Bring On the Dusk

by M. L. Buchman

  By four o’clock they were aboard a small Cessna charter jet, without cabin attendant. This morning it would have seemed like an unconscionable luxury. Since Emily had helped her fully grasp the scope of what they would have to do, this seemed the least of issues. The six saved hours were well worth the expense, as well as the freedom to continue their planning conference. Actually, those six hours were now crucial to their plans.

  As soon as they were aloft from Edinburgh and the Firth of Forth was pointing their way over the English Channel, they grouped around the small table between the facing leather seats.

  “A helo will meet us at Istanbul to take us out to the ship,” Bill reported. “Ramis made good time and was waiting halfway between Athens and Istanbul. I’ve directed him into the Black Sea. He wanted official orders.”

  “I told him to goose it through the Bosporus and send me a bill.” Trisha knocked back her Coke like it was a shot of whiskey. Red can, caffeinated and with real sugar, Claudia noticed. Trisha was gonna be a wonder to deal with in about twenty minutes—though maybe you couldn’t tell the difference between a hyped-up Trisha and a normal one. “He should actually be through the straits and into the Black Sea before we arrive for our ‘training exercise.’”

  Claudia sent a message to Daniel at the White House to get the orders sent out so that Boyd was covered.

  “The subs are still there.” Michael gave the good news. “My man is pretty sure they’re operational.” He was a hundred percent focused. Hadn’t even greeted her with a soft look, just a sharp nod. Well, Bill and Trisha had been there and they were both in full-on mission mode, which was fine with her.

  Mostly.

  Michael’s blank expression, per typical, didn’t reveal his thoughts. Not per typical, she couldn’t read was going on behind that expression.

  She tried not to picture how Michael’s face would look if she had the news that Emily would be telling her husband in a few hours. It caused a lack of focus that she definitely didn’t have the time or privacy to deal with. So, she shunted aside any private thoughts until after the operation was complete.

  “We have a fifth team member running about ten hours behind us. Let me show you what I’ve come up with.” Claudia began laying out the details. It was still based on what she and Michael had drawn on the sandy beach of North Carolina the night before last. With a couple of exceptional variations that she and Emily had worked out.

  “We need to blame this on somebody, and I think the safest people to blame are the Russians themselves. Here’s how I think we can do this.”

  Once through the plan, and after a few more refinements were suggested, the excitement rose in the plane. Led by Trisha, even Bill and Michael were soon cautiously optimistic.

  Without specific details of how she’d come by them, Emily had showed Claudia the bullet wound in her arm, mentioned another in her butt, and told of a third black-in-black after which both Dusty James and Archie Stevenson had spent three months in the hospital, and another when her copilot had been shot and killed.

  Claudia had done everything she could to prepare, but she couldn’t help watching the sky through the small window of the jet. The sun was setting beyond the layer of clouds below them that hid most of Central Europe. By this time tomorrow, they’d be committed and the only way out, for any of the team that survived, would be through.

  Chapter 22

  Daniel Darlington had found another F/A-18 to launch Kara Moretti from New York. She arrived in Istanbul an hour ahead of them, and then they all bundled aboard a Eurocopter AS532 Cougar of the Turkish Air Force.

  “Exercise,” Claudia had said, cutting off the others’ eagerness to explain the situation to Kara. “Sorry to pull you just for this, but you know Army thinking.” Even though there was no way they’d be overheard, she wasn’t going to risk it.

  “It’s all good.” Kara pronounced it “gud” in her soft Brooklyn-Italian accent. “Carlo, he gets these ideas. This gave me an excuse, you know, to be nice about the fact that none of his ideas were ever gonna happen. Just because he’s now this hotshot opera singer, he thinks I’m gonna fall for the same lines that didn’t work on me in high school. But he’s a friend, so I wanted to let him down nice.”

  Claudia could appreciate that some man would keep trying year after year. Kara had inherited whatever Italian genes made her long, dark, and slender. She was a knockout who had clearly just KO’d an opera singer.

  Kara also showed, with the simplest of glances, that she wasn’t buying for a second that a Navy Hornet had flown her straight through from New York with two midair refuels just to deliver her to an exercise.

  Trisha was chatting up the pilots the moment they were aloft. SOAR had at least one helicopter of almost every type, either at Fort Campbell or down at Mother Rucker, as Fort Rucker Army Aviation Center for Excellence was known. The instructors there definitely lived up to their brutal reputation. This let Army fliers, especially SOAR, constantly test the capabilities of any heli-aviation opponents they were likely to meet. And every pilot made sure to get type-certified in anything they were likely to need to “borrow” in an emergency.

  But the occasional training flight didn’t equal continuous experience in type, so Trisha charmed the pilots with her usual cheerful manners and a bit of flirting and was soon getting the down-and-dirty on the Cougar’s strengths and shortcomings from men who flew her for a living.

  Claudia spent the thirty-minute flight to the north of the Bosporus doing her job: worrying.

  They were aboard the Peleliu by midnight. She set Trisha to unpacking and checking their helicopters. Bill and Michael went off to prepare their assault packages. Meanwhile, she and Kara took over a corner of the empty mess hall and began working through the details.

  The Gray Eagle UAV could be aloft for forty hours without refuel, thirty-six hours of it on station from the U.S. airbase at Incirlik in southern Turkey. It took some fussing to decide which packages to place aboard. A pair of Hellfires—in case a heavy hit was needed—were an obvious choice, but most of the UAV’s mission would be intelligence and tracking, so they went with only two of the four possible missiles to instead load up heavier sensing gear.

  With Kara’s advice, Claudia selected a day-and-night video package as well as high-resolution, static image capture. Rather than trust the sporadic coverage of low-orbit satellites, they loaded a communications-relay package that could feed directly from the helicopters to Kara even on-site.

  Claudia considered an ASW—antisubmarine warfare—set of sensors, but as she hoped to have the only submarine operating in the area, they left that off to save weight. In addition to a signals intelligence package to intercept any radio communication, they also selected a broadband ELINT—ELectronic INTelligence—package just in case other coded communication was occurring. A small radio-jamming set would back up the one Trisha was installing on the May.

  The last piece was a second drone, a small ScanEagle with only one package, a communications relay. The Gray Eagle could operate either line-of-sight or through a satellite. To keep their signal isolated and wholly in their control, they needed the second bird aloft because the Gray Eagle would be flying both beyond the Caucasus Mountains and the curvature of the Earth. Kara would loft the ScanEagle UAV to circle high above the Peleliu as a relay.

  For foreign communications, if there had to be any, they were well set. Michael and Claudia both spoke Russian, though his was far better. Trisha had Persian, which would cover most of the Iranian communications, and had been learning Azerbaijani. It was a rare Special Operations operative who didn’t have a minimum of two or three languages under their belt—at least well enough to monitor communications…and always enough to curse fluently.

  But Trisha seemed to inhale languages for sport, like Archie Stevenson. Southwest Asia was a massive hodgepodge of languages, and Trisha seemed determined to grind her way through them
all, forcing Bill to learn some of each as she went through them. They’d considered bringing aboard a specific translator, but Trisha had insisted she was up to the task as long as they weren’t doing any peace negotiations.

  “No, not peaceful ones,” Claudia had assured her.

  By sunrise, Claudia had Kara squared away. She found Trisha at the Little Birds and clearly fussing enough for both of them, which was a bit of a relief. Claudia had too much worrying of her own to do and was glad to leave this part of it to Trisha.

  “One can is full.” Trisha thumped on the ammunition can for the port-side minigun. “I pulled out the can for the other gun when I dropped off the other mini so there’s enough space for the amount of gear Billy said they’d need. So, on both your and my helicopter’s four hard points I’ve got: a seven-rocket Hydra launcher, a minigun, an extended-range fuel tank, and a pair of Hellfires. I think that’s the best rig for this trip. I double-checked the math, and no matter how we cut it, we need the extra fuel tank. But I was thinking, if we planned on refueling on the way out as well, I really think that we don’t need two of them.”

  Claudia inspected the setup and liked it. Several times they’d discussed which weapons to sacrifice in order to mount the second external tank. Not knowing much of the scenario they were entering, they hadn’t found a happy choice. Trisha had found a way for them to keep some of each type of weapon.

  “Well done, Trisha. Really well done.”

  They’d high-fived in the morning light, Trisha’s face aglow with excitement. No matter what Claudia had initially thought, she now understood she had a true friend there. All she had to do was survive this mission and she might actually start feeling as if she belonged in the 5D. She headed off to find Michael and Bill.

  They were in the Delta equipment locker, a small but impressively stocked ten-by-ten-foot space way at the stern of the ship. It was filled with everything from crowbars to sniper rifles—just the sort of room any growing boy dreamed about when he was playing superhero. Radios, hand-launchable drones, several sizes and styles of parachutes, and breathing gear for underwater as well as for high-altitude parachute jumps… It was a dizzying array of cool toys.

  From it, Michael and Bill had assembled assault packages that would bury a normal human. Closed-loop scuba gear so they wouldn’t leave a trail of bubbles, an array of explosives from lead-sheath door-breaching charges to blocks of C4 for punching large holes through thick steel, and even items that Claudia didn’t recognize but was too tired to ask about. Each D-boy also had two handguns, a combat rifle, and a sniper rifle with large stocks of ammunition.

  “Uh, food and water, guys?”

  Bill smiled up at her and dangled something the size of a small fanny pack: room for two water bottles and a handful of energy bars. She supposed that he was right. If it went well, they’d be in and out between tonight sunset and sunrise thirty-six hours later. If it didn’t go well, there’d be little time to eat.

  * * *

  Michael knew what he had to do, but he couldn’t stop watching Claudia. He so enjoyed observing the way she moved, the way she thought. As she tried to solve the puzzle of this mission, her tenacity and clear vision had shown through in the way she thought calmly, step by step, without being boxed in by the protocols of her Marine Corps past. He wanted to tell her how proud he was of her…if he could think of how to do it without sounding stupid.

  By the time they finished a full-gear review, she was clearly weaving on her feet again from lack of sleep. He appreciated her as a leader though, in the way she’d retained focus and was willing to go through the process with them.

  She was the one who came up with the idea of phase packages. What if, she’d asked, he and Bill rearranged the gear so that they’d use one package to liberate the submarine and then drop any of that particular package they didn’t use by the wayside? Then the next package for the fishing boat attack and so on.

  It was a different arrangement than he would normally use, arranging the gear by category. But this mission was going to be a long haul. They’d be exhausted by the end of it, assuming they were still alive, and with this arrangement their load would lighten with each successive step of the operation. It was innovative and he should have thought of it himself.

  “You need to get some sleep.” They were the first words he’d been able to speak directly to her since her arrival, since the Edinburgh pub really. And they sounded lame and pointless even to his own ears.

  She’d slid down to sit with her back against the one open bit of wall in the Deltas’ equipment locker. In most situations, the Delta team would return to Fort Bragg between missions to reevaluate, restock, and move on to the next assignment.

  With the 5D, one mission led to the next. So they had supplied themselves with an arsenal. Lieutenant Commander Ramis would have a stroke if he realized how much weapons-grade material was sitting so close to his hull. It was all safely inert except if there was a direct hit from a big shell. But if someone wanted to sink the Peleliu from the inside, they could do so from right here.

  “I’m fine,” Claudia mumbled from where she was curling up against a case containing one of the PSG1 sniper rifles.

  Michael exchanged a look with Bill that informed him this was Michael’s duty. Of course it was. He pulled the last strap on his reloaded field pack and tipped it against the doorjamb.

  “I’ll be back for this in a minute.”

  “Take your time, Michael.” Bill’s easy grin didn’t sit well with him, but he turned to deal with Claudia. Easier to think of her that way.

  He coaxed her to her feet and managed to get her aimed the right way down the corridor. She made it about ten feet to the first junction and then looked around, dazedly seeking a clue as to where she was. Not many came all of the way aft to the pyrotechnic stowage at the very stern of second deck. It was as far from everything critical as possible just in case there was an accident. At this rate she was going to walk into the machinery pit for the aircraft elevator and never be seen again.

  Moving to her, he placed a hand on her elbow and gently guided Claudia toward her quarters in the bow. It was a long eight-hundred-foot trek. The warmth of her skin tingled along his fingers, reminding him of that first walk when he’d led her to her cabin after Yemen.

  She also evoked warm beaches and tall trees. Her scent of moonlight and mystery—so unexpected in a woman so fair—told more of the story: the archer beneath the trees; the woman with eyes closed and standing in the desert with her arms rising unconsciously as if she could fly; her hair now fluttering behind her, brushing his face as it caught even the slightest breeze.

  He tried to close himself to it all, but he couldn’t. So instead, he opened himself to it all the way. He drank her in as he guided her forward. Stored her away in his own deepest lockers where the memories would lie safe.

  At her door, he stopped and let her continue to the bed. Unlike last night, which was almost two days ago now, he did not undress her and tuck her in.

  Claudia stopped, half a step from collapsing onto the bed, and turned to look at him. The question was clear in her eyes. No need for an invitation, rather surprise that he wasn’t simply joining her.

  “You need to sleep.”

  This time, he didn’t even wait for her to collapse onto her bunk. He merely closed the door quietly and began the long trek back.

  Chapter 23

  Claudia woke quietly but the peace didn’t last long. She was on top of her sheets, wearing the clothes she’d put on forever ago…aboard the Gulfstream maybe? She’d also woken alone with little memory of how she’d arrived, but she was in her quarters aboard the Peleliu. By her watch it was one hour to sunset and mission launch. She grabbed a shower and pulled on her flight suit.

  One thing was clear as she tightened the covers of the bed she’d never climbed into—she’d slept alone. How had that happened? She hadn’t s
lept alone in weeks. It felt so right to sleep with Michael that it seemed to her they always slept together. Missing him was jarring.

  Deal with it, Claudia. And she would. That’s what life with Michael would be like. One or the other of them would disappear on a mission for a week or a month with no notice and no ability to communicate once on the mission. It’s just how it would be. But it would be worth it.

  Well, this was one of those times when she needed to focus.

  Fifty minutes to launch. Her first stop was the weather office up on the communications platform at the base of the main structure. The aerological officer assured her of several days of “spring typical” weather for her “exercise”—a high overcast with a low chance of rain. About perfect. Moonrise, if it was visible, would be a crescent around oh-three-hundred hours. Next stop was to see Lieutenant Commander Ramis who was at his desk in the flight-deck-level office where that first briefing on Somalia had occurred forever and a month ago.

  “Good evening, Captain Casperson.” He offered her the coffee that her body was craving and waved her to a seat. She grabbed a handy blueberry muffin as well. “We have reached the eastern end of the Black Sea. New territory for me, I can assure you. Always a pleasure to see some new terrain. Nice set of mountains there in the distance, I must say. Too bad we can’t go climb them. The Sochi Winter Olympics of 2014 were held just over the horizon to the northwest. Would have enjoyed seeing that. Are you a fan of figure skating, Captain?”

  “I’m more of a Summer Olympics person, sir.”

  “Right. You grew up in the desert. Used to ride if I recall.”