Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) (23 page)

Lola knew it was a cheat, but she managed to end up in the other SUV from Tim and in the far backseat after making sure Emily Beale was sitting up front. The Delta Force colonel sat beside her and showed little inclination to speak. Good.

She pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, feeling the pain. A sharp physical bite that she’d diagnose in an older person as a heart attack. She pushed harder, which only worsened the ache.

The irony of the situation was not lost upon her. She needed to feel, even if it was only physical pain. Or perhaps especially if it was pain. After a decade of sliding easy, it suddenly felt hard. An impossible burden to carry. She didn’t like what she was facing.

Ever since 9/11, she’d flown down a path that had unfolded in front of her like a yellow brick road. Her life—while not pure hell, certainly hadn’t been a lot of fun prior to that moment—had started to make sense. In her last year of high school, all it changed was that she graduated. But in college she’d built up some speed. ROTC, swim team. Afterward, helicopters, Air National Guard. Army, Special Forces. Rangers, Airborne. CSAR, SOAR. She and Dorothy had it easy. Nothing ten tons of military helicopter and a pair of ruby slippers couldn’t solve. At least not that she’d admit to.

She’d hit turbulence before. Been bucked down a grade for kneeing a lieutenant in the crotch when he’d really deserved it. But the harder challenges of military flying had come to her easily. Army discipline had given her a framework to rebel against, but not too much. MFEO—she and the Army had definitely been made for each other.

For all the pain of her childhood, she’d had a fairly easy ride of it since then. Learned early how to emulate the college swim-team girls who’d grown up with mothers who had taken them to swim practice since they were five in the family’s silver minivan. She learned how to charm the boys and bought her acceptance there with her body when she cared to.

Knew how to do Army. Had that down cold. Just do it. All that emotion, worry, and fear, there was no more place for it in the Army than in her father’s house. Shove it down and out of sight. You don’t show any feelings to anybody, then nobody steps on them. Don’t show them long enough, and you never have to feel them yourself.

And it worked.

It worked fine.

Lola glared out the SUV’s dark-tinted windows at the Lincoln Memorial.

It worked right up until the moment she’d met Sergeant “Crazy Tim” Maloney.

“Never comfortable, is it?” a male voice asked.

“Not even a little!” Lola almost laughed before she realized that the question and her answer had both been spoken aloud, not just her own thoughts.

She turned to face Colonel Gibson.

“What?”

His silence was the only answer as they swung onto the bridge she and Tim had run across together not five days ago.

“What!” She needed somebody to throttle, and maybe today would be a D-boy’s day.

Still silence.

She fired off a short jab at his ribs.

It was as if she was moving in slow motion.

Less than halfway to his rib cage, her wrist was completely immobilized in an impossibly strong grip. Once stopped, he paused just long enough for Lola to realize that he could snap her wrist with as little effort as she tied her boots. That even as he’d stopped her attack, some autonomic part of his training allowed him to judge the most advantageous angle of grip to set up the next move. And probably the three after that. Even she didn’t have that kind of speed, nor Tim that kind of strength.

“Sorry,” she managed to mumble after he released her wrist still in one piece. What had she been thinking in attacking the Delta Operators’ highest-ranked field officer? A colonel in his early thirties, impossible to believe until you were face to face with the man. One look in his eyes and you knew he’d earned it, earned it the hard way.

“Normal.” He rested his hands back on his thighs. Not folded together. Not arms crossed. Just resting on his thighs. A position from which he could move to defense or offense most rapidly. She hadn’t even seen it and he lived that way. In a world where that was required. “You’re faster than most.”

“Didn’t work though, did it?”

He offered her a soft smile. A smile on a face so grim seemed out of place, the scar-puckered skin along his jawline pulling his lips off center, but the eyes, the ever-present mask that somehow clouded the crystalline blue eyes, uncovered to reveal an absolute genuineness. Contrasted with his Irish black hair, he was, in this moment, handsome enough that she almost wished she’d met Michael before Tim.

Almost.

And there was the real problem. It was Tim she wanted, she simply couldn’t live with that truth.

“You’re right,” she finally answered in little more than a whisper. “It’s not even a little bit comfortable.”

Again they were waiting. Made Tim more than a little bit crazy, but it was most of what they did in Special Forces.

Train and wait.

At the moment, the Black Adders team wasn’t training.

The eight of them were sitting around Fort Rucker, waiting for the mission “go.” On a lot of Special Forces missions the “go” never happened. This probably wasn’t one of those. It wasn’t an “if,” more of a “when.”

Normally you only returned to Rucker for one of two reasons, either you were gonna “go ACE” or “have a heart-ATTC.” Either you were shipped to the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence for more training, or to the U.S. Army Aviation Technical Test Center when helping test new gear. SOAR fliers were often here for both.

But with neither happening, just squatting on hold in southern Alabama, Mother Rucker had way too much moist heat, far too many hurricanes, and not a damn thing to do. Which was okay, usually. Neither the training nor the test staff had any idea what the words “reasonable workload” meant. Mother Rucker busted your behind either way. So spare time wasn’t an issue.

Except this trip.

They were there to squat out of sight and await orders. SOAR didn’t like their stealth birds just hanging out for anyone to see, so they were tucked away deep in a hangar vacated just for their use.

The first night, they’d long-hauled down from D.C., midair refueling en route.

The second night they’d flown out to the firing range and kicked off a couple of the nano-thermite-rigged Hellfire III missiles at a derelict tank. Tim had thought the fire had been pretty impressive, until they landed to inspect the remains of what they’d shot up. They’d all sobered when they saw the results. The damned missiles had melted whole sections of the tank. As if it had been made out of butter and someone had dribbled boiling water all over it. Anything they hit with a couple of those Hellfires was done for. And they were going to be flying over U.S. soil.

But the two days and nights since, all they’d done was waited.

Still, even here, waiting didn’t usually get to him. Hang out, lift some weights, maybe pick up a likely lady or two.

Right now was exactly the right kind of environment for that last activity. He and Kee were shooting some pool. At the next table Lieutenant Trisha O’Malley was working the balls and clearly trying to work him as well. Just his type—smart, sassy, cute as hell, a flier deep in SOAR training, and tough as an Abrams tank.

Not much taller than his shoulder, with flaming red hair and a toothy, come-and-get-me smile, she also shot a fine game of pool. She’d wiped the table with Connie, and now Big John was getting his face smeared into the green felt. She’d kept teasing them about being the toughest bitch left alive in the mud hole, which actually raised a rare laugh from Connie and simply left Big John looking ill. Clearly Connie and John had been part of her SOAR interview week.

And somehow, every time he went to line up a shot, there she was in the space between their tables, lining up some trick shot that it was hard not to be impressed by and watching him with those electric blue eyes.

He could take her. He’d hustled enough pool to know he could. Unless she was even more of a hustler than she was pretending to be.

Kee got him off to the side after he’d screwed up an easy two-bank shot.

“What the hell are you doing, Maloney?”

“What?” Did she mean mooning over Lola? That was a tender point. And he’d rather Kee didn’t pound on it with her sharpshooter targeting.

“Why are you flirting with that LT? You know that’s not what you want.”

Of all damned things. Kee had made it abundantly clear that she despised Lola, and now she was defending her?

It would have helped if she hadn’t been right.

Sergeant Crazy Tim enjoyed flirting with the cute Lieutenant O’Malley.

But Tim Maloney only wanted one woman and it wasn’t the cute lieutenant.

Kee rested a hand on his arm. A hand of comfort.

“Do you want her badly enough?”

Tim nodded even as his brain tried to shake his head in denial. All the pain of being rejected. All the anger he still felt. All of it was nothing compared to the bald truth. He’d only be happy if he was with Lola LaRue.

Kee nodded solidly. “Archie wanted me that way. I fought and struggled against him, almost broke his arm in the process. But he knew. And he finally convinced me. So if you want her that badly, get out of here and go be stubborn, right-in-her-face stubborn.”

“I…” Tim had thought of a dozen, a hundred different ways, but Lola had said no in no uncertain terms and still hadn’t spoken to him since. “I don’t know how.”

Kee rested a hand on the center of his chest and looked up at him. “Don’t think, flyboy. Just go do it.”

Tim spotted Trisha O’Malley swinging back around her table, setting up the final shot that would knock Big John out of the game, put another twenty dollars into those tight jeans pockets, and leave him a wide-open opportunity.

He handed his cue stick to Kee as he turned for the door.

Colonel Gibson wandered in through the door and held it for Tim.

He nodded to Michael, then thought of the look that the disappointed lieutenant was probably aiming at his back.

“Colonel, there’s a lady over there looking for a worthy opponent.”

Michael glanced over Tim’s shoulder, then offered him a nod and a thin smile before moseying over to the table Tim had just abandoned.

So that’s how Archie had caught Kee, sheer persistence and determination. He’d always wondered. Well, Tim knew how to do that. He was a Night Stalker, and Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.

“NSDQ,” he said as he stepped out into the heat blast of the day and the blinding sun. He did know who he wanted. Now he just had to find out where in Mother Rucker she was hiding.

He leaned forward into the humid air, like a helicopter tipping down its nose to gain forward speed, and set out to find her.

***

Tim spent the morning and part of the afternoon trying to track her down. He even wandered into the Army Aviation Museum to catch a break from the heat. He’d never had time to go there before, but without Lola, it wasn’t particularly fun. Now he stood outside the door wondering what to do next.

Two days and nights without a single word. Not a single sighting. He didn’t even know where to begin.

He’d never considered himself a deep person. Pretty happy just going along living his life. Damn good life, damn fine family, and the best team ever to fly the skies. All a man needed.

But the more Tim thought about it, the more he knew what a complete crock o’ crap that had become. He was miserable. If he didn’t know it himself, he’d seen it reflected in John’s eyes. And Connie’s. Even Kee appeared ready to cut him some slack about Lola, and he wasn’t ready for that either.

He didn’t need slack.

He needed Lola.

Knowing that somehow made it easier. A clear target now in his sights, it was only a matter of getting there.

He considered a strategy.

He considered making a plan.

Instead, he set out to just find her.

Mother Rucker was only eleven square miles, five thousand full-time residents, and another couple thousand transients.

How hard could it be?

***

Half a stroke before she hit the wall, Lola executed a somersault flip-turn and headed toward the other end of the pool with a mile-eating freestyle stroke. She’d lost count around fifteen laps but had swum a long way since then. At least two miles were gone, maybe most of three.

She was no sprinter, never was built for that kind of hundred-meter speed. Lola was fast but not that kind of fast. What she had was serious staying power. Could outlast any field of competitors on a long swim. She’d already burned out half a dozen grunts who thought they could rule the pool and the woman in it.

Male egos didn’t take well to being lapped. Especially not in their first five. After their macho sprint burned out, Lola just ate ’em alive.
Don’t be no messing wit’ da Creole lady, mon.
One Army grunt became so angry at not being able to outpace her that he’d punched the wall at the end of the lane. By his scream and rapid exit, probably busted his wrist. Be funny to hear him explain that one to his buddies.

After a while the pool emptied and it was just her.

Back and forth.

Just her.

Usually this kind of a long swim charged her up. Made her feel strong, capable, and tired enough to know she’d sleep well.

At the moment all she felt was wound up, cranky, and exhausted in a way that would just leave her tossing and turning.

She spotted some movement at poolside when she turned her head for air.

No longer just her. Another contender.

The figure loomed at the end of her lane as she swam toward it. Not moving. Not getting into the pool to try and swim her down. Just standing there, arms crossed, silhouetted by the lowering sun. Watching her.

She didn’t need the broad shoulders or unconsciously arrogant, shoulder-wide stance to know who stood there. His body knew he was better than most men, even if he didn’t act that way.

Lola did another turn and headed back up the pool as if she hadn’t seen him to give herself time to think.

Maybe after another lap he wouldn’t be there.

Maybe she’d just climb out at the far end of the pool, sending a clear message that she didn’t want to be with him.

But that was the problem.

She slapped the far wall, flip-turned, and headed back.

That was the real problem.

She arrived at the end of the lane by his feet and drifted to a stop. Crossed her arms and hooked her elbows on the gutter to hold her in place as she pulled her goggles down around her neck and looked up at him.

The problem was that she did want him.