by Emmy Curtis
Conrad affirmed and they waited for the major to pick up.
“Major Bowman, this is Lieutenant Colonel Conrad—we spoke briefly yesterday about Major Malden. I heard you gave the order for her to be released from house arrest.”
“I did. But the order came from Colonel Cameron.”
“Well, that’s the thing. No one has seen Colonel Cameron since last night. When did you speak to him?” Please don’t let this be anything.
“I didn’t speak to him at all. He sent me an email.”
“You never actually spoke to him?”
“No.”
“What time did he email you?”
“Let me check.” There was a pause. “I opened it first thing in the morning, but he sent it…let me see…at ten after midnight. It says he sent it from his iPhone.”
“Okay, thank you for your time.” He was about to hang up, when he heard him say something else. He put the phone back to his ear. “Excuse me?”
“Is there anything you’re not telling me? Should I be worried about this?” Major Bowman asked.
“I don’t know, but no one’s seen Colonel Cameron since yesterday evening. He seems to be AWOL today.”
Bowman groaned but said nothing.
“Look, I’m slightly concerned that Colonel Cameron wanted to leave Major Malden in custody to protect her and then changed his mind at midnight last night. Take down my number, just in case you need to get hold of me.” He recited his cell phone number and then hung up. He raised his eyebrows at Captain Moss. “I don’t know what would have made him change his mind at midnight last night. Do you think there’s a chance that something’s happened to him?”
The assistant shook her head. “Again, you didn’t hear this from me, but he had a date last night. I’m not going to go around raising the alarm if he’s getting lucky for once.”
Conrad tried not to smile. He hoped that was all it was. But he was sure Cameron wasn’t the type to just sleep in when the base was going to shit and two pilots had gone missing.
“I don’t know,” Conrad said. “Has he ever been this far off grid before?”
“I’ve only been here six months. But in that time, no.”
Well, if she knew he had a date, maybe she knew who the date was. He asked.
“Yeah. Again…”
“Yes, yes, I didn’t hear this from you,” Conrad rattled off, becoming slightly exasperated.
“Okay, she used to be a pilot. She used to fly here at Red Flag. I think that’s where they met.”
That put Conrad’s mind at rest. At least he was out with someone who was ex-military. He nodded and took his hat out of his pocket. “Okay, thanks for your help, and if you see it in yourself to slide me up a few numbers from twenty-eight, I’d appreciate it.”
“You betcha,” she said, writing on her notebook.
Conrad turned to leave and paused in the doorway to let somebody else pass down the narrow corridor.
“Oh. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but his date? The ex-military one? She now works for TGO. That’s why she's here at Nellis.”
Conrad blew out a breath of air. He didn’t know it made a difference, but his mind wasn’t quite as at rest is it had been before. Half of him felt as if he should stay, bring the captain a cup of coffee, and try to find out every single thing she knew. But the other half of him wanted to find Missy, and that was the half that won.
When he didn’t find her at the old barracks pseudo-jail, nor the barracks she’d been staying in previously, his heart rate started getting the better of him. Nothing was normal.
The fact that he was worried about Missy, while on a freaking military base, showed just how far the situation had degraded. He had no idea who the ranking officer was on the whole base, and the flight and maintenance crews who had assembled as teams to participate in Red Flag seemed to be turning on each other in an information vacuum.
And he couldn’t find Missy. And he didn’t even know if she’d been legitimately released. And if she hadn’t been…who had given the order? And why? God, he hoped it was a friend of Missy’s who had persuaded Cameron to send the email. The alternative was that someone else sent the email and either had Cameron’s phone or had just made the email appear as if it was him. Either way, those two options suggested that someone wanted Missy out of custody for nefarious reasons.
He started to run through the barracks and dorms, asking passersby if anyone had seen her. No one had. His reflexes were on super-high alert with the crisis at hand. It was as if he were in the cockpit and trying to think two steps ahead of an unseen enemy.
That was why when he eventually saw her, doing laps on the track, he was hyper-alert to the people around her. Everyone on or near the track was in military PT gear, which meant they weren’t TGO, which seemed to be the common factor linking all the fucked-up shit that had gone down over the past day. If he never saw a stupid TGO key ring or branded USB drive again it would be too soon.
He slowed down as he reached the track. He was suddenly alarmed at seeing her. What would he say to her? Should he tell her that he wasn’t sure that Colonel Cameron had in fact ordered her release? Would it make her paranoid? Was honesty the best policy? Was it safer to tell her? He slowed right down to a crawl. He should have thought this through. He hadn’t.
He spun around so she wouldn’t see him and walked to the other side of the road and sat on a small wall where he could still have eyes on her.
He needed to think. Not just about the danger he may or may not have made up in his head, but about them. About their future. Yes, he wanted to fly with her, but he just wanted to be with her too. How could they date if she was on the other side of the country? How would he get past the little he knew about her, and how would she get past his lies? He needed to come up with a plan.
That was it. He would come up with a plan and…no. That was a terrible idea. She had to decide what she wanted to do, and it was up to him to persuade her. But for now, all he had to do was keep her in sight.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For the first time on a military base, Missy felt nervous walking in the dark. She couldn’t tell if this whole business had made her paranoid, or if she really was being stalked. She quickened her pace, unsure of whether to stay in the shadows, where she was harder to see, or walk deliberately in the dim pools of light from the streetlamps.
She’d run too long, then she’d spent too long at the gym, and then too long in the shower. If she were being truthful, she was avoiding Conrad. She had no idea what to say to him. All she’d come up with in the hours she’d been working out was to try to be casual when she saw him next.
Their best possible outcome was a clean break—just as she’d planned all along. Sure, the sex was amazing, and she almost felt as if she were a little closer to him in the past few days. But Conrad had done what Eleanor or any other good friend would have done for her. Minus the sex, that was.
Missy wondered if the lockdown was over. She wondered how soon she could leave and never look back. She also wanted to confirm with her squadron commander that she was leaving. She just wanted normal back. Normal was good for her. Normal worked. Normal didn’t bring those weird feelings back, the ones she hadn’t felt for over a decade.
She slowed down as she passed the track again and the little playground in the corner where she and Conrad had…played? She stopped and looked at it, wondering if anyone had seen them there.
A sharp snap pierced the cool air. She jumped and looked frantically around her.
There was no one there. She was sure it had come from the wooded area in front of the playground. Was it an animal? Someone watching her? Her head told her to run, but her body wanted her to find out what—or who—was there.
She looked around for anybody nearby who might go with her. But there was no one. And she was smart enough to know that the kid who investigated the sound was always the first to die in horror movies. She was not going to be that too-stupid-to-live heroine. She
put her hands on her hips and glared into the trees, squinting to see if she could catch any movement. Nothing.
Shrugging, she turned and took a light jog up the road to the other side of the track, which was the easiest way to get back to her room.
Just as she was passing the upper bend of the track, another, much louder crack echoed around her. It sounded like the small-arms fire they used to take in Afghanistan. Iced adrenaline pumped through her as she powered down the road toward the houses that the Nellis-based officers lived in.
“Get down!” a voice yelled just as she reached the first door.
She spun around as a bullet missed her face by centimeters. She immediately hit the deck.
Conrad slid down alongside her.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped.
“Following you,” he replied, trying to turn around to face the road without raising his profile to whoever was shooting at them.
“That’s not creepy at all.” She slid closer to the door and kicked out, hoping someone would let them in and give them cover.
The door opened, and to Missy’s horror a little girl stood there, barely more than seven years old. “Get down! Get down!” Missy yelled.
The girl didn’t move. Missy launched herself up and pulled the girl down, landing in the hallway of the house. Thankfully adult footsteps came running.
“What the hell is—” a man said.
“Shooter!” Missy gasped. With relief she felt the little girl being pulled out from under her. “Call the MPs,” she said.
But the man was already dialing. He identified himself as a chief when someone picked up.
“Conrad, get in here,” she yelled through the still-open door.
He crawled in and kicked the door shut. “Stay away from the windows,” he instructed the man. “Is there anyone else in the house?”
Another bullet hit the door.
“Get down!” Conrad yelled.
Everyone hit the deck, and silence reigned. Until the unmistakable sound of approaching footsteps got louder and louder.
Chris Grove had been watching the fucking tragedy of having an amateur try to do a hit. He couldn’t wait to report this shit show to Danvers. But now all he could do was get the job done.
He watched as Mr. Amateur Hour threw the rifle down in the wooded area next to the track and ran for it. Man, he would have a lot to answer for in the morning. Unless he caught up with the jackass himself.
With ice-cold blood slowly pumping through his body, he took his sidearm out and chambered a round. His heart rate barely rose at all. In fact, there was nothing that brought more calm to his body and brain than the prospect of killing. And from what he saw, he could get two for the price of one right here. That dumb-ass pilot who kept following Major Malden around would get a taste of what a real killer could do. Not just some jock who pushes a button at twenty thousand feet in the air and goes home to report his “kills.” Fuck that pussy-ass shit. Grove was the real deal.
He approached the house they’d disappeared into. The MPs were on the far side of base, unless one just happened to be out patrolling, and with TGO taking over the base, he could allow for an extra few minutes of confusion. He could count on five minutes. If he was lucky, maybe eight.
As he reached the door, the outside light flicked off. They were clearly expecting him. But he knew that firearms were not permitted in base housing, so as long as he was fast, there was no danger for him. He listened but heard nothing.
Then he heard giggling. What? His head twitched to the side. Had it come from the side of the house? Did they really not think he was coming?
He put his back to the outside wall of the house and cleared his range of vision. He spun around the corner, his gun up and ready.
There was no one there. But he heard another fucking giggle—this time with an accompanying murmur. This time from the back of the house. Did they not fear him? What the fuck was going on? Anger rose inside him. He was going to kill them all. Then maybe their neighbors, even the fucking dogs if they had them.
He sprang around the back corner of the house, into the backyard. He saw a figure in the shadows. He slid into a brilliant shooter stance, just like he’d had drilled into him by the bastard sergeant at the range, and his trigger finger twitched with anticipation.
“Dude. Are you really that easy to fool?” a female voice came out of the dark. Clear and strong.
It must be Major Malden. He spun around and with his eyes half closed, used his hearing to identify his target.
“Cat got your tongue?” the voice said again.
There, he had her. He squeezed his trigger, but before the shot could be taken, he took a hard blow to the head. He didn’t go down, but lights flickered in his eyes. He shook his head to rid himself of the pain and fuzziness.
He turned to fucking annihilate his attacker. But the man was too close to raise his weapon again. It was that fucking pilot. He could take a pilot with one hand tied behind his back.
Missy saw the man turn to Conrad, and she ran out of the trees holding a shovel that she’d found in the yard. She and Conrad had made the decision to take the fight outside, away from the family.
She charged at him, knowing full well that if he saw her, there was no way she’d be able to dodge a bullet. The only thing going in her favor was that at night, people tended to shoot higher than their target. And she was pretty short, all things considered.
The man punched Conrad in the face and he staggered backward from the force. Missy saw the man raise his gun. She raised the shovel above her head and whacked it down on his arm as soon as she was close enough. He howled and dropped the weapon. It disappeared into the dark grass. At least that had evened the odds.
Her heart pounded from fear as the man swung around toward her. It was Grove. The man she’d picked out of the contractor passes. She’d been right. She dodged backward, just out of his swinging range, but although his face said her time was up, as he raised his arm to hit her, his face contorted in agony.
Grove looked at his own arm, hanging at an awkward angle. Jesus.
She’d broken his arm.
Cool.
“Hey, dickhead,” Conrad said.
Grove looked around, and Conrad floored him with one punch to the nose. He crumpled and lay still.
Missy made sure that he was actually out cold and not faking, and then stood up, breathing hard from fear and relief.
They stood over his prostrate body and looked at each other. She kicked his leg, but he didn't move.
“I want to kiss you, but we need to get inside,” Conrad said, grabbing some garden twine and binding Grove's legs and hands together.
“What do you mean? You got him,” Missy said, wanting it all to be over, really, really wanting it to be over.
“The guy I saw was taller and had a long gun, like a rifle. Not a sidearm,” Conrad said, ushering her to the patio doors. He knocked on the glass, and the chief let them back in.
“Against my better judgment,” he said.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Missy said.
“Back in the hallway. I don’t want anyone near the windows. I think there was a second man,” Conrad explained to the chief.
Both Missy and Conrad were sitting on the floor. They heard nothing. “Maybe there wasn’t a second guy?” she said, starting to get up, but the man of the house motioned her to sit back down. “I’d like you two to stay there until we figure out what’s going on.”
It was a reasonable request. “My name is Major Missy Malden. I’m a weapons officer on the F-15s, and this is Lieutenant Colonel Conrad, one of the pilots in my squadron.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but my family is in the house. I’d feel more comfortable if you stay put until the MPs arrived.”
Missy caught sight of the little girl at the top of the stairs. “No, we completely understand.”
Conrad made a face at her as if he did not understand at all. Missy squinted her eyes at him. She sti
ll wanted to know why he was following her but suspected it wasn’t a conversation to have in front of the family.
“Did you see the other guy?” she asked Conrad.
“I saw someone with a rifle by the track. But it was too dark and he was half camouflaged by the trees. I saw a muzzle flash, though,” he said, before swallowing hard.
“Did you think I was going to die?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Are you going to cry?” She bit her lower lip, as if trying not to smile.
Joking was the last thing she wanted to do, but it was the only thing that would make her feel better. Their constant banter in the aircraft had taught her that. Well, he had taught her that. Humor kept the shadows at bay. When they’d been under incoming fire, he’d always talk to the bad guys as if they were naughty children. He’d make her laugh to forget that they could die at any moment.
He was cool like that.
A warning siren sounded outside the house, and a tinny, robotic voice came over the base speakers. “Shelter in place. Shelter in place.”
“I guess we’re on lockdown again.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe how hard we worked to get selected for Red Flag, and I can’t believe what utter shit it’s been.”
Conrad grinned, his blue eyes crinkling. “Yeah, man. I had to spend so much freaking time with you. What a pain in the—”
“Ahem,” the man said, looking meaningfully up at his daughter.
“—neck that was.” He pulled an apology face. “Sorry to interrupt your evening with this…mess, err…?”
“Chief. I’m Chief Whitney of the Fifty-Third Test and Eval.”
“Sorry, Chief. I should have figured that a kid could have answered the door. I was just looking for shelter and I guess my brain fritzed,” she said apologetically.
The chief relaxed a bit. “This happen to you a lot?”
She pulled a face. “Not until we arrived at Nellis. Everything went to shit after the first mission.”
“Well, not everything,” Conrad complained.
She couldn’t believe his nerve. “Mostly everything.”