Light Up the Night (3 page)

It also dragged a line of fire across the front of each technical. It shredded radiators, engines, front windshields.

Roland was reading off rotor blade and tail clearances from the buildings—she couldn't take time to look at herself. But it was exactly what she needed to maintain flight safety.

By the second rotation of the Little Bird, people were bailing off the truck beds.

On the third rotation, the two lead technicals exploded in balls of fire, and she decided it was high time to be somewhere else, preferably before her engine scooped up chunks of truck shrapnel.

“Off!” she called to Roland, and she leveraged her spinning energy into a rolling climb and a lot of forward speed.

She leaned out and looked back. Their passenger was still there.

The third technical went up in a ball of fire behind them as she cleared the beach. Not a whole lot of ground fire was following them. She dropped back to wave height, resisting adding a victory roll because of their passenger.

3:05:30. Two and a half minutes in country.

“Feet wet.” She called on the radio to let the AMC know she was safely clear of the land and back over the water.

“I didn't want a goddamn rescue!”

The guy was alive on the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS
Peleliu
and complaining about it bitterly. The ship had been scheduled to retire in 2013, but instead it had been given a new lease on life. The Navy had assigned her to the Gulf to anchor United States participation in the anti-Somalia piracy task force, Operation Heavy Hand. She was an aircraft carrier for helicopters—a couple hundred feet shorter, half as wide, and one-third the displacement of her big sisters.

Trisha let him rant while she shut down the
May
. 03:46:10, right on mission schedule, ten seconds late this time. She made a point of chatting with Roland for a moment before she peeled off her helmet and turned to face the raging idiot.

The red deck lights for night operations were bright enough that he'd be able to see her clearly. That usually stopped guys cold.

“Oh fine. A woman. Now I'm probably going to have my ass reamed for yelling at a woman.” Then he continued right along, chewing her out without further pause, which was pretty funny. She let him rant, figuring he'd feel better if he could burn off some of his excess, over-righteous macho.

Embedded agent. She'd expected a skinny black Somali with a rusting AKM rifle looking for a ticket to America. This guy was white as could be and built like a linebacker. Bugfuck crazy to go undercover in Somalia looking the way he did.

Which, she had to admit, was pretty good despite the ratty clothes and smelling like he'd had a couple dozen too many nights in the desert without a shower. Actually, linebacker looked damn good on this guy. She liked them big and handsome. She also liked his temper. Guys who just rolled over and played puppy dog when confronted with a cute woman were dull and predictable. Mr. Agent Man…

She climbed down and set her helmet on her seat. Even standing up straight in her boots, he towered over her. Six foot, maybe six-two. SEAL or Delta. Hard to imagine a Delta Force operator yelling at her. D-boys rarely even spoke and were rarely over five-eight. So he was a SEAL. It was the blue eyes, eyes that blazed with fury at the moment, that were his outstanding feature. His jet-black hair was a dirty snarl from riding out in the wind without a helmet.

“I was supposed to bring down Mahan—”

“If”—Trisha finally had had enough and pushed back—“he was hanging out of the back of the main building with an RPG, I took care of that.” And she managed to suppress the shiver at the memory of that bolt of death coming right at her.

“Well, that's something anyway.” He stopped his harangue long enough to take a breath. Then crossed his arms, each as big around as her legs, over his chest and glared down at her. “But I was supposed to get to his boss too.”

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “Can't help you much there unless he was over for dinner last night and hanging out in the main house.”

A smile almost quirked up one corner of his mouth before he got it under control. She could see the nice things it would do to his face if he ever actually let it loose, which couldn't be very often by the look of him. A heavy scar ran from his left ear and down along his jaw. “I'd know if he was, because the food wouldn't have sucked as bad as usual. And it did.”

***

That got a laugh out of her.

William Bruce liked that laugh, despite his better judgment. It was bright, from the heart, and lit her up even prettier than she already was, which was saying something.

And she'd saved him, no question.

Worse, she knew it.

So why couldn't he stop railing at her?

Without the sound of the rotor washing over them and his ears ringing from the gunfire, her voice and accent were even more distinct. Very upper Boston. Very well-bred. He didn't mind the Irish. It was just something handy to be pissed about, as he was pure-blood Scots, or as pure as anyone got these days.

Her voice was also very female, and it sounded good on her. Not low and throaty, but rather midrange and rich with nuance. She'd simultaneously expressed absolute contempt for him and deep humor at his rant, the latter finally cooling his jets.

She stood, hands on narrow hips right above her Browning M1911. Big gun for such a small woman, but she'd already proven she could handle her weapons when she shot Abshir. She didn't even come up to his shoulder, didn't look to be big enough around to stand up in a strong breeze. Her hair, a feathered chop-cut that reached past her jawline and might have been done with the Ka-Bar knife strapped to her thigh, was a rich red without quite crossing over into carrot orange, and her blue eyes were brilliant on a freckled face.

Her smile just shone, brighter than the deck lights on the flat gray expanse of the assault ship's deck. Bright and way too sure of itself.

Damn, was the only thing he could think. This woman was far too cute to be real. Like the sassy sidekick in a cop shop, the one any guy with a brain would be lusting after rather than the main babe in uniform. But she had saved his ass, so she must be real.

“Liked the spinning trick.” He wasn't going to admit that he'd never seen anything like it before and that it had taken every last ounce of his strength and training to stay aboard while she was doing it.

“It just came to me.” She cleared the magazine and the chambered round out of the rifle still hanging across her chest.

He knew that in that split second after he'd grabbed on, she'd figured out her whole attack plan including which way to spin to make it easiest for him. The other way and the centrifugal force would have thrown him clear without question. She also didn't use the rockets as she'd probably have preferred against the technicals.

Between Abshir regaining consciousness sooner than expected and the three technicals he hadn't even known were in Bosaso…

The three technicals hadn't been in town as of last night. The Puntland militia had driven most of them away in their battle against piracy and warlords, and even the ones the militia maintained would have no reason to be running them around in the middle of the night. He'd have known.

“Shit!”

“What?” The smile slid off her face.

“The technicals weren't there last night.”

“And they aren't there now.”

Which was true. She'd killed them dead. “But the only reason they'd come to town, especially the west end, was if the boss man was showing up.”

She looked grim. “Any chance he was on one of them?”

He liked how fast she switched over from joking to considering tactics. Not even all that many guys were as fast.

“No. Hassan doesn't trust anyone. Always drives separately in his own Range Rover.”

“Crap. Sorry about that. Can't be helped now. Can I buy you some coffee?” Just as mercurially as she'd switched into soldier mode, she flipped back into sassy.

“This is a Navy ship. It's free.”

“Fine. Whatever.” She turned and walked away.

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. After three months embedded, coffee sounded awfully good. And he'd just turned down an invitation to coffee from the person who'd saved his hide. He'd tossed the proverbial cuppa right back into her face.

She'd decided she was done with him, teasing or otherwise, and simply left—which was far more effective than any girlie slap would have been. No, she was a soldier, a flier for SOAR. If she'd unleashed a strike and gotten past his guard, no question it would have stung.

He watched her go. He wasn't about to go chasing after some pint-sized Night Stalker. But, damn, she was worth watching. There was no way on the planet any woman could make a flight suit and survival vest look sexy, so how did she?
Way
too
long
in
the
field, Billy. That's how. Gotta get yourself some shore leave.

He headed over to the control tower to find the Quartermaster. He'd need a shower, fresh clothes, and to check in with command, preferably in that order. Maybe get a meal in there real soon as well.

He stumbled to a halt and looked in the direction the pilot had gone. Already out of sight belowdecks.

Not only hadn't he thanked her for saving his ass, but he also hadn't gotten her name.

Not that he really cared.
He
didn't, did he?
No chance he wanted to hang out with either a Night Stalker or an Irishwoman. Two strikes right off.

Still, he cleared the rounds out of both of his weapons as he turned once more for the Quartermaster's. Wouldn't hurt anything if he knew her name.

Trisha clambered down the three flights of stairs from the flight deck, past the massive, mostly unused hangar deck to the main deck where her quarters were. Without the standard U.S. Marines aboard and only a quarter of the full Navy crew, there was plenty of space.

Even though she was enlisted, she'd been assigned her own cabin in the officer's section at the forward end of the main deck, as had been all the women of SOAR. This wasn't a great hardship on space allocation, as there were only the four of them in all of the Night Stalkers, now that Major Beale was retired to civilian life. The other three were married and had their husbands with them in ship's quarters that had never been designed for couples.

So, Trisha enjoyed that great state of luxury held only by the top Navy officers—her own damn space. Even better, her own damn shower. Well, she shared it with the Maloneys, Tim and Lola, but since they were busy delivering rescued hostages to the aircraft carrier, it was all hers at the moment. The shower flow had a three-minute timer for fresh-water conservation, but she wasn't complaining. The men from the flight crews on the choppers were in double-up rooms and the service crews were in the open-berth accommodations.

She showered and changed into a comfortably worn set of fatigues, running shoes, and a T-shirt that declared “Army” across her chest. She decided that she wasn't going to waste another thought on the ungrateful, ego-ridden, too-damn-handsome-to-let-live jerk she'd rescued.

Though she was sorry she hadn't known about the leader Hassan in the Range Rover. It didn't really matter. At the first sign of trouble, Mr. Pirate-Boss-Bad-Dude would just pull up to some building and shut down his engine and lights. There wouldn't be any real way to pick him out then, especially in Somalia. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of white Range Rovers there. It was the badge of honor, first purchase of any pirate who earned a cut of some ransom. Whoever owned that dealership sure wasn't hurting.

Trisha headed down the narrow, gray-steel passage for dinner. The boat was so lightly manned that only the officers' mess was running, which worked out great. It meant she was a dozen steps from food, not a dozen passages winding through the heart of an eight-hundred-foot-long ship.

The
Peleliu
had been stripped down for this mission, as much as you could strip down an eight-hundred-foot amphibious assault ship. Her total ship's complement had gone from twenty-five hundred to under four hundred.

Seventeen hundred U.S. Marines had been replaced by a platoon of forty-two Special Operations Army guys from the 75th Ranger Regiment and a six-man team of Delta Force. It was the sworn responsibility of the Rangers and the Marines to denigrate each other, so the Rangers made lots of jokes about them replacing forty times as many Marines being a roughly equal exchange of abilities. The Navy personnel still aboard didn't particularly appreciate that.

As usual, the D-boys didn't say much at all.

With the usual twenty-nine choppers being replaced by six of SOAR's birds, who provided their own service and support team, the ship's standard complement of nine hundred Navy personnel was also cut by three-quarters. They had only one big and two small landing craft in the hold of a ship that could usually launch twenty craft or more.

They all practically echoed about the ship. But it didn't feel like a ghost ship, just an efficient use of a monster vessel that had served for forty years and been given this new lease on life at the end of her days.

Now, lean and mean was
Peleliu
's mission profile, and Trisha was totally down with that. No Somalis would mess with a ship of her size, and she wasn't attached to any war patrol, so her defenses needed only to be lightly manned. She wouldn't be an attractive target for an Iraqi or Iranian with a death wish, as she could still defend herself plenty well even with the short staff.

The mission debrief would happen later, after Maloney returned from delivering the rescued hostages to the aircraft carrier. From there, they'd be shipped out to Ramstein Air Force Base on a C-2A Greyhound transport plane and then back stateside. The captain would be welcome to negotiate the ransom for the recovery of his yacht. At least it wouldn't be for his life and that of his passengers. Trisha bet not a one of them would ever sail with him again, not even around the Washington, DC Tidal Basin in a canoe.

There was also a whole pirate cell that they'd chewed up pretty good and an obnoxious SEAL who'd had his ass saved when he was too stupid to do it himself. A good night's work.

Trisha followed the amazing scents of burgers and fries and bacon and eggs. Since they flew at night and slept during daylight, it was often the toughest decision of her day. Should she have breakfast because it was now morning, according to most of the planet's population? Or dinner because it smelled so good and she'd just successfully completed her first fully mission-qualified flight with the Night Stalkers? She went with her nose and had a burger with bacon and a fried egg on it, with a side of hash browns.

The service guy behind the stainless-steel chow line had handed it over with a smile and a friendly wink. She knew a lot of women who got all stubborn or pissed about being treated differently. She winked back. Hell, Trisha was different. She squared her shoulders while carrying the tray over to the ketchup and mustard pumps. Only the fifth woman to ever qualify for SOAR, she was a woman in a man's job because she was just that damned good.

“Don't you ever eat anything green?”

Trisha looked up at Colonel Gibson, the commander of the six Delta Force operators aboard. He was a fair bit taller than she was: five-ten, making him tall for a D-boy, and greyhound lean. They'd slept together a couple of times when she was still in SOAR training and their assignments had briefly overlapped at Fort Rucker. She could attest that every ounce he carried was pure muscle and that his stamina was astonishing. It had been fun, but it hadn't taken on anything deeper for either of them, so they'd become friends instead.

“Not if I can help it.” His steel tray included a token banana. “And that yellow thing there doesn't count.”

“It's closer to green than all that red meat you got on yours.”

“Not by much, Michael.”

She went for milk because a soda would jazz her up too much. Michael went for coffee, in this heat.

“You're crazy.”

He didn't even ask why she was accusing him of that this time. He just shrugged noncommittally toward a vacant table in the corner of the gray-painted mess hall, and she followed him over. If he were any other man, he'd be working a desk job. After all, the whole of Delta Force was commanded by a colonel, most definitely not a field grunt's rank.

Each year he'd receive a set of orders retiring him to Washington. Each year he'd write a simple “No” across the orders and send them back. It felt good to be friends with the most experienced field operative on the planet. She didn't mind the extra bit of self-validation at the moment, though she'd never admit to it aloud, and only a little bit to herself.

Instead of screwing up, she'd kicked ass on her first forward mission as pilot-in-command for SOAR. Damn, but that felt good.

They sat down at the red Formica four-top along the edge of the room. Some of the other crew drifted into the mess and hit the chow line—Roland, Max, and Dennis,
Merchant
's pilot, along with the other two Little Bird copilots.

She sat down with her back to the room, because she knew that Michael wouldn't be comfortable without his own back to a wall.

“Why do they make these rooms so short?”

Michael took her question seriously and inspected the low-hanging gray ceiling and its impossible nest of strangely labeled pipes zigzagging everywhere, worse than the control wiring inside her chopper. Then he took a bite of his burger, that he'd set up just the same as hers, and chewed as if seriously considering the problem.

Before she could mount her next attack, for she knew that while he was insanely bright, it always took him a moment to formulate his comebacks, he waved a hand beckoning someone over. Apparently there was some initial resistance, as he had to signal a second time.

Trisha turned in time to see the guy she'd rescued coming over. A wake of sailors moved aside for him almost without noticing. You just didn't get in the way of a guy who moved like that. Incoming battleship. No, a destroyer. She liked the analogy—big enough to be unstoppable, lean and long like he was, and enough speed and muscle to be absolutely lethal.

She turned back to scowl at Michael, but it was too late. The damn fool was already on his way. He hadn't looked any happier about it than she had.

“Michael.” The SEAL stopped beside the table but didn't set down the tray he held in his big, meaty hands. “Long time.”

“Azerbaijan.”

Trisha tried to think of any mission she'd ever heard of in Azerbaijan. Man, she'd barely heard of the country itself. Might never have, if it weren't shoved up against Iran's northern border. So, he did nasty secret stuff with a Delta commander, not a big surprise. She offered the guy a welcoming scowl.

“I see there's no need to introduce. Have a seat.” Michael nodded beside him.

Untrue, but Trisha didn't need Mr. SEAL's name anyway. Didn't want it. It would just be another thing for her to forget as quickly as possible.

“Don't want to interrupt.”

“Oh, sit down, for crying out loud.” Trisha hated when guys got all weird around her. She'd been sick of it from the first carefully planned prekindergarten date, arranged by her mother and attended by her nanny. And she was sick of it now. It was much more prevalent for a woman serving in uniform.

The guy waited another beat before settling down beside Michael.

He'd at least gotten some broccoli with his burger and eggs and fries and hash browns.

“There's green shit on your plate.”

“Don't worry. I made sure it was dead first.”

Okay, he was quick; she liked that even if she didn't want to. She settled into silence, figuring that since he and Michael had sought each other out, they'd have something to say to each other.

Nope.

Like most of the military, especially in the Special Ops Forces, they were such guys. Kinda cute in a way, when it didn't make her want to knock their heads together. So, any conversation was going to be up to her.

“I think something's wrong with the ceiling. It's far too low for the width of the room. They should have gone up at least two more feet and gotten rid of all those pipes.” It really was a little oppressive. She'd seen the tallest Rangers duck to clear the gray pipes even though they weren't actually that low; they just felt as if they were. The nameless guy hadn't ducked, though he was taller than many of the guys who did. As if he knew exactly what was and wasn't a threat.

Michael inspected the ceiling again as if it were a target. “Add two feet per story. Nineteen or twenty stories from the bilge keel to the sky control room. That would be an additional thirty-eight to forty feet added to the ship's height.”

Sometimes she would just let him ramble. Michael would often go on for some time being all analytical before he realized that she was just messing with him. Soon he'd be talking about extra weight above the waterline and the necessary extensions to the keel to compensate. It was one of the several reasons it hadn't worked out between them. He just didn't keep up with her humor, and as a result, he never knew when to take her seriously. He'd dust her in tactics or situational awareness, but humor not so much.

“Don't go down any more decks,” the big guy said.

“Why?” He forked up some of his eggs as if this was a perfectly normal conversation. He cleaned up nice, real nice. The T-shirt they'd found for him, in Navy dark blue, stretched tight across his chest and outlined every muscle. The antithesis of the lean Colonel Gibson. His black hair reached his jawline, slicked down with the shower he'd taken since they'd parted. It emphasized both the nasty scar and the strength of the jaw that bore it. She could see that the scar continued on his chest, ducking below the line of his collar. She wondered how far down it went and how he'd earned it.

And his eyes really were amazing. It felt not as if he was watching her, but rather as if he saw her. A gestalt view, watching her whole person, not just her face or, more typically, her chest. His intentness started to bring a heat to her face that she suppressed ruthlessly; she was so fair-skinned that even the slightest blush radiated.

“The decks get shorter as you go down. Two more decks and even someone your size would be stooping.”

“How short do they get?” Her size, huh? She'd taken men down for less than that when she was in a bad mood. But she wasn't at the moment, so she'd play along. “They have children down there in the engine spaces? Or Oompa-Loompas?”

“Smurfs.” He said it like bald truth, not the least hint of foolish in his eyes.

“Color of your eyes.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Why had she even whispered that to herself? She ordered herself to stop going all mushy in the brain about his blue eyes. Immediately!

His glance said that he wasn't letting her off the hook, so she covered quickly.

“Your eyes. Clearly you have Smurf blood. I'll remember to run if they ever turn purple.”

“Do that.” He continued eating his eggs as if this were a perfectly normal conversation.

Michael was wincing slightly as he did each time he finally caught up and realized he'd once again fallen for one of her jokes.

***

Lieutenant Commander Boyd Ramis came over to shake Bill's hand and join them. Trisha wondered, who didn't this guy know? At least the Lieutenant Commander's greeting had given Trisha the guy's first name since he was too lame to introduce himself.