Flight to Fight

by M. L. Buchman

  Another stray round cracked by, low above the wadi.

  He held her a little tighter as if he could protect her; somehow make her feel safe after such a day. She was wounded, had lost all her co-workers, and managed to survive. He was amazed that she could speak at all.

  4

  They talked long into the night. Every hour Lee left her and climbed the west wall to observe the battle. It was moving north toward El Qantara. Moretti kept holding him in place. From her vantage high above, she could still see patrols along the Suez.

  Less than a half kilometer away were people who would kill himself, Donya, and the nameless child on sight. And yet in their dark haven, they remained alone and undisturbed.

  While waiting, Donya began telling him about herself. She unwound her life backwards as slowly as the night stars were crawling forwards.

  A top reporter on Egyptian television. A native of Cairo sent by her father to be educated at Vassar College and Columbia University. Her father who had been purged along with the Muslim Brotherhood when they’d been thrown out of power.

  A girl who had dreamed of a better place than the one she grew up in and fought for it in every way she knew how.

  “That is gone now. You know that they have passed laws that a journalist can be jailed for reporting accurate numbers that aren’t the government’s ‘official’ numbers? Seven hundred dead in protests becomes seventy. A bomb kills a hundred? No, fourteen. And that is only the beginning.”

  In turn he told her of growing up in a military family, on both sides of the house. Mom mostly at sea—chief petty officer on a destroyer. Dad still a jet mechanic at Luke Air Force Base outside of Glendale.

  They spoke softly for hours. Whenever her words slurred, he’d force Donya to eat a little and drink some water, though she tried to decline every time. At first he didn’t want her to go to sleep because of her injury; he had no way to assess how much blood she’d lost. He inspected her several times, but there were no signs of additional blood seeping into her clothing; he’d done all he knew how. Now he didn’t want her to sleep also because how much he was enjoying her company.

  In addition to being passionate in her beliefs and an amazing survivor, Donya Nakhla was sharply intelligent—obviously smarter than he was—and so kind when the nameless girl awoke scared of the night. Kind, but he could see that it hurt her to hold and reassure the child. He didn’t dare give Donya more than the mildest of painkillers.

  He finally took the girl himself and rocked her until she fell asleep.

  “You are good with the child,” Donya sounded unsurprised.

  Lee was surprised to his very core, “First time holding one.”

  “It looks good on you.” A sliver-thin moon had risen and washed the dry river bed with a brush of silver. Donya’s dark eyes were so close, her face so…he pulled the goggles back down and scanned once again.

  Lee had never been so attracted to a woman who he’d done no more than help and talk to. As the night progressed, his crush on the stunning television reporter had been left behind by the reality of the incredible woman leaning against him.

  Moretti’s call to get out of there came as a shock, as if the real world had reached out to slap them both. The gunfire had faded and moved north. He’d tracked the battle, but while waiting for Moretti’s all clear, the desert had become silent except for their whispered words and the occasional creak from the helicopter as the temperature dropped.

  When she was unable to stand, he lifted Donya into the copilot’s position. The Little Bird wasn’t made for a third passenger, not even a child. He managed to rig a strap so that the girl could ride safely in Donya’s lap and not fall out the open side of the helo if he had to do some hard maneuvering. Taking an extra minute, he unrigged the cyclic joystick from the copilot’s side so that it wouldn’t be inadvertently kicked.

  He took them aloft, headed south and stayed as deep in the wadi as he could fly. Rather than heading ten miles north to cross the heavily populated Mediterranean coast as someone might expect, he turned south and flew a hundred miles over the desert. Well past Suez—the southern entry to the canal—he veered out into the Gulf of Suez and landed aboard the U.S.S. Peleliu that had been waiting for him.

  5

  Lee had tried to stay away, because he knew his attachment to a celebrity Egyptian reporter was utterly ridiculous. So instead, he’d delivered her to the infirmary, found his way to Chief Warrant Lola Maloney, and been debriefed on the mission.

  He’d eaten dinner and headed to bed. Night Stalkers flew at night and slept during the day, so this should be perfectly normal. Except the longer he lay there, the less normal it felt. Giving up on his finding comfort in his narrow bunk, he climbed up two decks and went for a run around the Hangar Deck, clocking a quick ten K. And when that didn’t help, he did ten more. A cold shower and he was back in bed.

  But his memories were sitting out in the silent desert, a small girl asleep in his arms, and a stunning woman at his side.

  A stunning woman with whom you have nothing in common, he reminded himself as he arrived outside the infirmary. No sign of Doc Evans or either of the nurses, he poked his head in still wondering what he hoped for. The ward was a half dozen beds packed tightly together; just enough room between them to get someone on and off the mattress. Only two of them were occupied.

  Whatever his expectations had been, Donya was asleep. Her bloody clothes were gone. The hospital gown and thin sheet revealed that her figure, always hidden on camera by her traditional attire, went just fine with her face. There was no equipment hooked up to her which he took as a good sign.

  He should really get his sorry ass out of there.

  Then he spotted the girl, fussing in the next bed over. He scooped her up so that she didn’t disturb Donya. Lee turned to find the orderly on duty down the corridor and tell him that he was taking the girl out for a walk or food. Perhaps find someone who knew what to do with a small girl. But the instant he lifted her, she snuggled down against his chest and settled back to sleep.

  At a loss for what to do next, he sat down in a chair, rested his head back against the steel wall and watched the two women: the tiny one asleep in his arms and the other one…he didn’t know what.

  6

  Donya woke slowly, opened her eyes and was relieved to recognize gray steel and narrow beds. Ship’s infirmary. An American ship. She was safe and whole, a gift that her own country could no longer promise.

  She managed a shaky breath.

  And she was done. Her mother dead in the first riots of the Arab Spring. Her father and brother during the bloody aftermath of the military coup that followed two years later. She had given enough.

  Somehow she had to find a new start, a new way to help her people without dying in the process—for then she would be of no use at all.

  But any vision of the future eluded her.

  She needed time. Needed to get past yesterday’s anger and the horror of watching more sanctioned murders.

  Then she remembered last night. The pain that had lanced through her with every breath; the certainty that each step would be her last but finding the strength to take one more because of the young life she had chosen to carry and protect. Until she’d nearly collapsed into the arms of Sergeant Lee Ames.

  He was not a complex man. It wasn’t that he was simple; it was that he was uncomplicated. Most men Donya met wanted to bed her for power or marry her to enhance their own status. They all had an agenda, a plan of their own that her star power would somehow feed.

  With Lee Ames she suspected that he was as she saw him. He had simply cared for her and kept her conscious through the long wait. He flew for his team, his country, and his family.

  He’d held the little girl like she herself was precious. No man did tha—

  The girl!

  Donya looked over at the rumpled but empty bed be
side her. Twisting and trying to raise herself, which sent a sharp pain that told her that had been a truly foolish action, Donya spotted her. The little girl lay asleep on Lee’s chest. He in turn leaned back against a wall, his boots up on the corner of her own bed, fast asleep as well.

  She propped her pillow up so that she could watch him. Last night the night-vision goggles had given her no clear view of him. When the thin moon rose, she’d seen blond hair beneath the straps of the night-vision goggles and that he was clean-shaven, a rarity in her culture. It looked good on him, strong.

  And with the darker-skinned child curled up in his arms he was about the cutest thing she’d ever seen. Calling six feet of American pilot—who had carried her to his helicopter last night as if she was weightless—cute might be inappropriate. But despite making her living with words, it was all she could come up with.

  7

  Lee knew he was hovering but couldn’t help himself. Over the next few days he spent most of his non-mission time with Donya and Sughraa—not knowing her name they’d taken to calling her “Little One.” Once Donya could get out of bed, Lee always carried the girl to make sure that Donya didn’t pull open her wound.

  Sometimes Dilya Stevenson took the little girl for a while.

  “Why is there a teenager on a ship of war?”

  Lee smiled at Donya, “Threw me the first time too.” He’d led her up onto the upper deck of the eight-hundred foot long helicopter carrier. A number of people were wandering among the tied-down and covered helicopters in the cool dawn morning, taking a stroll before heading to their bunks. There was a light breeze as the ship drove south.

  Her hair caught and fluttered. Her niqāb was down on her shoulders and she didn’t appear to care. Unable to help himself, he brushed a hand over her hair, touching her for the first time since he’d brought her aboard. It was as soft as he’d remembered.

  “Sorry,” he pulled his hand back. “You have no chaperone. No person of your culture to make sure…”

  She watched him closely with those dark eyes that he could so easily get lost in. They halted at the stern of the ship and the breeze brushed her thick hair forward, partly hiding her face.

  Subject change. He needed a subject change. The next time he touched her it would be much harder to stop.

  “This is a very odd ship,” he found a new subject. “It was retired by the Navy, but kept active exclusively for our helicopter company.”

  “The 5th Battalion D Company,” she acknowledged. She said it as if it wasn’t something she’d merely overheard.

  “Yes,” he said carefully.

  “And under several of those tarpaulins are stealth aircraft that no one is supposed to know about.”

  He knew she hadn’t seen them personally. She, like all guests, was kept strictly below decks during night operations.

  Donya pulled her hair aside and looked up at him. She stood five-four, taller than average for a woman of her race. Her western clothes revealed how perfectly she was proportioned for that height.

  “I know a great deal about your company, Sergeant Ames. Possibly more than you do.”

  A spy? He’d brought a spy into their midst. Except…he’d only handled the exfiltration. Someone else had cut the orders.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I have been, shall I say, consulting for your government for some time. I was approached by a man who claimed he worked for CNN. I am a very good reporter and I know that he is not in their employ. Yet if it helped my country,” her shrug was eloquent. “I became an analyst on Egyptian and North African affairs. I have seen many changes for the better in the region this year, but never knew how they happened. Not until I saw this ship. Even wounded and faint with blood loss, I knew what this was.”

  Lee had never faced a national security risk from a foot away.

  “And whatever happens next, I wanted to say thank you for taking care of me.”

  Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him.

  In that moment Lee knew two things.

  He had to turn her in.

  And he was totally lost as he pulled her into his arms.

  8

  Donya tried not to be amused. Didn’t they understand how much even their questions revealed?

  They were in the ship captain’s office, yet he was nowhere to be seen. The room had a view of the Flight Deck. A large desk dominated one end of the room, but a circle of comfortable chairs and sofas spoke to the many meetings that were held here.

  To one side sat Lee Ames. He had refused a direct order to leave her side—which had been accepted instead of having him arrested. A curious ship indeed. He sat close beside her on a couch, practically hovering in protection as if he could halt the might of military justice should it turn against her, which she found incredibly charming. She’d thought she was long past being charmed by any man.

  In front of her sat the inquisition. Four women of SOAR, all pilots. Lola Maloney their commander, Claudia Casperson, Kara Moretti, and—because they apparently couldn’t keep her out any more than they could make Lee depart—Trisha O’Malley.

  To her left stood a man who had neither spoken nor been introduced. He was clearly a warrior, not a spook, so he must be Delta Force—it was the only explanation.

  They were smart. They questioned more than her knowledge; they also questioned her methodology. She answered them willingly enough. With her homeland closed behind her, her future would lay with these people or ones like them. She would step forward in trust.

  “All of the Somali pirate’s hostages were freed on two separate nights. A clean sweep north and south.”

  “A ship, this ship, moving from trouble spot to trouble spot unescorted, separate from any carrier group. I don’t know if anyone else took an interest in an old ship past retirement making high speed runs from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Guinea and back to the Arabian Sea. But I did.”

  “Add that to the complete lack of reports from land. Massive endeavors with a complete lack of news coverage, except for hostages who consistently reported being rescued by Navy SEALs. Yet the SEALs, who have become notorious for their lack of circumspection, had no comment when asked.”

  That’s when the silent warrior confirmed he was Delta Force; he made a poor effort at covering a snort of laughter. Now she knew who had spread those news-hound diverting stories.

  “Lady has a brain,” Trisha the redhead spoke up. “I like her. Can we keep her?”

  Lola the commander rolled her eyes. “She’s not a puppy, O’Malley.”

  “She’s as cute as one.”

  “No,” Kara spoke with a thick New York accent that reminded Donya of her college days, “not cute, she’s beautiful. And we don’t need Lee’s besotted gaze to tell us that. Women are beautiful.”

  “Then explain me,” Trisha was as cute as a puppy. She was petite and radiated attitude right down to her cliché fists-on-hips and mock defiant scowl.

  Donya scanned the others’ faces and answered for them. “Believe me, they wish they could.”

  That won her a round of laughter. Even Lee, who’d been looking more worried than a puppy, smiled. She’d had big strong men try to sweep her off her feet before, only to learn that Donya Nakhla didn’t sweep. But she’d never made a big strong man weak in the knees before either.

  She sighed. For all the good ignoring it was doing her, he had the same effect on her. She reached out to take Lee’s hand and took strength from it. Donya wished she could stay. She would take any bet that the more she knew about Lee Ames, the more she would want to be with him. But that wasn’t an option. She was a civilian on a ship of war. They would be getting her off the Peleliu as fast as they could.

  She was a civilian…on a ship of war…

  “How did I get here?”

  The women looked at her in confusion.

  “I flew you,” Lee answered in his ab
solutely forthright way.

  “No,” Donya shook her head. “Me. On this ever-so-quiet ship. I shouldn’t be here.”

  She scanned the faces, and that’s when she spotted the small but very self-satisfied smile on the silent warrior.

  “You live up to your reputation, Ms. Nakhla,” his voice was deep and surprisingly soft.

  Donya bowed her head in brief acknowledgment, unsure what else to do.

  “I have friends at Fort Bolivar near Washington D.C. who think you might be very helpful to our endeavors in this region. You have shown clear vision, exceptional analytical abilities, and a willingness to fight for peace even at risk of deadly peril. They would like to recruit you back to the States, but I think you could serve exceptional utility here aboard the Peleliu as an operations advisor. It is your choice.”

  Everyone was staring at him in surprise. The quiet blond who Donya suspected was his wife appeared particularly wide-eyed.

  “Doesn’t ever talk that much at one time, does he?” Donya asked.

  They all shook their heads in unison.

  “I appreciate the compliment,” Donya slipped together a few more facts she’d “acquired” in the past, “Colonel Gibson.”

  He nodded, confirming her guess.

  She had hoped to find some small way to fight back, to help her people and her country. This was an opportunity beyond imagining.

  9

  Lee sat in the middle of Lieutenant Commander Boyd Ramis’ office and tried to understand what had just happened.

  They were alone. Everyone had left except he and Donya. Holding hands on a leather couch on a retired ship that had found a whole new purpose after forty years at sea.

  “I—” he clamped down on his tongue. He barely knew her, yet he could imitate her speech patterns as if they came from the same village, not from opposite sides of the world. He wanted so much to—