Target Lock On Love

by M. L. Buchman

  “Will your special delivery buy the SEALs some time?”

  “Duh!” Why else did he think she was suggesting it?

  Mick played a game of peek-a-boo over the bow: starboard, dead ahead, and port.

  Then he yanked up on the collective and slid the cyclic forward. The Little Bird leapt, but she kept a firm grip on the weapon’s release she’d pre-rigged back in Anchorage.

  He carved a turn back the other way, out of sight below the line of their bow but with her side of the helicopter so close to the waves that she instinctively edged upslope out of her seat. The water was so close that, if not for the g-force and her safety harness, she’d have crawled right into Mick’s lap to get away from it.

  Exactly amidships, he turned directly for the boat. He climbed sharply to clear the deck and the railings. Armed seamen out on the deck flattened themselves to avoid being hit by his racing helicopter’s skids—he was that low.

  Damn he was good! She liked that sooo much in a pilot.

  Exactly amidships, he went vertical. Directly above the center of the ship’s deck, he shot upward rather than crossing the rest of the way to the far side.

  It was all she needed.

  Patty hit the release.

  At her “Whoop! Cargo away!” Mick laid down the hammer again and shot off into the darkness.

  Chapter 2

  “I can’t believe this girl!”

  “Woman,” Patty snarled at him. Mick just grinned as all of the other women around the table joined in on her side. He was in too good a mood to care. Besides, someone had to keep Patty O’Donoghue in her place. She’d been dancing in her seat for practically the whole flight back to Elmendorf-Richardson. Despite her singing the Oompa Loompa song, off-key, for most of that trip, he couldn’t begrudge her a moment of it. Though he couldn’t believe she knew all the words from both Willy Wonka movies, at least the Oompa Loompa parts.

  Screw the mess hall. To celebrate, Mick had dragged them all out to the best pizza in Anchorage, or anywhere in his opinion. Moose’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria had been a fixture in his life. They opened when he was eight, and his family had gone on the first night. It had been to celebrate a big first of his own—his inaugural trip on the family’s crabbing boat as cook’s helper rather than a passenger. The fifty-mile trip from Seward into Anchorage for some amazing pizza had been his reward. Even though he’d now left the family business, this is where he always came to celebrate. It had also been a fixture of his tenure at the university here.

  The owners knew him by name and didn’t need to remember his reputation. Showing up with a dozen other Night Stalkers ready for pizza and beer for breakfast at ten in the morning hadn’t even phased them. Instead they’d tagged them as rowdies, booted them into a back room, and fed them like you might a starving wolf pack—heavily. Too bad that Commander Altman and his three SEALs had, per usual, slipped away immediately after the mission.

  The Moose’s Tooth was wood paneled, as welcoming on a cold winter night as on a balmy October morning like this one. A table that could seat twenty felt packed with a dozen of them. God these people were so much larger than life. How in the world had he been lucky enough to work with such amazing folk? He’d done something right, he just wasn’t sure quite when.

  Napier declared the 5E was off-duty, “dark” for twenty-four hours, so they could actually have beer with their pizza. The Night Stalker rule was twenty-four hours from bottle to throttle. As the 160th SOAR was also on 24-by-7 alert status, it was often tricky getting a drink. Just three days ago he’d been given a week’s vacation. Then called back in before he’d even reached a civilian airport. That he was now sitting at his vacation destination but on a mission was a little ironic, even for him; though he was sure that Patty would appreciate it.

  In minutes the table was covered with Nashville Nachos and spicy Buffalo chicken wings. Several pitchers of beer arrived. Flight jackets were shed and laughter erupted.

  The ship facing the Leeloo had tried to dodge the Little Bird with hard maneuvering. It had made the SEALs’ job harder, getting clean access to the stern. But the joke of trying to dodge a fifteen-hundred pound helo with a fifteen-hundred ton ship wasn’t lost on this crew—even if it had been on the North Korean captain. He’d been the first to discover that something had changed and he could only go straight or to starboard.

  The Beatrix was the only aircraft that had been shot at. Connie Davis had silenced the ship’s single rifle round with a brief blast of an M134 minigun across their deck. The M134 Gatling machine gun sounded like a very, very angry and impossibly loud chainsaw when it unleashed its three thousand supersonic rounds a minute. It would take a heartier crew than the frigate’s to retaliate against such a noise. After that demonstration, Rafe and Julian didn’t have to do any hard maneuvering at all. They had simply floated above the deck, out of reach of the North Korean’s searchlights, with their running lights on. No one had seen that they were a stealth craft, but all attention had been riveted skyward while the SEALs had worked their magic at the stern.

  Connie sat very quietly beside her much larger husband. Big John was almost as cheery as Patty, at least under normal circumstances. Not a chance that he’d keep up with her tonight. Besides, he’d been in the back of the big Chinook helping with the delivery and retrieval of Team 6’s boat. He and Jason, the Carrie-Anne’s ramp gunner, had been soaked with Aleutian seawater several times during the operation, which had dampened their spirits a bit. Jason nursed a beer and John simply sat with an arm around his wife’s shoulders and grinned at the banter circling about the table.

  Sofia teased and taunted with her usual flair. Zoe, her copilot, nursed a beer quietly. The rest of the four helos’ crews were joining in, whenever Patty’s boisterous laugh permitted.

  “So, I just—” Patty kicked back in her chair exactly aligning her head with a giant cartoon drawing of a moose on the wall behind her, giving herself antlers.

  “Nope,” Mick hid his snort of laughter as well as he could when he cut off Patty. “You don’t get to tell your own story.”

  He stared her down and she quaffed her beer—then made ready to spit the mouthful at him across the loaded table. He almost made a bring-it-on gesture, but knew that if challenged, she would. Relenting only because he didn’t want to be eating soggy nachos, he continued before she could launch.

  “There we are,” he glanced to make sure that the door was closed at the moment and there were only Night Stalkers and no servers in the room. “SEALs in the water. North Koreans hopping mad all over the deck because all they’ve seen of me is a glaring landing light. Half the time they were lying on the deck because of the storm.”

  “And half the time because they thought they’d be smacked by a whirling dervish. Damn but you can fly, Quinn.”

  Mick raised a beer in acknowledgement and wondered where the compliment had come from; that didn’t sound like Patty. Of course they’d been laughing together for the entire flight back. It had been a good moment for them both.

  “Seriously,” she said in an aside to Sofia who’d ended up sitting at her side. “He was incredible.”

  What the hell? Why was Patty buttering him up with Sofia? Sure, the RPA pilot was impossible not to look at—how often did a fashion model end up as a 2nd Lieutenant in any outfit? He’d checked online; she had been. Pretty heavy-duty job for a model to go for, but she’d done it. A real case against female stereotypes, as if his matriarchal family line had given him a choice—didn’t matter if she was mostly ashore now, it was still Gran’s crabbing operation.

  Mick had always felt as if he should have the hots for Sofia, and often caught himself watching her and wondering why he didn’t. She fit so many of his ideal-woman fantasies, must be something wrong with him. Wouldn’t be a surprise at all if there was. He’d been with some fine women over the years, but wherever the target lock inside him was hiding, it had
yet to engage and offer the steady tone of a worthwhile focus.

  There were two couples in the group, an incomprehensible event in a military company, but it had happened. Major Napier and Captain Delacroix had tied the knot just a month ago. And the two ace mechanics—Connie Davis and Big John Wallace transferred from the 5D—had arrived on the scene already a couple.

  Why not a third? But even if it was allowed, Sofia wasn’t ringing his chimes.

  He wasn’t waiting for some perfect woman, apparently not even when he was confronted with one. He just wanted…

  And he was staring again—Goddamn it! Even doing something as innocent as sipping her beer, she was like a magnet; if you were a guy you just had to stop and watch her.

  No one appeared to notice his lapse, except Patty who was wearing one of those way too pleased with herself smiles.

  “I was running out of ideas for distractions,” he picked up the story again.

  Patty’s guffaw burst out and got several people laughing along even if they weren’t sure why. When Patty O’Donoghue laughed, it was hard to resist joining in.

  He managed, giving her a scowl instead.

  She smirked, absolutely thinking the joke was on him. He seriously considered spraying a mouthful of beer in her direction but didn’t want to catch the innocent Sofia in the overspray.

  “And once I get them all riled up, this one,” he pointed an accusing spicy chicken wing at Patty as if he was about to jump across the table and bayonet her with it, “she tells me to fly right over the center of their deck. These guys are fishing out rifles and I’ll bet that someone was ranging a surface-to-air missile.”

  “Here comes the good bit,” Patty crowed.

  “I get her right over the center of the deck and she unleashes this secret cargo she’d rigged in place of two of the Hellfire missiles without telling me.”

  “You dropped a pair of dummy missiles on a foreign ship of war?” Major Napier jerked upright in his chair.

  That had been his guess too. And he’d reamed Patty but good for it before her laugh had cut him off.

  Danielle put a hand lightly on Napier’s arm. Most of the women were leaning forward in anticipation, most of the guys were leaping to bad conclusions just as he had. He’d have to remember to ask someone why the gender split. Was it that guys had no creativity in combat and women knew that? Or was it because a woman had thought of it? He didn’t like the feel of the latter, but suspected both were equally true. Mick decided against asking Patty, she’d get too much smug satisfaction out of answering him and she was smug enough already.

  With masterful timing, Patty waited until all the men had calmed back down. Since he was in on the surprise, he could appreciate her sense of theater. It was just as good as her timing as a copilot.

  “Nope!” Patty was so pleased with herself that her big laugh twisted into that rare, high giggle she unleashed only on special occasions. She went from classic cheery-caustic O’Donoghue to impossibly cute Patty faster than a Hellfire could crack the sound barrier.

  They had to drop the topic when the door opened and the first round of pizzas arrived. A Greek Gyro sausage pie, a Garlic Lover’s with blackened chicken, and a High Protein Land—which it had enough meat to satisfy a grizzly bear, and maybe even a Night Stalker.

  Once the waiters were gone, and everyone was groaning with pleasure over their first bites, he picked it back up. He’d rather just eat; it had been a long time since his last Moose’s Tooth pizza. But Patty deserved her moment in the sun; she’d sure earned it.

  “Patty dropped her cargo,” Mick said loudly enough to recapture everyone’s attention. “It smacked down on the deck and spread everywhere, covering the entire area. As soon as the Koreans recovered from the shock, they were scrabbling about like madmen.”

  “Caltrops? Those tetrahedral spike things?”

  “Marbles?”

  “Vegas topless show fliers?”

  “A thousand copies of Playboy?”

  “Better!” Patty crowed as the team tossed out more guesses.

  Mick waved his slice of pizza at her for her to take her bow.

  “I cleaned out the PX,” Patty said it with her voice dropped into mission-debrief neutral. “We delivered a two-hundred-and-three pound payload of…Snickers, Almond Joy, Twix, Reese’s—you name it.”

  “She gave them a taste of what the West can dish out.”

  The exclamations and laughter rolled around the table.

  Mick tipped his beer in a silent toast to her.

  He loved her out-of-the-box brain. She was always surprising him with it.

  The smile she sent back was beyond radiant.

  Damn! There was absolutely no doubt about the accuracy of his earlier assessment. Chief Warrant 3 Patty O’Donoghue was a real looker.

  # # #

  Patty leaned on Mick’s arm, not quite sure how she’d gotten there. She drank so rarely that the second beer had blurred reality long before she’d reached the bottom of the glass. She wasn’t even sure she had reached the bottom of it.

  She squinted at the sky. The storm-ravaged night raging over the Aleutians had started as a partly sunny day in Anchorage. Above the Moose’s Tooth parking lot, a thin haze now turned the whole sky blindingly bright. Squinting behind her sunglasses wasn’t helping. Wait, she wasn’t wearing sunglasses. Patty found them tucked up in her hair and pulled them down. It didn’t help. No matter how she looked at it, it was two in the afternoon—a Night Stalkers’ two in the morning—she was tipsy and hanging onto…Mick. That was the most surprising thing of all.

  “Ya know,” she could feel her voice softening, but she was feeling too relaxed to reel it back in. “I use-ta be able to drink a whole swordfisheryman’s crew under the table. Look what’s happened to me. Pitiful! The Army has ruined me for life as a lush.” She waved a hand extravagantly and almost went down on the parking lot. She held on hard and inspected the surface under her boots. It was just lying there. No ice or snow, not even wet. Nothing to blame it on but herself.

  “Just look,” Mick said agreeably.

  “You don’t smile much, Quinn.” She squeezed his arm beneath his jeans jacket. “Work out though.” Which explained what she was hanging on to.

  “I smile plenty.”

  “Nope! You don’t. Looks good on you. Just like the muscles. Sofia would appreciate that. You should smile at her more.” She really didn’t think it was the beer that was making her this unstable—all she had on was a pleasant buzz. There had to be something else, but she couldn’t think what.

  “I don’t care what Sofia would appreciate on me.”

  “Sure you do,” Patty patted his arm and tried not to giggle at the repetition, but couldn’t resist Patty-patting his arm again—it was a very nice arm.

  “No, I really don’t,” he placed one of those big strong fisherman’s hands of his over hers to secure her grip on his elbow. He used that link to guide her to the Ford sedan they’d signed out of base transportation for the evening.

  She looked up at those dark eyes. His sunglasses were still tucked in his pocket as if all this brightness was somehow normal. He looked serious, but then he always did. Patty knew that if she was even a little drunk, her judgment went to hell. It was like the Joe Nichols song, Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off—which was also goddamned country. Her one bout with tequila and she’d lost her virginity to Timmy Thompson. Timmy Thompson? Really? It had been enough to make her swear off boys for the whole rest of high school, and tequila for a lifetime.

  “But I’m not that drunk.”

  “Uh-huh,” her hunky pilot nudged her into the car’s passenger seat. When he leaned inside and reached across to snap in her seatbelt, she seriously considered nibbling on his ear just to make him crazy. But then he might think she was interested in him and that would never do, because he was interested in Sofia
and there was honor among women.

  “You don’t sound convinced about my soberishness.”

  “You’re a lightweight, O’Donoghue. I don’t think that you could ever drink a swordfish steak under the table, never mind a boatload of ‘swordfisherymen’.”

  “I could—”

  He cut her off by flipping her door shut and circling around the hood.

  She leaned over and locked his door. That would teach him to cut her off.

  He raised the key fob outside the window, dangled it in front of her eyes for a moment, and hit the Unlock button. All the stupid doors complied with soft thunks of smug complicity. It was unfair. They all ganged up against her.

  “I’m not drunk, I’m just happy,” she pointed out once he was in the car.

  “Uh-huh.” The signature Mighty Quinn grunt.

  “It was a good time.” It had been. Laughter, pizza, and the relief of another successful mission. The 5E was the first place she’d ever been where her gender hadn’t been some awkward barrier. She’d earned her place by kicking ass in a kick-ass team. And tonight they’d really appreciated her for it.

  Men like Mick didn’t understand how rare and important that was. At least Mick tried, but no guy was ever going to get it. Men were all…

  “And you are too interested in Sofia.” Was he blockheaded enough not to realize it?

  “Nope.”

  “Of course you are. She smart, skilled, has an accent that could convert the Pope to a life of carnal bliss, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “Yep, she’s all that.” His complacent agreement didn’t sit well with her as he drove out onto the Old Seward highway and headed back toward JBER through mid-afternoon traffic.

  “Then how come, Quinn?”

  “Don’t know,” his voice went soft. She knew that tone shift. He’d taken her question seriously, so she waited out the long silence before he continued. “By all rights I should be, but she just doesn’t do it for me.”

  “But if that’s true,”—and Mick never spoke anything but truth—“why are you always staring at her?” Patty shifted in her seat until she was leaning as much on the door as her seat so that she could look at him. He was watching the road, but concentrating on something in the far distance.