Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers)

by M. L. Buchman

  “Wow! That’s why you never use the manual to fix the chopper. You worked at Sikorsky, so you know every subsystem. Because you can see it.”

  She nodded. Still waiting. Still waiting for the rejection.

  “And the ADAS, you’ve already memorized the plans.”

  Connie blew out a breath. In for a penny… “Not the plans so much, but I can see the whole system and how it fits with all of the others.”

  Again that unfocused gaze aimed off into space somewhere behind her. So intent, she almost turned to look even though she knew the only thing behind her was a lush, burgundy curtain draped over the generous double-paned window she’d spotted when they drove up. It was easy for her to juxtapose the exterior and interior to line up where the windows were in the length of the drape-covered wall.

  John was processing. Juggling pieces into place. Reliving their past conversations in light of this new data. Trying to figure out how to pigeonhole her in some place comfortable for his fragile male psyche. She’d seen it a thousand times or more over the years.

  Then his focus snapped onto her face.

  Her stomach gave an ungainly churn. Here it comes. The dismissive, “you freak” attitude.

  “Does that mean you can’t forget either?” Instead his eyes were filled with compassion.

  “Not much.” It took all the strength from half a decade of Army training to keep her gut tight and her voice steady.

  “The bad parts with the good, huh?”

  She couldn’t answer. No one had showed understanding. Ever. There hadn’t been all that many good parts. Some came to mind. Her father, her instructors, her first flight. And just about every moment she’d spent with John, especially since they’d started flying together just twenty-three days ago. Those memories stood out with near-crystalline perfection.

  He reached out and took her hand. That great warmth wrapped around her chilled fingers. His thumb rubbed over the back of her knuckles.

  “Such a gift isn’t allowed without its downside, I guess.”

  A gift. She’d thought it was someone’s idea of the best way to torture Connie Davis. Never let her forget anything.

  Especially not the pain.

  Chapter 38

  John eyed Connie as he drove them back. There she sat as calm as could be. For a moment, he’d thought that he’d lost her. He’d seen the blast-shield defense clamp down as she spoke of her abilities. There was a lot of hurt, but once again, he didn’t know why. He took her hand, glad his dad drove an automatic these days. He’d wanted to wrap her into his arms and hold her safe, but the connection of holding her hand appeared to work as well.

  Several times during the meal, one or the other had reached out and they held hands as they told tales.

  They’d both steered toward safer topics. And had a great time. She flown nearly every rotorcraft airframe and, once he got her started, was comfortable talking about the differences and changes. In addition to working at Sikorsky, she’d consulted with Bell and worked for a year on the Boeing Chinooks.

  He’d flown with Major Beale for almost a year and Major Henderson before that. They’d flown into and back out of some really serious shit. The kind only another chief mechanic could appreciate. They’d talked long and late over fresh deep-dish apple pie, homemade vanilla ice cream, and decaf.

  But it was still there. He could feel it now, lurking just below the surface. The battle of iron will that always strove within Connie Davis. He suspected that he’d be nothing more than a pile of Jello if he had to live with something inside like that.

  That immense strength that lay hidden along her very bones. Beneath that, an anchoring that hooked right down to the very core.

  He swung left off the highway and into the Sub Park.

  It wasn’t often that no one at all was here, but it was past ten on a chill winter’s night. Not a single car in the whole lot. In summer, the place would be packed with kids and picnics and tourists. He pulled up and stopped, shutting off the engine and just letting their eyes adapt to the bright moonlight. Enjoyed the feel of her hand in his for a moment more before letting go.

  “C’mon.” He slid out of the seat. Headed for her door, but she was down before he could get there.

  They headed into the park.

  He took her hand to steer her to the east of the park building. When he offered to release it, she didn’t let go. He’d walked here holding the hands of many a girl over the years. There’d always be something to say, he’d be telling a story, trying to be entertaining. She’d be talking about some local news. They’d been comfortable walks and talks. The shared excitement of meeting up with a bunch of friends.

  With Connie, it felt as if they’d done this a thousand times. Always walked hand in hand. He could picture them decades from now, still coming here. Still holding hands. It felt so right.

  “That’s a torpedo.”

  It wasn’t like Connie to state the obvious. That meant the surprise of this park was working.

  “Ton and a half. Delivered five hundred and seventy-five pounds of Torpex at thirty-three miles per hour up to three miles out. That means you could have to wait up to six minutes to see if you’d aimed right, hoping no one blew you up in the meantime.” Most of the DAP Hawk’s traveled at supersonic speeds and would cover the same distance in under fifteen seconds.

  She looked up at him, her face etched in the moonlight.

  “Tour guide. Summer job.” His own words sounded drifty. Her beauty in the moonlight simply—

  He leaned in and tasted her mouth. This time she literally tasted of apple pie and vanilla. She also tasted of the promise of summer.

  She leaned into the kiss until his mind was gone. He’d never been kissed like this. She dug her fingers into his neck muscles, holding their lips tight together.

  When at last she pulled back, he stumbled forward.

  He dragged in a breath and fought for rudder control to maintain his upright position. His head was spinning with the power of a simple kiss. What would it be like—

  “Easy there, flyboy.” Connie’s voice was gentle with humor. “Unless you’re planning on dragging me back to the truck, you’d better show me what you brought me here to see first.”

  The truck wouldn’t exactly be his first choice. That’s what kids did. For two grown-ups to manage sex in a truck wasn’t going to be so likely. Not that the idea didn’t have its attraction.

  He leaned in for a light, easy kiss, ready to make a small joke about the potential joys of CQC, a little close-quarters combat in the backseat, but even that momentary brush of lips heated his skin until it flushed hot.

  Giving up on attempts at speech, he held her hand tightly in his and headed forward. He watched her closely, knowing the big surprise would be when they rounded the cherry trees.

  Past the WWII three-inch gun and out onto the brow of the hill.

  He couldn’t have asked for a better setting. The full moon had risen an hour earlier, their breath the only clouds in the night. Moonlight washed the USS Batfish in soft golden light. Three hundred and eleven feet of World War II submarine stretched out before them.

  “Holy shit!” Connie whispered on a breathless gasp. “What’s that thing doing here?”

  “That ‘thing’ is the number one Japanese sub killer of the Second World War. She knocked out three of them in just seventy-two hours. Can you imagine that? Three! That’s a major portion of the number of confirmed sub-to-sub kills in the entire war.”

  “But John,” she waved her free hand helplessly before her, “that’s a submarine. We’re in Oklahoma. And it’s not down in the river, it’s up here in the middle of a park. How?” The river was a trail of moon glitter in the distance.

  He could tell Connie all the details of shifting the Batfish here in 1969. Towing mishaps, the Army Corps of Engineers lowering the river by three feet to get her under a bridge. Digging a huge channel into the middle of the park, then closing it off and pumping it full of water to raise fi
fteen hundred tons of submarine thirty-six feet, and finally dumping all the dirt back in to drive the water out.

  But with Connie, the mechanical wizard that she was, that was a path to a thousand questions, and it would take away from the wonder of the soft moonlight and the aged weapon of war.

  He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Magic.”

  The smell of her overwhelmed him, and he nuzzled her for a moment in that warm cascade of hair over that exquisite neckline.

  “Want to go aboard?”

  “Well, yeah! But it looks closed up.”

  He pulled out Pap’s truck keys and rattled them. “One of the advantages of a parent who heads up the restoration team.”

  Chapter 39

  Connie stepped aboard the Batfish as if it might break beneath her. But the decking was solid. And new.

  “They just finished redecking her, over two hundred feet worth. I helped lay this section here when I was home on leave back in the summer. Isn’t she a beaut? Tomorrow night is sort of her coming-out party.”

  Connie could only acknowledge with a nod. She hadn’t been able to put together a coherent thought since he’d not lambasted her at the dinner table over her unusual memory.

  When he took her hand on the drive back, she’d begun estimating his ability to control the truck if she suddenly jumped him.

  Their kiss at the head of the park had actually made her toes curl in her shoes. Her brain was wrapped in a wild and heady mix of John’s strength and his warmth. And his desire.

  Men had wanted her before. But there’d never been one who couldn’t stop himself around her. John needed to be in constant contact, holding her hand, nuzzling her neck. And what shocked her even more, she was equally eager to be in contact with him.

  Beside her, John was babbling on about seven war patrols and Navy Crosses and Presidential Unit Citations.

  And all she could really hear was her own labored breathing and her heart pounding so hard in her chest it actually hurt.

  At the side of the conning tower, he inserted a key and stepped in through the door. Rather than being cold and dark, the interior was well-lit in the soft red of heat lamps and the air was warm.

  “She’s well enough insulated against the cold sea that we can keep her warm and dry with just a single heat lamp in each compartment. It took a while to figure out that we had to do something to beat the condensation. She gets over a thousand visitors a week in the summer. That’s a lot of people breathing.”

  He led her down a ladder into the control room.

  He kept up his tour guide thing through the bow by describing the Forward Battery and Forward Torpedo Room.

  As they retraced their steps aft, John stopped and turned to her.

  Connie readied herself for another mind-numbing kiss. For a total loss of willpower except the desire to immerse herself in his arms.

  “I just remembered my question.”

  “What?” What was he talking about?

  “The way I figure it, Connie, it simply isn’t right that you know something about my own sister that I don’t. Noreen is the stubbornest person ever born, and you win her over in a day. If not aliens, then it had to be blackmail. What do you have on her?”

  Connie shook her head trying to make sense of how Noreen had suddenly entered the conversation. Nonlinear progression. She knew it was one of her weaknesses, but she’d always had trouble following sudden jumps of topic.

  “Why won’t you tell me? I know it isn’t some wicked use of that amazing memory you’ve got. That doesn’t make sense. It has to be you. You knocked over Paps. Grumps is letting you fix his tractor, which I still can’t believe. Mama Bee is taking your side over mine, and I didn’t even know there were sides. And now Noreen. My whole family is falling in love with you.”

  They were? She’d thought that she blended in well enough. Pretended that she fit in, looked as if she belonged even if she didn’t.

  “How do you make friends so easily?”

  Connie coughed. It was all she could manage. A laugh, a scream, and a horridly tight choking sensation collided in her throat and spilled out in a strangled noise.

  “What? What is it?”

  She turned until she faced back toward the bow of the boat.

  “Connie? You okay?”

  She shook her head. In disbelief. At the sheer unreality of it. The ultimate loner being accused of making his whole family fall for her. It didn’t make sense.

  His hands came to rest gently on her shoulders. In moments his thumbs were digging into her tight muscles.

  “What did I say? I’d apologize, but I don’t know what for.”

  She shook her head again, trying to clear it. “I’m fine. Fine.”

  Blinking hard brought the world back into focus.

  “I’m fine.” She turned to face him, pulling out from beneath his grasp of her shoulders. The concern showed clear on his face. Another emotion she wasn’t used to having aimed in her direction.

  “No, seriously.” She was probably just caught in the blowback of the family’s joy of having John home for Christmas.

  He studied her in doubt, his brow furrowed, his right eye narrowed suspiciously a little more than the left.

  “Really, John. Your family is just being nice because they’re so glad you’re home. Being nice to the stranger you dragged in from the dark. They’re a great family. Really.”

  He still remained undecided.

  “Show me the rest of the boat.” She patted his cheek, then kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’re sweet to think I have some special power.”

  John huffed out a breath and then smiled, a bright, mischievous grin.

  “Didn’t think of that. Maybe you used magic on her. Just like the guys who got a submarine to Muskogee, Oklahoma.”

  “My secret is out.” She winked and he winked back. The tension that had shot into her shoulders and neck eased back out. His family was just being nice to her. She could be comfortable with that.

  Chapter 40

  The engine room really slowed them down. Connie’s questions were more detailed than any tour John had ever led through the belly of the sub. And more insightful. She picked out operational necessities built into the design that clearly indicated failure of prior designs. She saw the evolution of the fuel injectors and air flow, the control systems and the maintenance accesses. She didn’t just have an amazing memory. Even as they studied the ship she reminded him that she was also a damn fine mechanic.

  He led her into the Maneuvering Room, the one guaranteed to strike any mechanic to the core.

  “Oh, my, God.” She stood with one foot still in the engine room and the other straddled through the watertight hatchway.

  One of the smallest rooms in a vessel built of small spaces. Inches weren’t wasted on a sub and this room represented the pinnacle of that design mandate. The overhead pipes barely cleared the top of his head.

  “This room is fully suspended. It’s sprung separately from the rest of the submarine to block vibrations from depth charges. It’s the most heavily protected room on the whole sub.”

  “Of course it is.” Her voice just a church whisper.

  Here was the heartbeat of the sub. The four main engines and the “dinky” fed power into this room, as did the racks of electric batteries while running submerged. Here every decision was made about allocation of power to engines, to battery recharge, to living spaces. Let those in the Control Room think they ran the ship; every mechanic would know that here lay the boat’s true heart.

  “You can still feel it,” her voice barely audible.

  And he could. Forty years perched on an Oklahoma hillside hadn’t changed the truth. The old ship had power.

  Connie moved about the room, inspecting gauges, noticing everything. She jumped up and landed hard on her heels against the steel grates. The lightest shiver through the floor plates showed the tightness and size of the springs. Depth charges must have wreaked unholy hell on the occupants fo
r such stiff springs to make any difference.

  She halted in front of the main control desk. In a room of iron and gray-painted steel, the stainless steel levers shone like a beacon. Connie slid the levers, smiling as he had his first time at the smooth flow of their movement, unchanged in over seventy years.

  “You know, Connie. You’ve been making me feel a bit incompetent.”

  Again that owlishly slow blink. “I have? How? You’re the best chopper mechanic I’ve ever worked with. I learn something new every time I watch you working.”

  That took him aback. He hadn’t imagined the Mechanical Wizard—Mech Wiz for short, as she was starting to be called behind her back at camp, or more often Mechanoid—learned anything from anybody, least of all him.

  “I’m always impressed at the integrity of what you do. Not a single bolt is left uninspected, not a single shortcut is taken.”

  His laugh was automatic. “Would you skip a step with someone like Major Beale at the controls?”

  “Not a chance.” Her smile was a testament to the abuse the Major could unload on a machine. “If it can be overstressed, she’s the woman to do it.”

  John nodded. “You also share her strength. A quiet power. It’s mesmerizing.”

  Her smile bloomed slowly. Growing until it stunned him, until he lost the power of speech.

  “I like being called powerful. I like the way it makes me feel.” She reached out and grasped his jacket’s lapel. She pulled him in, like a sucker at a poker table who just wanted to give all his money to this woman.

  Their lips didn’t meet with bruising urgency as they had before. It was power, but in perfect control. Slow and delicate testing. Her lips, as often as not drawn in a tight line of concentration, were the softest texture he’d ever experienced. As delicate as water, as strong as steel.

  He slipped his hands inside the coat she’d already opened against the warmth of the sub. He held that perfect waist. This time he didn’t fight the urge to slide one hand down the delightful curve of the back of the skirt. The thin fabric barely more than a suggestion between his hand and those tight, tight muscles.