Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers)

by Buchman, M. L.

  “I already did.” And he had.

  But all she did was laugh bitterly and look away again.

  Not knowing what else to do, Tim sat with her. Cross-legged beneath the emerging stars, he stared at the teapot handle still clenched in his hand. He set it carefully on the sand, the handle sticking up into the air as if the teapot were but buried spout down.

  He opened his other hand, the one that had been fisted closed since the moment Lola dove from the helicopter. Closed tight until the fingers were numb from lack of blood flow. Forcing the fingers open, he managed to create an opening big enough to see to his palm, the first tingles of pain arcing up his fingers.

  His grandmother’s ruby wedding ring. The heirloom his mother had offered him with such hope last night. For one heartbeat, then another, he considered casting it aside. Throwing it into the ocean, or better, into the Potomac. Let the ring join Washington’s apocryphal silver dollar beneath the muddy waters. If he could have flexed his numb hand, he might have thrown the ring away and damn the consequences.

  He stared down into the shadowed cup of his hand at the shimmering circlet that caught even the starlight with such hope.

  Then, without looking up at Lola, he slowly forced his fist closed, a motion twice as painful now that the blood was returning. He would keep it safe, hidden. It would wait, like a Night Stalker waited in the dark, until the time was right. Until that perfect moment of flight.

  He stood, steady on legs that moments before couldn’t hold him upright.

  “Come on. I need to clean up, then we’ll return the chopper and I’ll get you to a hotel.”

  She nodded but didn’t move.

  He left her there and turned to go sweep up the pieces.

  ***

  Lola watched Tim walk away. Not directly; didn’t want to be caught watching if he looked back to check on her. Which he did several times, as if she were a phantom who might disappear into thin air.

  Maybe if she just kept running down the beach she’d never have to see him again. Going AWOL wasn’t exactly on the list of experiences she wanted to try. Nor did she want to abandon her post, she’d worked harder to make SOAR than anything in her life. And harder still to live up to Emily Beale’s standards. “Away without leave” was one of the nastier crimes in the military, right up there with fraternizing with an enlisted.

  She rested her forehead back on her knees. How had she crash-landed in such a place? All she’d wanted to do was have a little fun. She didn’t want to be someone’s dream. Didn’t want to own someone else’s heart. Not even Tim’s.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the brilliant white arc of beautiful teapot handle still rising from the soil. The small section of pot that remained, awash with tiny pink roses. It was the most romantic gesture anyone had ever made to her.

  Living with Mama Raci, a living she’d earned in scrubbed pots and cut vegetables, had left her on the outside looking in. Hers wasn’t the world of TV sitcoms with happy families. When she wandered out of Storyville into the French Quarter or Metairie, she’d watched people happily strolling through the neighborhood, enjoying their family sit-down dinners, relaxing in front of the television behind brightly lit windows of nice homes.

  It wasn’t for her. Whatever was going on in Sergeant Tim Maloney’s mind, whatever madness had taken root there, it wasn’t her problem.

  Lola looked up at the starry sky, so different from the sky she’d watched last night from her lover’s arms. Different too from the heavens of her youth in New Orleans. The Gulf always cast some high weather system, the heat a palpable shimmer that battered at a person, made the world difficult to see clearly.

  Here in D.C., it was a sky of spilled paint. So picture perfect that nothing could go wrong beneath it.

  Nothing but Lola LaRue.

  She hid her eyes and did her best not to think or feel.

  She struggled to her feet and shook the feeling back into her legs. She didn’t want Tim to come find her. Didn’t want him to touch her. Didn’t want what she knew she would feel if he did. A joy like none she’d ever found in being with another. A peace she didn’t deserve or understand.

  She reached down and grasped the teapot handle. It felt oddly light, her muscles still expected the mass of the full pot.

  Lola tucked it out of sight under the edge of her shirt as she climbed the beach back toward the chopper.

  Chapter 48

  The whirlwind descended as they drove back into the city. For something to do with her hands, for something to do in the silence that descended as dense as any sandstorm between her and Tim, Lola fished her cell phone out of the fanny pack she’d tossed on the car floor while helping to clean and stow the Huey.

  A message flashed, now an hour old, calling them to the Treasury Building in less than an hour from now.

  Tim laid down on the accelerator and raced through the streets like a madman. She’d managed to make it up the stairs to the apartment to bathe and for them to pack their gear. She transferred the teapot handle to her duffel with Tim none the wiser.

  Tim ducked into the kitchen to return the apartment keys. She had to sit and wait for several minutes.

  Was Tim telling his mother about the teapot?

  Lola felt cowardly leaving him to face the rocket fire when she’d been the one to destroy the family heirloom, but though she reached for the car’s door handle several times, she never actually opened it.

  Or was he making some excuse why Lola wouldn’t come in to say good-bye? Possibly cursing her mere existence?

  She’d liked his family—Cara always so willing to give of her love and his father, Jackson, always ready with a smile or a wry joke. Having just refused their son, there was no way on the planet that she could face them.

  When Tim returned to the car, he looked grim, and she didn’t dare ask. She wasn’t just cruel, she was a coward on top of it.

  They raced in silence to arrive at the Treasury Building with minutes to spare, not having exchanged a single word since the beach other than her reading their orders off her voice mail. Orderlies swept aside their gear on arrival. They were ushered through metal detectors, each leaving a couple of knives and their sidearms in security’s lockbox.

  Down a long hall, where their passes were checked twice more, they entered the White House basement, arriving exactly on time in a concrete conference room. It was twice the size of the Situation Room but with none of the niceties. This was a room where serious work was done and nothing wasted on such luxuries as a comfortable chair or even a water pitcher.

  The other members of the two DAP Hawk crews were there along with two D-boys, Colonel Gibson and a Captain Thomas. Emily looked at Lola strangely when she neither chose a chair by Tim nor by her. Lola’s heart hurt too much to care.

  Seeking a quick distraction, Lola dropped into a hard plastic seat next to Kee. Thankful for the distraction, she offered the woman her friendliest smile.

  “Where’s the kid?”

  Kee unwound enough to answer, “Probably in the Oval Office. Her grandmother’s in town, so she’s staying with Calledbetty, but they’re meeting with the President at the moment.”

  Lola tried to think up something to say, something to expand this momentary bridge between them, but she came up blank. So the little squirt hadn’t been making it up. She did know the President and therefore, almost certainly, the head of the Presidential Protection Detail.

  Before she could form her thoughts into a coherent response, General Brett Rogers tromped in and Lola was back on her feet even before she heard Viper Henderson shout out, “’Tenshun!” or the general’s, “At ease. At ease,” that let them settle back slowly into their chairs.

  Chief of Staff Daniel Darlington followed him in, shut the door, and began speaking before he even turned to the room.

  “The President is unavailable at the moment,
but this”—he dropped an envelope on the table bearing the presidential seal—“is National Security Presidential Directive Number 73. General Rogers will explain the contents.”

  Rogers stood at the head of the table in silence and scanned the room.

  Lola did the same. Two D-boys and eight fliers. Seven of them tried-and-true SOAR pilots and crew chiefs, and then Lola. She suppressed a sudden desire to laugh at her inclusion in this circle. Even Sergeant Kee Stevenson belonged here more than she ever could. When their gazes met, she could see Kee making a similar assessment of her. “You don’t belong here.” No kidding.

  Lola was flying with the likes of Mark Henderson and Emily Beale. How was she ever supposed to measure up to that?

  The General cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention back to the head of the table.

  “Based on the Insurrection Act of 1807 and Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, you are not allowed to enter into a military operation on U.S. soil except as required by the Constitution and an Act of Congress. Not even to enforce law and order. It does not permit aggressive action against U.S. nationals. This”—the General tapped the envelope—“on the advice of the National Security Council, permits exactly that.” He pulled it out of the envelope, even as Mark and Emily groaned aloud.

  The General shot them a withering glance, but Emily just reached out to take Mark’s hand.

  Lola could see that they’d clearly read a similar document once before, but that the General hadn’t. He too quickly took in the implication. The Majors had known and performed some secret mission, secret even from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, that had required broad sweeping powers from the President. Oddly, as she scanned the room, no one else in their crews seemed to know either, except Daniel. The President’s Chief of Staff clearly had a few guesses even if he didn’t show a look of absolute certainty.

  The General harrumphed, then read aloud, “You are hereby authorized to use any force at any place and any time at your commander’s discretion that is deemed necessary to protect the safety and sanctity of the United States and her people. Signed, President Peter Matthews.”

  Emily covered her face as, with obvious reluctance, Major Henderson took the paper presented by the General.

  “No word of this mission is ever to reach beyond the people sitting in this room. Is that clear?” The last had a snap of command that had the ten of them jumping to their feet and responding with a shouted, “Sir, yes, sir!”

  ***

  “Unknown to the Iranian executive branch,” the General continued his lecture in the conference room beneath the White House, “and possibly unknown to the clerical branch of their government as well, a secret laboratory was constructed in the deep desert outside Ravar, Iran. A dreadful biocide was produced there. Soman is a Schedule 1 substance deemed to be a weapon of mass destruction per UN Security Council Resolution 687. It is a nerve agent that specifically targets all mammalian life forms and is one of the two or three most lethal such agents on the planet.”

  Lola saw Emily place her hands over her belly, as if she could further protect the month-old fetus.

  “Based on the research data your teams recovered from the desert, it is prepped to be released in an aerosol form, an airborne attack. We know the target is the Southern United States, and that’s where you’re headed. You’re being dispatched immediately to Fort Rucker to prepare for on-call action. You will pick up additional crew there as needed. CIA, FBI, and NSA assets are scrambling to get you a point of interdiction, but if it is airborne, your teams will be the spearhead once we identify the target. Questions?”

  “What’s our cover, sir?” Lola’s voice felt rough from not being used in the last several hours.

  “You’ll be making the crossing tonight under cover of darkness. After that, if daytime actions are required, you’ll be a training-and-testing flight. At Rucker, your birds will be rearmed with Hellfire IIIs. These are brand-new, nano-thermite-equipped missiles. Based upon the CIA experts’ calculations, they should burn hot enough to vaporize the Soman, and being FAEs, fuel-air explosives, hopefully they’ll be able to do so across a large enough area.” Then the old warrior looked exhausted.

  “This assumes that you can arrive at a biocide launch site before it has had a chance to significantly disperse. You are authorized to use this weaponry over citizen populations if the Soman has been released before you arrive. Trust me, it will be an act of kindness to those who might be already exposed.”

  He dropped into the seat at the head of the table and hung his head.

  Lola looked around, wanted someone to give the rallying talk she’d always heard in these types of situations. To know that someone had that absolute conviction of success.

  She could see Emily Beale struggling to find the right words, but her face merely looked white and drawn.

  “Well…” Lola leaned forward. “I’m sure there is something brilliant that can be said right about now. Regrettably, it needs someone smarter than me to say it.” Her irony earned her a soft laugh.

  Her brief meeting with Emily’s gaze told Lola to keep going, even if she didn’t believe it herself.

  “All I can think to say is: We’re the Night Stalkers.”

  Emily echoed it softly along with a few of the others, “We’re the Night Stalkers.”

  “NSDQ.” Lola made it a flat statement, each letter distinct.

  “NSDQ,” was mumbled around the table as a benison. Lola repeated it with more strength, more force. It was the Night Stalkers’ motto.

  “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit!” She nearly shouted it.

  “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit!” Emily hammered down her fist as she replied.

  “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit!” roared from the throats of both crews, their fists landing once, hard enough to shake the table.

  She whispered it one more time to herself, searching for that absolute commitment, as others rose to their feet and began heading for the door.

  “Night Stalkers Don’t Quit!”

  Chapter 49

  Lola knew it was a cheat, but she managed to end up in the other SUV from Tim and in the far backseat after making sure Emily Beale was sitting up front. The Delta Force colonel sat beside her and showed little inclination to speak. Good.

  She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, feeling the pain. A sharp physical bite that she’d diagnose in an older person as a heart attack. She pushed harder, which only worsened the ache.

  The irony of the situation was not lost upon her. She needed to feel, even if it was only physical pain. Or perhaps especially if it was pain. After a decade of sliding easy, it suddenly felt hard. An impossible burden to carry. She didn’t like what she was facing.

  Ever since 9/11, she’d flown down a path that had unfolded in front of her like a yellow brick road. Her life—while not pure hell, certainly hadn’t been a lot of fun prior to that moment—had started to make sense. In her last year of high school, all it changed was that she graduated. But in college she’d built up some speed. ROTC, swim team. Afterward, helicopters, Air National Guard. Army, Special Forces. Rangers, Airborne. CSAR, SOAR. She and Dorothy had it easy. Nothing ten tons of military helicopter and a pair of ruby slippers couldn’t solve. At least not that she’d admit to.

  She’d hit turbulence before. Been bucked down a grade for kneeing a lieutenant in the crotch when he’d really deserved it. But the harder challenges of military flying had come to her easily. Army discipline had given her a framework to rebel against, but not too much. MFEO—she and the Army had definitely been made for each other.

  For all the pain of her childhood, she’d had a fairly easy ride of it since then. Learned early how to emulate the college swim-team girls who’d grown up with mothers who had taken them to swim practice since they were five in the family’s silver minivan. She learned how to charm the boys and bought her acceptance there with h
er body when she cared to.

  Knew how to do Army. Had that down cold. Just do it. All that emotion, worry, and fear, there was no more place for it in the Army than in her father’s house. Shove it down and out of sight. You don’t show any feelings to anybody, then nobody steps on them. Don’t show them long enough, and you never have to feel them yourself.

  And it worked.

  It worked fine.

  Lola glared out the SUV’s dark-tinted windows at the Lincoln Memorial.

  It worked right up until the moment she’d met Sergeant “Crazy Tim” Maloney.

  “Never comfortable, is it?” a male voice asked.

  “Not even a little!” Lola almost laughed before she realized that the question and her answer had both been spoken aloud, not just her own thoughts.

  She turned to face Colonel Gibson.

  “What?”

  His silence was the only answer as they swung onto the bridge she and Tim had run across together not five days ago.

  “What!” She needed somebody to throttle, and maybe today would be a D-boy’s day.

  Still silence.

  She fired off a short jab at his ribs.

  It was as if she was moving in slow motion.

  Less than halfway to his rib cage, her wrist was completely immobilized in an impossibly strong grip. Once stopped, he paused just long enough for Lola to realize that he could snap her wrist with as little effort as she tied her boots. That even as he’d stopped her attack, some autonomic part of his training allowed him to judge the most advantageous angle of grip to set up the next move. And probably the three after that. Even she didn’t have that kind of speed, nor Tim that kind of strength.

  “Sorry,” she managed to mumble after he released her wrist still in one piece. What had she been thinking in attacking the Delta Operators’ highest-ranked field officer? A colonel in his early thirties, impossible to believe until you were face to face with the man. One look in his eyes and you knew he’d earned it, earned it the hard way.