“I so wish I could hug you right now.” He was still gazing at her with besotted sheep eyes.
“There will be plenty of time for such things later.” She gave him a slumberous look.
Steve had meant his hug in the sweetest way imaginable, so the insinuation she added to her comment changed his blush to—if possible—an even darker shade of red. “H-how about tonight?”
“Tonight?”
He shifted his feet. “Our flight back to the Bunker Hill has been postponed till tomorrow, so…” He gestured at the helo. “I’ll be busy this evening on a mission, but afterward…”
A silly sort of anticipation bubbled through Kitty, the likes of which she hadn’t felt since…since…well, since the first time she’d slept with Shane. But thinking about her ex now would spoil this moment with Steve, and thunderation if she was doing that. “Find me in the medical tent when you’re done. Just peek in at me, and I’ll know to meet you behind the supply tent.”
His eyes lit up like a kid’s in a candy store.
Catching back all but the smallest giggle, she stepped back. “I’ll see you then.”
* * *
Ducking inside Max’s tent, Kyle saw her bags were packed and standing by her cot. The scent of fried chicken lingered, and he broke into a smile. Who would’ve guessed one date could be so life-changing?
Max closed the book she was reading, then stuffed it inside her small backpack. She rose, looking at him with a lot of we did it! satisfaction in her expression mixed with but now it’s over sadness.
He could totally relate. By tomorrow, they’d be on the Bunker Hill, and then she’d have to go.
“Hey,” he said. “I came by to tell you that I canceled today’s flight to the ship. I need to help out with the rescue op. We’ll take off first thing tomorrow instead.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Once on board the Bunker Hill, we’ll arrange a civilian flight for you from Karachi back to the States.”
“Right.” Her lashes went a little unsteady on her next blink. “So, how much longer is your deployment, anyway?”
Regret crawled up and down his throat, making it difficult for him to speak the words that would consign them to so much time apart, difficult even to imagine it. Damn, this was new, leaving behind someone who mattered. “Five months.”
Her eyebrows twitched, as if starting to head into a frown she valiantly fended off. “That’s…a long time.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She lifted her hand and, in typical Max-style, waved his worry aside. “Whenever I get lonely, I’ll just imagine you in your flight suit. I’d forgotten how hot you look in it.”
He couldn’t stop himself from smirking wickedly at her. “Should I ask what you’ll be doing while you’re imagining me in all my hotness?”
“No.” She laughed, though it was a quivery noise.
He wiped the teasing expression off his face. “Luckily, you keep busy. That helps.”
She nodded and rubbed her lips together.
“We should be able to Skype occasionally, too,” he offered.
She pressed two fingers to her mouth for a long moment, then, “That would be nice.”
He shuffled his feet. Hell. It felt great to have someone care about him this much, but really not great at all to see her hurting. “If you start crying, Max, I…I’m not sure I’ll know what to do.” Then he just followed instinct, stepped forward, and pulled her into a hard hug.
She hugged him back. “I’m going to miss you so much,” she said, soft and shaky.
His gut knotted. “I’m going to miss you, too.” He leaned back and gazed into her blue-on-blue eyes. Those eyes, he swore to himself, would be the last thing he thought about when he went to sleep at night and the first thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning. “You make me feel like I can conquer the world.”
She laughed, still shaky. “Don’t do anything stupid with that idea.”
“I won’t. I’m going to try and leave behind sabotaging for a while.”
“I like the sound of that.” She reached up and ran the back of her slim fingers along his bearded cheek. “This will be shaved off next time I see you. I won’t even recognize you.”
He took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll figure each other out.”
She smiled a little.
“If, uh… If it turns out you’re pregnant, you’ll let me know, won’t you? Right away.”
“Oh, God, Kyle, of course.”
“Okay. Sorry. I guess I’m a little sensitive about the issue.” A couple of cell phone message beeps broke the moment between them.
They stepped apart.
He dug into the right leg pocket of his flight suit for his phone while Max went for hers in her backpack.
“It’s my brother, Kevin,” Max told him, reading off her screen, “telling me he’s going to be gone all next month on maneuvers.”
Kyle glanced at his screen, and—shit. He looked at Max, and grimaced. “Sienna,” he said the name with all the sourness he felt for the person. “Look here—this is me pushing the delete key.” He jammed his thumb down on the button.
Max made a moue of her lips as she studied him for a long moment.
Maybe she didn’t fully comprehend what a momentous thing he’d just done.
“Shouldn’t you have texted a ‘fuck off’ message first?” Max asked.
A laugh burst out of him. “Whoa! Did my Max just drop the F-Bomb? No way.” She did have a point, though. “When I return to the States, I’ll buy a new phone, then my ex won’t even have my number anymore. Meanwhile, here—” He handed his phone to her. “Input your phone number for me. Skype, too.”
Her fingers flew over the screen, then she handed his cell back.
He shoved his phone away, then took a step closer to Max. “I’ll be busy for the rest of the day and into the evening, but”—he drew a finger lightly along her crazy-cute chin—“I don’t see why we can’t be bed buddies again tonight.”
Max smiled. “I like the sound of that, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The cavalry didn’t arrive until eighteen-hundred, a mere thirty minutes from sunset, which was no surprise.
Deployed SEALs worked almost exclusively in the dark.
Flight helmet on and a clipboard full of satellite photos clutched in one hand, Kyle watched two Navy H-60 Sierra helicopters touch down on the landing pad, the thunderous whomp-whomp-whomp of two sets of massive rotors stirring up a huge backdraft of sand and rousing some of the rest of the camp to come by and rubberneck, including Max.
Outside the aid station baling wire perimeter, two “Little Birds”28 circled.
Kyle jogged out to the lead Sierra helo.
The pilot’s door smacked open, and Kyle plugged the helo’s auxiliary ICS comm cord into the back of his helmet so he could talk to—well, whaddya know. Kyle knew the guy. “As I live and breathe,” he drawled, “if it isn’t Casanova.”
Lieutenant Commander Jason “Casanova” Vanderby was the elder brother of Kyle’s Wolf Pack squadron mate, Danny “Beans” Vanderby. Casanova had earned his call sign because he was good-looking enough to have the ladies dripping off him, but the joke was, he never did anything about it. Kyle had always thought the man was sort of a dink for that, but now Kyle had Max in his life, he understood the value of selectivity. Quality was so much better than quantity.
“What the hell are you doing in a Sierra, man?” Last Kyle knew, Casanova was flying Spec Ops Warfare out of a sister North Island squadron, the HSC-8529 Firehawks.
“I’ve always flown Sierras out of HSC-4,”30 Casanova said. “I was on loan to 85. Besides, Firehawks are decommissioning next year, and Sierras are picking up SOF31 missions. So what’s the word? You got a strike zone for us?”
“Affirmative.” Kyle held up his clipboard. “Need to detail out extra intel to all of you, though. Why don’t we brief over there?” He pointed to the three ambulances in the n
eighboring motor pool.
“Roger that.” Casanova spoke to his copilot, telling him to take the controls. The next moment Casanova hopped out of the cockpit, followed by a SEAL exiting from the rear of the aircraft.
The SEAL was dressed in huge combat boots, desert camouflage cargo pants, a plated vest, and a tan-and-camo cotton shirt pulled tight over a body muscled for warfare. A thick belt wrapped his waist, holding two baseball-sized grenades and extra ammo clips for the Heckler and Koch 416 assault rifle he carried. He was wearing a ballistic helmet with four NVG tubes and an IR strobe, although he removed it as he jumped out, exposing shortish brown hair, and left it in the helo. The SEAL had stern features, a prominent scar on his left cheek that humbled Kyle about his own less visible one, and the kind of aggressive-bordering-on-insane look in his dark brown eyes only serious operators mastered. Kyle was taller, but that was pretty much a so what? all other things considered.
Two men from the second Sierra bird joined them: the lead pilot, LCDR Vic “VD” Davidson, and the lead SEAL, a huge Samoan by the name of Chief Isaac “Aloha” Gagailoa.
Kyle waited a second, figuring Casanova would introduce his SEAL, but no introductions were made. In fact, Casanova and the SEAL seemed uncomfortable and tense around each other, like two people who’d watched each other do kinky shit on a port call, and now couldn’t meet each other’s eyes. What goes down on cruise, stays on cruise was an adage that didn’t always completely translate. People dragged guilt with them, regardless. Yeah, don’t I know it?
Unhooking himself from the auxiliary ICS cord, Kyle led the four men over to the ambulances, getting far enough away from the noise of the rotor blades to speak—loudly, but without outright shouting. Kyle waved over Max. “This is Samantha Dougin, the Pakistan expert who spearheaded the ground mission.”
Max nodded to the men.
Kyle rolled right into the brief. “Yesterday, Dougin and I insisted on a proof of life inspection of the hostages. Simple enough, right? But JEM asked for a one-day extension on getting the hostages here, claiming the Americans were being kept too far away for such rapid transport. Dougin and I suspected this was bull, and recent satellite imagery strongly supports this conclusion.” Kyle showed the four men the top satellite image on the clipboard. “We’ve pinpointed where the hostages’ GPS tracker has stopped, and it’s here.” Kyle pointed to a small town called Chhajja situated a few thousand feet west of the Mangla Dam. “This is a little over twenty miles from our current location. Granted, that’s as the crow flies, so add on another thirty miles when you have to drive around the dam to get here, but still… I think we can all agree JEM had plenty of time to bring the hostages to us for the originally scheduled rendezvous. But they chose not to. Why?” He glanced at the four men in turn. “We believe JEM instead used that day to call in extra protection for the hostages.”
Casanova frowned. “How many more tangoes?”
“Impossible to tell,” Kyle answered. “See this structure marked on the map?” He pointed to the southernmost building in a cluster of approximately eight others, all surrounding a courtyard. “This is the exact location of the hostages.”
“And you don’t have any intel on who’s inhabiting those other houses,” the SEAL from Casanova’s bird guessed correctly, “right?”
“Affirmative,” Kyle answered. “And that’s what’s got me worried. Every single one of those buildings could be housing tangoes. Or none at all. Did hundreds more get called in, or twenty?”
Casanova exhaled roughly. “Why weren’t we briefed about this back at Jalalabad?”
“Admiral Kelleman considered the information irrelevant,” Kyle stated, adding tightly, “I disagree.”
Shaking his head, Casanova rubbed his chin. “We’re already dealing with a lot of unknowns here, and now maybe extra terrorists, too. We usually mensurate32 a target for days before an attack, our intel people filling us in on how large a landing zone is, if there are poles or telephone wires nearby, how tall buildings are, etcetera.”
“Understood,” Kyle said. “We can wait to gather more intel,” and wouldn’t that please Admiral Dickfuck Kelleman, “but there’s no telling how long the hostages will be at this exact location. If they’re moved, we’ll have to start gathering intel all over again. And, obviously, every day the hostages are with JEM is a day they’re in danger.” Kyle lowered his clipboard. “But I have a proposal.”
Casanova gestured for Kyle to go on. “Shoot.”
“Have my team fly in first. We go in high at four thousand feet, and fly ahead by one-half mile to recon the target with FLIR,33 reporting our findings back to your team. If there appear to be too many tangoes, abort the mission. If not, proceed with caution.”
Casanova held out his hand for the clipboard. “May I?” Kyle handed it to him, and Casanova studied the photo for a moment. “Worse and worse, there’s no place to land. Normally we like to fly to the Y for infils.” Which meant landing outside of a threat zone and offloading the SEALs there. “For this, we’re going to have to fly to the X and do a fast-rope op.” Flying to the X—as in, X marks the spot—would entail hovering directly over a hot target and lowering the men via rope, which was a much more dangerous maneuver due to the higher chance of taking fire.
The other Sierra pilot, VD, was looking over Casanova’s shoulder at the satellite image. “We can also consider clearing out a portion of the bad guys with a strafing run prior to the fast-rope op,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of firepower on hand. The Little Birds are each packing a GAU mini gun, and the Sierras have two gunners, one on either side of the aircraft, each manning an M240.”
“All right.” Casanova handed the clipboard back. “We’ll proceed with your plan, Mikey, and see what you come up with.” Tension pulled the skin tight around Casanova’s eyes. He clearly still wasn’t hoo-rah about it.
“Roger that.” Kyle handed over the LATLONG coordinates of the strike zone, and Casanova gave Kyle the mission’s radio frequencies.
“Let’s saddle up,” Casanova said. “The sun is—”
Pop, pop, pop…ping, ding, ding…
Jesus! Bullets…! Ringing off the nearby ambulances. Kyle whirled around. “Max!”
But Max had already hit the deck.
Kyle threw himself on top of her as gunfire continued to rip out.
Pop, pop, pop…
The rubberneckers surrounding the landing pad shouted and scattered.
“What’s going on here?!” Casanova snapped from his belly-down position on the ground. He’d partially face-planted on the way down; the end of his chin was sand-dipped like a vanilla ice cream cone in chocolate syrup.
VD was on the ground, too, doing Cobra Posture with his head partially up, while the two SEALs were pressed against the wall of the medical tent. At the first sound of fire, they’d moved into offensive positions.
Kyle searched outside the fence line, spotting a small group of Pakistani regulars being chased and fired upon by a larger band of Indian soldiers. “A Pakistani-Indian skirmish,” he called to Casanova. “We’re catching stray bullets through the baling wire perimeter.”
The aid station’s Pakistani guardsmen were on full alert, one sentry at the main shack shouting at the oncoming fighters in his own language.
Pop, pop—craaaash! Shattering glass!
“Dammit,” Casanova cursed. “The helos are taking fire. We need to get off the deck.” He got up and ran, crouched over, to his pilot seat.
VD somehow was already back in his aircraft.
The SEAL from Casanova’s aircraft peered around the edge of the medical tent, his Heckler and Koch nestled against his right shoulder. He sighted.
“Do not fire!” Kyle bellowed at the SEAL. Beneath him, he felt Max angle her head sideways so that she could see what was going on.
The SEAL glanced over.
“You’re not cleared hot,” Kyle shouted. “Those men aren’t shooting at us.”
The SEAL narrowed his eyes.
> Fucking hothead. “It’s against ROE34 to fire when you haven’t been fired upon.”
Pop, pop, pop…
The camp erupted in more shouting and running feet.
“Mikey!” Casanova raced back over and lay down next to Kyle. “A bullet took out my copilot’s window, and he caught a face full of glass. Some of it went in his eyes, so he’s down.”
Pop, pop, pop…
Casanova ducked lower. “I need someone to fly the left seat.”
“I’ll do it!” Jobs volunteered as he belly-crawled over to their position.
“Negative,” Kyle barked. Flying the fast-rope op, like Casanova’s part of the mission, was too dangerous. No way was Kyle letting this kid hover over an unknown amount of armed—
“I did a flight exchange with a Sierra squadron,” Jobs said. “I have over forty hours of flight time in that bird.”
“You’re in.” Casanova got to his knees. “Let’s—”
“No,” Kyle bit out.
“I need a co-pilot who knows the Sierra’s weapon systems,” Casanova argued. “I need your man.” He waved Jobs to follow as he crouch-ran back to the aircraft.
Jobs grinned at Kyle. “I’ll be okay, Mikey.” He took off.
Kyle scowled after Jobs. Now the twerp decides to call me Mikey?
“Our boy is growing up,” Max said.
Kyle glanced down at her and exhaled a large breath, the rush of air ruffling her bangs. Having bullets fly while she was around—equals: not fun. He looked back up in time to see the blinded copilot being helped out of the Sierra. A scared-looking orderly led the copilot toward the medical tent while Jobs climbed into the left seat. The two SEALs raced over to their respective helos and jumped into the back of the aircraft. Side doors were slammed closed.
The mission was spooling up.
Kyle shouted to Tarzan, “Get in the aircraft!”
Wings of Gold Series Page 44
