinch harder and leave bruises. Instead, he pushed away and the man stumbled backward, landing hard into the steel wall.

Wilson prepared to surge off the wall, and Justin braced himself so that he couldn’t be knocked back into Kara at this crucial moment.

Michael reached out and placed his hand on Wilson’s chest. It didn’t look as if he really did anything, but Wilson flinched back and hunched as if attempting to escape a sudden great pain.

“I understand you are concerned about your men.” Michael’s voice was as calm as could be. “These people are the very best at what they do. I’d recommend that you consider that.” Then he removed his hand.

Justin could see now that Michael had grabbed a fold of pectoral muscle in an odd hold that Justin didn’t recognize.

Wilson sagged when Michael released him.

Michael nodded for Justin to return to his duties.

Justin settled into his chair and checked Tago and Kara. Neither appeared to have noticed anything occurring in the coffin, and he could see why.

The ScanEagle—despite a ten-foot wingspan—was slaloming between trucks, slewing around a pair of garbage Dumpsters, and actually slipped beneath a building’s awning as Kara wound her way through the compound.

It was a crazy ride. He felt dizzy as his MH-47 Chinook-trained reflexes kept searching for some control to jerk the craft aloft and out of such tight quarters. He’d seen Little Birds fly under phone lines and Black Hawks fly under big power lines, but a Chinook wanted some space around her and all of his instincts had been trained to maintain that.

Kara’s world was another matter entirely. It was a world of mailboxes and fence posts. But she made it look so smooth.

She wove in and out of alleys and passages throughout a small group of buildings isolated from the rest of the base.

A glance at the Gray Eagle’s feed showed no infrared images of guards wandering through the area, but it was still a huge risk. The ScanEagle was radar resistant and quieter than a standard RPA, but it still had a gas engine and a propeller—it was far from silent or invisible.

And then she circled again, and the ELINT screen shimmered with an incoming signal.