The Right Stuff

by Merline Lovelace

  "They're hunting someone," Dave Scott bit out as he searched the bank with high-powered goggles. "Has to be Russ."

  Sure enough, an answering stream of gunfire ripped through the ferns lining the bank some distance ahead of the patrol boat. The short burst cut in front of its prow and threw up a high curtain of water. The shielding spray gave Cari the few precious seconds she needed to activate Pegasus's offensive fire systems.

  She ached to launch a missile. Just one! The sophisticated, laser-guided rocket would blow the patrol boat out of the water. Unfortunately, their orders were to get in and out of Caribe without engaging either government or rebel troops unless under extreme duress. The fact that Mac had directed his fire in front of the boat's prow indicated he, too, was trying to adhere to the rules of engagement by creating a diversion and not taking out the boat or its crew.

  Good thing Pegasus came equipped with a few surprises besides precision-guided missiles. Keying her mike, Cari barked out an update for the folks in the rear compartment.

  "We have the patrol boat in sight. Hang tight. I'm going to launch a smoker."

  Before the words were out of her mouth, she jammed her thumb on the button. The small, cylindrical emergency position marker whizzed through the air, hit river just yards from the patrol boat and exploded in a burst of orange smoke. Thick orange smoke. Dense enough to be seen by rescue craft a mile away. On an open sea, that was.

  But the Rio Verde flowed through a green tunnel of jungle. Branches and vines cnsscrossed above it to form an arching roof. Trapped, the smoke spread across the river like a noxious cloud. Even before Cari launched the second capsule, a thick orange haze had completely enveloped the patrol boat.

  "That'll have their eyes watering," Dave said with grim satisfaction. "Take us over closer to the bank and I'll..."

  The pilot broke off. Reaching up to adjust his goggles, he strained against his shoulder harness.

  "What?" Cari demanded. "What do you see?"

  "Movement along the riverbank."

  "Is it Mac?"

  "Hang on. I can't... Oh, crap!"

  "What?" she demanded again, her whole body twisted into a mass of tension.

  "It's Mac," Dave confirmed tersely. "And he's got what looks like half the patrol boat's crew on his ass."

  Cari jerked on the wheel, brought Pegasus around, aimed for the bank. She caught a flash of gunfire, saw the ferns part as Mac dived through them. He cut the water cleanly and went under. She didn't wait for him to surface before launching her last smoker. It went into the bank and exploded in a blossom of bright orange.

  "Obstacle ahead!"

  Dave's warning came at exactly the same moment the sonar gave off a loud, warning buzz. Cursing under her breath, Cari jerked the wheel again and narrowly avoided a collision with a half-sunken tree trunk. She was forced to angle away from the obstacle and wait while Mac fought the current with a strong, slicing stroke.

  She felt a presence at her shoulder, knew Captain Westfall had crowded into the cockpit.

  "The smoke's thinning," Dave advised grimly, his hand hovering over the missile system activation. "Do you want me to arm and lock?"

  As captain of the vessel, Cari had the conn, the stick, the overall responsibility for the operation. She'd followed the rules of engagement to this point, had avoided inflicting casualties on either the government forces or the rebels. If the patrol boat started shooting, however, she'd damn well shoot back.

  "Arm and lock," she ordered crisply. "Don't fire until I give the word."

  Behind her, Westfall was silent. Cari gave no thought to the fact that he outranked her, that a bungled operation could mean the end of his career as well as her own. Another swift check of the instruments confirmed Pegasus rode high enough in the water to open the side hatch without flooding the rear compartment.

  "Stand by!" she instructed those in the back via the intercom. "I'm opening the hatch."

  "It's up," Kate confirmed at moment later. "I'm ready with the Survivor Retrieval System."

  "Deploy SRS," Cari instructed tersely.

  The SRS could shoot a lifesaving line across a mile of open sea. In this case, though, a mile of tough nylon rope presented almost as much of a problem as a solution. Kate could overshoot, tangle the rope in the trees, force them to hack free again.

  She should have known Kate could handle it. All those years aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane hunter aircraft had taught her a thing or two about retrieval systems. She aimed for a skinny patch of sky and sent the weighted lead in a high, smooth arc. It shot up, came down again, and landed just a few feet behind Mac. The coils of lightweight rope trailing after the lead plopped down into the water all around him.

  He cut his stroke, snatched at the rope, and gave a thumbs-up. Before they could reel him in, little waterspouts began to rise all around him. Cari whipped her glance to the bank, saw a figure in ragged BDUs with an automatic rifle to his shoulder stagger out of the orange pall.

  "Mac's taking fire." Jill Bradshaw's voice came over the intercom, cold and deadly. "I'm in position to return it."

  "Go!"

  Jill let loose with a short, vicious barrage. A military cop and an expert marksman, she sent the scruffy rebel scrambling back into the orange cloud. But not before he got off a final burst.

  Cari saw Mac jerk, rise out of the water a few inches, sink back under the surface.

  No!

  The silent scream ripped through her. Dying inside, she waited one heartbeat. Two.

  Mac didn't reappear. But the nylon rope he'd been grasping did. The line curled on the river's surface, writhing like a thin, tensile snake. She keyed her mike, had opened her mouth to order Dave to take the throttles, when someone dived through the open hatch.

  Sam Westfall, she saw when he broke surface and began cutting toward the spot where Mac had disappeared. The navy officer went under, came back up after long, heart-shattering moments dragging a limp form. Hooking an elbow under Mac's chin, he swam him back to Pegasus.

  To Cari's horror, Westfall's boots churned up a sickening wake. Mac's blood was tinting the Verde from green to red. Praying as she'd never prayed before, she gripped the wheel so hard her short, trimmed nails splintered on the hard composite.

  "They're aboard!" Kate relayed mere seconds later. "Get us out of here."

  Slamming a fist down to close the hatch, Cari whipped the wheel around with one hand and shoved the throttle forward with the other. Pegasus leaped forward.

  Doc Richardson was back there, she reminded herself fiercely as she steered her craft downriver. He'd stop the bleeding. Keep Mac alive. He would. He would!

  She repeated the mantra over and over, aching to go to Mac, chained to her seat by her responsibilities as commander. Only after she'd rounded the last bend and spotted a patch of blue did she prepare to pass the baton.

  "Open sky ahead, Dave."

  The pilot nodded. "I'm ready. As soon as we clear these trees, I'll take us airborne."

  Chapter 8

  The next twenty minutes would remain forever seared in Cari's mind.

  When she turned the controls over to Dave and ducked back into the rear compartment, she found Mac lying facedown on the deck in a pool of bright red blood. Cody Richardson was bent over him. He'd started an IV and had cut away Mac's shirt to expose the bullet hole in his right shoulder. Kate held the IV pack aloft, while a drenched Captain Westfall steadied himself with a hand against the bulkhead and watched every move through narrowed, steel-gray eyes.

  Jill knelt on Mac's other side. As a cop, she'd seen her share of gunshot wounds. She'd also received training in emergency medical procedures for first re-sponders. The grim cast to her face told Cari this particular gunshot wound was bad. Very bad.

  Captain Westfall confirmed that when Cari moved to his side. "Doc Richardson thinks the bullet nicked Mac's subclavian artery," he told her. "It's the main artery from the heart to the upper extremities. Doc's got to repair
it fast, before Mac bleeds out."

  A hard, bruising knot formed in Cari's throat. She couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe as Cody ripped open a small kit containing surgical instruments wrapped in sterile plastic. The doc was just reaching out a hand covered in a blood-drenched rubber glove when the deck shuddered under them and the kit danced out of his reach.

  Swiftly, Cari retrieved it and went down on one knee beside him. "Dave's switching us to airborne mode. The next few minutes could get bumpy. Can you wait until he has us in the air?"

  "No."

  The terse reply stabbed into her with the vicious thrust of a bayonet. Cody didn't so much as spare her a glance.

  "Every second counts right now. Get back in the cockpit and hold us as steady as you can."

  Spurred by the order and a slicing fear that cut right through her, Cari sprang to her feet. She dropped into her seat and cut Dave off just as he was about to tilt the engines upward.

  "Delay that. We're holding in this position until Doc gives us the green light. He's..." She forced herself to speak around that aching knot in her throat. "He's got to repair one of Mac's arteries or he might bleed to death."

  "Hell!"

  Dave's strong, tanned face set into rock-hard lines. He'd come late to the Pegasus cadre, brought in on short notice after the original air force representative had suffered a heart attack. As a result, he'd been forced to muscle his way inside the tight clique the other officers had already formed. In the process, he'd also bowled the vivacious Kate Hargrave right off her feet. He was part of the team now—heart and soul. The possibility they might lose one of their own hit him almost as hard as it did Cari.

  He recovered swiftly. He had no choice. He'd faced that grim possibility before, as had every other member of the Pegasus cadre. It came with wearing the uniform of their country.

  Mouth tight, Cari eyed the swirling currents ahead. They were drifting fast toward the point where the river emptied into the lagoon. To keep the craft steady, they'd have to fight both the drag of the sea and the force of the waves rolling in from the outer reef. The maneuver would require every bit of Cari's seamanship and then some. Setting her jaw, she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand.

  "I'll take the controls. You keep an eye on the radar screen. If those bastards in the patrol boat come within range," she promised savagely, "they're gonna suck in something other than orange smoke this time."

  Cari forgot all about the patrol boat when Captain Westfall came forward long, agonizing moments later.

  "Doc's stopped the hemorrhaging."

  She slumped back against her seat. Closing her eyes, she sent a silent prayer of thanks winging upward. Westfall Is next words brought her jerking upright again.

  "Mac's not out of the woods yet. He's lost a lot of blood and the bullet did some serious damage to tissue and bone. We need to get him to a first-class medical facility, fast."

  That let out the forward operating base in Nicaragua, Cari realized with a sick feeling in her stomach. Their medical facility consisted of two tents.

  "We'll have to head back to Corpus," she said tightly.

  "Have you got enough fuel to take us in?"

  "No," Dave answered after a quick check of the gauges, "but we can request a tanker to pass us some gas enroute."

  "Do it."

  The terse command underscored the continuing urgency of the situation. Cari didn't need a second order.

  "Tell everyone in the back to buckle up," she bit out, then tacked on a belated, "sir."

  Since Dave had piloted Pegasus on its first flight, she acted as copilot while he raced through the procedures to compete the transition from sea to air mode. Mere minutes later, he tilted the engines upright. Moments more, and Pegasus lifted straight up into a hover. The steamy green of the jungle was below, an endless marriage of turquoise sea and azure sky ahead. Then Dave brought the craft's nose down, angled the engines again and applied full power. Ca-ribe fell away behind them.

  Cari got on the mike before they'd cleared the reef ringing the island. The USAF Coordination Center agreed to scramble a KC-135 out of Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. The tanker would hook up with them over the Gulf and supply both Pegasus and the Pavehawk helicopter with fuel, which indicated it would tail them back to Corpus Christi.

  Her next hook-up was to the Operations Center at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. The controller promised to have an ambulance waiting when Pegasus touched down.

  With its faster speed, Pegasus beat the Pavehawk back to Corpus by several hours.

  The promised ambulance was waiting to whisk Doc and Mac to the Naval Hospital. With the wail of the siren knifing into her heart, Cari helped Dave shut down Pegasus. Once the multimillion-dollar vehicle was secure, Captain Westfall disappeared into the Mobile Control Center to make a report of the mission to his superiors via secure comm. Cari didn't stick around to provide additional input. She and Dave and the rest of the team raced to the hospital.

  Mac had already been wheeled into the operating room. He was still there when the Whites and their charges arrived at the surgical waiting room where the Pegasus crew was camped out. The missionaries looked harried, the children a little frightened, and the U.S. Customs Agent accompanying them distinctly disapproving.

  While Dave, Jill and Kate helped settle the kids in front of the TV with soft drinks and candy bars from a nearby vending machine, the customs agent confronted Cari.

  "I understand you made the decision to bring these children out of Caribe."

  "That's correct."

  "I also understand they have no papers or emigration documents of any sort."

  "We left Caribe in something of a hurry," she replied with considerable understatement.

  The agent pursed his lips. He was a short, pudgy man with damp stains ringing the armpits of his white uniform shirt and a plastic nameplate that gave his name as Scroggins.

  "I'll have to notify the Immigration and Naturalization Service," he said with a shake of his head. "INS is responsible for minors arriving in the States unaccompanied by relatives or legal guardians."

  "I've told you," Janice White snapped. "Reverend White and I are their ex officio guardians. At least until we can contact the families who've agreed to take them in."

  "But you have no papers granting you that authority."

  "We have copies of our applications," Harry White put in earnestly. "To the Caribe authorities, the U.S. government, and our church sponsors."

  "Applications aren't good enough. Sorry, folks. My hands are tied. I have to notify the INS. They'll take the kids into administrative custody and hold them until their status is resolved."

  Cari's lips curled back. She leaned forward, got two inches from the man's nose. "The hell they will!"

  Startled, Scroggins took an involuntary step back. "Hey, Lieutenant, I'm just doing my job."

  She'd seen this coming, had witnessed too many heartbroken refugees being taken into custody for deportation back to the very country they'd risked their lives to escape. She'd also had a good idea of the bureaucratic battle the Whites would face once they landed in the States. But that was before Mac had taken a bullet trying to get these kids to safety. Before Doc had worked feverishly to keep the marine from bleeding to death. Before the aching fear that he wouldn't make it had carved a permanent hole in Cari's gut.

  Captain Westfall must have sensed she was about to tell the customs rep what he could do with his job. He cut in smoothly, wielding his authority like a blade.

  "We appreciate that you have certain responsibilities, Agent Scroggins. For your information, I concurred with Lieutenant Dunn's decision to transport these children out of Caribe. Please inform the INS representative to contact me personally on this matter."

  The customs official wilted under the captain's cool stare. "Yes, sir. I'll do that."

  Cari bit her lip. Westfall had concurred with her decision—but only after the fact. And after some rather choice words on the subject of si
destepping international law. She didn't want him to take the heat for her actions, but training and respect for rank went bone deep. Junior officers didn't contradict their superiors in public. Particularly when said superior sent her a look that suggested she'd be smart at this point to keep her mouth shut.

  "Thanks," Janice White said when Scroggins had scurried off to make his call to the INS. Shagging a hand through her short, blond crop, she gave the captain a thorough once-over. They'd met only briefly during the transfer from Pegasus to the Pavehawk. Evidently the captain passed inspection.

  "Harry and I better get busy and make some calls. Hopefully, we can reach each of the families who've applied to adopt the children before the INS shows up."

  "Why don't I line you up with some temporary quarters here on base?" Westfall suggested. "You can get the kids fed and cleaned up, then make your calls."

  "Fed and cleaned up would be wonderful."

  "Give me a list of what you need for them in the way of clothes, food and games or books. I'll see it's taken care of."

  "It could be a long list."

  The captain gave her one of his rare, flinty smiles. "I can handle it."

  She tipped her head and measured him with those cool green eyes. "Yes, I imagine you can."

  His gaze followed her as she moved to the small group clustered around the Reverend White.

  "They make quite a pair."

  "Yes, they do. Harry told me she gave up a very lucrative private practice to assist him in Caribe. He thinks the world of his sister."

  "Sister?"

  The captain's glance lasered back to Cari. Despite the weight of her worry over Mac, she formed the distinct impression that she'd snared Westfall's full attention with that bit of information.

  "Sister," she confirmed. "Our intel on the Whites was a little incomplete."

  "Hmm."

  With that noncommittal reply, the captain walked to the wall phone and requested a connection to the naval air station CO. He was back a few minutes later with word that the Whites and their charges could stay at the Transient Lodging Facility until they'd squared matters with the INS.