An Honorable Woman

Cam Anderson stood in the doorway. The first thing she saw was a thick, choking cloud of cigarette smoke. The second thing that struck her was the malevolent stares of the two pilots sitting before her. Heart pounding, she kept her face carefully arranged. Determined to learn how to be a good leader, Cam had decided to let Maya Stevenson, her C.O., be her role model. Maya never looked harried, pressed or anxious. She walked with a confident, quiet and commanding presence that automatically demanded respect. She never raised her voice, but no one mistook that as a sign that she didn’t mean exactly what she said. At all costs, Cam was going to try to be like Maya and not melt into her usual warm, motherly self.

Her gaze snapped from the pilot whose legs barred her way to the one smoking at the table, his dark brown eyes alive with distaste—for her. Lastly, Cam looked across the room. The man standing at attention at the window wore an American flag on the right sleeve of his flight uniform. That was Chief Morales. He knew that when a C.O. entered, one came to attention until told otherwise.

Realizing with a sinking heart that her career as a leader could be over right now depending on how she handled this insubordination by the Mexican pilots, Cam allowed the anger she felt to flow through her.

“Lieutenant—” she peered down at the pilot whose feet barred her path “—Zaragoza. I know the Mexican military has different protocols, but I do believe one of them requires that you stand at attention when your commanding officer enters the room. Get off your butt and on your feet, mister. Right now.”

Gus choked back a laugh as Zaragoza’s head snapped toward the woman. Gus saw the firm, quiet look on her oval face. Even though her thick, shoulder-length chestnut red hair gave her the look of an angel, he saw the devil in her narrowed green eyes which were now focused like a laser on the hapless pilot.

“Get up, Lieutenant. And if you can’t make it to your feet, then crawl out of here and get out of my sight forever. Because that tells me you really aren’t serious about training for drug interdiction.”

Cam swallowed hard. She’d never been so brazen before, but her career depended upon it. Would Maya have said the same thing? Would she have handled this situation differently? Cam wavered inwardly, but refused to show her fear and indecision.

Zaragoza slowly retracted his legs and stood up in a semblance of attention, his eyes ahead, staring at the light green wall opposite.

Cam fixed her gaze on the second pilot, who was grinning down at the table, cigarette in hand. He had a lean, narrow face, short black hair, thick brows and a smirk across his full lips.

“And you…Lieutenant—” she peered at the leather patch sewn above the left pocket of his flight suit “—Dominguez. This is a nonsmoking zone. It will always be a nonsmoking zone, from here on out. Put out the butt, mister, and come to attention.”

Lazily, Luis smashed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray. The smirk never left his features as he pushed back the chair and got to his feet.

They thought this was a game, Cam realized with a sinking feeling. The only pilot here who had shown respect was the U.S. Army chief.

“With your permission, ma’am,” Gus said, “I’ll open the window to let in fresh air?”

“Good idea, Chief Morales. At ease.” Cam looked at the two Mexican pilots. “Sit down at the table, gentlemen. We have business to take care of.”

Turning, Gus drew up the venetian blind and forced open the heavily painted window sash. He saw that Chief Anderson had left the door open on purpose, to create enough of a draft to get the heavy smoke out of the room. Walking to the green metal table, he sat at her right elbow.

Cam forced herself not to appear nervous. She told herself to slow down, to take her time. Never mind that she had jet lag, or that she hadn’t slept in the last twenty-four hours because she was so anxious about this assignment. Never mind that two of the pilots obviously resented her and were barely giving her the respect the situation demanded. Opening her briefcase, she set several folders and a notepad on the table.

She noticed that Chief Morales took a pad from the right pocket of his flight suit and pulled out a pen from his left breast pocket. The other two pilots sat back, arms crossed, watching her with obvious distaste. Cam swallowed hard. Her throat felt dry, as if it was going to close up. She had to continue this charade and make them think she was in charge.

Taking a pen from her own flight suit pocket, Cam opened the top file. “First order of business is to ask each of you about your flight experience,” she told them.

“You’ve got our personnel jacket,” Luis drawled, his voice condescending. “Haven’t you read it?”

Antonio snickered.

Cam glared at them. “Lieutenant Dominguez, tell me the extent of your flight experience with helicopters.”

Shrugging nonchalantly, he said in a bored tone, “I joined the Mexican Air Force because it is a tradition in my family. I went through flight school and was assigned to helicopters.”

“How many hours have you flown?”

“Two hundred.”

Cam turned to the other pilot. “And you, mister?”

Chuckling, Zaragoza said, “Only two hundred hours, Luis?” He shook his head mockingly.

“Forget him,” Cam ordered tightly. “I’m interested in your hours, mister.”

“Four hundred.” Antonio nearly spat the words.

“And how did you earn them?” Cam asked, jotting down the information on her yellow legal pad.

“I started flying helos when I was seventeen years old.”

“And why did you join the Mexican Air Force?”

Glowering at her, Antonio said, “Not that it’s any of your business, Señorita or Señora, but I like to fly.”

“Mister, you will address me as either Chief Anderson or ma’am. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

Antonio’s jaw clenched. He held Cam’s narrowed gaze.

“If you can’t say it, mister, get out of this room and don’t bother coming back.”

His eyes flared with surprise. “You cannot threaten me—”

Cam leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “It’s not a threat, mister. It’s a promise. Now, you make up your mind here and now. Either go by strict military protocol from this moment forward or get up and get out of here. Comprende?”

Anger surged through Luis. How dare this slut of a woman make such a threat to him? “This—this is an insult! Do you know who I am?”

Cam gave him an icy smile. “Yeah, a pilot in a helluva lotta trouble with me and his superiors if he doesn’t square away right now.”

Silence fell in the room. Luis slanted a glance toward Gus, who was sitting there relaxed, hands on the table. He had a poker face, but Luis could see the laughter in his cinnamon-colored eyes. He knew Morales was laughing at him. That stung even more. Nostrils flaring, he jerked his gaze back to the woman who sat across from him.

“Your call,” Cam told him quietly. “Do it right or get the hell out of my sight, Mr. Dominguez. I don’t think your father will be very proud to learn that you can’t carry out simple military protocol, do you?”

Cam’s heart was thundering in her chest. She knew this was high-stakes poker. And she knew she held the cards to Luis’s career. If, indeed, he was in the Mexican Air Force to fulfill a family obligation, the last thing he would want was a dark blot on the family record by being thrown out of the U.S. Army’s Apache program—by a woman, no less. That would be an insult he would never live down, and she knew it. Cam was prepared to do just that, however. She’d get rid of any pilot who didn’t want to play by strict military rules.

Grinding his teeth, Luis looked for help from his friend, Antonio. The unhappy grimace on his friend’s face, the anger banked in his dark eyes, indicated he felt similarly. Yet he obviously didn’t want to be kicked out of the program, either.

“You do not have that authority over me!” Luis snarled.

Cam reached down into her briefcase, located another file and opened it before her. Lifting out some papers, she turned them around so that Luis could read the top.

“I’m sure you recognize this, Mr. Dominguez. It’s a set of orders. All I have to do to reassign you is fill in this blank—” she pointed to the page “—and sign my name down here, at the bottom. Now, I’ll be more than happy to do that for you. There’s a lot of good pilots who didn’t get this mission, and who want it a lot more than you do, apparently. So which is it? You want me to fill you out a new set of orders, sending you back to your superior? Or do you want to stay with us? Your call, mister. Just make it in a hurry, because I don’t have time to play games here.”

“You cannot do this!” Luis shouted, balling his hands into fists beneath the table.

“Try me. I’d love to sign you off, mister. I don’t need sulky little boys on my team. I need mature men who are ready to be responsible, who are hungry to fly and who want to go after the real bad guys. You want to target someone in your gun sights, you aim at them, not me. Is that understood?”