“There wasn’t anyone behind the wheel!”
“Maybe the driver passed out.” He shielded his eyes from the heat with his arm and peered through the passenger window. “There could also be somebody else in the car, maybe in the back.”
She inched forward carefully. “I’ll check the back. You get the front.”
Jill moved in closer. Heat from the flames scorched her skin. She peered through the jagged broken glass into the backseat. “Empty.”
Mason backpedaled from the front. “No one here either. Let’s clear the hell out.”
He hooked a hand around her elbow and yanked her alongside as he hoofed it to the clustering crowd. His vise grip nearly lifted her from the pavement as he propelled her until they stopped by a lamppost.
Jill sagged against the cool metal, gasping for air. “How could no one be in the car?”
Mason scratched the back of his close-shorn head, favoring one foot by bending his knee. “The little green men sure are busy lately.”
“Not funny. Terrorism?”
“Honest to Pete, I’d rather it be the little green men.” He nodded toward the approaching security police. “Either way, you and I aren’t going to be saying good-bye anytime soon after all.”
Watching Jill wrap up her statement to the security cop, Mason didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he didn’t like it.
Somebody had drawn a bull’s-eye on his back, and Jill Walczak had almost been caught in the crossfire.
He didn’t believe in coincidence or even a funky notion of fate. Facts told him he’d nearly been killed three times in two days. Somebody was gunning for him, and he had no idea who or why. Yet.
The security cop tucked away his PDA, crisp camos, and blue beret attesting to his attention to detail. “That’ll be all for now, ma’am, but we may be calling you again for more information. You caught a lot of important nuances that could be helpful in figuring this out.”
Jill nodded, her ponytail swishing. “That’s my job, too.”
The cop nodded. “I’ll be in touch if I have any questions.”
Yes, they definitely would be speaking again sometime soon. But first Mason needed to check in at work. Factoring in his top secret mission into any suspicions could be tricky.
She turned to Mason, a frown wrinkling her brow. “I guess this is it then.”
Maybe. Maybe not. That depended on how his instincts about this latest incident played out once he’d checked in with his boss. “Thanks again for saving my ass out in the desert.”
She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by the growl of a poorly tuned engine. His instincts already on alert, Mason tensed.
Jill smiled. “My ride.”
He turned quickly to look. What kind of man would she be drawn to? A vintage Mustang convertible rumbled toward them, but not the beloved kind of vehicle kept in pristine condition and housed in a garage. This old Ford, top up, sported a dirty, torn roof and blue paint sun faded out to dull silver. If he wasn’t mistaken, the hood was spotted with an abundance of bird poop.
The brakes squealed as the Mustang slid to a stop. The driver’s side door creaked open, and cowboy boots hit the ground. With a duster and a panama hat, the guy wouldn’t be missed in a crowd.
His face wore the desert-weathered look of man around sixty. Probably not a boyfriend. This must be her father.
Not that it mattered who he was.
The driver cruised to a bowlegged stop beside Jill. “What the hell trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, girl?”
She stepped in for a quick hug. “Thanks for the sympathy.”
“You don’t like sympathy.” He kept an arm around her neck and rubbed his knuckles against her scalp. “Glad the aliens didn’t scoop you up.”
“Me, too.” She leaned into the hug for a second before stepping back. “Phil, this is Sergeant Mason Randolph. Mason, meet Phil.”
Mason thrust out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
The old character thrust out his hand to shake. “Yost. Phillip Yost. But you can just call me Phil.”
He shook hands with . . . Yost? “Yost?”
But Jill’s last name was Walczak. Shit. Was she already married to someone else? He hadn’t even considered that possibility. Dumb ass. His skin felt too tight for his body. He absolutely never messed with another man’s wife, an unbreakable rule.
“I’m her uncle, in case you were wondering.”
“An honorary uncle, actually,” Jill hooked arms with Phil Yost, “but I don’t think about it, except for those times other people notice.”
Yost’s smile glistened as brightly as the shark tooth dangling from the black cord around his neck. “No need to get fired up, Gingersnap.”
Mason couldn’t resist. “Gingersnap?”
She scowled. “Say it once more, and you’ll be eating sand again, Sergeant.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a half salute. She got hotter by the second.
“Good-bye, Sergeant.” Presenting him firmly with her back, she walked toward the rusting Mustang.
Damn, she had sass to her ass that matched her ornery personality. She’d almost been “slimed” into a genetic mutant and run over by an alien-possessed car in the span of about thirty-six hours, and she didn’t even seem fazed. His ex—most of the women he’d dated—would have been totally freaked. Hell, most of the guys he knew, too. He had to admire that.
Mason looked at the sedan, smoke still rising after the fire department had doused the flames. The heat simmered low now, like the insidious sting in his leg where the rope burn still ached a reminder of how life could catch you unaware in a flash.
Rex Scanlon gunned it down the squadron main hall.
He’d made it past the one-year anniversary of his wife’s death and even made it into the squadron early the next day. Time to turn the page and move on. Too bad somebody had forgotten to inform the yearlong knot in his chest to go away once he’d placed the flowers on Heather’s grave last night.
He would work past it just as he’d done every day since his wife’s death. Rex ushered the two Predator crew members into the small briefing room where three of his crewdogs waited. While both the chemical test and the hypersonic jet mission were tasked by his squadron, they shouldn’t have come anywhere near each other that night. But thank God his spy drone crew had been slated to gather data. Now they were able to provide extra visuals on Mason Randolph’s landing.
Most of the time, juggling so many diverse test projects could be a headache. This time, it had worked to their advantage.
In the briefing room, pilots Vince “Vapor” Deluca and Jimmy “Hotwire” Gage were giving Mason hell over the rolling car incident.
Vince leaned his elbows on the long table and gestured with a doughnut. “So, my brother, you get tired of testing airplanes and switch to remote control cars?”
Mason rocked back in his rolling chair. “Seems damn dumb to run myself over.”
Jimmy cracked his knuckles. “Ah, but you got to save the girl while going all macho for her.”
Mason held up his hands, scraped and raw. “I can think of much better ways to catch this woman’s eye that wouldn’t involve blistering my skin while checking out a burning car. Besides, she’s a cop, one of those sneaky camo dudes. She can pretty much save her own ass.”
“Good point,” Jimmy said. “Women appreciate it when you recognize they’re strong, too.”
“Camo dude?” Vince paused chewing his glazed jelly doughnut.
Rex cleared his throat. Mason’s chair creaked upright as the three men stood.
“At ease.” Rex gestured for Werewolf and Gucci, two other aviators from his top secret squadron, to follow him inside. The small conference room was filled with a long table, cushioned chairs for comfort during long-ass meetings, and a TV/DVD combo mounted into the ceiling for videos and telecoms. “We’re including the pilot and sensor operator from the Predator flying during the incident.
I thought they could shed some light on the whole accident, since they watched from a bird’s-eye view.”
He didn’t even want to consider what kind of hell this squadron would have been going through if Mason had died in that in-flight accident or on the ground from overexposure to a blister agent burning up the inside of his lungs. This squadron had experienced some close calls over the past year and a half he’d been in charge, but he’d never lost a plane or a man. Even thinking about the possibility made him itchy. Stats told him he’d covered all his bases, then covered them again until he couldn’t remember what sleep was beyond a catnap.
He couldn’t think of anything else to double-check. But he’d learned long ago there was more art than science to this job.
Werewolf clapped Mason on the back. “Glad to see the Ghostbuster mobile didn’t take you out this morning.”
Gucci took her seat. “Any word on that incident, Colonel?”
Rex stepped behind the podium while everyone else settled in a place at the long table. “There are no terrorist groups claiming responsibility as of yet, and the security cops said there wasn’t a bomb present. The engine itself exploded. The vehicle was simply one of the remote models we use in range testing.”
Werewolf pressed, “Those aren’t supposed to drive willy-nilly around populated areas. What was it doing in a congested hospital parking lot?”
“The SPs are questioning a sergeant from transportation about that as we speak. He has all the paperwork in order for parking it there last night, complete with the proper authorizing signatures.” Rex scratched behind his neck, right over the kink twisting tighter by the second. “Apparently it started driving when there was some kind of brief power outage.”
Mason straightened in his chair. “Except?”
Rex gave up on the knotted muscle. Again. “The major who supposedly signed the order couldn’t possibly have done so, given he was playing putt-putt with his kids.”
Werewolf held up his hands. “Okay, hold it right there. Who the fuck gets time off to play putt-putt with their kids these days? That’s reason enough to make me suspicious of the guy.”
Vince thumped him on the back. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, my brother.”
“But we’re talking putt-putt here,” Werewolf said, as if describing a week on a Caribbean beach.
What a sorry state when they started jonesing over the possibility of a free day to play miniature golf. They loved the job, believed in the mission, but there just weren’t enough people to complete all the test projects in a regular forty-hour workweek. If they didn’t do it, it didn’t happen, which meant more people could die overseas because they didn’t have the best equipment. Deployments would last longer with less efficient options. More civilian casualties could rack up when even one was already unacceptable.
And he wasn’t talking about just the best planes or tanks or intel, but biochem gear, flak jackets, weapons. This list was long and far from complete.
So yeah, dreaming about sunscreening up with a hot date on the beach would have to be put on hold for now. They couldn’t dream bigger than an evening away at a two-bit park, and he couldn’t afford to feel guilty about overworking his people.
“Gentlemen and ma’am.” Rex gripped the edge of the podium. “I’ll do my best to schedule our next squadron brief at a putt-putt palace or perhaps even a water park. Now, can we get back to the business at hand? We don’t have answers on the crashed car today, and I’m afraid we’re not going to get top priority from the security police on that. They’re maxed out working with local authorities on the whole Killer Alien scare.”
The room went silent. No smart-ass comments ricocheted around now. Three killings linked to the base was nothing to laugh about. “If we’re done with jokes, we need to debrief the in-flight incident and see what we can put together from what others observed.”
Vince scrubbed a hand along his shaved head. “Boss, there really isn’t much to say. I reviewed the telemetry data, and we were within fifty feet of the planned altitude and only a tenth of a Mach under speed.”
Jimmy leaned forward, fists clenched. “The winds were well within limits, too. If the PhDs remembered to carry all their naughts and whatnot, then this should have gone like clockwork. Right, Vince?”
“Roger that. We finished up our quick-look report, and it has all the numbers in there. The problem has to be either bad math from the eggheads or some kind of equipment failure. The contractors are going over the aircraft inch by inch to try to find a point of failure. It’s a hurry-up-and-wait game.” Vince spread his hands and sighed. “Basically, sir, all we’ve got for you is a heaping helping of jack shit.”
Rex pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, then tucked them in place again. “Sergeant, do you have anything to add?”
Mason stood again. “Now that I’ve had time to deslime my brain, some things have come to mind worth noting. The camo dude—Jill Walczak—wasn’t cruising the perimeter. She was miles deep into Area 51.”
Rex glanced down at the chart for referencing. “Not unheard of or out of her jurisdiction, but certainly unusual.” Still . . . “It wouldn’t hurt to look into what she was doing there.”
“That’s what I was thinking, sir.”
“Especially in light of next week’s gathering. Anything else?”
“Well, sir, actually, there is.” Mason hesitated briefly before continuing, “I don’t want to sound paranoid, but it sure seems like I have a bull’s-eye on my back with the in-flight incident, the blister agent scare, and a car gunning for me, all in two days. My gut tells me something’s wrong.”
Rex searched the sergeant’s face for signs of stress and just found hard frustration. “I can see why you would feel that way. There’s a lot of luck and gut that goes into this job. It bears listening to when the mojo’s not with you.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“I can always get another loadmaster for the final two flights before the big show.”
Mason’s shoulders went back defensively. “No, sir. I’m fine. I simply thought the coincidence worth mentioning.”
“Absolutely. It’s always better to talk through all scenarios. With that in mind, let’s see what our Pred buddies can bring to light.”
The Predator pilot popped a DVD into the player. “This is all the footage we caught. We can’t look up, of course, so we didn’t see our man Smooth until he drifted into view.”
Rex had already reviewed the footage in his office, but even so, seeing Mason lose it when he’d thought his crew died hit him in the gut all over again. Even stalwart Jimmy Gage cleared his throat.
Vince leaned over and gave Mason an exaggerated goofy-ass hug. “Love you, too, my brother.”
Low laughter eased the tension. Rex fast-forwarded to footage of Mason and the lady cop getting hosed down by the hazmat team, which, as expected, stirred the laughter louder.
Werewolf clutched his gut, chuckling. “Nice boxers, dude.”
Jimmy leaned toward Mason. “When does she get to meet your parents?”
Mason stayed quiet for once.
Vince popped the last of his doughnut into his mouth. “Sheesh, somebody is touchy.”
Rex let their ribbing play out for a few minutes, a part of the whole squadron unity he used to be a part of before rank and position separated him. “Nice to know you take your work so seriously, gentlemen—and ma’am.”
Gucci held up her hands in self-defense. “Don’t lump me with these bozos, sir.”
“Understood.” Rex shut down the video feed and wrapped up the meeting. As the aviators filed out, he gestured for Mason to stay behind. “How are you doing physically?
“Not too bad sir.” Mason subtly shifted his weight to one foot. “Sore, but otherwise okay.”
“How’s your cranium? You want to talk to someone?” This kind of near death experience could mess with a flier’s head long-term if they didn’t sort it out up front. The air force had first-rate shrinks on sta
ff with specialized training. “I’ll set that up. I think in your position, I might want to hash through a few things with a neutral third party. Get away from all this macho bullshit and spill it.”
Mason’s jaw jutted. “Is this because of what I said about the bull’s-eye?”
“I would say the same to anyone.” True enough.
“I think it’s all good with me. I may be checking my six o’clock a bit more often, but I’m not ready for a straitjacket yet.”
“All right, but I will ask again.” No doubt Mason was worried about admitting any perceived weakness impacting his career. It would take a while for all the new views on the acceptability of getting help to soak through the ranks. “You can be sure there is no foul from my view if you take me up on that offer.”
“Thanks sir, I appreciate the concern, but that kind of help is for people who’ve been through something like Chuck.” Mason shifted the weight off his injured ankle. “I tried to stop by and see him before I left the hospital, but I heard he checked out. How did he seem when you saw him?”
“He seemed good. He said something about his physical therapist being a real sadist, but apparently the guy worked a miracle, since Chuck is out of the hospital.”
“That’s great. Really great. Hopefully you won’t have any of us to visit at the hospital again.”
God, he hoped that was true. “And this camo dude cop you spent the past couple of days with in there, what’s your take on her?”
“Tough, professional . . . prickly.”
“Guards from her unit are supposed to patrol the border of Area 51 and stop overeager tourists from trying to sneak in. You were well past the border.”
“She said she saw me parachute in and came to help.”
Mason’s recounting sounded logical. Still, something seemed off. “It was mighty damn dark, which makes me think she must have been close to see you. What do you think could have been her real motive?”
“My guess? She’s pulling extra duty like most cops around the base, tightening up security before next week’s big show. Then there’s the serial killer scare.”
Or she could have been snooping. “It’s tough to tell sometimes if we’re following an instinct or paranoia. It’s best to err on the side of our intuition.” Something he’d learned the hard way when he hadn’t listened to his gut a year ago when they’d shouted at him to spend time with his wife. “You’re the logical choice to check out a bit more information on Jill Walczak.”
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