Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone

No! Dane sat down, before his knees buckled beneath him, disbelief thrumming through him. Those cool, half-closed emerald eyes, eyes that reminded him of a jungle cat, stared back at him. Maya Stevenson was the biggest thorn he’d ever had in his side. She’d nearly scuttled his career so many years ago. After she’d graduated into the Apache A model, she’d quite literally disappeared. Not that Dane was unhappy about that. He wasn’t. She was the in-your-face kind of woman who made him see red with great regularity. He didn’t like her independence. Or her chutzpah. She’d call him out every time he said something wrong—or politically incorrect. There wasn’t a day that went by when she was his student that they hadn’t flared up and had words, angry words, with one another. Worse, she’d reported him and he’d damn near lost his status as an I.P., had been threatened with losing his army career.

Davidson moved quietly around the desk, trailing his fingers along the highly polished edge of it. All the while, his gaze remained on Dane.

“A word of warning, Major York,” he whispered.

Dane looked up. “Sir?”

“Mr. Trayhern of Perseus, and myself, are all too aware of the dog-and-cat fight you got into with Captain Stevenson four years ago. If either of us hear a word from her that you or your crew are not being perfectly behaved down there, then things are really going to hit the fan. Big time. You will be training twelve women pilots, Major. And it’s well known you don’t get along well with women in the military. The crew you’re taking down is going to behave just as you do. So I suggest you clean up your act, accept that women make just as good pilots as men, and get on with your teaching and training down there.”

Dane stared down at the photo again, disbelief bolting through him. He felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. Maya was in a black, body-fitting flight suit. There were no insignias on the uniform, nothing to indicate her country of origin or that she was a pilot, much less in the U.S. Army. Her hair, as black as the uniform, was in a chignon at the nape of her slender neck. The look of pride in her raised chin, that confidence he’d always disliked about her, now radiated from the photo. He felt hot and sweaty—an adrenaline reaction. Davidson stood within a few feet of him, and Dane could feel his C.O.’s icy gaze drilling into his back as he looked at the photo.

“I feel like I’m being fed to the lions…sir.”

Davidson chuckled. “Maybe you are, Major, but this is going to be your final test to see if you can achieve gender neutral status. You pass this test, and I’m sure your career will continue. If you don’t, well…this is your last chance. Do you understand that?”

Bitterness flowed through Dane. He glared up at the colonel, whose gaze was unwavering. “I get the picture, sir. Frankly, this is a no-win situation.”

“It doesn’t have to be, Major, if you let your prejudice against women in the military dissipate. This can be a real turn-around mission for you. But it’s up to you. If you want to keep your caveman mentality about women, that’s your choice. Or you can see this as a golden opportunity to drop some old, archaic attitudes and embrace and support women in the military. They pay with their lives just like a man does. They deserve equal treatment and respect. It’s that simple.”

Sure it is. Dane clenched his teeth, his jaw tightening. Great. Just great. Not only would he have a woman C.O. lording over him, it was his nemesis, Maya Stevenson. And her father was still in the army and still a general. Dane felt hemmed in and no way out. Wiping his thinned mouth with the back of his hand, he closed the file abruptly.

“My secretary has everything you need for the trip south, Major. You’re to meet your crew at 0800 tomorrow morning at base ops. You’ll take a C-130 Hercules flight from here to San Diego. There, you’ll board the USS Gendarme, one of our navy helicopter carriers. They’ve already got the two Boeing Apaches and the Blackhawks disassembled and on board. Questions?”

Dane stood. He came to attention. “No, sir.”

“Very well, dismissed. Oh, and good luck, Major. I hear that Captain Stevenson has been giving a good account of herself and her women pilots down there. This just might be the eye-opening experience you need to convince you that women can do a job just as well as any man.” Davidson’s mouth lifted slightly. “And maybe better. But you go down there with an open mind and see for yourself.”

“Looks like a right purty city,” Chief Warrant Officer Joe Calhoun said in his soft Texas drawl as he stood, his hands resting on his hips. “Never been this far south before.”

Dane stood next to the other instructor pilot on the deck of the navy helicopter carrier anchored off the coast near Lima. Because the carrier was so large, it could not go near the shallow coastline. A thick gray blanket of fog had lifted hours earlier, and the sparkling lights of Lima, the largest city and capital of Peru, blinked to welcome them.

“Looks are deceiving at night,” he muttered. His stomach was in knots. The last week had been hell on him. Dane hadn’t been looking forward to this moment. Below, the mechanics were giving a final check on the Boeing Apaches before they were lifted by elevator to the deck where they stood. Glancing at the watch on his hairy wrist, he saw that in an hour they would be taking off.

Although it was December, it was summer in the southern hemisphere. A slight, humid breeze wafted by them. Around them, navy sailors worked quietly and efficiently, preparing the deck for the forthcoming helicopters. Joe, a Chief Warrant Officer 3, and Craig Barton, a CWO4, were under his command, and would be flying the other two helos. Craig, who had experience flying Blackhawks as well as Apaches, would take the Blackhawk into the base.

“Wonder if the women are as beautiful as they say they are,” Craig said, coming up to them and grinning.

Dane scowled. “This isn’t a party trip, Mr. Barton.”

“Hey,” Craig murmured, “I’m only kidding. You’ve been uptight ever since we came on board, sir.”

Warrant officers made up the ranks of most of the army’s helicopter pilots. Dane had been a West Point graduate and gone into helicopters aviation as a full-fledged officer, so the other men were beneath him in rank. They stood halfway between enlisted personnel and officers such as himself. They were sharp people with fine skills and had shown their capability to fly these deadly machines. The warrants had a long and proud history.

Dane managed a one-cornered smile. “I’m worried about the Kamovs jumping us.”

Joe snickered. “What’s there to worry about? We got two Apaches to protect us if things get dicey. From what you said, those lady pilots have had plenty of practice shootin’ at the bad guys, so I’m sure they can handle a little action, if need be.”

Yeah, like a bunch of women were going to protect them. Dane kept the acid comment to himself. He didn’t dare breathe a word of his prejudice to these two warrant officers. He’d worked with them for over a year and neither felt the prejudice against women that he did. Joe was half Commanche, born in Texas and twenty-six and Craig twenty-eight, both single, competitive, type A personalities. So was Dane, but he was twenty-nine and feeling like he was eighty right now. If only Maya Stevenson was not in this equation. Dane was still reeling from the shock of it all. Was she as mouthy and in-your-face as she’d been years ago? God, he hoped not. How was he going to keep his inflammatory words in his mouth?

“Well,” Joe said in his Texas drawl, “I, for one, am gonna enjoy this little TDY. I mean, dudes, this is a man’s dream come true—an all-ladies base.” And he rubbed his large, square hands together, his teeth starkly white in the darkness on the deck of the ship.

Craig grinned. “Roger that.” He was tall and lean, almost six feet five inches tall. And when he scrunched his frame into the cockpit of an Apache, Dane often wondered how the man could fly it at all. The cockpit of an Apache was small, the seat adjustable from about five feet three to six feet five inches. Being from Minnesota, from good Swedish stock, Craig was big-boned, even though he was lean. His nickname was Scarecrow. Dane liked his patient nature and softness with students. He was an excellent instructor.

Joe, who was a fellow Texan, was an exceptional instructor because he became so impassioned about the Apache helicopter and passing on that excitement to the trainees. Joe lived, ate and breathed the Apache. Maybe because he was half-Commanche he spoke Apache in his sleep—and made the bachelor officer quarters shake and shudder with his ungodly snoring. Grinning in the darkness, Dane admitted to himself that he had good people around him, and maybe, just maybe, that would make the difference on this nasty little TDY.

The other three crewmen, all sergeants, were experts in the new software, the ordnance and the handling of the “doughnut” or radar dome that was on the D model Apaches. Those three men, Barry Hartford, Alphonse “Fonzie” Gianni and Luke Ingmar, would teach the women crew chiefs and mechanics at the base the fine points of the new model. They were all married, so Dane had less to worry about in that respect. However, judging from Joe’s gray eyes and the sparkling look of a hunter in Craig’s brown ones, Dane would have his hands full with these two lone wolves running around loose in the sheep’s pen.

“Well, let’s turn and burn,” Craig said, as he lifted his hand and started for the hatch that led down to the deck where the helicopters were being prepared.

“Roger that,” Joe seconded, following quickly on his heels.

Dane stood alone. He felt alone. Watching the last of the fog disperse, he saw the twinkling of stars above him. It struck him that he was seeing the Southern Cross for the first time in his life. It was as famous here as the Big Dipper was in the Northern Hemisphere. Snorting softly, he hung his head and looked down at the highly polished flight boots he wore with his one-piece flight uniform. Alone. Yes, he’d been alone for a long, long time. Ever since his mother had abruptly left him and his father, he’d felt this gnawing ache in his gut and heart. His brows drew downward as memories assailed him. His mother was a red-haired, green-eyed, 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?”