Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Eric blinked the sweat from his eyes as the flight deck crew, all dressed in multi-colored float coats, rushed onto the deck to chain the helo and throw down tire chocks.

  Eric received an amber deck signal, indicating that it was okay to shut down. But he and Mikey just sat there for a moment, rotor blades turning. Mikey finally reached out and shut down.

  The engine ground down to quiet.

  The LSO was performing a bunch of hand signals that Eric didn’t understand. The gestures weren’t about flight operations, so he must’ve been trying to ask, “Are you okay?”

  Mikey answered that. “Has anyone seen my seat cushion? Oh, wait. I think my ass ate it.”

  Eric snorted. Joking about this was good. “Great time to ask the Navy for a raise.” He unhooked his seatbelt. His fingers were a little numb, but his hands were steady. He was already shoving their near miss into a doesn’t help to dwell on it part of his brain. Flying was risky, always. A pilot learned from his mistakes, yes, but if he couldn’t set aside the danger part, then he’d go dead from the neck up every time his ass hit the cockpit.

  Mikey leaned back and exhaled. “Just happy I was flying with a guy whose call sign is LZ and not Crash.” Mikey chuckled unevenly. “You landed totally blind. Bravo Zulu,6 man.”

  “It’s over now.” Eric hauled off his helmet and wrenched the helo side door open. “Let’s grab some mid-rats.”7

  “Nah, I’m not hungry. Could use a drink, though. Think anyone spiked the bug juice?8 Oh, and I need a wet wipe for my onion.” Mikey removed his helmet. His hair was pasted to his head. “Fuck me, but coming that close to dying was not fun.”

  They waded through a bunch of back-slapping congratulations from the deck crew and entered the small personnel door at the back of the hangar.

  After ascending one deck, they split up, Eric heading for his stateroom to change clothes. He threw on workout gear instead of a clean flight suit, and took off for the ship’s gym. He was so exhausted he lost his way twice, his subconscious probably trying to tell him he really should be reporting to rack ops.9 But there was no way he could sit still, read, eat, dick around on the computer, or any of that. Right now, he needed rock music pumping through his head and his muscles working to the brink of lactic acid poisoning.

  The gym was a small room, deserted at this time of night, with only one floor-to-ceiling mirror, a squat rack, three stationary bicycles, and the most basic selection of free weights. Eric took full advantage of what was there. Bench press, bicep curls, lat pulls, ab crunches…

  By the end of it, he was swimming in sweat, nearly every muscle in his body protesting the abuse. He dragged a towel over his face and looked at himself in the mirror. His green eyes stared back at him steadily. Kind of blankly. He held out a hand in front of him and checked it. Stone-cold solid.

  He supposed he should be glad he was squared away, but this iceman thing he so often pulled on himself felt really spooky tonight. Fuck me, but coming that close to dying was not fun. Shouldn’t he be at least a little—?

  “Yo, O’Dwyer.”

  He turned around.

  The chief engineer had his head poked around the doorjamb. “Captain wants to see you.”

  “Roger that.” It was one o’clock in the morning, but that wasn’t any big deal. The captain of an underway naval vessel was the busiest man on the ship. If the captain was awake and Eric was still awake, then the captain would conduct business.

  Eric made a pit stop at the showers, cleaned up and changed into a fresh pair of blueberries,10 then headed off. His booted footsteps echoed hollowly in the ship’s empty metal corridor. Only a skeleton crew was on night watch right now, most congregated on the bridge of the ship.

  He reached the stateroom of the man who commanded the USS Lake Champlain and knocked on the door, then strode in at Captain Blakely’s call to enter. Passing an L-shaped cushioned seat built into a corner of the cabin plus a round table complete with navy blue tablecloth and silver coffee carafe, Eric came to attention. The captain’s wooden desk was shoved against the wall, with an array of communication equipment tacked above it. The phone and speaker and other machinery were blech beige, so ugly that the sight of them in a living space would’ve given any homemaker of the female persuasion the vapors. On the wall above the comm equipment was a large electronic screen displaying a digital readout of navigational data: speed, course, time.

  “At ease, Lieutenant.” Blakely gestured abstractedly. “Sit down.”

  Eric relaxed and sat in the chair adjacent to the man’s desk.

  The captain leaned back and assessed him. “Rough night,” he commented.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You all right?”

  Eric smiled. “Just hungry.”

  Blakely pursed his lips.

  Eric brought his smile down a notch. “No worries, sir. We train for these kinds of emergencies.” True, but still…

  Nodding, Blakely leaned forward, setting his elbows on the armrests of his chair, his fingers loosely clasped. “I hate to bring up another op so soon after such a sphincter-tightening night.”

  “That’s fine, sir,” Eric jumped right in. “As long as it’s not this night.” After that violent landing, his helicopter would be down11 until his maintenance crew could conduct a thorough inspection. Plus, the idea of putting Mikey back into the cockpit so soon after having vertigo and almost dying didn’t thrill him. And himself? Well, he’d just sit here and continue to be some kind of creepy robot.

  “It’s tomorrow,” Blakely said. “The Drug Enforcement Administration liaison at the US Embassy in Colombia has requested your flight crew’s help in a joint undertaking with one of their teams. Since it’s a counterdrug operation, and that’s our mission, I’m inclined to lend you to them. But…” Blakely blew out his cheeks and heaved a massive gust of air. “This is a mission for the record books, O’Dwyer.” He shook his head. “Scuttlebutt is the DEA asked the Army first, but they wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole.”

  Eric drew his brows together. What?

  Blakely humphed. “Don’t know why everyone’s always got such a hard-on for Black Hawk12 helicopters, but—” He made a satisfied sound in his throat. “When the DEA heard about your reputation, they changed their tune real fast.”

  The phone above Blakely’s desk waaa’d. The Captain picked it up and listened.

  Gazing vaguely across the room, Eric fought the urge to tap his fingers on the armrests. Why the hell did the Army refuse this mission? On the wall above the L-shaped seat was a picture of the Lake Champlain’s stern, underway, a wide swath of foamy wake churning out behind it. Like having a picture of your house in your house.

  “Very well,” Blakely said into the phone. “Slow to twelve knots and maintain course.” He hung up and turned back to Eric, continuing as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Tonight’s impossible landing is exactly what the DEA needs out of you, O’Dwyer, along with your Anti-Submarine Warfare expertise. Although you being fluent in Spanish is definitely a cherry on top.” He picked up his USS Lake Champlain mug and slugged back some coffee. “That, and, you know, you don’t break any mirrors with your looks.”

  Had Eric caught a case of Mikey’s vertigo? “My looks?” Okay, he knew he didn’t break mirrors, but it was the how is that relevant to the mission? he should’ve pushed out of his mouth.

  “You’re to meet with a couple of agents at the JW Marriott Hotel in Bogotá at ten hundred hours tomorrow. Even though this assignment is being organized through the embassy, it’s an undercover op, so you can’t meet at the embassy itself because the local guard would ID you.”

  Eric was tempted to shake his head, rattle loose more usable brain matter. “Excuse me, sir, but what is this op?”

  “It’s…” Blakely started, stopped, re-tried. “Truth is, Lieutenant, this one really goes beyond the call of duty.” And then the strangest thing happened.

  Captain Adam Blakely, commander of the USS Lake Champlain, blushed re
d as the sea of Moses.

  Chapter Three

  Nicole managed to keep her eyebrows from arching into her hairline when the Navy lieutenant stood up from the conference table, but it was a near thing. Close, too, the temptation to roll her eyes at herself. So he was handsome, so what? Would she rather do this mission with someone who made her skin crawl? The honest answer was she’d rather not do any mission that required her to use her body for anything other than what it was trained for: fighting. She had two black belts, one in taekwondo, the other in aikido, and was one of the rare few who’d scored a perfect 50 on the physical fitness course at the DEA Academy.

  It didn’t matter.

  Whenever she walked into the office, the predominant expression to greet her arrival was a leer. In the break room, male agents would sidle up close and remark how much they’d like a chance to partner with her. Her face would boil from the insinuating tone. They didn’t want to be her partner because of her abilities, but because the consensus was that sex came as a part of a package deal with her. Unfortunately this opinion had been helped along considerably by her partner developing a thing for her.

  Within a week of being assigned to veteran agent Ryan Aagaard, she’d set him straight about where his cock needed to stay when he was around her: securely behind his zipper. But the damage had already been done. Every time she got a good assignment, rumors flew that she’d slept with Aagaard to get it.

  Now here she’d landed a primo mission—an international posting, after only three years as a field agent—and she’d been chosen for the one thing she didn’t want to be selected for: her beauty. Her half-Colombian ancestry and her perfect Spanish had played a part in the decision, too, but mostly it had been her looks, which was a bitter pill. And also made it a sure thing that she’d slept with the boss to get the assignment, right?

  She probably should’ve refused the assignment, taken a righteous, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar stand. But this “whore scheme” the DEA had developed was their best chance for capturing Alejandro Carrera, and it was impossible for her to turn her back on that. Not with Carrera, not when taking down that particular drug lord could confirm, secretly to herself, that the Gamboa name—and by association, her father’s real name of Muñoz—wasn’t complete dirt. Anything that would cleanse the family name was something she had to do. You’ve got bad blood, mija. You need to work twice as hard as everyone else, be twice as good. It’d be nice if she could finally get her father to shut up about that.

  The Navy pilot offered her his hand to shake. “I’m Lieutenant Eric O’Dwyer, by the way, officer in charge. I’ll be your partner in crime.”

  She stepped into the room. He probably wasn’t as tall, lean, and broad-shouldered as he appeared. No doubt his physique was being enhanced by the sleek stretch of his flight suit, the olive drab material offset with colorful patches adorning each of his well-formed biceps and broad chest. His name tag sat on his left pec, just above a zippered pocket, and on the right was a squadron insignia, which proclaimed him out of the San Diego HSM-7513 Wolf Pack. His left arm sported the American flag, and his right, a US Navy! patch.

  The lieutenant smiled as he shook her hand, presenting a row of perfect white teeth set in a frame of sexy male lips.

  Dios mío, this Eric O’Dwyer’s smile was a thing to behold. “Special Agent Nicole Gamboa.” She gave his hand a good crunch. The gesture screamed I am not just a pretty face! but she was in no mood to be subtle about her going-in position on this mission.

  The lieutenant introduced his crew, and she was treated to the requisite leer from the blond pilot.

  Teeth clenched, she turned back to O’Dwyer and asked about his nickname, Landing Zone.

  “Oh, a pilot never tells.” He chuckled, his grin cutting masculine creases into his cheeks and lighting his leafy green eyes from behind. “Call signs are usually earned from something…not good.” He cast a look at the blond pilot, who flashed an unrepentant grin.

  “Isn’t O’Dwyer an Irish last name?” He appeared almost Italian to her, with his near-black hair and olive skin.

  “I’m what you call black Irish.” The smile that creased his cheeks now was almost boyish. “Black sheep, too, I guess. The rest of my family is fair.”

  “Good morning, everyone,” Ryan Aagaard said as he entered the hotel room, a thick file in his hand. “I’m Special Agent Ryan Aagaard, Special Agent Gamboa’s partner.”

  Ryan strode to the faux-marble-topped table, exuding all the confidence and strength of his tall, blond, Viking ancestors. He was used to owning any space he walked into, but as he came into this room, a slight pleat flickered across his brow.

  First time in a room full of naval aviators, Ryan? Poor thing.

  Aagaard set down the file on the round table. “Has Special Agent Gamboa briefed you yet?” His hands landed on his hips and his legs spread in a powerful stance.

  Snap. King Ryan returned.

  So much for poor thing. “I was waiting for you,” Nicole said, and feeling the bizarre need to chat with the guy who will soon see me in my naughtiest underwear. Why she would do that, she didn’t know. In—do the mission—out. That’s all there was to this. There wouldn’t be any Miller Time afterward. She introduced the three men, and Ryan zeroed in on O’Dwyer.

  “I presume you’re taking the lead on this.” Ryan gestured at Blond Pilot and the bald guy. “Those two are too fair.”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  Ryan nodded. “What do you know so far?”

  “Not much,” O’Dwyer admitted. “Just that you need me to act the role of a male whore and pretend to have sex with one of your female agents.” He glanced over at Nicole, his eyes only touching her face, but somehow in that limited perusal she detected his keen awareness of her entire body. “I’m assuming Special Agent Gamboa is the female in question, considering the way she introduced herself.”

  Nicole offered up a smile loaded with bravado. Good thing heat was forming at the back of her neck and not in her cheeks, or she’d be making herself do a hundred push-ups later tonight back at her apartment.

  The bald guy made a little choked sound deep in his throat.

  O’Dwyer glanced at him. “Bomber, why don’t you go outside and burn one?”14 As the man left, O’Dwyer explained, “Bomber can’t handle the sex talk. Not while deployed, at least.” He waved Blond Pilot closer. “So what’s the rest of the story?”

  Ryan opened the file. “Our bad guy is Alejandro Carrera.”

  O’Dwyer’s eyebrows rose. “I’ve heard of the man.” He passed a skeptical look over Nicole and Ryan. “He’s a big fish.”

  Ryan nodded. “Very big. He’s kingpin of FARC, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. At one point, the United States recognized FARC as one of the most merciless foreign terrorist organizations out there. In the old days, drug cartels used to hire FARC to guard drug routes and protect cocaine labs—hence the terrorism. Now Carrera has taken over and gone into the drug trade himself, although his drug of choice is heroin.”

  Nicole turned her head aside. One of FARC’s former clients had been the infamous Medellín Cartel, a ruthless organization she knew entirely too much about.

  Ryan produced a picture of the drug lord, a tall, handsome Latino in a stylish suit. “Carrera transports thousands of tons of H into the United States every year. How he manages it has been a mystery…until recent intel cleared it up.” Ryan’s lips flattened into a hard line. “Via submarine.”

  O’Dwyer snorted. “Smart.”

  “Yes, we’ve never been able to catch the sneaky bastards. But now we’ve got a plan.” Ryan extracted several satellite images from the folder. “Carrera lives here, on Isla Gorgona, twenty-two miles off the west coast of Colombia. See this heat bloom?” Ryan pointed to a spot on the satellite photo. “That’s the drug sub. It’s enclosed in a man-made waterway within the walls surrounding the grounds of Carrera’s hacienda, and the place is a damned fortress. Radar,
armed guards, and cameras everywhere.”

  “The one viable way onto the island is here.” Ryan indicated a mountain on the far west corner of the picture. “And only when there’s no aerial radar coverage. That happens whenever the Colombian Air Force conducts maneuvers nearby. Carrera directs his air radars onto those planes to make sure they’re not aiming for his island. The Colombian Air Force and U.S. Customs work together on some missions, and Carrera is understandably paranoid. Intel tells us the Colombian Air Force will be on maneuvers off the west coast of Colombia the day after tomorrow at 15:00—at which time a wedge of open airspace will appear.” Ryan glanced at O’Dwyer. “The DEA needs your helicopter to get us through that wedge and onto Isla Gorgona.”

  O’Dwyer studied the photo. “What kind of flight conditions are we talking about?”

  “Dangerous ones. High winds and a small landing area.”

  “How small?”

  “About one hundred feet by one hundred feet.

  O’Dwyer shrugged that away. “That’s slightly bigger than the size of a small boy’s15 flight deck. I should be able to manage it. The high winds could prove problematic, especially if I’m forced to fly in a certain wedge. If I can’t land into the wind, tail rotor authority will be an issue, and no tail rotor equals several tons of metal going down hard. The high temperature also adds another layer of risk, messing with aerodynamic efficiency—heat makes the controls sluggish. How about a sea ingress?”

  Ryan shook his head. “The entire circumference of the island is protected by radar for several miles out. There’s no way to avoid detection. We wouldn’t care about that, of course, if we were just storming the castle, but”—Ryan spread his hands—“we don’t have enough evidence to warrant a move like that, yet. This mission is about obtaining that evidence, which is why it’s so important to get you and Gamboa inside.”