Bring On the Dusk Page 3

  Turning to face her was the big mistake.

  She stepped into his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck for a moment, ignoring all the spare magazines pocketed across his chest, the two rifles over his shoulder, and both of his sidearms. She simply rested her head on his shoulder a moment and whispered, “Thanks.”

  Then she turned away and, knees buckling, collapsed face-first onto the bed.

  When she didn’t move, he turned out the light and closed the door—not even pausing to remove her boots, shutting himself away from her.

  Then he hurried off to lose himself in the clutching grasp of the CIA debriefing team.

  Better that than to face his thoughts about her warmth and the soft hair that had brushed his cheek and the gentle, female scent of the most attractive woman he’d ever held in his arms, no matter how briefly.

  Chapter 2

  Michael rolled out of his bunk and gave “the man” his morning hundreds. First, through his hundred fingertip push-ups, he listened to the sounds of the ship. All quiet. The USS Peleliu flight operations were generally quiet through the day now.

  He would not think of last night or the way she—

  He did an extra fifty push-ups.

  Maybe there’d at least be time to learn the pilot’s name.

  An extra twenty-five.

  It was supposed to be a quiet day after all.

  Not so long ago, the Peleliu had seen night and day operations. They were stationed off the coast of Somalia watching for pirates. Last summer the schedule had been very hectic with a brutal operational tempo. Every night had been spent doing ocean sweeps to catch the small Somali raider craft heading for the shipping lanes. During the day they seemed to constantly be rushing to the rescue of ships under attack. A half-dozen other warships from various nations plied these waters, but they were spread over two million square miles of ocean along fifteen hundred miles of coast.

  Now it was March. Six months after their focused strike retaking all of the northern ships and hostages in a single night, the Somali pirates had mostly folded up shop—at least in the north.

  The pirates’ four main leaders were dead, two from in-fighting and two killed by Delta Force. Lieutenant Bill Bruce was a D-boy now, so Michael would claim his kill as Delta, even though he’d still been a SEAL at that time. It had taken six more months of cleanup raids and monitoring, but the area was now quiet. Not totally safe, but certainly not the hell of the last decade. Just last night, EU NAVFOR had downgraded the northern region of Operation Atalanta to a maintenance stance. The southern region of the operation was another matter.

  Through his hundred sit-ups, Michael began organizing his day, or rather his night, since that’s when they flew their missions. The Night Stalkers lived in a flipped-clock world, flying at night, sleeping during the day. The clock on the bulkhead wall told him it was only sixteen hundred—four in the afternoon. That meant he had time for a run on the USS Peleliu’s hangar deck before breakfast and the preflight briefing.

  Maybe that would help shake the new pilot out of his system. And why was he fooling himself about that? So wasn’t going to be that easy.

  The mission switchover in the north from fighting pirates to keeping them under reasonable control probably meant reassignment soon anyway, so he really didn’t need to worry.

  Michael had intentionally embedded himself as Delta liaison with the D Company of Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s 5th Battalion. They were the very best, and he enjoyed working with them because they had the highest op-tempo in all of SOAR. They also had the highest mission-success rate. They never stayed in maintenance or sweep positions; the 5D always flew at the very outer edge of the envelope.

  If they ever did stagnate, he would have to move on. Part of being Delta was constant training, constant pushing to be ready no matter what came down the pipe. And part of being himself, he knew, was always finding the next impossible thing and conquering the hell out of it.

  The 5D, also nicknamed the Black Adders, kept him challenged physically and mentally. Every day. They were the purest edge Michael could find.

  How pure edge was the new pilot? She’d been good and steady last night. If that was fresh off training, it was a good sign. But last night’s mission had been more noisy than complex.

  Something told him that she had plenty of edge, though. Less than thirty seconds past the outer boundary shooter, she was unraveling his jokes in a calm, smooth voice.

  And that hair. The soft weight of it as it had spilled over his hands and—

  Shit!

  After his sit-ups he rolled up off the steel deck and pulled on shorts, T-shirt, and running shoes. One of the advantages of being a colonel was having his own sink in his own room even when visiting on a Navy ship. A quick shave and he was out the door and headed up to the hangar deck. He wore his dark brown hair long but kept his face clean-shaven. Different Special Ops Forces soldiers made different choices, but casual was the keyword. Special Ops weren’t about uniforms; they were about blending in on an undercover mission.

  The hangar on the Peleliu was an open space immediately below the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship. Essentially a small aircraft carrier, she presently boasted a half-dozen SOAR helicopters on her deck. Her current operations meant no Harrier Jump Jets were needed, which left the hangar space free to use as a running track except when they were rebuilding a shot-up bird or one was undergoing major scheduled maintenance. Even then, the mechanics would take over a bay at the far end of the deck and the track would just be a little shorter for a time.

  Climbing the ladder from the bunk deck below, he could tell the hangar was mostly clear. He tried not to run when the fifty Rangers hit the hangar for their two hours of PT. U.S. Rangers were many things, but one of them was not quiet, especially during physical training. They ran in packs and were always teasing and harassing each other. And they sang as they ran, shouting “Ran-gers!” every fifth lap. They could make the hangar-deck run actively painful with the echoes reverberating throughout the space.

  At present he could tell there were only two heavy-footed runners and one lighter one by the echoes in the cavernous, gray steel space that towered three stories high. It was a mostly clear space two football fields long and the better part of one wide. He’d seen it packed with thirty aircraft folded and stowed shoulder to shoulder. That was also when a reinforced battalion of Marines was aboard, which none was now.

  The Peleliu had been slated for retirement and decommissioning. When the Marines were done with her, SOAR had asked to use the old ship as a forward operations platform in Somali waters. In his judgment, which he’d reported to the Pentagon, the repurposing of the ship was an operational asset of the first order. With one quarter of the normal Navy personnel, she also wouldn’t be an overly expensive ship to keep in operation. After forty years at sea and almost a year past her planned retirement, the old lady was still going strong.

  The heat of the day in the Gulf of Aden was its normal moderately hot and intolerably muggy. The setting sunlight poured in the large opening at the rear of the deck, which meant they were steaming east. By the motion of the ship, they were moving at eight knots, loafing along at one third of her full cruise speed.

  That would be changing tonight after he spoke with the commander.

  As he started stretching out, he automatically assessed the other three runners on the deck. A pair of SOAR early risers. Five p.m.—seventeen hundred hours—was their rise and shine, eighteen hundred meal, nineteen hundred briefing, and aloft thirty minutes later at full dark if there was an operation.

  The third one—newly returned just last week from Delta training and his wedding and honeymoon—was his new assistant, Lieutenant William Bruce.

  Michael timed his stretches so that he’d be ready to run when Bill lapped by. He watched Bill approach. Delta training had shifted his stride despite
his ten years in the Navy and spending half that time in the SEALs before Michael recruited him. There was an agility to Bill’s gait that he had lacked before. The SEAL training had made him a high-endurance mile-eater. The Delta regimen had added flexibility.

  Michael did a final stretch on his hamstring and began to trot in place. Three steps to get up to speed and he fell in close beside Bill without making him shift his stride. He smiled a good morning.

  Trisha O’Malley, the SOAR Little Bird pilot who Bill had married, usually ran with him. She’d very vocally refused to besmirch her Irish heritage with his Scottish name, even if she was condescending to marry him to “dilute the ultimate shame of his blood.”

  A nod to the space between them, where the little redhead would normally fit between them, asked the question.

  “New flyer meet-and-greet.” Bill’s deep voice matched his big frame.

  The Little Bird pilot.

  He still didn’t know her name.

  Definitely have to fix that.

  He also needed to fix how she was occupying so many of his thoughts despite that lack of a name.

  With unspoken consent, he and Bill closed the space between them, then both kicked it up ten percent and began lapping the SOAR runners. Their own feet echoed much more lightly within the cavernous space than those of the flyers, despite their greater speed.

  * * *

  Captain Claudia Jean Casperson had been led to her new quarters last night and pitched facedown into her bunk. Whoever had guided her had been kind enough to turn off the light and close the door.

  She only had been awake long enough to wash her face and unpack when there was a knock on the door.

  A short redhead stood in the gray steel corridor. The woman was slight, freckled, pretty, and wearing full flight gear. Was this the woman who’d been on the radio last night from the DAP Hawk?

  “Why aren’t you in your gear? C’mon. Suit up, newbie!” Different voice than on the radio. That meant there were two women in the 5th Battalion’s D Company. No insignia on her flight suit.

  Unsure what to do, Claudia saluted.

  “Cut that out! Damn it, don’t they teach you anything about forward theater of operations?”

  A salute was so ingrained, and what did it matter in a pilot? Sure, grunts on the ground didn’t salute when in the field because that indicated who was in charge to an unfriendly sniper. But on a Navy ship she—

  “No, I can see you thinking it. But no, not even here. You can do that crap all you want on U.S. soil, but that’s it from now on. Clear?”

  “Uh, yes, sir. Ma’am.”

  Claudia knew better than to protest about only just arriving or not having received orders to be battle ready. She simply turned to pull on the gear she’d stripped off less than twenty minutes before while the woman waited. In moments they were clambering up through the decks to reach the flight deck.

  She knew this ship well. The eight hundred feet of the amphibious assault ship Peleliu were a Navy-gray haven afloat in the infinite blue of the ocean off the Horn of Africa—a desert far more barren than the central Arizona hills she’d grown up in.

  Yet, it was strangely like coming home. Two years ago she’d departed these decks aboard a massive Sea Stallion helicopter—the largest bird in the U.S. military—marking the last day of her final two-year tour as a Marine Corps pilot. And now that crazy lady named Fate had returned her to the same ship under a different branch of the service flying the MH-6M Little Bird, the military’s smallest helicopter.

  All that really mattered was that she’d finally made it. She’d been gunning to join SOAR since the day she saw that the first woman had made it three years before. If a Black Hawk pilot could make the jump, so could a Snake pilot. Only she’d do it better.

  Jumping from a Marine Corps AH-1W SuperCobra “Snake” would have been a big step down if she’d just gone standard Army. But to join the Night Stalkers of the 160th SOAR…even hard-core Marines admitted they were exceptional, although SOAR was technically part of the Army and therefore should fall under the umbrella of disdain for “all of the pitiful services who hadn’t made it to being Marines.” Oorah!

  When they arrived on deck, the heat slapped against her. The sun was lowering toward the horizon, but it was still a couple hours until sunset. The steel plating radiated with waves of heat that blurred the far ends of the ship, though it was only a hundred yards in either direction from where they’d emerged amidships.

  The redhead called over to a man standing close beside a Little Bird helicopter. “Hey, Dennis, did our mechanics go over the repair on the bird that CC brought in?”

  Claudia hated that nickname but wasn’t awake enough to try correcting it. Besides, she didn’t yet know who she was dealing with here. Correcting your future commanding officer on first meeting was never a good idea.

  “All done and certified. The carrier guys fixed it up good, Boss Lady. Max is glad to have his bird back. Let’s remind him to crash here rather than on the carrier next time.”

  “He’s just lucky his bird was the only thing shot up,” Trisha replied.

  “Got that straight. Nice flying last night, Captain Casperson.”

  “It’s Claudia. Thanks.” They traded nods. So Dennis flew the Little Bird named Merchant. His acknowledgment cheered her up. Despite all of her service, spending two years in training and then being thrown directly back into the fray had been something of a shock.

  Now if she only knew who the hell the redheaded “Boss Lady” was. Claudia was still pretty sure she hadn’t been the commanding pilot on last night’s exfil sortie.

  She tried to recall the roster of other women in SOAR but had no better luck than last night.

  She also hadn’t really expected to be assigned to the Fifth Battalion, D Company straight out of training. The company’s reputation was absolutely sterling. More like platinum with gold mixed in. It was an honor to have the chance to fly with the 5D, even if it was an unexpected one. That this woman was here spoke of skill, not gender bias…she hoped.

  “If we don’t call her ‘Boss Lady,’” Dennis told Claudia as they circled close around his helo, “her ego gets all out of control. And let me tell you, that is so not a pretty sight.”

  Dennis was a handsome Eurasian man with an easygoing manner. His smile appeared simply friendly, not implying anything or trying to check her out despite the flight suit, which was a relief. Actually, few men in SOAR had raked her body with their eyes and leered, a common enough occurrence in the other forces. Or maybe everything would change when she got out of the flight suit.

  “She may be boss”—Dennis offered a conspiratorial wink—“but she ain’t no lady.”

  “Hey, I am too. I’m a respectable married lady now.” The woman who had yet to say her name or rank fished out her dog tags, which had a pretty ring threaded on the chain, and waved the ring at Dennis.

  When he opened his mouth to respond, she shut him right down.

  “Careful there, Mr. Dennis Hakawa. Don’t be disparaging a D-boy’s lady or I’ll have him sit on you.”

  “Yes, sir, Trisha, ma’am.” Dennis pretended to be scared but headed off without further argument.

  Well, at least now she had a first name.

  Trisha was a Delta operator’s wife? Wow, was that ever a hard-road choice for a marriage!

  Married to the one who’d ridden beside her last night? Why did she feel a small twinge of disappointment at that?

  Utterly ridiculous.

  They’d said about two words each, but she’d liked the way he sat there so peacefully right after action. A Marine would be boasting and roaring high on adrenaline. The Delta operator last night had simply sat quietly through the flight.

  Wait!

  Was he the one who’d guided her to her cabin? He was. She came up with a face. Rugged. Dark eyes and hair. It
was a face filled with the man behind it. Even after just a single hazy glimpse through a hammer-load of exhaustion and adrenaline crash, she could picture that face perfectly. It wasn’t one that you’d call handsome, not until you saw the man behind the eyes, and then it was…

  Claudia was losing it. Totally brain dead. He was just some guy who’d helped her to her cabin. Probably this Trisha’s husband.

  There was a vague memory of something else about him, but it slipped away when she tried to focus on it.

  So Trisha had married a D-boy? She must be even crazier than she acted.

  It certainly wouldn’t be Claudia’s first choice—or second or third. Those guys went way out beyond any place that even hinted of being the front lines. They walked into the most dangerous places on the planet, and no one ever knew if they walked back out, because they never said anything. According to the Pentagon, they’d been formed in 1979 and didn’t exist. At all. They routinely denied the existence of “The Unit” despite what the little bits of news of it that had slipped out over the years.

  The rumors about them were that they were misfits who hated the government and lived for the combat. That it was a troop of men who loved the fight but hated the system. All rebels and chaos and no control.

  They were also said to be the absolute, number one counterterrorism team on the entire planet. That they were now even better than the British SAS that they’d been based on. Who knew where the truth lay inside those shadows. She, for one, would be glad to pass on finding out.

  “C’mon.” Trisha led Claudia across the flight deck to another Little Bird just like the one she’d circled past moments before.

  Except it wasn’t.

  Dennis flew the MH-6M, the same as she had last night. It was an aggressive flier designed to deliver four to six troops into places no other helicopter in the business could fit into. It was a bird that Claudia knew like the back of her hand after two years of SOAR training.

  Trisha led her to an AH-6M Mission-Enhanced Little Bird, A for attack. These birds had been custom-designed to SOAR specifications. Instead of the two benches running down the exterior sides of the helicopter for the Special Operations Forces soldiers to ride on, she had a pair of M134 miniguns on the inside mounting points of the little side wings, and a pair of seven-rocket pods on the outer points for firing 2.75-inch Hydra 70 rockets. Claudia had really been hoping for an assignment to an attack version.