Summer's Night

by Cheyenne Meadows

  He kissed her fingers, reaching out to cover her hand, holding it against his cheek as he nuzzled in a show of genuine affection.

  "The warriors of old wouldn't stay home, hanging out in the teepee, while the other warriors rode off into the night to track down some enemy. You're a true legacy, Night."

  He nearly choked up at her profound words, as it was he swallowed several times to clear the lump in his throat. Never had anyone praised him so sincerely and thoroughly, tapping into his deep respect and admiration of his ancestors. She touched him in a way he never knew could be possible while filling him with self-pride and fortitude to live up to her views.

  He didn't have the heart to point out that the Navajo lived in hogans made out of wood and mud. Later, when he returned, they could sit down and share a history lesson. After the drug cartel ceased to exist.

  Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers, pulling her snug against his body. She responded instantly, opening her mouth for a deeper exploration. He wrapped his arms around her, matching her passionate embrace until he broke away with the driving need for air.

  "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  She licked her lips. "Be careful."

  "Always." Murphy trotted up, her long pink tongue hanging out as she panted. He reached out to pat the animal. "Take care of her."

  He spun on his heel, heading out.

  "Night?"

  Pausing, he looked back over his shoulder.

  "I love you."

  He smiled. When did such a small woman become the balm to my soul? "I love you, too." That said, he strode to his truck, turned the engine over, and headed home before embarking on his latest mission, this one personal.

  Chapter 16

  "What's she doing here?" Loco gestured to a petite woman climbing out of a small dark green SUV.

  "The boss said we have to play with the feds this time, like it or not. Ravini is ours, but the DEA wants their chance at any intel we might find," Night answered, stuffing his supplies in the large black duffle bag.

  Spoon snorted. "Just because we're private, they no longer think we can carry off a computer or two?"

  Night shrugged. "Who knows what they think. But for this one, she gets to tag along."

  All eyes surveyed the woman, dressed in all black, accenting her bobbed light blonde hair. Her small frame put her well under the height of each man, a bit below the average height for a female.

  "Mark my words. She'll slow us down and only get in the way." Spoon grumbled, zipping his pack shut.

  A smile began to form on Night's lips. During the negotiations, he'd learned of her extensive background and abilities. She could hold her own, he had no doubt. Otherwise, he would have vetoed the order she tag along, as he did with a handful of others offered for the job.

  Although dragging a female into battle prodded his moral code, he dared not question her skills, which damn near matched their own. Amazing for a female, even in today's open-minded military.

  She marched up to them, a black bag slung over her shoulder. Bright blue eyes matched their gazes. "I'm Lark."

  "She looks like a cheerleader," Loco mocked, his hard expression tightening all the more.

  Instead of taking offense, she simply smiled. "West Point Cheerleading Squad. Captain my senior year. If you must know."

  Muttered oaths carried across the vacated lot.

  "You're fucking kidding me. We're taking a cheerleader on a mission?" Loco growled, his irritation obvious.

  She rounded on him like a mother hen protecting her chicks from a hungry fox. "Listen, soldier. I may be small, but I'm more than capable of kicking anyone's ass. This isn't my first black ops mission, nor will it be my last. Just because I'm DEA doesn't mean I sit on my ass at a desk and punch a keyboard all day."

  "Marine." Loco snapped in return but with less intensity than before.

  Spoon snickered. "Anyone who wants to kick Marine butt at three am has my vote to stay."

  Night shook his head, only partially amazed with Lark's defense of herself. In all honesty, she probably faced the same stereotypical male greeting for most of her military career, forcing her to either ignore it, let it eat on her, or get in a man's face. The aggressive response would have earned her points for courage and guts in a community that valued such traits highly.

  "If we're all done with the posturing, can we move on?" She huffed, flicking those bright blue eyes across each and every man as if seeking another challenge to her position.

  Cale chuckled. "Gotta love that in a woman. All business and kick ass."

  "Gives me a hard-on." Spoon winked at her.

  Dillon chimed in. "I like her. In fact, I want all my daughters to be just like her."

  The men gaped at him as if he'd grown octopus tentacles from his neck.

  She rolled her eyes before looking at Night. "How do you put up with them?"

  He grinned widely. "I practice selective hearing."

  * * * *

  Without further incident they climbed into the large SUV, Lark voluntarily claiming the smaller backseat for herself. No sense in being crowded by oversized men with egos to match. Not that she expected anything different. For as long as she could remember, men met her with a variety of reactions, seldom flattering, and most of the time abundantly challenging. Even though more women than ever settled on careers in the military, it didn't mean the stereotyping or discrimination suddenly disappeared.

  Her size and looks threw men off, usually leading to an offensive verbal battle. Came with the territory, she supposed. While most would consider it a nuisance at best and a limitation at worst, she reveled in the opportunities her looks afforded her. She could easily go undercover, dressing and acting the part of a lovely woman intent upon sinking her claws into a wealthy sugar daddy or play the dumb blonde act, completely deceiving those who underestimated the true woman underneath.

  In all fairness, the Wind Warriors treated her better than most, despite one cranky Marine. Most Marines she'd met tended in that direction though. From what she gathered, these guys remained a close group, brothers in arms as well as in spirit. The bickering and bantering reminded her of her five older brothers. A male thing, her mother explained to her eons ago when she asked why the house remained in an uproar from one day to the next. She finally understood as she grew a bit older and wiser. Tough men tended to avoid showing affection with physical hugs and touching as women did. Instead, they preferred to tease and taunt, not only trying to outman the other, but as a show of solidarity. Only they could abuse one another. If another party tried, the group stood together as one, backing their friend to the end.

  She could be working with a worse group.

  "Where will Barbie be while we are infiltrating the compound?" Loco asked with a snort.

  "Right beside you, soldier. And what the hell? Barbie?" She laid into Loco in crisp proper German only to have him retort in a more guttural slang version, which left her face burning at the sheer vulgarities he spat. Not defeated, she barked out an insult, calling Loco a hairless mongoose with diarrhea in Lakota.

  Night not only chuckled, but commended her fluently in the tribal dialect.

  She blinked in amazement. Every time she turned around, they threw another surprise her direction.

  "Here. Memorize this." Night called from his passenger seat, passing a folded up paper to Cale, who handed it to her.

  Opening the letter, she scanned over the contents, her mouth falling open. "What in the world? What language is this?"

  "Navajo." He answered, turning halfway in his seat to look at her. "It worked in World War II, it works well for us now although in a lesser role."

  Dillon chimed in. "Don't share that little tidbit. Boss here says if people start picking up on Navajo, we'll have to learn Klingon next."

  The men groaned as a unit.

  "Like Navajo wasn't hard enough. Klingon will be downright brutal." Dillon held his head as if it already hurt.

  She blinked at the words
, not sure her tongue and throat could even produce such sounds. "Wouldn't another language work just as well?"

  "How many people do you know that speak German or Spanish?"

  "Tons."

  "Arabic?"

  She thought about that for a beat. "A few."

  "Navajo?"

  "Before today? None."

  "Exactly."

  Taking the point, she perused the form again, shaking her head at even the phonetic version. "How long do I have to learn this?"

  Night checked his watched. "Approximately six hours until we make contact with tango."

  Good grief. No pressure there.

  "The job this spring, where we destroyed the drug refuge in Sisk, thanks to Loco doing his Superman thing again. That was another middle man to Ravini. There was nothing left to trail the big man, but our little kidnapper opted to tell me all kinds of things about his boss and the operation." Night explained, glancing at several black and white photos.

  The guys snickered. Lark refrained from rolling her eyes. She read between the lines all too well, not that she faulted the tall Native American for pressing the man who broke into his house, stole his woman, and terrorized his mother. Under the same circumstances, her brothers would line up behind their father, each taking a turn at the idiot. She would bring up the end of the line, prying the final bits of information out of him to ensure nothing even similar to that incident happened again.

  He passed the photos back. "These are the best pictures of the layout we have. No blueprints exist that we can find. The cement walls appear sturdy enough to sustain and repel attacks. Mexican officials have been watching him, but with huge corruption issues money buys injustice, therefore the man runs free to pursue his drug career. The local officials are too understaffed and don't have near enough power to go up against him and his hired mercenaries. Underground passages probably exist, leading in all directions as emergency escape passages. I don't have to tell you how messy that might be if we have to go underground after them.

  Spoon whistled low. "It's like Alcatraz. Minus the island feature."

  "As there are armed guards at all hours, how are we going to go over the walls without being seen?" Cale stared at a photo, turning it this way and that. "Can't we just call in a favor and bomb the son of a bitch? Easier and more of a chance of us walking away."

  "Yes and no." Night answered, glancing over his shoulder. "We have to assume they have radar and are able to pick up anything short of a stealth bomber or Black Hawk chopper flying too low to be picked up. Our contact doesn't have the power to call in either."

  "Damn. Those things are so cool. It would be like sitting on the outskirts watching the Fourth of July after they dived in and out." Dillon commented .

  "So we do what we've always done, become the wind." Spoon shrugged. "Although this will be tough."

  Lark fingered through papers in her backpack, finding the ones she needed. "Here." Handing them forward, she sat back and waited.

  Night's gaze flicked over them. "Where did you get these?"

  "Classified." She answered automatically. Her photos beat theirs in contrast and detail, giving them a much better view on which to base their infiltration plans. Sometimes working for the federal government had its perks. Pictures fell into the pro column. "If you notice there is a secret entrance on the west side, a hidden cave that leads to one of the underground areas. On the north there is another, but it will be harder to access due to the number of guards and lack of natural camouflage."

  The guys in the middle seat leaned forward, looking at the pictures Night held up.

  "The cave entrance leads upward toward the main building. Just when you cross the foundation, there is a ceiling vent. A person can climb through it and access the entire ventilation system from there." She dug through her pack once more, pulling out a small box, anticipating their next question.

  "We have jammers. That person could place a jammer near the center of security, knocking out all their radars and alarms for a few minutes." Night pointed out.

  "I assume you have heat seeking equipment as well." Sitting forward, she pointed out where her supervisors believed the command center to be. "By looking for the largest concentration of personnel, we might be able to fine tune the location."

  "Then what? Even if they are jammed, we will have to scurry in, fighting our way through multiple levels in order to track down Ravini. I suspect he will race for an escape route as soon as he's notified something is up. Those tunnels can be death traps for us."

  "I may have a solution for that." She reached back, grabbed her box, and held it up for all to see. "Anesthesia gas. Not only can the jammer be set, but the gas can be released at the same time. It's colorless and odorless. By the time they realize they're sleepy, they will be out like a light. The drawback is that we have to wear gas masks and the effects only last ten to fifteen minutes."

  Loco stopped at a red light. "Who's going into the vent system and doing all this?"

  Lark plopped back down in her seat. "That would be me."

  All the men turned to stare at her as a unit, their expressions ranged from shock to amazement to utter respect.

  Undeterred, she supplied them with the reason. "I'm the only one small enough to fit through the vent."

  More than one man sighed in defeat while Night's jaw tensed. Finally, he abruptly nodded. "It's our best shot."

  For the first time, she smiled. "That's what my supervisors said."

  Chapter 17

  "What the fuck is taking so long?" Loco spit into the communication link.

  Night, kitted out in solid black, complete with gas mask, edged closer to the cement foundation. All five men wore the same camouflage, blending in with the moonless night sky. Each sat on pins and needles awaiting the signal from the sole female in the group.

  Night hated sending her in first, his primitive protective instincts shouting that she needed to stay behind, well out of harm's way, while the men shielded her. His logical mind knew better. When he read her bio days ago, he realized she could handle just about anything they or anyone else threw at her. Her small stature and pretty features obviously misled more than one man into believing she would be soft and vulnerable. In reality, there was little soft or vulnerable about her. Women warriors were rare in the time of his ancestors, but Lark would fit that very image, eagerly accepting her assignment, slinking her way through a small tunnel and even narrower ventilation system.

  "Soon. Hold your positions." Night whispered into the microphone located inside his mask. All of them exuded patience and none would break, but that didn't always make the waiting easy.

  A female voice broke in with rapid-fire speech. It took Night a moment to realize she jabbered away in Lakota, the words a bit muffled due to her mask. He responded firmly, asking in the same dialect for her to repeat. She did.

  Their targets had picked up on the communication frequency his men used, even now tracking the team through the links. Lark managed to crawl through the system to the control area, overhear the men talking in Spanish about their discovery, and relay back to him in Lakota.

  Shit. Switching to Navajo, Night threw out orders, demanding immediate action. They had to move now or be located with powerful rifles probably fit with night vision capabilities, ones more than capable of tearing a man to pieces.

  Lark's voice carried across the channel once more.

  She's jammed them.

  Once more, he translated, surging ahead as he relayed messages to his men. She needs to learn Navajo, damn it. Translation takes too long.

  "Poison apple initiated." Lark muttered between pants in Lakota.

  Night's mind automatically changed the words between languages, alerting the men. Rifles at the ready, they swarmed the entrances, throwing open doors and firing at anything that moved.

  A rifle boomed from several yards away. Dillon, the master sniper, having positioned himself in a small trench earlier, now fired at random to cover the advancing gr
oup.

  Rifles barked as men yelled. Night moved from shadow to shadow, heading for the innermost sanctuary of the building, praying with each step that the anesthesia gas Lark released worked. If it failed, things would go to smithereens real quick. Sneaking through one door, he followed the barrel of his gun, only to find men sleeping through the noise of defensive fire. Some lay across desks, others flat on the floor.

  With a sigh of relief, he tapped on the keyboard turning off all alarms and opening all entrances, the beauty of getting into the control center while the program remained open, not having to waste valuable time trying to circumvent a password in order to achieve the same results.

  As the noise level began to diminish, he pushed flash drives into three of the computers, downloading their contents. While that task occurred, he snatched up a laptop, slipping it into his jacket for ease of transportation. He scooped up the drives, dropping them all into his pocket, and glanced at his watch. Five minutes until wake up.

  Frantic yelling drew his attention, sending him racing for the opposite side of the room and through a doorway. The sight, through a large glass upper story window, nearly stopped his heart.

  A hundred yards away and a story down, none other than the leader of the drug cartel, Ravini stood in an atrium area, hugging a large rock column, his handgun aimed at Loco, furious and agitated, flanked by two guards, both with weapons aimed at his man. Loco stood empty-handed with one hand held up in the air, the traditional sign of surrender. His other arm hung lank, as if injured and immobile, but Night's acute vision noticed Loco's hand inching toward his back, obviously seeking his backup pistol.

  The gun never wavered as Ravini aimed at Loco's face, still shouting obscenities and threats, the words flowing to Night, muffled and soft through the thick glass before him.