Athena Force: Books 1-6

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

  Okay. Her odds were better on the Predator than against a crazy gunman.

  She climbed onto the Predator, sinking into the modified saddle seat with familiar ease and an unfamiliar dread. Quincy secured her harness, strapped in her legs and fit a helmet over her head without the benefit of a connected headset. She would be out there in the open sky with no way to communicate. Her legs locked tighter around the fuselage.

  He opened the hangar doors and let the preplanned flight data take over. The craft hummed underneath her, a thrill she’d worried about never experiencing again, not knowing worse fears awaited her.

  She had a plan. It would have to be enough. Because more than her own death, she feared her sister’s—and leveling Diego’s world if he lost another wingman.

  Burger bags in his fists, Diego elbowed the down button on the elevator. His instincts were getting a workout this week, and now he couldn’t shake the sense that Josie was in trouble. He’d feel a helluva lot safer when they rejoined forces. This solo crap was for the birds.

  He understood he couldn’t hang with her 24/7, but…nothing. He didn’t have a logical reason for how he could stay closer or what he could do differently. Josie wasn’t the type he could wrap in a cotton cocoon and he wouldn’t change a damn thing about her.

  Except maybe that prissy nature—which could actually be sexy sometimes when it challenged him to ruffle her.

  The doors parted to reveal…

  The vault door, cracked open. Where was security? Instincts jumped into an overtime workout. His heart kicked up to compensate.

  He cleared the elevator, fears hammering as fast as his pulse. Had the gunmen found them here after all? How in the hell would they have gained entrance? And if they were in there, they would have already heard the elevator. Any element of surprise was gone now. “Josie? Diana?”

  A moan sounded from inside. Feminine and injured. Bile burned his throat all the way up to his brain.

  The sacks of food dropped unheeded to the floor. Diego shoved the heavy vault door the rest of the way open and found Diana sprawled and unconscious. Blood saturated her shoulder.

  He shot across the room and dropped to his knees beside her. “Diana? Diehard?” He pressed his hand to her neck, felt a steady pulse. Thank God. He peeled aside the blood-soaked shoulder of her shirt to check her wound, a clean shot but bleeding like a son of a bitch. “Come on, little sister, wake up, damn it.”

  Where the hell was Josie? Seconds pounded past in his head. He needed to call for backup, but phones weren’t allowed in the vault and his cell wouldn’t work from the reinforced cellar. “Hang on, little sister. Just hang on.”

  He launched to his feet again, raced up the stairs and called the security police on his cell phone. Back in the vault, he shrugged out of his jacket and mashed it to her shoulder in counterpressure. He resurrected his best officer bark and commanded, “Lieutenant Lockworth, wake up.”

  Her lashes fluttered open, eyes glassy. “Morel? Ouch. You’re hurting my shoulder.”

  Relief dulled the edge of fear. “Yeah, little sister, it’s me. Where’s Josie?”

  “I dunno. Where’s the Chinese food? Josie better have saved some of those pot stickers for me.” She pressed her clenched fist to the floor to brace up, flinching from her injury. She looked down at the blood, went ghost-white and sagged back. “What the hell?”

  “Just hold still.”

  Pot stickers?

  Damn. The injury must have scrambled her head. “Keep thinking. What do you remember right before you fell asleep?”

  Footsteps pounded in the hall. Thank God for quick response. Security police swarmed the room, followed by General Quincy.

  Quincy? The very man Josie had brought them here to investigate.

  The general’s proximity jangled more alarms and plenty of rage. Diego took a closer look at the man, who had a land mobile radio clenched in his shaking hand. Something definitely wasn’t right. The normally composed general had a serious case of bed head to match a rumpled mess of a flight suit. His eyes darted with frenetic intensity.

  And two distinct fingernail scratch marks tracked down his cheek.

  The man seemed oblivious to it all as he strode inside with the expectation of authority, unaware that even the SPs were eyeing him with suspicion.

  Shit.

  Was Josie already dead? The horrifying thought almost rocked him into reckless motion. If he flew at Quincy, the cops would haul him off. Josie needed help and his calm. “Where is she?”

  “Captain Lockworth?”

  “Yes, where is she?”

  “Zoe’s out working on her test.”

  Zoe? “Uh, sir, that’s Captain Lockworth’s mother.” More than strange, this guy was plain wacko.

  The security cops exchanged frowns.

  “Diego?” Frowning, Diana groped behind her.

  “Yeah, little sister.” He reached for her elbow. “Steady now.”

  She extended her arm, fist opening to reveal a name tag from a flight suit. He didn’t need to read any further than Birddog.

  His eyes flew to Quincy’s flight suit—devoid of a tag.

  The man’s crazed look, the name tag left behind, his coincidental appearance here and now…Diego didn’t doubt for a second. Josie had left the unmistakable message behind that Quincy was indeed guilty.

  Diego scooped up the incriminating tag and, just as he’d felt the plane all those years ago, he could feel Josie’s strength in the message she’d somehow managed to leave behind during what must have been a hellish encounter. God, he loved that hardheaded woman. How could he not?

  Rising, Diego passed the tag to the nearest SP and nodded toward the general. They needed to detain, if not arrest, this guy before he got away. Military police weren’t hamstrung by as many legalities as civilian cops. Military police were bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, not the Constitution. Thanks to Josie’s fighting spirit, they had more than enough cause to hold the man temporarily.

  The SPs closed in, flanking Quincy. “General, we need you to come with us.”

  “Of course.” He threw back his shoulders with overblown dignity. “I’m happy to help with the investigation into Captain Lockworth however I can.”

  Tension burned through Diego until he was so damn taut he could snap. The need to find Josie pounded through him. He would not lose her. Failure was not an option.

  Diego approached, leash on his rage short, fear alternately feeding and restraining the urge to pummel information free. “Where is she?”

  “She stole an aircraft—the remaining test Predator.” Quincy’s hand gravitated to his face and stroked along the scratches in an eerie caress. “She wants to prove her theories, you know. I’m afraid I couldn’t stop her insanity.”

  Diego rasped in air. There was a chance she was still alive. Relief slashed through him.

  “Although I imagine fighter planes will have to shoot her down, if she doesn’t crash first.”

  Fresh horror cut through him. What had Quincy done to Josie’s Predator?

  But she was alive.

  She had to be. He would focus on that because he couldn’t accept the alternative. He thought he’d been sent to hell three years ago, but that was nothing compared to what his world would be like if Josie died.

  Diego sprinted past the security police. There would be time for statements later.

  For now, he had to keep F-16s from blasting her out of the sky. And then pray she could outfly whatever Quincy had thrown her way.

  Chapter 21

  If she could just fly.

  Wind and low-lying clouds tearing at her through the murky night, Josie sawed the binding ropes against the edge of the useless control panel in front of her. Agony knifed up her blood-slicked wrists. She pressed harder, unable to gauge her progress in the inky sky. Stars hung closer to her face at the higher altitude, the moon behind her.

  She had the old data disk in her flight suit. She had a chance and damned if she wou
ld lose it. Emotions she couldn’t even waste time restraining pummeled her as hard as the wind.

  How much longer before Quincy’s flight plan crashed the craft? Or until fighter planes overtook her?

  She shuddered. She had to get free, maneuver herself into position and then wait three minutes for the new data to load. Doable. It offered at least hope for survival, and more of a chance than when Quincy’s gun had been pressed to her forehead.

  The knot inched. She could swear it had. If only her wrists weren’t swelling. She jerked harder, blood lubricating the nylon rope.

  Her hands pulled free.

  Pain screamed through her fingers. She didn’t have time to so much as shake control back into her flaming hands. Praying Quincy had been lying, she grabbed the stick and pumped it.

  Nothing happened.

  The Predator continued to fly Quincy’s preprogrammed plan. The override controls were truly locked out. Her fists balled along with the urge to scream. She would have to install the disk stored in her flight suit pocket—easy enough to do on the ground. Not so simple at eight thousand feet in the air.

  She smeared the slippery blood on her legs and unzipped her pocket. Carefully. God, she didn’t even want to think about dropping the disk into the void of air below her. She shivered from the image more than the cold of altitude. Fumbling, searching, finally her fingers closed around the disk.

  The access door for the disk was aft of the saddle—a far back and dangerous lean that would threaten the Predator’s aerodynamics. She would have to hope Quincy’s autopilot disk was programmed to compensate for weight shifts and the wind battering her.

  She angled back, unable to see, only gauging by numbed touch. The center of gravity adjusted aft, as well. The Predator’s nose pulled up. The slipstream noise lessened. Everything inside her shouted in protest.

  The craft decelerated.

  Her fingers tight around her only chance, she leaned forward to drop the nose and speed up again, farther still to build speed so she could afford to bleed off some when she moved back again to insert the disk.

  Josie twisted, reached. Speed decreased. Hold. Hold. Hold. She willed the craft to obey her.

  She pried the release open, then leaned forward fast, a second to spare in stopping a stall. The disk stayed in her numbed grip.

  Okay. Almost there.

  Gasping slow breaths to steady her heart—God, she couldn’t afford to pass out now—she built speed again then strained her arm, tighter, farther. Adrenaline and nerves stretched as taut as her extended arm while she tried to keep her body planted as much in the seat as possible. She was so close. Even considering failure threatened her with lethal shakes.

  Hand steady, she felt for the slot. Noise decreased. No. Just another couple of seconds.

  A thumping sounded along the wings, wind battering rather than flowing, destroying the craft’s natural aerodynamics.

  God, one more second.

  The disk jammed home.

  Air exhaled as fast as her hand slapping the Read button. She only needed three minutes more for the data to load and re-enable the onboard controls. She brought her arm forward.

  The Predator stalled.

  Total silence enveloped her. Even the wind dwindled to more of a stroking breeze from an anonymous lover.

  “No!” She threw her weight forward to counterbalance but didn’t get to centerline fast enough. A wing dipped in sync with her lean from popping in the disk.

  The stall morphed into a spin.

  “Damn it!” she shouted to no one as the aircraft wrapped into violent revolutions.

  Given the three minutes needed to reload…she calculated rates of speed, spin, descent. Even if she gauged her altitude correctly, by the time she regained control, she would be…

  Too low to recover.

  She was going to crash.

  For the first time, the very real fear of failure slapped as her body cycled toward the ground. No. No. No! She had too many things left to do. Stop Quincy. Clear her mother’s name. Be with Diego. Watch his hair grow again and love him. God, how she loved that wild and reckless man who cut her no more slack than she gave him.

  Robbed of even sight in the dark, her senses spun until vertigo slithered its insidious stranglehold around her. Vertigo. Leveling worlds. Diego’s words earlier came back to her.

  Vertigo.

  Leveling.

  Feel the plane.

  Her instincts shouted a solution, a scary as hell and totally illogical solution. She started the math required to prove it could work, but she didn’t have time to compute.

  Sometimes an aviator had to feel the plane.

  Shutting down doubts, she reached for her seat belt. She leaned forward, out over the fairing. Her butt lifted from the safety of the seat. Farther forward she angled, no parachute to save her if she slipped, flung from the gyrating craft.

  And in an odd way that empowered her—just her out there with the elements, no safety net. She had to win.

  She would win.

  The air rotated into a hurricane vortex beneath her. One look threatened to shake her loose. She fixed her eyes ahead.

  Her arms wrapped around the fuselage, inching her body forward, shifting the center of gravity with her in increments while the Predator spun like a child’s top. Much more and the wings could suffer stress cracks.

  Breaks.

  Her thighs screamed at the strain of locking her in the steely grip to keep her from flinging off. She held tighter, kept her eyes forward in spite of the gyrating forces working to peel her skin from her body.

  The spin slowed.

  Still the craft dropped but not as fast, the wings able to glide again. Would it be enough? Seconds ticked by. She tucked her head to the side, staring back at the panel, waiting for the green light signaling data load completed.

  Go!

  The light flashed. The engine restarted.

  Her arms numb, her muscles screeching from exertion, she eased herself closer to the saddle, dropped back into the seat to straddle the fuselage. Her hands closed around the stick.

  The aircraft responded. She had control. She exhaled, heart hammering in her ears. Damn Quincy and his insane plans.

  Josie applied pressure to the opposite rudder to arrest the spin just as Diego had done in the simulator to stop her descent. The craft followed her every instruction as perfectly in tune as she remembered. Yes.

  Although she wasn’t risking her second chance just to log some extra flight time. She was getting her butt back on ground. ASAP. There would be time to celebrate later.

  She nudged the stick forward, a little more, careful of the dark and the threat of mountains, since she didn’t have a clear idea of where the hell she was. The night sky parted to reveal rolling dunes. No pretty runway landings for her. She would settle for that smooth stretch of dried-up lake bed less than a mile ahead.

  Josie pulled back on the throttle, ground coming toward her at a nice sedate pace instead of a flat spin crash. The gear skimmed the desert, puffing a cloud of sand as she rolled to a stop. She sat and let the quiet reality roll over her along with the grit. She was alive.

  She tipped back her head, belting out a war cry that must have reverberated to Reno and back.

  Two F-16s circled overhead, lights blinking alongside the stars in the night sky. How long had they been there? Had they been with her in the air? She’d been too focused on survival to notice. And thank God they hadn’t shot her down.

  Her position had been noted, however, and rescue would come soon. She would only have to sit tight and wait.

  She had no idea how long she watched the fighters maneuver overhead. She simply lost herself in the magnificence of their flight. For years, she’d flown for her mother. From this point forward, she knew she would fly for herself.

  Taming the sky was now her dream.

  A rumble in the distance pulled her attention from the sky. Rays of sunlight fingered from the horizon with the first hints of mornin
g, purples and oranges painting the stark desert. A military Suburban eased into view. Instincts told her Diego was in the passenger side. Nothing would have stopped him from being here for her or from taking care of Diana’s safety.

  Those awesome instincts also told her she wouldn’t hesitate to walk into his arms. Emotions—full, out there and free—empowered her more than years of restraint through logic.

  She hefted herself from the seat and swung over to the ground. Her boots pounded solid earth. Her knees rocked a little, but a flattened hand against the Predator steadied her, her eyes already locked on Diego stepping from the Suburban.

  Then she was running, her knees working just fine. Diego met her halfway, his arms banding around her. Hard and oh, so hot. She buried her face in the crook of his neck.

  She’d beaten the odds for her second chance. But would her sister be as lucky? “Diana? Quincy shot her—”

  “I know,” Diego answered against her hair. “I found her when I came back.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll need a few stitches. And she doesn’t remember anything that happened for the past few hours, but she appears to be completely okay otherwise.”

  Just as Quincy had said. Thank God. “What about General Quincy? He needs to be sto—”

  “I got your name tag message and the security police have him under house arrest—actually more like a psych watch. I hope to God you’ve got some concrete evidence to nail that bastard.”

  “Damn straight, I do.” Josie eased back to stare up at him, morning sun behind his shoulders casting his face in shadows. “I guess I have you to thank for keeping the F-16s from popping me.”

  “You can thank me later.”

  All shadows aside, she could see his smile.

  His hands stroked over her hair. “I don’t know how the hell you got onto the ground, but I’m just so damn grateful you’re here.”

  She smiled right back. “I just felt the plane.”

  His rumbling laugh wrapped around her. “When you figure something out, you go all the way.”

  “I’m all about giving a hundred percent.” And wasn’t that another lightbulb moment? Time to give one hundred percent in her relationship with this man, as well, because, by God, he was right. Something incredible happened when they were together. “I love you, Diego Morel.”