Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  Ouch.

  Diana studied the sweet-and-sour sauce stain on her sweatshirt with exaggerated interest.

  Josie ignored Diego’s jab and picked up her pencil. “I guess we start with who has reason to hate me.”

  “Bridges.” Diego’s fist tightened around the water bottle until the plastic dimpled.

  “Yeah.” Josie wrote his name. “And if Bridges is responsible, then he’s been defused now.”

  Diana strode to the table. “Unless he’s so mad he’s prepared to go for broke on revenge.”

  Josie frowned. “Even to the point of hiring thugs? And why? It all seems to come back to someone wanting to derail my project. Too many things went wrong for it to be coincidence—including Craig dying. What are the odds that every safeguard would fail on that flight?”

  “A flight you were supposed to be on.” A tic twitched in the corner of Diego’s eye as he shoveled more noodles into his mouth.

  “But Bridges pulled the schedule switch. So if he’s the problem, he doesn’t want me dead.” Options churned through her head. “Unless he yanked me off the flight just to get back at me for turning him down, like I thought, and someone else was responsible for the crash.”

  “Two agendas?” Diana dropped into her chair. “Two people after you? That’s a little paranoid.”

  “Thanks bunches, Diehard.”

  “You’re welcome. Do you know for certain Bridges was the one to change the schedule?”

  “Yes, um, no. I’m not sure. I could ask Zeljak on Monday since he works in scheduling.”

  Diana frowned. “Unless this Zeljak fellow made the scheduling change. What do you know about him?”

  Zeljak? Josie mentally reviewed his file. “Seasoned master sergeant. Over two thousand hours in flight test. Family man. I can’t imagine…ah, hell, I guess I have to consider everything and it all goes back to the crash. The investigation will take months, which gives somebody too much time to bury evidence.” Which meant she needed to be a step ahead of them. She pushed away from the table and folded the lid on her cashew chicken, grateful for a chance to actively fight back. “What do you say we head over to the testing facility and start digging before somebody else has the chance?”

  Diana leaped to her feet, the gleam in her eyes burning away any residual anger. “Who needs sleep? Diego, pack up your supper while I change into something fit to be seen in public.”

  Standing, Diego folded the lid on his lo mein to take along. “Just need my boots and I’ll be set to go.”

  Her arms full of the extra cartons, Josie hesitated. Fair play made her rise up onto her toes and brush a kiss over his surprised mouth. “I really am sorry.”

  And she meant it. She just wasn’t ready to figure out what she should do in place of note writing. They truly did have pressing concerns, life-threatening stuff and an ungodly amount of data to plow through searching for that needle in a haystack.

  She turned to her sister. “Give me ten minutes to grab a fresh flight suit and switch out my patches and pockets.”

  With Lefty, Righty, Bridges, Zeljak and God only knows who else to worry about, she’d definitely be packing her knife tonight.

  Chapter 18

  Josie made tracks away from her office, folders of data under her arm, computer disks stuffed in her flight-suit pockets. Diana and Diego trailed a couple of steps behind, discussing road rallies and biker gear since apparently Diana had a secret stash of black leather to wear when she morphed into secret-agent girl. Josie rounded the corner—

  And stopped short.

  A light shone from underneath an office door—Mike Bridges’s door. Her heart revved even as she told herself nothing would happen in the security of a military installation. If Bridges was responsible, it wasn’t as if he would blast out of his office and gun them down in the corridor.

  However, having already been shot at once today, she couldn’t help but be on edge.

  She glanced over her shoulder and shushed the biker buddies behind her. Pointing to the light under the door, she continued past but at a stealthier pace. Diego tucked in beside her and she never even heard him increase speed.

  The exit loomed ahead. Closer. Just a few more steps.

  A door opened behind her. “Lockworth?”

  Bridges’s voice stopped her. Diego damn near growled. She rested a hand on his arm and faced Bridges, keeping the healthy distance of half a hall length between them.

  “Yes?” She couldn’t bring herself to say sir to this man, and likely he wouldn’t quibble with her.

  “I would like to speak with you for a minute—if you don’t mind.”

  “I mind,” Diego snapped.

  She did, too. “We need to leave.”

  Tension clouded the air and she couldn’t help but notice the new droop of defeat to Bridges’s shoulders. Why wasn’t there any joy in this victory?

  “It’ll only take a minute, Captain. You can both stand right there. I’m not asking your guard dog to leave.” When she started to turn away anyhow, he pressed ahead in a louder voice, “These past few days have made me do some hard thinking, life reevaluation and all of that.”

  “I’m glad something positive has come out of this nightmare.”

  “I know I don’t have any right to ask you this. But would you talk to Kayla for me and tell her that I want to see Jazz?”

  What the hell?

  A request to see his daughter was the last thing Josie had expected to fall out of Mike Bridges’s mouth and the one thing sure to make her hesitate in leaving. Could he know that and be tricking her into staying? Or did he really think she might help him? Dirtbag. “Why?”

  “Everything that’s happened this past week, what with Wagner’s accident, the whole TV exposé nightmare, it all shook me up. Made me do some reevaluating about where my life’s headed and what’s important.”

  As much as she knew Jazz would love to have a father in her life, Josie noticed Bridges was careful not to call Jazz his daughter. A Freudian thing? It bothered her, especially since this turnaround of his was so darned fast. Bottom line, Jazz’s interests had to come first.

  “I can’t help you. This is between you and Kayla. I’m not being petty.” Even though she would really, really like to be. That doggone sense of fair play of hers worked both ways.

  He stepped forward. She held up a hand and he stopped, wincing. “I guess I deserve that.”

  “Damn straight you do,” Josie retorted, ever aware of Diego at her back. She didn’t need these two men duking it out and she didn’t want Bridges asking questions about the files under her arm. “I would like to think you’re truly interested in being a part of that little girl’s life, but forgive me if I don’t have a lot of faith in you anymore. You’d better be sure before you step into Jazz’s life, because losing a father’s love can really mess with a woman’s mind long-term for other relationships, as well.”

  Now wasn’t that a personal-lightbulb moment?

  Too bad she didn’t have time to mull it over. Josie spun on her heel, leaving Bridges standing alone in the hall—without her respect or salute.

  Josie punched in the cipher lock code and swung wide the door to the warehouse room for storing data on current test projects at the Palmdale military testing facility. The answer had to be here somewhere. She only needed to find it first—with Diego and Diana’s help.

  She didn’t like that Bridges knew they were around. She liked even less that he’d seen her hauling files out of her office. They were all three perfectly legal in being there, given their clearance levels, but still she wasn’t thrilled about alerting anyone to their digging.

  However, it was done. Bridges seeing them gave her all the more motivation to search faster. Only someone with clearance could find them here—which, of course, didn’t offer much reassurance right now.

  “Jesus, Josie.” Diana pivoted in the shelf-lined room, about the size of a two-car garage, as the door swished closed. “We’ll be here until the next millennium
going through all of this.”

  Binders, tapes and disks crammed every inch of wall space. Tables stretched down the middle with televisions hooked up to different viewers—VCR, DVD—to watch the recorded flight footages. And these were only the active test projects. Once a test finished, the “cold data” was catalogued, shipped out and stored in mammoth facilities.

  Folding his arms over his chest, Diego lounged against a shelf. “You’re the boss on this one, Josie. Give us our marching orders.”

  Work. Action. Already she felt more in control than she had since Craig’s crash. “Cruiser, how about you start with checking the data-stream readouts. I’ll review video footage.” She hefted up three twelve-inch stacks of computer printouts on green-and-white striped paper. “Diehard, let’s put your computer skills to work. Review the codes on the flight control program for each mission, check the algorithms.”

  Diana’s hazel eyes gleamed with an anticipation only a computer geek could summon for such a tedious task. “You want me to look for sign errors, divide by zero errors, illogical lines of code.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what are you and Diego looking for?”

  Rising up on her toes, Josie slid free the first two tapes in the test project. “We don’t have a clue. Just something that feels…wrong.”

  Five cups of coffee and countless hours later, Josie’s face cracked with a yawn. Only the blast of air from the vent overhead kept her from falling out of her chair. The windowless room provided no sense of time passing but the clock told her the early-morning sun must be shining outside.

  At the far end of the length of tables, Diana propped her cheek on her fist, scanning page after page in her latest stack. Diego sat beside her flipping through data-stream readouts while she viewed flight video segments. The lone drone of recorded flight voices echoed, control tower, pilots, sensor operators.

  She stifled another jaw-cracking yawn. They’d taken turns snagging power naps through the night so the data wouldn’t blur, but there was just so much of it. She drained her mug of lukewarm java.

  Bleck.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. Josie’s muscles tensed, every fiber of her going on alert.

  Diana and Diego rose from their chairs along with her, shifting to a less vulnerable part of the room. Nothing would look amiss to an innocent person, but they would be at a better vantage point for another blast from Lefty and Righty type thugs.

  The door opened. Master Sergeant Don Zeljak stepped into view, popping his chewing gum.

  Josie exhaled half her held breath. “Good morning, Sergeant. You’re out and about early.”

  “Morning, Captain. I didn’t expect to see you here this early, either.”

  Was there a hidden meaning? But what would Zeljak have to do with any of this, even in a small way? What would he have to gain by tampering with scheduling?

  He really was one of the last people she would suspect. He was one of the air force’s best, the reason she’d handpicked him for her team. It would shake her confidence something fierce to learn she’d misjudged him.

  “Sergeant Zeljak, you remember Morel. And this is my sister, Lieutenant Lockworth, in town visiting. They’re helping me weed through data as I wrap up paperwork now that we’re on hold.” That sounded like a logical cover for him to relay. “What are you doing here?”

  “The accident-investigation board sent me to pick up some tapes and mission data disks.”

  Time was running out. Josie hefted the stack of tapes she and Diego had already reviewed and passed them over.

  Zeljak scanned the labels, his mono-brow bunching with his frown. “What about the tape from your initial liftoff flight? I don’t see it in here. The board mentioned needing that one in particular since it was the first airborne mission.”

  And the board would have to wait. Josie inched to sit on the edge of the table on top of the tape in question. Ouch. “Hmm. I don’t see it right offhand. How about I bring it up when we find it?”

  “And the mission data disks? They can only find the copies, not the originals.”

  A couple of which were burning a hole in her calf pocket waiting to be reviewed. “I’ll track those down, as well.”

  “Thanks.” Zeljak backed out of the room. “I’ll let them know.” He paused. “Captain, I’m glad everything got straightened out yesterday. We need more like you around.”

  She wanted to believe those supportive words from someone whose work she so respected. “That’s good to hear right now. Thank you, Bubbles.”

  Nodding, he left. The door swished shut.

  “Bubbles?” Diana squawked.

  “His call sign, because he’s always got a wad of bubblegum in his mouth.” Springing up from the table, Josie whipped the tape out from under her. “All right. Let’s see why the review board really wants to check out this particular mission.”

  Nothing.

  Josie swiped the grit from her eyes and watched the same flight for the fourth time, and still she saw nothing new or unusual. Diana had given up on the video after the second viewing and transferred her attention back to the stacks of computer codes.

  Diego sprawled in a chair beside her, silently watching, processing—the tape or her? He’d been oddly silent since they’d left her apartment, other than pointing out different aspects of the flight data that might or might not compile into something promising.

  Was he truly that angry with her over the note and her request for some space? She so stank at the dating thing—and she suffered no illusions. They had somehow shifted into the boyfriend/girlfriend realm over the weekend.

  Maybe she was only nervous since she had little experience in the dating deal. Given her confidence in the workplace up to now, facing a situation where she doubted herself would undoubtedly shake her even more. And she didn’t know how to handle doubting herself.

  She’d been so driven during high school and college there hadn’t been time for dates. Her mother hadn’t been around much to offer advice about boys and men, either.

  Yet, the discussion with Mike Bridges about Jazz and the importance of a father’s love earlier kept echoing in her head at a time when she really needed to concentrate on this damn video footage. Although she was starting to think her instinct about watching it was off.

  Another dead end.

  Maybe she was simply borrowing trouble when it came to the flight and Diego, but she’d been so hopeful. On both counts. Her brain started to fog from sleep deprivation until she could have sworn she was strapped on a test-model Predator again.

  She could feel the wind kissing her face, the sense of flying as it must have been for pioneer pilots. The adrenaline pump of hurtling out there in the open with nothing but a flight suit, helmet and your butt strapped to a machine you hoped would bring you home safely. Defying the elements with your new twist on flying.

  She couldn’t imagine never going up again. Just a simple spin around the flight line had been worth risking everything. Craig had been willing to die. Diego had almost died during his last mission.

  Josie let the roaring sensation of flying suck her in deeper, further away from the frustrations around her as she lived out this mind flight simulator of her own making.

  “Josie?” Diego’s voice joined her in the sky. “You can’t hide from me forever.”

  His rumbling words sent her mental flight plummeting back to a cold-storage room with even colder coffee. She kept her gaze glued to the video. “Now’s not the time, Diego.”

  His hand landed on the back of her chair as he angled closer. The heat of him beside her negated the air conditioner and sent her temperature soaring.

  “I understand you have pressing priorities. Hell, I’ve got pretty much the same ones since they involve keeping your most excellent ass alive. But eventually, you have to accept what’s going on between us.”

  A dry smile played with her tired face. “Can’t we just keep having sex against the wall instead?”

  Across the r
oom, Diana slammed aside a stack of readouts. “You two really suck at stage whispers. I’m going to find more coffee.”

  The door whooshed closed, sealing them in privacy.

  She kept her eyes on the screen, a convenient excuse not to risk looking at him. “I meant it when I said I’m sorry for walking out on you yesterday morning. That was wrong of me. What I said about Jazz earlier and how a distant father could give a girl a complex? Well, that’s me. Okay? I just need you to be patient.”

  Silence hung between them, cut only by the crackling sounds from the television of recorded voices in flight, her own voice on the Predator and the surreal sound of Craig’s as he flew the remote.

  Diego leaned on his forearms closer. “You’re cheating yourself.”

  He studied the screen so intently she thought for an instant he was referring to the flight. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’ve watched how you operate,” he continued, following her lead in keeping his eyes on the TV while his scent and gravelly tones stroked her senses anyway. “You ask me to be patient. And while I’m doing that, you’ll close yourself off from participating in the world around you. You have your facts lined up, but when it comes to any true emotional investment, you check out.”

  Checking out emotionally? Her father was the one who’d done that. Not her. She felt things—deeply—and hurt just like everyone else. She simply didn’t feel comfortable making those emotions public.

  Ah, hell.

  She didn’t want him to be right. Her gaze fell away from the screen to the stacks of tapes and DVDs, then up to him. “Your timing totally sucks, Cruiser.”

  With dark morning beard peppering his unshaven face, he looked more like the Diego she’d met, even with his shorter hair.

  “There will never be a good time for you, Josie, because you’re always going to be this driven. That’s one of the things I admire about you. But are you going to continue using it to avoid the tough conversations? The past week should have taught you there might not be a tomorrow.”