Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone (21 page)

“Don’t be so sure,” Maya warned, her brows dipping. Opening her hands, she said, “I was orphaned at birth. I was then adopted two weeks later by my foster parents. When I was seven years old, I began to have a dream every night. This very old woman, very regal looking, her face very kind, would visit me. This went on for years. I never told anyone about it because she asked me not to. Her name was Grandmother Alaria, Dane. And she’s a real person, not just a figment of my imagination.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “How did you find out that she was alive?”

“When I was seventeen, I went down to Brazil with my mother, who loved the country. Grandmother Alaria met me in São Paulo. I was blown away when she appeared to me in the flesh. She’d told me that we’d meet there and I didn’t really believe it. But when she showed up, everything changed.”

“She had the capacity to talk to you in your dreams at night?”

“Yes, she did. Still does. She’s a very powerful woman.”

Dane placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his closed hands as he studied Maya’s shadowed face. “Okay, you’ve hooked me and now I’m interested. Go on.”

“I’m going to cut to the chase. I found out that my real parents had been murdered by a drug lord in Brazil. And that they were members of the Jaguar Clan, a worldwide mystical community of people who have metaphysical skills and who work for the greater good of humanity and Mother Earth. There are two branches—the Jaguar Clan and the Black Jaguar Clan. Inca, my sister, belongs to the first. I’m of the Black Jaguar Clan.”

“I see. So how does this help you? What does it do for you?”

Maya could see Dane earnestly trying to understand it all. Opening her hands, she said, “Grandmother Alaria had trained me via dream work to develop a certain skill that all Black Jaguar Clan members possess.”

“Which is?”

Maya pointed to the small crystal salt shaker with a silver cap on it. “See that?”

“Yes.”

“Just watch it.” She folded her hands, closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath.

Dane felt a shift in energy around them. It was nothing obvious, just different. One moment the salt shaker was in front of him. The next, it had disappeared. He blinked. Moving his hand forward, he frowned. Looking up, he saw Maya open her eyes and stare at him, unblinking.

“The salt shaker…” he began, looking around for it. “You won’t find it, Dane.”

Frowning, he said, “Why not?”

“Because I teleported it over there.” And she pointed to the window. The salt shaker sat on the sill.

Dane looked at her, his chin raising slightly. And then he stared at the salt shaker. “What did you do? Is it a magic trick? Sleight of hand or something?”

Maya shook her head gravely. “Watch the salt shaker.” She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.

Staring hard at it, Dane saw it suddenly dissolve in front of him. He gasped. Jerking a look at Maya, he saw that she was just opening her eyes.

“What the hell…”

“Look, Dane.” She pointed to the table between them.

He looked down at where she was pointing. There was the salt shaker. Scratching his head, he picked it up. It was real. And it was back on the table. Giving her a wary look, he said, “All right, maybe you had a second salt shaker in your hand, hidden, and put it on the table while I was looking over there at the windowsill.”

Maya smiled weakly. “If that was so, why isn’t the salt shaker still on the sill?”

Stymied, Dane shrugged. He looked hard at her. “What is going on here? What did you do?”

Leaning forward, Maya kept her voice low as she answered. “It’s called teleportation. It is the ability to move an object, any object, from point A to point B.”

“But…that’s physics…that’s changing molecular
structures from one form to another—and then back again.”

“Yes, it is. And I can do it, Dane. I’ve got the training to do it, and it comes genetically to me because of my heritage with the Black Jaguar Clan.”

Taking a ragged breath, Dane looked at Maya for a long time without speaking. “This is voodoo.”

“No, it’s metaphysics. There’s a big difference. What I did, old Tibetan lamas could do. It’s noted in their writings. Same with the teachers of India. This is nothing new. It’s just new to you, is all.”

“You could have made me disappear?” He said it partly in jest, but he studied her intently.

With a slight laugh, Maya said, “Look, Dane, don’t get too serious about this little gift—or should I say curse—of mine. The key is that I’ve got to be in a very harmonious, balanced state to engage it.” Maya rolled her eyes. “And my life in the squadron is anything but harmonious, emotionally speaking. Ninety percent of the time I can’t do it.”

“I see…and this is what your people know about you?”

“They don’t know anything about this, or my life as a Jaguar Clan member. I’m telling you because you deserve to know up front, before anything else happens one way or another between us.”

His mouth quirked. “But your people kept using the word
different.
If they don’t know who you really are, why do they call you that?”

“Because I also have a pretty good sixth sense. When I’m well rested and ‘on,’ I can feel the Kamovs around—even the direction they’re coming from, before we visually spot them. I’ve gained notoriety for that over the past three years.”

Nodding, Dane said, “You’ve thrown me for a loop, Maya. But from what I’ve seen, you’re terribly human just like the rest of us.”

Her grin widened. “I am. Probably more so.”

“And that’s why Inca has healing ability? Her genetic heritage is from the Jaguar Clan, too?”

“Exactly.” Maya was pleased with his insight. Although Dane looked shaken, he didn’t look scared. “The most important thing you want to remember is that we’re mission driven. Black Jaguar Clan members do the dirty work. We engage the bad guys, face-to-face. The other branch does a lot of healing work for the planet, and for people. We just tear up real estate when necessary.” Maya laughed derisively.

“You’re the soldiers on the front lines. They’re the academic part of it.”

“Yes, you got it.”

“Okay…I think I can handle all of this…” Dane met her guarded gaze.

“There’s one more thing,” Maya told him, and she patted the lounge seat beside her. Their booth was in a horseshoe shape, and she gestured for him to come and sit next to her.

“Take off my jacket,” she instructed him when he’d done so, and she turned her back toward him.

Maya made sure no one was around. The walls of the booth were high and hid them from prying eyes. She felt Dane’s hands on her jacket, and she closed her eyes, knowing that this would scare him off. No one had been able to handle the rest of her secret life. No one.

As the jacket slid off her arms, Dane noticed a dark shape on her left shoulder blade. He took the jacket and put it aside.

“What am I supposed to see?”

“That crescent moon symbol on my left shoulder,” she said.

“The tattoo?” He didn’t think anything of it. In the low lighting, he saw the curved mark she’d mentioned, but it wasn’t any big deal to him.

Maya twisted to look at him over her shoulder. “It’s not a tattoo, Dane. Touch it.” She held her breath.

He ran his fingertips across her creamy, smooth skin, until they encountered the crescent moon. Instantly, he moved them back and forth several times.

“What is this? Did you paste it on or something? I don’t understand.”

She heard the frustration in his voice—and the curiosity. “That is the symbol for anyone in the clan. A Black Jaguar has black jaguar fur. I received this when I was initiated into the clan, at age eighteen. It appears there afterward. It doesn’t hurt and it’s not a brand. It’s our way of telling our own kind.”

Dane picked at the edges of it with his fingernails, thinking it must be taped on. It was not. Running his hand across her shoulder one more time, he said, “I don’t understand how it got there.” He was more interested in it than frightened of it. He wanted to figure out
how
it got there, not the fact it was there.

Maya took her jacket and slid it over her shoulders again. “It’s a mystery how it got there, Dane. But it’s there forever. It won’t go away.”

Raising his brows, he said, “Interesting…really interesting. Now you’ve got me going on how it could have happened.” He smiled at her.

“All this doesn’t scare you?”

“No, why should it? It’s an anomaly. Something to be studied and answered.”

“Spoken like a true scientist,” Maya murmured in disbelief. “You’re not scared?”

“No. Perplexed, maybe…fascinated with this skill of yours, the teleportation…but scared, no.”

“Every other man I’ve shown this to has run like hell, Dane York.”

He caught and held her amused stare. “Well, I’m not every other man, am I?”

“U
h-oh,” Maya murmured from behind her desk as Dane walked in, “you’re a man on a mission. I can tell by the look on your face.” She met and held his warm gaze. Instantly, her body responded. So did her heart. He stood, hands on his hips, and gave her a wicked smile.

“You’re perceptive, Captain. You ready for the scheduled reconnaisance mission?”

Scribbling on several sets of orders before her, Maya muttered, “Almost…” She forced herself to return to the business at hand. Where had the last two months flown? Since she had boldly initiated kissing Dane at the hotel, her whole world was slowly reordering itself. Not that Dane had pushed her about their burgeoning relationship, or crowded her in any way. No, he wisely had stood back and let her come to him, when she felt ready, when she felt sure of herself with him.

Glancing up, Maya melted beneath his hooded pe
rusal. “Stop looking at me that way, Major. You’re blowing my concentration.”

His mouth quirked as he leaned against the doorjamb. “Can’t help it. You’re easy on the eyes.” It was another busy day at the base. People hurried to and from their offices. Everyone was always in a hurry around here, but after two months, Dane knew why. They were on a wartime footing.

Maya rose and neatly stacked the papers into her out basket for her assistant to pick up and distribute. Her heart was skittering. Today was the day. They’d planned this little work-play outing for a month. Grabbing her helmet off a peg on the wall, she picked up her chicken plate and moved around the desk.

“Let’s saddle up. I’m hungry!”

“So am I, and it isn’t for food,” he murmured as she moved in front of him and out the door.

Maya laughed throatily. She stopped at her X.O.’s office, poked her head in and told Dallas, “We’re going now. You got the controls.”

Dallas smiled and looked up from the stacks of paper on her desk. “Okay. Take it easy out there.”

“We will. Be back in about three hours.”

“Roger. Bye…”

Once out of the building, Maya smiled at Dane. “You got the picnic basket packed in the cargo bay of the Cobra?”

His smile was playful. “Oh, yeah. Got a bottle of really fine sirah wine, and I had Patrick, from the India Feliz, make us a picnic lunch that will put anything I could have put together to shame.”

Maya dangled her helmet in her left hand as she walked. All around her, the noontime crews were busy. The Apaches were up and patroling. Off to her right,
she saw a number of other pilots working with Craig and Joe over the finer points of the D model. The mechanics were schooling the squadrons on software installation. The sun was bright, the humidity exceedingly high. Wiping her brow, Maya said, “We’re in for thunderstorms today. Big time.”

Dane saw that the crew had just finished refueling the Cobra. “Yeah, the meteorologist said that it’s real unstable where we’re going to do our mapping and surveying work.”

As they walked out of the cave, sunlight embraced them momentarily before the white, twisting wisps of clouds closed in once again. “Nothing new for this time of year,” Maya assured him. Halting at the Cobra, which like the choppers was painted black, she said, “You be the pilot and I’ll do the chart work.”

Dane nodded. “Fine by me.” He climbed in and took the righthand seat in the cockpit.

“What’s this?” Maya asked as she stepped up into the Cobra. She saw that the picnic basket he’d mentioned had been carefully boxed to keep it from rolling around in the wide cargo bay. Blankets, pillows and a checked red-and-white tablecloth were strapped to the rear panel.

Dane twisted in the seat as he strapped in. “Oh, those. Comfort things.”

Chuckling, Maya slid the door shut, then bent over and climbed into the cockpit. Unlike the Apache helicopter, the Cobra had a tandem seat, where the pilots sat next to one another. “Looks like you thought of everything,” she teased, easing the helmet onto her head.

“I think I have,” Dane said, going through his checklist once he got his own helmet on. Outside, the
crew chief waited for them to start up the Cobra’s engine and engage the rotor.

“Wait till you see this little waterfall and meadow we’re going to sneak off to,” Maya said, flipping several switches and turning the radio knob to a specific frequency. She placed the map between them and slid it into a holder on her seat for easy access once they lifted off.

“Did you put in your flight plan where we’d be going?” Dane asked.

“Absolutely.”

“So, the whole base knows we’re going off to have a picnic?” Dane asked wryly, lifting his finger and making a circular motion to the crew chief, who stood to one side of the Cobra’s nose.

Maya chuckled. “Probably. I’ve completed my checklist. You ready to go?”

“Roger.” He engaged the engine.

The Cobra shook and came to life. It was an old model saved from the closing days of the Vietnam War. Dane had had the chance to fly the relic a number of times, and looked forward to doing so once more. Today they were going to check some areas to see if new trails were being cut into the jungle. This kind of recon mission took place routinely. Faro Valentino never used the same trails more than two or three times to transport his cocaine over the border. He varied his routes, always constructing new ones. Knowing where they were helped Maya know where to run her missions in order to intercept Faro’s supply lines.

More than anything, Dane looked forward to this quality time with Maya. Since their kiss at the hotel, his life had changed remarkably. Any lingering shreds of their past disharmony had dissolved. Yet the last two
months had been a special hell for him. At the base, there wasn’t time or place for him to talk to Maya on a personal level. He came to realize just how busy she was. Everyone wanted her attention. And as squadron commander, her work was never done. To try and steal a kiss was nearly impossible. They had agreed to keep their relationship, whatever it would become, separate from their duties, at the base. But for Dane it was hell.

As he took the Cobra out the Eye and headed north toward their target area, about seventy miles away, he smiled to himself. Glancing over, he saw Maya placing the plastic-enclosed chart across her thighs. She had a grease pencil in hand and was already beginning to concentrate on the job ahead. Work first, then play, Dane told himself. All around him, he saw rising turrets of cumulonimbus clouds forming massively above the jungle. As they sped toward the new area to be charted, he eyed the thickening thunderheads. The Cobra was not equipped to fly through a thunderstorm, where the winds could toss them around like a flea in a tornado.

Dane was damned if thunderstorms in the area were going to stop him from reaching that nice little picnic area known as Landing Zone Echo. He’d discovered that the LZ was a place many of the pilots and crew flew to for a little R and R. It was a low-threat area, as it was off the beaten trail from Faro’s cocaine production and Kamov patrols. The waterfall wasn’t big, but the pool below it was great for swimming, and there was a nice grassy spot nearby. The beauty of the place couldn’t be rivaled. Dane had discovered it through Wild Woman, who had pointed it out one day when they were flying the Apache D. That had got him thinking and scheming on how to get Maya away from the base, to give them some badly needed time alone.

As he flew, the shiver of the Cobra felt good around him. The shaking and shuddering were part of this intrepid aircraft that had seen so much war duty. Even now, Maya used the Cobra for many things, as a medical air ambulance as well as to carry weapons, food and other needed supplies. It was a real workhorse with a multiple mission purpose. The new Blackhawk was replacing it, but the Cobra was still used.

Glancing left, Dane saw Maya working on the map. They flew at five thousand feet, high enough above the jungle to spot any new trail systems being hacked into it. The forest was so thick and lush that it was almost impenetrable. Over the years, the Quechua villagers had cut a maze of trails through it with their axes and machetes. No one could get through that dense growth without such tools.

The air was becoming increasingly bumpy because of the building thermals. Dane grimaced. From the looks of the dark clouds along the horizon, they were going to be rained out. Damn, he didn’t want that to happen. He wanted this time with Maya. He had so many questions for her, so many things he wanted to listen to her talk about and share with him. He hungered for it.

He dreamed of her every night, of loving her fully. What would it be like to love Maya? To undress her? To make her one with him? His body automatically tightened at those heated thoughts. And where was his heart in all of this? Over the past two months, Dane had had to be ruthlessly honest with himself.

Maya wasn’t a woman to catch, conquer and then walk away from. He’d never do that to her—or to himself. He’d had a lot of time to accept her other life as a Jaguar Clan member. On the surface, Maya appeared
to be just as human as anyone else at the base, except for her charisma, that power that radiated from her like sunlight. Everyone responded to it. Hell, he did, too. And yet Maya seemed supremely unaware of it. What drove her, Dane had discovered, was her mission—the legacy of her clan, which ran in her blood. Now he understood why she’d fought so hard to get this base set up.

In the few conversations they’d had during these rare moments when they were alone, he’d explored her connection with that ongoing mission. Maya didn’t care about upward mobility in the army. She would be happy being here for twenty or thirty years, doing exactly the same thing. It was then that Dane realized the seriousness of her commitment to slowing the drug trade and helping the world become a better place. Maya was driven. She had a vision. Could her life include a personal relationship? Dane wasn’t sure. And what did he want out of this?

“Looks like rain ahead,” Maya murmured. She glanced over at Dane. His profile was strong and clean. Feeling the warmth building in her lower body, she met and held his gaze for a moment. “But somehow, I don’t think rain is going to detour you from your target or mission.”

“You got that right.” Dane frowned. “You okay with a picnic inside the Cobra?”

Smiling, Maya lifted the binoculars and scanned the jungle ahead for new trails. “Sure. Let’s go for it.”

“Helluva day for a picnic,” Dane groused as he slipped out of the harness. The rotors were slowly coming to a halt. Outside, it was pouring rain. The sharp pinging sound against the skin of the chopper rever
berated through the cabin. Lightning zigzagged across the jungle above them. Easing out of the seat, he moved into the rear cabin. Maya followed him.

“Spread the blankets on the deck,” Maya suggested with amusement. “We’re going to enjoy our time together no matter if the rain gods are dancing on our head or not.” She smiled at him as she took the picnic basket out of the box.

Within minutes, they were comfortable, chicken sandwiches in hand as they sipped the ruby wine. Maya leaned against the rear bulkhead, her legs spread out before her. Dane sat next to her, his elbow occasionally brushing hers. The thunder caromed around them and the rain intensified. She gazed through the cockpit windows at the blurred landscape outside. They had landed in a small clearing. To their left was the waterfall.

“This storm will pass,” she murmured.

He leaned back, tipped his head to the left and smiled at her. She had released her hair so that it flowed around her shoulders. The look in her eyes was one of invitation. Maya was so easy to read. Dane corrected himself; she was easy to read when she allowed him to read her.

“The storm between us did,” he murmured, finishing off the sandwich.

Laughing, Maya said, “I’d say it was more than a little storm.” Gusts of wind rocked the Cobra slightly. The rain was beginning to slacken off. She wiped her hands on the pink linen napkin that Patrick had provided with his five-star feast. Reaching for a slice of potato covered with cheese and bacon, Maya felt a frisson of fear. In another month, Dane and his crew would be gone. She frowned.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh…nothing…”

Dane sipped his wine and watched her enjoy the potatoes. Peru was famous for having more than two hundred varieties of potatoes, thanks to the Incas. Potatoes had been a staple for the empire and still were in Peru. “You’re mulling over something,” he murmured. “I can feel it.”

She leaned back and settled against his left shoulder, wanting to feel his closeness. “You’re getting a little too good at reading me.”

“Does that bother you?”

Shrugging, Maya sipped the last of her wine and set the glass back in the picnic basket near their feet. “No…it’s just that I’m not used to a man knowing how I feel about something, is all.” Her eyes sparkled. “I’ll get over it.”

Placing his own wineglass in the basket, he lifted his arm and brought her into his embrace. Maya came like a purring cat into the circle of his arms. Smiling, Dane leaned back as she settled against him. As she rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her left arm around his waist, Dane sighed. “
This
is what I’ve missed. You.”

Closing her eyes, Maya allowed the sound of the splattering rain to soothe her fractious state. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda nice to be able to put my arms around you without worrying that someone might see us.” He chuckled indulgently. Pressing a kiss to her hair, he added, “I feel like a kid in the back seat of a car. Don’t you?”

Giggling, Maya pressed her hand to her lips. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Sometimes there’s no other place to meet your fa
vorite girl but in your old beat-up car,” he mused. Looking around, he said, “In our case, it’s a beat-up, antique Cobra helicopter.”

“Are we dyed-in-the-wool helicopter pilots or what?”

He laughed deeply, along with Maya. Squeezing her, he felt the fullness of her breasts beneath her flight suit. She felt good and strong and vibrant in his arms. Inhaling her fragrance, he smiled wistfully. “I don’t care where I am, as long as I’m with you.”

His words feathered across Maya. She closed her eyes, content to be held and to hear the soothing thud of his heart against her ear. “You kinda grow on a person, you know?”