Way of the Warrior

by Suzanne Brockmann

  The phone went dead. He stared at it, nearly dizzy from rejection. He didn’t want to remember anything now. He didn’t—

  Wait a minute. He’d never taught her to shoot. What had she meant by that? She’d said it very deliberately, with more conviction than she’d said anything else.

  Because she was trying to tell you something.

  Hell. Was he just digging for a reason for her dismissal? When he pushed past his sensitive ego, he felt something dark in his gut. He’d rather her have a change of heart than be in trouble. He glanced at the note again. No way would she have changed her mind about being with him in the course of a day. Seeing her diagram, remembering her sadness at leaving him, Griff believed she meant everything she’d said. Which meant something was terribly wrong.

  He drove the final four blocks to the address, passing a patrol car parked by the curb across the street. The guy inside was looking down, probably playing some game on his phone. Griff didn’t want to ask him to check on her, only to find an awkward situation. He parked along the side street and pulled his thirty-eight special from the glove box. He knew there were cameras outside the building, so with his gun tucked into his waistband, he strolled down the sidewalk and looked as casual as possible. He spotted the first camera, ducking around a bush and cutting around the back way. He used the neighbor’s table to climb to the second level, then sidestepped around some railing to climb to the third floor. The ledge was just above him, the wind chimes his assurance that it was her bedroom window.

  Once he reached the deck, he couldn’t avoid the camera aimed right at him. He approached the darkened window, seeing that the bars weren’t latched. That sent his spider-sense into overtime. No way would she leave this open. He followed a loose wire, which brought his attention to the section leading up to the camera. It was cut.

  Hell.

  That’s when he heard the plaintive sound. Not words, but a cry. He couldn’t see inside, but the light was on in a room beyond her bedroom. He pulled the bar grate open, then tested the window. It was unlocked. Someone had come in this way. But how had he opened the bars?

  Griff climbed in, scraping his back against the top of the window, and felt carefully for a place to land without making noise. His marine training came right back as he landed soundlessly.

  A man’s voice floated in from the living area. “Aren’t you going to beg for mercy, Kristy? Aren’t you afraid?” he taunted. “You’re a model. Give me some fear. How about some tears? Work it.”

  Son of a bitch! Griff shifted enough to see the most terrifying scene he’d ever taken in, worse than anything he’d encountered in the war. Kristy was tied to a chair, her mouth bound with a gag. She was bleeding from tiny cuts on her shoulders, neck, and cheeks, but her face was a cold mask.

  He went into soldier mode, a deadly calm replacing the rage threatening to roar through him. The man’s back was to him, and he stood directly in front of Kristy, making for a dangerous angle to shoot. Not some grungy psycho. He was dressed in business attire, even had his shoes shined.

  “And you call yourself a model,” he sneered.

  Griff knew that voice. From where? He held the gun in a ready position and assessed the situation. If he moved out of the shadows, she would see him, and the flick of her gaze would give him away to her tormenter.

  The man lifted a knife. “Maybe a deeper cut will make you cry? I bet you won’t ignore me now.”

  Griff stepped out, Kristy looked up, and the man spun around. Which shifted him two inches from Kristy. Griff only had a second to reconcile the disbelief of seeing the detective’s face. When the man started to swing the knife down toward her, Griff pulled the trigger twice.

  Blood splattered across Burns’s chest, his face now registering shock. He kept bringing the knife down. Griff couldn’t shoot at his arm; it was too close to Kristy. But she saw the knife coming her way and threw herself to the side, sending the chair crashing to the floor. Griff shot Burns again.

  The knife dropped, and so did Burns. Griff scooped Kristy up as he kept the gun aimed at Burns. He was gasping, holding his chest while blood spurted out between his fingers.

  “I’m the youngest detective on the force,” he whispered, grimacing in pain. “I have a spotless record. But you still didn’t see me.”

  Griff wanted to shoot him again, but he knew the legal system wouldn’t see it as self-defense. He kept an eye on the man as he tugged on the gag and took inventory of Kristy. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, her breaths coming fast. Relief washed over him, nearly sending him to his knees. He tugged the ropes to free her.

  Someone was banging on the door. The cop from the car, hollering about opening up. Griff didn’t want to leave Kristy, nor did he want to take his gun off Burns. “Call an ambulance!” he shouted, just as the door smashed open and the officer rushed in, weapon pointed. “Drop the gun!”

  The fresh-faced guy was barely a kid, and he clearly couldn’t begin to make sense of the scene in front of him. Griff set the gun down. “Burns is Eye.”

  Kristy clung to Griff, her body trembling, tears flowing.

  “Now you cry,” Burns whispered, one last bittersweet statement before his mouth went slack and his head rolled to the side.

  • • •

  Griff stood vigil as the paramedics checked Kristy and treated cuts that were, thank God, superficial. Her gaze kept going to him, which was good because she didn’t see Burns get carried out of the apartment on a covered stretcher. She also didn’t see the five obvious members of law enforcement who were waiting to hear her official statement.

  “I let him in, Griff,” she said, her voice strained. “I let Eye into my home. He said he wanted to test the cameras, the back way in. And I believed him.”

  The medic gave Griff a nod, and he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. “Of course you did, honey. The man was a police officer.” At least that answered how the bars had ended up open. The rest, he could wait for. He kissed her forehead. She was alive. And free. But he knew better than anyone that the injuries of war took longer to heal on the inside than they did on the outside.

  She melted into him, her hands gripping his back. “I was so afraid you thought I was rejecting you.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and damp. “You came to Atlanta. I just realized that. You were already here when you called.”

  He brushed a strand of bloodied hair from her cheek. “Four blocks away. I decided I had a lot more to lose by staying in my comfort zone. I had you to lose. And I almost did.” God, he wanted to squeeze her tight, but he held back so he wouldn’t hurt her. When he sensed the officers approaching, he tilted her chin up. “The police need to talk to you. But I’m going to be here holding your hand, just like I did with the noodlin’. And if you can still stand to see my ugly mug in the morning, I’m going to be here all night. All day. For as long as you can stand me.”

  She smiled through her tears. “I have a feeling I can stand you for a good long time.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tina Wainscott has always loved the combination of suspenseful chills and romantic thrills. She’s published fifteen romantic suspense novels, as well as fourteen paranormal romances as Jaime Rush. Losing her nephew, a Marine, in the war made her realize that our military men are the perfect heroes. Not only during the war but afterward as they try to stitch their lives and souls together once they’re home. And so was born her series for Random House about five Navy SEALs who take the fall for a covert mission gone wrong and join The Justiss Alliance, a private agency that exacts justice outside the law.

  As Jaime Rush, she is the author of the Hidden series, featuring humans with the essence of dragons, angels, and magic, and the award-winning Offspring series, about psychic abilities and government conspiracies.

  Tina lives in southwest Florida with her husband, daughter, and cat.

  For
sneak peeks and more, visit www.TinaWainscott.com. For more on her paranormal romances, go to www.JaimeRush.com.

  NSDQ

  A Night Stalkers Novella

  M.L. BUCHMAN

  U.S. Army Captain Lois Lang circled her Black Hawk helicopter five miles outside the battle zone and ten thousand feet up. Usually height equaled safety in countries like Afghanistan where the Taliban had no air power, especially in the middle of the night. Get above the reach of most of the cheaper weapons—rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and the like—and you were generally safe.

  But the Lataband Pass, visible as a thousand shades of green in her night-vision gear, deep in the heart of the Hindu Kush Mountains, was at eight thousand feet and the surrounding peaks cleared ten easily. Even at night in the mountains, ten thousand was pushing the high-hot limit of the helicopters. The high altitude and midsummer temperatures gave her chopper’s rotor blades thinner air to push against. To get higher, she’d have to really burn fuel; never a good bet on a long mission.

  So, she and her crew circled wide and low, and watched their threat displays closely. Not a soul this far from the pass, not even a goatherd. Nothing to do but wait. Their job was CSAR—she always thought of a seesaw whenever she heard the acronym for Combat Search and Rescue, every time—which meant their night would be quiet and routine, unless something went wrong with the attack the U.S. Army’s 160th was about to unleash at the heart of the pass.

  A ground team, probably from the 75th Rangers, had been dumped in this barren wasteland a week before to do recon. And for tonight, they’d reported a massive convoy of munitions crossing this disused pass from Jalalabad, Pakistan, to supply the Taliban forces inside Afghanistan. With the drawdown of U.S. troops, the Taliban were gearing up to hit the Afghani government forces and hit them hard. Special Ops Forces’ job tonight was to make sure they didn’t have the supplies from the ever-so-innocent Pakistanis to do so.

  “Keeping chill?” she asked her crew.

  “Chill,” Dusty replied from his copilot’s seat beside her. He’d been a backender, only recently jumped from a back-seat gunner crew chief to front-seat copilot, and they were rotating him through the different choppers for cross-training. He normally flew troop transport but had logged time in the heavy weapons DAP version of the Black Hawk, as well. Now that it was nearing his last flight in CSAR, she’d definitely miss him. It was tradition to scoff at backenders who aspired to be pilots, but Dusty definitely had what it took.

  “We be very cool, Superwoman,” Chuff and Hi-Gear answered from their crew chief positions right behind the pilots’ seats.

  Her nickname had been inevitable. Being named for both of Superman’s girlfriends, Lois Lane and Lana Lang, had labeled her for life. Her mother had always been a crack up, right to her last comment from her death bed, “Flying out now, honey.” The fact that Lois had the same light build, narrow face, and straight dark hair as Margot Kidder—who’d played Lois in the old Superman movies—didn’t help matters.

  The two crew chiefs sat in back-to-back seats facing sideways out either side of the chopper. Steerable M134 miniguns were mounted right in front of them.

  The days of the UH-1 Huey medical choppers with the big white square and red cross painted on their unarmed bellies were long gone. Bad guys now thought the red crosses made for good targets. And in the modern world of strike-and-retreat tactics, there was no quiet after-the-battle moment when it would be safe to go in and gather the wounded.

  Rescue ops now happened right in the heart of the fray, and a medical chopper arrived ready to both save lives and deliver death. Some of the old guard guys complained about that but not SOAR. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment had flown into Takur Ghar, bin Laden’s compound, and a thousand other hellholes, and CSAR crews like hers had been there to pull the lead crews back out when things went bad.

  The two medics, a couple of new guys, checked in with her, as well. They were the real crazies: Chuck and a new woman named Noreen. They went into a hot battle zone armed with a stretcher and a medical bag. Beyond crazy.

  “Thirty seconds,” she called as the mission clock continued counting down to 0200. The Night Stalkers, as everyone called the 160th SOAR, ruled the night. “Death Waits in the Dark” was their main motto, and it did. They were the most highly trained chopper pilots on the planet, and she’d busted her ass for eight years to fly with them, spent two more years in training, and had now been in the air with them for two more. It was her single finest achievement.

  Even five miles out, the flash of the first strike was a clear streak across the infrared night-vision image projected on her helmet’s visor. The resulting explosion was small. The night’s mission brief had said to stop the convoy, gather intelligence, then destroy the munitions. So, first strike had been merely to stop the gun runners’ forward progress and get their attention.

  The latter part definitely worked. Fire raked skyward, and not just little stuff. She could see anti-aircraft tracers arcing upward in a white-hot trail of glowing phosphors and hoped that no one was in the way.

  “Stay sharp,” she warned herself and her crew. The fire show was a distraction for others to worry about. Their worry was—

  “CSAR 4. Immediate extract. Grid 37,” Archie, the air mission commander, called in. He was back at their helibase a hundred miles into Pakistan, watching their world from an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone circling another fifteen thousand feet above them.

  She acknowledged and dove for the roadway. Grid 37 was right in the gut of the pass, so coming in high was just asking for trouble with the ongoing battle she could see still in progress. At five feet above Lataband Pass, she unleashed the five thousand horsepower of the twin GE turbine engines. Fifteen thousand pounds of Black Hawk helicopter flung itself toward the battle at two hundred miles an hour. Even with the twists and turns of the narrow gravel road winding between the steep peaks, they were just two minutes out.

  These were always the fastest and the slowest two minutes of her life. At her present altitude and the narrow valley she was flying in, even a stray boulder was a life-threatening hazard. Constant adjustments were needed to crest every rise and take advantage of every little dip. This is what SOAR trained for: flying nap-of-the-Earth to come out of nowhere, in the dead of night, exactly on target and on time.

  Yet every second that ticked by, someone lay on the battlefield fighting to stay alive long enough to be rescued. She drove the turbines another couple RPMs closer to yellow-line on the engine’s tachometers.

  This time the faster feeling won out, and they were on the battlefield with a shocking abruptness. And battle was definitely the operative word. Her tactical display showed two Black Hawks and two of the vicious Little Birds dancing across the sky. But there had been three Little Bird helicopters when they left the airbase.

  Grid 37.

  Pull back on the cyclic control between her knees for a hard flare to dump speed; pull up on the collective along the left side of her seat to gain just enough altitude to keep her tail rotor out of the dirt as she slowed. She hammered them down less than a hundred feet from the crumpled remains of the Little Bird helicopter.

  Everything was happening at once. Chuff and Hi-Gear were already laying down covering fire, their miniguns blazing with a dragon’s deep-throated roar. At three thousand rounds a minute, they scorched the earth anywhere they spotted a bad guy. Chuck and Noreen were already out at a dead sprint toward the crumpled chopper.

  She debated pulling back aloft to offer them better cover, but the intensity of the overhead air battle told her if she went aloft, she’d have to move well out of the area to be of any use. Her people stood a better chance if she stayed on the ground.

  So instead, she remained a sitting duck on the ground and intensely counted the seconds. A hundred-foot sprint, with heavy gear, but high adrenaline: ten seconds. If the injured weren’t trapped but perhaps delirious e
nough with pain to fight against rescue: thirty seconds to get them strapped down. A hundred-foot return carrying deadweight on a stretcher or slow-limping someone back to the chopper: twenty seconds more. If they were bloody lucky, they only had to survive one minute on the ground.

  Rather than watch the medics, she watched the tactical displays. She was getting heavy cover from above. A technical appeared from nowhere around an outcrop: a Toyota pickup with a heavy-caliber machine gun mounted on the bed—serious nightmare vehicle. But Hi-Gear was on it, and in moments the truck was adding its own fireball plume to the light and confusion of the night.

  “Ten,” one of the medics shouted.

  Lois began counting down seconds and eased up on the collective until the chopper was dancing on the dirt in its eagerness to be aloft.

  She ignored the bright sparks of bullets pinging off her forward windscreen, hoping nothing was a big enough caliber to punch through. Her audio-based threat detector filling her ears with muted squeals indicating only small-arms fire; the big stuff was still hunting the SOAR attackers overhead. The directional microphones translated each bullet’s trajectory into fire-return data, and her crew chiefs were pounding back on those positions.

  At five seconds to go, a crowd came out of the roiling dust kicked up by her rotors.

  She glanced over for just an instant and then returned her attention to tactical while her mind unraveled what she’d just seen. One medic carrying a man over his shoulder, dead-man style. The second medic pulled one end of a stretcher, the other end dragging on the road’s gravel surface with a body strapped to it; good, both of her crew accounted for. Two other guys limping in with their arms around each others’ shoulders, clearly nothing else keeping them upright.

  The last two deserved a second glance. MICH helmets and HK416 rifles rather than the FN SCARs that all of SOAR carried across their chests. Delta Operators. If Delta were on the ground here, it meant this action was much heavier duty than she’d thought. That explained the unexpected scale of the firefight.