Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) (13 page)

They moved to the front of the plane separately. She sent Tim ahead well in the lead.

Standing alone in the dark and the roar at the rear of the plane, Lola tried to convince herself it had just been sex. Much needed sex.

She’d have been able to convince herself if she couldn’t hear the memory of Mama Raci’s cackle. A fifteen-year-old Lola had asked her about love.

“It is de woman’s power to take de mind from de mon. She can make de mon stone blind until he see no one but she. It is de mon’s power to take de woman’s heart until she can no find it nowheres else but in him’s arms.”

Lola cursed the crazy old woman who had become her only family. Cursed her for her coarse ways, her harsh love, and for dying when Lola still needed her so badly.

Game
face, Lola. Game face.
She braced her insides, took a couple deep breaths, and ran her fingers through her hair one more time. She did her best to effect a lazy stroll as she moved forward to join the others at the head of the plane.

The first thing Lola noticed when she arrived was where Tim stood at the edge of the poker game. It also struck her that he was the handsomest man in a circle of very handsome men.

The second thing that struck her was the way Major Emily Beale sat close beside her husband, hands wrapped around his upper arm, her head resting on his shoulder.

Major Mark Henderson might be concentrating on his poker game with his legendary card-sharp prowess, but it was clear what answer his wife had found about the change that would be entering their future in just under nine months. Her head curled against his shoulder, her arms around his neck, her eyes closed.

The rest of the crew were clearly trying to hide their shock, but they couldn’t stop looking over at the two Majors, so far out of character. Mark’s ease with his wife’s action was a view into how they were together in private. But it was obviously the first time anyone had seen even a hint of it in public. PDA, public display of affection. Not just their normal holding hands, this was serious PDA.

Well, this was going to be damned interesting and Lola wanted a front-row seat.

Henderson called Connie’s play and his three ladies beat her two pair high.

“Room for another soldier?” She grabbed a soda from the cooler and stood at an empty crate positioned like a seat.

Henderson looked up and considered her over his wife’s head. Major Beale popped open her eyes and aimed a worried look at Lola. As soon as it became clear that Lola had a poker face about more than card games, Beale offered a quick, shy smile. At Lola’s nod, she slowly relaxed back into her favored position against her husband.

Henderson’s eyes, hidden as usual by mirrored Ray-Bans that must turn the darkened cargo bay into an eerie black cavern, clearly inspected her.

“If you’ve got the chops. And the cash.”

“I won’t need the cash, but I’ve got it. And I’ve got Creole chops. You ain’t messing with that,
mon
cher
, no matter what you be thinking.” She laid it on thick. Mama Raci’s old voice coming almost as easily as her own.

An ancient, black, uneducated brothel cook. Probably never read a book, but well-educated in the ways of the world. An education she’d worked hard to pass on to Lola. A crone to the girls who worked there, but the closest thing Lola had to a mother. She’d first come into that kitchen while hiding from her father’s groping friends at seven years old and later when she’d finally left home for good at twelve.

Henderson looked around the circle. Big John and Connie sat on opposite sides of the small table. Archie Stevenson, all long and thin, sat between the Major and Connie. Colonel Gibson of the D-boys sat between her and Big John. This placed them all shoulder to shoulder, have to be very careful to not reveal your cards.

Tim and a couple of the D-boys milled around behind the card players. Dilya and Kee sat on a pair of jump seats along the side wall, reading the ever-present book together. Lola found herself hoping that the boy was doing well in the care of Mary Lennox. Hoped that his recovery might offer even more brightness to the dark child. And maybe a tiny bit to rub off on her adopted mother.

The Major cleared his throat and kissed his wife absently on the top of her head. “All in favor of letting the wild Creole play, y’all better ante up.” He flashed one of his killer grins at her. “Your deal, LaRue.”

Lola took the deck and riffled it a few times quickly. The sharp snap and slap of the cards was one of many tricks she’d learned in the Storyville brothel. If you appeared really competent with the cards themselves, it unnerved your opponent more than they might like or comprehend. She’d spent hours and hours learning to manipulate the cards.

Not that she couldn’t deal a mean deck.

She started spinning out the cards, keeping her voice loud enough to be heard over all the background noise of jet roar.

“Seven-card straight, that’s the game.” Twice around. Just before tossing down the first faceup card, she added, “Suicide king, wild.”

“Oh, give me a break. That isn’t poker.” A couple of them protested, others settled in to the play.

“You give the girl the deal,” Lola crooned in her old woman voice, “you no say anything about no special rule.” She called the cards as she dropped the first round. “Nine, seven, a pretty lady for the Major,” as she dropped the Queen of Diamonds in front of him. “A deuce, a ten-spot, and a—”

When she dropped the last faceup card of the first round on her own pile, the King of Hearts lay there stabbing a sword into his head.

“Oo.” Lola let out her crone’s laugh, the one that had always creeped her out when Mama Raci let it loose upon the world. The woman had always found the strangest things funny.

Tim sidled closer to watch the game, but she couldn’t be thinking about him right now, she had a card game to play. Yet he remained there, on the edge of her awareness. God, he’d made her feel good.

Lola didn’t even bother to look at her hole cards. She watched the other players as they did inspect theirs.

The D-boy colonel clearly didn’t play poker much, but D-boys were tricky, so she’d keep an eye on him. He could be playing the fake inside the fake. He had one of those rugged faces, not one you’d ever find in a magazine, but one that you’d learn to trust and appreciate with time. A face of strength, but how well he could play poker, that was a different question. The small smile that Colonel Gibson aimed her way told her that he was well aware of her scrutiny. Definitely expect the fake-within-the-fake is what that smile told her. Unless he was faking.

Big John, just like you’d expect, looked like a stone wall of grim determination. The Major was expressionless and oddly careful not to show his cards to his wife, despite her not being in the game.

Archie’s lips definitely tightened, and she’d bet not in a good way. Connie, the silent mechanic, now there was clearly her main opponent. Lola couldn’t read a single thing about the girl. This was going to be fun.

Everyone bet cautiously, except Archie who folded.

“An eight, possible straight.” Lola started dealing down the next round. “A four, a bad inside straight. A deuce, the Captain, he should have stayed in the game, he should. But the deuce, she does the woman no good at all. And a Jack of Hearts for little Lola. Lola she bets two bucks.”

This cleared Connie from the table, which was information in itself. Her cards weren’t that bad, she was clearly messing with the other players’ heads and it would come around as payback three or four hands from now. Master poker player.

On the third round they all held, but the last card up killed off the Colonel.

Last card down and it could still be anyone’s hand. Big John studied his final card carefully. Lola flipped up the corner of the last card. Maybe. Just maybe. Depended on the first two cards, but she still didn’t look at those. Didn’t want to get her hopes up. Didn’t matter if she won or lost the first few hands, it was what she learned about the others, especially whether or not she could scare them.

Big John could be spooked and folded.

“You are a wise man no to mess with the Creole Queen.”

The Major wasn’t looking at his cards, he was watching her. That smile that made him so handsome tugging at the corner of his mouth. She’d also wager that few outside of his and his wife’s crew even knew the man could smile.

He hadn’t inspected his last card. He was going into it almost as blind as she was.

“Five to stay, mister. You play or you gonna run aways?”

He tossed the fiver into the pot.

She considered raising him blind, but left it alone. Letting him call.

She pulled up a second jack. With the wild king, it could be three of a kind. From the first two cards she’d not seen, she dug out a pair of threes for a very nice full house. Jacks over threes.

“Can you beat dat, meester?”

Her smile, she knew, was as big as his.

His first two hole cards left him with three queens and three pieces of crap. But if the last hole card matched anything, she was toast.

“I’m counting on you, my queen,” he informed Major Beale before turning the last, unseen card.

Another queen rolled into view. Four of a kind.

It was worth it to hear his roar of laughter and the tight, hard hug he gave the woman at his side. Her smile bloomed huge.

Definitely worth the loss, at least until Henderson raked in Lola’s money along with everyone else’s.

Okay, mostly worth the loss.

The down pitch of the four jet engines woke Lola for the C-5’s descent. Some water and a slightly stale turkey sandwich from an Air Force cooler helped wake her up. The hundred bucks in poker winnings in her pocket as she changed into her flight suit left her feeling positively cheerful despite not enough sleep lying on the hard deck.

By the time they hit the tarmac, they’d been in flight for fourteen hours and several midair refuelings. Sleep on a couple blankets over the steel decking left her stiff, and she did some stretches along with the others to work out the kinks.

Frankly she’d have preferred to curl up somewhere cozy with Tim, but there were some things you didn’t do with a sergeant, like getting caught in a relationship. Especially when you were a chief warrant.

A relationship? Was that what they had?

Crap!

That thought blasted the last of the sleep and most of the poker-winnings joy from her mind. She glanced over at Tim, strapped in a couple of jump seats down, while the plane turned from runway to taxiway. He looked better in a flight suit than most guys in a tuxedo. And when he was happy, it just slayed her. Like now. He was laughing about something with Big John, all cheerful and at ease with himself. He and Big John were like peas in a pod. No question who would be best man at Tim’s wedding.

Double crap!

She really had to get the man out of her head. Out of her blood. She wished she could go and get one of Mama Raci’s useless potions and accompanying good advice. But Lola hadn’t been back to New Orleans in years, not since after Katrina when she’d discovered that the hurricane had taken the only person she cared about from the face of the planet.

Mama Raci had survived the Great Depression, race riots, civil rights, police crackdowns on the bordellos, and who knew how many waves of gang wars that swept across New Orleans every decade or so—from Prohibition to the Bloods and Crips to the new “clique” gangs ruled by individual OGs. No original gangster was stupid enough to mess with Mama Raci. She had hidden powers that no one understood, not even Lola.

She’d survived a lifetime in the worst neighborhood in the nation’s deadliest city. She’d ridden out Katrina and all of the bloody desecrations that followed, only to die in the aftermath due to bad water and no medical care.

Lola hadn’t been there to evacuate her. Her service range hadn’t been around Storyville. Her National Guard unit had been working the coast and a couple of badly damaged offshore rigs.

She tried to imagine what Mama Raci would say to her grown-up adoptive girl, if she were still around. What she would say about Lola finally being totally charmed by a man?

Lola glanced sideways at Tim again. Careful not to indicate that she was aware of how he was watching her.

Charmed? Crap a third time. Who was she kidding? Other than herself? Mama R. had always said Lola was the world expert at that. She’d done her best to purge it from her system and yet here it was again.

She closed her eyes for a moment as the plane made its final slow, smooth turns to wherever they were parking. “Straight up, girl!” She could hear the old woman’s voice. “If you can no be truth with self, you can no be truth with no mon.”

Straight up. Sex with Tim was brain-crunchingly awesome. But that wasn’t where he was getting past her armor. It was all that gentle aimed at her from such a powerful man. She could lose herself in the world of safety that seemed to surround him wherever he went. He battered at her defenses with a world she knew nothing about. A world she’d always assumed to be a fairy tale.

The plane finally rocked to a halt and the engines began to wind down after more than a half day of service.

There was no man Lola would ever be spending her life with. Not no how.

But the man looking right at her with those dark, gentle eyes, him she could spend some serious chunk of time with.
Could
do
that
easy, mon, vera easy.

***

Fourteen hours of nothing turned into a full-on military sprint the moment the two ends of the C-5’s cargo bay opened up. A wave of cool, fresh air washed through the cargo hold.

Tim didn’t choke on a cloud of dust or gag on smells that were an overripe mixture of cooked lamb and raw sewage spread upon local farmer’s fields. He stepped out onto the rear ramp and breathed deeply to fill his lungs with good old USA-brand air. They were parked inside a massive hangar, one big enough to swallow a C-5, which was saying something.

Then he froze. One of the C-5’s loadmasters actually had to shove him aside to clear the ramp. There was another plane parked beside theirs in the hangar. The overhead lights were soft on the blue-and-white paint job of the most famous 747 of them all, Air Force One. They were at Andrews, inside the hangar for the President’s personal transport.

No one was allowed in here without massive security clearance.

That’s when he noticed the phalanx of guards. Every twenty feet between Air Force One and their C-5. Each soldier held an M-16 at ready arms. From that position they could target and fire in less than a second. Way less. So, the Army had been allowed inside the hangar, but that didn’t mean the Air Force was one bit happy about it.

He leaned over toward John. “Opportunity, my friend.”

“Oh, no.”

Tim sidestepped before John could grab him and muzzle him.

“Howdy, boys!” he called over in his best country yokel voice. “How’re y’all doin’ tonight?”

Not even a peep of a response.

“When are they gonna let you Chair Force nuggets fly a bird that doesn’t have an autopilot to hold your hand every inch of the way?” He slapped the nose of the
Vengeance
as they trundled her down the rear ramp.

“The same time you learn to fly something better than an army lawn dart,” a master sergeant called back from the line. “Goddamn Crash Hawk jock.” “Lawn dart” for how abruptly some of the early Black Hawks fell from the sky after their tails fell off.

By the time Tim turned back, they had the
Vengeance
clear and the
Viper
was coming down the rear ramp. Through the vast cavern of the C-5 open at both ends, he could see that they had the Chinook going out the front.

Connie and Kee were unfolding the first blade of
Vengeance.
Well, no way two girls were gonna outdo him and John just because they were unloaded first. Clearly John was of the same mind. He slapped a wrench into Tim’s palm, and they were both climbing up the sides of their bird while the loadmasters were still rolling it out.

Tim gave a final shout as he reached the top of his bird, “Got no time for a lousy slick sleeve.” Which was about six ranks and twenty years low for the Air Force master sergeant.

That earned him a single bark of laughter. A quick glance revealed that the rest of the Air Force squad hadn’t eased off from their alert position by a single millimeter.

He bent to work with a good heart. Always worth the extra moment to demean another arm of the service. And how often did a guy get a chance to tease the crew of Air Force One? Now he had to make up for the wasted time.

It was a close thing, but he and John pinned the fifth and last blade into place just before the girls. Maybe only by a minute, maybe half a minute, but they were first. Henderson and Richardson were right on the preflight, but Lola and Beale were on the hustle too.

“Just not gonna happen!” He didn’t need to guess what John was talking about. Tim jumped from the top of the bird, landing with a roll and coming right up on his feet. They pulled engine covers and pitot sleeves while the Captain and Major checked fuel and began powering up instruments.

Weapons locked and loaded, all the covers folded and stowed. Tim and John high-fived with a sharp slap that would have echoed in a smaller space just as the first sound of their turbines began winding up.

Tim glanced out at
Vengeance
.

“Shit!”

John swung over to look out the cargo bay door with him.

“How did they do that? We were awesome!”

Vengeance
’s rotors were already spinning nicely, while
Viper
’s were just finishing their achingly slow first rotations.

“They cheated,” Viper said over the intercom. “Must have.”

Tim nodded in agreement. Unless Lola was as good as Beale. If that was true, then the two of them could have done it. Now there was a thought. Someone that good in the sack who was that good in the air. There was an image that made his body burn just sitting here.

When he caught her cheery wave of victory through the windscreen, he considered turning aside as if he hadn’t seen it. Too petty. He cast a casual, two-fingered salute. Dilya leaned out the cargo bay door to wave happily so he waved to her as well, then turned away.

To his next surprise.

The C-5 was already gone. In all the hurry, he hadn’t even noticed the hangar doors open to the April night or the quiet sound of the electric tractor dragging the big jet clear.

He glanced over at the Chinook, just now starting up its twin rotors. The D-boys clambered aboard, their rifles slung over their shoulders. A single one trailed behind, scanning the hangar with his sniper rifle at ready arms. For the tenth time, Tim wondered what the hell they had dug up out in the desert.

He didn’t like it one bit. In unison, he and John slid into their seats and buckled in, and Tim made sure everything was ready on his minigun. Friendly soil or not, if a D-boy didn’t trust it, he wasn’t about to either.

The hangar doors opened, allowing the three choppers to roll forward into the night. A glance back showed that the guards still hadn’t moved from in front of Air Force One as the hangar doors slid closed behind them. They’d probably spray the floor with disinfectant where the Army helicopter might have touched their precious patch of concrete.

They headed northwest, the National Mall a blaze of light off to the north. In a half-dozen miles, they slipped down low over the Potomac and continued northwest.

No one about. No police choppers. Not many vehicles either, not at four in the morning.

Just three Special Forces military helicopters flying over home soil, ready for battle. Was that even legal? The military was forbidden from carrying out force operations over U.S. soil, courtesy of a half-dozen laws going back a hundred years and presidential orders on top of that. This wasn’t force, at least not yet.

But that wasn’t his concern. No one was talking about it on the radio either. The pilots were silent. Communicating by some weird tele-psychic thing SOAR pilots sometimes did, where everyone just knew what to do and where to go.

So he kept his mouth shut and watched the sky and the roads for possible inbounds. Tim wondered if he’d be able to fire at a perceived threat and risk accidentally taking out some guy with his girl looking for a place to neck.

At a large office complex they slowed, staying below a hundred feet.

The Chinook began to settle to the ground as the two DAP hawks hovered above. Langley, Virginia. CIA headquarters. Tim had never been here, no reason. He kept his attention on a sweep of the sky and tried to find enough spit to swallow against a dry throat.

The Chinook swung so that her stern rotor was passing within a dozen feet of the building. Even as the bird touched down, the rear ramp hit the ground and a pair of D-boys were driving the vehicle backwards off the ramp. They didn’t even slow or turn, just backed right off the chopper and straight into a garage door that had slid open to receive them moments before it would have been struck. The others stayed on the big bird.

Henderson must have been as fascinated as Tim was. The
Viper
had to suddenly jerk aside to get clear of the ascending Chinook.

The Major let out a long, slow whistle. “Why do I think we haven’t seen the last of that?”

“Giving me the willies there, Major.” And he was. Tim had fought plenty of battles but not often been creeped out by what he’d seen.

“Well, I’m glad to be rid of that package,” Big John rumbled.

“No question. Where to now, sir?”

“Anacostia.” The Major headed them south, his voice a little easier. “A bit of down time.”

The Chinook turned southwest and climbed into the night. Just before it completely disappeared off the edge of their night-vision gear, its crew turned on their nav lights. Probably making the three-hour transit down to SOAR headquarters in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

The two DAP Hawks swung in unison back down the Potomac and slipped quietly into Anacostia Naval Support Facility where the U.S. Marines stored the Marine One helicopters for the President. Again, within minutes of landing, they were tucked out of sight inside a closed hangar.