Under Fire (5 page)

They stood kissing under the rush of warm water, their bodies melded together. His arousal more obvious than hers.

“There’s a towel and robe on the counter for you. Get dried off,” he said, edging her toward the shower door.

She didn’t want to leave. “Don’t you want me to wash your back?”

“No. I’m good.” Grinning, he opened the door and bowed from the waist as a doorman would.

“But…” she protested.

“Go.” He patted her rear and muttered something as she exited.

She felt out of it. Was it because of sex endorphins? Turning toward the shower, she watched his hands wash his body, vividly remembering how they felt roaming over her. A major lust attack struck.

She had to get out of the room before he came out of the shower in all his naked glory. Snatching up the fat towel, she rubbed furiously, shrugged into the robe and headed for the bedroom balcony. A clear night and waning moon gave enough light to make sparkles dance over the Atlantic. Her mind drifted to being in her helicopter, flying low and fast across the water. The thought reminded her she was a military officer—with a high security clearance—who had just hopped into bed with a man she’d never seen before. Becoming involved with “unknowns” was exactly what Command warned against. A real and true danger.

Lust, desire, want and need vanished, replaced with duty, sanity and common sense. She cocked her head toward the bathroom door and listened. The water was still running. She should get her clothes on and leave before he came out.

Shedding the robe, she went to where Rico had pitched her clothes. She found a sandal, her dress, her bra, the other sandal. Where were her panties? She leaned to look under the bed and stopped. He’d made the bed. Olivia touched the sheets. Not only had he made the bed,
he’d changed the sheets.

“Didn’t want you to have to lie on a wet spot.”

Fuck!
So much for an undetected escape.

Rico pulled her to him, lightly running his hands over her naked back and rear. He bent, kissing and nibbling her neck and shoulder.
Ah hell.
She was in trouble. He was everything she wanted in a lover and he was
dangerous,
she was sure of it. Not to the country but to her. He had her body for sure and was working on her mind.

His lips brushed her forehead and trailed down her cheek. His fingers wrapped around the hand holding her sandals as he nuzzled her neck.

“Stay,” he said, his lips vibrating against her ear.

“I have to go.” She knew she wasn’t going anywhere. The towel wrapped around his waist dropped to the floor, freeing his erection and sealing her surrender. Her sandals hit the floor and her dress pooled over her feet as she curled her arms around him.

Rico had fallen asleep, one warm arm cradling her, the other draped over her waist, his knee between her legs. Olivia relished the feeling of a man’s body against hers. In particular this man’s body that she fit against perfectly. She could get used to this.

Used to this?
The portion of her brain not focused on sex took back the controls, demanding she get away from him, get dressed and go. She’d had her first one night stand—no more, no less. Regrettably it was time to leave this man who had made her feel alive and wanted again. She moved away and his arms reflexively tightened. It crossed her mind how good it would feel to wake up like this each morning.

Oh, no. This is not good.
The engines weren’t responding to the controls. Her body betrayed her. The muscles in her back and legs tensed. A film of perspiration chilled her.
Focus. Analyze the situation.
Staying was not an option. Her primary mission goal was Danny. Finding his killer. She had no time to deal with a man. This man who had demanded so much of her tonight.

Crap. What if he came looking for her? Tracked her down, showed up on her doorstep or even worse showed up at the job.
Think. Think. Think.
Her mind ticked through the night’s events. What did he know about her? Her first name. No last name. That was good. He’d seen the Jeep, but she doubted he could find her that way. His attentions had been elsewhere—he’d have to be really good to remember the plate number.

Feeling some relief, she inched away from his body. Completely free, she lay still until sure he was asleep. Slipping off the bed she went to her hands and knees in search of her clothes, occasionally rising to make sure Rico still slept.

She found her bra, dress and both shoes. Her panties were MIA. Finally giving up the search, she eased into the main living area to dress. Wanting one last look, she returned to the bedroom. Rico lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs spread over the bed. She took a step toward him.

“Stop this,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Get the hell out.” At the door she hesitated again. She wanted to go back, but couldn’t. Maybe she could.
No.
This night had been about sex. Nothing else. Standing in a strange man’s condo arguing with herself as if she had a split personality was getting her no place.
There is no going back.
Her mind finally in control of her body, she pulled the door closed and ran for the elevator.

Inside the Jeep, Olivia looked through her purse for the keys. Her blood went cold. The envelope with the money was gone. In its place was a dirty napkin. Hands shaking, she lifted it out and read the single word.
Silva
.

Rico woke with the morning sun in his face. His mind instantly flashed back to the sex and he reached out. She wasn’t there.

“Shit.” He bolted up and listened. No sound. She wasn’t in the condo.

“Damn it.”

Rolling to the side of the bed, he put his feet on the floor and sat listening carefully for any sounds, making sure. Nothing. Christ. He’d fucked up. How could he have been so stupid? Slept so soundly he didn’t hear her leave? He let loose a string of profanities and snatched up his jeans. The wallet was still in his pocket. He quickly flipped through. His three grand and the envelope containing the grand he’d taken from her purse were there. It didn’t look as if she had touched it.

“Shit.” He slammed the wallet onto the bed and yanked on his jeans. Catching sight of something blue, he leaned to pick it up. For a long moment he stared at her panties, turning them over in his fingers, feeling the lace catch on the rough spots of his hand. His mouth twitched and his breath caught as he remembered how the lace felt when he’d run his fingers over her ass. He opened his hand and watched the blue silk flutter to the floor.

Rico stepped out on the balcony and stood staring at the water. Details of the night flooded his mind. How she felt in his arms when they danced. How she smelled. He dipped his head to his shoulder, inhaling deeply. Her scent still clung to him. He recalled the little sounds she made in response to his exploration of her body. How her hard nipples and naked belly pressed against him. He shuddered and blew out a loud breath.

What had gotten into him? Rico raked his fingers through his hair. Letting his guard down wasn’t only dangerous, it was insane.
Damn it!
She could have killed him. He grinned. She did almost kill him. The second time they’d gone at it she’d come twice and closed around his dick so hard he’d wanted to howl. The sex had been wild, draining him completely.

His cell vibrating on the dresser brought him back to reality and he stepped inside to grab it. Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror, he stopped and turned his head from side to side to get a better view of his face. He looked different, relaxed, almost like himself, not the person he pretended to be. The phone continued to chatter across the top of the dresser. He paid no attention. Could one night of sex have done this? No. It wasn’t just the sex. Couldn’t be. Rico stroked the faint stubble on his chin.

Maybe. There sure enough had been a wow factor.
Wow.
He remembered how she’d said the word.
Damn it!
Why the hell did she leave? He looked at his watch. After nine he could call…“Fuck.”

He hadn’t asked for a phone number or a last name. Getting them would be easy, but he’d have a hell of a time explaining how he’d tracked her down. He couldn’t use the contact number either.

“Get a grip,” he said to his reflection.
She’s connected to this investigation.
No way could he get involved with her. All he could do now was hope when she discovered the note she’d have enough sense to stop asking questions. Last night he’d made the first dangerous mistake of his career.

Never again would he be that careless.

Olivia stood at the office window looking at the helicopter waiting for her on the flight deck. Her helicopter. She never tired of looking at the orange bird.

“Evening, ma’am.”

She turned to see Senior Chief Defoe. “What’re you doing here?”

“I’m your gunner tonight.”

“Where’s Turner?”

“Couldn’t make it. Sick or something.” Defoe shrugged.

“Bullshit.” She took a step toward him. “You conned him into taking his place didn’t you?” Defoe retired in a couple of weeks and she’d bet her last cent he bullied his way onto this detail to see some action one last time. She was ready to chew him up and spit him out when Turner came through the door.

“Ma’am, they’re ready for us in the briefing.”

She gave Defoe a deadly look.

“Four man crew tonight,” he grinned. “Whatever they want us for, it’s big.”

“Don’t do that to me again, Senior Chief,” she said angrily as she brushed past.

Defoe first flew with Olivia out of Barbers Point, Hawaii, on the Jayhawk recovery rescue helicopter. She’d been lucky enough to have him as her senior chief at three other duty stations and considered him and his family friends. She sure as hell didn’t want to see him injured with two weeks of active duty left.

“Yes, ma’am,” Defoe said, falling into step behind her.

Olivia entered the small, crowded conference room. “Evening, sir,” she greeted Captain Anderson and nodded to Crenshaw. Three men she didn’t know sat around the conference table. Anderson introduced her and the senior chief. She waited for the captain to introduce the three men. He shook his head slightly, indicating it wasn’t going to happen.

“These gentlemen are here from—” he paused, “—from other agencies that will not be named this evening.”

None of them moved or changed their expressions.

“Freaking undercovers,” Turner whispered. “It’s a wonder they aren’t wearing ski masks.”

Olivia shot him a
keep quiet
look. He dropped his gaze to the table and slouched in his chair.

Turner was right—these guys were undercovers. They fit the description: expressionless, emotionless and deadly. Coast Guard crews frequently worked with agents from the DEA, ATF, NIS and on occasion the Secret Service. It was anyone’s guess which agency they were from.

The oldest, a brawny guy who looked like he did some serious working out, watched her with hard gray eyes. The man to his left looked Hispanic, dark hair and eyes, heavy beard and deep tan. The third and youngest also sported a tan with sun bleached blond hair and icy blue eyes. The California surfer type only more serious. All in all a good-looking guy. In another situation she would be interested.

“Sit down, Olivia.” Captain Anderson gestured for her to take a seat. She preferred to stand—it gave her a feeling of control—but Anderson gave a commanding officer look and she sat.

“There is reliable information a large amount of drugs will be moved between Fernandina Beach and Melbourne tonight via a go-fast. The supplier is someone these gentlemen have been tracking a long time.”

“Then why haven’t
these gentlemen
already taken them in?” Olivia interrupted. Though excited about the prospect of taking more dealers and drugs off the street, she wanted to know why the Coast Guard was the primary agency tonight and therefore first in the line of fire.

The blond glared at her. She gave him a stony glare right back.

“Commander.” Anderson used a cautionary tone.

“Sir, I want to know why they—the agency they work for—hasn’t already stopped them.”

“We know there will be an exchange at sea,” the captain continued, ignoring her question. “There is no way to shadow a go-fast or a delivery boat without being picked up on radar. Coast Guard regular patrols will not be suspicious. In fact, they’ll think something is wrong if they don’t see you patrolling. That’s why you’re out there tonight.”

Gray Eyes, who Olivia pegged as the team leader, held his hand up to stop Anderson.

“Captain, I’ll take over.”

“It’s your show,” Anderson replied, settling into a chair.

The man sat silent for a long moment. Finally he leaned his elbows on the table, turned to Olivia and spoke.

“First, I want you to know I asked for the Coast Guard’s best flight crew and you’re the ones sitting here.” He looked at each of her crew before he continued. “We know something isn’t right about all of this. The intel is so detailed we’re suspicious. The informant who came to us with this is a reliable source. As to who he got that info from…we don’t know. Our best guess is someone in the cartel is being set up. We can’t be sure.”

“Do you think they could be after us? Take us out in an ambush?” Crenshaw asked, making no attempt to hide his concern.

“It’s always a possibility. Frankly, they’d be foolish to attempt that. They wouldn’t want to risk the kind of firefight or the retaliation it would bring. Bottom line, we aren’t sure what we’re sending you into.”

“Great.” Crenshaw flopped back in his chair.

“We can’t afford not to follow up,” Gray Eyes continued. “If it’s good intel we take bad guys and a whole lot of drugs off the street. We can sort out the reason later.

“Captain Anderson assures me you’ll be able to adapt to whatever you come across out there. You can and will make appropriate decisions.” He raised an eyebrow and stared directly at her. “You won’t be calling in for instructions.”

Olivia gave him a slight nod. She had a rep with crews and COs. They knew she could be trusted to get the job done without loss of men or equipment.

“I want to be perfectly clear on this,” she said. “Besides us, we’ll have a cutter, two of our long range interceptor boats, the hunter plane searching with radar and a rescue helo out there.”

“Yes.” The man leaned back. “Our surface craft run with lights. The people we’re looking for don’t. We’ll have to depend on radar to find them. We have to be on top of a go-fast for our radar to pick them up.” Gray Eyes nodded. “Our onboard lights will tip them to our positions as well as their own radar, allowing them to avoid us.”

“Exactly, Commander. The cutter and interceptors will be traveling in a pattern to herd them into position, allowing you to swoop in and level your guns on them.”

Olivia thought about what he said. Dolphin crews were authorized to employ airborne use of force against the high-speed vessels known as go-fasts. Her bird was specially equipped with machine gun and missile launcher.

“Tell me exactly what you want out of me, my crew.”

“Yeah,” Turner piped up. “You want these guys dead or alive?”

“We want you to bring them in, as alive as possible,” Anderson replied.

Olivia looked at Turner. He liked firing that big-assed gun as much as she liked flying. They had a link when they were in the air and she liked it. She turned to Crenshaw, still a newbie, a by-the-book guy who was more than a little nervous when they got into a hairy situation. But he knew his stuff.

“As usual, you’re authorized to fire at your discretion,” Anderson went on.

“Sweet.” Turner grinned.

The captain turned his attention to Olivia. “You get one refuel. It’s set up at Mayport. You’re priority.” He paused, giving her a hard look. “Under no circumstances are you to extend your RTB time.”

She nodded. When chasing bad guys she’d been known to push her return to base time coming in on vapor on more than one occasion. Once she’d been within ten minutes of her RTB when her gunner went in the water to assist with a family’s rescue. No gunner meant a lighter load. A lighter load meant the helo used less fuel, giving her more time in the air. She went after the drunk boater who caused the accident. He refused to stop. It was the first time she used her slice and dice stop ’em method.

“We have a specific corridor we want you to fly.” He slid the aviation map across the desk.

Crenshaw leaned in to look. “Pretty simple.”

“That’s the good news,” the agent in charge said. “Here’s the bad. We think the supply ship is probably a fishing trawler and is more heavily armed than you. We’d prefer the cutter take on the trawler. We don’t want you dealing with them unless you have no choice. You stay focused on the prime target, the men in the go-fasts. We want them alive. We
need
them alive. Information they may provide could completely shut the Silva cartel down.”

She stifled a gasp.
Silva.
The name scribbled on the napkin. The name she’d spent every spare moment researching. Silva…the name of Danny’s killer.

Captain Anderson stood. “That’s it. Be safe out there.”

Olivia was pumped. She couldn’t be in Miami, but tonight she could and would get Silva’s men and drugs. She was also pissed the Miami detectives had never told her about him and his cartel. What else weren’t they telling her?

Forcing herself to concentrate, she did the exterior check with her ground crew chief and covered the pre-flight checklist with Crenshaw as fast as she dared. “I want all of us coming home with no holes, no rips or tears. You will observe all safety rules to the T. I will not be looking at any of your families offering my condolences. Do you each understand?” She turned to look back at Senior Chief Defoe. With only a few days in the service left, she especially didn’t want him getting hurt.

She waited until she heard a “yes, ma’am” from each of the men before she lifted the orange and silver bird off the deck.

Olivia glanced at the illuminated dial of her aviator’s watch. 1:42 a.m. They’d been in the air a little over two hours and had twenty-two minutes of fuel left before their RTB. They were flying north and she could see the sweep of the St. Augustine lighthouse to port. She took another look at the clear moonless sky through the cockpit windshield, slipped her night vision goggles back on and scanned the water ahead as she worked the helo’s controls.

“I’ve got something,” Defoe said. “Check it out.”

Olivia pushed the NVGs up to look at the radar screen.

“There.” Crenshaw pointed to a fast moving blip on the very edge of the scope. “You think it’s them?”

“Oh, yeah,” she drawled. Her fingers tightened around the control stick and she turned the bird southeast toward the blip. In no time they were watching a good image on the screen.

“Guns ready?” she asked, knowing they were. She got a kick out of Turner’s responses to the question. It was a ritual between them.

“Does a bear crap in the woods on a flat rock?”

Defoe snickered his approval.

Pressing speed to 154 knots, she closed in on the boat quickly. By now the men in the go-fast knew they were being chased. Crenshaw watched the radar, waiting for the inevitable change in direction. A fruitless attempt to elude the helo. Ahead she could already make out the glowing wake kicked up by the boat’s powerful engines.

“Here we go,” Crenshaw called out. “The dumb asses are running. He’s turning to his port.”

Olivia didn’t attempt to correct the helo’s direction. She knew they wouldn’t run out to sea. This was a stupid diversion. In order to escape they would have to come closer to land, go overboard and hope to make it to shore.

“Commander, did you hear me? I said he headed out to sea.”

She said nothing, keeping her eyes on the phosphorus trail.

“They’ve turned, headed straight in to shore.” She saw the turn to starboard at the same time Crenshaw called it out.

They were close to BINGO so Olivia slowed air speed to conserve fuel. The last thing she wanted was to abort the chase because of low fuel.

“Call it in, Crenshaw. We’ll need rescue air and seat. These guys have no intention of being taken.”

She listened to him report their position. The rescue helo monitoring their radio had already changed course. Its crew also included a gunner but he was armed with only a light caliber rifle.

Olivia maneuvered to a direct line in front of the boat’s course at an altitude of twenty-five feet. She could and would drop to ten feet in front of them to effect a stop.

“Another go-fast on the screen.”

Olivia glanced at the glowing green screen. The muscles in her back and thighs tensed uncomfortably.

“A thousand yards out. There.” Crenshaw pointed to the blip.

“It’s not our interceptors,” Defoe said. “They aren’t close yet.”

Olivia’s mind worked feverously. Two boats. What were they doing? Attempting a rescue? The second boat should be running, making an escape. She had a visual on the go-fast in front of her. It moved to starboard and she adjusted course to compensate. On the screen the second boat moved at full speed on a direct intersect with the boat approaching her. Her mind quickly ran through possible scenarios.

Ambush.

“Shit!” Her left arm strained at the pitch stick, forcing the helo to climb faster than any manual recommended. The orange bird’s black nose rose, the powerful Turbomeca engines strained to do as she asked. Her right hand worked the cyclic stick, increasing speed and pulling to port at the same time. The turbo shaft groaned. She felt each shudder and vibration of the machinery as if it were part of her. Her left foot jammed against the pedal. The rotors’
whomp, whomp, whomp
throbbed in her temples.

“Can the blades take it?” Crenshaw’s breathing sounded like he was running a marathon.

“We’re about to find out.”

“Muzzle fire from the second go-fast,” Turner called out.

The go-fast a few yards from them exploded into a ball of flame reaching fifty feet into the night sky. The helicopter rocked in the turbulence from the blast’s percussion. Olivia let loose every profanity she knew as debris struck the helo. She and Crenshaw struggled for long moments before they had full control again.

“Way to go, Commander,” Defoe shouted when she leveled the bird and turned to a position that would allow Turner to fire on the second go-fast.

“Permission to fire?”

“Granted. Make it count,” she ordered.

The missile whooshed away.
Good.
He’d gone right for the big stuff.

“HITRON 9 fired on and missile away,” Crenshaw told Jacksonville OPS in rapid-fire speech. She heard “All craft assist HITRON 9” in response.