Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone (11 page)

Relaxing slightly, Maya crossed her arms. “They have been excited. And I’m sure my people are bubbling over about these Big Rigs being here.” Her curiosity ate at her. She saw the glimmer in York’s eyes as he studied her. Maya felt like the tables had been turned, that she was the one under the microscope, not him. So what had her people told him? Uncomfortable, she belligerently returned his stare.

“The people we talked to,” Dane said, “all used the same word to describe you—
different.
”

Maya’s mouth moved slightly and then compressed. “I see.”

“It was a compliment,” Dane assured her. “Not an insult. I’ve heard base commanders called a lot of things in my day, but never ‘different.”’ He cocked his head, a half smile playing across his mouth. “What does that mean? How are they using it in regard to you?”

Shrugging, Maya muttered, “I don’t know.” Well, she did know, but she was darned if York was going to find out. Not that anyone except Dallas and Dr. Elizabeth Cornell, their base physician, knew about her other life as a Black Jaguar Clan priestess. No, there were some things better left unsaid. Besides, most of the people under her command were not the least familiar with metaphysics. Gauging Dane, she saw a bit of elfish play in his eyes, as if he were gently teasing her, without malice.

“You know how any squadron is,” she said in a bored tone of voice. “Every commander has a personality. I’m sure that’s what it’s about.”

Dane studied her. Maya was ill at ease. She shifted from one booted foot to the other, her arms across her breasts. His intuition, which wasn’t great, told him that she was hiding something about herself. Okay, he wouldn’t push it. Judging from the look in her narrowed eyes, she wasn’t going to say anything more to him about it.

“Yes,” he murmured, “that’s probably it.”

“Captain Stevenson!”

Maya turned, recognizing Private Sandy Wells’s high-pitched voice. Sandy, who was her comms—communications—assistant was barely five feet tall, with curly blond hair cut just below her ears and huge blue eyes. As she ran breathlessly toward Maya, she waved a paper above her head.

“Excuse me,” Maya told Dane, and turned to meet Sandy.

Sandy came to a halt, breathing hard. “Ma’am, we just got confirmation that two unidentified civilian helicopters are going to be passing right by here in ten minutes!” she said, handing Maya the transmission from the satellite intelligence unit.

Scowling, Maya rapidly read the information. “Faro’s at it again,” she said.

“I think so, ma’am. Want me to sound the alarm?”

“Yes, Private, do it now.”

Running back into the cave, the private headed back to her comms Quonset hut. A minute later, a clanging bell sounded, echoing eerily throughout the cave.

Maya looked up to see York moving toward her.

“I’ve gotta go, Major. I’ll see you on the return trip.
We’ve got bogeys—more than likely Faro’s men. We’re going to intercept.”

“Wait!” Dane hurried to her side as she walked quickly toward the Apaches at the other end of the apron. “Let me go with you.”

She jerked her head toward him. Her eyes became slits. “You?”

“Sure. Why
not
me? Don’t you want me to get an understanding of what’s going down here? It will help me in assessing what needs to be taught to your pilots.”

It made sense, though Maya didn’t want him along. But then revenge entered into the equation. Smiling lethally, she said, “Sure, you can be my copilot-gunner, Major. But I’m the commander. Got it?”

Grinning, he broke into a trot at her side, heading toward the Apaches the crews were hurriedly working around. “You’re number one.” He surprised himself at how easily the words rolled off his tongue.

“Still think you can work an A model’s software?” she taunted as she trotted toward her helo. “Or have you forgotten how to do it the old-fashioned way?”

Dane’s grin broadened. “I won’t embarrass you out there, Captain. That’s a promise.”

Her heart was beating hard in her chest as she put her foot onto the metal rung to hoist herself upward into the front cockpit. Four years ago, the tables had been turned. She’d had to fly too many hours with York lording it over her from the back seat. Well, now all that was changed. As Maya swung into her seat, she shouted to her crew chief to fetch her helmet from her office and to bring York one that would fit him.

“Never mind, I brought my own,” he told her, and shouted below to one of the other crew people as to
where to retrieve his helmet in his quarters. The woman turned and ran into the cave to find it. Time was at a premium. He felt the tempo. Felt the escalating tension. Maya’s voice was calm and terse as she spoke to her crew chief. Below, several women hurried to remove the chalks from the Apache landing gear, release the rotor blades from their tie-downs and then pull the machine out onto the lip area, where it could be prepared for takeoff.

Maya was all business. She concentrated solely on what was ahead of her and tried to ignore the fact that York was in her back seat. Settling her helmet on her head, she strapped it on tightly. Jamming the thin black gloves on her hands, she felt her heart pounding erratically with the adrenaline charge. This was for real. Every time they launched, there was a helluva chance they might not return. Faro’s men had Kamovs. The sat intel showed two civilian helicopters speeding toward Bolivia. That didn’t mean the Kamovs weren’t around only that they were waiting…just waiting to jump them. Would York be up to speed? Kamovs had no signature they could detect with their radar. Could she rely on him to spot them if they were around?

How much of her life was she willing to put into his hands? Was the enemy in her cockpit any less dangerous to her than the enemy they were going to try and intercept?

D
ane tried to push his excitement aside. He was going into combat. Finally. There wasn’t an Apache pilot alive who didn’t thirst for the blood-pounding danger of combat; they lived, ate and breathed for the chance he was going to get right now. The last time he’d seen combat was during the Persian Gulf War, and that was a while ago. Busy cranking up his HUDs and checking them out, he was only peripherally aware of the hurried activity around them. He heard Maya’s cool, low voice in his helmet earphones as she talked with her crew chief on the ground. They had been pushed out on the lip, and now the engines were being put on line, one at a time. The shiver that went through the aircraft made him feel good. It fed his mounting excitement.

There were a lot of dangers ahead, too. The warm sunshine streaming through the cockpit canopy, now lowered and locked into place, was making him sweat. The coolness of the air-conditioning moved around
Dane and reduced the heat within the cabin. Sweat was trickling down the sides of his ribs beneath his flight suit from anticipation.
Combat.
Adrenaline was surging through his bloodstream as he tightened his knee board into place around his right thigh. He grinned lopsidedly. He was glad Maya had let him come along. Now he had a chance to prove himself to her in another way.

The rotor engaged, the engine’s whine deepened. The Apache began to shake, a familiar and welcome sensation to Dane. Off to his left, he saw the second Apache warming up, as well. Maya had just snapped off a salute to the crew below. They hurriedly backed away.

“Who’s in the second Apache?” he asked her as he punched several codes into the computers that ran the HUDs. A trickle of sweat dripped down his left temple. He reached up with his gloved hand and pushed it away.

“The standby crew,” Maya said. “Lieutenant Danielle Gautier. She’s on loan from the French Army air wing. Her call sign is Lobo. Her back seat is CWO2 Ellen Canton, Goosey. We call her Luce the Goose because she honks like one when she laughs.”

“Roger. Thanks.”

“Let’s go over our checklist before we hightail it out of here.”

“Roger,” he said, quickly pulling out the plastic-enclosed cards and resting them on his thigh where he’d placed his knee board. He heard the tension in Maya’s tone. His own voice sounded a little tight.

As soon as they were done, Maya said, “Let’s rock ’n’ roll. Lobo, you and Goosey ready? Over.”

Gautier’s low, lilting French accent came back. “Roger that, Saber. We’re ready. Over.”

“Roger. Let’s mission launch….” Maya nudged the power up on the Apache. The first order of business was flying through the Eye. As she positioned the gunship, the clouds lifted and she could see the hole clearly. Usually, around noon, the clouds burned off more rapidly with the help of direct sunlight, and it was easier to thread. Applying power and keeping her feet firmly on the yaw pedals, she moved the gunship quickly through the opening. In her helmet, she heard an intake of breath from York. She grinned a little.

“You’ll get used to it, Major.”

Shaking his head at the ease with which Maya had just negotiated that tight opening, Dane rasped, “I don’t think so. You make it look damned easy and I know it’s not.”

Chuckling, Maya positioned her gunship to one side and waited for Lobo to appear. “I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve flown the Eye. It gets easier the more you do it.” The second Apache came through quickly.

Dane pulled down the dark visor that would protect the upper half of his face and eyes from the bright sunlight lancing into the cabin. The Apache felt solid and good around him as he typed in the keywords to bring up the identification of local aircraft.

“I’m scanning with radar to try and find those two bogeys,” he told her, as he felt the Apache nose down and surge forward.

“Roger,” Maya said. She looked around the cloud-cobbled blue sky. “We’re climbing above cloud cover first. That will be at around nine or ten thousand feet. Don’t get your nose stuck in those HUD screens, Major. You’ve got to divide your time and attention between them and the Kamovs. They’re out there…and it’s up to you to find them first before they find us.”

“Roger. I hear you loud and clear.” Twisting his head, Dane saw the roiling clouds falling away. Maya was pushing the Apache to its limits of speed, over two hundred miles an hour. They were heading in an easterly direction, toward the Bolivian border. Below, the jungle looked like tight little heads of broccoli all crammed together. There was no place to land if they got into trouble. They’d have to drop into the canopy, and that wasn’t a pleasant thought.

“You got anything yet?” she demanded.

“No…searching.” Dane twisted another knob and watched the dark green screen intently. “If we had the D model, it would have already picked them up.”

“Nice. But it isn’t gonna help us right now.” Maya continued to scan the airspace around them. Off to her right was Lobo, a mile away. “Sat intel picked up two helos,” she told him. “That means we split up and go after them.”

“What’s their normal avoidance pattern?”

Maya smiled a little, her intent gaze sweeping across her instrument panel. York was asking the right questions. “It differs. Faro Valentino learned a long time ago not to get into a set pattern of flight or time with us. He found out very quickly we’re open for business twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As soon as you can locate those helos, I can probably tell you more.”

“I hear you.” He frowned, studying the HUDs. Just the way Maya was flying the Apache made York feel proud of her. She handled the machine deftly and with such silky smoothness that it was hard to tell he was actually in a combat machine. At least right now. Straight flight was one thing, combat flying another.

“Black Jaguar One,” Lobo called.

“What’ve you got, Lobo?” Maya asked.

“We got two Agusta civilian helicopters painted on our HUDs. Looks to me like Faro’s running two smaller aircraft into Bolivia this time.”

Damn.
Had he messed up? Dane quickly scanned again, barely making out something on one HUD—fuzzy outlines at best. He thought it was radar return from some clouds. How could the other Apache crew already have them identified? Smarting beneath his own expectations of finding the bogeys first, he compressed his mouth.

“How could Lobo ID them so fast?” he demanded of Maya.

Dane heard Lobo’s musical voice over the earphones on his helmet. “Luce the Goose is used to looking at fuzzy things that float across her HUD, Major. Don’t worry, after a while we can ID a cloud from an aircraft no matter how far away or blurred looking it is. It’s a real art, believe me.”

Maya grinned. “Good work, Lobo and Goosey.” She heard the frustration and embarrassment in Dane’s voice. He was in competition with them. It hurt his pride that he hadn’t painted the bogeys first. “Get over it, Major. We have other fish to fry,” she told him. “Faro’s got quite a mishmash of helicopters in his fleet. Over the past three years, he’s bought a lot of different civilian helicopters in an effort to avoid us. The Agusta Lobo is talking about are very similar to the tourist helicopter that is stationed at Agua Caliente. He knows we aren’t going to shoot at him until we get a positive visual ID on him. We can’t take the chance that we’d be loosing a bunch of rockets into a civilian helicopter and killing all on board. That would become an international incident. We’d get press, political problems
from it, and more than likely my base and the operation would be shut down.”

“Visual ID is a must, anyway,” Dane agreed fervently.

“Roger that. But in Faro’s case, it’s a high priority. He’d like to see us make this kind of mistake. It would make his life easier if we were outta here.” Maya swung her gunship in a slight bank. Up ahead, she spotted the two escaping helicopters about four miles ahead of them. The Agusta could never keep up with an Apache speedwise.

“Saber,” Lobo called. “It’s confirmed ID on them. Italian Agusta A119 Koala.”

“Roger. Let me go in for a confirmation of the numbers on their fuselages before you approach. No use in two Apaches taking the fly-by risk,” Maya answered.

“Roger.”

Dane saw the helicopters clearly on his HUD now. The screen repeated that they were Agusta helicopters. “Numbers on their fuselage?”

“Yeah,” Maya said grimly as she angled the Apache so that there was about half a mile between them and the Agusta. “You’ve got a set of binoculars there, on your right side, on top of where we keep the optic eyepiece. I want you to get the numbers, type them into the computer and see what comes up. Do it as soon as possible. Those Kamovs might be around….”

Dane found the binoculars. Maya made it easy for him to see through them by holding the helicopter on a steady flight path. The two Agustas were flying in a militarylike formation. “Are Russians flying those things?” he asked as he quickly typed in the first numbers.

“Probably. Why?”

“They’re flying in a damn tight formation for civilian pilots.”

Maya nodded. “You’re right. It’s a good observation. They probably are Soviet mercenaries that Faro hired three years ago. I guess the boys can’t get out of military-formation flying.” She laughed a little.

“Got the numbers,” Dane told her. He put the binoculars aside and watched the screen intently after typing them in. Information regarding the helos popped up in a lighter green color. Pressing his gloved finger against the screen, he said, “Okay, what we have is two unidentified helicopters. The numbers on their fuselages don’t jibe with any registered in Peru.”

“Did you try Bolivia? Italy? Chile? Colombia and Ecuador?”

“No…” Damn. He’d screwed up again.

“Punch it in. See what comes up.”

Quickly he typed the info on the keyboard located near his left knee. Sweat trickled down his wrinkled brow. More data popped up on the screen.

“This is strange. These numbers don’t jibe with any country you’ve mentioned.”

“Good.”

There was sardonic satisfaction in Maya’s low voice, and an edge, too.

Dane looked up and then scanned the cloudless sky around them. Where would the Kamovs be? “What do you do now?”

“Call them on the radio,” Maya said, and she switched channels and made the call to the two helicopters in Spanish, English, Italian and Quechua, the second language of Peru.

Dane was surprised at her grasp of so many foreign languages. But then he reminded himself that Maya
was Brazilian and would probably know not only Portuguese, but Spanish as well.

He heard no radio response from the helicopters to any of Maya’s queries. “They’re not answering us.”

“No kidding.” She moved her Apache in for a closer look. “They aren’t carrying big guns on them, but don’t put it past the pilot or copilot to open a window and shoot a firearm at us.”

Dane blinked as she brought the Apache within a hundred feet of the first Agusta. He could clearly see both pilots. The one in the right seat, the pilot, was glaring back at them. The man was heavyset, with a broad face and a sneer on his lips.

“I don’t think he’s happy to see us, do you?”

Maya heard the grim amusement in Dane’s voice. Her lips twitched. “No, he’s not, and I know who that bastard is. Sasha Karlov. Sweet name for the nasty, mean son of a bitch that he is…” Instantly, Maya pulled the Apache up and to the right, away from the Agusta. “All right, Lobo, you take the one on the left, I’m taking Karlov’s helicopter. Let’s see if these boys will turn back or if they want to stay and play.”

“Roger, Saber.”

“The border is only five miles away,” Dane warned, pushed deeper into his seat by gravity as Maya took the Apache up and in front of the fleeing helicopters.

“Yeah, I know. Hang on. We’re going to play sky chicken with these boys….”

Dane’s eyes widened. Maya set the Apache squarely in front of where the Agustas were flying. His mouth dropped opened, but he didn’t have time to yell out a warning. The Agustas hurtled toward them. Gripping the airframe, bracing himself, Dane thought they were going to crash.

At the last moment, the Agustas split off, one to the right and one to the left, into a steep, diving bank toward the jungle eight thousand feet below.

“No you don’t….” Maya growled.

Dane was jerked to the right and then to the left. Gravity seized him and slammed him back into the seat. His helmet banged into the side cockpit window. Stunned, he took long seconds to realize what Maya had done with the Apache. She’d banked sharply left, nosed down and was redlining the engines in a screaming dive to catch up with the fleeing Agustas.

“Watch for Kamovs!” she barked at him.

Blinking, Dane tore his gaze from the Augusta they were rapidly approaching. The helicopter began to jump around, as if to try and get rid of them. Looking up, Dane scanned the skies around them.

“Warm up the cannon. I want you to put a couple of shells right across Karlov’s broken nose.”

Slammed one way and then the other within the narrow confines of the cockpit, Dane had trouble getting to the HUD controls that connected with the cannon beneath the belly of the Apache. As soon as the HUD lit up with it as the main weapon of choice, he quickly got it on line. Watching the crosshairs on the HUD, he began to track the fleeing Agusta.

“Okay, got ’em…”

“Watch for Kamovs, Major! Don’t keep your nose stuck in that HUD, dammit! This is when they usually jump us.”

Stung, he jerked his head up. Right now, they were leveling out and screaming along over the jungle. Everything was a green blur beneath them. Damn, Maya was close to the trees! Dane tensed. He saw the Agusta make a tight turn around one of the loaf-shaped moun
tains. Instantly, Maya followed him. She cut so close to the mountain, that Dane sucked in a breath.

“Get ready!”

Yanking his attention back to the HUD, he saw the Agusta was no longer in the crosshairs. The shot would go wide.

“Ready?”

“Roger,” he rasped, quickly working the HUD and reconfiguring the software instructions to the cannon.

“Just fire in front of him,” she ordered.

“Ready.”

“Do it.”