I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers

by M. L. Buchman

  Kee checked out the window. They were still holding a high and back station. She imagined she could see a couple of rocket flares in the far distance, but it was too hard to judge if the Apaches were being allowed to take some of the heat this time. They were far enough out, they could be static across her night vision. She flipped the goggles back, but there was nothing to see tonight. Stars and mountains and a waning crescent moon rising in the east.

  “Let me get this straight.” The Major’s voice sounded perplexed. An unusual tone for her.

  “Some unidentified colonel gets Fort Campbell to call back one team. A mixed team at that. You then fly him five hundred miles over the worst terrain on the planet with no backup. No rescue possible. You drop him on the back side of nowhere with someone you didn’t even know you carried as a passenger dangling for five hours in an underslung pickup truck.”

  Again the silence of the pounding blades.

  “And don’t forget that woman messed with my bird.” John still sounded pretty grumpy. In any other situation, it would be cute.

  “Noted, John.” Again Beale showed her true colors for not taking him down a notch.

  Kee would have told him to get the hell over it. The Major knew how to treat her people. She could learn a lot from the Major.

  Beale swiveled in her seat as far as her harness allowed and stared back at Kee.

  “Definitely two aboard?”

  Kee nodded since the Major was facing her. “Specialist Connie Davis can confirm it, ma’am.”

  She glanced toward Archie.

  Kee couldn’t see his response through the back of the seat that separated their positions, but whatever it was, the Major didn’t like it. She faced forward, turned to Kee for a moment, then dropped back in her seat facing forward.

  “Screw this.” There was the distinct click as she keyed the mic. “Viper, this is Vengeance, come back.”

  “Viper here.” Major Mark Henderson’s voice sounded clear over the encrypted radio. Kee usually didn’t notice the radio traffic from outside the aircraft, operations kept her mind elsewhere. She’d had commanders who kept their radio traffic off the internal intercom, but Beale believed in open communications. Damned decent of her, treating her crew like people.

  “There’s a situation we need to discuss.”

  “Fire away.”

  “At base.”

  A silence. A silence that stretched until it was painful.

  “Now.” Beale’s voice left no question or doubt.

  “Roger that.” No hesitation in his response this time. Either Emily Beale had her husband whipped but good, or he was smart enough to trust his wife’s instincts. There was a long pause. Either while he thought it over or while he radioed the overhead AWACS for clearance to withdraw. “Proceed. We’re thirty-five minutes out.”

  “Roger. Moving. Out.” Beale slammed the bird over hard. If Kee weren’t strapped into her seat, she’d have flown out the gunner’s window despite the M134 minigun that filled most of it. When the g-forces eased up enough, she glanced at John. He shrugged then tipped his head to relieve a crick in his neck. Exactly the same gesture Connie Davis had used.

  Kee knew for damn sure that John wouldn’t appreciate that bit of information.

  Chapter 38

  “Describe him.” Major Mark Henderson sat at the head of the briefing table. Beale and John sat on one side, Kee, Connie, and Archie down the other. Clay had rotated stateside for his vacation and the refueling liaison was logging some air time on a Hercules mission somewhere to the west.

  It was weird to be in the briefing tent in the middle of the night. Usually it was hot and bright with the evening sun, briefing before they flew at night. Now the shadowed space felt unsafe and secret, a single lantern dangling over the table offering spotty light at best.

  Everyone else who’d seen him was here. He apparently hadn’t eaten in the chow tent, slept in a bunk, or even crapped in a latrine. Should she have questioned his identity? But he had the pull to get Fort Campbell to issue a personnel recall.

  Kee dropped a small bundle held together by a man’s leather belt on the table.

  “Maybe I can do better. He told me to burn this, but I, uh, forgot and left it on the Hawk.”

  “Forgot?” Emily arched one of those perfect eyebrows at her.

  “Well,” Kee refused to blush, “I had intended to do a little investigating first, but I was distracted.”

  Kee unrolled the belt. She started to set it aside, but something made her hesitate. The buckle was very distinctive and she’d seen something like it. She checked front and back of the belt, but saw no unusual markings. Then the prior memory came clear. Hank, who ran the bakery meth shop, showing her his newest toy.

  She folded back the tongue hard and pulled on the buckle. It came free, pulled a long thin wire with it. It pulled out to two feet and stopped.

  Kee didn’t even have to look at it. “Guitar string. High E. Nasty as a garrote. As likely to cut as to choke. Pulled sharply, it will cut the voice box before the victim can protest.” She turned the belt for everyone to see. A small white tag hung from the back of the belt leather. “Made in China.”

  Big John swallowed hard and glanced around the table. Archie also looked pale. The Majors looked angry. Connie watched her intently with those neutral, assessing eyes.

  Kee continued her way through pants and shirt, Army issue. The Colonel’s birds were still pinned to his collar points. He’d kept his boots, not unusual attire anywhere in the area. A small bundle of papers had been torn a half dozen times and stuffed into one of the shirt’s pockets.

  Kee sorted them by color and handed them out in little stacks. In moments they were each assembling pieces of the puzzle that had been the Colonel’s past.

  “James. Evans.” Archie shoved a couple pieces together.

  “Not Isaacson. He said his name was Isaacson. Jeff Isaacson.”

  “Is this the right picture?” John turned a set of four pieces torn and twisted across the middle of the face. Despite the raggedness of the tear, there was no question James Evans was their man. No beard in the photo and his haircut strictly Army, but the pale eyes were a definite match. She’d seen this guy somewhere before. Of course, after six years in the Army and SOAR, she’d seen a lot of officers.

  “He’s a colonel. At least that looks to be true.” Major Beale inspected the bits and pieces in front of her.

  “Who has some tape?”

  Connie set a dispenser on the table at Henderson’s request. As always, no wasted motion or comment, but absolutely prepared. Kee half expected her to open a thumbnail like a science-fiction cyborg and dispense the tape directly.

  In a couple minutes they had the few papers put together.

  “Anything else?” Major Henderson’s voice was grim as he gathered up what little they had.

  Kee looked around the table. No one really wanted to meet anyone’s gaze.

  She looked at Connie.

  She looked back at Kee with completely expressionless eyes. A bland hazel, with sparkles of green.

  With a shiver Kee turned to face the Major.

  “He gave me the creeps, sir.”

  The Major’s eyes were nearly as light a blue as the Colonel’s, but they were alive with the heart and pride of the man behind them.

  “When the Colonel looked at you, there was no one home.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Archie nodded. “I would have to agree with Sergeant Smith’s assessment. I would class him as a stone-cold killer. Not Special Forces. He didn’t have the skills that any operator would have. Regular Army, but a real hard case, sir.”

  “Is that it?” Once more he scanned the table.

  ***

  In the dim light, Dilyana reached out a hand to pull on The Kee’s sleeve. The Kee jumped in surprise. Everyone at the table spun to stare at her. Dilya bit her lip and did her best to be brave and not run away. She had listened and watched from the shadows until her curiosity ov
ercame her shyness in front of so many people.

  There was no mistaking the big man’s curse, and she knew enough of the words to know the Leader Man was not happy that she stood there.

  “What is it, Dilya?” The Kee’s voice came soft and quiet as it always did.

  She held onto The Kee’s sleeve for confidence, then pointed with the other hand at the papers the Boss Man had gathered.

  The Kee reached out and took them. She spread them out on the table up close.

  It was the picture Dilya was interested in. She studied it carefully, twisting it back and forth in the light.

  She couldn’t tell. Not really. But she knew she was right.

  “One dog. Two dog.” She held up her fingers, one then another.

  The Kee told the others at the table something about Go, Dog. Go!

  “Two men? One man. Two man.”

  She didn’t know the word, but nodded. It sounded right.

  She pointed to the picture she held. “One dog.”

  Then she pointed as if there was a second picture.

  “Two dog qilmoq Dilya mother and father dead.”

  The Kee spun to face her.

  “Two dogs.” Then she imitated drawing the pictures she’d made on the boat.

  The Kee pointed toward the sleeping tent.

  Dilya nodded and bolted. She knew where the drawings were, still folded carefully in The Kee’s bag.

  She was back in moments, and smoothed them out on the table in front of The Kee. Everyone leaned in to look.

  The Kee nodded. “The same.” She wrapped an arm around Dilya and pulled her in close but didn’t turn from looking at the photos.

  Dilyana asked her question again, softly, “Kee qilmoq dead?”

  She’d taken Dog One away. To kill him?

  The Kee looked at the picture. Then she cursed.

  Dilya didn’t know the words, but they sounded nasty.

  “No. Kee no make dead.”

  But she’d promised. The Kee had promised. Promised and lied.

  Dilya turned to run, but The Kee grabbed her by both arms. Held her while she struggled until Dilya stopped, knowing she couldn’t break free.

  The Kee brought her face very close.

  “Kee qilmoq Dog One and Dog Two dead. Understand? Kee will.”

  Dilya watched her eyes. Saw the truth there.

  She whispered, “The Keiko say?”

  “Ha. Very ha.”

  That was all Dilya needed to know.

  ***

  The picture of Dog Two wasn’t a photograph, but it might be enough to identify the man to someone who knew him.

  Kee slid the two images across the table to Major Henderson.

  “Sir, I would say there is a very good chance this was the passenger in the Toyota pickup. I didn’t get a clear look at him, a brief glance in profile only, but it could be.”

  The Major studied the photo ID and the two drawings for thirty seconds without anyone making a sound.

  “Okay, folks. I’m going to wake up some folks at Fort Campbell and find out what is going on here. Emily, it’s after 4 a.m. It will be light by the time you get there. I want you to take your crew and Specialist Davis back to where they picked up the truck. See if you can find anything. Do not discuss this with anyone who’s not in this room right now. Clear?”

  “Clear, sir,” they all said in unison.

  “Sir?” Connie stopped everyone halfway to their feet.

  “Davis.”

  “It is 6:14 p.m. Sunday evening stateside. You won’t have to wake them.”

  Kee wondered if he were biting his lip to keep from laughing at her. Of course, he knew the time at Fort Campbell, all SOAR fliers always did. Had to. And the weather too, in case a family call was routed to them. No matter where you were, you told family you were in Fort Campbell.

  “Thank you, Davis.”

  Chapter 39

  It was past daybreak by the time they landed at the nameless spot in the desert. A hill and two ridges made a natural bowl hiding its secrets, except from directly above. The ridges were rocky spines, the hill was really just a lump in the local topography compared to the Hindu Kush towering just to the north. A wide goat trail led through the bowl, perhaps wide enough to drive the truck along. The area had accumulated a fine layer of windblown sand deep enough that few plants managed to secure their roots.

  For five minutes they walked back and forth across the area.

  “It was right here.” Kee pointed downward.

  Archie looked back and forth between the two ridges, clearly rebuilding their profiles in his mind.

  “I would have thought it was a few dozen paces farther east, but you may be right.”

  Connie Davis nodded her simple agreement with Kee.

  John and Major Beale studied the ground carefully around their feet.

  “Two more minutes, then we’re gone.” The Major didn’t sound happy. “Doesn’t look as if there is anything to learn here.”

  They paced back and forth over the area where Colonel Isaacson or Evans or whoever the hell he was had parked his pickup truck. And she and Archie had lifted it airborne.

  On the verge of giving up, Kee’s boot caught on something harder than sand. She kicked at it a couple times to bring it to the surface.

  A half-used roll of black duct tape. It was military grade. Super strong for patching anything from an emergency field kit to a shot-up helicopter rotor. She held it up for the others to see.

  “Hundred-mile-an-hour tape. He couldn’t be caught with anything that would tag him as U.S. Army, so he buried it.”

  They dug a hole quickly and two feet down they uncovered an M4A1 carbine, an Army-issue KA-BAR knife, and a small notebook.

  Kee checked the rifle while Beale glanced through the book.

  “He couldn’t carry this with him.” Kee pulled back the bolt far enough to see that the chamber was empty. She popped the magazine, it was full. Full of cartridges and sand. “It would raise too many questions if someone saw it. That’s why he had the AK-47. This looks fine, though I’d rather not fire it until we knock some of the grit out.”

  The Major slapped the book against her thigh, knocking a spray of sand loose. She reopened the book.

  “A lot here I don’t understand. Numbers and times, but they don’t relate to anything.”

  Kee and Connie crowded around, but Kee couldn’t puzzle it out either. Except for a date, three days away.

  Kee slung the M4 over her shoulder and turned back to watch the diggers as the Major flipped one by one through the blank pages that filled most of the book.

  The Major swore. Archie and John stopped digging, nothing else had come to light anyway. “What?”

  The Major pulled a picture out that had been stuck between the pages.

  It showed the two men, they matched the photo and Dilya’s drawings. And two women, clearly related, perhaps sisters. They stood side by side, but just as clearly aligned with the two men who flanked them.

  Kee studied the photo. Pretty, generously built, smiles for their men, native garb, native coloring. A background of oddly rounded hills, scrub plants, and small trees.

  Then she noticed the writing and echoed the Major’s curse. Along the bottom were four dates, one positioned directly beneath each person. Below the two women was the date, “30 May 2005.”

  “What does that mean?” Archie stared over her shoulder. “What are the other two dates? Hey. That’s three days from now. Marriage dates? But why would they be different for the men?”

  Kee didn’t need to wait for the Major to flip to the front of the notebook. The same date.

  The two women with the one date in the past, the two men with another in the future. The very near future.

  “Oh, shit!”

  They all turned to look at her.

  “Not marriage. Date of death. Colonel Evans and Dog Two know the date of their own deaths, three days from now.”

  Chapter 40

  “Wh
at do you dream of, Archie? For the future.”

  Kee sat with Archie and Dilya high in the stadium, just a few rows below the sentries. All the choppers were still huddled about the field except a pair of Little Birds that had gone back to the carrier for their 120-hour service.

  The dark had dragged its feet this evening, which was fine with Kee. The sunset had been as spectacular as the stars which now studded the night sky.

  They were at a standstill while SOAR command chewed on the information they’d sent, including a copy of the photo, Dilya’s drawings, and scans of the scrawled notes in the book.

  Sitting together in peace with the helicopters nearby, but almost lost in the dark, she felt safe. Night Stalker to the core.

  Dilya sat behind her, light tugs on Kee’s scalp as the girl braided her hair. Either by touch, or perhaps the girl possessed built-in night vision. She never failed to find Kee either in the light or dark. The braids would be uncomfortable under her helmet, but Dilya enjoyed doing it so much Kee couldn’t bring herself to complain. And each braid was a different style. Sometimes to tease her, Archie would reach over and quietly undo a particularly complex braid. Patient as the sea, Dilya would start again.

  “I don’t dream. I like flying with Major Beale very much. I like the missions, of course. I like the sense of purpose. But I never looked much beyond the next assignment. Figured if I ever walked away, I’d work with Dad building boats. Maybe take over the business some day.”

  Kee turned her head enough to see his profile without pulling her hair from Dilya’s hands. He leaned his elbows back on the riser behind him and gazed up at the brilliant stars.

  Once again, he surprised her. She understood not dreaming when you didn’t expect to survive the streets. But was Archie so forthright that he really never thought beyond what came next for himself?

  And boats? She could picture him working with his mom more easily than building boats. He was clearly the strategist of the chopper.

  “I should say I never used to dream beyond that.” In that uncanny way of his, he found her hand unerringly without looking down and laced their fingers together.