Behind Enemy Lines
Read Behind Enemy Lines Online
Authors: Cindy Dees
Tags: #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Action & Adventure, #Love Stories, #Suspense, #Soldiers, #War, #Rescues, #Women Helicopter Pilots
“Fasten your seat belts! Former AF pilot Cindy Dees takes you on a wild ride packed with nonstop action, hair-raising adventure and blazing romance. The military has never looked so tough—or so sexy.”
—
USA TODAY
bestselling author Merline Lovelace
Annie stared at her unwilling patient. “What would it take to get you to stay in bed where you belong?”
“There
is
one thing I might like enough to stay in bed for….” His grin took on a suggestive slant. “You. If I can have a taste of you, I might stay in bed a little longer.”
She felt hot all of a sudden. “And just what constitutes a ‘taste’ of me?”
“A kiss.”
It was tempting. “You’ll stay in bed if I play along with this foolishness?”
She did her best to sound resigned. It was better than letting on how her heart was racing like crazy and her breath was suddenly short.
“This is blackmail,” she murmured. “But I’ll do it. For your own good….”
Dear Reader,
It’s always cause for celebration when Sharon Sala writes a new book, so prepare to cheer for
The Way to Yesterday
. How many times have you wished for a chance to go back in time and get a second chance at something? Heroine Mary O’Rourke gets that chance, and you’ll find yourself caught up in her story as she tries to make things right with the only man she’ll ever love.
ROMANCING THE CROWN continues with Lyn Stone’s
A Royal Murder
. The suspense—and passion—never flag in this exciting continuity series. Catherine Mann has only just begun her Intimate Moments career, but already she’s created a page-turning military miniseries in WINGMEN WARRIORS.
Grayson’s Surrender
is the first of three “don’t miss” books. Look for the next,
Taking Cover,
in November.
The rest of the month unites two talented veterans— Beverly Bird, with
All the Way,
and Shelley Cooper, with
Laura and the Lawman
—with exciting newcomer Cindy Dees, who debuts with
Behind Enemy Lines
. Enjoy them all—and join us again next month, when we once again bring you an irresistible mix of excitement and romance in six new titles by the best authors in the business.
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
Behind Enemy Lines
CINDY DEES
CINDY DEES
started flying airplanes, sitting in her dad’s lap, when she was three, and she was the only kid in the neighborhood who got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. After college she fulfilled a lifelong dream and became a U.S. Air Force pilot. She flew everything from supersonic jets to C-5’s, the world’s largest cargo airplane. During her career, she got shot at, met her husband, flew in the Gulf War and amassed a lifetime supply of war stories. After she left flying to have a family, she was lucky enough to fulfill another lifelong dream—writing a book. Little did she imagine that it would win the RWA Golden Heart Contest and sell to Silhouette! She’s thrilled to be able to share her dream,
Behind Enemy Lines,
with readers, and she would love to hear what people think if it, at www.cindydees.com or P.O. Box 210, Azle, TX 76098.
Contents
Chapter 1
A
ir Force Captain Annie O’Donnell eased off the throttle and pulled back on the collective. She brought her helicopter smoothly to a hover over a featureless spot in the black ocean of jungle below them. The rendezvous point. Somewhere beneath her, a team of American soldiers was watching a rebel army prepare to go to war. And tonight that team was bugging out.
“What’s the infrared scope showing, Rusty?”
Her copilot shrugged. “I’ve got an image of a clearing directly beneath us, maybe fifty feet across. No heat signatures, yet.”
Five long minutes ticked by while they waited for the distinctive glowing blobs of human heat to light up the dark scope.
“Anything?” she asked yet again.
“Still nothing. You know, we can’t sit here all night, boss. Somebody’s bound to hear us eventually.”
“Let’s give it one more minute.”
She was a sitting duck, hovering stationary like this. It didn’t take fancy detection equipment to hear the distinctive thwocking noise of a helicopter. The back of her neck itched ominously.
She addressed the two crewmen manning the winch in the back. “Gentlemen, when we leave, I’m going to bank hard to the right and accelerate fast. Don’t get dumped out the door.”
“Roger that.”
“Retract the forest penetrator seat and prepare for departure,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Annie’s palms went slick with sweat on the control column. It was a good bet that missing this pickup would make her passengers’ lives a heap more complicated for the next couple of days.
“Seat’s retracted and stowed, Captain.”
“And we’re out of here in five, four, three…”
“Wait!” Rusty called out. “Got ’em. Two targets in the clearing, more moving in. They’re transmitting the proper codes.”
The winch motor whirred behind her, already lowering the cable and its heavy, steel seat back into the clearing some hundred feet below the canopy of leaves. The men behind her traded terse commands while one manned the winch motor and the other hung out the door, guiding the cable and reporting on the progress of the evacuation.
“Man in.”
Annie heard the grunt of the first soldier as he landed unceremoniously on his belly on the Huey’s floor. He was left to crawl out of the way and right himself while her crew continued the evacuation.
“Clear.”
“Roger, winch away.”
Metal hissed as the steel cable hurtled down into the belly of the beast once more.
“Two’s on the seat.”
“Hoisting him. Ten feet per second.”
That was pretty fast. Whoever was hanging on that cable was getting a heck of a ride and probably getting the dickens scratched out of him as he tore up through the trees.
Two more soldiers landed in the helicopter.
“Winch away.”
“Cap’n, I’ve got movement on the scope.”
“Talk to me, Rusty,” she ordered.
“I’ve got the last two men center screen. I paint four, maybe six more people just coming into range.”
Annie frowned. They weren’t expecting company. “You copy that, back there?”
“Yes ma’am. We’re hauling ’em up like bats outta hell back here.”
“Range, Rusty?”
“Five hundred feet. Ten hostile targets now.”
“How are we doing, gentlemen?”
“Number five on the cable, ma’am.”
“Max out the winch. We need to go. Now.”
“Already doin’ it. Fourteen feet per second.”
“Cable’s at forty feet. Thirty. Twenty! Slow the winch!” Frank shouted.
“Relax, Frank. I got it.” Arty groused.
A thump as the fifth man hit the floor.
“Clear.”
“Winch away.”
“One more to go, ma’am. Damn, Arty. You ’bout slammed the last one’s head into the skid!”
Annie interrupted. “Cut the chatter, guys. Rusty, report.”
“Hostiles at two hundred feet. Closing fast.”
Annie glanced over at the radar screen, then back at her own controls. A sudden warning tone made her jump.
“Trouble!” Rusty yelled. “They’ve got antiaircraft weapons! Looks like some sort of surface-to-air missile.”
“Have they got lock on?”
“Not yet, Cap’n.”
“Where’s the last man, Frank?” she asked tersely.
“Climbing on the seat now.”
“Get him out of there. He’s about to have company.”
“Cable’s winding, ma’am.”
“How far to lift him, Frank?”
“Eighty feet.”
Rusty’s voice was clipped, desperate. “Weapon activation, Annie.” His voice rose. “They’re gonna shoot as soon as they get lock on.”
“How far, Frank?” she called.
“Fifty feet!”
Ping. Ping, ping, ping. Annie flinched and ducked. There was no other sound quite like bullets tearing through metal.
“Winch is hit! Motor’s jammed!” Arty yelled. The warning tone in the cockpit changed pitch, became louder, more insistent.
Lock on. Her gut turned to water.
“We gotta go, Annie!” Rusty shouted.
Frank yelled from the back. “I got a man hangin’ on my cable. ’Bout forty feet down. He’s gonna die if we drag him through the trees.”
They were
all
going to die if a missile hit them.
The next moment suspended itself around Annie in a slow-motion eternity where life and death hung in delicate balance. She could stay and try to retrieve the man hanging below her, thereby jeopardizing the lives of the nine people on board, or she could go, probably kill the man on the cable, and save everybody else.
“Hang on!” she shouted as she slammed the throttles forward.
She felt, rather than heard, the first thud when the man beneath her crashed into a tree. The scream of the engines wasn’t loud enough to drown out the collective groan that issued from the five passengers in the back.
Dear God. What had she done?
Please don’t let that man suffer. Please make his death swift and painless.
She climbed as high as she dared, right to the thirty-foot limit of the envelope over the jungle where radar couldn’t paint her. The man on the cable was still in the trees, but hopefully the smaller growth at the top of the jungle would be less destructive than the heavier trunks and branches lower down.