by Cindy Dees
HOT SOLDIER DOWN
CINDY DEES
CONTENTS
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Get Hot Soldier Spy
A Plea From The Author
More Books By Cindy Dees
About the Author
SUMMARY
When helicopter pilot, Captain Annie O'Donnell, makes a split second decision that nearly kills Special Forces operative, Tom Foley, she feels obliged to stay behind in a city on the verge of war and nurse him back to health. As civil war erupts around them and the Blackjacks arrive to pull them out, the situation goes from bad to worse. Separated by rank, responsibility, and duty, they desperately fight their sizzling attraction. But as time runs out and the enemy closes in, their lives and love are on the line.
PRAISE FOR CINDY DEES
Lovers of Dees’ high-stakes, fast-paced action will find exponentially increasing tension in each scene and pulse-pounding adventure that will keep readers enthralled.
ROMANTIC TIMES BOOK REVIEWS
Ten stars is not enough for Dees’ books!
HARRIET KLAUSNER, AMAZON TOP REVIEWER
Wow! You have to read Cindy Dees! I laughed. I cried. I laughed some more. Left me breathless. Can’t put her books down!
ROMANCE READER REVIEW
CHAPTER ONE
Air Force Captain Ann O’Donnell eased off the throttle and pulled back on the collective. She brought her helicopter smoothly to a hover over a featureless spot in the black ocean of jungle below them. The rendezvous point. Somewhere beneath her, the Blackjacks—an elite American Spec Ops team—were in trouble. They’d called for an emergency egress, which explained why she was out here in the thick of cocaine country with her booty hanging in the wind.
“Are you sure we’re at the right clearing?” she asked Rusty, her copilot.
“The coordinates Blackjack Ops gave us were precise. This is the spot. I’ve got infrared imagery of a clearing under the jungle canopy, maybe fifty feet across. No heat signatures, yet.”
Five endless minutes ticked by with no blobs of human heat lighting up Rusty’s scope. A lifetime in the world of Spec Ops. Her passengers were late. Hopefully, they weren’t dead.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Nope. You know, we can’t sit here all night, Annie. Somebody’s bound to hear us and get the bright idea to shoot us down.”
“Let’s give it one more minute. The Blackjack brass is gonna be pissed if we miss their guys.”
She was a sitting duck, hovering like this. It didn’t take fancy detection equipment to hear the thwocking of a helicopter. Even with the sound suppressing blades and noise cancelling, wave broadcasting on her blacked-out bird. The back of her neck itched ominously. Dammit. Her neck was never wrong.
Time to go.
She addressed the two crewmen manning the winch in the back. “P.J.’s, when we bug out, I’m going to bank hard right and accelerate fast. Don’t get dumped out the door.”
“Roger that,” one of them replied.
“Retract the forest penetrator seat and prepare for departure,” she ordered.
“Winch is winding.”
Her palms went slick with sweat. It was a good bet that missing this pickup would complicate the Blackjack’s lives big time.
“Seat retracted and stowed, Captain.”
She counted down, “And we’re out of here in five, four, three…”
“Wait!” Rusty called. “Got ’em. Two targets on screen, more moving in. Transmitting the right I.D. codes.”
The winch motor whined behind her, dropping the cable and its heavy, steel seat back into the clearing. The para-jumpers traded terse commands, one manning the winch, the other hanging out the door, guiding the cable and reporting on the progress of the evacuation.
“Man in.”
She heard the grunt of the first soldier as he landed unceremoniously on his belly on the Huey’s floor. He was left to crawl out of the way and right himself while her crew dropped the seat again. Metal hissed as the steel cable hurtled down into the belly of the beast.
“Two’s on the seat.”
“Hoisting. Ten feet per second.”
That was pretty fast. Whoever was hanging on that cable was getting the hell scratched out of him as he tore up through the trees.
Two more soldiers landed in the helicopter.
“Winch away.”
“Cap’n, I’ve got movement on the scope,” her copilot announced. “Hostiles inbound.”
“Talk to me, Rusty,” she bit out.
“I’ve got our last two guys center screen. I paint four, no, make that six hostiles moving in.”
She frowned. “You copy that, PJ’s?”
“Yes ma’am. We’re hauling ’em up like bats outta hell.”
“Range, Rusty?”
“Five hundred feet. Ten hostiles now.”
“How are we doing back there, gentlemen?”
“Number five on the cable, ma’am.”
“Max out the winch. We need to go. Now.”
“Already doin’ it.”
“Cable’s at forty feet. Thirty. Twenty! Brake the winch!” the door guy shouted.
“Relax. I got it,” the winch operator groused.
A thump as the fifth man hit the floor.
“Clear.”
“Winch away.”
“One more to go, ma’am. Damn, dude. You ’bout slammed the last one’s head into the skid!”
She interrupted. “Cut the chatter. Rusty, report.”
“Hostiles at two hundred feet. Closing fast.”
Shit. She glanced over at the radar screen, then back at her own controls. A sudden beeping tone made her jump.
Rusty called, “I see a big gun. Looks like a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher.”
“Have they got lock on?” she demanded.
“Not yet, Cap’n.”
“Where’s the last man, PJ?” she asked tersely.
“Climbing on the seat now.”
“Get him out of there. He’s about to have company.”
“Cable’s winding, ma’am.”
“How far to lift him, Frank?”
“Eighty feet.”
Rusty’s voice was clipped, desperate. “Weapon activation.”
The beeping became a steady warning tone. They’d been locked onto by a laser guidance system.
“How far, Frank?” she called.
“Fifty feet!”
Ping. Ping, ping, ping. She flinched instinctively. There was no other sound quite like bullets tearing through metal.
“Winch is hit! Motor’s jammed!” a PJ yelled.
“We gotta go!” Rusty shouted.
A PJ yelled from the back. “I got a man hangin’ on my cable. ’Bout forty feet down. He’s gonna die if we drag him through the trees.”
They were all going to die if a grenade hit them.
“Hang on!” she shouted as she slammed the throttles forward.
She felt the thud when the man beneath her crashed into a tree. The scream of the engines wasn’t loud enough to drown out the collective groan that issued from the five passengers in the back. She sent out a silent prayer. Please don’t let that man suffer. Please make his death swift and painless.
She climbed as high as she dared, about thirty feet above t
he treetops, just below where radar could paint her. The man on the cable was still in the trees, but hopefully the smaller growth at the top of the jungle would be less destructive than the heavier trunks and branches lower down.
The guy didn’t have a chance in the world of surviving, but on the off possibility that some higher power owed him a miracle, she planned to give him all the help she could.
Every few seconds a shudder passed into her hands from the helicopter’s control column as the body of the soldier beneath her hit another tree. Grisly images of his mangled corpse swam in her mind’s eye. It took all her self-discipline to force her mind to the business getting the hell out of here and saving everyone else.
“Status report, Rusty,” she ordered grimly. “What did that ground fire hit?”
“Your VHF radio’s out, the oil system’s leaking bad.”
“How bad?”
“I’ll give it thirty minutes till she’s dry.”
They could be back in St. George in forty minutes. Forty endless minutes for the man hanging on that cable to bleed and suffer.
“Door window got knocked out, and the winch got hit,” Rusty continued. “Beyond that, we’ve got bullet holes here and there. Nothing major.”
Nothing major except a man dangling, dying, below her. A man who’d been counting on her to get him out alive.
The interior of the helicopter went silent. The steady scream of the engines droned and the deep pounding of the rotor blades beat the air.
Nine to one.
Nine lives for one life.
Nine devastated families or just one.
She talked to distract herself. “PJ’s, any suggestions on how I set this guy down?”
“Yeah. Gently.”
The second PJ growled, “Shut up, smartass. You might want to radio the embassy, ma’am, and have one of the duty Marines guide you down visually. We don’t want to drop this guy hard.” He added, “While you’re at it, have them bring a cable cutter out to the pad.”
“Why?” she asked
“That guy’s body is gonna be all tangled up in the cable. They’re gonna have to cut him out.”
Christ. She squeezed her eyes shut against the image his words summoned. “Right. Cable cutters. I’ll take care of it,” she choked out.
She took a quick glance over her shoulder at her passengers. They wore black close-fitting clothing devoid of any military markings. Black face paint. Night vision goggles. Utility vests bristling with weapons and ammunition.
“PJ, put one of our passengers up on headset, will you?”
“Okay, just a sec.” There was a brief pause. “He’s up.”
“What do you need, Captain?” The voice was tired, gruff.
“Your buddy’s hanging under my helicopter and is no doubt, uhh, injured. I can proceed now to your planned drop-off point and leave him hanging. Or I can divert into St. George, which is about thirty minutes closer, and get medical treatment for him there. It’s your call.”
“Stand by.” After a brief silence, the voice came back up on the headset. “St. George.”
Man, he sure was talkative. She replied, “I’ll have the embassy doctor meet us when we land. If anything can be done to help your buddy, I’ll personally make it happen.”
“He’s got a fucking name.”
The man’s abrupt flash of anger startled her. But then why wouldn’t he be mad? She’d killed his friend, after all. She asked quietly, “What’s his name?”
“Major Thomas P. Foley.”
PAIN. Tom’s whole existence could be summed up in that one word.
Grinding, unbearable agony ripping through his body. As each bone broke, another layer of suffering stacked on top of the one before. No mere torture could compare to this. He slammed into tree trunks over and over, with the force of a car crashing into a wall. Branches slashed him like whips and knives, slicing the flesh from his body.
White starbursts of agony exploded in his brain. He’d scream if his throat muscles would cooperate, but they were beyond sound. He fought for air, fought to open his eyes against the encroaching blackness, fought not to die.
He did his best to hold it off, but inch by anguishing inch, he gave way. He was almost grateful when the darkness closed over his head, blanking out the light, blanking out thought, blanking out all feeling.
He welcomed oblivion.
LIGHT. Shining brightly in his eyes. Someone tugged at his eyelids and shone that damn light at him again.
Voices. Quiet, murmuring as if they stood beside a dead man.
“…patient’s progressing better than expected, given the extent of his injuries…will maintain regimen of painkillers and sedation for a few more days…”
Days?
That was bad. But why?
Think, you idiot.
His men. That was it. They needed him. He was their leader. He was responsible for them. He had to get up, get moving, take care of them. They had to go.
Go where?
The answer refused to come.
MORE PAIN. Everywhere he could feel hurt. His whole body. Places he didn’t even know he could register pain in were screaming at him. He swam in a ocean of pain, endless in every direction he looked, drowning him. Pulling him down.
A hand smoothed his brow with the infinite care of a mother’s touch. It soothed him deep down, in his soul. So long since he’d been touched like that. He fed on the gentle, unfamiliar caress, a starving man feasting.
Wait. Soft was not normal. His world was hard.
Who…
He lost the thought.
Fingers slid into his hair. The touch was still light, but different somehow. It had evolved into something more…sensual. Female. His dick began to fill.
Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes. If he had a hard-on, surely he must still be alive. For a minute there, he’d worried he’d gotten horny for an angel.
God, he would love to have those hands roam all over him. Grip his erection and cup his balls--
He opened his eyes to beg for more, and a fuzzy vision of a golden-haired woman swam before him. He couldn’t make out her face. Had he died after all? Was she an angel?
Him in Heaven? No way. Not unless some celestial paper pusher up above had screwed up.
“Hey, handsome. Welcome back.”
His angel’s voice was throaty. Sexy. It flowed over him, hot and sweet. His heart pounded blood through his body, creating a pulsing, throbbing need that made him rock hard. Surely people in Heaven weren’t allowed to lust after angels.
Did that mean he wasn’t dead, after all?
Hallelujah. He’d never been so grateful for the discomfort of a woodie in his life.
Who was she?
“They’ve given you another dose of morphine,” the woman said. “The pain will go away soon. Don’t fight it.”
They who? Where the hell was he? It looked like a hospital room. But where? Fear ripped through him. But he felt as if his entire body was tied down, immobilized. His panic sent the medical beeping sounds coming from somewhere behind his head into a frenzy, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to calm his pulse—or to get out of here. Not yet.
For an angel, she had a sinful voice. He turned his head to get a better look at her, but his head wobbled like a newborn baby’s. Damn, he was weak. He tried to lift his hand, to get the tube out of his throat so he could tell her about his men, about his need to leave. About his need to have her touch him. But his arm was so damned heavy he couldn’t lift his hand to yank out the tube.
Renewed panic ripped through him as he realized his entire body was refusing to cooperate with him. He tried to sit up, hell, just to roll out of bed. But he couldn’t do it. His stare darted left and right. Adrenaline screamed through his blood, demanding a target to attack or a path to escape. His breath rasped hoarsely and his heart pounded like a jackhammer. But he couldn’t do anything!
What was wrong with him?
What had she done to him?
Must. Get. Free.
The woman subdued him easily, pushing his back down to the mattress. Her hands kneaded the atrophied muscles of his shoulder, but he didn’t buy the fake comforting thing for a second. He was a prisoner!
Christ. He knew what he was supposed to do. He just had to remember it…
Name. Rank. Serial Number.
Buy time. Don’t break. Don’t give in to the pain. Get angry. Focus on something unimportant so you don’t reveal the real intel.
Something niggled at the back of his consciousness. He pushed it aside, but it kept intruding on the bliss of his massage. Finally, reluctantly, he let the thought surface in his consciousness. Something he was supposed to do…somewhere he had to go…
It came back vaguely. He was supposed to lead his men out of a jungle. To safety.
That was the secret he had to protect. The fact that the other five members of his team might still be in country.
A distraction. He needed something else to think about. The woman. Her blond hair and pretty face. Yes. He would think about that. Pretend she was here to help him.
The woman fiddled with the IV bottle hooked to his right arm, and oblivion claimed him as he concentrated fiercely on memorizing every detail of her face.
HE AWOKE WITH A START. The pain was still there, but more of a background noise than the main event. Something else was different. He took inventory of his body. His throat. No tube was jammed down it. He swallowed. His throat grated like sandpaper.
“Thirsty,” he tried. It came out a croak, but it was sound.
The blond woman, who sounded American now that he was a bit more conscious, appeared like magic at his side. “Hi, there, sleepyhead. How are you feeling today?”
“Thirsty,” he repeated. A test. See if she would offer him a drink or not. How hostile a jailor was she?
She disappeared from his field of vision and came back carrying a glass with a plastic, flexible straw sticking out of it. She put its end between his teeth. He sucked and cool water flooded his mouth. Slid down his throat. Cool. Wet. Soothing. Huh. So she wasn’t playing hardball with him yet. Thank God. He didn’t feel strong enough to resist a full-blown interrogation.