Target Lock On Love

by M. L. Buchman

  When Mick leaned to one side, she leaned with him.

  When he leaned to the other side, she went that way as well. The snow was deep and powdery. Whenever they slowed too much, she’d raise her feet and the nose of their foil toboggan along with them and once more they’d fly downhill.

  It was impossible to talk.

  She opened her mouth to shout and so much freezing air and snow pummeled into her lungs that she spent the next thousand feet or so trying to choke it back out.

  The ride went on forever. And for all of it she was lying back against Mick. She was rapidly freezing into a popsicle and it was about the closest she’d ever been to heaven.

  “Hang on!” Mick shouted. Then he shifted, wrapping one arm tightly around her waist and clamping the injured one protectively over the top of her head.

  She opened her eyes just a second before they ran out of snow.

  They hit the ash field going at least fifty.

  Mick curled up around her, forcing her to go fetal. They tumbled and rolled down the slope for a long time, finally skidding to a stop in a jumble.

  She didn’t dare move.

  Mick wasn’t moving either. The silence was deafening; Mount Hayes had been far noisier.

  “You still with us, Quinn?” Her whisper sounded like a shriek.

  “I think so. Let me check,” he buried his face in her hair and breathed in. “Must be. I like to think that if this was heaven you wouldn’t still smell like fish. Maybe this is hell, because you definitely smell like sulfur.”

  He recovered his parka, though he was shivering so hard that she had to zip it up for him.

  Miraculously, he still had the NVGs, so she took them and pulled them on herself. The scouted around and found the chunk of rotor blade back up where Mick had tossed it aside at the snow-ash interface. They had too few resources to be throwing any away. Besides, it would be a very American object, even if it was ten thousand feet below the crash site.

  Returning to Mick—who had folded up the foil toboggan and stuffed it in his pack—she took Mick’s hand on his good side. They both staggered like drunkards down the last of the ash slope.

  They had landed on a ridge of ash between two badly broken glaciers. The crevasses and spikes of either ice field surely would have killed them.

  “You done good, Quinn, steering us here.”

  “Blind luck, I assure you.”

  She kept scanning upward, but didn’t spot any aircraft overhead. Hopefully the Russians were all heading to the drone’s crash site now several miles behind them. There was no American wreckage at the site, outside the caldera.

  They’d have no reason to search inside the caldera. Even if they did, all except a few tiny scraps had been melted.

  If there was enough left of the drone to see the bullet holes or even recover some of the bullets, they’d find nothing but Russian manufacture. They’d be chasing their own tails for ages trying to figure out who shot down twenty million dollars of experimental aircraft.

  Provided they didn’t capture a pair of lost and wandering American pilots.

  She’d finally shifted Mick to following behind. Blind in the darkness, he had a hand locked on the back of her survival vest and was skilled enough that they’d been making okay time.

  Still, the stars were fading by the time Patty found what she was looking for.

  She guided him up to the face of the glacier.

  “It’s warm,” she watched his profile as he raised his face to the moist air.

  Then she led him inside.

  Chapter 14

  Patty checked in with Sofia who told them to keep out of sight. The slopes of Mount Shiveluch were crawling with Russian military. Hopefully the Russians would give up by nightfall, but during the daylight it would be too dangerous to travel.

  She looked around and didn’t know if she’d ever want to leave.

  The ice cave in the bottom of the glacier had been carved by a thermal hot spring. Somewhere up under the ice, volcanic heat and glacier were combining to make a flow of warm, crystal clear water.

  The cave was twenty-feet high, wider than her family’s living room, and went back fifty or more paces that they could explore walking upright. The ceiling was a broad arch from one side to the other. The surface rippled like pillows.

  The base of the cave was mostly boulders, originally caught up in the ice and then freed by the winding stream’s warmth. But there were areas where the finer particles had melted out and been gathered into small beaches.

  Its best feature was the dawn light. Shining golds and reds glittered at the cave’s entrance. The ceiling above, through the thin ice and snow, was a wash of the most brilliant blue she’d ever seen.

  “Color of your eyes, Gloucester,” Mick said following her gaze upward.

  “Twelve hours before first possible rescue. Ready to catch up on your sleep, Quinn?”

  His slow smile told her that there wasn’t a chance of that.

  She nodded back at him, unable to find the words.

  “I’ll scrub your back if you’ll scrub mine,” Mick finally said.

  “Okay,” that sounded fantastic to her. “But you have to wash off your own wolf’s blood.”

  Shy wasn’t anywhere in Patty’s personal inventory, but neither was bathing naked with a man she loved. At least not yet.

  Mick dipped his face into the stream and scrubbed at it until she nodded her approval. The water, she knew, was hot-springs warm, and the ambient air was comfortable enough once back from the cave opening itself.

  Still unable to speak, she sat on the small sand beach and watched him undress.

  This was not some man barely seen as he snuggled down in a sleeping bag. This was Mick “The Mighty” Quinn shining in the multi-colored ice cave. Broad chest, six-pack abs, and powerful legs. She didn’t need him to remove his underwear to know that “The Mighty” wasn’t euphemistic.

  She watched as he shed that last bit of cloth and then stepped up to her. He took her hands and coaxed her to her feet.

  He was so perfect. Even the purpling bruises of the wolf’s bite on his forearm—the thick layers had spared him any punctures—only added to the image. How was it possible she was the one he wanted?

  His dark eyes studied her and she had to look away from the strength of his desire that shone there. He slowly undressed her, until she too was standing helplessly naked before him.

  Patty swayed on her feet, light-headed and dizzy. For once unsure of herself because no man had ever looked at her the way Mick Quinn did.

  When he swept her up in his arms, she turned totally girl and just curled up against his chest. He could do anything he wanted to her and she’d be helpless to stop him because she wanted it so badly. From Mick Quinn, everything was welcome. Absolute trust in flight had somehow transformed to absolute trust in his grasp.

  She tried to think if she’d ever before found such a place of perfect contentment. Nope. Not once.

  Despite his injury, he carried her as if she were a bride crossing a threshold and she remained curled against his chest as if she’d be there until the end of her days.

  Then he let her go and she was falling.

  With a splash she landed in a wide pool of the stream’s warm water.

  “Goddamn it, Quinn!” she shouted as soon as she could stop spitting out the water she’d swallowed.

  # # #

  If she didn’t need to cool off, Mick sure as hell did.

  The sight of Patty naked and so damned perfect had been seared into him. He knew he would do anything for her. There were also a lot of things, a whole lot of things he wanted to do to her…or perhaps with her.

  He’d needed a little distance before he collapsed at her feet and begged her for any morsel she might deign to give.

  Even lying back in the stream’s w
ater with little more than her snarl showing above the surface, he couldn’t stop looking at her. The clarity of the water flowing over her body wasn’t helping matters. Her shape was exquisite, a fantastic blend of completely feminine and undoubtedly soldier.

  He sat down in the water to at least partially hide the throbbing evidence of his own need for her. Mick grabbed her ankle and yanked it hard enough to pull her face back underwater.

  Then while she was still spluttering out her shock, he scooped up a handful of the warm sand and began scrubbing the bottom of her foot. As he worked his way up her body, she soon started a running commentary. First, with each scrub he was a “total meathead.” But that soon changed to approval of each thing he was doing.

  He couldn’t even focus on the words. Instead he simply paid attention to when her sentences grew more and more fragmented, finally shattering under the harsh gasps as she struggled for breath.

  When he raised her hips from the water to taste her, her cry echoed about the ice cave.

  When at long last he laid her out on their spread clothes and took her, it was his own groans that echoed hers.

  # # #

  Patty woke in her favorite position, curled in Mick Quinn’s arms with her head resting on his shoulder. Her foil emergency blanket was spread over them, but the cave was warm enough that it was all the cover they needed.

  The evening light had turned the cave into a shadowed, mysterious place beneath a ceiling of such dark blue that she caught herself wondering why there were no stars in it.

  In twelve hours they had spoken no words. Discussed no futures. Made no promises or protestations.

  For most of the last twelve hours they had simply enjoyed themselves and each other. She’d never known a man’s body as thoroughly as she now knew Mick’s, and he was such a responsive lover that she suspected that she’d barely begun to plumb the depths. Something she could easily spend a lifetime exploring.

  She slid on top of him.

  This time she was going to get her wake-up sex.

  With impressive resiliency, Mick’s body allowed itself to be teased to life. She cracked open another condom—they’d each been carrying a fair supply which had made them laugh before they’d jumped each other for the third time.

  Mick’s body shuddered to life as he let out a murmur of pleasure.

  She poised herself over him, clutching the foil blanket about her shoulders—when a deep voice sounded in the cave.

  “I thought you two might want some rescuing. Am I wrong?”

  Patty twisted to glare over her shoulder, accidently ramming a knee into Mick’s ribcage, waking him the rest of the way with a harsh grunt.

  “Yes, you’re totally wrong. Go away, Altman! I’m busy.”

  “Busy?” Napier said from close behind the SEAL commander. “Looks like you’re getting ready to kill the boy. Will you be biting off his head when you are done with him? Like a praying mantis?”

  “Non! She will not,” Danielle spoke up. “Night Stalkers women do not kill their véritable amour except with the love of their hearts.”

  Patty pulled the foil blanket over her head and buried her face in Mick’s chest. “True love” was right up there with the M-word as uniquely embarrassing truths to have been spoken aloud by one of her commanders.

  “Your ass is out in the wind, Chief Warrant,” Altman addressed her. “Right up there with my wife’s. Lucky man, Quinn.”

  “I have to agree with you, Commander. Though I’d say that Danielle’s is—” was all Napier got out before Danielle cut him off.

  “You! You will avert your eyes and say not one word or I will start comparing you to Lieutenant Quinn en détail.”

  Mick reached his arms around Patty, stroked them down her back, and retucked the foil behind her buns.

  “Someday we’ll get a break,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m willing to keep trying until we do. How about you?”

  She nodded against his chest, but was still too embarrassed to face her commanders.

  Chapter 15

  Thirteen hours flying time saw them back to Anchorage. And Mick had spent most of it asleep in the back of the Chinook. The rest of it he’d spent marveling at finding Patty nestled in his arms each time he woke.

  With the early departure of one Little Bird, the demise of the second, and a mid-air refueling courtesy of the US Air Force—because Attu Island was buried in a harsh storm—the heavy rubber fuel bladder in the Chinook’s cargo bay was only half-emptied. It made a very comfortable mattress for the return flight.

  During the endless hours of debriefing, the investigators—who he was fairly sure were CIA—offered no complaints about he and Patty losing five million dollars of helicopter that would come out of their budget. The intelligence harvest on the Russian drone was huge.

  First read was that its capabilities were far less complete than first feared. The airframe existed, but many of the electronics and software packages were little more than frameworks for what would still take the Russians years to develop.

  After the round with the CIA, they’d been sent to sit with some engineers as they were the only two pilots who had flown against one or shot it down. Not that there was much to say from an engagement that had lasted under thirty seconds. They seemed quite upset that neither he nor Patty had the foresight to pull the Linda’s recording log during the crash.

  Then…Mick had needed serious therapy once they escaped the debrief teams.

  He knew exactly where to get it.

  Fifteen minutes after they had all made good their escape from JBER, they once again were tucked away in the back room of the Moose’s Tooth surrounded by pizza and beer.

  Mick made damn sure he was sitting next to Patty O’Donoghue this time. Their chairs were so close together that they were drawing wry smiles from everyone around the table—even M&M and Kenny who were still ticked about missing out on the mission—and Mick didn’t give a damn.

  “To a successful mission,” Altman called out and everyone raised their glasses. “And a safe return.” He winked at Mick who winked back.

  “Crap!” Patty jolted against him, nearly planting an elbow where she’d placed her knee so solidly in his ribs in the ice cave.

  “Our Frisbees. Not only didn’t we play a game of Ultimate Frisbee on Russian soil while we had the chance, they were in the back compartment of the Linda.”

  She looked deeply put out by it.

  “I’ll get you new ones,” Mick promised.

  “Won’t be the same. Those had history,” she pouted for display. Then she beamed at him in that way she knew he was defenseless against. “You’ll get me tournament quality, glow-in-the-dark ones?”

  “Promise,” and he sealed it with a kiss. A kiss that Patty heated up until catcalls sounded around the table. Then she sat back abruptly and fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  He pulled the orange and red hat, that had somehow survived the mission, down over her eyes.

  “To being totally under their thumbs,” Napier toasted with a smile. Altman and Big John joined in on that one as the women laughed.

  It was hard to imagine a giant like Big John unable to stand up to any whims of Connie Davis…or maybe it wasn’t. Mick recalled that no one had tried to argue when Connie had insisted she needed fourteen more minutes.

  “What were you doing to their software anyway?”

  Connie blushed slightly, not something he’d ever seen before. By the expression on Big John’s face that was a new one on him as well.

  “They have acceleration sensors aboard their aircraft. They need to track and control the g-forces to make sure they don’t overstress the airframe.”

  “So you switched it off?”

  “Seems a little obvious,” Patty nudged him. She’d kept her hat down and was pretending she was lost as an excuse to knock a hand repeatedly aga
inst his face. He could see a bit of the bright blue of her eyes through the stretched knitting, so he shoved her hat back up on her forehead and she stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Far too obvious for my lady,” John confirmed. “I’m guessing you set up a failure.”

  “Not directly,” Connie replied. “Too easy to trace. I set it so that when it reached a g-force that was far from critical—one selected each time by a random number generator to make it harder to trace—it would set off a sub-routine in another section of the software. The engine control software would set up a high-frequency and very powerful oscillation that would ultimately shatter the welding compounds that the Russians prefer to use in their airframes.”

  “Which means the aircraft will test flawlessly on the ground and in simple flight…” Mick was damn impressed.

  “But will fall out of the sky under various hard maneuvers,” Patty said in wonder. Then she stood up and reached across the table. “High five, girl.” Connie reached out and between them (mostly Patty) they managed to knock a pitcher of beer (mostly full) into a Santa’s Little Helper meat-red pepper-and-cilantro pizza (thankfully mostly eaten).

  “I estimate,” Connie concluded, “that will set their program back eighteen to twenty months and add eighty-seven to ninety-two million dollars to their total program cost.”

  There was a respectful silence around the table.

  “I think,” Major Napier said softly, “that deserves more than a toast.” Then he dug something out of his pocket and grinned wickedly.

  He rapped whatever he held twice on the table, hard.

  “Coin check!”

  People began digging in their pockets.

  Mick didn’t even bother trying. He hadn’t been coin checked in all of his time in the Night Stalkers and had long since stopped carrying the coin from his days at Fort Drum. His commander there had handed out commemorative unit coins so often that they’d become meaningless. To produce one of Goodman’s coins was an embarrassment and Mick would rather buy the round of drinks for not having one—for that was the usual price for being unable to produce a unit coin.