Lindsay McKenna - Morgan's Mercenaries - Heart of Stone

As they rose to nine thousand feet, they suddenly popped out of the cloud cover. Above, Maya saw the familiar sight of the Southern Cross. She smiled a little at the peaceful looking stars as they glimmered across the ebony arc above them. And yet here they were in a cat-and-mouse game with killers who’d just as soon see them dead as alive. The incongruity of it all struck her.

The helicopter dipped its nose forward as Maya poured in more power, and they swiftly moved along the top of the ever-moving clouds.

“Beautiful out tonight,” Wild Woman murmured as she scanned her instruments carefully.

“Yeah, it is,” Maya said. “I was just thinking how peaceful it looks up there, above us. And how Faro Valentino probably has his Russian merc pilots in their Kamovs hunting for us right now.”

“Ain’t life a dichotomy?” Jess chuckled.

Scowling, Maya kept moving her head from side to side and looking above her—“rubbernecking,” a term coined by World War II pilots. The Black Sharks were deadly hunters in their own right. When the Soviet Union broke up, Faro Valentino had marched in with his millions, purchased two state-of-the-art Kamovs and hired a cadre of out-of-work Soviet pilots, who liked being paid big bucks to fly cocaine in South America. The pilots were considered mercenaries for hire. And Faro had his pick of the best, waving his drug money under their noses.

Grimly, Maya kept switching her gaze from her instruments to the space around them. Somewhere off to her left was Dallas and the other Apache. Because the gunships were painted black, she could not see them at all. And because of their stealth duties, they ran without outboard lights.

“This time of morning there should be no other aircraft around,” Maya said to Jess.

“Roger that. The civilians are still tucked in their beds, sleeping in Cuzco.”

Chuckling, Maya returned to her duties. She could fly the Apache blind; she knew each movement and each sensation of this stalwart warrior they flew in. The Apache was a killing machine that responded to the most delicate touch. And had a heart that beat strongly within her. The soothing vibration of the engines moved throughout Maya’s body, and to her, it was like a mother holding a child and rocking it; it gave her that sense of completeness and wholeness. The Apache was one of the most marvelous inventions of the air, as far as she was concerned. It had been built by Boeing to protect the pilots, first and foremost, and secondly, to become a sky hunter that had no equal. And it did. The Kamov’s ability to sneak up on them was the one Achilles heel of this magnificent machine. And because of the type of flying they did, it was a constant threat. The Russian mercenary pilots were the cream of the crop, and they were hunters just like Maya. They lived to fly, hunt and kill. There was no difference between her and these pilots except that they were on the wrong side of the law, in Maya’s eyes. Greed ran those pilots. Morals ran her and her people.

Beneath them, Maya knew, there was thick, continuous jungle. She and her teammates had to constantly fly among precipitous peaks covered in greenery. Most of the mountains were at least ten thousand feet high, some higher. Whatever the altitude, flying was not easy and required intense concentration in order not to crash into one of the unseen obstacles. The radar kept the shapes, elevation and height of the mountains on the HUD in front of Maya so that she could fly around them accordingly.

“Hey, look at that red stripe on the eastern horizon,” Jess called out. “Bummer.”

Dawn was coming. Maya scanned the bloodred horizon.

“Think it’s a sign of things to come?” Jess asked.

Maya took the natural world around her seriously. Maybe it was her background with the Jaguar Clan. Or her innate Indian heritage. It didn’t matter. There were signs all around them, all the time. The trick was in reading them correctly. “Damn,” she muttered.

“Black Jaguar One, this is Two. Over.”

Flicking down the button on the collective, Maya answered, “This is Black Jaguar One. Over.”

“See the horizon?”

Mouth quirking, Maya glared at the crimson ribbon. “Yeah, I see it.”

“Not a good sign. Over.”

“No. Keep your eyes peeled, ladies. I’m betting on more company than was originally invited.”

“Roger. Out.”

Jess chuckled. “Wouldn’t those good ole boys from Fort Rucker die laughing if they heard us looking at a red horizon as a sign of a coming Kamov attack?”

Maya knew that there would be radio silence maintained between them and the new Apaches and Blackhawk coming in to meet them. Only once they met would they all switch to another radio frequency to speak for the first time. Ruthlessly grinning, she said, “Yeah, they’re gonna pee in their pants when they start flying with us in those new D models. It will shake up their well-ordered little male world.”

Laughing, Jess said, “Speaking of which…here they come. Got three blips on radar and…” she peered closely at her HUD “…yep, it’s them. It’s showing two Apaches, and a Blackhawk bringing up the rear. What do you know? They can navigate.”

Maya laughed. It broke the tension in her cockpit. “Well, we’ll give them an A for meeting us at the right time and place. Let’s just loiter here until they arrive.”

Placing the Apache in a hover at nine thousand feet, Maya watched her HUD with interest. The radar clearly showed the three aircraft speeding toward them. The lead one was flown by Dane York, no doubt. Her mouth compressed. Maya held on to the anger that she still had toward him. Every woman pilot at her base had had the misfortune of being under his training command. That was why, when the idea for this base came about, they had all left with Maya. They wanted no part of the continuing prejudice they knew would be thrown at them. At least down here they were graded on their abilities, not their sex.

The crimson ribbon on the horizon was expanding minute by minute, staining the retreating blackness of the starlit sky and chasing it away like a gaping, bleeding wound. Maya kept looking around. She could feel the Kamovs lurking somewhere near…but where? All she needed was to have three unarmed gunships jumped by fully loaded Kamov Black Sharks, with only two Apaches standing between them. Her mind raced. If the Kamovs were near, just waiting for the right moment to jump them, she wondered how they had found out the meeting location in the first place? Was there a leak in intelligence? How could Faro Valentino have gotten hold of this information? Maya frowned. Her gaze moved ceaselessly now. Her gut was tightening. She smelled Kamovs. Where? Dammit, where?

“Black Jaguar One, this is Rocky One. Do you read? Over?”

Maya instantly flinched. It was Dane York’s deep, controlling voice rolling in over the headset inside her helmet. Her heart leaped at that moment, beating hard. With fear. Old fear that she had felt at the school so many years ago. Anger quickly snuffed out her reaction. Thumbing the cyclic, she answered, “Rocky One, this is Black Jaguar One. Welcome to our turf.” She grinned recklessly because she wanted to let him know from the get-go that he was on her turf, her base and under her command.

There was a brief silence. Then he answered, “Roger, Black Jaguar One. What are your instructions? Over.”

Her eyes slitted as she saw the three aircraft coming out of the fleeing darkness. They were all painted the mandatory black, with absolutely no insignias on them. Her lips lifted away from her teeth and she said, “We’re worried about Kamovs jumping us. No sign of them yet, but we feel them out there. You know the routine if we’re jumped? Over.”

“Roger, Black Jaguar One. How do you know there’re Kamovs around?”