by Cindy Dees
“Never seen anything like it. Those could only be used in flight. But if you’re going to hover a few feet above the ground, why not just jump down…or go ahead and land the helicopter?”
He tested the back door latch above the weird steps. “Huh. Unlocked.”
“Rats. I was hoping to shoot out the lock,” she remarked dryly.
“Hah hah.” He ducked into the rear passenger seats and sat down in the far one to have a look around.
Piper plunked down in the seat beside him. “Any sign of a bomb?”
“Not at a glance. I’m going to have to check the exterior storage areas, but I don’t see anything like I found on your dad’s fixed wing plane.”
They spent the next half hour searching every nook and cranny of the helicopter to no avail. It was nothing but a one each helicopter replete with all the appropriate helicopter guts. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for those folding steps.
“Convinced it’s just a helicopter?” she asked as she hopped over the welded steps assembly to the ground.
“Yeah. I’m stumped—”
“You’re also busted,” a pissed off male voice he recognized all too well announced out of the shadows.
“Jesus Christ. Not again,” Mike groaned. How in the hell did these PHP guys keep sneaking up on him like this?
“You didn’t seriously think we wouldn’t have this field under video surveillance did you?” Piper’s father asked as he gestured one of his men to frisk Mike.
Mike threw up his hands in apparent disgust. “Okay, this one’s on Piper. I told her it was a bad idea to see if we could get into this helicopter and leave a note for you, but she thought it would make up for the way we split from your place in Idaho.”
Piper looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he was throwing her under the bus. Too bad he couldn’t explain to her that in his experience, humor was often the most effective way to diffuse otherwise tense or even deadly situations. C’mon, baby. Get with the program, here. Keep it light.
It was a deadly dangerous moment with his life and hers balancing on a razor’s edge. Only his many years in the field made him able to pretend to a calm he was far from feeling. Piper didn’t have anywhere near the same experience to draw on. And worse, she knew these guys and the violence they were capable of. The deck was doubly stacked against her. Mentally, he begged her to hang in there, follow his lead, and keep her wits about her.
She stared intently at him for a millisecond more as if trying to read his mind. And then she declared tartly, “Yeah, well, you couldn’t sneak up on a corpse without it hearing you and waking from the dead. How in the hell you manage to hunt for deer is beyond me.”
“I didn’t say I ever kill any deer. I just said I like to hunt ’em,” he retorted in an aggrieved tone.
She rolled her eyes. “Now you tell me.”
A youngish guy Mike thought was her brother commented, “When are you gonna quit trying to be just like the boys, Piper? You’re a girl. Get over it.”
Sure enough, she scowled and shot an annoyed sibling glare at the guy.
Mike chimed in. “I keep trying to tell her to let me do the manly stuff. But she insists on trying to keep up with me. I’m supposed to be the one wearing the pants, baby doll.”
She huffed and threw him a dirty look.
Mike glanced around at the half-dozen assault weapons pointed at him. “Guess I’m not getting any tonight, huh?”
Commiserating smirks erupted all around. There it was. The break in tension. The relaxation of shoulders. The imminent threat of them getting shot was past. For the moment.
Piper whined in a tone he’d never heard from her before, “I’m hot. And thirsty. Can we please go inside where there’s some air conditioning and cold water?”
Joseph Brothers shook his head in disappointment. “And this is why you’ll never be one of us, Piper. You’re too attached to creature comforts. You’re not self-reliant enough.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t live in the Nevada desert if there weren’t air conditioning, either. I’m not stupid.”
Ahh, nicely done. She’d pitched her voice in just the right tone to make it clear that she was, in fact, dumber than a post.
On cue, Brothers rolled his eyes and muttered in Mike’s direction, “You’re welcome to her.”
Mike reached over and looped an arm over her shoulders. “She may be high maintenance, but she’s worth it.” He paused a heartbeat and added, “So far.”
A few chuckles were audible as Brothers ordered, “Take them into the FBO. Get her some water and tie them up.”
Mike had received enough supply shipments at obscure civilian airports to know that FBO stood for Fixed Base Operator. Also known as a small aviation company operating out of a local airport. It would provide a variety of services to pilots—weather reports, maps, fuel, and even simple maintenance service.
He and Piper were herded to the one-story building with a cluster of trucks parked in front of it by the PHP gang. They were, indeed, given bottles of water before he and Piper were parked on metal chairs and tied up. Their ankles were tied to the chair legs, and their hands tied behind their backs.
“We still on track for this afternoon?” one of the men asked Brothers.
“Yeah,” Piper’s father answered, “See to it the plane is topped off for gas. We want the explosion to be as spectacular as possible.”
Had the PHP already transported their small plane and its bomb all the way down here? Wow. Those guys weren’t wasting any time putting their plan in motion. Interesting that his and Piper’s repeat appearance hadn’t disrupted the schedule at all. They must be on a timetable dictated by someone else. The shadowy El Noor, maybe?
If a suspicious person turned up twice around the edges of one of his ops the way he and Piper had this one, that would be cause for him to scrap the op entirely. Or at least to delay the op until the curious poker was eliminated as a threat. He would never send his men out on a compromised mission. But it didn’t seem to be giving Piper’s father the slightest pause.
“We gonna leave a guard on these two?” one of the men asked Brothers.
“Nah. We’ll bring ’em along and dump them,” Piper’s father replied casually.
Piper glanced over at him in alarm. She was right. That didn’t sound good. Mike surreptitiously tested the ropes binding him. The Boy Scout who’d tied him up had done a great job of it. He wasn’t going anywhere until someone untied or cut the ropes.
Brothers left the building with several of his men, and Mike took the opportunity to ask one of the other men, “Is tying us up really necessary? She’s the guy’s daughter for God’s sake. He’s my father-in-law. It’s not like we mean you guys any harm.”
The random foot soldier he’d chosen just shrugged back at Mike. But it was clear the other two guys with guns were listening.
Mike continued, “Piper has this bug up her ass to prove that she can do stuff as well as you guys. Obviously, she can’t, but I figured I would never hear the end of it unless I let her try and to get the idea out of her system once and for all. Gawd. You know how a woman can fixate on one thing and refuse to let it go. Dog with a bone, I’m telling ya.”
More commiserating looks from all the guys this time. He glanced over at her sitting beside him. “I love you, Piper, but once you sink your teeth into something, you just will not let go.”
She stared at him in shock. Blinked once slowly. Stared some more. What was wrong with her—
Oh. The I-love-you bit. Huh. That had slipped out without him really thinking it through. It had just come out of his mouth. Did he actually love her a little and not even realize it until now?
Nah. Not possible. He didn’t do emotions like love.
Right?
Huh.
Eighteen
It was a damned good thing she was tied to her chair, or Piper would have fallen out of it on the spot. I love you, Piper?
She never, in a million years, expected t
o hear those words tumble out of Mike McCloud’s mouth. And he said them so naturally, too. Like they were second nature to him.
A craving to hear them again washed over her. Maybe when he had his arms around her. Or over a romantic, candlelit dinner for two. Or…heck, any time when she knew he actually meant it.
“Yeah, well, I love you, too, you big galoot,” she threw back at him.
It was all part of their newlywed act, right? But crap, those words felt good coming out of her mouth. Like confessing a guilty secret she’d been carrying around for a long time and finally unburdened herself of.
Hah. His gaze shot to hers for an unguarded instant. And then the mask fell over his expressive eyes and he grinned lopsidedly at her. “Glad to hear it, darlin’. Once your dad’s done punishing us for trying to sneak up on him, I’m gonna show you just how glad I am.”
She gulped. Dang, that man could give as good as he got.
“Speaking of which, how long does your father usually hold a grudge? Before long, I’m gonna have to return some of that water he gave us to nature. If you catch my drift.”
She allowed a brief glint of humor to enter her expression. Mike acting as dim as a bulb without a filament was quite an experience. “I do catch your drift,” she retorted dryly. “I dunno. Dad can stay mad a good long time. But usually reason prevails in a few hours. Can your bladder hang on that long, hon?”
He winced theatrically. “I’ll try.”
Was he angling to get their captors to untie him? To mount an escape attempt? With all these armed guys standing around in broad daylight, that seemed like a foolish plan. But at this point, she didn’t question his judgment. He’d proven over and over that he knew his stuff in special ops.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” one of the gunmen commented. “We’ll be out of here pretty soon.”
Piper’s gaze met Mike’s momentarily. Soon, huh? What was up with that? She craned to look out the window toward the airfield. It looked like the helicopter was being pre-flighted. But not by her father. The dark-bearded guy—the chopper pilot with the Section 8 whose name she didn’t remember at the moment—was doing the inspection on the helicopter. Where was her father?
She looked over at one of the guys she’d known since she was a child. “Hey, Granville. Any chance my dad has a minute to come in here and talk with me?”
“Naw, punkin. He’s busy right now.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting ready for the big show. I’m sure he’ll come in to say good-bye to you before he takes off, though.”
“Takes off as in flies away or takes off as in gets in his truck and leaves the airport?” she asked curiously.
Too much. The guy shrugged apologetically and didn’t answer. She smiled politely and settled back to wait for the PHP’s big show to unfold. They didn’t have long to wait. In about five minutes, the radio behind the FBO’s counter crackled to life.
“I’m ready over here,” a voice she didn’t know announced.
“Ready here,” her father answered. “I’ll sit tight until you radio that your mission is complete, and then I’m off.”
“Roger that.”
Granville, the talkative guard, moved over to the radio and picked up the microphone. “Whaddiya want me and Otto to do? We’re supposed to go with the chopper, but we’ve got Piper and her guy in here…”
Piper held her breath as a lengthy pause ensued. Then her father answered, “Take them with you. Dump them in the desert far enough from anywhere that they can’t stop the attack.”
Attack? Some small part of her wailed in disbelief. The part that still wanted her father to be a hero. To be a man she could look up to.
“You wanna come see her before you go, Joseph?” Granville paused. “You know. To say good-bye.”
Another long pause ensued. Then, “We’ve said all we need to say to each other. Y’all go on. Get going. We’re on a schedule, here.”
She ought to be relieved. But instead, she was just…hurt. No matter what a bastard he’d been and no matter how crazy he’d been over the years, he was still her father. The only parent she’d ever known. Something really bad was about to happen—something potentially life threatening—and he didn’t want to walk a few steps to hug her one last time. To say goodbye. Maybe tell her for once that he loved her.
Damned if her eyes weren’t burning like fire and swimming like water. Something brushed against her left calf and she looked down. Mike had craned in his bindings and managed to twist his leg to the side enough to barely rub his pant leg against hers.
She glanced up at him, and he mouthed, “Be tough.”
He was right. They were in a difficult situation and she needed to keep her mind on the mission. But, dear Lord, it was hard to set aside that hurt, abandoned, little girl and be a warrior. Mike knew her well. Invoking her determination to prove that she could do this job was the one thing that would move her beyond the pain of her father’s rejection.
She took a deep breath and nodded her thanks to him. A tiny smile curved his lips briefly.
“Okay, you two. You heard the boss. You’re coming with us,” Granville announced.
“Coming where?” she asked as casually as she could muster.
“On a ride.”
Yikes. That didn’t sound good. Unfortunately, Granville and his partner were too well trained. Instead of each man approaching a chair from behind to untie them simultaneously, Granville untied first her, then Mike, while the other guy stood well back out of arms’ reach, his weapon pointed at them. No chance, then, for her and Mike to overpower their captors, or for her to overpower Granville and free Mike.
She made brief eye contact with Mike and he shook his head faintly in the negative. Message received. Now wasn’t their moment. Weird how she’d come to trust his instincts so implicitly.
“Okay, boys. Where to?” she asked jovially as Mike was herded to his feet and his hands tied behind his back. She was scared half to death, but she only had a few minutes to reestablish some kind of rapport with these old comrades of her father’s and maybe save Mike’s life and hers.
“You’re going for a helicopter ride,” Granville announced.
“Cool!” she gushed. “Speaking of which, what are those whacky steps for on the side of it?”
Her captor grinned at her. “You’re gonna find out first hand in a few minutes. Go on, now. Don’t make your daddy mad.”
Mike’s gaze snapped to her in sharp question. As they made the long walk out to the chopper, he murmured, “Your old man ever lay a hand on you?”
Really? They were possibly about to die and that was what he wanted to talk about? “Yeah,” she answered impatiently. “From time to time.”
Something cold and final flickered in Mike’s gaze. “Duly noted.”
Something warm and fuzzy flickered in her heart in return. If she wasn’t mistaken, Joseph Brothers had just earned himself a big can of whup-ass from Mike down the road. But then reality set in. Her father never, ever let go of a grudge. She muttered back to Mike, “It’s not worth it. I’m who I am now, and regardless of how I got that way, I’m good with myself. Let it go.”
“Sorry, babe. Kids and animals,” he ground out.
“Excuse me?”
“Kids and animals. In my world, they’re off limits for abuse, neglect, mistreatment, or emotional pain.”
She liked the sound of his world. Too bad the both of them likely only got to live in it for a few more minutes. They arrived at the helicopter and she noted that a logo had been freshly stenciled on the side of the chopper. The local electrical power company’s name wreathed the logo. What was up with that?
Granville gestured her and Mike to climb in the back of the newly painted bird. When her father had said to dump them in the desert, did these guys actually interpret that to mean shoving them out of a helicopter from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air?
Jimmy, Granville’s cohort in crime, poked her in the back with his rifle. “Get
in,” the younger man bit out.
“Jeez, Jim. Your mom would have your head if she knew you were pushing me around. I babysat you, for goodness’ sake. Relax. We’re all friends, here.” She scrambled awkwardly over the metal stair assembly welded to the skid and climbed into the helicopter’s cargo bay. She flopped down on the floor and Mike flopped down with a grunt beside her.
“You okay, babe?” she asked him.
His gaze swiveled to hers. “Did I mention your family’s a little out there?”
They traded grins that she hoped their captors interpreted as either ignorance or outright dimwitted unawareness of the trouble the two of them were in.
The pilot yelled into the back. “Everybody strapped in?”
Granville flashed a thumbs up.
“Hang on, then,” the pilot shouted. “Let’s go make some history!”
Mike didn’t like the sound of that. He and Piper were going to be history soon if they didn’t do something radical to change the odds against them. Thing was, these guys were all military or para-military trained. And cautious. They weren’t making the kinds of amateur mistakes he could exploit. With a gun pointed at Piper, his hands were tied. Both literally and figuratively. He wasn’t willing to do anything that might get her shot.
She was doing a fantastic job of building rapport with their captors, of reminding them that she was one of them, that they were all on the same side. Friends. Family. But if he overpowered Jimmy and shot Granville, all bets were off as to what would happen to her. And frankly, he was curious to see what, exactly, these guys were planning to do. Assuming the bastards didn’t push them out of the helicopter before they showed their hands.
It was a calculated risk to sit here in the thwocking helicopter. He could only hope that Piper would understand how vital it was to figure out what these guys were up to. The first shoe—the virus outbreak—would go active in Las Vegas any time, now. And these guys were the other shoe. What in the hell did El Noor have up his sleeve?
He glanced out the window in the helo’s sliding cargo door and oriented himself based on the sun. They were headed south. Maybe a little to the east. Not toward Las Vegas? What the hell?