By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers)

by M. L. Buchman

  And while the old Negev, could really use some snow,

  It’s not the sort of place, you’d ever want to go.

  Justin gave a shot at a chorus.

  Here and gone before the morning’s glow,

  The Night Stalkers come to smash your toe.

  He didn’t need Danny’s snort from the copilot’s seat to tell him he’d missed the mark this time. Not that he’d risk an extraneous transmission to Kara even if it had come together. The Israeli Defense Forces were neither deaf nor stupid.

  One branch of the U.S. military was about to invade a friendly country’s air base to rescue four of The Activity’s recon spies. The fact of the U.S. Air Force’s residence on the base didn’t pertain, as they hadn’t been notified by the Army’s Night Stalkers. Nor were they likely to be.

  At least not if everything went well. Creating an international incident was not on tonight’s schedule.

  At 0213, Justin tipped down the nose of the Calamity Jane. He pulled up on the collective with his left hand to pitch the blades and create as much lift as the twin Lycoming T55 turboshaft engines could provide, dumping ten thousand horsepower into the rotors. With his right hand, he kept easing the cyclic forward, tipping the helicopter nose farther and farther down, converting all that power into speed.

  He hit the never-exceed speed in the first twenty seconds, driven down into his seat by accelerating at half-g the whole way. To an observer outside the craft, if there had been one, it would look as if the giant helicopter was moments from diving into the rocky desert soil. Actually she was tipped that far nose down so that her rotors were lifting her almost straight ahead.

  Oh two hundred fourteen and thirty seconds, he emerged from the last wadi through the steep hills surrounding the base, running dead level and half a meter above the soil. Moving just under two hundred miles per hour, his first view of the Ramon Airbase opened before him.

  At two in the morning the lighting was minimal, except for the perimeter. The main runway was blacked out to avoid being a target until the next flight of F-16s needed to use it.

  Exactly what he’d been counting on.

  “Weapons free,” he called to the crew, “but y’all really try to hold your trigger fingers.”

  “Shooting locals, bad,” Carmen noted.

  “Loud noise of shooting locals attracts even more locals,” Talbot offered. “Very bad.”

  He and Danny focused on the flight path they’d chosen. Kara had flown in from the northeast twice now, close to the American Camp and the unknown cluster of buildings where she’d found The Activity team.

  The Calamity Jane rolled down out of the northwestern hills like a bad flood hauling ass down an arroyo. They were moving so fast that climbing to clear the perimeter fence was barely more than a flick of the wrist.

  Once over the fence—with his wheels and the tips of his rotor blades low enough to skim the brush, had there been any—he carved a hard turn, trading speed for change of direction.

  Halfway down the paved runway, a vehicle was racing toward him. If all was happening per plan, it was The Activity recon team. It looked like a Humvee, which was going to be a very tight fit inside his Chinook.

  He spun around and in moments he was flying at a sixty miles per hour, due west along the centerline of the runway.

  Please let this work. There was no time to land, load, balance, and secure the Humvee. Every second spent inside the perimeter fence was one second closer to detection and death.

  “Vehicle at two hundred meters,” Danny called out.

  It had better work or Wilson might get Kara after all.

  “One hundred. Initiating rear ramp.”

  The Open Ramp indicator flickered to life on the console. Justin eased down so that his rear wheels were actually rolling on the runway, barely.

  “Fifty meters.” Danny.

  “Ramp down,” Raymond reported calmly from the most dangerous position of this whole operation. Raymond’s life now depended on how good The Activity agents actually were as drivers, not as recon.

  “Twenty-five.”

  Justin was suddenly aware of a hundred things at once. The feel of the cyclic control, slick in his hand, smoothed by so many hours of flight. The sharp smell of the cold desert so different from Amarillo. Amarillo might be sparse, but it smelled of life. Ramon Airbase was stark and smelled of runway tar and death so close to the Egyptian border. He could still taste Kara’s kiss and feel how her body had pressed up against his.

  And he could feel that he had to nose up on the collective a little or he’d be blowing the rear tires that had never been designed to roll at sixty miles per hour down a rough runway.

  “Five,” Danny called.

  The Humvee hit the ramp, causing a scream as the metal lip was compressed down onto the tarmac. The roar of the Humvee’s engine filled the helicopter, drowning out the twin turboshaft engines.

  The impact of the racing vehicle jarred through the length of the helicopter’s fuselage as several tons of vehicle slammed up the rear ramp and aboard.

  Justin increased lift on the rear rotor to compensate.

  Now the gamble was on the skill of the Humvee driver. He’d had to race at the vehicle’s top speed to pick it up, not a move that any of them had ever practiced before. And he had to stop before he drove over the two gunners, the two pilots, and, worse, totally overbalanced the nose of the Calamity Jane into the pavement.

  Justin was never able to clearly recall the next two seconds of the rescue. When a helicopter took on a three-ton load, it was done carefully, patiently, with strict attention to center of gravity and load-point tie-downs, while sitting parked stably on a solid surface. All three of his crew chiefs were certified MH-47G loadmasters and darned good at what they did.

  —and there wasn’t a moment for a single one of those worries.

  He adjusted for the shifting load with both cyclic and rudders, moving to some state of hyperawareness that he’d only ever experienced during a bucking bronc ride at the Tri-State Fair. Every tiny shift in weight compensated, even anticipated.

  And the Jane bucked just as hard as the wildest horse. Nose wheels screeched on tarmac for a long moment when the driver tromped on the brakes and threw the Humvee’s weight forward. It was a sound that would carry to every resident on the air base.

  Then the opposite effect as the Humvee rocked back against the large tires’ grip on the steel grating of the Chinook’s cargo deck.

  The ramp light blinking out told him Raymond was still with them. He must have practically climbed out the ramp gunner’s shooting window to avoid being hit.

  Justin pulled back on the cyclic only to realize it was already in his lap.

  “Carmen,” he shouted over the intercom, “he’s off center. I’m nose heavy. I can’t clear the fence like this.”

  They were off the ground—by less than a meter. They still weren’t climbing.

  Over the open mic on the intercom, he could hear Carmen getting the guy to shift the Humvee backward.

  “No sudden moves. No big moves. Just back it up like there’s an old lady behind you.”

  The pressure eased on the cyclic. Now he left the nose down to regain speed. It would make Carmen’s problem harder, but that didn’t worry him; she could handle it. And if the driver was a field agent for The Activity, he could as well…or they’d all be dead.

  “Check left,” Danny called.

  Lights were popping on along the far side of the base. The Israelis would hit the runway lights any moment.

  The controls felt almost normal—close enough he hoped.

  “Lock it!” Justin called back, and Carmen echoed his shout to the Humvee’s driver.

  Of course there wasn’t time to attach the load tie-down straps. Hopefully the guy standing on his brakes would be enough, but there was no more time to
wait.

  Justin carved a hard right turn and aimed straight at the nearest section of the perimeter fence. At the last moment, he jerked back on the cyclic and Calamity Jane climbed skyward like the good girl she was.

  He nosed over the top as the runway lights flashed on.

  He was back down to the dirt before the fence lights fired off. And he was up the wadi into the Nahal Resisim due west of the air base before the outer lights were lit. He doubted that they’d pick out his pitch-black helicopter.

  But he was still a hundred kilometers into Israel in all directions except one. And crossing from raiding an Israeli air base into Egypt could start a war, making that an absolute last-resort option.

  He keyed the radio for the first time in the whole mission.

  “Need a distraction, Kara. I’m clear, but I can’t outrun an F-16 or a Sidewinder.” He continued to beg the Jane for more speed as he slalomed his way up the twisting wadi.

  * * *

  “Sissy.” Kara had to make a joke. She was never afraid during a mission. But watching Justin struggle to control the Chinook in ways that were never meant to happen on a twenty-five-ton helicopter had been deeply…unnerving.

  “Roger that.” His tone was as dry as her throat.

  “Just be glad it’s not a Sparrow.” That was a nasty missile with an attitude.

  “Oh yes, I feel so much better. Ten kilos of high explosive at Mach 2 versus forty kilos at Mach 4. Yes, that’s so much better.” Man had come within inches of dying half a dozen times in the last minute and he was joking.

  Kara wondered how she hadn’t noticed him over the last two months. Well, she’d noticed him—what girl in her right mind wouldn’t? But she hadn’t noticed him.

  And now she’d better get her Air Mission Commander act together and save him.

  A distraction? Like a Hellfire missile into the air base control tower? It would certainly get their attention, but not in a good way.

  She had to convince the Israelis, from her steel coffin in the cargo hold of the Peleliu, that the U.S. Army had not just invaded their air base. She had to convince them there was an explanation for the noises they’d heard and any possible radar sightings.

  She called up the Jane. “What’s the nationality of the vehicle they stole?”

  “And how does that matter to—” Justin cut himself off. “Sorry, ma’am.” He sounded so contrite for questioning her. His voice was far more normal when he came back on. “Looks to me like the Yankees are down one vehicle.”

  That was good news. If an IDF vehicle went missing, the Israelis would probably stage a raid on the American Camp. But the other way around, maybe not.

  Would the Americans ever admit to the Israelis that they’d lost one of their own Humvees inside the Ramon Airbase perimeter? Not a chance. It might start a little intramural discord—as only the Americans and Israelis were inside the fence—or a run of back-and-forth practical jokes. Hopefully the U.S. forces would only see it as a weakness to ask if the IDF had taken the Humvee from under the Americans’ noses without them noticing.

  Therefore, she only had to explain away the noise and radar, and not the missing vehicle.

  “Tago, give me back the ScanEagle.” Kara had given him the controls so that he could learn to fly it by following Justin’s exfiltration from Israeli soil. She could see Tago sweating it even though his craft was a thousand times smaller than the Chinook—Justin was just that good.

  Kara wished she could follow him, just to watch him fly. But there was no time. Each second was one second closer to the activation of a wider perimeter. If they escalated to full air defenses before Justin reached the coast, there would be little chance of him slipping away clean.

  Tago flipped control back to her.

  She took the ScanEagle’s engine up to full throttle as she did a flip turn back toward the air base.

  “It won’t be silent,” Tago observed.

  “No.” Kara looked at him. “It won’t.” He didn’t get it yet. She glanced back toward the only other occupant of the coffin, sitting on his stool. Major Wilson didn’t get it either…loser.

  She could almost see Justin on that stool instead, if she squinted just right and added four inches to his height, blond hair, and…a cowboy hat. Kara was definitely losing it.

  By the time she had the Ramon Airbase back in sight, it was lit up like Shea Stadium for the last-ever New York Mets game…even if they did totally choke and lose to the Florida Marlins, also losing their shot at the playoffs. She’d watched the blue-and-orange fireworks from deep down the third base line and groaned in agony along with every other diehard Mets fan.

  Well, if she didn’t want fireworks here, she was going to have to get creative.

  The tiny stealth ScanEagle was designed to be silent and invisible. Of course the engineers back in Hood River, Oregon, hadn’t anticipated someone trying to purposely be seen.

  She didn’t want the Israelis to get clear photos, but she wanted them to clearly see the craft. So, just short of the perimeter fence, she pulled back on the joystick and sent the ScanEagle soaring aloft.

  At three thousand feet, she took it through a hammerhead stall and kicked the RPA into a nose-down power dive.

  She gave the propellers full pitch and drove the one-and-a-half-horsepower engine right past redline. Didn’t matter if it seized up, not this time.

  It was well past the never-exceed speed as she drove down toward the center of the air base. It was dicey to avoid ripping off the wings at this speed, but she rolled out of the dive and aimed straight for the airport control tower.

  Individual gunfire was pinging off the bird. There was a hard wobble in her view, which indicated a solid hit.

  At two hundred meters out, hating herself for so abusing the craft that had served her so well, she triggered the destruct charge that was rigged in all of the stealth birds.

  The ScanEagle shredded before their very eyes. She’d been told that no piece bigger than a thumbnail would remain. Even the engine block would be powdered by the charges planted on it. She hoped they were right.

  Kara’s screens blanked with the loss of feeds from the ScanEagle, disorienting her badly for a moment.

  Tago flashed up the image from the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Tosca still circling high aloft. A high-res camera revealed nothing at least.

  Israel could now rest comfortably that they had beaten the “drone”—which would be assumed to be Egyptian or Jordanian—that had been sent to spy on them. Any little bits and pieces would point to American manufacture. But that would be okay, as so much of the world’s military was. If it wasn’t American or stolen, it was simply left behind from one of the region’s recent wars. The tiny bits would make no sense to anyone because the Americans would be right there helping with the analysis.

  In their eyes, disaster would have been once again averted by their vigilance.

  Kara leaned back and rubbed wearily at her eyes. In her view, she’d just consigned to its doom a hundred-thousand-dollar RPA that had done nothing wrong.

  Hands massaged her shoulder.

  She wished they were Justin’s, but knew they weren’t.

  Kara didn’t have the energy to turn. So she reached up, found the pressure point between Wilson’s thumb and forefinger, and drove into it with three fingers on one side and her thumb on the other. She used the leverage to double over his wrist and drive him to the floor. He hit with a very unhappy grunt.

  “Three older brothers,” she apologized softly, not really caring if he heard her or not.

  Then she dropped her hands back into her lap.

  Not the man she wanted at all.

  Chapter 10

  Justin crossed out of Israeli airspace with no one the wiser, except for a couple small fishing boats that he overflew at five meters and full speed in the dead of night. Somewhere behind would be t
he DAP Hawk, though he hadn’t spotted it, and far above, the Gray Eagle would be turning for the long trip back to Incirlik.

  “Incoming, boss.” Carmen’s whisper warned him over the intercom just moments before a man leaned over the console between Justin and Danny. “I kept him out until you cleared the coast, but that’s all he would put up with.”

  “Hey, buddy.” The man clapped Justin’s left shoulder hard enough to drive the collective partway down. They dropped from five meters above the waves to three before Justin caught it.

  “Hey, yourself. Careful there. Three more meters down, catch a wheel at this speed, and none of us are going home.”

  “Sorry, Texas.”

  “Best state in the nation.” Why did everyone insist on calling him that? Kara didn’t—yet another reason to like her, as if he needed one.

  “Been there a couple times…”

  Justin mouthed the rest of guy’s line under his helmet.

  “…got some great barbecue.”

  “So, buddy…” The man barely resisted another crashing delivery of bonhomie. “Why don’t you just drop us off at Clay Kaserne, then you can be on your way.”

  “Clay Kaserne?”

  “Sure, used to be Wiesbaden Army Airfield. The one in Germany.”

  “I know Clay Kaserne. It’s a twelve-hour flight from here.”

  “Good, I need a nap. Haven’t slept much this week.”

  Justin knew that any comment about having already been in the air for three hours making for a dangerously long day of flying had just blown out into the wind. Well, you didn’t walk right up to an unfamiliar horse; you came at it just a little sideways. And this wasn’t Justin’s first rodeo either.

  “In a hurry to get there?”

  “Fastest possible.”

  “Well, if you were to empty the Humvee, we could—”

  “Nope. No one but my men and I touch what we have in there.”

  Why didn’t that sound good?

  “What if I could get you there in time for lunch instead of dinner?”

  The guy grunted. “It would rock. We’re already days late.” It was the first time Justin could hear the deep exhaustion in his voice.