Even after a year stationed at Mother Rucker, he wasn’t used to the Alabama heat. He peeled his flightsuit and chucked it over on the laundry pile. The shorts and t-shirt he’d worn underneath weren’t much better. Alabama was a land where sweat didn’t evaporate, it clung.
When Nikita did the same, though, he could feel his mood improving.
She was the first and, as far as he knew, only woman to make DEVGRU through the front door and it showed on her body. She was of a medium build that fit her perfectly. But she wasn’t merely strong, she was carved. Not like a bodybuilder with bulging biceps and six-pack abs. She was carved the way an artist would shape her in cool stone or, better yet, warm wood—not an extra ounce of flesh, but what was there was perfect. Soft, smooth…and tough as hell. Her brunette hair was always pulled back in a painfully tight ponytail that made her look panther sleek. And her light brown eyes were always watching.
He followed her out of the hangar and onto the stagefield. Ech was designed for helicopters only. It had five short runways for practicing mass landings and takeoffs, or emergency procedures. The concrete was rough with a thousand scars from auto-rotation practice and helicopters sliding to a grinding halt on steel skids.
But not a single aircraft had landed here other than the 5E since they took over the field last year. Their four rotorcraft were never left out on the apron. Instead they were immediately rolled out of sight into the field’s lone hangar. The field purposely looked abandoned and unused, weeds growing up through the cracks in the concrete and the surrounding field in need of a good mowing. At the rate it was growing, maybe they should skip mowing and just bale the area as hay.
The only change to Ech Stagefield in the last year was that the hangar was now highly secure and there was a new two-story housing unit big enough for each of the 5E’s fifteen pilots and gunners to have their own tiny apartment in addition to a few guest spaces—those had only ever been used by the SEALs. It included a communal kitchen-dining room-briefing room, but most of their meetings were held out at the small cluster of picnic tables between the offices and the hangar.
Ech was surrounded by thick ’Bama forest on all sides: towering longleaf pine and willow oak, hickory and beech, prickly holly and sweet bay. He’d learned the trees when he found out Nikita was from Alabama—not that he’d ever had a chance to show off that bit of knowledge. Even a year here and it still smelled strange, particularly on the quiet evenings when his nose was expecting the Scotch pine, oak, birch, and maple of the New Hampshire hills where his family kept a summer home up on Squam Lake. The only entry to Ech was by air or a narrow dirt road through the forest.
He tromped along behind Nikita as she led him across the tarmac and out into the grassy field.
“Walk softly,” Nikita’s voice was barely louder than the banging in the hangar behind them as the mechanics got to work.
“What does walking have to do with shooting?”
Nikita stopped and he almost ran into her.
“What?”
“Are you here to learn or to whine like a little pissant, Roman?” Soft Southern with a razor-edged tongue.
“To whine like a little pissant!” At least that felt like he was getting something done.
“Okay,” Nikita turned back toward the hangar.
“What? No! Wait.”
She stopped.
He closed his eyes but all he could see was the blood all over the DAP Hawk’s cargo bay. Just wait until the mechanics had to clean that up. Then they’d be sorry. Maybe as sorry as he already was. He’d done what he could, swabbing out the back of the DAP during the long flight home. He’d nearly punched his pilots Rafe and Julian when they offered to help. Carl had been his fellow crew chief, so it had been his job to do and he’d done it alone.
He managed a deep breath and opened his eyes. Nikita was still standing there, as impassively as ever—more beautiful than a Grecian statue, waiting for him to choose.
“Okay. If it gets my mind off…” he couldn’t finish the sentence. “I’ll learn anything.”
Nikita nodded and continued to lead him out into the field. “To take your shooting to the next level, you gotta leave emotion behind. Emotion changes heartrate and reaction time. And it breaks concentration. Those are the obvious effects.”
“What are the unobvious?”
“Emotion blurs perception. To shoot at truly long distances, out past a thousand meters or more, your entire being must be perceiving the shot flying true far downrange or you’ll never hit your target.”
“Sounds like mysticism, but put those damn gunrunners back in my sights,”—that’s what they had to have been by the scale of the explosions when the 5E had finally destroyed their boats—“and I’ll show you what I’m perceiving downrange.”
“Look behind us.”
He turned. Through the thick growth of the late-summer-tall grass, he could only see one heavily trampled clear line, his own. Nikita Hayward had hardly left any impression at all.
Walk softly, she’d said.
Drake gazed back at the line of helicopters parked in the hangar beyond.
That’s what the 5E did: their stealth aircraft walked softly and carried a damn big stick.
“Okay. Show me how to do that.”
“What the hell are we here for?” A big voice boomed across the twilit airfield, making Drake break off in mid-clip to see what was going on. They were deep in the tall grass, so he actually had to rise up on all fours from his prone position beside her in order to see.
Nikita sighed—the man had the attention span of the goddamn gnats that kept hovering about them. Even for someone who was hurting, he was being chaotic. That he had hit the target at all over the last hour was a testament to his skill.
Ever since she was a child, she’d always found shooting was a great way to relax, giving her a simple focus that cleared her mind of other problems.
Not Drake.
“Come on, Roman. I thought you were serious about learning this shit.” Drake was a seriously decent shot for a helicopter crew chief. She felt that there was hope of training him to be actually good. Maybe not SEAL Team 6 sniper good, but definitely operator level.
“I am.”
“Well, then you’re gonna have to learn to focus. You can either be a sniper or see what shiny objects are glittering nearby to distract you.”
With practiced speed, the hangar doors were being raced shut before the intruder could round the corner of the hangar and see the line of stealth helicopters.
“Right. Sorry.” He turned back and caught her looking toward the stranger continuing to shout out his impatience.
“Chief Petty Officer Nikita Hayward!” Drake’s voice was soap opera dramatic. “I’m shocked. You call that maintaining focus?”
“Screw you, Roman.” At least she’d stayed lower, looking between stalk and seeds so that she’d be less visible. Drake’s head was popped up like some stupid gopher just asking to be shot in the head.
“Anytime.”
“Yeah, I already knew that about you.” Sergeant First Class Drake Roman was a damn handsome flyboy and knew it. It had taken him under thirty seconds into their first mission together last year to make it clear that the offer was open whenever she was interested. Absolutely not! Though, oddly, he’d never renewed the invitation and that bothered her at times. It was as if he was up to something, but she couldn’t figure out what. Normally she had to beat guys like him back down more times than kudzu vines crawling into the vegetable garden.
Her attention stayed on the newcomer standing in front of the now sealed hangar that housed the 5E’s four helicopters. Strangers were not supposed to come to this corner of Mother Rucker. This was exclusively the territory of the Night Stalkers 5th Battalion E company. Outsiders not welcome.
He was a big guy, classic broad-shoulder type. Walked with the arrogance of a US Army Ranger, but there was something else about him. Something that didn’t fit—completely—aside from the babe at h
is side.
She’d have looked like an over-built sidewalk hussy with her leather clothes, long brown-black hair, and come-fuck-me boots, if it wasn’t for where she was. Mother Rucker was one of the most secure military bases in the country, and Ech Stagefield was perhaps the most secure part of the fort—it was a seriously long way from the Miami strip. Besides, what crazy-as-shit person wore leather this far south of the Mason-Dixon line?
Nikita unclipped the Leupold telescopic sight off the rail of her MK11 rifle and turned to inspect the guy.
He was ignoring Pete and Danielle—the 5E’s commander and chief pilot—standing right in front of him. Instead, he was looking right at her. He shouldn’t even be able to see their position. They hadn’t dug in their shooting site, but the sun was down and the light was getting iffy. Besides, she and Drake were fifty meters out into the tall-growing grass.
The smile he sent her way was chilly at best. It made her wish she wasn’t merely using the scope, but had swung her entire rifle his way just to chap his ass. Then he turned his attention to Pete and Danielle. The leather-clad babe had followed his line of sight and now she was watching them.
Nikita checked the parking lot. Latest model Ford Expedition SUV, black, top-of-the-line, windows all tinted, fancy chrome wheels—all the geegaws. It fit right in with their flashy style.
“Should we go over?” Drake didn’t yet have the sniper instincts that would have made it a whisper. Thankfully, the light breeze was blowing from the hangar toward their position, so their voices weren’t likely to carry in that direction.
“You that desperate to get near a busty woman in leather, Roman? Besides, we’d just be sent away again if it’s anything important. Command talks to you when they’re good and ready—not a moment before.” She felt foolish for stating the obvious. After snapping the scope back onto the rail, she double-checked the alignment marks.
“We’ve got incoming. Whoo-doggies, do we ever,” this time Drake whispered, but it sounded more like awe than caution.
“You’re not from Texas, Roman, so cut that out. Your Southern sucks even worse than your Yankee.”
Nikita glanced over and saw the woman was coming their way with a swing of hip like she really did belong working the Miami strip—though definitely the high-rent end. Drake was gonna be useless until she was gone, so Nikita waited her out.
“Hi, honey. Aren’t you the cutest thing?” The woman laser-focused on Drake. Her voice had that sexy, breathless quality that always seemed to grab men by the balls. She had long sleek hair that defied the humidity, fair skin, and dark blue eyes.
Drake was a goner. For a reason that eluded her, Nikita found that irritating. Not that she had any claim, but they had fought together and this woman was—
“You can call me…Sugar.”
She had to be kidding. Even her honey-smooth words were lipsticked carmine red. The accent was real though. Maryland or maybe Virginia—somewhere up north.
“What are you shooting today?”
Like the overeager puppy dog he was when faced with a large set of breasts, Drake held up his MK11. “It’s a sniper rifle.”
“I can see that, Sweet Cheeks. May I?”
Before Nikita could protest, Drake had handed over his weapon. No SEAL in their right mind would ever relinquish their weapon short of a court martial. He was only a Night Stalker, but still it was no damn excuse.
“Sugar” gave the rifle a quick inspection that showed more familiarity with weapons than Nikita would have expected.
She shouldered it without asking permission.
Nikita jerked her sidearm, but Sugar was aiming downrange toward the target. If she turned it anywhere else, Nikita would take her out first and ask questions later.
Sugar snicked off the safety and unleashed five rounds, two heartbeats between each shot. Nice and steady. Good weapon control. Absorbed the kick of the 7.62 mm round through her shoulder and down into a back-braced leg. Her stance wasn’t military, but it was good.
Nikita ducked her head to her own scope and checked downrange. First shot high, the other four rang steel—near enough to dead center to make it impossible to tell if there was any drift. The target was six inches at six hundred meters, so it wasn’t a hard shot, even in this light, but it was far better shooting than most civilians could manage. As good as Drake had done.
Sugar handed the rifle back to Drake. “Your scope is set a half mil too low. Watch out for the catch on the trigger at the last pound of pull. If your shots are drifting to the right, that’s why. You should have it fixed. I’ve seen that in the MK11 Mod 0s before.” Her accent almost disappeared when she was talking weapons; in its place was a sharp professional.
Drake was clearly past noticing such nuances, or perhaps even past speech.
Sugar looked at Nikita and probably would have cracked her bubblegum if she’d been chewing any. Instead, she slapped a hand on her own leather-wrapped behind with a loud smack as she turned back toward the field. “Book and its cover, dearie, book and its cover. Y’all c’mon in. There’s gonna be a powwow if I know my man.” And she strode back the way she’d come, hip swing and all.
Drake didn’t look aside for a single second—total brain death.
“She sure got your number, Roman.”
In the past, Sugar most certainly would have gotten his number—in a past before Drake had met Nikita Hayward. Built babes in leather shooting high-power rifles were definitely his idea of seriously hot—wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t agree. But it was no longer any contest.
Sitting next to him in the tall grass was five-foot-ten of SEAL Team Six in female form. And not just female—she was Lieutenant Commander Luke Altman’s right hand. Whatever it took to be that in the male-ruled world of Special Operations, she had it. She embodied it. Nikita was the most amazing woman he’d ever met…not that he’d ever seen her give any man the time of day.
Jason had taken a run at her when the SEALs were along on a mission with them into Russia; he might as well have been running at a brick wall. M&M’s attempt to get her attention while they were in the Philippines was so dismal it couldn’t even be called a decent try.
Himself, he’d searched for tactics, an in on the powerful Nikita. He’d even watched the movie La Femme Nikita, the Point of No Return Bridget Fonda remake, as well as both television show spin-offs about the exquisitely lethal assassin, in hopes of gaining any insight from the fictitious character that he could apply to the real-deal SEAL.
Every single approach he’d cooked up had sounded stupid in his head and some tiny bit of common sense had left them all unvoiced. But to watch her shoot…it was a thing of true beauty. Lying together in the tall grass—doing nothing other than target shooting—was more of a start than he’d managed in a year.
No matter how much fun she was to watch, the hip-swinging Sugar wasn’t even in the same world. Besides, she had “her man.”
“Was she for real?” He’d always thought of himself as a great judge of women, but Nikita was slowly teaching him that he was only a great judge of the subset of women willing to slide into bed with him. Nikita wasn’t one of those. He found her wholly unreadable and that, as much as anything, had snagged his attention until even looking the other way was impossible when she was around.
“Give me your weapon.”
Nikita aimed his rifle downrange and, even though it was dark enough for the first fireflies to begin showing off, she fired a single round with hardly any hesitation. He heard the bright plink as the bullet hit steel. She handed the weapon back.
“What?”
“She’s for real. Thought you knew how to zero a scope. We can cover that next time if you want.”
“I know how to zero one. But I’m not used to shooting such piddly little guns. I just shifted down a bit instead.” At first he’d thought he’d been missing high because the distance to the target wasn’t what he thought it was or because Nikita was so distracting or… He’d run out of excuses and simply
compensated by aiming lower. The pull to the right? That he’d missed entirely. Just what he didn’t want to do, look like a complete doofus in front of an ST6 SEAL.
“It’s better to zero the scope if you’re taking multiple shots like this. Less of a distraction. And if you don’t know how to fix that trigger, I can show you.” She flicked on a flashlight and began collecting her brass from the deep-shadowed grass. He did the same until they could account for all of their rounds, including the five that Sugar had shot.
He actually didn’t know how to repair the trigger, but he’d find someone else to show him how to fix it, then swear them to secrecy.
“A sniper in the field never leaves a trace that they were there,” and she didn’t. When they were done, there was nothing but two flat spots in the grass that would have disappeared soon enough. She leaned down to fluff up the bent grass. After admiring the view of a bent-over Nikita for a moment, he did the same. All evidence of lying close beside her for an hour, erased.
He hefted the MK11. A dozen pounds of rifle good to eight hundred meters and past a thousand in a pinch. The same basic cartridge as his M134 Minigun, though he typically fired eighty rounds per second instead of one every couple heartbeats. Being shot-perfect was less critical when he was throwing two pounds of lead per second versus half an ounce per shot. Personally, he liked the power of his M134, but there was a cleanness, a purity to what Nikita did, shot by shot, that he could appreciate.
As they walked back to the main hangar, he could see by the lights through the high windows above the closed doors that some of the others were gathering in. Most were still in the hangar working over the helicopters and their gear, preparing for whatever came next.
The 5E’s commanders Pete and Danielle, who flew the massive Chinook, were front and center. Rafe and Julian, the two pilots from his own Black Hawk crew, also came over. The drone’s copilot, Zoe DeMille, rounded out the gathering.
With just four helicopters and one drone, the 5E was the smallest company in the Night Stalkers by far. But they were the only team to be a hundred percent stealth equipped, garnering them the edgiest assignments. Drake wished he knew quite what he’d done right to be here so that he could make sure to keep doing it.
Target of Mine: The Night Stalkers 5E (Titan World Book 2) Page 2