Authors: Sharon Calvin
She snuggled closer, making a little mewling noise deep in her throat before pulling back with a startled laugh. “God, I’m sorry. If we don’t stop we’ll embarrass Joe. And I’ll never hear the end of it,” she said on a breathless rush of words.
He stopped her from moving away, tucking her against his chest with her head on his shoulder. “Stay. And don’t think for a moment that we won’t get a chance to explore these feelings,” he said running his hand down her back to cup her bottom.
She stayed quiet only for a second or two, her fingers moving incessantly over his chest. “I’ve been thinking about how we can get out of here. But you’re not going to like it.”
He forced his mind away from the feel of her breasts pressed against him. “If it entails splitting up, you’re right. I won’t like it.”
She shook her head, spreading a soft cloud of spicy scent and tickling his face with wisps of hair.
“It does, but I think it’s the only way to ensure we’re all safe.” She lifted her head to look at him. “Because
Fly Baby
’s effectively blocked their landing zone, reinforcements will have to come by boat. Whatever they’re planning requires my helicopter and me—that’s what’ll keep me safe. You all can escape in the boat and I’ll take care of them in the air.”
No one was “safe” around someone as desperate as Atwah and his gun-toting minions. “So you’ll just merrily fly wherever they tell you to and all will be well?” Like hell it would. “If our guys don’t shoot you down, Atwah and company will.”
“You worry too much,” Caitlyn said and gave him a quick peck on the lips before turning on her side, snuggling her butt against him.
He rolled over but tried to keep some space between her and his rock-hard erection.
The little witch continued to wiggle her backside until he growled and clamped his arm around her waist. “Stop it, or you’re sleeping on the floor—cement or no.”
She pulled his hand up and cuddled it between her breasts. Nope, he’d never get any sleep. He buried his nose in her soft hair and inhaled. Hell, he could sleep any time; access to this kind of sensory overload didn’t happen very often, so why miss one minute of it?
“Don’t worry. Once you all are safely tucked away and I’m in
Fly Baby
, they won’t be able to stop me. Remember? They call me Queen BITCH for a reason,” Caitlyn said in a sleepy-sounding voice.
He stilled. That’s what scared the hell out of him. Her ego could blind her to a very deadly reality. He pulled her closer, wanting to protect her, even as he silently acknowledged that without some heavy-duty intervention, none of them were likely to survive.
Tampa, FL,
Wednesday, 21 September, 2240 hours
Scott gave up trying to interrupt Valerie Wooten’s angry denunciation of the FBI. He’d had a similar butt-chewing from the CO of the hijacked helicopter crew. And while he hadn’t liked the added risks they were now a part of, he was equally thankful he had no civilians involved. Except for Ms. Valerie Billionaire Wooten.
Fear fueled most of her reaction. That, and her belief that if the FBI hadn’t been so damn incompetent, they could have prevented the Coast Guard hijacking. He couldn’t tell her they needed that crew to stop a very real disaster in the making. Not that she would understand the kind of sacrifices he knew the crew would willingly take.
That TV news leak had pissed him off—wait, “Ms. Wooten, I’m sorry, did you just say you
received
a call from an Arabic speaker?”
“Yes. His caller ID was blocked. Mine isn’t. Does, does that mean he knows who I am? And that he knows I heard him telling someone about the hijacking?”
Scott’s internal radar went to defcon 3. He injected calm in his voice while he yanked her file folder from under his crises du jour. “What kind of security do you have?” She lived in a condo, didn’t she?
“Oh God. I’m in danger, aren’t I?”
Apparently a calm voice wasn’t enough. “Ms. Wooten. Valerie, there is no way they can suspect you understand what they were talking about. They—”
“But they would. Without thinking, I spoke in Arabic.”
Egret Isle, FL,
Wednesday, 21 September, 2315 hours
Ray Atwah ignored the tic tugging his left eye and punched in the phone number that had appeared in his call log. The interrupted caller’s voice had been faint but decidedly female.
Still smarting from his brother’s failure to supply additional guards, he forced his mind onto the issue at hand. Somehow, his cloned cell phone had crossed signals with someone else’s. Another problem that needed to be corrected. Sooner, rather than later.
His call went straight to voice mail and he smiled. Valerie Wooten should be more careful with her identity. He powered down the cell phone and threw it onto the table. He would have it disposed of since it was obviously compromised.
His backup phone signaled an incoming text message. He ignored Yasin’s incessant mumbling; instead, he concentrated on the coded text message.
While one problem was being eliminated, his other problem was growing. Replacement personnel wouldn’t be available for at least thirty-six hours. He swore, sending Yasin scrabbling to the other side of the conference table. The bomb would be delivered Friday morning and he needed manpower to load it into the helicopter. Assuming, of course, it had been repaired and completed its test flight.
He threw the phone across the room, savoring the look of fear that Yasin flashed him before he recovered the now ringing device. How had everything disintegrated into chaos in less than three hours?
He held his palm out; grimly satisfied that Yasin’s hand shook as he dropped the offending phone onto it. Because of his...elimination policy...he wouldn’t have to worry about disloyalty from this insignificant mouse of a man.
Caller ID confirmed the need to answer. He waved Yasin away. “Go. Take care of the garbage. I will not need you again until morning.”
He instantly forgot about the man as he responded to the angry torrent aimed at him.
Egret Isle, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 0015 hours
Caitlyn’s eyes popped open as her body went on alert. She scanned the room while her ears strained to identify anything out of the ordinary. Had Ryan called out in his sleep? Her breath caught as a shadow moved away from the area near the door.
Stillman’s arm tightened around her, letting her know he was awake too. Slowly, he moved his hand up to touch a finger to her mouth, silently telling her to be quiet.
The shadow seemed to vacillate. Unsure of purpose or direction?
“I know you’re awake,” the low, unaccented voice said from the dark. “I need to talk to the doctor.”
Stillman tried to pull his hand out of Caitlyn’s grip but she refused to release it.
“Why? What do you need the doctor for?” she asked and swung her feet to the floor. She ignored Stillman’s irritated snort as he shifted to sit beside her.
“I’m here,” Stillman said, obvious irritation roughening his tone.
“As you said earlier, you must operate, or the man will die.”
Chapter Seven
Caitlyn couldn’t quite process the events of the last two hours, despite the very real and bloody evidence in front of her. She’d never assisted in an operation before, but she’d done damn well, if she did say so herself. The man who’d appeared in their room had left then returned carrying the injured hijacker. Stillman had turned their quarters into a makeshift operating room.
“He’ll either live, or he won’t. I can’t do any more under the present circumstances,” Stillman said as he stripped off a gory glove and tossed it into a makeshift biohazard container.
Caitlyn guessed that attitude had gotten him through a lot of tough situations in Iraq.
He rose from his kneeling position by the injured hijacker’s bed, their awkward surgery site, and glared at the young man watching over them. His still gloved right hand clutched a makeshift scalpel fashioned from a safety razor. “Now, just what the hell are you going to do with him?”
The man smiled as if unconcerned by Stillman’s aggressive stance. He’d metamorphosed from meek toady to an intensely driven, well-educated man that Caitlyn no longer thought of as a terrorist. His slight build and dark coloring matched his name, but the glint in his eyes and dry sense of humor spoke unadulterated American.
“I’ve been charged with disposing of the bodies. I took a slight detour from the house to the dock.” His shrug implied he had an alternative in mind. “He’ll be picked up by a boat with medical and...appropriate...authorities onboard,” he said, gesturing with his chin at their still-unconscious patient.
Relief spread like warm icing through Caitlyn’s veins, the sweet rush of comfort as energizing as sugar. “So we can leave? You’ll help us escape?”
He frowned, turning those delicious dark eyes toward her. “No, I’m afraid you still have a mission to fly.”
Stillman took a menacing step forward. “The hell she does. Who are you? Who are you working for?” He raised the scalpel in his fist in an obvious threat.
Disappointment crashed through Caitlyn’s system with as much force as
Fly Baby
’s unwieldy landing. They wouldn’t be leaving.
“For now, my name is Mohammed Ali Yasin. As to who I work for, let’s just say it’s the same government you do.” He checked his watch. “I don’t have much longer before Atwah does a tour of the grounds.”
His eyes swept the group before settling on Caitlyn. “You’re the commanding officer. I can take your wounded pilot with me. See that he’s safely transported to a hospital. I’ll tell Atwah I discovered a better hold over you—one that can also fill the vacant left seat in your not-so-damaged helicopter.”
He smiled with his mouth only. “Atwah’s belief that you were sleeping with your copilot would appear to be an unsubstantiated rumor.” His eyes flicked from the bed where Ryan slept fitfully to the one she and Stillman had vacated upon his arrival.
“The hell—”
Caitlyn silenced Stillman with a sharp squeeze to his forearm. She scanned Joe’s face and saw guarded trust and more than casual curiosity about Yasin’s proposal. “What’s the mission? Why should I trust you with any of my crew?”
Yasin cast a quick glance around the room before pointing to the corner where Stillman and Caitlyn’s empty bed sat. “Let’s not disturb our two patients further.” He gave Stillman a measuring look then deliberately presented him with his back as he led them away from Ryan and the unconscious hijacker.
For an outnumbered, unarmed man who stood no taller than her own barefoot five ten, he didn’t appear intimidated by the bigger, and crudely armed, Stillman. Either he was a fool or he was exactly what he presented himself to be. Caitlyn’s respect grudgingly went up another measure. Yasin was no one’s fool.
He leaned against the block wall and pointed them to the bed at his right. Once they were all seated, he spoke in a low voice, his glittering gaze sweeping them in slow measured beats. “We believe Atwah plans to detonate a dirty bomb in south Florida. We’ve narrowed his target to twenty square miles, but we’re looking for more than that. We want the name of the person financing this, as well as his al-Qaeda contact, also believed to reside in Florida.” His sweep stopped on Caitlyn. “And we want that bomb.
“Once we have all the players identified, your mission, Lieutenant Stone, is to hijack Ray Atwah and his bomb. To make sure it does not make its way onto U.S. soil. While we know a dirty bomb is a low-level threat in itself, the panic it will generate does a hell of a lot more damage. Disrupting lives and commerce fuels terrorists as much as outright killing does.”
Fear liquefied her guts even as pride inflated her chest. She could do it. She
would
do it.
Stillman exploded from his place next to her with an expletive that would have embarrassed her father. He shook off her hand without a glance. “No fucking way in hell. I want her, and her crew, off this damn island. If you need a pilot, use me. I can fly that tin can—”
“Colonel Gray,” Yasin interrupted with deadly calm that silenced. “While your service record is exemplary, and your willingness to serve your country unquestionable, you are
not
the better choice for this mission.”
Before Caitlyn could savor his compliment, he ruined it. “Atwah believes the lieutenant, simply because she’s female, to be weak and easily manipulated.” Yasin’s eyes turned flat and black. “Colonel, your transparent feelings for the lieutenant is your weakness.”
He turned back to Caitlyn and she shivered but sat taller.
“I’d prefer sending Petty Officer Peterson with Lieutenant Greeley, but I might need his expertise to get my helo back in the air.” She threw a smile at her flight mechanic. He gave a sharp nod followed by a thumbs-up gesture.
Yasin looked at his watch again. “We must move the men to the dock. I’ll pass you information when and however I can, but you’re essentially on your own.”
He pushed away from the wall and stood looking up at Stillman before addressing Caitlyn. She’d swear she saw humor softening his eyes back to their earlier warmth.
“Do you want the colonel to stay or...go?”
Stillman all but growled as he fisted the still-bloody scalpel in his hand. “I’m. Not. Leaving.”
Caitlyn nodded at Yasin. “He stays. While Joe and I’ve done our requisite time on the shooting range, we’ve never had to fire a weapon at anyone. I’d feel better if someone on my side can aim a gun and mean it.”
Her wink bounced off Stillman without making a dent. She frowned as she followed him across the room. He really needed to work on his sense of humor. That was the one thing she’d found that kept her, and her crew, sane in an increasingly insane world.
Then again, agreeing to hijack a terrorist and his bomb probably qualified her for some serious up-close-and-personal time in a straitjacket.
Egret Isle, FL,
Thursday, 22 September, 0910 hours
Stillman wiped sweat from his eyes and squinted up at the camouflage netting draped over the helo’s four main rotor blades. The average pilot looking down from several thousand feet wouldn’t see anything more unusual than different shades of green on a mostly green island. Atwah had even covered the Coast Guard orange on the body of the Jayhawk with olive-drab tarps.
He scanned the clearing until he spotted Yasin. The little shit sat on top of a ten-foot-tall maintenance stepladder staring back at him with an AK-47 across his lap.
Could he be trusted? Had Ryan been transferred to a boat, or dumped in the Gulf to drown? He blew out a disgusted breath. It was a question he’d asked himself all night and half the morning—when he wasn’t contemplating Caitlyn’s too tempting, and painfully close, soft curves. He wiped damp palms on his thighs.
“Water? Today? Ring any bells?” Joe yelled from his crouch by the helicopter’s buried landing gear.
Stillman acknowledged him with a wave, returning to his original task. He reached into the tub of freezing water and pulled out a dripping bottle. Yasin had dumped a couple of cases of bottled water in the red plastic tub filled with ice. So far, they’d been fed and provided plenty of cold water.
Why were they being treated so well? It just didn’t make sense to him.
It appeared Atwah bought Yasin’s claim of eliminating Ryan. Or else he was in on the elaborate scam. Atwah had smirked and wagged his finger at Stillman as if he’d been a naughty schoolboy. Only Joe’s muttered threat to kick Stillman’s ass kept him from doing something totally stupid, like tackling a man with an automatic weapon aimed at his gut.
But what really chapped Stillman was that Yasin was right. Caitlyn was his weakness. Now Atwah knew it because of Yasin.
“Here,” he said to Joe and tossed the water bottle at him. “What’s the verdict? Will she fly tomorrow?” There seemed to be a hydraulic leak or two, standard stuff for vintage military flying gear, but nothing unfixable. At least that Joe had found so far.
“Sure, she’ll fly,” Joe replied as if offended. He sat back on his heel, arm propped on upraised knee. “This old bird has survived every one of Queen B’s fair-weather bounces.” He rapped the skid-plate on the undercarriage with an open-end wrench. “Probably the only surprise was she did it during a storm.”
“I heard that,” came Caitlyn’s muffled shout from the cockpit, where she was trying to salvage instruments damaged by the spray of bullets.
Joe grinned and tapped three times on the metal below the pilot’s seat. “That’s okay, Honey-B, we love you anyway.” He dropped the wrench onto the concrete and unscrewed the water bottle’s cap.
Stillman knelt near Joe, a steadying hand on the Jayhawk’s fuselage. “Come on, I saw how she handled this thing in weather I’d say no to. She touched down as gentle as a mama bird settling on a nest of eggs.” He could still picture what he considered the best damn landing he’d ever witnessed.
Joe emptied half the bottle in one swig, then wiped his face on the end of his sweat-soaked shirt. “Sure she did. That’s why she’s the one we all wanna fly with when the weather turns to shit. See, the queen has this reputation for...less-than-precision flying during good weather. That’s when she lets Ryan clock hours and do all the landings.”
The laughter vanished from his face, replaced with furrows of worry. “You think we did the right thing?” He shot a quick look at Yasin before returning to Stillman with dread-filled eyes. “You think Ryan’s okay?”
Stillman’s throat threatened to strangle the words before he could spit them out. “Yeah. I have to think that.” He sat on the concrete and crossed his legs. “Why else would Yasin have had me operate?” It all hinged on that seemingly humane act. “What would they gain by getting rid of Ryan? I have to believe if Yasin was one of the bad guys he wouldn’t willingly give up a hostage.” Or provoke Atwah, for that matter.
The Yasin of last night was nothing like the character he portrayed to his boss.
Joe finished the water and crumpled the plastic violently before lobbing it toward the red tub. “Except we don’t know that he’s not still a hostage. For all we know, the injured guy you operated on was the agent. Maybe that’s why they wanted him alive. Hell, that’s how Yasin could have heard about your military career. Tortured it out of the other guy.”
Stillman stared at Joe, his gut churning with acid and bile. Shit. Sonofabitchin’ shit. He closed his eyes. “Thanks, Joe, you’ve just populated my newest worst nightmare.”
* * *
Caitlyn yanked more shattered circuit boards from the avionics panel, silently cursing Joe, and his theory about Yasin she’d overheard, with every skinned knuckle and jammed finger. She refused to cry. If she started, she’d never stop. Then how the hell could she fly this stupid piece of shit.
Stillman stuck his head through the copilot’s open door. “Need any help? Hey, careful, you’re going to—”
“Don’t. Say. Another. Word,” she spat out. Anger whipped through her like a summer storm pushed by a West Texas high. She pulled a length of colored wire from the panel and snipped it with wire cutters, imagining it was Joe’s neck. Anger felt good for a change. It sent fear and sadness scrambling for cover.
Stillman settled into the left seat and remained silent. Well, at least one man knew when to keep his mouth shut. She used the back of her hand to push damp hair escaping her ponytail off her forehead. Even with the doors open, the cockpit felt like a goddamned sauna.
He cleared his throat. “I like your shirt.”
Caught off guard, she glanced down. And laughed. The ancient pink tank top didn’t do much to hide her favorite black bra’s lacy design. She’d unzipped the one-piece flight suit, slipped off the top half and tied the arms around her waist. “Only because you can see through it.”
The cotton was thin with age, shrunk too tight and short to be decent, but she kept it in an emergency grab bag that she stashed in the helo. Her just-in-case assortment included underwear, tampons and an odd shirt or two.
She forced a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. “He’s wrong,” she finally said. She carefully dumped the trashed pieces of circuit boards and wads of snarled wire into a plastic bag. Maybe Joe-the-traitor could scavenge some of the components.
“I agree.”
She jerked her head around, smacking herself with the end of her ponytail. “You do?”
He nodded and casually poked at the cracked panel where bullets had splintered the plastic. “Yeah. Think about it. Who shot Ryan?”
He turned intense blue eyes on her and instead of drowning in them, they buoyed her up. Remembered images, sounds and smells assaulted her senses and her heart bounced with the answer. “The hijacker that was injured!” She lunged across the center console and threw her arms around his neck. “Yes! He couldn’t have been the agent. He wouldn’t have risked killing Ryan.”
Giddy, she kissed him, first in gratitude, then because he tasted so good. And finally, simply because she couldn’t stop herself.
He seemed to feel the same way, since his tongue joined hers in a happy dance. Soon his hand found its way to her breast and she nipped his bottom lip, savoring his rumbling growl. She climbed to her knees so she could get closer, discarded the idea of trying to straddle him and settled for some serious, breath-stealing, hair-mussing, panty-dampening kisses.