Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) (21 page)

Lola checked over the Huey UH-1M helicopter.

Tim was preflighting the exterior under Anacostia’s helipad lights.

Lola was going down the checklist, powering up the different systems, checking fuel, making calibrations, and tuning radios as she went.

They’d been trying to figure out how not to go insane while awaiting orders when Tim remembered that he had to requalify. Each year, everyone in SOAR had to requalify for their seat, and Tim’s renewal cycle was coming up. Deployments didn’t count, combat gave practice but didn’t require standards of excellence.

On only an hour or two of sleep they’d driven up to the Aberdeen Proving Ground range. Lola ran through the target and free range, sharpshooter, and kill-house trials to keep Tim company and keep a bit of edge on. She’d always thought herself good, but Tim was clearly in a whole other league, easily outshooting her scores. Didn’t worry her too much, she was a flier first and they each were there to do what they were good at.

It was only on the range debrief that she realized two things. First, shooting beside Tim had made her top any prior score she’d ever achieved. And second, what Tim was doing. He wasn’t just trying to requal; he was trying to bust Kee Stevenson’s record scores. He was close, damn close.

It would all depend on the night-flight tests.

He didn’t match Kee’s sniper skills, but on the heavy guns he was a damned artist. He shredded pop-up targets almost before they flipped into position and didn’t lose a single point for a “friendly” kill.

The range officer was pretty psyched about the scores. He was so cheerful that Tim didn’t think to do anything evil until they’d already gotten back on the road and it was too late.

They’d caught a dinner of blue crab at a dive along the Baltimore waterfront while waiting for sunset. Tim swung by the family restaurant and prepared a huge picnic basket. Clearly he had some other plans for after the night-range flight and she was good with that.

Now they were prepping to fly out of Anacostia.

Tim shoved the picnic basket in the back of the Huey and strapped it down out of the way.

Lola switched over to the right seat for this flight. It only took one pilot to fly a Huey, and it was nice to sit pilot’s side again. For the test, General Arnson had arranged for a minigun rig in the center of the cargo bay door and a shooter’s seat set up exactly as a Black Hawk’s would be.

Now it was up to Tim to show what he could do.

Lola glanced up as he climbed aboard and strapped in. He pulled on his helmet and turned on the intercom.

“Good to go.”

In answer Lola fired up the turbine.

And it was up to her to make sure he had a challenging flight.

That was gonna be fun.

***

Tim knew he was in the groove. He’d often hit high score records in one of the tests, sometimes two, but never six on the same day. Right now the only place Kee still outranked him was fixed and moving targets at five-hundred-plus yards. And the only one she was out of the ballpark on was the two-thousand-meter bench-rest range. Since she was currently the U.S. Army’s number one ranked at that range, he didn’t feel too bad. Damn, he could barely see the target. How did the woman bull’s-eye it?

He rubbed his hands together as Lola flew them down to the Wallops Island Navy range. Not that his hands were cold; D.C. April nights were rarely cold.

It was that the scores were so close he could feel the magic buzzing in his hands.

“Coming up.”

Tim kicked on the power to his night-vision goggles and double-checked his seat harness.

“Do me proud, Chief Warrant.” A slack flight would downgrade his score even if he shot dead on.

“Roger that.” He heard the excitement in her voice easily matching his. For half a second he wondered if he should be worried, but he’d trust Lola over any pilot other than Major Beale. He dismissed the itch between his shoulder blades.

They crossed over Wallops Island and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. Yeah, couple of things down there he wanted to show Lola, but he couldn’t think about that right now.

Focus, dude. Be loose and focus.

They flew another mile or so out to sea and the offshore target area.

“Range, this is Marine thirty-four thirty.” Their tail number to identify their flight. “Ready for Qual Run.” Lola let the range controller know they were ready.

Tim flexed his fingers again, made sure the cartridge belt lay clean from can to feeder, and flicked on the power switch. The minigun’s six barrels spun to life with a high whine and the familiarity of an old friend. He set the selector for the low-rate of three thousand rounds per minute. At fifty rounds a second, he had to be careful not to destroy a target past any ability to score it.

“Marine, this is range. Range is clear. You may commence your run.”

And the helicopter tumbled toward the ocean.

Tim hung on to the handles of the gun to keep himself stable.

“Lola!” he cried out. She was going to die. They’d both be…

Nothing was making sense.

The engine sounded normal.

But they were falling like—

Tim saw a clear target, marked by bright infrared beacons, bobbing on the waves. Without thought, he jerked the trigger for a half second. The gun burped and threw twenty-five rounds at three times the speed of sound. Every fifth round was an infrared tracer streaking bright green across his night-vision goggles.

He dead-centered it. How?

Lola had flattened the flight at the perfect instant, a wholly unexpected attack from an unusual angle.

She spiraled upward and a half-dozen remote-control drone weather balloons with tiny engines floated across the night sky. Friendlies had star markers, enemies big
X
’s. Each dangled a target barely five feet square; at a hundred miles per hour, that was pretty damn small. Goal was to dead-center the
X
targets without bursting their balloons. Killing their drones always pissed off the range guys.

Lola was weaving like a mad woman, and it was all he could do to separate and nail targets. One would be a dozen rotors out and the next one so close that the IR markers were blindingly bright.

“Fire below,” Lola called out and stood the chopper on its side.

Tim hung in his harness looking straight down at the midnight blackness of the choppy ocean surface. A dazzling sparkler of brilliant green rocket fire came roaring up at him.

RPG!

His breath froze, but his reflexes didn’t. Knowing it was impossible and that they were about to die, he zeroed on the nose of the rocket-propelled grenade and shot a long burst.

It went off like… a firecracker. A little fizzle of bright streaks to show it had been disabled; the blue “safe” color just another shade of green in his night vision.

He’d never flown a range like this, at the edge of chaos, and he knew he couldn’t think about it.

Trust your pilot.

That’s the rule.

Trust your pilot and your training.

Tim shut off his brain and kept his attention on the targets that the pilot presented outside his side of the chopper. In battle, someone else would have his backside, the field of fire behind him, out the other side of the chopper. In range practice, the pilot would always present the threats to his side.

All he had to do was select and shoot.

Short bursts. Range didn’t mind having their targets hit, but they hated when they were torn up needlessly.

Tim fired short bursts.

Let the flow take him.

Kept his focus and his wrists loose.

His instincts had a decade of training and led him through the course as a blur; every moment crystalline clear, but all part of a loose, easy flow.

When Lola coaxed the Huey into a full roll, he shot the last target while hanging upside down by the straps of his harness.

He killed it dead.

“You were goddamn awesome! Did you hear the range officer? He was just shitting bricks!” Lola danced around him on the sand like a warrior princess. Starlight and a thin crescent moon traced her path. The Huey, a dark shadow, loomed beside them.

Tim still floated in that place of perfect, mellow flow. He’d heard buzzing in his ears. Remembered the range officer talking about something.

“Perfect score,” Lola shouted up at the vault of the heavens. “I threw all that extra shit at you just to mess with you, and you still nailed it.” She sent up a war whoop and started dancing a one-woman conga around him on the sand. Each head toss, flinging her glorious mane of hair like a banner flying high.

He remembered directing them from the range down to the family cabin on Sandy Cove, right across the water from where the Assateague wild horses ran. She’d settled them high on the beach, had to pull him out of the harness where he still sat after she’d powered down the chopper.

He shook himself, feeling like a wet dog just waking up.

The next time Lola circled in front of him he snagged her around the waist and pulled her in hard.

Front to front, she continued to dance and writhe against him in celebration, snapping her fingers to the beat.

He felt like a goddamn god.

Tim took her then. No gentle lovemaking that he’d brought her here for. No slow rise of passion.

Just blistering need burning up his veins and his body.

In moments he’d stripped her naked and shoved her to the sand.

She opened to him and he sated himself on the taste of her, her feel, her shape. He drank deeply, took from her body until she exploded with a cry that shattered the darkness. Her fists pounded his shoulders as a release for the power that surged through her body in great waves.

Still more than half wild, Tim plunged into her welcoming embrace. The pressure built and built.

Trust your pilot.

He let his body take as he’d never taken before. Driving home, nailing the target until he found his own release, a release that tore from his throat with a roar like a lion’s. Or like the righteous glory of a minigun pounding down out of the sky and landing in the dead-center of absolute glory.

***

A dead man.

Tim lay atop Lola like a dead man. His weight a warm comfort on a cooling night. She held him tight, arms around his neck, legs still locked around his hips. The crumpled clothes beneath her a thin buffer from the sand.

She held him and looked up at the stars.

No one had ever taken her like that. No one had ever needed her so badly. And no one had ever given her so much back.

Her body held on to Tim as she stared out into the infinity of space. She was so far gone on him. There had to be something she could do about that, some way to stop it for both their sakes. There was no way she was good enough for him. Not for a man like Tim.

Returning from wherever he’d gone, he didn’t move to ease his weight as if still incapable of such an effort. But one hand, a single finger, moved in a slow circle near her ear, slowly winding a bit of her hair about it. So gentle she wouldn’t have felt it if he hadn’t done it so many times since they’d become lovers.

Experience had taught her that it couldn’t last anyway. Military relationships were strictly about sex, passing ships in the night scenario.

That was all it had ever been. Ever should be.

He nestled more comfortably against her, covering her body, toying with her hair.

Why couldn’t she ease her hold on the man whose heart still pounded against her chest?

They hurried inside the cabin in the chill light of dawn, running naked up the beach. They’d gone for a long skinny dip. Damn, Lola missed swimming. And she’d felt so strong after the great sex that she’d swum way too far and barely made it back to the beach in absolute exhaustion.

The shower had been fast, especially with someone to scrub her back, and the collapse into bed equally quick. They barely snuggled up and she was out like a light.

When at last she woke, Lola could only blink at the dim light beyond the lace-curtained windows. A bedroom clock built into the face of a coconut informed her that it was six o’clock. A.m. or p.m.? The whole room had been done in tropical island, but with a sense of humor. Rather than the clock being kitschy, it was a joke playing off the soft blues and yellows of the rest of the room’s decor. The light green sea-wave bedspread only completed the theme.

She stretched, wincing only a little at a few of her sorer spots, and felt surprisingly good. P.m., she decided. That meant a dozen hours of sleep rather than a mere one or two.

Tim was gone. Only the slightest warmth lingered on the sheets beside her. He’d clearly been up a while.

She wandered back outside into the evening light.

Other than the squat helicopter parked in the middle of the view, it was a stunning place. The long cove sported only tiny waves along the achingly white sand. Across the cove, a long barrier island drew a line along the horizon. Low sand dunes with only the occasional high point, it did nothing to block the smell of the sea.

Salt and seaweed. A warm breeze that had been heating since it rolled off the Gulf Stream current, fresh from the warm Spanish beaches three thousand miles away.

The sun had indeed set, the sky had darkened even as she stood on the cabin’s threshold.

With the fading light, she caught the barest flicker through the Huey’s windows. She’d parked it parallel to the water on a broad rock patio that separated lawn from beach. In the cargo bay, a warm light teased behind the clear plastic.

She walked up close enough to see through the closed near-side door that the sea-facing one was slid open to the view, so she circled the nose and stepped barefoot onto the sun-warmed stone. Tim sat on the lip of the deck, so quiet, so at peace.

Lola leaned in to kiss him, but what she saw in the cargo bay was so perfect that it stopped her. Once again, Tim had revealed himself to be truly exceptional in judging her mood. Inside the chopper lay a tiny world of cozy wonder.

He’d unrigged and stowed the gunner’s seat and the minigun. The stretch of the cargo bay was now covered in a cheerful red-and-white-checkered cloth. A half-dozen candles lit the shadowed interior of the Huey, revealing the results of Tim’s ministrations.

A couple of pillows that had been on the couch when they crawled into the cabin this morning were now set on the hard deck. They were decorated in the same red-and-white checker, with a bit of blue piping around the edges. The pillows would make comfortable seating; not that she and Tim wouldn’t both be at perfect ease without them. They’d both spent too many hours aboard to not be comfortable anywhere on the chopper under almost any conditions.

Now she saw why the picnic basket was so big. It was partly basket and partly an ice-filled cooler. A dozen plastic containers were scattered about, and she knew they’d be filled with Pauley’s Island-style culinary heaven.

A pair of wide-based mugs, filled with tiny bouquets of flowers, completed the scene.

As Tim pulled her into his arms, Lola decided these were near-perfect flight conditions. Rather than kissing her senseless, he swept her up in those powerful arms of his and set her on one of the pillows inside the chopper.

She folded her bare feet under her, as if they were surrounded by sunlit green grass rather than enough dusk-shadowed firepower to punch a fair-sized hole in an armored battle tank.

He stepped aboard and sat opposite her. Then he reached into the basket and extracted two exquisite china teacups and saucers. She couldn’t help herself. She felt all girly as she picked one up to inspect the fine filigree of pink roses, the cup’s delicate handle, and the gold along the rim.

Then he pulled out the prize, a matching teapot clearly meant for just two people.

“I cheated.” Tim spoke while wearing that soft smile that kept melting her heart.

“Please, cheat some more.”

He dug out a tall thermos that billowed steam when opened. On the tail of the steam rose a scent of herbal tea and… “Chocolate?”

Tim emptied the thermos into the teapot and tucked it back into the basket. “Mama’s special blend with just a dash of the best dark cocoa powder. I practically grew up on this. Hot, iced, sometimes with a shot of brandy on Christmas Eve or if one of us was sick to help us sleep. I swear it just gets better with the years.”

He poured from the pot very formally and very carefully. Lola wondered if Mama Cara knew her prize teapot had gone walkabout on a Huey helicopter.

“Hey! Isn’t the general going to be missing his helicopter?”

“I tried gaming him—”

Lola laughed.

Tim smile turned to one of deep chagrin. “Yeah, it worked about that well. General Arnson said something about not messing with someone who’d been all over that since when my mama was still in grade school. So, I told him there was this girl.”

“You told a Marine Corps general that you were having an illicit affair with a superior officer?” Lola wondered just how crazy Tim might really be.

“Hell no! I’m not that nuts. Just mentioned a girl and our family’s beach cabin and begged on my knees like any other natural-born American boy.”

Lola turned to look at the pale pink sky over the settling water out the cargo-bay door.

“Well, you done good.”

She tested the tea. The first sip promised wonders and the second delivered. She’d save the third until she’d eaten some of the spread laid out before her. No plates, just a napkin, fork, and spoon. Perfect. She began poking through the containers and peeling back lids at random.

Each required a brief moment held close to her nose. The containers, some cool from the ice, some room temperature, offered up scents pungent, spicy, sweet, and mellow. She reached into one and slipped a stuffed cherry tomato into her mouth.

When she bit down, flavor burst forth in a splash and the top of her head nearly blew off. She liked spicy hot. Tex-Mex or Cajun, she didn’t care, bring it on. This was something else again.

Tim laughed as she gulped tea and blinked back tears.

The heat continued to roll, spilling layers of flavor. As the heat mellowed, the tomato’s slight acid rolled smoothly on her tongue, the cinnamon wafted up to her nose, and the finish of something nutty was absolutely exquisite.

“We usually eat Pa’s stuffed cherry tomatoes in this.” He uncovered a container of shining white yogurt. “It makes a better balance.”

Lola sipped a little more tea and took a spoonful of yogurt to finish cooling the heat.

“Got any more good surprises?”

Tim nodded happily.

“What’s the best one?”

“Later. It’s for later.”

“Dessert? I want it now. Life is uncertain. Dessert comes first. C’mon, Timmy, I want it now. Now. Now!” She bounced on her cushion. He brought out a silly side that surprised her more than it did him. She pouted like a little girl, crossing her arms and offering her best frown. “I’m not gonna eat no more of your food till I gets my surprise.”

“Nope.”

“Then no more sex.”

“Ouch! Pulling out the big weapons.”

“Damn straight!” She gave one emphatic nod. “Gimme!”

He didn’t reach into the basket.

Instead he reached into his pocket.

For some reason, her first thought was that was a terribly strange place to keep dessert.

Then, in the candlelight, she saw the glint of gold and silver and ruby he now held between his fingertips. Her second thought was how stunningly beautiful the perfect ring was.

She never had time for a third thought because of the soul-freezing shock.

“Lola, this is my grandmother’s ring. I ask—”

The rest of his words turned into a harsh buzzing in her ears. Something about permission and ever after and—

A hard twitch shot through her body with a whip of pain, and she was gone.

Lola dove out of the helicopter, hit the ground in a tight roll that brought her to her feet, and took off running down the beach.

She fell, sprawling face first into the sand.

Heard dishes clattering and banging together where she’d shoved off.

And just as she regained her feet, she heard what could only be the sound of a falling teapot shattering against the hard stone.