Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) (14 page)

“Greetings, Nephew.”

Mark Henderson climbed down from the
Viper
and saluted the commander of Anacostia smartly. “General Arnson, sir!” He couldn’t help smiling down at the General, still ramrod straight as you’d expect from a forty-year man. Mark could remember when his uncle had seemed tree tall and larger than life.

Then the old man grabbed Mark and slapped him on the back a couple of times in a quick half hug. He kept a friendly hand on Mark’s shoulder as Emily came up, followed by the rest of her crew.

They traded salutes.

“Looking good, Emily.”

“You too, sir.”

“That’s Eddie to you.”

“Yes, sir, Eddie.” She saluted him again saucily.

While still a colonel, the General had happily busted Mark’s butt over and over until he met the old man’s flight standards. Rarely doling out a smile of any variety. Then Emily came into Mark’s life and completely won the old man over. Pre-Emily, Mark would never have dreamed of calling him Uncle, except maybe at the most casual family gathering. And here she was required to call him Eddie.

A year married and he’d still like to know how she’d done that. Her only answer was an uncertain shrug, then one of those smiles she aimed at Mark whenever she wanted to wipe all possibility of brain function out of his body.

“Looking damn good,” his uncle continued, still watching Emily.

“Should I be getting jealous?” Mark was actually surprised to feel a slight twinge of just that. His wife was damn beautiful, and he still couldn’t believe that she’d said “yes” when he asked. Actually, she never really had, but she’d stood with him at the altar and said, “I do,” when it counted. Good enough for him. Right this moment she looked beyond beautiful. Middle of the night, halfway around the world from their last bunk, and still the woman glowed.

“When do I get my cigar?” The General glanced over at him.

“Your what?” Mark couldn’t make any sense of it when his wife went sheet white.

“Watched my Ellen through five kids, and with my youngster, Tessie, already through two, you get to know what a woman looks like at certain times.”

“Why would I give you a ciga…” Mark could feel the words slowing down and clogging his throat as he watched Emily’s face.

Several of the crew startled and stared at the two of them.

“Whups!” His uncle clamped the hand harder on Mark’s shoulder for a moment before withdrawing it. “Excuse me. I think your birds are messing up my nice, clean hangar floor.” He pointed to the rest of the crew. “All of you can come help me clean that up. Nephew, this mess you’ll have to clean up on your own.”

The General walked away and the others trailed after him. With the loss of the support of his uncle’s steadying hand, Mark could feel himself swaying in the breeze despite the breathless air and his dry throat.

“Are you… Are we…”

His Emma tipped her head sideways and smiled tentatively, which he’d always thought was her cutest stall tactic of all of them, but it wouldn’t distract him this time.

Then she shrugged. “Maybe.”

“
May
—be?” The first syllable a shout, the second a whisper.

“Self test says yes. Lola says I need to see a medico to be sure.”

Mark shook his head to clear it. Something wasn’t making sense. Something—

“When?” How long had she known and not told him?

“Last night.”

Last night.

During the flight.

Just last night. He could deal with that. When she’d curled up against him as if the three flight crews weren’t even there. And now, he was… She was… This he couldn’t deal with.

A hundred images flowed through his mind and he had no idea what to do with them. A storm of confusion inundated him about what she’d do if she couldn’t fly. Of how he could ground her without breaking her heart. Of how he could possibly love her more than he already did.

Thankfully, his body was smarter than he was and knew exactly what to do. He reached out and folded her against him.

In moments his personal beacon of strength had buried her face against his shoulder. He heard the first, ever so gentle sob, and held her tighter.

Her words were muffled and it took a moment to make sense of them. “I’m so scared.”

Something fundamental shifted in that moment. He could feel the change wash over him.

Major Emily Beale wasn’t scared of anything. Ever.

In that instant he was being asked to protect her; in that moment he became the strongest man alive. He kissed her atop her beautiful hair and whispered in her ear.

“We’ll figure it out, honey. As long as we’re together, we can figure out anything.”

Her nod against his chest reassured him. The hand she raised from his chest to stroke his cheek, without looking up, told him how much she trusted him.

Now he just had to figure out himself how to live up to that trust.

“Okay, y’all. You’re free to go.” Major Henderson kept his wife clutched close by his side.

Lola didn’t need to see anything more to know that Emily Beale had picked a good man. He looked as if he were about to explode with pride and protectiveness and a dozen other conflicting emotions.

Since they’d just broken the news to all of both crews, whether intentionally or not, and they’d all seen the wonder and joy cross his features, it didn’t matter exactly what he showed to them anymore. Not one of them would ever question that he was the most competent commander any of them would ever have, or that he loved his wife with his whole heart.

“Stay in the D.C. area and keep your pagers on.” Henderson was clearly trying to pretend his entire world hadn’t just changed. He wasn’t fooling anyone, except maybe himself.

Lola didn’t try to hide her smile.

“Stone sober. If you drink wine with dinner, it better be a half glass, watered down.” He looked down at his wife. “And you don’t get any at all.”

His voice a caress as gentle as a breeze, a voice Lola had never heard except in the movies. It completely stole her breath away to hear it in real life.

Henderson’s voice shifted back into commander mode as he finally found enough rudder to get control of it. “Be ready to scramble on a couple hours’ notice. We could be on hold a day, we could be a week. We could be shipped back to the front.”

Not much of a bet on that last one, and Lola could see that no one else thought it likely either. Come war or peace, they were wrapped up in this particular mission until it reached the end.

“Couple of vans out front can take us into town once we shed our gear. What’s today’s date?”

“April 1st,” Connie offered in that inflectionless voice of hers.

Henderson nodded once solidly.

“April Fools’ Day,” Lola couldn’t resist pointing out. Tim grinned at her. Clearly about to say it himself. Fellow in crime.

Henderson started to nod again, then twitched. He spun to face his wife as she burst out laughing.

“You wouldn’t—” His tone threatened dire consequences.

“No! No!” She covered her mouth to block her mirth at the random chance of it.

After a few more chuckles at Henderson’s discomfiture, everyone started drifting off to grab their civvie gear. Trading flight suits for street clothes, combat boots for some nice leather with decent heels, sidearms for wallets with cash, and digging out their cell phones. About the only things to survive the transition from soldier to civilian were dog tags and sunglasses.

“We are one damn fine-looking crew,” Crazy Tim remarked as they spilled out of the hangar into the light of the rising dawn.

“Even if you have to be the one to say so.”

Tim nodded at Lola’s riposte. But it was true. The level of fitness made them all fine specimens. And they were a handsome lot. Lola didn’t mind being included in the group for one moment.

“Who’s up for breakfast at my place?” Tim called out. Lola had been thinking of hitting a hotel with a deep bath and immersing herself for a couple hours, but John and Connie chimed in with wholehearted agreement. She still might have dodged it, but Kee and Archie opted in with Dilya in tow. Left her no way to chicken out.

“Sure, why not. You keep a place in D.C.?” Maybe he had a deep tub, deep enough for two after the others left.

“I’m from here. My parents’ place actually. Family breakfast is usually in about half an hour.”

A couple of the others tried to hide smiles.

Big John was about to speak up, but Tim forced a cough and John shut his mouth.

Okay, whatever the game was, she was clearly being set up and she’d just have to roll with it. Fun or hideous? She’d wager on “it’s an experience” by the looks people were giving each other.

Richardson hooked up with a couple of the guys from the base and declared they were going over to Annapolis, something about the opening day of striped bass fishing.

The Majors opted out in favor of going to her mother and father’s place in Georgetown.

“Director of the FBI? Her dad is the director?”

Tim just nodded cheerfully in response to her shocked whisper as if it was no big deal. She double-checked with John just to make sure Tim wasn’t messing with her.

Lola knew the Major was something special, you couldn’t miss that. She kept glancing over at Beale to see if she’d somehow changed. But she still looked like a SOAR major on leave, who was expecting a baby and was pretty damn confused about it.

So, the seven of them piled into a van and headed into the city. Lola had never been here and kept pressing her nose to the glass like any tourist. For the most part, it looked like a city. But when she started to turn away, a small voice spoke, barely loud enough for her to hear above everyone else’s cheerful chatter.

“I like the castle of the Smithsons.” Dilya. The girl pointed out the right side window clearly figuring out that Lola was a newcomer by how she’d been acting. How much did the kid see about the people around her? How much had she learned while surviving her childhood?

Suddenly it wasn’t just any other city. The Smithsonian Castle rose in magnificent piles of red brick. Beyond that…

“The Capitol. Where people sit around and make no laws.”

Maybe she meant “new laws” or maybe she had it right.

Dilya tapped her shoulder and pointed left. They were cutting across the middle of the National Mall. The Washington Monument soared like a needle into the sky. Giant buildings down the opposite side turned out to be museums. And off in the distance, at a height above everything else, perched the Lincoln Memorial. She definitely had to get there.

Then they were back into office buildings.

“There.” Dilya pointed proudly at a block-long mirrored building. “Mr. Frank works there.”

“Oh,” was all Lola could think to say as she spotted the sign at the front. The orphan girl from Uzbekistan apparently had made a friend in the United States Secret Service. “Is he a nice man?”

“Yes, I hope he never must stop bullet with his chest.”

The only ones who really did that were on the Presidential Protection Detail. She looked at the little girl again and at Kee, clearly a street kid herself. They had a friend on the PPD. Didn’t seem likely, but Lola had had enough surprises to not second-guess anyone in this car ever again. Maybe Kee had been an astronaut. Or Connie had commanded a submarine.

Tim directed the van’s driver to the back door of a place about a block west of the Secret Service office building. Seemed an odd place to live.

***

Two things assaulted Lola as she entered the door last of all and dropped her duffel bag with the others.

First, the face-slap power of a top-notch commercial kitchen. She could pick out rich stews, sharp curries, and the deep warmth of soups that must have been simmering since the founding of the nation to smell that way. For all of Mama Raci’s stinginess, her soups had that same richness that permeated the air like hope and comfort.

But instead of a narrow, poorly lit space that had been cramped into the back corner of the building as an afterthought, this kitchen sprawled and gleamed. Long steel counters, rows upon rows of burners, several already bearing large pots despite the early hour. Giant walk-in coolers beyond. Off to the right was a large wooden prep table, half set for a meal and sporting a dozen chairs, all underlaid by a burnished parquet floor.

It was a world-class surgical suite compared with a CSAR flight where a corpsman huddled in the center of a Black Hawk’s bay covered in the blood of those he was too late to save.

Gods, what a place. It made her want to pull on an apron and dive in.

The second thing that assaulted Lola’s morning was the joyous screams of men and women who threw themselves at Tim. He disappeared into a swarm of bodies who were clearly family. Some in aprons, some still in street clothes. Tim’s nose on an older man, his warm eyes on a well-rounded woman. Others who must be siblings or cousins gathered round. Everyone demanded a hug, and many didn’t let go once they got their turn or just piled in on top of someone else’s hugging two, three, four people at a time.

Big John and Connie were greeted warmly. Dilya was propped up on a counter with a glass of orange juice so big that she needed both hands to hold it. Kee and Archie were clearly known as well.

Lola was hugged a half-dozen times before she was actually introduced to anyone. Drive-by huggings, which was a huge step up from her old neighborhood.

Hugs were Lola’s favorite thing. Ignored by her father, harassed by his buddies, and growing up in back of a brothel, human contact wasn’t high on the list of what was happening. Lola actually barked out a laugh, picturing herself hugging Mama Raci with even half the abandon Tim’s family threw in the direction of this stranger in their perfect kitchen.

It always confused men she dated that she’d rather hug than crawl into bed. This was just a perfect combination, and she wallowed in the by-blow joy of Tim’s unannounced homecoming.

As the tide of hugs once again pooled around Tim, Big John loomed up beside her.

“You’re awful important to him, sir.”

“I don’t want to be.” Though she knew she was.

“That’s a problem.”

She slumped against the steel counter behind her. “I wish I knew what to do about it.”

At that Big John smiled. It warmed his face and lit his eyes. She could see how a woman could fall for a man with that smile.

“Well, pretty lady, I couldn’t wish a better man on any woman. And if he thinks you’re worth it, isn’t that all that counts?”

She shrugged.

“My Connie, she thought I was worth it no matter how wrong I was sure she was. Surprised this big, dumb Okie no end. To be sure I ain’t complaining though.” He gazed off to where his wife was working on a stove that looked half taken apart. “She’ll have that fixed and running before breakfast unless I miss my guess. I’ll just go see if I can help her a bit. ’Scuse me, sir.”

Connie did nothing to acknowledge her husband when he arrived, but maybe she didn’t need to.

After a glance at the progress, John picked up a screwdriver from the floor and began disassembling a panel. Connie held it steady as he pulled the last screw, and then they bent down in unison to study what they had uncovered.