Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone (23 page)

“Get up, Captain Stevenson. You’re coming with me.” He bowed slightly and gestured gallantly toward the black vehicle.

Maya slowly got to her feet. Dizziness assailed her. She was still wearing her helmet. Taking it off, she felt a trickle of moisture near her left temple. Frowning, she took off her Nomex gloves and touched the area with her fingertips. When she looked at them, she saw they were smeared with blood. No wonder she was dizzy and her head hurt. It was then she noticed that her dark visor had been shattered. Realizing she was lucky her eye hadn’t been put out, Maya was glad to sustain a cut over her temple, instead.

“Come,” Faro cajoled in a soft voice. “My physician, Dr. Alejandro Lazaro, will clean you up.” His voice deepened with satisfaction. “I want you well, Captain. There’s a hunt we must take part in. You must be well enough to participate.”

Maya moved slowly. The tallest soldier jerked her helmet out of her hand. She glared at him but kept moving forward. At the vehicle, they placed handcuffs on her wrists before they shoved her into the rear seat. Faro sat up front. A big man with a thick brown beard
drove. On either side of her were armed soldiers. There was no escape. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as the vehicle lurched around in a semicircle and headed back down a dirt road. Yellow dust rose in its wake.

Her mind spun. Pain kept jabbing intermittently at her temple. She had to think.
Think!
Faro would kill her, Maya knew. It was just a question of when and how. Well, this was her death spiral dance come to a close. They had now met and confronted one another. That was the warning in the nightmare she’d had earlier, Maya realized.

Closing her eyes, she took in a deep, ragged breath. Dane. She loved him! Oh, why hadn’t she told him that? She couldn’t even imagine how he must feel about her, but she knew he’d move heaven and earth to find her once he knew they’d been shot down. The only way her squadron would be able to find her was if they saw the smoke rising on the horizon. One of the Apache crews could spot it, and she knew they would. Once they realized it was the downed Cobra, Dane would institute some kind of search for her and Cam, Maya knew.

Faro lit a cigarette and turned around, his arm resting on the butter-yellow leather seat. He regarded her for a long time through the curling smoke. “You know, I’m looking forward to this little contest, Captain. They say you’re the best helicopter pilot around. Well, we’re going to find out what you’re really made of.” And he grinned.

“What are you talking about?” Maya growled. She hated Faro. She couldn’t help it. He had shot Inca and almost killed her. If it hadn’t been for her intervention, Inca would be dead. It was then that Maya had sworn
ongoing vengeance against Faro. She knew he hated her as well. She could see it in his dark, crafty eyes. His light brown hair was long, almost shoulder length, coifed and carefully set in place, she was sure, with a lot of hair spray. His nails were manicured and his hands long and expressive. To all appearances, Faro was a very rich, handsome man, about five foot ten inches in height. He wore a heavy gold chain with a crucifix around his throat, the cross exposed where his shirt lay open to reveal part of his upper chest.

Chuckling, Faro took a long, pleasurable drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke toward the roof of the vehicle. “You’ll see, Captain. I think it will be a very fitting and just end to you. I’ve been planning this day for a long, long time. And now you’re mine.”

Maya clenched her teeth. It would do no good to snarl back at Faro. She would wait for her chance and make a break for it.

Her head ached. Pain skittered into her left temple, and she closed her eyes momentarily. Any thought of teleporting out of this situation was useless. With the pain in her head so severe, Maya knew she couldn’t gather and hold the necessary energy to even attempt it.

She’d probably sustained a mild concussion from the crash, because she felt nauseous. Furthermore, her hatred of Faro, for what he’d tried to do to Inca, was roiling in her like a savage jaguar just begging to be loosed upon him. She knew her jaguar guardian was around, but she could barely feel his invisible presence. This was not the time or place to ask him to materialize. No, at the right time, she’d ask for his help. Her thoughts raced back to Dane. What would he do when he found out they’d been shot down?

Hot tears jammed into Maya’s closed eyes. She loved Dane. Why hadn’t she admitted it to him? Why? Maya knew she was scared of commitment—that was why. Now, bitterly, she realized her folly. More than likely, she was going to die, and Dane would never know…never know that she loved him, ached for him and wanted him as part of her every breathing moment.

Dane was in the back seat of an Apache D model when he received the news that Black Jaguar One had been shot down by a Kamov. Instantly, the pilot, Jessica Merrill—Wild Woman—brought the gunship over in a hard, right bank, redlined the engines and headed toward the crash site. Dane fought emotions that warred with his focus on the HUDs in front of him. Kamovs were around; he and Wild Woman had already chased one back from the border, along with a civilian helicopter that was carrying cocaine. Throat tightening, Dane blinked his eyes a couple of times. Maya and Cam. They were down. Were they alive? He had no way of knowing until the other Apache gunship, Jaguar Three, could hang around the site and try to look for them with its infrared equipment.

“I’m sorry, Major,” Jess said, her voice choked. “I know you and Maya…well…we all know how you feel about each other. I’m sorry…really sorry about what’s happened….” She gave a sob.

Dane wanted to cry himself. He wanted to scream. Rubbing his compressed mouth with the back of his gloved hand, he rasped, “They’re alive. I know they’re alive….” He didn’t know
how
he knew it; he simply did. Living with Maya for the last three months, he’d learned to trust his intuition without questioning it.

Just then, the radio crackled.

“Black Jaguar Two, this is Three, over.”

Dane instantly recognized Akiva Redtail’s strained voice. “This is Three. What can you report, Chief?” he asked, his voice hard and emotionless.

“Gunslinger, we have
no
sign of bodies. No sign of anyone on IR. We can see from our vantage point, two hundred feet above the wreckage, that there are tire tracks leading away from it. Do you want us to follow them? Over.”

Relief shattered through Dane, though he was far from elated. What if both Maya and Cam had burned up in the flames, unable to cut free and bail out of the Cobra? The IR would not show that—it would only show heat from a living person or animal. He’d just have to wait and see.

“Roger that, Chief. We’ll be there in—” he looked at his watch and quickly calculated the distance “—twenty minutes, over.”

“Roger, Gunslinger. We’re on their trail. Out.”

“Beware of Kamovs,” Dane warned darkly. “Over and out.”

Maya’s nightmare came back to him. He sat there and digested the terror he’d seen in her eyes earlier this morning. Why hadn’t they both taken the warning more seriously? Shaking his head, he muttered, “Dammit.” Rapidly scanning his HUDs, he knew the Kamovs had smelled blood today. They’d just blown the Cobra out of the sky. He could feel their triumph, sensed they were scanning for him and Jessica, too. They were hungry and wanted another kill. Dane could feel the bloodthirsty energy of the Kamovs, out there hunting for them in earnest. No, he couldn’t let his emotions unravel over Maya, over her possible death. If he did, he would put him and Jessica at risk, and he
was damned if the Kamovs were going to take a second gunship today.

“Major,” Jess said, clearing her throat and trying to deal with her emotions, “we have an S.O.P. for a downed gunship. Do you want to put it into motion?”

S.O.P. was standard operating procedure, a plan. Dane said, “Yes. Call Dallas back at the base and ask her to institute it. Thank you.” He wasn’t thinking clearly.
Damn!
All he could think about, all he could see in front of him, was Maya’s strong, proud face, her eyes gleaming with laughter, her lips curved in that wry, teasing way that always enticed him. Why hadn’t he kissed her goodbye this morning at the office? He’d wanted to. He always wanted to kiss her during stolen moments, and that’s all they ever had at the base. Stolen moments. Trying to balance their growing love for one another against the needs and demands of the base and its personnel was hell. And the base and its operation always came first—as it had this morning.

Jamming one fingertip beneath his helmet, he wiped away the sweat, feeling afraid. Scanning the equipment, he lifted his head and eyed the sky around them. It was a hot, humid day, the clouds rising in puffs and turrets, threatening eventual thunderstorms later. Where was Maya? Was she all right? Was Cam with her? Were they wounded? Dying? His mouth grew dry. Frustration thrummed through him. The Apache shook around him as they sped toward the dark column of smoke he could see now across the green carpet of jungle.

Sitting there, his mind racing, Dane regretted a lot. He regretted that he’d never been honest enough with Maya to tell her that he loved her. He’d been afraid. Why? Why hadn’t he told her? Closing his eyes for a
second, Dane cursed softly to himself. He knew that to admit love would mean he had to make life-altering decisions. Well, what was more important right now to him? His army career or Maya? Opening his eyes, he glared out at the green canopy below. The last three months had been more beautiful, more happy, than any other time in his life that he could ever recall. And he knew it was because of Maya, his loving her and opening up to her, them sharing their lives with one another.

“What a damned fool you’ve been, York.”

“Sir?”

“Uh…nothing, Jess. Just muttering to myself.”

He scowled and scanned. The column of smoke looked like a dark scar slashed across the pale blue sky. His heart contracted as they angled in toward it. Eyes narrowing, Dane swept the screen, which could detect heat, and quickly scanned the burning pyre of the Cobra, which hung nose down among several trees it had chopped up as it crashed. Most of the gunship had already burned up. The mangled metal of the cabin and tail had survived, but that was all. The heat of the fire showed up on the HUD, a bright apple-green color. Moving the IR scanner, Dane felt his heart thundering in his chest. If there was a body around, the IR would find it.

“Anything?” Jess asked stiffly.

He heard the tension and worry in her tone as she moved the Apache over the crash site. “No…nothing…” Dane switched to the television camera. Instantly, the HUDs showed the wreckage as clearly as if they were literally standing there in front of it. His mouth quirked. “A bad crash.”

“Yes, sir,” Jess whispered.

“Take us up about three hundred feet. I want to sweep a broader area with IR.”

“Yes, sir.”

Instantly, the Apache rose. Dane increased the range of the IR. Nothing. No heat…A moment later he saw heat signatures show up on the HUD, but it was either monkeys or birds, nothing large enough to be a human being…

“Wait!” Dane almost shouted. Anxiously, he studied the HUD. There! Yes! He saw a human being moving slowly through the jungle about five miles away from the crash site. Who? It was a solitary figure….

“I got a fix,” he told Jess excitedly, and gave her the coordinates. Instantly, Jess brought the Apache up and headed in that direction.

Within a minute they were on top of the heat signature. Dane saw the human form on the screen—a light green against the dark background of the HUD screen. The jungle was too thick to try and use the television camera to see who it was. Whoever it was, he or she had stopped and was waving an arm wildly up at them.

“It’s gotta be one of ours,” Jess said excitedly.

“I hope….” Dane rasped. He looked up. “See that break in the canopy to your left? Move the gunship over it. See if this person will follow us to that opening.”

His heart rose as he saw the figure turn and work its way slowly toward where the gunship now hovered just above the canopy. The rotors were kicking up a lot of flying debris, leaves knocked off the tops of the trees by the powerful blades. Dane saw a small opening between two trees. He steadied his binoculars over the edge of the cockpit and trained them downward. His
mouth grew even drier. Who was it? Cam? Maya? A villager? Hands tightening around the binoculars, he waited, breath suspended.

“It’s Cam!” he called out. She was down below, still in her uniform and helmet, her arm raised and waving at them. Dane saw the blood smeared across her tense face. Her uniform was ripped in several places. But she was alive. The look on her face was one of relief, tears and anguish.

“Call in the Blackhawk for rescue,” he ordered Jess.

“You bet!”

Back at the base, Dane waited impatiently as the Blackhawk landed, with Cam aboard. They’d performed a sling rescue by lowering a harness on a cable down to her. She’d put on the harness and they’d lifted her up and out of the jungle. Dane had hung around for the rescue, guarding Cam and the Blackhawk, for fear of another Kamov attack. None came. From the Blackhawk, Cam had got on the radio and told the bad news about Maya’s capture. At this point, Dane could do nothing more. Now that they were back at the base, the team was able to question Cam further and form a rescue plan for Maya. Dane couldn’t wait to talk to Cam, to find out what had happened. As the Blackhawk landed on the lip, he jogged toward it. The door slid open after the rotors slowed. He saw Cam, her red hair in disarray around her shoulders, as she climbed out. She saw him and headed directly toward him, the wind whipping around them.

Ducking beneath the blades, Cam reached toward Dane’s offered hand. “Major, I’m sorry…so sorry….” she said brokenly. Releasing his hand, she stood, her eyes filled with tears. “We got nailed by a Kamov. He
brought us down with cannon fire. It threw us into the canopy. I never lost consciousness. As we tumbled down toward the ground, Maya got hit in the head by a tree branch shattering the cockpit. It knocked her out.”