Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers)

by Buchman, M. L.

“Sure did,” John shot back. “With the purtiest lady ever married a fool like me. Left her sleeping sweet. She’s even cuter when she’s asleep.”

  Not getting any wasn’t Tim’s problem. He switched to the other foot. He’d gotten plenty, far more than he’d expected. The problem was he’d also gotten far more than he’d bargained for.

  He’d gotten Lola LaRue on the brain. She traveled down his bloodstream, pumping him up for even thinking of her. Her scent, which he could still savor in memory despite a hot and later a cold shower, was burned more clearly on his memory than his mama’s sofrito. The taste of Lola’s skin had cleared his palate of a desire for any other flavor. And her skin. The impossibly smooth sheath to those magnificent muscles.

  She fit against him. His hands had always seemed overlarge and clumsy, until he’d wrapped them around her. There they fit perfectly. He was gettin’ plenty—too much.

  He hadn’t even noticed that John had dropped his weights on the hook and sat up beside him.

  Tim continued to stare straight ahead, trying desperately to erase the image of her easy smile that slipped crookedly across a face that would have been too perfect with a standard smile.

  “You’re kiddin’ me, man.” Big John leaned in to look at him even closer. “Kidding. Right?”

  Tim didn’t answer. Couldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be that obvious.

  “Oh shit.” John picked up a couple of thirties to do some reverse curls, more to keep his hands busy than anything else.

  “What?” Tim still didn’t look over.

  “Like Archie, man. It’s all over you. You remember?”

  Couldn’t forget. Lieutenant Archie Stevenson had been all cool and collected Bostonian upper crust. He’d flown with Beale since the beginning, since before the beginning, all the way back to West Point. But it had all evaporated the day he met Sergeant Kee Smith from the streets of LA, the wrong side of those streets.

  “No way.” Tim had not done that with Chief Warrant LaRue. Whatever her past, she was so out of his league. He hadn’t pulled an Archie and fallen in love at first sight. But he had. If not love, the most damn serious case of lust John had ever run into.

  “You couldn’t stand Connie when you met her.” Tim needed to push back some, build a safety zone.

  “Nope.” John sounded cheerful as could be. “She made this dumb Okie completely nuts. So beautiful and so friggin’ smart. But once I got past that…” His shrug was eloquent.

  Tim didn’t need to bother pointing out that neither of them was stupid. They’d both made SOAR and that took some serious moxie. But John was right. His wife operated in a whole other world, like eighteen levels above mere mortals.

  “But she fell for a big slab of meat like you.”

  “She did.” John tossed down the thirties, which landed on the packed sand with a heavy thump, and picked up some fifties. His first flyaway almost tagged Tim in the chest.

  Tim slid back on the bench until his shoulders rested against the barbell, well out of John’s way. He hadn’t gotten all stupid about a woman. He’d only traded some of the finest heavy-petting sex of his life with a superior officer against the side of a military attack helicopter in the middle of a secret U.S. Army air base during broad daylight.

  “Well, I don’t have that for Chief Warrant LaRue.”

  John just laughed and kept flapping the dumbbells up and down through the air like the goddamn giant goose that he was.

  ***

  Lola remained where she’d come to a stop in the tent, her right shoulder against a stack of supply crates, just around the corner out of sight from Tim and John.

  Nobody ever “had it” for Lola LaRue, and that’s exactly where she wanted to be. She knew her body drove some men kinda nuts and that was just fine. If she was in the mood, she welcomed them, other times not so much. When they got too persistent, well, she wasn’t a soldier for the fun of it. Okay, not only for the fun of it.

  She closed her eyes and thumped the side of her head against the crates, lightly, so they wouldn’t hear her.

  She knew she wasn’t that kind of woman.

  Emily Beale had found her everlasting joy with a man as terrifyingly skilled as herself, Viper Henderson. Apparently the woman without a call sign had one, but nobody dared use it for fear of the lightning-fast repercussions. When she was known to be out of earshot and gunshot, and perhaps general geographic region, the name “Viper-Bitch Beale” was bandied about in whispers. Bandied about with the absolute highest respect. The toughest woman any of them had ever met, without a single moment of macho bravado. No one ever even tried “Vipress” in her presence, just Major.

  Big John and Connie made some sense, both wizard mechanics, even if he was twice her size.

  Archie and Kee and the little Uzbekistani girl made no sense at all. Weird-ass family: Boston rich, Los Angeles bitch (not in a good way), and war orphan. Lola had tried to make nice with Kee over food in the chow tent, which had gone absolutely nowhere. Her husband too distracted by the little orphan’s antics to pay even the slightest attention. Kid was pretty damn cute, hard not to notice that, even while her mom was trying to roast Lola over some imaginary fire. Wouldn’t put it past her to set up a good old Creole barbecue if Lola were the long pig on the spit.

  And now here she stood, her aching head leaning against a stack of cases of, Lola looked, potato chips, with trail mix on the other side. The fourth woman of SOAR and here she stood lost among the snack foods. Well, she’d come to fly, not to make happy noises with the first flyboy she ran into.

  She turned back out into the sun, feeling even more restless than when she’d arrived.

  ***

  “Mad dogs and Englishman.”

  The new flying lady jumped as if Dilya had poked her with a sharp stick when she stepped out of the tent and into the sun.

  “It what my dad says when people are walking around in the sun when they supposed be sleeping.”

  “Where is your father?”

  She pointed toward their tent. “He with The Kee. I think they want to try make more baby.”

  “Too much information, kid.”

  Dilya wondered how a girl could have too much information. She loved to learn. She shrugged to show she didn’t understand, but the lady did not explain.

  “I go for walk around spindly thicket.” Dilya squinted against the sun to see the woman’s face, but it was clear she didn’t understand.

  “Spindly thicket, like Pooh ther Bear, him that kind of bear. With Piglet?” She stopped and tried to think of more words, more English words. The Kee had said that spindly thicket was like tall pointy bushes all in a clump. So, when The Kee and the Professor Archie looked at each other that way they did, Dilya went for a walk among the helicopters, all tall and pointy, and felt better too because she was like Pooh. She often wished she had a Piglet.

  “Want you to walk like Pooh and Piglet?” She waved her hand to show them weaving between helicopters. “Then maybe you find own tracks too.”

  The woman shrugged. So different from The Kee. The Kee did everything as if it was so important. When she hugged Dilya, it was always so hard it would have hurt if it didn’t feel so good. She remembered how The Kee and the Professor had fought each other so hard when they first met that she was afraid one would break. But they didn’t.

  The new lady, La Roo, wasn’t very much like Roo, the baby kangaroo in Winnie-the-Pooh. She was more like Mary Lennox before she found her secret garden. Never happy where she was. Always so mad at the world. The La Roo made Dilya tired just to watch her.

  “Sure, kid. Lead on.”

  Dilya had her favorites. The Big Bird with two spindly heads and the big dent by the rear ramp had a mechanic who saved chocolates for her. Every time, he said that it couldn’t hurt for a kid to eat them. But he never explained.

  There was one of the Li
ttle Birds that the pilot had said she could sit in anytime and pretend, as long as she did not touch anything. Sometimes she pretended to take Piglet to see places that Piglets never got to see. Sometimes she flew them to the Hundred Acre Wood to visit with Owl and Christopher Robin. But mostly she flew with The Kee to build castles in the warm sand.

  But her favorite, Dilya took La Roo to her favorite. Not straight there, still pausing to visit friends and familiars along the way.

  The La Roo didn’t speak, but followed her. Stopping when she stopped, touching what Dilya touched. Like the rough skin tape that covered three holes in a perfect straight line on one helicopter, or the smooth, cool blade on the back of another. So smooth it felt like water.

  She reached The Kee’s helicopter and tugged on the cargo door.

  Dilya liked that the La Roo didn’t help but let Dilya do it herself. She could move the heavy door, but The Kee always just grabbed and heaved it aside as if it weighed nothing and the Professor always did it for her like it was something special.

  Dilya hopped up and sat on the edge with her legs dangling over the side, still a long way before they would grow down to touch the ground.

  The La Roo just stood there as if she did not know what to do.

  Dilya patted the open deck beside her, and finally the La Roo settled beside her.

  This was Dilya’s best imagining place. Here she felt safe. Here she had found a father and mother to replace the ones she lost. Here she could sit and look out and see the world not rushing by. She could just sit in the cool shade of the Vengeance.

  “What is Vengeance?” It struck her that maybe it was more than a name. Like she now knew that her grandmother wasn’t really “Calledbetty,” because part of that she now knew was more than a name. But it sounded wrong when she tried to make it two parts and it had made Calledbetty sad when Dilya tried using two words so she’d stopped. Did “Betty” mean something too?

  “Vengeance is to get even with someone. To pay them back. To make them hurt for hurting you.” The La Roo’s voice sounded nasty when she said it. As if she was angry and wanted to hurt someone. Dilya watched for a moment, but it wasn’t Dilya she wanted to hurt, so Dilya went back to thinking about the name.

  “Like if Pooh pulled out Owl’s tail feathers to make him sad like Eeyore sad when Owl took his tail? Doesn’t that just make everybodies sad?”

  The La Roo was silent for a long time. Shifted back and forth as if sitting hurt her, even though her legs were so long they could touch the ground.

  “Yeah, kid, you got it about right.”

  Chapter 23

  Tim sat hunched over his breakfast. He felt like a Neanderthal protecting his prey from wild scavengers. Not that anyone was messing with him, but that his brain and his body were now both impossibly tired and his thoughts were little better.

  Except for the last two hours in the scorching afternoon heat, he pretty much hadn’t slept a whole night’s worth in the last five. On a mission, there were tricks to keep yourself sharp. Your team worked with you, and you all helped charge each other up.

  But they weren’t on a mission. Kee, John, and Connie looked too damn self-satisfied to be tolerable. Clearly well slept and enjoying the benefits of cohabiting with their married partner. Not a reminder he needed so much.

  Archie was off somewhere, which was good. It saved Tim from hating him too, always so neat and tidy and pleasant as if they were in week two of being deployed on a Hawaiian beach and not month eighteen in an abandoned soccer stadium in northwest Pakistan.

  So here he crouched over his tray of eggs and bacon and toast and a side of steak as the sun went down, almost daring someone to mess with him.

  Then he spotted Lola and Dilya entering the tent, the low sun striking them from behind and casting them in silhouette. They could have been sisters. Dilya, sprouting up like a weed, was going to end up long and slender like Lola rather than seriously short and seriously built like her adoptive mother.

  As they moved into the tent, he could see that they even walked alike. A slow, sliding gait designed to make no noise as they moved. Not the kind that is trained in, like the D-boys, but something that was learned young. They both came from worlds where silence was a survival trait.

  Their faces, as they moved out of the back-lit tent entrance and toward the chow line, also tied them together. Both quiet and thoughtful, each possessed of a good chin and clear, dark eyes that looked as if they could see right through you.

  “I don’t like that,” Kee growled beside him.

  “Don’t like what?”

  John twisted to look over his shoulder and see where Kee and Tim’s attention was focused.

  “That woman with Dilya!”

  Tim turned to face Kee. She was serious. Had that determined fighter face that she wore when flying or practicing her sharpshooting.

  “Why not?”

  Kee leaned forward and lowered her voice. She never did that. If anyone in the entire camp was willing to tell you exactly and precisely what they were thinking of you, it was Sergeant Kee Stevenson.

  Tim and John leaned in.

  “She’s a goddamn phony. Everything about her is wrong.”

  “But she’s an awesome pilot. Even the Major says so.” Tim had overheard Beale talking to the Viper when they didn’t realize Tim was still cleaning his minigun not two feet behind their seats.

  “I don’t care. Whatever she’s telling you, Tim Maloney, that has your head all turned around, it’s a lie.”

  Tim felt his blood flowing and his head clear. He’d flown into battle with Kee plenty, knew she was someone he could trust his back and his life with. But this time Kee was flat wrong.

  “But she hasn’t told me anything!” It made him crazy to know so little about someone and want to be with her so much.

  “Well, that’s a lie too.”

  “What’s a lie, too?” Lola put her tray down across from Tim, with Dilya landing at the same instant between her and John.

  Kee simply snarled at her, grabbed her own tray, and walked away.

  There was a painfully awkward silence that stretched on and on. Tim was trying to think of how to change the subject, but he was too tired to come up with anything.

  Finally Dilya spoke, a soft aside to Lola that Tim had to strain to hear.

  “Sometime The Kee more like the helichopter than the Pooh. But she always get better.”

  Whatever the cryptic statement meant, it earned a nod and a smile from Lola, and the tension slipped away from the table.

  Tim had to figure out what was going on—and figure it out soon.

  Chapter 24

  Lola was reaching for the salt and trying really hard not to look at Tim when Viper Henderson appeared at the end of their table.

  He spoke softly, clearly for their ears only. “Twenty minutes. Full gear. We’re gone. Dilya, you’re okay with us for stage one.” Then he was gone as if he’d never been there.

  Lola could feel her heart beat two, three, four times before anyone reacted. Then they stood up, not all at once, but rather as if just going about normal business, dumping half-full and full trays at the cleanup station. A quick pass up the chow line, this time for fruit, energy bars, and maybe a sandwich that could be demolished while they headed for their tents. Dilya moved with similar grace and speed. A little trooper who knew the drill.

  Lola followed close behind Tim; they were the last ones to clear the tent. No one had paid them any mind.

  Just at the exit from the tent, Tim hurried his pace and bumped square into a Ranger while pretending to look the other way. They’d been clear, then Tim had purposely drawn attention to his hurried departure. Lola hung back trying to figure out why.

  “Hey.” The Ranger made sure Tim was steady on his feet. “There a mission to fly?” It had been a quiet couple days for the Rangers and they were
getting itchy for some action.

  Tim leaned in and whispered something that Lola couldn’t quite catch.

  She sidled in and caught the end of Tim’s spiel. “We’ll call from fifteen minutes out. Promise not to tell anybody before.”

  “I swear on yo mama!” The Ranger held up what might have been a Cub Scout salute. Then he hurried into the chow tent, clearly excited to spread whatever news he’d just been sworn to secrecy about.

  Lola moved up beside Tim as they headed for the tents to pack their gear.

  “Alright, what was that?”

  “That, oh nothing.” Tim waved a hand as if it didn’t matter. “Told him we just got a secret call to fly down to Peshawar. Carrier was sending in twenty gallons of ice cream and we had to be there whenever it arrived or we’d miss out.”

  Ice cream.

  “That was so cruel.” Lola knew that Bati air base had never in its history had ice cream. Troops mooned over it on the blistering hot days, talked about favorite flavors, got into fights over waffle versus sugar cones just to have an excuse for a brawl to break the boredom when times were really slow.

  She looked back over her shoulder. They’d wait for hours. Twenty gallons would be enough for everyone on base to have two or three bowls. They’d wait all night rather than sleeping as they normally would.

  “The fifteen minutes warning.” Tim sounded terribly pleased. “That was really the cherry on top.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Tim just smiled as if he really had just eaten the cherry.

  “Oh.” Lola got it. They’d have tables and bowls and spoons all set out and lined up within minutes of the helicopters taking off. And then a couple dozen Rangers, and about fifty base and SOAR personnel would wait. And wait.

  When the ice cream never showed up, everyone would pound on the poor, dumb Ranger who’d bought Tim’s line. With one sentence he’d stirred up several days’ worth of entertainment.

  Almost a pity that they’d miss it.

  ***

  In ten minutes flat, they were all at the DAP Hawks in full flight gear and stowing their duffels. Tim felt far better than he had in days. Nothing as fun as deep-sixing a Ranger; they were almost too easy for target practice, but still fun.