Authors: Lindsay McKenna
Pepper studied the photo carefully. "Looks just like the forests we chute into, Colonel, except that these aren't pine trees." She looked at him. "Are you used to landing in this kind of stuff?"
"No, I'm not," he admitted darkly.
"Welcome to a lot of getting hung up in trees, then." Pepper leaned back, feeling good about being able to contribute something from her area of expertise. "We have special chutes made so that we can pretty much zero in on which set of trees to land between. Of course, even if we're able to do that, we still get batted around by tree limbs. There isn't a time when we aren't bruised. At the worst, those limbs can act like spears, and gash an arm or leg."
Pepper tapped the photo on the table. "And even if you're lucky and experienced, and the wind is your friend that day, you still can get hung up fifty feet off the ground. Then you have to cut yourself loose and do a free-drop to the terrain below, which may or may not be rocky. Or if you manage to make the mark and go between the trees, you may not have the luxury of flexing your knees and bending and rolling when you hit the ground, the way parachutists are taught. Which leaves you open for at least a sprained ankle, and potentially a broken leg."
"Do you ever make a landing without some kind of injury?"
"Never," Pepper said matter-of-factly. "I work long hours with my team on precision landings, Colonel. We pick the most thickly wooded, steepest slopes, ones with boulders under the trees, to practice on, because, you have to understand, we may land within a mile of a roaring forest fire. The winds around a fire are very different, far more dangerous and unreliable, than those of a straightforward parachute drop like this HAHO. For this one, at least, we'll have weather information in advance. We'll know what the wind directions are and won't have to worry about vortex winds swirling at five thousand feet to throw us off course or into some trees."
As Jim listened to her husky urgent voice, a sense of admiration threaded through him. Pepper obviously knew her craft. And he didn't have much experience with heavy-tree landings. If anything, he could be the albatross on this trip.
"Colonel, I strongly suggest we wear support gear around our knees, elbows and ankles." Pepper held up her hands and gestured to her elbow. "We usually wear tight, hard elastic wraps around joints that are likely to be injured. I wear them especially tightly around my ankles. If I can't walk once I'm on the ground, I'm useless to my team."
Jim snorted. "We don't do that in the military, Ms. Sinclair. If you want to wear them, go ahead."
Pepper stared at him. "I can't believe you'd dismiss this safety feature so easily, Colonel. What if you hurt yourself on this HAHO exercise tomorrow morning? What good will you
be
to the mission then?"
Jim glared at her. "Give it a rest. I'm not going to impose my jumping habits on you, Ms. Sinclair, so don't shove your ideas down my throat."
"Good teamwork comes from working together, Colonel," Pepper said hotly. "Teamwork means sharing our experiences, deriving the best ideas from all parties concerned,
then
instituting them for everyone. Safety is my first and only consideration."
"Hitting the target accurately is mine. And you had better hope you hit it, too, or you aren't going on this mission." Jim rose, feeling the tension in
himself
, seeing the anger in Pepper's huge blue eyes as she slowly stood in turn. Tearing his gaze away, he looked down at the lieutenant.
"Thanks for the briefing,
Berenice
. You've done a good job, as usual."
"Thank you, sir."
Pepper moved to the door and opened it before Woodward could get there. She was stunned by his refusal to work together. Worried, she walked down the hall, making her way back to his office. She was too angry to walk back with him. His secretary was in his office this time—a woman with short blond hair and pretty blue eyes, dressed in a pale pink business suit. Nodding to her, Pepper went straight to the closet and got her coat. It crossed her mind that Woodward's secretary resembled Laura
Trayhern
somewhat—she had the same hair and eye color and was petite in build. As Pepper turned, shrugging into her coat, Woodward entered, his jaw set, his eyes grim.
"I'll get you a manual on
HAHOs
,
then
take you to another area to be fitted with gear," he said abruptly.
"Fine."
Pepper's nostrils quivered with anger. What a bullheaded person he was turning out to be! Did she even want to try this mission with him? If he'd been one of her staff, she'd have kicked him out for lacking the team spirit that kept them successful and safe on the toughest jumps. She decided she would call Wolf later from her hotel room and talk more with him about the situation.
Vaguely, she heard Woodward talking to his secretary. His voice was no longer hard or clipped, but personable—even warm. She turned, realizing what a difference there was in his attitude toward her and toward his secretary. So he could be human, after all. He just didn't like her, didn't want her around and didn't believe she could contribute anything of value to the mission.
To hell with him.
She stepped out into the hall to cool down. Arranging the deerskin purse on her right shoulder, she waited for Jim to reappear. When he did, she didn't want to admire him in his dark green wool uniform, the cap, with its shining, black patent leather bill, settled on his head. He was a stalwart warrior type, the epitome of the Marine Corps' finest, and he knew it. Pepper's anger dissolved as she appreciated him from a purely physical standpoint. The man was ruggedly
handsome,
there was no doubt, in a dangerous kind of way. Despite his stubbornness, Pepper found herself drawn to him—and then berated herself for allowing her feminine side to overlook the facts: the man was a danger to her—and to the mission.
T
he chill in the C-130 as it leveled off at twenty-one thousand feet at 0630 the next morning sent a shiver through Pepper. It was below freezing. She stood, legs apart, balancing herself as the Air Force bird bobbed around in the choppy air, hitting continual pockets of turbulence. A yellow ribbon of color lay along the horizon in the clear, cloudless dawn. The high-pitched whine of the four turboprop engines and the cavernous expanse of the empty C-130 reverberated through her as they strained in the thin atmosphere en route to the drop zone. In fifteen minutes, the rear of the C-130 would
yawn
open, and she and Woodward would leap from the edge of the ramp into the sky, four miles above the earth.
She hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Instead she'd pored over the manual on the military parasail used in
HAHOs
, a specially made parachute that was wedged shaped, like an arrowhead. Although it was similar to the ones she used in smoke jumping, it had small differences, and that's what she had absorbed until three o'clock this morning, when she'd finally fallen asleep on the couch in her hotel room.
Glancing up, Pepper saw Jim standing about six feet from where she had anchored her booted feet on the metal grating. He was busy making last-minute checks on his gear, too. His attitude hadn't changed since yesterday, and in fact, she'd seen him give her a look of disdain when she'd pulled protective elastic coverings over her elbows, knees and ankles. Pepper didn't care. She had too much to lose by allowing him to push her into jumping without her safety gear. She hadn't done a high-altitude jump into a deciduous forest before, and she didn't want to take a chance that the limbs might not give way as easily as pines did—providing the potential for even more risk. Falling at fifty miles an hour and hitting a tree limb as thick as her arm would be enough to break bones.
Unlike her usual jumping gear, she'd been fitted with a walkie-talkie on her belt, the earphone snug on her head and the lip piece settled against her mouth so they could literally talk to each other during free-fall, if they wanted to. A tight cap imprisoned her hair, with a heavy, military-style helmet over it, strapped beneath her chin. She wore a number of bulky items, but she was used to carrying an ax and a shovel, as well as maps, compass, water, first-aid kit and other items, when she jumped into a fire situation. Woodward also had outfitted her with a specially made—to his specifications—Beretta pistol in a thigh holster. She carried eleven clips of ammunition for it, and an HK submachine gun with six hundred rounds and thirty magazines rested in her backpack. The equipment she carried today included everything they would jump with two days from now over
Nevis
. Today was Thanksgiving. A hell of a way to celebrate it, she thought.
Automatically, her fingers went to her chest, where the nylon straps bit into her green-and-tan-and-black uniform—"tiger" utilities, designed to blend in to the jungle environment. The knife—her own—she'd brought with her for emergency situations, such as to cut away shroud lines should her first parachute fail and the second one have to be deployed. The main chute was on her back, the reserve in front, and she'd personally packed them late yesterday evening.
Woodward had packed his own this morning on the floor of the hangar at Andrews Air Force Base, where they'd taken off from. Pepper had watched him off and on, becoming convinced that he did know what he was doing. After all, he'd informed her icily, he had made five hundred jumps. He was no novice. Still, with two thousand under her belt, she considered him less experienced and would keep an eye on him during the jump—just in case. Pepper smiled to herself, her hands ranging knowingly across her bulky gear. If Woodward knew what she was thinking, his male ego would surely smart under her decision. But out in the field, she was responsible for her people, and she always felt like a mother hen of sorts.
Jim watched Pepper covertly within the deep shadows of the C-130. The vibration of the deck beneath him moved through his booted feet and up his legs. He'd made hundreds of jumps from this type of plane, but he worried about Pepper and the fact that it had been five years since her last HAHO. He wrestled with telling her his concerns. His cool, professional attitude toward her wasn't really the way he wanted to treat her. Despite his anger yesterday, her eyes continued to hold that warmth toward him. Mentally, Jim kicked himself.
Dammit
, he liked Pepper. He wanted to call her by her first name, but something wouldn't let him. She probably realized it, since she always called him by his official title or last name. Seesawing from his chaotic emotions over Laura, Jim moved slowly toward Pepper.
Thanks to their headsets, he wouldn't have to yell above the din that always permeated the interiors of these cargo planes. Reaching out, he placed his hand on her upper arm.
"Are you checked out?"
Pepper nodded, wildly aware of his unanticipated touch. His grip on her arm was hard without hurting, and she could tell he was monitoring the amount of strength he used. Her skin tightened beneath his fingertips. "Everything's okay."
Jim felt the firm strength of her body. She was solid, and he was sure she was in top shape due to her job. Still, he longed to soften his hold on her arm and run his hand in an exploratory motion upward, across her shoulder. Why? He'd seen a shadow come to her eyes the moment he'd touched her. Did she consider his touch an invasion of her privacy? Forcing himself to drop his hand to his side, he said in a cold voice, "The jump master said ten minutes ‘til they open the cargo-bay door for us. Remember, you jump first and I'll be ten seconds behind you."
Pepper nodded, knowing he wanted to go second to watch her performance in the jump. "Fine," she said, striving to keep the irritation out of her voice.
"Once we hit the LZ," he said, using the common designation for landing zone, "you'll take the compass and map and get us out to the pick-up point where the
HumVee
team is waiting. It's a ten-mile hike."
Pepper smiled grimly to herself. She knew Jim was not only testing her jumping ability, but checking out just what kind of shape she was in. She would have at least fifty pounds of weight on her back after the jump, and she was sure he didn't think she could go ten miles with it. Little did he realize she carried as much, sometimes more, into a smoke
jump.
Her team worked in shifts for almost twelve hours at a time, doing the grueling physical work of cutting fire breaks through stubborn brush. If only he knew that she was questioning
his
physical condition. Eight hours a day in a posh Pentagon office made for soft officers, not hard ones. She'd find out just what kind of shape Woodward was in—one way or another.
Exactly ten minutes later, a red light began to blink. Pepper moved to the starboard side, a bit ahead of Jim. Holding on to the cable above their heads she watched the maw of the C-130 slowly groan open. Whirring and grinding sounds clashed with the noise of the plane. Icy wind blasts began to buffet her body, pummeling her sporadically. As the ramp dropped, she saw the beauty of the night sky above them, a few stars still twinkling. Below them, dawn brushed across a thick carpet of barren, gray trees, which had already lost their leaves in fall's arrival. The hills of
Virginia
were rounded, but many were steep, and they'd been specially chosen because they resembled
Nevis
's volcanic terrain.