Bring On the Dusk (3 page)

But he couldn't stop glancing over.

No one got his jokes. The few who noticed them go by did so only after painfully long pauses. Most wouldn't even get that IMF could be “I'm fine.” But to make the jump to
Mission
Impossible
and then answer with the next step beyond that he hadn't even seen himself—the name of the character he would be parallel to… Damn! That impressed him almost as much as anything else she'd done in their brief acquaintance.

He'd heard another female pilot was incoming into SOAR's 5th Battalion, D Company, so this must be her. Making it into the 5D said she was already an exceptional pilot. She hadn't harassed him about his tapping thing; just checked in with him and then moved on, which said she knew to trust a soldier's self-assessment. For some reason, his tapping drove a lot of people nuts.

It wasn't like the jittery leg that so many soldiers had, though that was trained out of Deltas. Actually, not all that many guys with those kinds of nerves made it into Delta to begin with.

The gentle tap, tap was how he let the adrenal rush of action run out of him. The gentle rhythm reminded him of climbing trees in his childhood when he'd been seeking somewhere no one else could go. It wasn't escape; it was going higher and farther than anyone before him that charged him up.

Right now he shouldn't be thinking about her; he should be assessing the team's performance. What could they have done differently to capture all eight unfriendlies? How could they have anticipated the arrival at the camp of four Tier One targets or the presence of so much unexpected intel? If there'd been anything to gather in the other rooms, there simply hadn't been time to look. They definitely should have had another bird in deep backup; pure luck they'd gotten this one. The entire camp had erupted in blazes of gunfire from the trainers, answered by the dragon roars from the hovering attack platforms responding with rockets and miniguns.

But that didn't reorient the direction of his thoughts.

This pilot simply allowed him “to be,” which he appreciated. Even Emily Beale, as well as they'd gotten along, had never understood his little jokes. Or quite known what to make of him.

Not
surprising, Michael. You're not the most accessible dude in the Force.

That he knew for damn sure.

He liked this woman sight unseen.

He also knew that, which was surprising.

* * *

The prisoners' knockout shots wore off as they arrived on deck at the USS
Peleliu
, making the unloading a little chaotic. Michael was on the verge of dosing them again when the CIA team arrived from the carrier to take custody. He sighed; they sure did love their debriefings. It would take the next four hours to cover a sixty-second actual engagement. About normal.

Then he'd noticed the new pilot, still sitting in her Little Bird. No, sagging in her seat.

He touched her on the arm and she startled.

“When was the last time you slept?” He slid up her visor and removed her breather mask. She had a nice face that he decided fit her well, even though he knew almost nothing about her.

“Uh”—she blinked at him—“last time I what?”

“Okay.” He'd certainly seen this enough times. She'd held it together for the flight but was wholly tapped out now that it was over. It took four, perhaps five, days without a full sleep—depending on the person and the number of catnaps they'd managed to steal—to make them like this.

Michael unbuckled her harness and eased her out of the helo, taking most of her weight by lifting the big D-ring attached at the center of her vest. The D-ring was there in case she crashed in somewhere and needed a rope rescue. Well, this was a type of rescue, and the heavy vest and flight suit blocked most of the feeling of grabbing her right between the breasts.

He leaned her against the side of the helo, tugged on her rucksack after letting out the straps a bit, and slung her duffel over one arm.

One of the CIA guys was hustling over to drag him off for debriefing.

“I'll be right back.”

The guy got all officious. Right until he spotted the look in Michael's eye and scurried back to wherever he'd been.

Michael had thought to coax her along, but she was really past that.

He slipped an arm around her waist and guided her down through the ship. Flight deck…hangar deck…down to second deck. He stopped a Navy orderly who knew where to aim them.

Her bunk was right near the other SOAR women, which made sense.

When he got her there, she simply stood in the middle of her quarters, weaving and staring down at the bunk.

Michael dumped her duffel and pack.

Since she was clearly unable to manage for herself, he undid her helmet and pulled it free. Then the fire-resistant inner hood. A shower of shining blond hair cascaded over his hands, reminding him of silk and water.

Her FN-SCAR rifle, survival vest, and Dragon Skin underneath. Smart woman.

He was not about to undo the front of her flight suit as he had no way of knowing what she did or didn't wear under there, and she was already giving him trouble.

He never had problems concentrating around women. But something about this one…

Even exhausted, travel-worn, and battle weary she smelled of the desert night and—

Cut
it, Michael.

So he did. “You okay from here?”

She nodded vaguely, which he'd take as a yes.

He was a step from making good his retreat when her hand rested lightly on his arm.

Turning to face her was the big mistake.

She stepped into his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck for a moment, ignoring all the spare magazines pocketed across his chest, the two rifles over his shoulder, and both of his sidearms. She simply rested her head on his shoulder a moment and whispered, “Thanks.”

Then she turned away and, knees buckling, collapsed face-first onto the bed.

When she didn't move, he turned out the light and closed the door—not even pausing to remove her boots, shutting himself away from her.

Then he hurried off to lose himself in the clutching grasp of the CIA debriefing team.

Better that than to face his thoughts about her warmth and the soft hair that had brushed his cheek and the gentle, female scent of the most attractive woman he'd ever held in his arms, no matter how briefly.

Michael rolled out of his bunk and gave “the man” his morning hundreds. First, through his hundred fingertip push-ups, he listened to the sounds of the ship. All quiet. The USS
Peleliu
flight operations were generally quiet through the day now.

He would not think of last night or the way she—

He did an extra fifty push-ups.

Maybe there'd at least be time to learn the pilot's name.

An extra twenty-five.

It was supposed to be a quiet day after all.

Not so long ago, the
Peleliu
had seen night and day operations. They were stationed off the coast of Somalia watching for pirates. Last summer the schedule had been very hectic with a brutal operational tempo. Every night had been spent doing ocean sweeps to catch the small Somali raider craft heading for the shipping lanes. During the day they seemed to constantly be rushing to the rescue of ships under attack. A half-dozen other warships from various nations plied these waters, but they were spread over two million square miles of ocean along fifteen hundred miles of coast.

Now it was March. Six months after their focused strike retaking all of the northern ships and hostages in a single night, the Somali pirates had mostly folded up shop—at least in the north.

The pirates' four main leaders were dead, two from in-fighting and two killed by Delta Force. Lieutenant Bill Bruce was a D-boy now, so Michael would claim his kill as Delta, even though he'd still been a SEAL at that time. It had taken six more months of cleanup raids and monitoring, but the area was now quiet. Not totally safe, but certainly not the hell of the last decade. Just last night, EU NAVFOR had downgraded the northern region of Operation Atalanta to a maintenance stance. The southern region of the operation was another matter.

Through his hundred sit-ups, Michael began organizing his day, or rather his night, since that's when they flew their missions. The Night Stalkers lived in a flipped-clock world, flying at night, sleeping during the day. The clock on the bulkhead wall told him it was only sixteen hundred—four in the afternoon. That meant he had time for a run on the USS
Peleliu
's hangar deck before breakfast and the preflight briefing.

Maybe that would help shake the new pilot out of his system. And why was he fooling himself about that? So wasn't going to be that easy.

The mission switchover in the north from fighting pirates to keeping them under reasonable control probably meant reassignment soon anyway, so he really didn't need to worry.

Michael had intentionally embedded himself as Delta liaison with the D Company of Special Operations Aviation Regiment's 5th Battalion. They were the very best, and he enjoyed working with them because they had the highest op-tempo in all of SOAR. They also had the highest mission-success rate. They never stayed in maintenance or sweep positions; the 5D always flew at the very outer edge of the envelope.

If they ever did stagnate, he would have to move on. Part of being Delta was constant training, constant pushing to be ready no matter what came down the pipe. And part of being himself, he knew, was always finding the next impossible thing and conquering the hell out of it.

The 5D, also nicknamed the Black Adders, kept him challenged physically and mentally. Every day. They were the purest edge Michael could find.

How pure edge was the new pilot? She'd been good and steady last night. If that was fresh off training, it was a good sign. But last night's mission had been more noisy than complex.

Something told him that she had plenty of edge, though. Less than thirty seconds past the outer boundary shooter, she was unraveling his jokes in a calm, smooth voice.

And that hair. The soft weight of it as it had spilled over his hands and—

Shit!

After his sit-ups he rolled up off the steel deck and pulled on shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes. One of the advantages of being a colonel was having his own sink in his own room even when visiting on a Navy ship. A quick shave and he was out the door and headed up to the hangar deck. He wore his dark brown hair long but kept his face clean-shaven. Different Special Ops Forces soldiers made different choices, but casual was the keyword. Special Ops weren't about uniforms; they were about blending in on an undercover mission.

The hangar on the
Peleliu
was an open space immediately below the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship. Essentially a small aircraft carrier, she presently boasted a half-dozen SOAR helicopters on her deck. Her current operations meant no Harrier Jump Jets were needed, which left the hangar space free to use as a running track except when they were rebuilding a shot-up bird or one was undergoing major scheduled maintenance. Even then, the mechanics would take over a bay at the far end of the deck and the track would just be a little shorter for a time.

Climbing the ladder from the bunk deck below, he could tell the hangar was mostly clear. He tried not to run when the fifty Rangers hit the hangar for their two hours of PT. U.S. Rangers were many things, but one of them was not quiet, especially during physical training. They ran in packs and were always teasing and harassing each other. And they sang as they ran, shouting “Ran-gers!” every fifth lap. They could make the hangar-deck run actively painful with the echoes reverberating throughout the space.

At present he could tell there were only two heavy-footed runners and one lighter one by the echoes in the cavernous, gray steel space that towered three stories high. It was a mostly clear space two football fields long and the better part of one wide. He'd seen it packed with thirty aircraft folded and stowed shoulder to shoulder. That was also when a reinforced battalion of Marines was aboard, which none was now.

The
Peleliu
had been slated for retirement and decommissioning. When the Marines were done with her, SOAR had asked to use the old ship as a forward operations platform in Somali waters. In his judgment, which he'd reported to the Pentagon, the repurposing of the ship was an operational asset of the first order. With one quarter of the normal Navy personnel, she also wouldn't be an overly expensive ship to keep in operation. After forty years at sea and almost a year past her planned retirement, the old lady was still going strong.

The heat of the day in the Gulf of Aden was its normal moderately hot and intolerably muggy. The setting sunlight poured in the large opening at the rear of the deck, which meant they were steaming east. By the motion of the ship, they were moving at eight knots, loafing along at one third of her full cruise speed.

That would be changing tonight after he spoke with the commander.

As he started stretching out, he automatically assessed the other three runners on the deck. A pair of SOAR early risers. Five p.m.—seventeen hundred hours—was their rise and shine, eighteen hundred meal, nineteen hundred briefing, and aloft thirty minutes later at full dark if there was an operation.

The third one—newly returned just last week from Delta training and his wedding and honeymoon—was his new assistant, Lieutenant William Bruce.

Michael timed his stretches so that he'd be ready to run when Bill lapped by. He watched Bill approach. Delta training had shifted his stride despite his ten years in the Navy and spending half that time in the SEALs before Michael recruited him. There was an agility to Bill's gait that he had lacked before. The SEAL training had made him a high-endurance mile-eater. The Delta regimen had added flexibility.

Michael did a final stretch on his hamstring and began to trot in place. Three steps to get up to speed and he fell in close beside Bill without making him shift his stride. He smiled a good morning.

Trisha O'Malley, the SOAR Little Bird pilot who Bill had married, usually ran with him. She'd very vocally refused to besmirch her Irish heritage with his Scottish name, even if she was condescending to marry him to “dilute the ultimate shame of his blood.”

A nod to the space between them, where the little redhead would normally fit between them, asked the question.

“New flyer meet-and-greet.” Bill's deep voice matched his big frame.

The Little Bird pilot.

He still didn't know her name.

Definitely have to fix that.

He also needed to fix how she was occupying so many of his thoughts despite that lack of a name.

With unspoken consent, he and Bill closed the space between them, then both kicked it up ten percent and began lapping the SOAR runners. Their own feet echoed much more lightly within the cavernous space than those of the flyers, despite their greater speed.

* * *

Captain Claudia Jean Casperson had been led to her new quarters last night and pitched facedown into her bunk. Whoever had guided her had been kind enough to turn off the light and close the door.

She only had been awake long enough to wash her face and unpack when there was a knock on the door.

A short redhead stood in the gray steel corridor. The woman was slight, freckled, pretty, and wearing full flight gear. Was this the woman who'd been on the radio last night from the DAP Hawk?

“Why aren't you in your gear? C'mon. Suit up, newbie!” Different voice than on the radio. That meant there were two women in the 5th Battalion's D Company. No insignia on her flight suit.

Unsure what to do, Claudia saluted.

“Cut that out! Damn it, don't they teach you anything about forward theater of operations?”

A salute was so ingrained, and what did it matter in a pilot? Sure, grunts on the ground didn't salute when in the field because that indicated who was in charge to an unfriendly sniper. But on a Navy ship she—

“No, I can see you thinking it. But no, not even here. You can do that crap all you want on U.S. soil, but that's it from now on. Clear?”

“Uh, yes, sir. Ma'am.”

Claudia knew better than to protest about only just arriving or not having received orders to be battle ready. She simply turned to pull on the gear she'd stripped off less than twenty minutes before while the woman waited. In moments they were clambering up through the decks to reach the flight deck.

She knew this ship well. The eight hundred feet of the amphibious assault ship
Peleliu
were a Navy-gray haven afloat in the infinite blue of the ocean off the Horn of Africa—a desert far more barren than the central Arizona hills she'd grown up in.

Yet, it was strangely like coming home. Two years ago she'd departed these decks aboard a massive Sea Stallion helicopter—the largest bird in the U.S. military—marking the last day of her final two-year tour as a Marine Corps pilot. And now that crazy lady named Fate had returned her to the same ship under a different branch of the service flying the MH-6M Little Bird, the military's smallest helicopter.

All that really mattered was that she'd finally made it. She'd been gunning to join SOAR since the day she saw that the first woman had made it three years before. If a Black Hawk pilot could make the jump, so could a Snake pilot. Only she'd do it better.

Jumping from a Marine Corps AH-1W SuperCobra “Snake” would have been a big step down if she'd just gone standard Army. But to join the Night Stalkers of the 160th SOAR…even hard-core Marines admitted they were exceptional, although SOAR was technically part of the Army and therefore should fall under the umbrella of disdain for “all of the pitiful services who hadn't made it to being Marines.” Oorah!

When they arrived on deck, the heat slapped against her. The sun was lowering toward the horizon, but it was still a couple hours until sunset. The steel plating radiated with waves of heat that blurred the far ends of the ship, though it was only a hundred yards in either direction from where they'd emerged amidships.

The redhead called over to a man standing close beside a Little Bird helicopter. “Hey, Dennis, did our mechanics go over the repair on the bird that CC brought in?”

Claudia hated that nickname but wasn't awake enough to try correcting it. Besides, she didn't yet know who she was dealing with here. Correcting your future commanding officer on first meeting was never a good idea.

“All done and certified. The carrier guys fixed it up good, Boss Lady. Max is glad to have his bird back. Let's remind him to crash here rather than on the carrier next time.”

“He's just lucky his bird was the only thing shot up,” Trisha replied.

“Got that straight. Nice flying last night, Captain Casperson.”

“It's Claudia. Thanks.” They traded nods. So Dennis flew the Little Bird named
Merchant.
His acknowledgment cheered her up. Despite all of her service, spending two years in training and then being thrown directly back into the fray had been something of a shock.

Now if she only knew who the hell the redheaded “Boss Lady” was. Claudia was still pretty sure she hadn't been the commanding pilot on last night's exfil sortie.

She tried to recall the roster of other women in SOAR but had no better luck than last night.

She also hadn't really expected to be assigned to the Fifth Battalion, D Company straight out of training. The company's reputation was absolutely sterling. More like platinum with gold mixed in. It was an honor to have the chance to fly with the 5D, even if it was an unexpected one. That this woman was here spoke of skill, not gender bias…she hoped.

“If we don't call her ‘Boss Lady,'” Dennis told Claudia as they circled close around his helo, “her ego gets all out of control. And let me tell you, that is so not a pretty sight.”

Dennis was a handsome Eurasian man with an easygoing manner. His smile appeared simply friendly, not implying anything or trying to check her out despite the flight suit, which was a relief. Actually, few men in SOAR had raked her body with their eyes and leered, a common enough occurrence in the other forces. Or maybe everything would change when she got out of the flight suit.

“She may be boss”—Dennis offered a conspiratorial wink—“but she ain't no lady.”