By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers)

by M. L. Buchman

  Justin hadn’t come at it quite that way. Bad guys. Take ’em down was as far as his thinking ever carried him.

  It hadn’t been Hamas that had killed his crew, but it might as well have been. If he could, with a single stroke, stamp down on every single extremist group and grind them out of existence with his boot heel, he wouldn’t be asking if it was right.

  The ones who flocked to al-Qaeda, Hamas, or a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob were all the same to him. Not the most compassionate view.

  Kara’s heart was bigger than that.

  “You’re a hard woman to live up to, Kara Moretti.”

  “I… What? Why on earth would you say that?”

  Justin looked up at the canopy of oak leaves. So dense, only the occasional star shone through. If not for the thin crescent of the waning moon, it would be as dark as a cave here in the Virginia woods. Then the rage came from so deep and at such a full gallop that it just snapped out of him.

  “I don’t get how you extend your heart to people you’ve never met despite what they’ve done. I care about you, Kara. I care about my family and my crew. I like your family and what folks I’ve come to know on the Peleliu. But someone who’s out there killing folk because they can? Or because they believe different than other folks do? Any pity I had for them went south the day my crew’s lives were burned into my back. Don’t ever give me the codes on the Bomb; I’ll launch it right up their asses.”

  Justin clamped his teeth down on his tongue to try to stop his anger from spilling out even more. Breathe slow, the post-action counselor had told him…after he’d finally woken up in Walter Reed Hospital, ten thousand miles from his dead crew.

  If the counselor guy were here now, Justin would use his fist to let him know just what Justin thought of that particular advice. He took a deep breath and did try to let it out slowly. Maybe it even helped…maybe.

  Kara kept her silence, used her free hand to start playing with his fingers where they were interlaced with hers. It helped him calm down and focus more than any goddamn breathing routine.

  “I remember saying once that you should have just gone and gotten mad at me, Justin.” She tugged at his index finger, then his thumb. “Must say, I’m rethinking that idea.”

  Justin tried a dutiful laugh, but not much came out.

  “You keep that down deep. World doesn’t get to see you mad much.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m a deep guy.”

  “Deep as shit, Cowboy; I’ve stepped in it and can’t seem to climb back out.”

  Before he could take that wrong, she lifted their joined hands and rubbed the back of his hand against her cheek.

  “You’re most of the way to convincing me I don’t want to climb out either. Next thing I know, you’ll have me all snugged down in that pig wallow of happiness of yours. Because no matter what it feels like on the inside, you’re pretty incredible from the outside, Cowboy.”

  Justin was half tempted to say exactly what it felt like on the inside but then decided he’d be far better off keeping his trap shut.

  “I’m not deep. I just want to be damn clear about what I’m doing before I go and do it.” Kara kept his hand between hers and her cheek. “I’m just a girl from Brooklyn, Justin. They want an AMC who can go the distance and not get the team killed along the way. That so ain’t me.”

  Justin laughed. He couldn’t help himself.

  “What?”

  “That is so you, Kara. You have no idea, sweetheart, but that is so you.”

  “How—”

  “You’re the goddamnedest mama bear I’ve ever met, maybe even more than the queen mama bear that gave birth to this boy. You’d kill yourself to protect your family. And you’ve got fences a mile high as you choose who you’ll let in.”

  “I don’t have fences.” Kara’s protest was emphatic as she tried to drop his hand, but he didn’t let go.

  “Damn, sweetheart. That’s bad news.”

  “Why?”

  Justin wished he could see her face, but the night’s shadows were too dense. “Because, Kara, my only hope of winning your love is that I simply haven’t climbed over those high barriers of yours. If you don’t have fences, then it means that I’m simply not good enough. Don’t particularly like the sound of that.”

  Kara jumped back down to the forest floor and tugged at their joined hands to make him drop off the branch and stand in front of her. Then she slid in against his chest so that he could nuzzle the top of her hair.

  “Oh, you’re plenty good enough, Cowboy. You cleared those heights long ago. Which is what’s scaring the crap out of me.”

  For lack of any better answer, Justin kissed her, kissed her with his whole heart.

  She kissed him back just the same, with her heart wide open.

  “Ready to go get ’em, Mama Bear?”

  “Ready, sweetheart,” she answered with her terrible Texas accent that came out sounding more like a female Humphrey Bogart.

  It was good enough for him.

  Chapter 23

  Justin didn’t envy the ride they were having in the back of his Chinook or the Little Bird gunship that Claudia was flying close behind him. They had discussed a dozen scenarios to insert the action team, and the one they’d chosen wasn’t a smooth ride.

  A jump from a high-altitude aircraft was out of the question. Israel had one of the most advanced radar missile-detection systems ever built. It was used to spot incoming Scuds from Jordan or Egypt, or mortars from the West Bank. A plane entering Israeli airspace at any jump-capable altitude would certainly be spotted and fired upon.

  Ramon Airbase was eighty kilometers from the nearest international waters so a HAHO jump was also out. By jumping from a high altitude and opening a flying chute right away, a team could travel forty kilometers and be very difficult to detect. But eighty was out of the question.

  With water out of the picture, the only other HAHO jump option was to come in over the Sinai Peninsula, deliberately pop up until they showed on everyone’s radar, and release the jumpers to fly the twenty kilometers across one of the most carefully watched borders in the Middle East to Ramon Airbase. Egypt was not what Justin would call a friendly country for launching a U.S. mission against America’s closest ally in the region.

  Fast and low was the answer. Fast and low in a hundred feet of helicopter meant a very rough ride for those in back.

  That wasn’t Justin’s problem. His problem was getting them there in one piece. For reasons he couldn’t explain, this flight was far more nerve-racking than his first foray in and out of the Negev Desert. Of course last time he hadn’t had a chance to think about the flight beforehand. It had been an emergency exfiltration.

  This was a preplanned mission, and it was white knuckle the whole way in from the coast. This time he’d had almost forty-eight hours to worry as assets were selected and recalled from leave, then traveled to the Peleliu for the detailed planning sessions.

  “Danny, we need a flying song.”

  “I’m leavin’ on a hee-lo.” His copilot started them off rather than complaining. It meant he was as tightly wound as Justin was, not a good sign. Not a bad voice either.

  “Didn’t know that we’d be back here again.” Carmen picked up the tune.

  A surprise bass came over the intercom from Raymond at the rear ramp. “Oh man, I really got to go.” Like he was looking for the bathroom.

  “Piss off the ramp,” Carmen said quickly to not interrupt the song and got some laughs.

  “All our guns are packed, they gave us the go.” Justin kicked off the verse.

  “I’m seeing hard rock right outside our door,” Talbot observed from his position at portside minigun.

  “I really hate to think we’re all gonna die…” Danny’s morose tone drew laughter, and the song continued pinging around the Calamity Jane.

  As it
did, Justin could feel his nerves and those of his crew easing down and finding the groove. His crew’s state of mind really shouldn’t matter to him. He’d sworn it wouldn’t.

  Good luck with that, Justin.

  When he’d first come back to flying from the hospital, he’d sworn he’d never get so close to a crew again. Never again risk having so much to lose. But this crew had grown on him until once again it was impossible to imagine flying with anyone else. If anything, he was in even deeper than he’d been with Mariko, Rom, and the other members of his first crew.

  Like Kara Moretti. He was in so deep—they both were—that it was past imagining. Right at this moment, as he slewed around the edge of another wind-carved tower of stone, he finally understood her fear. How had he been supposed to see that the problem was she cared too much about him, rather than not enough?

  He waited until the Jane was low in a canyon and their signals could only be intercepted by something directly overhead, like Kara’s Gray Eagle Tosca.

  Justin flipped his mic out of the helicopter’s intercom circuit for a moment as he twisted through a hard ninety-degree turn in the dry streambed.

  * * *

  “Hey, sweetheart.”

  Kara jolted in her chair inside her coffin. She’d been so absorbed in monitoring the flight and the ongoing silence of the Israeli defense perimeter that Justin’s voice was a visceral shock.

  She had both Tosca and the small ScanEagle replacement bird aloft as well as two helos in flight, all of which kept her plenty busy.

  The tactical display showed that Justin was down in a canyon, so it would be safe for him to transmit. But she was pushing the high ceiling of Tosca and any signal she sent from that big Gray Eagle would have a broad spread. She could listen, but outside of an emergency, she wouldn’t transmit—and the bastard would know that.

  “Just figured out some things,” he continued.

  Always thinking, aren’t you? And he was; the man was always puzzling at his world until it felt all neat and orderly. Kara was more likely to beat it into submission until it fit her plan. She could hear the grunt that the g-force slammed out of his diaphragm as she watched him slalom through another hard turn on her display.

  “Reckon I think too much.” As if he’d heard her unspoken comment. “Finally understand I’m not the only one crazy in love. Wanted to let you know. I’m not the sharpest one in the herd, but I get there. Looking forward to it, sweetheart.” He released his mic.

  He’d called in the middle of a mission flight to tell her that? To tell her that she was crazy in love with him? He was such an idiot.

  Of course she was—

  She tried desperately to make that into a wasn’t but it didn’t come out that way.

  Of course she was? Crazy in love with a cowboy currently deep inside a country that would blow his ass out of the sky if they spotted him and ask questions later?

  Kara really needed her head examined. Or her heart, because it was being pretty stupid about this whole situation.

  “Two minutes to target.” Tago drew her focus back in. He glanced over from his own armchair and offered a smile that was encouraging rather than angry. She liked Tago’s protectiveness of her, but she—Oh crap, she was going to say it or at least think it!—loved Cowboy Roberts.

  Damn him! And he’d left her with no reasonable way to respond.

  She double-checked Ramon Airbase’s alert status. It had remained quiet during last night’s overflight to inspect the base for security changes. It was equally quiet and normal for the three hours she’d already had Tosca on station tonight.

  Well, time for that to end.

  What did you boys and girls learn in the month since we were last here?

  Both SOAR helos were in position.

  Claudia Jean Gibson was hovering the stealth attack Little Bird Maven II to the north of the air base, masked by a single convolution of the land.

  And roaring up the wadis from the southwest were Justin and his crew in the Calamity Jane. Two birds was a minimum flight for mission safety reasons. They also needed both birds for this to work, as well as for the extraction plan to stand a chance.

  No need to send a signal. One of the trademarks of the 160th was they could place themselves anywhere within plus or minus thirty seconds of plan. It didn’t matter if it was a thousand kilometers into bad-boy land or meeting an aerial tanker during a Red Flag aerial combat exercise over the Nevada desert—at plus or minus thirty seconds they’d be there.

  The 5D’s goal was plus or minus ten seconds. We’ll damn well beat that tonight!

  We! Kara surprised herself. It was “We.” That much had become clear during the planning aboard the Peleliu as she worked scenarios and built the mission team. She might be sitting back in her safe and secure GCS coffin, but the only one who thought less of her for it was her own self.

  Dumb, chick! Real dumb. Get with the effing program.

  Captain Kara Moretti was in the 5D. And the 5D rocked.

  Sure enough, at exactly thirty seconds to the witching hour, on schedule to the second, Michael’s wife, Claudia Jean, kicked an illumination flare up and over the ridge that masked her from the base. Then she laid down the hammer and was scooting west, deeper into the hills.

  The base took fifteen seconds to wake up instead of the nearly sixty it had taken them during Calamity Jane’s first visit. Also, instead of coming alive in sections, the whole base snapped to at once.

  Perimeter and runway lights flashed on together, dimmed a moment at the unexpectedly heavy load, and then brightened once more as the electrical grid stabilized.

  Moments later, lights kicked on in two of the hardened hangars where they’d be warming up a pair of fighter jets as fast as they could. If they were on warm alert, the planes could be airborne in as little as three minutes, more likely six.

  Humvees tumbled into action at various points around the base, but they were all inside the perimeter fence and Claudia’s flare had been high up on the hill, well away from any perimeter gate. Ground forces weren’t a threat, and hopefully Maven’s stealth setup and rapidly changed position would mask Claudia from the jet fighters.

  All attention shifted to the airfield itself along the northern edge of the compound.

  * * *

  Justin rolled down out of the southern hills close beside the Israeli residential area of Ramon Airbase.

  “Ten seconds,” he announced over the intercom.

  A small area of salt pan and sand lay inside the perimeter fence but had been left rough. It was either for training exercises or the Israelis were serious fans of motocross.

  It had several advantages for clandestine entry.

  A small fold of land hid the exercise ground from the closer structures if Justin stayed low enough. He was nineteen feet from wheel to top of rear rotor. The fold of land would mask him as long as his wheels stayed within three feet of the barbed wire topping the perimeter fence.

  Advantage two: the sandpit was at the far corner of the base from the airfield, meaning very little attention would be on this area at the moment.

  And finally, the training ground was rough enough for their inserted team to disappear in moments even if his helo was spotted.

  At five seconds, Raymond had the rear ramp open.

  At three, Justin hopped the Calamity Jane over the perimeter fence with his wheels a foot above the wire.

  At one, he was moving at fifty kilometers per hour and his rear ramp was inches off the sand.

  “Rolling,” Carmen called.

  At zero, he could feel the weight shift as the Humvee they’d stolen last month rolled out the back of the helo, off the ramp, and hit the dirt.

  At contact plus five seconds, the Humvee was on the sand going one way, and after less than a hundred meters inside the fence line, Justin had the Calamity Jane back over th
e razor wire and racing once more into the southern hills.

  If the Humvee was spotted, it would look exactly as if it belonged—after all, it actually did. There wouldn’t be any problems as long as no one looked too closely at the soldiers inside.

  It was driven by Tom from The Activity exactly as it had been when it left the air base. He knew the airfield like no other and was there to positively identify the targets. Colonel Michael Gibson and Lieutenant Bill Bruce, Michael’s right hand, rode as shooters, as did Tanya of Mossad’s Kidon. The four of them were now out of Justin’s hands until their mission was complete.

  The Calamity Jane was at least two minutes ahead of the Israeli alert fighters—that’s if they kept engines idling and cockpits manned. Hopefully it would take them a full five minutes with cold engines and pilots in a ready room.

  Justin needed the five minutes.

  He cut south and then, against what they’d expect, he turned east away from the protecting hills.

  “You better be right, girlie,” he muttered to himself. Kara had insisted the fighters would be scouring the hills, never expecting an invading force to move deeper into the Israeli desert and expose itself on the flats of the Central Negev.

  He kept as low as he dared, might have even spun his wheels a time or two on a bush. Eight kilometers east across the central basin lay the ruins of an ancient city, Avdat. It was a leftover from the old Incense Route that had moved valuable spices across the barren desert for over five hundred years in the times of the Greeks and Romans. Kara had told him all about it during the briefing. Woman’s brain was a steel trap for details.

  The Avdat ruins climbed the face of a hill above a parking lot. A complex jumble of buildings fronted the slope. Atop the crest was a large rectangular building, rather than the remaining outer walls of one. The rectangle was cut in two by a midline wall, making two temple squares.

  Kara had gotten all excited about kings and spice routes.

  All he cared about was the deep-walled courtyard that would hide his helicopter. The squared-off area to the rear was big enough for the Calamity Jane to hide through a few hours of the night.