Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone. Lindsay McKenna
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vital woman who had exuded a confidence he rarely saw in females. She’d had enough of being a “housewife” and had made an ultimatum to his military pilot father to either let her work outside the home or face a divorce.
Only twelve at the time, Dane recalled the fear he’d felt when he’d heard them arguing hotly one night in the living room after he’d gone to bed. His father’s shouting had awakened him. Dane had lain on his belly at the top of the stairs, head pressed to the wood, hands wrapped around the banister, as she began screaming back at Dane’s father just as loudly. She was tall, athletic, brainy, and had no fear of speaking her mind—ever.
“Damn…” Dane forced himself to look up…up at the Southern Cross, which glimmered like diamond droplets against an ebony sky being edged with the first hint of dawn. His mother had left. She’d tried to explain it to Dane, but at twelve, the message he got was that he wasn’t lovable enough for her to stay and be his mother. And from that day onward, he’d felt alone. Well, at twenty-nine, he still felt that way, and nothing would probably ever change it. Or the way he felt about his mother. When he was eighteen, about to graduate from high school and enter West Point, she’d left him forever. His mother had been coming to his graduation, driving from San Antonio, Texas, where she’d settled, and a drunk driver had careened into her car and killed her. Dane would never forget that day. Ever.
He heard the whirring of the elevators that would soon bring the Apaches and the Blackhawk to the deck where he stood. Moving his shoulders as if to rid them of an accumulated weight, Dane turned. As he did so, he saw a bright trail streak across the sky toward the east, where they would be flying shortly. It was a meteorite.
Dane didn’t believe in omens. He believed only in what his eyes saw, his hands felt and his ears heard. Scowling deeply, he turned on his heel. Screw it all. Did the meteorite foretell of his demise? Would it be because of his mouth? His feelings about women? Or were they going to be jumped by Kamovs? Or left at the mercy of a bunch of renegade Amazon women warriors who thought they knew how to fight?
“Be my luck that it’s the latter,” Dane grumbled as he jerked open the hatch door and went below to his fate.
“It’s time, Maya….” Dallas Klein poked her head through the opened door of her commanding officer’s office. Dallas, who was the executive officer for the base operations, raised her dark brown brows as she looked across the wooden floor at Maya’s pitiful excuse for a work area—a dark green metal, military issue desk that was battered from years of use. Maya was pouring over several maps spread across it, her face intense, her hand on her chin as she studied them.
“What? Oh….” Maya looked up. She nodded to Dallas. Glancing down at the watch on her left wrist, she blew a breath of air in consternation. “Yeah, it’s time all right.”
Dallas moved inside the office and shut the door. She was dressed in the uniform of the day—a black, body-fitting Nomex fire retardent flight suit. Her black flight boots gleamed in the fluorescent light from a fixture above the desk. Running her fingers briskly through her short sable hair, she met Maya’s gaze. “Did you sleep at all?”
“What do you think?” Maya grimaced, then straightened and opened her arms, stretching languidly like a large cat. “I’ve got the nightmare from hell visiting us for six weeks. I couldn’t catch a wink.” Maya quickly wrapped her loose ebony hair into a chignon at the nape of her neck placing a thick rubber band around her tresses to keep them in place.
“Hmm.”
“You aren’t upset about York coming?” Maya took her knee board, which she used to write things down if she needed it, and strapped it to her right thigh with Velcro. She reached into a glass sitting on her desk and took out several pens, placing them in the left upper sleeve of her uniform.
“Upset? Yeah. Lose sleep over the guy? Not a chance.” She grinned wolfishly.
“You Israelis are one tough lot,” Maya grumped. “Has Penny got the coffee on in the mess hall? I desperately need a cup before we take off.”
“Yeah, everyone’s up and around,” Dallas murmured as she opened the door for her C.O. “Edgy is the word I’d use….”
Maya grinned tiredly. “Edgy? As in on edge dancing on the edge of a sword? No kidding. Come on, I need my intravenous of java before we blow this joint and meet our male comrades in arms.”
Chuckling, Dallas, who at five foot eleven inches was almost as tall as her C.O., followed Maya down the dimly lit hall of the two-story building. Their headquarters sat deep in a cave, well hidden from any prying eyes that might try and find the complex. Maya grabbed her helmet on the way, stuffed her black Nomex gloves into it and then picked up her chicken plate, which was the name for the bullet proof vest they each wore when they flew a mission. Though they were normally called flak jackets, the army slang name was more commonly used.
Maya moved rapidly down the stairs and out the door. If not for the lights hung far above them on the cave’s ceiling, finding their way out of the place would be impossible. Familiar sounds—the clink of tools, the low murmurs of women’s voices from the maintenance area—soothed Maya’s fractious nervousness. She felt wired—and suspected it was because she would have to meet her worst enemy today.
“You’re jumpy,” Dallas observed, coming up and matching her long stride. “You sensing something?”
With an explosive laugh, Maya said, “Oh, yeah. Trouble with a capital T in the form of Major Dane York. How’s that for a mouthful, Klein?”
Chuckling, Dallas opened the door to the Quonset hut structure that housed the mess hall and kitchen facility. “Mmm, it’s more than that. You usually get this way when you smell Kamovs around.”
As Maya made her way into the small mess hall which was lined with a series of long picnic tables made of metal and wood, she saw that about half of her crews were up and eating an early breakfast. She called to them, lifting her hand in greeting, and then picked up a metal tray to go through the chow line. The flight crews had been up and working for several hours. There was ordnance to load on the Apaches, fuel to be put on board and a massive amount of software to be checked out to ensure it was working properly before any pilot sat in the cockpit. Today, Maya wanted a full array of Hellfire missiles on the underbelly of each Apache, rockets as well as a good stash of 30-millimeter bullets on board.
Penny, a red-haired army sergeant with lively blue eyes who was the head chef for their base stood behind the line, spoon in hand.
“’Morning, ma’am,” she greeted Maya as she heaped dark orange, fluffy scrambled eggs onto her tray.
“’Morning, Penny. You got any of your famous cinnamon rolls?” Maya lifted her nose and sniffed. “I can smell ’em. Any left?”
Penny blushed a bright pink. “Yes, ma’am. I managed to save a couple for you and Ms. Klein.” Penny turned to retrieve the rolls, revealing how the white apron she wore over her green fatigues hung to her knees due to her short stature. Sometimes, when she moved too quickly, the apron would become tangled around her short legs and nearly trip her.
“So you didn’t let the condors eat them all,” Maya said, pleased. She watched as Penny opened the oven and drew out two big cinnamon rolls slathered with white frosting.
“Oh, we’ve got a buncha buzzards here, no doubt, ma’am,” Penny laughed. She placed a roll on each officer’s tray. “But I know they’re your favorite, so I told my crew to keep their hands off them, threatening that they’d lose their fingers if anyone stole ’em.”
Maya grinned. “Thanks, Penny. We appreciate your being a watchdog.” Maya poured some coffee from the tall steel canister into a white ceramic mug and then went over to an empty table. She wanted time to talk to Dallas alone before the flight. Every time she thought of Dane York, her gut tightened. And yet there was something else troubling her. Maya couldn’t shake the feeling…the premonition that Kamovs were around and hunting them. Sometimes they did. Sometimes Faro Valentino, a very rich Colombian drug lord, who had money to burn and could