Target Lock On Love

by M. L. Buchman

  “I love the 5E!”

  There were cheers of agreement from everyone. Argus was a concept camera that had survived a few test flights, at least that’s all she’d ever heard about it. Someone had deemed it as mission ready and the 5E must be the first team anywhere to get one. The camera was almost two-gigapixels; a hundred times more powerful than the best smartphone camera, backed up by enough electronics that it could shoot streaming video at full resolution. While Nikita’s little tablet computer wouldn’t be able to keep up with it, it meant that Sofia and Captain Moretti back in the Avenger’s control coffin would be able to track any movement they wanted. They could even rewind the video right back to the moment they’d first arrived overhead if they needed to track someone.

  Altman completed the tour of the base.

  Patty collapsed back into her chair trying to absorb the sheer volume of information.

  “What’s missing?” Altman asked the group. “Took us a while to figure it out.”

  Patty studied the image. Nikita had zoomed it back out until it showed the whole base from the Stenka-class patrol boat to…

  “Could you zoom back a bit more?”

  Altman smiled at her, but it was Mick who spoke up before she could.

  “There’s no back fence. The runway ends and then there’s nothing but wilderness.”

  “Taiga forest,” Altman confirmed. “Miles and miles of open-spaced larch, pine, and birch. It stretches right up into the center of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It is a disorienting, trackless wilderness primarily populated by fox, wolf, and bear.”

  “Bears,” Patty had always thought it would be cool to see a bear some day.

  “The Kamchatka brown is only a little bit smaller than the Alaskan grizzly. Making it the third largest bear there is after the polar bear and the grizzly.”

  Okay, maybe not so much with seeing a bear.

  “With the sea so well guarded,” Altman continued, “the taiga is also our best route in.”

  Please, please see no bears.

  Chapter 11

  “You’re a lucky bastard, Quinn,” Patty commented over the intercom.

  “But it makes sense,” Mick did his best to offer sympathy as he flew the Little Bird up into the hills behind the submarine base.

  “I know it does. But now I know how M&M and Kenny really felt when they had to turn back.”

  That was true. He’d have hated being in her assigned role on this mission, too. No Night Stalker liked being left behind the action, even in a crucial role.

  He stayed low, rarely more than twenty feet above the tips of the trees as he circled all of the way around the massif of the Shiveluch volcano. His night-vision display showed the ash cloud spewing forth from the snow-covered peak as a thick mass. He gave it a wide berth before descending down into the Kamchatka River valley.

  They’d stripped the extended-range tanks and the Urgoza missile pod off the Linda. The Little Bird now carried only the Yak-B Gatling gun on one side, and a small bench seat on the other. There was no room for them inside the tiny helicopter as the small back seat was filled with the ammo can for the Yak-B. At full dark they had gone aloft with Altman, Nikita, and Connie perched on the seat out in the cold wind. They were facing sideways with their feet dangling down toward the nearby treetops.

  At the planning meeting they’d considered fast-roping in from the DAP Hawk or the Chinook, but the roving Russian drone had worried them. Being stealth didn’t mean they were invisible.

  Stealth tech was properly called LO—Low Observable technology. They were still visible to radar and heat imaging, just much, much less than your average helicopter. And the Little Bird had the smallest signature of any of them.

  The Beatrix or Carrie-Anne would have to remain well back from the Russian’s drone base, a twenty or more miles to be safe. The Little Bird was designed for stealthy in- and ex-filtration; they could deliver the team within just a few miles of the target with no one the wiser.

  “But why you?” Patty’s voice was as worried as he’d ever heard from her. “You’re a fucking helicopter pilot, not a SEAL.”

  Then it hit him, she wasn’t whining about the mission at all. She was afraid for his sake, not her own.

  “Oh sweetheart,” Mick was glad they were the only two on the intercom. He wished he could just wrap Patty in his arms and hold on to her. He knew he was in over his head, but…“My Russian is the best and most authentic to the region. I’m the team’s best protection if we get stopped.”

  # # #

  Patty knew he was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. Of course he had to go. They needed someone to stay with the helicopter anyway, but—

  If only she knew Russian, then—

  But she didn’t and they actually needed her here. As a Night Stalker Little Bird pilot, she was used to waiting, that’s what pilots did. They didn’t go walking into a foreign military base with a couple of Team 6 SEALs. The risk factors were off the charts, even if the choice made sense.

  At least she was out here at the leading edge. The others were stuck back at the sub base—loaded up and ready to race to the rescue if all hell broke loose. But they were over twenty minutes away at top speed.

  Even though they’d all agreed it was the best disposition of assets, Patty couldn’t stop worrying at it like a sore tooth.

  At least she could keep the rest of her fears to herself. Mick was flying them through intense terrain and needed to focus. Business, she told herself. Keep it strictly business.

  “You’ve got to swing west here,” she told him. “The small fishing town of Klyuchi on the Kamchatka River is due south of us.”

  Like an artist with a brush, Mick swirled them aside until they had passed a well upstream of the small town. A small town that also hosted the Klyuchi air base. During the Cold War it had been filled with Russian interceptor jets. Sofia’s imaging showed that it was now mainly transport aircraft, but there were a pair of attack helicopters that they really didn’t want to disturb. The ground here in the central valley was already white with snow.

  Turning south and east, they climbed again into the rough ridge-and-valley country of the coast. Patty fed Mick information, trying to anticipate his needs moment to moment. There was a palpable silence when Mick was using all of his concentration. She’d come to recognize and respect that.

  “Vertical descent of the next ridge, watch for downdrafts based on prevailing winds.”

  “Next fork in the valley, swing south. The opening to the north is a false lead.”

  It had taken her a while to learn what he needed and with how much lead time, but she had it now. The give and take simply flowed effortlessly between them in some high state of synchronicity that Patty had never found with any other flier. And even though they’d still only had the one shot at sex—which had been truly great—the fact that it had the same feel as this moment didn’t elude her. She and Mick simply…worked together.

  She guided him through a snow-coated saddle between a pair of dormant volcanoes—“Updrafts on the other side here”—and then Mick descended sharply. He kept so low that the nearby treetops were often higher than they were.

  “Coming up in five hundred meters on bearing one-three-five,” Patty called out. Then she set a flashing beacon on the terrain map to project on the inside of his visor.

  This was the final reason that had tipped the mission in the Little Bird’s favor. On the Avenger’s Argus-camera images, Patty herself had spotted a tiny clearing, not more than ten feet larger than the Linda’s rotors. She’d have cursed herself, except that it was perfect. A deep hole in the trees meant they could park the Little Bird close to the base yet it would be invisible to anything except a direct overflight. And even then, the black, stealth aircraft would be very hard to spot.

  Mick shut down the helo, pulled his helmet off, and rested i
t on the top of the cyclic control.

  Then he popped his harness and grabbed her.

  Mick’s kiss slammed into her system and all she could do was groan beneath the weight of the pleasure and the pressure of his lips. She hung onto his shoulders, their Russian Bizon submachine guns clanking together where they hung across their chests. She wanted to strip off her survival vest and shred the fabric that separated them. To feel Mick against her, skin to skin, she craved it like nothing before in her life.

  His own need fired hers but there was no time.

  He finally pulled away with a foul curse in Russian.

  “You!” His voice was rough as he spoke to her from inches away in the darkness. “You had better be here, right here, when I get back. God damn it, O’Donoghue. God damn it!” And he was gone to join the others.

  Patty watched them disappear into the woods, feeling every bit of his frustration right down into her gut.

  She’d never wanted to need a man.

  But she needed Mick Quinn more than she needed to fly.

  Well, if she’d ever wanted proof that the feeling was mutual, Mick “The Mighty” Quinn had just given it to her and how. Her body was still buzzing, her lips stung, and his foul curses—so unlike the Mick she knew—still rung like music in her ears.

  Now all she had to do was wait. It was an hour past full darkness. The mission was planned to last three hours. First light wasn’t for another nine hours.

  “You better be back to me before nine hours, Quinn.”

  She sat alone in the silent cockpit. Her only company was Mick’s helmet which his violent exit had knocked askew. It still perched atop the cyclic control joystick, but now its empty visor appeared to be staring up at her.

  “God damn it, Quinn. You better be back right here, too. If I have to fly into that base to save your ass, we’re all dead.” Not that it would stop her from trying; it was simply a choice of last resort.

  Damned Russians couldn’t leave well enough alone, could they? Cold War II. It was as if they wanted it.

  Fine. Well Mick wasn’t the only one who could tell the Russians to otva ‘li.

  She estimated the direction of the Russian base and flipped them the bird.

  # # #

  Mick had taken the essential survival courses like SERE, but felt like a buffoon in clown feet trying to follow Altman. Altman led, Mick was in second position with Connie close behind. Nikita moved silently at the rear.

  He felt naked wearing only cold weather gear, the Russian submachine gun, and a GSh-18 handgun. Night Stalkers were supposed to wear SARVSO survival vests and FN-SCAR combat assault rifles. They were supposed to wear Kevlar helmets not woolen caps. And most of all, they were supposed to be wrapped inside the best helicopters that the United States military could manufacture, not tramping through the wilderness on a near Arctic Russian night.

  However, on the plus side, he was with a pair of Team 6 SEALs. In addition to the same weapons he carried, they had yard-and-a-half long SV-98 silenced sniper rifles over their shoulders.

  Altman had said the weapons were hopefully for show, not for use. They would be the team’s passport into the camp, and would also give them the perfect excuse to wear Russian night-vision gear—which was about ten times heavier than US gear—but a sore neck was far better than being blind.

  Once explained, the cover was remarkably simple. No one in Russia has access to the class of weapons they carried except Spetsnaz. The four of them were armed as Russian Special Forces. Of course they would carry no identification on a mission. And of course they would be the only fuckers crazy enough to be walking through the Kamchatka wilderness without even field packs.

  When asked about not having any of those, Altman had shrugged. “I thought we might need the weapons. Can’t say that I planned on walking in the back door this way.”

  That made Mick feel so much better…not! Oh gods, he was channeling O’Donoghue. Though being with a Team 6 SEAL who was making it up as he went was still probably the best guy there was to be following.

  It felt like hours before they saw the first lights of the Russian base even if Mick’s watch insisted only forty minutes had passed since he’d kissed the crap out of Patty O’Donoghue.

  That had been a serious amount of fun. He could turn that into a major pastime. Not that he had ever gone for the dumb ones, but Patty was far and away the sharpest woman he’d ever been with. And she could make him laugh even when it was ripping his heart open. He’d managed not to turn back to look at her through his night vision until they were well under the trees.

  In the NVGs, Mick saw her flip him the bird, telling him that Patty would do far worse than kill him if he came back dead.

  Even now she could make him laugh.

  “Okay,” Altman called his attention. “Walk like we’re the roosters of the world. We’ve just walked across the breadth of Russia and it was easy. Now we just want a hot shower and a random fuck.”

  “No thanks,” Connie said softly. “I’m married.”

  Mick wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh. Altman and Nikita’s silence said that they didn’t know either.

  At least not until he heard Connie’s own soft laugh. “You guys. Such squares.”

  And she led the way into the Russian camp.

  # # #

  Patty kept trying to think of ways to make the time pass, because as far as she could tell her watch had stopped working. Counting to a hundred took less than a minute. Counting to a thousand…she always peeked somewhere in the two hundreds.

  The helo was immaculate. She’d long since memorized the operations manual. She considered pulling out her personal smartphone and reading an e-book she had stored on it. Except that would kill her night vision and she wanted to be ready the second they returned.

  Of course that wasn’t even physically possible yet.

  Her laggard watch insisted that, if they were still on schedule, they’d reached the base only twenty-three-and-a-half minutes ago.

  Nothing from Sofia who would be watching from above. Of course she wasn’t supposed to transmit even a squeak unless there was a problem. Which meant that everything was going fine except for Patty’s mental state.

  For a while she leaned forward and looked upward, trying to watch the entire starlit sky that was visible from her clearing in the forest. Maybe, just maybe she’d be able to see the Avenger momentarily eclipse a star.

  Yeah, right.

  At this distance, spotting the fifty-foot aircraft was like trying to spot a dime three hundred yards out in the darkness. While a sniper with a decent scope could hit that dime every time, Patty was more of a fire-a-missile-up-their-ass-from-an-AH-6M-attack-Little-Bird kinda gal.

  She was either going to go mad or think about Mick. And if she thought about Mick, she’d go even crazier. Sure, she loved The Mighty Quinn; it wasn’t worth arguing that point anymore. The question of what to do about it was far more elusive.

  Napier’s refusal to answer how married couples were possible in the 5th Battalion E Company only made it all the more unlikely. Traditional military practice said that there were two avenues. One or the other of the couple could resign and go civilian before they were caught. The other option was going dual military. The MACP—Married Army Couples Program—worked fine for general troops, those who spent most of their time cooling their heels and doing training at some base or other. Even if deployed, they were rarely both deployed at once and never to the same action.

  The 160th SOAR was not general troops and a couple either served in the same unit…or never saw each other. And serving in the same unit meant being deployed together and no unit did that. Except the 5D and the 5E.

  If somehow she and Mick could—

  “Whoa!” Her shout of surprise slapped back at her inside the Little Bird. “Hold on there! How in hell did the M word slip pas
t your guard, O’Donoghue?”

  Marriage had been no part of her early life’s plan. Someday, sure. When she wanted a good man to keep her bed warm in her dotage.

  “Patty O’Donoghue’s boy toy now open for applications,” she wanted to giggle at the old line, but it sounded more like a strangled choke.

  Suddenly the M word was square in her sights and she was getting the clean tone of a missile lock.

  “No way. Get out of the kill zone!”

  But her attempts to wave the mere concept of marriage aside merely emphasized that she was sitting alone in the Russian wilderness talking to herself.

  Which led her right back to her original premise, Mick was trying to make her insane.

  And it was working.

  # # #

  The only guard the team met was at the personnel entrance to the main hangar. He looked lonely and cold, and apologized for raising his rifle the very first moment he got a good look at their equipment.

  Full points to the Team 6 SEAL, Mick thought. Altman had it figured. They were obviously Spetsnaz and that was scaring the shit out of the poor guard.

  Now it was his job, with his Uncle’s Kamchatka fishing trawler accent, to close the deal.

  “Just doing your duty, Starik!” Mick clapped him on the shoulder. It meant Old Man, about the closest Russians had to Buddy. Tovarishch wasn’t even used by old communists anymore. The youth had long since turned Comrade into an ironical insult.

  Altman fished out a clear bottle, mostly empty. He took a hit off it then handed it over.

  “Spasibo!” The guard looked infinitely grateful. Being a good man, he took a massive swallow, then passed it around the circle.

  Mick didn’t need the slight headshake from Altman to not swallow any. He tipped it up, kept his tongue over the mouth, and then pulled it back down and returned it, offering a sharp gasp as if the alcohol burned his throat.

  When the guard gestured to offer it to the women, Mick just pushed it back toward the man. “We have other ways of keeping our women warm, Tovarishch.” He gave the final word a full, ironical twist. The guard was young enough to have been trained by members of the Soviet Union who would have taken great pleasure in disciplining anyone of the new Russia.