Gasping, she clutched his other hand, her wide eyes locked on his with complete trust
“Hey, Smooth,” he shot back over his shoulder. “Some help, please.”
Smooth gripped Jimmy’s flight boots and pulled, the extra torque just enough to tip the scales. Jimmy heaved Chloe the rest of the way in. Backpedaling into the belly of the craft, he held on tight every step of the way, even after the back ramp sealed closed.
He dropped to his knees on the deck, taking her right along with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Smooth restraining the unconscious woman in a red webbed seat.
Which left Jimmy free to focus all of his attention on Chloe. “Are you okay?”
She scraped away her dripping-wet hair from her face. “You’re really here.”
“Because you’re here.”
All this time he’d been so wrapped up worrying about protecting Chloe, he’d missed how this strong, competent woman could take care of herself—with the help of an iPod recorder and a mean right hook.
Chloe sagged against him, teeth chattering, her arms and legs shaking. “God, I love you so much. I’m sorry for not telling you before, but I mean it.”
Her words floored him, sucker punched him, and made his whole life at the same time. This woman never stopped surprising him.
“It’s okay; you’re okay. And damn straight I love you, too.”
She stroked his face, her hand still trembling from cold or exhaustion or adrenaline letdown. Probably all of the above. “I guess red shirts are lucky after all.”
* AFGHANISTAN, SEVEN DAYS LATER
Chloe nailed the final high note of the last show in her USO tour. Seven blessedly uneventful days of entertaining the troops.
She’d had the perfect airman to set her sights on for this last performance, but she’d still swept her eyes and her smile to encompass the whole crowd. She and Jimmy would have time to talk backstage.
With Marta in jail, Greg dead, Steven cleared, and the small terrorist cell apprehended, the USO had inventoried how much backstage gear had made it into the C-17 before the bombing. With some equipment loaned from Incirlik’s recreation center to fill in the gaps, they were able to go forward with the tour.
Minus Livia, who was recovering from surgery in Italy.
One of the backup singers—a past American Idol finalist—had taken on all of Livia’s well-known songs to round out the playlist. The USO always delivered for the armed services. They’d dedicated the revamped tour to Livia Cicero and Chuck Tanaka, while newspapers already began to chronicle the downfall of Marta Surac and the roundup of criminals she’d brokered deals with.
Chloe waved her last farewell to the troops on her way offstage, her smile wide even if tears already streaked her makeup. She’d hoped to repay a debt over here. She hadn’t even begun to realize how much she would gain.
She would even miss the sequins.
The lights went dark onstage and rose in the wings where Jimmy already waited for her. There hadn’t been more than ten minutes for them to talk since landing a week ago, and she’d been too emotional after the rescue to do more than hold onto him and babble. Jimmy and his crew had spent the last seven days incommunicado on some new secret mission, while she’d finished her tour.
Finally, their time had come.
Sporting the same skimpy costume she’d worn the day she met him, Chloe flattened her hands to his chest and her mouth to his, totally unconcerned with the cameras snapping away at their Kodak moment reunion. His bold, hot hands slid low on her waist, stopping just shy of her bottom but hinting at the promise of what waited for them once they were alone.
Desire humming through her veins, Chloe ended their kiss. She kept her arms looped around his neck, her fingers toying with his hair. “You’re here.”
“Because you’re here,” he echoed their words from the second time he’d hauled her out of the water.
“That’s really sweet of you to remember, but I mean you’re in Afghanistan.” It was a place that held so many horrible memories for him. “We could have met tomorrow in Germany.” Their stopover on the way home.
Jimmy held her gaze, and rather than just searching her, he let her see inside him. He didn’t show vulnerability often—mostly never—but Chloe found this human side of him drew her just as much as his touch, his charm, and even his occasional grouchiness.
He knuckled a lock of her hair behind her ear. “A very wise air force mentor of mine once told me that sometimes you have to go back to go forward.”
“He sounds like a smart man.”
“He was. His call sign was even Socrates. I’d like to tell you about him sometime.” The intensity in his eyes slid away, an equally enticing gleam taking its place. “Did you just call me ‘sweet’ a second ago?” He reached into his flight suit pocket and pulled out his travel-size Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. “Sweet is for the weak. Do you not realize I am a combat-honed warrior?”
He smacked the book against his palm for emphasis.
She plucked it from his fingers and fanned herself. “Am I about to get another martial arts lesson from Mars, god of war?”
He hooked a warm, muscled arm around her waist and ducked into a more private corner out of the human traffic flow. “I’ve learned you’re more than capable of protecting yourself. You know, they say Amazons hailed from a place that’s now part of modern-day Turkey.”
“Amazon, huh? I think I like that nickname best of all. I take it that means you haven’t come with a pair of bodyguards for my journey home?”
He didn’t laugh. “I’m sorry for what I said back in your room at Incirlik.”
“You already apologized shortly after you dragged me out of the water.” But it felt good hearing it again. She needed for him to value her strength, a hard-won strength.
He pulled her in closer. “But I didn’t explain why I mean it. I wasn’t just spouting off some bullshit because you scared the hell out of me.”
Love for him tumbled through her all over again. Jimmy didn’t admit vulnerability lightly—or eloquently. “You were scared?”
“Damn right I was. Then I saw you kick that bitch’s butt. God, Chloe, you were as amazing that night as you are playing the piano.”
“You were mighty darn amazing yourself with the guns and crawling into the water.” His confidence in her strength stirred her more than any moving Brahms ballade or passionate Rachmaninoff offering. Jimmy was all the best melodies strumming over her emotions at once. “So you think I have a serious future as an Amazon warrior?”
“I’m not sure my heart could take your going pro with that, but if it’s what you really want, I’m a hundred percent on board.” His head fell to rest on hers. “I love you, Chloe. I love the way you calm me with your music and voice and lavender soap. I love the way you fire me up with your temper and conviction and smoking-hot body. I especially love the way you can absolutely take care of yourself. Damn it, I just love you.”
She cupped the back of his head to anchor herself in this moment, since Jimmy had a way of sending her soaring. “That’s a wonderful thing, because I happen to love you, too.”
“So you told me seven days ago when you nearly had your way with me in the cargo hold in front of my crew.”
“Oh, I did, didn’t I? I just want you to hear why I mean it.”
“That sounds good to me. How about you tell me at length over supper sometime back in Atlanta?”
“You’re making a trip to Atlanta, are you?”
“I’ve got some leave time built up. Let’s spend a couple of weeks hanging out, making love, watching that ‘Tribble’ Star Trek episode. Figure out how to make a cross-country relationship work.”
“That would be time very well-spent. Given we’re both such determined people, I’m sure we can come up with the perfect plan.” She grinned up at him, staring her fill until she realized they’d stood there so long the backstage crowd had dwindled. She tapped the tab of the long zipper on his flight suit. “So y
ou flew today.”
He grinned back. “I sure didn’t hitchhike.”
She walked her fingers down his arm, tugging him along in an unmistakable invitation. “I think you need a shower.”
“We, my Amazon maestra.” He squeezed her hand, his boots picking up the pace toward her quarters waiting with a fresh bar of lavender soap. “From now on, we’re one helluva team.”
Turn the page for a preview of
the next Dark Ops Novel by Catherine Mann
HOTSHOT
Coming May 2009 from Berkley Sensation!
HONDURAS, PRESENT DAY
Major Vince “Vapor” Deluca didn’t need to ask if there were Harleys in heaven. For him, hogs and planes both transported him from this world to brush the edge of paradise.
Not to mention both had saved his hell-bound ass on more than one occasion. And right now, he needed some of that heavenly salvation—on wings rather than wheels—in a serious way if he expected to pull off this potentially explosive mission.
Flying his AC-130 gunship at twenty-five thousand feet, Vince peered into a monitor at the increasingly restless crowd below in the rural Honduran town. With the help of his twelve crew members, he monitored the citizens pouring out of the hills to cast their votes in the special election, an election that could turn volatile in a heartbeat. The politics of this country were precarious and warlords were determined to stop the process. Local government officials had requested U.S. help with crowd control, using any means possible to keep the peace.
Vince cranked the yoke into a tight turn, flying over the voting place, a white wooden church. The sensors bristled along the side of the aircraft to scan the snaking crowd lining up. His sensors were so good the guys in back were able to study faces, gestures, and even guns worn like fashion accessories.
He knew too well how mob mentality could unleash an atomic Lord of the Flies destructive force.
His fists clenched around the yoke. “Okay, crew, eyeballs out. Let’s score one for democracy.”
“Vapor,” the fire control officer, David “Ice” Berg, droned from the back, as cool and calm as his name implied, “take a look at this dude in the camera. I think he’s the ringleader.”
Vince checked the screen, and yeah, that guy had whacko written all over him. “He seems like a hard-core cheerleader yelling and flapping his arms around.”
Copilot Jimmy Gage thumbed his interphone. “Those gymnastics of his are working.” Jimmy’s fists clenched and unclenched as if ready to break up the brawl mano a mano. He’d earned his call sign Hotwire honestly. Vince’s best bud, they’d often been dubbed in bars the Hotwire and the Hotshot. “The crowd’s getting riled up down there. Hey, Berg, do things look any better from your bird’s-eye view?”
“Give me a C for chaos,” Berg answered, dry as ever.
Vince worked his combat boots over the rudders while keeping his eyes locked on the screen scrolling an up-close look at the ground. “Roger that. All Cheerleader Barbie needs is a ponytail and a pair of pom-poms instead of that big-ass gun slung over his shoulder.” A riot seemed increasingly inevitable, which was not surprising, since human intel had already uncovered countless attempts to terrorize voters into staying home. “Barbie definitely bears watching, especially with those ankle biters around.”
He monitored the group of children playing on swings nearby while adults waited to vote. Conventional crowd-control techniques could sometimes escalate the frenzy. This mission called for something different, something new. Something right up his alley as a member of the air force’s elite dark ops testing unit. In emergency situations they were called upon to pull a trick or two from their developmental arsenal and pray it worked as advertised, since failure could spark an international incident, or, worse yet, harm a kid.
Today, he and his dark ops crew were flying the latest brainchild of the nonlethal weapons crowd. A flat microwave antenna protruded from the side of the lumbering aircraft. The ADS—Active Denial System—had the power to scorch people without leaving marks. Testing showed that as it heated up the insides, people scattered like ants from a hill after a swift kick.
Uncomfortable, but preferable to a lethal bullet.
Jimmy made a notation in his flight log. “Careful with your bank there, Vapor. Getting a little shallow.” Once his pencil slowed, he glanced over at Vince. “Barbie might be providing a distraction for someone else to make a move.”
Valid point. He increased the bank and smoothed the action with a touch of rudder. “Good thing there are thirteen of us to scan the mob, because we’re going to need all eyes out.”
A string of acknowledgments echoed over Vince’s headset just as Barbie grabbed the butt of his rifle and—slam—the past merged with the present.
A group of misfit teens festering with discontent. Four hands hauling him from his Kawasaki rat bike. Screaming. Gunshots.
A girl in the way.
Sweat stinging his eyes now as well as then, Vince reached up to adjust his air vents for like the nine hundredth time since takeoff. How could they make this airplane so high-tech and not get the damn air-conditioning to work?
“Time’s run out for Barbie.” The rattling plane vibrated through his boots all the way up to his teeth. “Crank it, Berg.”
“Concur,” the fire control officer drawled from the back. “Let’s light him up.”
“I’m in parameters, aircraft stable, cleared to engage.” Vince monitored as a crosshair tuned in on the infrared screen in front of him and centered on the troublemaker. He hoped this would work, prayed this guy was a low-level troublemaker and not one of the area’s ruthless mercenaries. He didn’t relish the thought of the situation escalating into a need for the more conventional guns aft of the nonlethal ADS.
That wouldn’t go well for the “get out the vote” effort.
“Ready,” Berg called.
“Cleared to fire,” answered Vapor.
“Firing . . .”
No special sounds or even so much as a vibration went through the craft. The only way to measure success was to watch and wait and . . .
Bingo.
Barbie started hopping around like he’d been stung by a swarm of bees. His AK-47 dropped from his hand onto the dusty ground. The crowd stilled at the dude’s strange behavior, all heads turning toward him as if looking for an explanation.
Jimmy twitched in his seat. “I halfway wanna laugh at the poor bastard, except I know how bad the ADS stings.”
“Amen, brother.” Before integrating the ADS onto the airplane, they’d tested it on themselves. It was disorienting and unpleasant, to say the least, but not damaging.
He was willing to take that searing discomfort and more to power through developing this particular brainchild, a personal quest for him. He could have been on the side of the evil cheerleader today if not for one person: a half-crazy old war vet who took on screwed-up teens that most good citizens avoided on the street. Don Bassett had never asked for anything in return.
Until this morning.
Vince relegated that BlackBerry e-mail he’d received minutes before takeoff to the back of his mind. “No time to get complacent, everybody. Keep looking. I can’t imagine our activist with the automatic weapon is alone.”
The system had the capability to sweep the whole group with a broader band, but he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, as it would likely shut down voting altogether.
Badass Barbie shook his head quickly, looked around, then leapt toward his AK-47 lying in the dust.
Berg centered the crosshairs again. “I think he needs another taste.”
Vapor replied, “Roger. Cleared to fire.”
“Firing . . .”
The rabble-rouser again launched into some kind of erratic pep rally routine.
“Stay on him.” Vince eyed the monitor, heart drumming in time with the roaring engines. “Run him away from the crowd.”
Berg kept the crosshairs planted on the troublemaker as he attempted to escape the he
at. The wiry man sidled away. Faster. Faster again, until he gave up and broke into a sprint, disappearing around a corner of the building.
Hell, yeah.
Vince continued banking left over the village so the cameras could monitor the horde. As hoped, the crowd seemed to chat among themselves for a while, some looking up at the plane, discussing, then slowly re-forming a line to the church.
Cheers from the crew zipped through the headset for one full circle around the now-peaceful gathering. Things could still stir up in a heartbeat, but the pop from the ADS had definitely increased the odds for the good guys.
God, he loved it when a plan came together. “Crew, let’s run an oxygen check and get back in the game.”
His crew called in one by one in the same order as specified in the aircraft technical order, ending with Vince.
He monitored his oxygen panel. “Pilot check complete.”
With luck, the rest of the election would go as smoothly, and they would be back in the good ole U.S. of A. tomorrow night.
Five peaceful hours later, Vince cranked the yoke, guiding the AC-130 into a roll, heading for the base, where he would debrief this mission and lay out plans for their return home.
And contact Don Bassett.
Vince finally let the message flood his mind. He couldn’t simply ignore the note stored on his BlackBerry. The e-mail scrolled through his head faster than data on his control panel.
I need your help. My daughter’s in danger.
That in and of itself wasn’t a surprise. Bassett’s only daughter had been flirting with death before she even got her braces off. Her parents kept bailing out Shay’s ungrateful butt. What did surprise him, however, was Don asking for help. The dude was a giver, not a taker. Meaning that for whatever reason, he must be desperate.
Not that the reason even mattered. Whatever the old guy wanted, he could have. If not for Don Bassett’s intervention seventeen years ago, Vince wouldn’t need a motorcycle or airplane to transport him from his fucked-up world.
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