Night Stalkers: By Break Of Day Part 7

A day-and-night camera, but not the hi-resolution gear because it weighed too much, and imaging radar.

She was tempted by the radiation and bioweapon sensors, but that would only satisfy her own curiosity about what The Activity might have been hunting.

The rest of her payload was given over to a high-speed ELINT package. In addition to receiving radio signals from the team, it would gather any Electronic Intelligence on a broad spectrum of frequencies and could even provide limited signal jamming of the "enemy" if necessary.

When she was done, Kara tucked the ScanEagle back in its crate and locked it. Instead of being three feet square by twenty-five long and weighing nearly two tons when loaded for flight-like the Gray Eagle's coffin-the ScanEagle's crate was a foot square by five long and weighed less than her rucksack loaded for a 10K hike. Despite the military having switched over to metric, it was still easier to think in feet than in meters.

The four of them now stood out in the fading sunset, the first one she'd seen in days. They were on the huge aircraft elevator that moved helicopters between the flight deck and the hangar deck. The steel platform stuck five meters out from the side of the ship and was half again as long. The elevator had been lowered to the hangar deck position.

No need to go up on the flight deck and expose her little baby to inquiring eyes. It was a funny juxtaposition to launch such a tiny aircraft from such a ma.s.sive ship.

"This little beauty is something few folks get to see." Kara triple-checked that they were the only personnel in the area.

Justin hovered close behind her, just like Michael and Willard. Kara felt as if she were center stage, rather than standing on the aircraft elevator platform that stuck out the side of the Peleliu.

Justin had helped her wheel out the ScanEagle's launching platform. It was a light trailer with a single center rail. It looked much like a heavy-duty crossbow tilted up at the sky.

She snapped open the case, lifted out the main body, and set it on the rail.

"As far as I know, there are only three other black box ScanEagles and they're all in SOAR. I heard hints that there was one more in use by some wildland firefighting outfit. How's that for a crazy rumor, huh?"

Justin noticed that while Willard laughed, Delta Operator Michael Gibson was even quieter than usual. Wasn't that interesting? Justin tried to imagine why a wildfire outfit would need what he was looking at and came up blank.

He'd worked with a normal ScanEagle before. It was as long as a manure shovel and as big around as a horse's muzzle-and about as lumpy. A pair of delicate, swept-back wings stuck out five feet to either side.

In three minutes, Kara had the wings pinned on, the little vertical winglets sticking up from the wingtips like exclamation points. The ScanEagle sported a rear propeller with a diameter no longer than his elbow to his fingertips.

All of that was normal.

But the body wasn't thin-sheet aluminum. He rapped a knuckle on it, black composite laminate. And the body was all strange angles. Even the ScanEagles in the 5D were stealth.

This fascinated Wilson in a way that the inside of the GCS coffin hadn't.

And clearly his interest and obvious attention was being soaked up by a Kara eager to teach willing pupils.

But there was more than that.

And Justin wasn't enjoying it much.

He could see Kara warming up to Wilson.

And Justin could feel that weird edge that some guys had, the ones who only dated married women...or tried to take a woman as soon as they saw she was with someone else.

Worse, she was falling for it. He'd thought her too smart for such ploys and found the bitter taste of disappointment a harsh reality.

Justin considered tossing the guy off the railing-they were still ten meters above the ocean and no one would really miss him, would they?-or nudging him into the propeller that Kara had just started on the little RPA. Then he could spend the rest of his shipboard "visit" in sick bay-a.s.suming the blade didn't catch anything vital.

Instead, he awaited his moment.

Kara warned them, then hit the launch switch, and the ScanEagle zipped aloft and was quickly lost to view in the settling twilight.

"Normally, it auto-launches to a thousand feet up and circles, waiting for me. This time I have Tago scooting her away from the Peleliu just as fast as she'll go."

Willard cut Justin off by stepping forward to help return the launcher back inside the hangar deck. Justin bit the inside of his cheek rather than smashing a fist into w.i.l.l.y Wilson's.

They all turned for the GCS coffin.

Justin held the door while waving Willard and Michael inside, and then he shut it in Kara's face before she could enter.

The hangar deck was otherwise empty. The fading daylight, combined with the distant work lights, made soft shadows. Through with her speed run, the Peleliu's engines were back to an idle. It was almost peaceful. Justin's pulse was anything but, hammering against his skull so hard he wondered that it didn't echo around the hangar deck.

Justin hadn't put his hands on Kara the first two times. This time he did.

He slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her tight against him. And when he leaned down to kiss her, she turned out to be more than ready; she was unexpectedly eager. Her arms went around his neck and hung on.

What he'd intended as a reminder of their first two kisses and a promise of more to come roared right into full flight.

She pulled him in and took a step back until she landed against the container's door with a thump without breaking their connection. He didn't need more of an invitation to pin her body there with his. Her curves fit against him in wonderful ways that made him think of...nothing. His senses were on full overload, and his brain was not receiving any blood at all.

His hand, with no guidance from his disconnected and dying brain, decided on its own to find out how soft her hair was. The other scooped down to her behind and encountered hard muscle in that ever-so-feminine curve that had been shaped perfectly to fit his palm.

Her mouth was as sweet as her lips, and her hunger was as ravenous as his own.

When she slid a leg up the back of his thigh, he forced himself to pull back until he had a palm on either side of her head against the steel door.

She brushed her hands over his chest.

His entire body vibrated with need for her, but she wasn't looking up at him. She was looking at her hands stroking over his T-shirt and driving him crazier than a stallion separated from a herd of mares by a ten-foot fence.

"He is a little obvious, isn't he?"

Willard.

"Aw shoot! I shoulda known."

"Known what?" She finally looked up at him. Her dark eyes glittered with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Captain Kara Moretti doesn't miss a thing."

Kara looked back down at Justin's chest, not so much to admire it-though she could feel that exceptional fitness through the thin T-shirt, right down to six-pack abs-but more to hide her own thoughts.

She hadn't meant to set up Justin to be jealous, though she was flattered that the situation had done so. More than flattered, she wanted another kiss like that one the way she craved a slice of New York pizza or a corned beef sandwich from Fierro Meats down on Carroll Street when she'd been deployed too long between leaves.

"Hey, I've got an idea. Mess up my hair."

"I already did." He made brushing motions at it.

She liked the way it felt, could imagine him doing that after they'd made love. Huh! When did you decide you were gonna do it with this tall Texan, girl? Didn't matter. She was going to. Same unit or not.

"No, Justin, I mean mess it up for Willard. Be quick though." And rested her forehead against his chest. Oh G.o.d, she could nestle in right here and never leave.

Instead of just scrubbing his fingers over her hair, he dug his fingers in deep and drove them upward along her scalp. He turned it into a head ma.s.sage with a delightful scritching by his fingertips.

Then he planted a kiss right on the top of her head and stepped back.

"You now look like a woman who has had something wholly inappropriate done to her."

"Next time I want you to actually do something wholly inappropriate." Kara shoved her mussed hair back over her shoulder and then ran a hand down her front, wondering quite when her heart had started beating so fast.

"That"-Justin moved to hold the door for her as soon as she keyed in the entry code-"is something I can promise to deliver at the earliest opportunity, ma'am."

w.i.l.l.y's disappointment was obvious, but then he shrugged and clapped Justin good-naturedly on the shoulder. Best man won and all that c.r.a.p.

Justin managed not to flatten the a.s.shole, instead offering him a friendly smile-the kind a coyote offered right before it tried to eat you. Then Justin turned away and caught Michael looking at him.

It was a whole different look.

Justin wondered if Michael was about to flatten him.

But Colonel Gibson had married Claudia Jean Casperson of SOAR and in the same unit that Michael was Delta liaison to. Why would he cut up so stiff?

Duh! Because it appeared as if Justin really had done something inappropriate-without caring if he embarra.s.sed Kara.

Justin tipped his head toward Wilson's back-the man had moved forward to stare at the ScanEagle's flight track on the screen-and tried to indicate that they were baiting him. Or at least that Kara was.

Michael looked at Wilson, then Kara, then back to him.

Finally, he offered a slow nod.

A nod that told Justin exactly how carefully this particular D-boy was going to be watching the way he treated Kara. Going forward from here, Justin knew he was on probation at best. Then Michael turned his silent attention back to the multiscreen displays as if nothing had happened.

Justin wondered if learning to be scarier than a mad bull under full steam was a standard part of Delta training. Even if it wasn't, Justin had no question who would win if Michael Gibson faced such a beast.

No way did Justin want to be ticking off that man.

Chapter 9.

"Oh brother. These must have been some very bad men." Kara watched the feeds from the tiny ScanEagle zipping low over the central Negev at sixty knots.

"My guys? Why?" Major Willard Wilson had done a whole macho You win thing with Justin that had almost earned them both a broken nose. No, not Justin. He was playing the "guy" game; he was simply playing it too well for her taste. Then she had spotted the look that Colonel Gibson aimed Justin's way and actually felt sorry for him. Still, punching Major Wilson, even if he was a superior officer, was a tempting prospect.

"Well, your guys too, just for being a.s.sociated with you. But I was referring to the Israelis. What evil did these guys do to get a.s.signed to a G.o.dd.a.m.n nowhere place like Ramon Airbase? There isn't s.h.i.t growing out here. Just desert and rocks. Probably failed to suck up and kiss a.s.s to some officer about as wonderful and kind as you."

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

Tago nodded that he was ready from his station at the Gray Eagle's controls. He was keeping it high aloft as a communications relay down to the ScanEagle.

The Central Negev showed what might be called a sagebrush about once every ten meters, and they all looked dead. The hard hills had been sculpted by wind and the rare rainfall into tortuous slopes and deep, dry wadis harsh enough to make a moonscape look friendly.

And since it was three hours after full dark, any colors that might be there had gone monochrome green under the ScanEagle's infrared camera gaze. It looked about as welcoming as the home crowd watching the Mets when the Phillies were tromping on them.

To reach Ramon Airbase had taken three hours. Parking an American warship close off the Sinai Peninsula would certainly draw Egypt's and Israel's attention. LCDR Ramis had brought them within two hundred kilometers. The ScanEagle had spent two hours zipping along close above the waves under Tosca's watchful eye, swinging wide to avoid both any shipping lanes and the Egyptian border.

Both RPAs could each stay aloft for the better part of two days on a single load of fuel, so that wasn't an issue. Kara going mad with impatience as she watched mile after unchanging mile was rapidly becoming an issue. She expected premature brain death to set in any time now.

Once the ScanEagle was ash.o.r.e, another hour sliding down through the Negev had tested everyone's patience. You could taste it in the air despite the powerful air-conditioning in the GCS coffin.

"I'm guessing," she told the others, "that if The Activity guys on the ground were unwilling to use a strong signal, they must be inside the air base perimeter. If they were outside, they could walk up into the hills and send a signal aloft from a steep-walled valley and feel fairly confident that they couldn't be discovered."

"You're going to... Of course you are," Justin answered his own question.

"Of course I am."

Justin didn't even know why he asked.

Kara Moretti was the woman who punched through problems. If that meant jumping a stealth RPA into the middle of an Israeli air base to get the job done, that's what she'd do.

But he could see these last hours had really stressed her. All they'd done was exhaust him.

What would be a good distraction, a good brain reliever for her?

"You know, Major Wilson, I'm puzzled by something."

"What's that?"

"How does an Upper West Side guy like you end up in a group like The Activity?" Justin said it straight, but- "Yeah, w.i.l.l.y Nilly." Kara picked up on the question instantly as Justin knew she would. "I thought those guys had some standards."

Justin knew that nothing at the moment cheered her up as much as razzing Wilson.

"Superior skills," Wilson sneered back.

"Like superior to a gerbil? Or maybe a Yorkshire terrier?"