Target Lock On Love

by M. L. Buchman

  “I checked the records,” Major Napier began before she could state her acceptance of the challenge. “The last person to do any ice-and-snow work is me, and that was before I joined the 5E. For most of you it was over a year ago.”

  O’Donoghues were Gloucester fisherfolk, cold didn’t scare her a bit. Several of the others were looking unhappy.

  “Ready to gear up and go, sir,” Patty stated emphatically and glared at Mick, daring him to beg off.

  He didn’t. Instead, he silently nodded his acceptance which she supposed was better than his trademark enigmatic grunt.

  “I don’t expect you all to have full ice-and-snow gear with you,” Napier surveyed the table, “but Major McCabe has agreed to outfit everyone from the ANG stock. I want you to know that this training is unscheduled and completely optional.”

  A wave of relief circled around the table. Patty was going to kick Mick’s butt big time if he tried to wimp out on her.

  “So I expect to see every one of you in ten hours at the Two-Twelve’s ready room. Oh-five-hundred tomorrow. You’ll receive a full kit at that time.” Then Napier ended the conversation by standing up with his finished tray and leaving the table.

  “So much for optional,” McCabe laughed. “He was a total hard ass when we went through West Point together. Nice to see that some things haven’t changed. Any questions for me?”

  McCabe refused to give out any details about the training mission itself. “Some hiker gets himself in trouble up on Denali at nineteen thousand feet and the Two-Twelve gets a call. We find out information as we go. Our radioman has a script written by our training director. We only know what he tells us, when he tells us.”

  “Who’s your training director?” Mick asked in a voice that told Patty he already knew the answer.

  Oh. Of course.

  “Caught me! Love local talent!” McCabe slammed another cheery slap against Mick’s shoulder, probably hard enough to shatter your average person. He lumbered to his feet, taking his mug with him. Then he looked up and down the table. “We’re running this one as real as possible. You’ll want to get some rest.”

  Patty knew she’d been dumb in a couple of ways and she had to talk to Mick before it grew any worse. She’d apologize for kissing him and any other weirdness she’d created by giving in to that impulse, no matter how surprising the results had been.

  But when the table had quieted after their initial reactions, she was still at the far end of the table from Mick.

  And he was busy talking with Sofia.

  Crap!

  # # #

  Sofia had Brazil and Los Angeles, both southern climes, for a background. She very quietly confessed her fears about the training mission to Mick in a voice more nervous than he’d credited as possible for Sofia Gracie. Her natural state was one of overt confidence and flamboyance. Vivacious Latina typically poured off her in waves, making the contrast of her present mood all the more startling.

  It turned out that her only ice and snow experience had been during a freak storm that had hit Fort Jackson, South Carolina during Basic Training. Her duties were performed in air-conditioned trailers typically thousands of miles from her targets.

  Mick felt both deep sympathy and great respect for her. Of all of them, she could have legitimately begged off from the training. An RPA pilot really didn’t need to prove Special Operations survival skills. But she’d put that suggestion to rest, fast.

  “They will no be leaving me behind. My team she goes? Then I go, too,” she tapped a finger sharply above her generous chest. It earned her several surprised looks followed by approving nods from those close enough to overhear her. Sofia’s voice quieted again until only he could hear it, “But you must tell me how not to look like the fool. That I not like at all.”

  So they talked about snow and ice. It was strange, it was like trying to explain Special Operations thinking to a civilian. If they hadn’t at least served, there was no common language to explain with.

  “You’d die to protect a teammate?” Duh! That was a given before the conversation could even begin. Special Operations soldiers didn’t sign up for a tour, they signed up for a career.

  Over a second cup of coffee he switched from descriptions of mountain weather and snow conditions on glaciers—which was being very hard to communicate and was probably scaring the crap out of her—to teaching her basic survival skills.

  “As long as you can still feel your toes and fingers, you’re fine. They may hurt or sting like mad, but that’s just a warning; you’re still okay. It’s when you can’t feel them anymore that you’re potentially in trouble.”

  “Layer up: thick socks over thin, thin gloves then thick. Take off only the layer you have to and for as little time as possible.”

  “When walking, spend as much time as possible thinking about keeping your fingers and your toes in constant motion. It boosts circulation and distracts you from the fact that you’re freezing your butt off.”

  And he tried not to think about Sofia’s butt as it was an exceptional one. Besides which, this wasn’t the woman who’d cost him a night’s sleep. He glanced over at Patty…except she wasn’t there.

  Nor was anyone else. They were the only two left at the table. Someone else had even cleared their empty trays; it was just the two of them and their two long-dry coffee mugs. The Gold Rush Inn was no longer rushing. A few troops were sitting a halfway across the spacious hall. A cleaning crew was moving through flipping chairs onto tables and sweeping the floor.

  Outside the window, evening had long since turned to dark night.

  “We should get some sleep,” he managed in a mumble. He’d never actually been alone with Sofia in the three months since she’d joined the unit. It was a heady feeling to just sit quietly with such a stunning woman. And to discover the thoroughly pleasant and intelligent person that her beauty made so difficult to see.

  He rose, and pulled her chair out for her. Easy to admire the way she rose from her seat, too; her simplest gesture reminded him of her surname. Sofia Gracie. Wise Grace, he translated to himself.

  Maybe Patty had a point. Maybe he and…

  The rain had turned cold, but not bitter, so it wasn’t snow. At least not yet. He walked her to her door in the transient lodgings and stood back until he was sure she had it unlocked.

  Then Sofia turned to him without moving into the room.

  “It is very sad.”

  “It…what? What is?”

  Sofia smiled softly, “It is very sad for me, the way that you are looking at her and the way she is looking at you.”

  “Who?” But he knew who and felt stupid for even asking. Sofia didn’t bother to answer his question.

  “We could have a very wonderful time together, I think. But that is all it would be.” She leaned forward enough to kiss him lightly on each cheek.

  She smelled lush and warm. And he was just tired enough to lean into the moment.

  “I do not want to hurt the woman you fly with, so we will leave that idea alone,” she said softly in his ear. “I just will thank you for your help this night. I be much safer tomorrow because of you.”

  Her words were a warm brush across his tired thoughts.

  “Now go,” she pushed against his shoulder to get him moving down the hall toward his own room.

  He stopped at his own door and looked back.

  She was watching him and her sigh carried easily down the silent hall to him.

  “Ah, what I could do with such a man.”

  Her words didn’t register until her door had closed behind her and he stood alone in the long, darkened hallway.

  # # #

  Patty hit the Air National Guard’s Ready Room at 0430.

  She’d heard them last night. Hard not to, she’d been lying awake cursing herself for eight times an idiot and Sofia’s door was directl
y across the hall from hers. Patty had slipped up to the peephole in just her oversized t-shirt and watched them, but could only make out some of their words through the door. Sofia’s final sigh and what she could do with Mick sliced at Patty.

  But even though she watched for fifteen minutes, and then twenty, Sofia’s door had not reopened.

  Nor had Mick returned to beg entrance.

  Patty sorted and stowed her own gear into a large pack. When she returned from the locker room now dressed in long johns, turtleneck, and other multiple layers, Sofia and Mick had arrived as well.

  As the ANG’s quartermaster issued them gear, Patty could detect no coy looks between them. Mick was always so considerate that it was hard to tell if he was treating Sofia any differently than yesterday, or a month ago.

  He didn’t treat herself any differently either which was as confusing as hell.

  “Hey, Patty.”

  “Hey, yourself,” was her utterly lame response. If he was having issues with her, it didn’t show. If he was cozying with Sofia the same night Patty had kissed him, he sure didn’t look guilty about it. How was she supposed to know how to act if—

  “Vee go now!” Major McCabe roared out in a fake Swedish accent as he rushed into the Ready Room.

  “Vee go!” several of the PJs who’d been assisting the Night Stalkers with their unfamiliar gear called back in unison. Some sort of a unit thing.

  Patty checked her watch, 0450, ten minutes before they’d been told to even arrive to start preparing. Typical training mission for sure. The 5E had been through enough of those that the full crew was already present and they were all within seconds of being ready despite the premature start.

  “We’re going high up. Everyone, full snow gear. Put on your Bags.”

  Patty grabbed hers and started struggling into it. It was a one-piece, dull-green flight suit of fire-resistant Nomex that the quartermaster had issued her along with all of the other gear. Then she began layering snow pants and parka over it.

  “We have a climber trapped just below the summit on Mount Hayes at thirteen thousand feet. Exact location unknown. Conditions: three inches fresh snow last night, seven degrees Fahrenheit, zero at the summit, winds light at ten knots. Storm coming. Go! Go! Go!”

  A stream of PJs poured into the room and began yanking pre-packed gear off racks. They were moving fast and even with a head start gearing up, the Night Stalkers were having trouble keeping up.

  “Who are my jumpers?” McCabe roared out.

  Two of the parajumpers raised their hands and grabbed parachutes from the racks as well.

  “Who else? C’mon people, I need two more,” Major McCabe’s tone made it clear they were going to be Night Stalkers.

  Mick looked over at her and raised his eyebrows in a question. Despite what had or hadn’t happened yesterday, Mick was asking if she’d jump with him.

  The relief that washed through her was strong enough that she didn’t even think about the consequences, just shot her hand up.

  “You got two,” Mick told McCabe.

  McCabe gave Mick one of his crippling slaps of approval then pulled down a pair chute-and-reserve rigs.

  That’s when it sunk in. The winds might be light up on the mountain but at thirteen thousand feet…

  It was common knowledge in mountain climbing—a sport that Patty had only participated in as part of her military training—that a thousand feet up was about the same weather change as three hundred miles north. It was October at sea-level in Anchorage. At thirteen thousand feet up…they were effectively going four thousand miles north, somewhere way farther north than the North Pole. Like right over the top and into Siberia. And she’d just agreed to parachute into that?

  She looked at Mick.

  “And you thought flying into that little rainstorm was nuts,” he teased her. But his smile was easy and that he wanted to jump with her—rather than ship her out to another regiment entirely—was enough of a relief that she’d just go with it.

  McCabe came over with a detailed map of the mountain.

  “Hey, Major,” Mick teased him. “You’re not trying to kill off the local talent are you?”

  Patty appreciated his attempt at humor. It was nice to know that Mick was worried as well despite the calm stance he was presenting.

  McCabe smiled easily, “Not today, buddy.” Then he called over the other two PJs with parachutes.

  “This is Two-ton and Caspar the Ghost,” and that was the end of the intros. McCabe jabbed a finger at a high valley on the map and spoke quickly just as if it was a real emergency.

  “Yesterday we dropped a radio repeater right in this valley, so that’s the signal we all are trying to ‘save.’ But we can’t get a helo in there for fear of causing an avalanche: too much noise and wind.”

  “Say what?” Patty did not want to be jumping into any avalanches. Or having her jump cause one that would then kill her.

  “Which we proved by triggering every avalanche we could yesterday before we did the drop. Anything that was going to let go already has.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Patty clamped her mouth shut. McCabe just grinned at her. If it was Mick she’d get revenge, maybe even against Napier, but McCabe was a major and an Air Force PJ so she decided to leave it alone. For now.

  “You’ll jump into this snow field. The glacier has been stable here for years and we’ve never seen any crevasses in this area or I wouldn’t be sending you in this way. Using the helos, we’ll be landing two teams well below you. The higher team will work their way up to you to assist. The lower team will build an extraction route to help you all get back off the mountain in case the helos can’t get back in. We lift in five. Let’s go!”

  McCabe then simply counted off the remaining eleven Night Stalkers into two teams and assigned a pair of PJs to each of them. Sofia ended up in the low altitude team—the farthest from she and Mick. Patty tried not to be pleased by that, but wasn’t having much luck.

  All of the Night Stalkers, including Napier, Danielle, and Sofia—still exuding sexy despite the “Bag” and heavy winter gear—raced out to the two waiting HH-60G Pave Hawks. The Air Force helos had infrared, a mid-air refueling probe for lengthy searches over remote areas, and two crew chiefs at the side guns. Other than the common Black Hawk airframe, that was all they shared with the Beatrix.

  The Air Forces’ medevac version of the Black Hawks were dull gray in the pre-dawn light rather than stealth composite-black. Broad skis were attached to the wheels for landing ten tons of aircraft on snow and ice. And the cargo bays were rigged to take stretchers and a lot of personnel, rather than large caches of ammunition.

  The rotors were already turning as they ducked low and piled aboard. The blades were high enough for safety, but staying low eased the battering rotor wash that was trying to flatten her to the ground out of spite.

  Once aboard, Patty checked all of the medical supplies hanging from the insides of the cargo bay and was glad it would be up to a PJ to administer any life saving treatments—most of the bags were marked trauma this and blood that. With what they had stocked here, they could perform some major medical operations while still in flight, and she’d bet when they did that the cargo bay wasn’t pretty.

  Instead, she stared out at the other helo cranking to life in the darkness and rain, doing her best not to think about it. Mick squeezed in tight beside her, because everyone was squeezed that tight. Not because he wanted to be, of course. But her thinking had shifted a fair ways in the last eighteen hours and she wasn’t complaining.

  “What did you get us into this time, Boston?”

  “Me?” Patty twisted to stare at him planting a fairly hard elbow in a PJ’s back by accident. “Parachuting out of a perfectly good helo in the middle of the Alaska Range wasn’t my doing. You’re the one who…”

  His smile was easy and friendly.

&n
bsp; She jumped when the cargo door slammed shut.

  “You don’t think that I would have volunteered on my own,” he made his protest in all innocence.

  “What? You’re the asshole who volunteered us,” she had to shout the last as the rotors bit air and took them aloft. Like typical helo jocks—including Mick and herself—their pilots cut hard-banking turns, forcing her to lean even harder against Mick. Which felt good in the same way the kiss had.

  “Well, I knew you were going to volunteer because that’s just the kind of stubborn girl you are.”

  He hesitated for her to protest woman but she refused to take the bait.

  “I didn’t want you being nuts alone, so I figured that I better join in so that I could save your cute ass.”

  “Right, like I’m the one who’ll need saving.” Patty wondered about that cute ass remark. It just wasn’t the sort of thing Mick Quinn said under normal operating conditions, or even abnormal ones. “How many jumps have you done?”

  “Before or after military?”

  “Before?” She wished it hadn’t come out so tentatively. She had her Master Parachutist Badge but very little ice and snow work.

  “Okay,” Mick shrugged, “you caught me. None before.”

  She punched his arm, managing not to poke the PJ’s kidneys this time, and appreciated his friendly laugh.

  “But I got my Master here in US Army Alaska. I was stationed with the Flying Dragons up in Fairbanks at the time. They like jumping onto snow and ice. As long as you have your laser pick and your bugaboos handy, you’ll be fine.”

  “You’re shitting me.” What the hell was a bugaboo in snow work?

  “Really?” He turned to one of the PJs. “Hey, Caspar. She doesn’t have her bugaboos.”