Target of the Heart

by M. L. Buchman

  “The Rapier’s Number Two what, sir?”

  “Didn’t he mention?” the man was clearly enjoying himself immensely. “Pete’s forming up a new company, 5th Battalion E Company.”

  “What?” Pete spun back to face his commanding officer. “The hell you say.”

  McDermott didn’t look the least perturbed at The Rapier’s blast of anger. “Oh, did I forget to tell you, too?”

  Chapter 4

  Pete sat at the picnic table, or whatever meal you called it when you were eating hamburgers and chips at six a.m. after working all night. They were at a group of run-down wooden tables that were slowly decaying outside the Ech Heliport office building. A food truck along with a couple of Army cooks had pulled in alongside, fired up, and begun feeding them as daylight broke over the field.

  Pete contemplated the situation. “How much trouble will I get in for murdering my commanding officer?” He ignored the sour expression on Cass’ face. They’d known each other far too long for that look to scare him.

  “Well,” Danielle took a bite of her grilled chicken after cutting it neatly with a knife and fork.

  He was so tired he doubted if he’d trust himself with such dangerous implements. Figures that she’d be beautiful. Beautiful. Shit, there was another problem. In the bright morning light, her Army-beige t-shirt displayed her figure magnificently—how good she’d felt in his arms for that moment hadn’t been any kind of an illusion. Trim where she should be trim and rounded in such an ideal form that…that he should be taken out and shot. But that would have to wait until after he’d killed Cass McDermott.

  “I think,” Danielle continued after she was done chewing—good manners too. Hard to believe she’d been in the Army for seven years plus two in training. “It would depend if you intend to murder him un petit peu, a little bit, or kill him dead.”

  “Dead dead,” Pete decided.

  “Not my first choice,” Cass commented as he sat back as if removing himself from the range of fire.

  The morning had turned into a fine one and Pete had no interest in it, no more interest than he had in forming up a new company with a batch of newbies fresh out of training. And he wasn’t going to admit to learning anything from them last night, no matter how much he had.

  But he couldn’t get away with that. The trainees had cooked up some ideas that, quite simply, needed to be added to training. And it wasn’t just Delacroix. She’d given credit for each idea to the one who said it first, though it was clear that she’d been the spark behind every discussion.

  “Court martial, certainment,” she informed him placidly. “Life imprisonment, perhaps the firing squad?”

  “Been shot enough as it is,” Pete tried not to think about it. Four times in fifteen years of service, and his little brother who’d winged him when Pete had been trying to teach him how to hunt in the Colorado wilderness. His foot had been in a cast for months.

  “No,” Cass corrected her. “Firing squad is French, madame, or rather was.”

  “Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît. And I am Québécois by heritage only. I grew up in Cleveland.”

  “Excusez moi, mademoiselle.”

  To hell with Nicolai and his Russian, Cass made the French sound so smooth that Pete wished he’d studied that instead. He hadn’t even made a study of French women who…he was not going to complete that thought.

  The Colonel turned back to him. “If you kill me, Napier, I fear that hanging would be more traditionally appropriate if anyone has a yardarm handy. But come along, man, don’t you want your own company?”

  Pete tried to answer that one in the negative, unsure why he was fighting the bit so hard. The 5th Battalion was only five years old, based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington. A through C Company were straightforward outfits—Black Hawk, Chinook, and Little Bird respectively.

  Then Mark Henderson had formed up the 5D. He’d insisted on creating the only mixed company in the entire Regiment, all three craft types combined under a single command. He’d talked with Mark about it once when they were all sitting out a sandstorm at Bagram Airbase a couple years back.

  “Mixed team allows me to be flexible on the fly. I don’t have to wait for mission units to be called up from other companies. No questions about command precedence. My team. My training regimen. My orders.”

  And soon after their talk, “my wife” as well. He’d married the first woman to ever qualify for SOAR, and just like each woman who had followed, she’d done it by being exceptional. And when Henderson’s wife had gotten pregnant, they’d dumped SOAR as if it didn’t mean a goddamn thing. Pete shoved his plate aside and almost knocked his lemonade into Cass’ lap.

  Well, to hell with that shit. Any woman he fell for was going to be stuck with a lifer for a husband. They were going to have to retire his ass into an old age home to get him out of the air.

  Yet Henderson and Beale had flown together for a couple of years before that. Somehow the 5D was so far out on the edge that they allowed married couples aboard the various helos.

  He glanced over at Connie and Big John seated at one of the picnic tables. They were from the 5D. Talk about an ideal match, the two best helicopter mechanics outside the factory—and better than most of those inside as well.

  Maybe that’s why McDermott had decided to let them serve together, because he couldn’t afford to lose either one? Was that what was happening in the 5D? Was command allowing married couples serving in the same theater of operations to happen, perhaps as an isolated test? Had command learned that some pairs of people constituted a synergistic pairing that created more than the sum of their—

  Shit! He was so tired he was getting all poetical.

  “Choice is simple, Pete,” Cass leaned in now and the tension went up at their table of three.

  It rose far enough to focus all of Pete’s waning consciousness back on his commander.

  “You say no, I put these folks on their birds and kick them back to Fort Campbell for assignment. The units are hungry, we’re getting pushed hard on a dozen fronts—as you know.”

  “Or?” Pete considered a mixed company of craft. It offered interesting possibilities. Of course a Night Stalker company was typically a dozen craft each. Though he’d heard the 5D was running with only seven or eight. The people sitting at the tables around him could crew just four birds. And that was only if he was allowed to keep Connie and John.

  A couple of ringers for you, McDermott had said. Yes, they were here long-term if he said yes. Hell of an enticement to have direct access to two such skilled crew chiefs. But what bribe had he offered them to leave the 5D?

  “Or,” Cass pointed at the brand-new hangar behind him, “we can go look at what’s inside there. But…” then he waited.

  “And here comes the other shoe,” Pete hated it when the other shoe dropped.

  Still McDermott waited, but Pete couldn’t get his mind around it.

  “He must makes his choices,” Danielle made her voice sound like Gollum from The Hobbit as she dropped the shoe for him, “before he goes in.”

  Oh.

  “Yesss, he does, Precious.”

  Cass simply smiled as if such Gollum-speaking captains were completely normal.

  Though Gollum with a French accent was distinctly strange.

  “Good choice for a second in command, Pete. I approve.”

  Pete studied the crumbs that were all that was left of his hamburger. He was glad to see that his body had the good sense to eat even if he’d been too tired to be aware of it.

  “No choice of personnel?” Pete didn’t know if he was hoping for a yea or nay on that one. If he was smart, the first thing he’d do would be to reassign Captain Danielle Delacroix to anywhere else, as long as it was far away. He knew it wasn’t merely exhaustion that made him want to drag her back into his arms. But it had to be his exhaust
ion that made that sound like any kind of a good idea.

  The last time he’d been with a woman was on leave four months ago. Sally May Ketchum, as in Ketchum, Idaho, as in wealthy, tall, skier-athlete fit, and having no use for a soldier beyond a few nights’ fling. Which had made her just about perfect.

  Which is what he’d thought of Lucy, except she’d wanted marriage and he’d been young and dumb enough at the time to give it to her. Built, blond, as avaricious as a snake, and about as constant. He’d had her less than a year and it took him three to get rid of her.

  Danielle Delacroix evoked none of the common logic that went with a choice like Sally Ketchum—the kind of woman best designed for a career soldier to enjoy and then move on. Nor was she a clinging, officer-hungry, conniving bitch. Danielle was made for cozy cottages and long winter nights. For whole long strings of them.

  “No changes,” McDermott insisted. “We haven’t had a class like this one in years and I’ve been waiting for it. Part of that is thanks to you, missy. You may rest assured that I know that.” He managed to deliver the line without sounding condescending. “That’s why we held them together right through Basic Qualification and into advanced training.”

  Pete couldn’t argue. Even after he’d “killed her off” her influence on the team’s performance had been unquestionable.

  “Perhaps you can change a few selected people later, but only by special petition directly to me. Also, every one of these people are security classified for the level of mission you have just returned from. Every single one.”

  Pete had to blink at that one. The Tibet mission had included only senior personnel with a minimum of five years in SOAR which meant at least twelve years in the service. If all of these people were cleared to that level, it meant that the 5E would not be a small shit-kicker outfit for long. They’d be capable of deployment where only the smallest, most flexible teams could go. For a bunch of rookies to have that in common, they’d have to have been…

  He spun to study the faces of the crew at the other tables.

  “Ah, the light goes on,” Cass teased him.

  “You started building this class two years ago,” Pete accused him. The cooks and their food truck were gone, leaving a cooler of soft drinks and a platter of freshly grilled seconds and thirds if anyone was still hungry. Once again, the graduating crew, the two ringers, and the Colonel Cassius McDermott were the field’s only occupants.

  “Three years ago,” the Colonel replied. “Right after you did the Myanmar mission. My whole plan for the 5E is based on the combination of you and Captain Delacroix, whose career I have been following for some time, even before I sent Captain Roberts to recruit her. Don’t disappoint me, Napier.”

  The two of them? Cass had designed this company based on his and Danielle’s skills.

  Danielle was watching him carefully. Then she arched a single one of her fine eyebrows in question.

  He was tired enough to stop fighting against his knee-jerk reactions and actually think. The chance at command, not merely of a single flight or mission but his own company. He had always groused at others’ rules, things he’d always imagined he could do better. Now there would be the opportunity to try them out and see if he was right.

  Captain Danielle Delacroix as his second in command. There was no question that she would fit perfectly into the role. She clearly respected the hierarchy of command, but also had plenty of ideas of her own. She would not merely push him, she would drive him to innovate.

  That she was female and far too attractive wasn’t her fault, even if it was his problem.

  “Hey!” One of the Chief Warrants shouted; the redheaded female. She’d been fooling with her cell phone for a while. “There’s a Mother Rucker Disc Golf course. C’mon you lame-os. I gotta need to kick some butt.”

  And just that fast the field emptied as crew and pilots piled into waiting vehicles and headed off to play. In moments there was only the three of them left. Even Connie and Big John had tagged along for the game.

  Pete was too groggy to leave—oh, and his commander was sitting across from him waiting for the answer. Danielle was sticking close by his side.

  “She would make an exceptional second officer,” he admitted to McDermott.

  At that Danielle hit him with another blast of her radiant smile. He refused to go weak in the knees over a woman, but he could feel himself smiling back at her despite his best intentions.

  “Let’s go see what I’ve gotten us into, Spiderwoman.” He didn’t even need to nod toward the hangar to explain that he’d just accepted the command of a brand new company.

  The 5th Battalion E Company.

  The first new company since Henderson’s 5D formed almost six years ago.

  The 5E.

  He liked the sound of that.

  She rose to her feet and headed for the hangar. Pete remained a moment longer at the table.

  “Cass?” he said softly as soon as he was alone with the Colonel.

  “What is it, Pete?”

  “Remind me to beat the shit out of you some day.”

  “Sure thing,” McDermott clambered to his feet and Pete followed suit. “Any particular reason?”

  “Yeah,” was all he said. Then he rose to follow Danielle Delacroix.

  Pretty women were great, but they weren’t exactly rare. Pretty women who turned him on had to have something special. In Sally Anne Ketchum’s case it had been the competence of how she’d skied—the payoff there was that she’d flowed down that course the same way she had in bed—smooth and lithe.

  Competence was a huge turn on.

  And a challenge was always good. His best friend and girl-next-door Kim Waverly had challenged him throughout high school. Pushed him to always be better, to always excel. Had she been straight, he would have gladly skipped his family’s tradition of military service in order to be with her. Both of them were first pick in every gym class, they’d captained several of the sports teams, co-captains in volleyball.

  In the end they’d both signed on the same day…and her jet had been shot out of the sky four years later. They’d never slept together, but the woman’s spirit had been a major turn on. Her personal preferences had led him to numerous cold showers and a whole string of bad choices, but he still appreciated every second of her short life.

  Elegant Danielle Delacroix had the competence. And the drive. And something else that his brain, finally spent after making the decision to command, was wholly unable to process but he knew there was no way he could ever avoid.

  # # #

  Danielle had the lead toward the new hangar; perhaps a bit too overeager to see what was parked inside there.

  So, she tried to slow down and look casually around. Ech Stagefield was like a dozen other practice fields, except this one was buried in trees and no other piece of Fort Rucker was close by. Only a narrow dirt road led from the sad office building toward the main fort.

  And then the hangar. It could hold a half dozen helos, but she’d wager there were just four. Chinook, Black Hawk, and two Little Birds—had to be or their crew wouldn’t fit.

  That meant there was something extra special about these. Latest models? Some crazy tech mods—which would mean more training? Unheard of weapons? Or—

  That’s when the events of the last few minutes caught up with her and her foot caught on some unseen crack and sent her stumbling into the wall of the hangar. She spun around to check, but Pete and the Colonel were discussing something…and she’d bet it was her.

  She’d been glad of the excuse to get away from the table, sitting that close to Pete Napier was doing strange things to her nervous system. Usually her thoughts didn’t just slip out, like never. Yet everything seemed to around Pete. And her Gollum voice? She wasn’t sure she’d ever used that aloud, never mind in public.

  A little distance was a good thing. />
  He and Colonel McDermott had some history, long history by the sounds of it. She sure wasn’t about to call the commander of the entire regiment “Cass.”

  It was only after the two of them were walking toward the hangar that she realized she wasn’t going to get distance from The Rapier for some time to come. Had she really just gone from graduation exercise to second-in-command of SOAR’s newest company?

  That would be a “yes.”

  Was the commander Major Pete Napier?

  Uh-huh.

  Was she inexplicably attracted to the handsome man with: a reputation from hell, a calm manner in flight, and a wholly unexpected gentle smile?

  Totally. She could still feel exactly where every finger had rested against her back and hip for the few instants that he’d held her.

  You’re in such trouble, girl.

  His personal magnetism was making this woman’s internal compass point Napier-ward. That was both disorienting and incredibly dangerous.

  At the door, the Colonel keyed down the ten-digit lock code.

  “Did you get it or do I have to repeat it?”

  “Uh,” Pete looked lost, probably too tired for his eyes to focus.

  “I got it, sir.” Every other digit of her personal cell number and the zip code of Fort Campbell backwards. “I’ll bring The Rapier up to speed after he’s slept.” The Rapier. That was it. Keep some safe distance in her head.

  The Colonel opened the door and led them inside.

  # # #

  Pete fumbled for a light switch and Danielle’s gasp sounded close behind him. He himself was too shocked to make a noise.

  For a moment, the room spun. Not because he had vertigo, but because what stood in front of them was so foreign that it made almost as little sense as finding alien spaceships in the hangar.