Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone (12 page)

There was a slight vibration beneath Maya’s seat. She could feel the cannon, located directly beneath her armor-plated seat and platform, shaking away. There were several tracer rounds, bright red, and she followed them as they arced very close to the nose of the Agusta helicopter. She cackled.

“Great shot! You’ve rattled him!”

Dane arched beneath her praise as she brought the Apache up, almost brushing the tops of the trees alongside the mountain as she followed the Agusta, which was now turning away from the Bolivian border.

“Why don’t you shoot him out of the sky?”

“Because we don’t know for
sure
if this is a civilian helicopter or one of Faro’s. I’d know Karlov’s wreck of a face anywhere. But what if his other pilot is not working for Faro? What if Faro is playing with the numbers on the fuselage to confuse us? If we shoot them down, it could cause an international incident.”

Maya leveled out the Apache and eased back on the throttles until the gunship was in a hover. She watched the copter fleeing back toward the jungle area where she knew Faro had one of his many cocaine loading
stations. “We do a lot of hunt and chase, Major. We’re not just randomly shooting helicopters out of the sky around here.”

“And if they fire at you?” Dane kept looking for Kamovs.

“That’s a different story. In the past, years ago, they did that. Well, you shoot at me, and I’m firing back with all the hardware this Apache carries. Faro lost four helicopters in a row due to that little piece of aggression on his part, and then he finally figured out if he stopped his boys from shooting at us, we wouldn’t fire back at them, either. So now it’s usually a Mexican standoff. Sky chicken. Who will flinch first?” She chuckled.

“And so he repaints the numbers on the fuselage of his civilian helos to confuse you?”

“Yes.” Maya turned the Apache back toward their base. Up ahead, she saw Lobo’s Apache coming toward them. “He does the numbers game all the time. He’s well aware that unless we have an absolutely positive ID, we aren’t going to take him or his helos out of the sky.”

“And you have to let them go into Bolivian airspace?”

Maya heard the frustration in his voice. “No…we just make it tougher for them to get there, like we did just now. Faro has orders for his cocaine,” she said, watching as Lobo’s Apache came closer. She made a gesture with her hand, signaling the other helo to go back to base. Instantly Lobo raised her gloved hand and moved the gunship forward. Maya positioned her helo three rotor blades’ distance from Lobo’s, and they flew in formation toward home.

“As I was saying, Faro has orders for his cocaine.
By turning his ships back, he’s not making his deadlines for drug deliveries. That puts a lot of pressure on him to get it out of Peru. So, next time around, he’ll either use bigger civilian aircraft or more of them to try and get some of the orders through to Bolivian airspace.”

“How many helos would he put up at a time?” Dane asked, keeping his gaze switching between the HUD radar and the sky. Even now he knew they were not safe. Kamovs could sneak up and jump them.

“Oh, he’s got a fleet, we estimate, of twelve helicopters of varying types and models from many different countries that he can use. Plus, he’s got two Kamovs, which really don’t make us happy at all. If we could paint the Kamovs on radar, that would be another thing, but we can’t. Chasing civilian helos back from the border is bad enough. Having to chase them and watch for Kamovs is totally another. We’ve had some close calls this last year, since Faro put those Kamovs in the air.” Maya frowned. “We haven’t lost a ship or crew yet, but I’m worried about it.”

Dane nodded and continued to rubberneck. “I understand….” And he did. He shared her worry. He was drenched in sweat, his flight suit sticking to him. During the chase, his adrenaline had been pumping. He was still tense and jumpy from the encounter. Maya, on the other hand, seemed like an old combat vet. Nothing rattled her much. To her, this had been a cat-and-mouse game, and that was all. Plus she was used to the scenarios, and he was not. Still, Dane admired her coolness in the face of danger.

Within twenty minutes, they were back at the base. This time Maya turned the tables on him.

“You have the controls, Major. Take us through the Eye.”

Gulping, he placed his hands around the collective and cyclic. “You like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

Maya chuckled. “Always. What else is there in life but risk?”

He focused on the opening. The clouds were thinning and he could see it visually. “Well, this is one helluva risk,” he muttered as he eased the Apache up to the Eye.

“Think you ought to train those pilots up at Fort Rucker for this little challenge?” She laughed aloud.

Mouth compressed, he eased the Apache through, his gaze shifting constantly between the rotor length and the sides of the black lava wall crowding in on him. The walls weren’t moving of course, but that’s how it felt to Dane. Once through the Eye, he saw the crew chief on the right side of the lip indicating with her orange sticks where he was to land the gunship. “This is more than a little challenge,” he griped good-naturedly.

Maya smiled and relaxed as York brought them in for a nice, gentle landing. The whine of the engines shut down, and the rotors began to slow. They were home. Looking around, she watched as Lobo followed them through the Eye and came to land a hundred feet away from them. Opening the cockpit frame after the rotors stopped, she felt the fresh, humid air rush in. Taking a deep breath of it, she lifted her hand to her crew and smiled down at them. She was so proud of them, she thought as she looked at them, their expressions full of relief at seeing the flight team return safely.

Climbing out of the front seat, Maya leaped to the
ground. She took off her helmet and stuffed her gloves into the right pocket of her flight suit, waiting for York. More than a little curious about how the flight had affected him, she watched as he climbed nimbly down off the fuselage cover to the lava below. His face was sweaty, his eyes almost colorless, the pupils black and large. He looked like the hunter he was, and she smiled to herself.

As he took off the helmet and placed it beneath his left arm, she said, “You didn’t do badly for a first time up there.”

Dane pushed his fingers through his damp hair and held her assessing gaze. He didn’t see any tension or wariness in Maya’s features right now. He reminded himself that they’d just been on a combat mission and their adrenaline was still pumping from it. Neither of them was in their usual guarded mode with one another—yet.

“Thanks…I’m still upset I didn’t see those birds painted on my HUDs.”

Smiling slightly, Maya moved her shoulders to rid them of the accumulated tension. “Don’t worry about it. Another week in the back seat with us and you’ll know how to read fuzzies on the radar as accurately as Lobo and Goosey did.”

Walking with her toward the cave, Dane felt elated. It was the first time Maya had smiled. She had such a beautiful, expressive face. He tried to separate out the combat pilot inside her from her outer beauty. It was impossible. Maya was a complex person and he knew it. More than anything, he found himself wanting to simply stare into those deep, deep, almost fathomless green eyes of hers. She had the kind of eyes a man
could lose himself within. It was a disconcerting yearning and he struggled with it.

At HQ, they climbed the stairs together. On the second floor, Maya pointed to an open door near her own.

“In case you don’t know it, my head supply clerk, Sergeant Penny Anderson, has assigned this office coming up on your left as yours for the duration of your six weeks with us. If you need anything, ask her. Penny’s in the office next to yours.”

Dane halted and looked into the small office. It had a dark green metal desk just like Maya’s. There were paper, pencils and pens on top of it. And a vase of purple-and-white orchids. A woman’s touch.

Maya was standing in the hall, watching him.

“Thanks…” he managed to answer.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He prickled as her gaze narrowed speculatively on him.

“I can feel it around you.”

“What? That women’s intuition thing?” Dane closed his eyes.
Damn.
He’d just done it again. When he opened them, he saw the hurt and frustration in her expression. Opening his hand, he muttered, “That came out wrong.”

“It always does,” Maya grated.

His heart contracted. They were back at square one again. Dane searched for something to say that was not prejudicial sounding. “Look, I’m still edgy from the flight. Not that it’s an excuse for what I said, but…”

Maya walked up to him, keeping her voice very low. “In our line of business down here, we need all the help we can get. Now, whether it’s from a visual, or HUD, or our gut feeling, we don’t like to think of one kind of knowing as being better than any other. And
yes, you can bet the farm that we use our intuition just as surely as we’ll use our eyes and the instruments in our gunships.”

“I hear you,” Dane muttered defensively, trying to think of a way to climb out of his mistake.

“You want to know how we knew the Kamovs would attack this morning when you boys came up from Lima?” she asked in a velvet voice.

Dane grimaced. “No, but you’re going to tell me anyway. How did you know?”

Maya lifted her chin and held his stormy blue gaze. “The bloodred dawn, that’s how.” She watched her words sink in. Dane gave her a startled look, one of disbelief. Because of it, Maya wasn’t going to cut him one inch of slack.

“That’s right, a red dawn. We’ve found that when the sky is that color, we get Kamovs up our tail rotors. Over time, we can call it with a lot of accuracy. I know in your well-ordered little world it sounds like voodoo. You call it what you want. As you and your other I.P.s ride with us this coming week to find out how we work around here, just keep your minds open, okay?”

He felt heat move up the column of his neck and into his face. Blushing. Of all times for that to happen! Swallowing hard, Dane met and held her glare. “I’m not going to get into a fight with you about intuition, Captain. I’ll instruct my other pilots to listen to whatever your pilots have to teach them. Frankly, I don’t care how you get your info. We’re all in this together, to survive. If a red dawn is a red flag, fine.”

Maya took a step back from him and assessed his scowling features. “Good,” she murmured. “That’s the kind of can-do spirit I want to see from you and your men, Major. There are differences between how
we operate down here and what you taught us at Fort Rucker.”

He saw a wicked look lingering deep in her eyes. For a moment, Dane thought she was enjoying her power over him. Well, hadn’t he lorded his power and control over her at Fort Rucker? Yes. Smarting beneath her cool gaze, he managed to reply, “We’re open to learning new things, Captain.”

Flexing her shoulders, Maya stepped aside as a sergeant hurried between them with an apology, on her way to another office. “We’re both learning.”

Dane watched as she turned on her booted heel and walked purposefully toward her office. Blowing out a breath, he turned and went into his own, shutting the door behind him. The office was small, with no windows. Moving around the desk, he placed his helmet on top of a cabinet and stuffed the gloves into it. There was a polite knock on his door.

“Enter,” he growled. Looking up, he saw it was a black-haired woman with dark coppery skin and black, almond-shaped eyes. She looked Indian. Maybe from Peru? Dane wasn’t sure. Dressed in baggy green fatigues and a green T-shirt that was stained with sweat under her arms and around her neck, she came to attention.

“Sergeant Paredes, sir. Dr. Elizabeth Cornell requests your presence at her clinic when you get a chance, sir.”

“At ease, Sergeant,” he murmured. The woman was short and stocky. Dane had no idea who she was. Maybe a mechanic. Wiping his brow, he said, “Tell Dr. Cornell I’ll meet her in about thirty minutes. I’ve got a mission report to fill out first and then I’ll be down to see her.”

Paredes snapped to attention. “Yes, sir, Major. I’ll tell her, sir. Thank you, sir.” She saluted.

York snapped off a returning salute. “Dismissed, Sergeant. Thank you.”

Paredes nodded, did an about-face and left. The door was left open. He moved around the desk, scowling. He shut the door with finality.

As he turned to go back to the desk, there was another knock. Rolling his eyes, Dane wondered how anyone got anything done around here with these kinds of intrusions constantly occurring. He jerked the door open, a snarl on his lips.

A tall woman stood there, one with blond hair hanging around her shoulders, blue eyes, and a narrow face with a patrician nose. She was in a black flight uniform.

Dane instantly reined in his snarl. This was a pilot. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Gautier, Major York. Captain Stevenson said you might want this….” She handed him some papers. “Mission report forms.”

“Oh…yes. Thanks, Lieutenant…”

She gave him a slight smile as she assessed him. “Just call me Lobo. Around here, we mostly stick to our handles and we aren’t very formal.”

Standing there, Dane nodded. “Yes…thanks…”

Gautier, who was about five foot eight inches tall, turned gracefully and moved down the hall. He watched her disappear into another office.

Looking at the door, Dane decided to leave it open. Old habits died hard. If he was at Fort Rucker, his office door would be closed. His office was off limits to everyone and everything. A bastion against the rest of the world when he felt the need to withdraw from it and get his act together again. Looking up and down
the hall, he saw that every office door was ajar. Even Maya’s. Well, he was going to have to adjust or else. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” he muttered as he turned and went back into his office.

Eyeing the bright purple-and-white spikes of orchids hanging out of a green metal can, Dane stopped and touched one of the flowers. They were real, not some silk flower fake. Looking around at the lifelessness of his office, he began to realize why the orchids were put there. It was a breath of real life. Of nature. One corner of his mouth curved faintly as he dropped the mission report forms on his desk. He knew Maya would sense his consternation over the flowers being put on his desk. At his base at Fort Rucker, he’d never have something like flowers around.