Lovelace, Merline

by Dark Side of Dawn

  He didn't kid himself. It wasn't just the insulation properties of the Nomex that pumped sweat and adrenaline like aortal blood. It was fear. Primitive, gut-twisting fear.

  He'd worked it out in his head, reasoned that Taylor wouldn't dispose of Jo until her lover arrived on the scene. The only reason for bringing Deke down was revenge against his rival... and to arrange for him to share Jo's fate.

  But reason and logic flew in the face of the fact that they were dealing with a madman. One so brilliant and resourceful, he'd already gotten away with murder once. Praying he'd read at least a portion of Taylor's mind, Deke pounded on.

  Vapor rose around his head like a cloudy plume by the time the woods thinned, then gave way to the rails of a white fence. He followed the rails for another half mile before spotting twin brick pillars topped with marble pineapples. A long, winding road led from the brick entrance to a sprawling white house set atop a distant rise. Chestnut trees lined the road, their naked black limbs silver-coated with ice.

  The observatory, the garbled electronic voice had instructed. Take the path behind the house. Arrive by eight p.m. or don't arrive at all.

  His breath steaming, Deke shot the cuff of his flight suit to check his stainless steel chronometer. Nineteen-twenty-one.

  He had thirty-nine minutes to race up that sloping road, find the damned observatory, challenge Alex Taylor on his own grounds. His face grim, Deke ripped off his gloves. Dragging down the zipper on his leather jacket, he yanked it off and dug in his helmet bag for the ceremonial knife he'd picked up as a souvenir during a visit to the Australian outback. It was nine inches long, viciously sharp, and carved entirely from bone. The razor-edged blade would cut through the toughest hide... and its lack of metal components defied detection by even the most sophisticated airport security devices.

  His heart as icy as the bleak landscape, Deke gripped the bone handle in a white-knuckled fist.

  The rattle of the observatory's door brought Jo's head up with a jerk.

  Alex! she thought on twin waves of panic and loathing. He'd come back to end his macabre game. He'd intercepted Deke, sprung whatever grisly trap he'd set, and now would end the game. She allowed herself one instant of desolation, one agonizing second of despair, before she set her spine and her jaw.

  For the space of that same, endless moment, absolute silence filled the domed room. Jo knew the door had opened. She could feel the cold knifing into her exposed neck. Her shoulders braced, expecting, dreading, the feel of the stun gun as well.

  "Jo!"

  Her heart stopped. Literally stopped. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, until it kick-started again with such a painful jolt she gasped.

  She swung the chair around, gasping again at the figure who stood in the open door. He might have stepped from the pages of a horror novel. A frozen corpse, rising from a snowy grave. Ice coated his hair. His skin was ashen. Every heaving breath his chest pushed out wreathed his head in cloudy vapor.

  Fear clogged her throat. She was the bait. Alex had used her to lure this man here. He was watching! She knew it with every fiber in her body. Listening. His warped mind was giving them a final few seconds, taking sadistic pleasure in their helplessness.

  "Deke! Get out of here! Now!"

  "Is this place wired?" he barked, ignoring her frantic plea. "Ready to blow?"

  "I don't know!"

  "Has Taylor been in here?"

  "Deke, you've got to—"

  "Tell me, dammit! Has Taylor been in here? I want to get you out, not blow you all to hell and back by tripping some hidden device."

  "Yes, he was here, but—"

  She caught the movement of shadow on ice, a glint of light on steel. Her scream split the air.

  "Behind you!"

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Deke spun around, ducking, at the same instant a shot exploded a mere inch from his ear. Fire burned across his cheek. Cordite seared his nostrils. Eyes streaming, ears ringing from the percussion, he reacted instinctively. Lunging forward, he gutted Alexander Taylor like a fish.

  One bunch of his muscles. One thrust with all the force of a savage male behind it. One vicious rip upward. That's all it took to spill a gush of hot blood and arch Taylor over in wide-eyed, unbelieving shock.

  For a small eternity, they faced each other. Then slowly, so slowly, Taylor crumpled. With a kick that shattered bone, Deke knocked the gun from his hand.

  Blood poured from Taylor's stomach. His mouth still gaped open in stunned disbelief. Arms curled over his belly, he drew his legs up

  Swiping the tears from his stinging eyes, Deke stood over him. He'd hunted enough big game to know Taylor was breathing his last few gasps.

  "Take your time, you bastard. Die slowly. Painfully. Just like your wife did."

  The fallen man twitched. A groan gurgled deep in his throat. His eyes glazed, closed, flickered open.

  "Just like... you will. You and... the bitch... who... betrayed..."

  A red froth bubbled from his mouth. His lids drifted down.

  Jo had always hated the cliché of the weak, helpless female who fell sobbing into her rescuer's arms. But the moment Deke sliced the tape on her wrists, she understood that clichés became clichés because they embodied certain fundamental truths.

  She wasn't weak and she wasn't normally helpless, but she didn't even try to hold back a sob as she sprang out of the chair and into the vise of his arms. Her mouth attacked his with the same intensity his attacked hers.

  They allowed themselves one moment of joy, of relief, of a fierce, elemental bonding that went beyond this place and this time. Then reality crashed down on them.

  Panting, Jo pulled away. Revulsion, relief, and a fierce, primal satisfaction filled her as she surveyed the huddled form just outside the door to the observatory.

  "Is he dead?"

  "Yes."

  Shudders racked her. That crumpled mass might so easily have been Deke. Might still be Deke. Alex's last, vicious threat rang in her head like a Klaxon.

  "We've got to get out of here! I don't know what Alex planned..."

  He shot a swift glance around the room. "My guess is another display of high-tech pyrotechnics. That seems to be his specialty."

  Oh, God, not another laser light show! Not another explosion of glass and cement and deadly shards slicing through skin and muscle! Jo's insides cringed.

  "He said I had to be here by eight p.m. if I wanted to see you alive."

  "Eight!"

  Her blood congealed in her veins. She had no idea how long she'd sat in that damned chair, but from the look on Deke's face when he yanked back his sleeve to check his watch, she guessed it had been hours.

  "What time is it?"

  Incredibly, he flashed her a grin. "Time to get the hell out of Dodge, West."

  Jo gaped at him, stunned that he could joke at a time like this, stunned to realize she loved him because he could joke at a time like this.

  This wasn't the moment to tell him so, she decided. Later, when she was sure the damned building wasn't going to blow up around them.

  "Come on! Let's get out of here!"

  By unspoken consent, they left Alex's body lying in a crumpled heap. Their breath frosting on the air, they raced along the path through the woods. The shadowy outline of the house loomed ahead of them, dark, still.

  Too dark. Too still.

  "Wait!"

  Skidding on the ice-slick path, Jo grabbed Deke's arm with two hands and dragged him to a stop.

  "Alex said..." Her heart hammered as she stared at the house. "He said he sent his staff home."

  Surely he wouldn't booby-trap the farmhouse. Not the house he loved so much....

  The house where he kept so many reminders of Katherine!

  The skin on the back of her neck crawled. What the hell had Alex's sick mind devised? She didn't know, couldn't know! But every instinct in her body warned her to avoid the house.

  "Jo, we've got to move!"

  Her frantic
glance cut to the right. There, at the bottom of the hill only a hundred or so yards away. The helipad. The Sikorsky.

  Cursing Alex, cursing her own remembered delight the first time he'd taken her up in the sleek bird, she yanked on Deke's arm.

  "The helo!"

  He hesitated for only a second before joining her for a wild plunge down the grassy slope.

  "How much time?" she panted, eyes narrowed against the sleet as she scanned the long rotor blades for signs of icing.

  "Six minutes."

  "Christ!"

  Tearing away the anchor straps and chocks, she yanked open the cockpit door and threw herself in the right seat.

  Even the pounding fear that the night would explode around her at any minute couldn't break habits drilled into her from the first time she'd climbed into a cockpit. Fumbling with the safety harness, she strapped herself in and flipped on the control panel lights. Seconds later, the engine whined, a muted murmur at first, building to a full-throated pitch with the smooth precision that was the Sikorsky's hallmark.

  Jo lived through two long lifetimes in the agonizing moments it took to power up to 3,400 rpm, the minimum required to lift into a hover. The thousands of preflight and engine start checklists she'd run through during her career raced through her head. Her eyes stayed glued to the instrument panel. Her boots tested the pedals. Her hand was steady on the twist-grip throttle as she beeped the power up in steady increments.

  Finally, finally!, the bird was ready to fly. Deke knew the drill as well as she did. Twisting in his harness, he checked the side and rear of the aircraft.

  "Clear to the left," he shouted, used to pitching his voice above the roar. The sound thundered in the well-insulated quiet of the S-76.

  "Roger."

  Jo twisted in her harness to check the right side, swung back, concentrated all her attention on coordinating all four appendages to take the helo into a hover.

  The skids cleared the helipad.

  The ground dropped away.

  Sweat trickled between Jo's breasts as she pushed the nose forward to gain airspeed, hands and feet working in unison to counterbalance the combined effects of horizontal and vertical rotors.

  Deke reached for the aerial chart book tucked conveniently into a handy pocket. "You've flown in here before. What's the closest airport?"

  "Lexington. It's about ten nautical miles west northwest."

  "Roger."

  Steadily, Jo beeped up the power, aiming for the 90 knots of airspeed she knew the Sikorsky could handle in this kind of weather.

  At 30 knots, she speared a glance over her shoulder at the dark, silent house sprawled atop its hill.

  At 60, the sickening thought that they'd gotten away too easily nudged aside her relief at having gotten away at all.

  Wouldn't Alex have known she'd go for the helo? Wouldn't he...?

  At 68 knots, the Sikorsky's tail rotor disintegrated.

  The explosion rocked the aircraft. A heartbeat later, the nose pitched down and swung violently to the right.

  Instantly, Jo pulled back the cyclic, fighting to keep the Sikorsky from going into a spin.

  "We've got tail rotor failure! I can't get the nose up!"

  Deke was already cross-checking the instruments. "You've still got engine and transmission in the green. What the hell happened?"

  Teeth clenched, she spit out one word. "Alex."

  She pushed Taylor out of her mind. She couldn't think about him now. Couldn't focus on anything but the vicious vibration that shook the Sikorsky.

  Loss of component tail rotor was a helo pilot's worst nightmare. There was no way to train for this kind of emergency, no way to practice it except in a simulator.

  And nothing anyone could do when it happened but maintain airspeed to keep from going into a spin, then ride the chopper down to the ground.

  Deke understood that as well as Jo. Flipping the radio switches, he put out a distress call to any and all listeners.

  "Mayday! Mayday! This is Sikorsky tail number..." He tore his eyes from the instruments to check the brass plate. "Victor-Able-six-three-two-two going down ten miles east southeast of Lexington VOR. Mayday! Mayday!"

  He repeated the call over and over while Jo took her aircraft into its downward death spiral. She couldn't cut airspeed to slow the rate of descent. That would only increase the torque and spin the aircraft more violently to the right.

  Their only hope was to find an open field, a highway, anyplace she could bring the helo in at running airspeed, like a Boeing 727 rolling in for a landing.

  And they had to find it fast!

  "Check the road at eight o'clock," Deke barked. "That looks like a rail fence running alongside it, which might mean open fields or pastures beyond."

  Right! Pastures! If her heart hadn't been lodged firmly in her throat at that moment, Jo might have reminded him what happened the last time she made an unscheduled landing in a pasture. She only hoped the million-dollar Thoroughbreds were all tucked in some safe, dry stable for the night.

  "Brace yourself," she warned. "I'm taking her in."

  The toe of the skids hit first, digging furrows in the frozen earth. Then the nose. Praying, cursing, sweating, Jo fought the urge to overcorrect and applied just enough cyclic to keep the helicopter from tipping onto its side.

  She couldn't prevent the downward flex of the overhead rotor blades, however. When the Sikorsky plowed in, natural forces bowed the forty-four-foot blades. The leading blade impacted the ground, breaking off with a crack that rifled like gunfire. The second followed through on its deadly arc. Bowed low, it hit just above the left door, shattering the glass canopy, slicing the top off the cockpit.

  Deke flung himself forward as far as his harness would allow. The reinforced, composite-plated seat back took most of the blow, but no amount of armor could shield his head and shoulders from the force of that deadly swipe.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Jo stood at the third-floor window of the USAF Medical Center at Andrews AFB, arms folded tight around her waist. Behind her, the personnel of the ICU performed their duties amid the soft beeps and antiseptic precision of their profession. Outside the frost-steamed window, snow mantled the dark streets. The few drivers who'd braved the night plowed through two feet of fleecy white.

  The snow had come in hard on the heels of the sleet that had pinged so loudly on the observatory's roof. Jo had felt the first flakes on her cheeks while she huddled in that icy field, waiting for a response to her mayday and subsequent radio calls, an unconscious Deke cradled in her arms.

  The rescue team who'd arrived on the scene had taken them to Lexington, where ER doctors fought to counter the effects of that deadly, slicing blade. As soon as the Air Force received notification of the accident, the 1st Helo Squadron had scrambled a medivac chopper and brought both Deke and Jo home to Andrews and the skilled surgeons at the Malcolm Grow Medical Center.

  Jo had waited six hours in the lounge outside the surgical unit, surrounded by a gathering crowd of friends and crew members from the squadron. Forty-nine hours later, she was still waiting, this time outside the ICU.

  Her family had flown in, braving the storm and threats of airport closings. Her parents, her brothers, two of her sisters-in-law. Deke's mom had arrived early yesterday afternoon, as well. All day, they'd remained at the hospital. All last night. And today.

  Sometime during the endless hours, Ambruzzo and a horde of police officials had come and gone. The 89th Wing commander, General Orr, had stopped by with his wife, as had the 1st Helo Squadron commander and his wife. Advising Jo that the classes she taught at the University of Maryland had been canceled due to the storm, Eve Marshall had settled in for most of the snowy afternoon with her husband.

  Now only Jo, two of her brothers, and Deke's mom kept vigil with two other pilots from the 1st. The rest of her family had dropped, exhausted, into beds at the Holiday Inn just outside the Andrews front gate. Hollow-eyed and aching from her own scrapes and bruis
es, Jo had refused to leave, refused even to snatch a few hours rest in the hospital bed the nurses offered. Her fear and the stinging regret of hindsight wouldn't let her sleep.

  Why hadn't she listened to her instincts and stayed away from Deke? Why had she dragged him into the morass with her? She should never have moved into his apartment, even temporarily. Should never have fired Alex's twisted love/hate like that. If Deke died, as the doctors had warned he might, she'd live with a haunting guilt the rest of her life. Guilt and an aching sense of loss she was only now beginning to—

  "I brought you some coffee."

  Wearily, Jo turned and accepted the foam cup from her brother Jack. "Thanks."

  Rubber squeaked as he angled his wheelchair to share her view of the snowy night. For long moments, neither of them spoke. Memories of another crash, another agonizing vigil, drifted through Jo's numbed mind.

  "He's tough," Jack said quietly, reading her thoughts. "As tough as I was. I survived, kid. Elliot will, too."

  She nodded. Through a voice made hoarse by too much coffee and too little sleep, she repeated what had become her mantra in the past two days.

  "Tom says every hour he hangs in there increases his odds."

  Her eldest brother had consulted with the Air Force doctors immediately upon his arrival. Tom understood the medical jargon—blunt trauma to the frontal lobe, neocortal hemorrhaging, possible damage to the right cerebral hemisphere—and translated them into stark reality. No one could assess what, if any, permanent injuries Deke had sustained until he regained consciousness.

  If he regained consciousness.

  That possibility, too, Tom had translated for Jo and Mrs. Elliot. Now all they could do was wait. Pray. Hope.

  And talk to Deke in the dark of night.

  Jo threw a glance at the clock on the wall. None of the medical staff had attempted to enforce the one ten-minute-visit-per-hour rule, but she'd tried not to abuse her access to Deke's bedside. Forty minutes had crawled by since her last visit. Forty years, it seemed.

  "I'm going to check on him." She passed Jack the coffee. "Hold on to this for me, will you?"