Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers)

by Buchman, M. L.

  He’d once gotten really pissed at a lousy commander in his early days of flight. He’d snuck out and unmounted the pilot’s seat, turned it around, and bolted it back down facing backward. “Not that he’d have noticed the difference, he was that bad. Problem was, he was too sick to fly the next day. That was the first time I met the Viper. He was the substitute pilot.”

  At Lola’s inquiry, he’d finished the story. “All Henderson said was, ‘Either give me a mirror so I can see where I’m going or turn that damn thing around.’ John and I had it back in place before he finished preflight. Flown with him ever since.”

  They’d laughed together. They’d lagged behind everyone else. He’d told her stories of growing up in his family’s restaurant kitchen.

  Tim didn’t push when she declined to fill in the spaces he left for her to offer her own stories.

  Lola compared his upbringing to Mama Raci’s kitchen. Close family and good food versus a nasty, old, black Cajun brothel-owner stingy with the girls—“Mon don’ want ’em plump”—and not much nicer to the customers. “Enough cheap booze and I don’ have to feed no mon much to get der money.”

  But when Lola had finally had the good sense to run away from home, Mama Raci had taken her in. Fed her the same as the working girls, and Lola had paid for it by washing dishes and sweeping the cracked-out linoleum. She’d even had a small room off the kitchen all her own. Way better than living with her criminal father and his creepy buddies always hanging around and eyeing a growing girl. And way, way, way better than joining the bloodthirsty street gangs. That was no way out of anything. It was a trap in the shape of a bottomless pit.

  Lola wandered toward her bunk after the game. Eighty-five dollars would have been a fortune back then. Still nothing to sneeze at.

  Tim left her feeling strange. He’d been easy around her. Made her easy around him. Left her relaxed and forgetful of her differences from all of those around her. Almost made her feel as if she belonged.

  Chapter 6

  “It was weird.” Lola rolled the dice and moved her backgammon marker three and two. Safe.

  “What was?” Tim Maloney sat across the table from her, shaking his dice cup in the nearly empty chow tent. Sitting with Tim Maloney had rapidly become her treat to herself. Ever since the crazy golf game a half-dozen flights ago, he’d dropped the goggle-eyed expression he’d been aiming at her when he didn’t think she was watching. In its wake there remained an amazingly handsome, easygoing guy she enjoyed spending time with.

  Breakfast had been cleared, and most of the base’s personnel had drifted away to do whatever they did. The fliers to kill some time before sleeping through the day. The 160th SOAR was called the Night Stalkers for a reason. They flew at night, slept in the day. The maintenance guys were normal shifters. They worked on the birds—refueling, rearming, and repairing through the day, then sleeping while the crews flew.

  A couple of the Little Bird guys were lingering over coffee. Some Rangers were going back to the line for seconds or maybe thirds, despite the rising heat of the day making the air too oppressive to allow minor considerations like hunger. Rangers were tough; she’d made it through Airborne and Ranger school herself, and she knew how tough they were. But only an idiot kept eating in this heat.

  At the far end of the tent, a group of D-boys sat in their own little world. Even the Rangers were careful to leave them a wide berth. Most of the time. Except every now and then one would go suddenly “Ranger stupid.” Something would go sideways in a Ranger’s brain and he’d choose death by Delta. It was like the idiots who shot at the White House with a .22 trying to arrange suicide by cop. Neither action typically led to actual dying, but in most cases that would have been less painful.

  Weirdly enough, Sergeant Kee Stevenson was over sitting with the D-boys. And that little native kid who always followed in her shadow. D-boys tolerated nobody outside their own circle, but they let the Sergeant, the kid, and her Secret Garden book sit with them.

  Lola had tried talking about Mary and Dickon with the kid. Not much luck with Mother Superior looking over her like Lola would somehow break the child just by speaking with her.

  Tim rolled a four-six. Great. He was about three moves from totally barricading her in.

  She returned her attention to the game and what was really bugging her.

  “I’m a good pilot. Damn good. But flying with Beale…” She shrugged. She had no better words for it.

  Tim had the decency to not laugh at either her statement or the useless one-four she rolled. She could either play safe and make no real progress or play messy and hope he didn’t roll on top of her.

  She played messy, leaving three pieces open. As long as he didn’t roll…

  Double-twos. Crap! He knocked all three of her open pieces back to the bar.

  “I always outflew everyone.” Even her SOAR trainers had given her nothing but praise. Okay, that wasn’t right. They’d insulted her less than anyone else in her class, which was as high as their praise ever rose. But the slick grace and perfect control Major Emily Beale had demonstrated again tonight was at a whole other level. Like Lola was an outsider looking in at something she barely understood.

  She really, really needed double fours to stay in the game. She rattled her dice cup hopefully. Tim’s silence was companionable, inviting her to talk. Men were never easy to be around. They always wanted something, sex usually, or at least dominance of power. Around Tim she felt strangely mellow. He was easy to talk to. No agenda.

  “I had this friend Rikki back when I flew with the Eagles. Best shooter you ever saw. World-class sniper. Then she told me about this Special Forces chick who fired twice Rikki’s normal score. She tried to explain what she saw but couldn’t, didn’t even know what the woman had done that she wasn’t doing. I never understood what she was saying until now.”

  “She say who? Your roll.”

  Lola rolled. Four-six. She moved one piece off the bar and back into the game, but the other two were still blocked by Tim’s pieces. Military snipers were a small world, but she couldn’t remember the name.

  “Smith. Maybe. All I know is some little Asian chick with a weird rifle.”

  “An HK MSG-90A1?”

  Tim doubled-down on her lone piece and bounced her back to the bar.

  “Yeah.” You didn’t forget a weapon like that. “How did you—”

  He pointed over at the D-boys’ table.

  You’d expect a D-boy to be able to shoot like… But there was only one woman at the table. Sergeant Kee Stevenson.

  “Smith was her maiden name.”

  Great. Another damned overachiever. And Big John and Tim had agreed that Connie Davis was a scary-good chief mechanic, even by their own caliber of excellence. She’d signed aboard a flight of goddamned superwomen. Which meant she’d never measure up.

  She rolled again.

  Nothing.

  She was in over her head and getting absolutely nowhere.

  Chapter 7

  “Walk with me.”

  Walk with the Major? Lola wanted to just go stand in the shower and try not to cry as she washed this latest flight off her skin and out of her brain. Seven missions in six days. Tonight they’d gotten back to base barely in time for an emergency extraction call. The second flight had been beyond ugly, pulling broken bodies off shattered hillsides under a fusillade of flying lead.

  With luck maybe she’d be washed right down the shower drain along with the prior evening’s misplaced hopes. She hadn’t killed any friendlies, but she’d come damn close. And she’d wiped out some bad guys, but not enough. Two soldiers had died even as they boarded the choppers that were there to save them.

  But the Major’s “Walk with me” hadn’t sounded like a request.

  Lola set her helmet on the copilot’s seat, wondering if she’d get to fly again. She hesitated, but the Major did
n’t protest her leaving it there. She’d take that as a good sign.

  It was still dark as they left the chopper and moved toward the running track that circled the Bati soccer field. She could feel the others watching her. Well, Sergeant Kee Stevenson, tonight you may get your wish. But Lola had worked too hard for this, even if she wasn’t any longer sure she wanted it. No, she wanted it but didn’t deserve it. If they were planning to be rid of her, they’d have to do it themselves.

  “Hey, Major. Do you—” Crazy Tim came trotting up.

  “Get lost, Mr. Maloney.” The Major’s voice was calm, perfectly polite, and stopped Tim cold in his tracks.

  Nice of him to try and run interference. Too late for that. Lola sent him a look of thanks, wishing she could just curl up against his shoulder and let the shame run out of her. That was weird. Guys were a place you went for sex and entertainment, not for safety.

  He shrugged helplessly as she turned away. Whatever the medicine, Lola was, as usual, on her own and would have to take it.

  She and the Major walked out onto the track, barely visible beneath the stars. The disappearance of the very dimmest stars indicated dawn lay not far off. Continuing around the track, Lola started to worry at the problem. Half a lap and still not a word. Should she speak first? Bite her tongue? Run away screaming?

  By a full lap neither of them had spoken. She glanced toward the helicopter as they came by it and wondered if Tim was still there. If her gear was still there. Or had the Major already assigned someone to pack up all of Lola’s equipment in preparation for shipping her out?

  “Do you want to be here?” The Major’s question was so soft that Lola barely heard it. Almost asked the Major to repeat it, but finally registered the words before she had to ask.

  Lola looked up at the stars and all she felt was exhaustion. Rooted right down into her boots. She didn’t often think about what she wanted. She just kept moving forward. As long as it was new, she was game. Military, flying, helicopters, Special Forces, CSAR, SOAR… It was always the next thing.

  She shrugged, knowing the Major couldn’t see her response. Still far too dark.

  “You’re a damn fine pilot. Maybe as good as I was when I hit SOAR. But we have a problem.”

  A problem? Other than she couldn’t walk or talk or even think? Wait. Something. The Major had said she was a good pilot? No way.

  Major Beale circled back to where Lola had come to a stop without realizing. The sandy soil and uncertain surface threatened to pitch Lola to her knees. When they stood face to face with just a hint of dawn revealing the light oval of Major Beale’s face, though not her expressionless blue eyes, the Major stopped and crossed her arms.

  “I’m your commander. That’s means more than you might think. I need to build a team. One I can trust. Trust without thought. Without consideration. That takes time. Before you and I invest that time, do you want to be here at that level? A hundred percent in with no questions. No doubts. You can’t be any more a little bit SOAR than you can be a little bit pregnant.”

  Lola had faced a lot of tough questions in her life. She’d faced questions that had changed her past and her future. After Mama Raci, the SOAR review boards had been a cakewalk. After Mama Raci, anything was a cakewalk… except perhaps Major Emily Beale.

  She’d struggled so hard to be here. Years of Army, years of SOAR training, and the Major had the gall to ask if she wanted to be here? Lola considered getting angry and lashing out with some vitriolic derision. But when she reached for it, it wasn’t there. Whatever her self-defense mechanism, the Major had triggered something else. The question had raised doubts and fears instead. Something she always tried her best to avoid, but there they were.

  Was she good enough? Lola didn’t know. Strong enough? Sufficiently dedicated?

  “How did you decide?” She didn’t know where she’d found the question or the nerve to ask it. By not giving herself time to think.

  “I didn’t.” Major Beale turned to look up toward the reddening of the eastern sky over the tiers of concrete bleachers that encircled them. Now they stood side by side facing the same canvas of empty sky. The silence stretched around them as infinite as the desert beyond the walls and the sky above. A held breath. In the far distance she could hear the muezzin of Bati calling the faithful to morning prayer.

  “For me it wasn’t a decision. It was simply the only thing that made sense. Flying, SOAR… Mark too. I didn’t think about them. I actually fought hard against the last and best, but thankfully Mark is even more stubborn than I am.”

  Reaching up, the Major unclipped her dog tags and slipped a wedding ring off the chain. She re-latched the clasp and pulled the ring on. Jewelry wasn’t good in flight or a combat situation. Exposed, it could catch light or snag on fabric. It could hurt and cut if you were firing a weapon and the stock jammed against the ring. If your hand needed surgery, they might have to shear the ring… Many soldiers Lola knew didn’t wear rings at all. That the Major did wear one revealed a softer side evident in no other way.

  Lola turned to watch the last stars fading in the morning sky. Shoulder to shoulder with the finest pilot she’d ever seen. With a woman that everyone respected. She wanted that, more badly than she’d thought.

  But what she’d really wanted was to feel what she’d witnessed the first time she’d met Emily Beale. The Major had hovered closer to death than life but had cared more about the safety of her crew than anything else. More than for her craft or herself.

  Now that Lola replayed the memories of that brief meeting, she realized that the Majors had already been married by that time. But the first thing Emily Beale had asked about was her crew.

  Lola wanted to care that deeply. She wanted to care that much about something, about anything. Wanted to care so badly it hurt like an ache around her empty Tin Man heart.

  She blinked her eyes, gone dry with staring at the sky, and turned to the Major.

  But the woman was gone, had left her alone with her question.

  The Major’s answer was clear. Either figure it out, or clear out your gear and get on the next flight to somewhere else.

  Well, Chief Warrant 2 Lola May LaRue knew her answer. Absolutely clear. Five by five. Truly, deeply, even madly.

  Yes.

  The feeling roared into her with a clarity and power she could barely contain.

  For perhaps the first time in her life, she knew exactly where she wanted to be.

  Flying right next to Major Emily Beale.

  Chapter 8

  Tim had lounged in the shadows around Lola’s bird.

  The grapes had come by, the fueling crew in their safety-identifying purple vests. Once they’d cleared, the reds from ordnance had rolled in with cans of 7.62 mm cartridges, Hydra rockets, and rounds for the 30 mm cannon. They’d even checked over the personal weapons hanging in their door clips, though it was clear that the FN SCARs hadn’t been used. He’d hovered in the shadows as they checked the barrels of the miniguns, but no maintenance was needed. Kee and Connie had left theirs as clean as he and John always left their own.

  Once they all left, he set into pacing. He knew something wasn’t right. He just didn’t know how to fix it. When his sister came home from her first high-school breakup, he’d made her laugh through her tears and fed her chocolate ice cream. When his brother had burned himself so badly with hot oil that his whole arm blistered, Tim had been the level-headed one to call the ambulance and keep his mother too distracted to weep, much.

  He could think of a thousand times he and John had…

  For the life of him he didn’t know what was up with Lola LaRue. But he wished he did. Wished he knew how to fix it.

  He glared at her black helmet with the silver fleur-de-lis where it rested on her seat. It wasn’t giving him any answers either. French? So, was she French? Her accent, soft, enticing like a summer breeze, had eluded h
im. Whenever he thought he’d pinned it down, it shifted. As if she didn’t come from anywhere. Had no anchor.

  Tim had an anchor as deep as the ocean. The fact that it had led him to the itinerant Army lifestyle was only one of the many odd turns of his past. But the odd turn that kept bugging him at the moment was how the Major was treating Chief Warrant LaRue.

  Beale had never taken a copilot, or any other crew member, straight into battle before. She’d always given them a week or so in the backfield to settle in. The operational tempo was high, but it wasn’t that fierce. Viper could easily have flown the last two weeks’ forward missions, but instead Major Beale had taken Vengeance and her new copilot straight in.

  He finally spotted Major Beale heading back toward the tents through the soft dawn. Probably gone to change and get some chow. Still no sign of Lola.

  Five minutes later, he leaned back against closed cargo-bay door and started to wonder just how stupid he was for waiting. Who knew what they’d talked about? Maybe Lola went back to the tents down the other side of the bird. The sun cracked enough over the horizon to light the top row of stadium seating, flooding the field with soft reflected light. Maybe just five more—

  Something slammed into him, full on. Not even giving him time to blink or react.

  One instant, standing there…

  The next moment, his breath knocked out of him and Lola leaned hard against him. She clamped his face in her hands as she gave him a smacking kiss.

  She started to pull back, but Tim’s reactions finally kicked in and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back in.

  For a moment, she held back, a breath separating them. Her eyes aglow with a joy he’d not seen before. She’d shifted from merely gorgeous to radiant.

  Lola laid back into the kiss, driving her body against his, kissing him so hard his lips were stinging.