Night Is Mine Read Online Free Page B

one hand a thousand feet in the air, the D-boy had triggered the mines he’d left behind to destroy the cave. She leaned into the controls, backpedaling for all she was worth, the helicopter’s nose pointed to the sky to give the rotors maximum rearward power. She ran the turbine engines right past redline. They roared in response as she was rammed down hard enough in her seat to hit the stops on the shock absorber.
    A second blast proved her guess right: Michael’s explosives triggered a massive ammo dump inside the mountain. The cliff face blew outward, spattering her bird with a pounding rattle of fist-sized rocks, and a whole section of the mountainside headed down for the valley.
    They dragged the rope up with its human load and hauled ass back to base.

Chapter 4
     
    “Nice flight, Captain.”
    Mark couldn’t help himself. He radioed as they circled down together over the soccer stadium. He’d always been so careful not to compliment her. Keeping Emily Beale convinced she wasn’t as good as he needed her to be had honed her skills even in two short months. At least that’s what he hoped motivated him.
    Maybe he was just being petty… But no. She’d beaten him across the valley in identical birds and still he’d complimented her. Though there wasn’t enough money on Earth to make him ask her how she’d found the extra bit of speed.
    “Thank you, Major.”
    Nice flight? He’d almost choked when she crawled into that defile under a rain of fire. One lucky shot, one moment of lost control, and she’d have eaten the cliff wall.
    Any pilot good enough to make SOAR flew cool under fire. Sitting back at camp they might barf their guts out, but not in flight. And not Emily Beale. He’d never seen her with the shakes, the squeams, not even working out the kinks of a stiff neck from holding too tight.
    Captain Emily Beale. Ms. Cool-as-could-be.
    Would he have flown into that defile? Probably. If he’d thought of it. Would he have considered it long enough to think of it? Probably not. He’d have dismissed it out of hand as impossible. And probably left the Delta operator to pay the price for lack of any solution.
    What was he supposed to do with this woman?
    Even as they landed on the field, she settled her bird clean and square to the worn soccer field lines, hopped down at ease, and chatted for a minute with the D-boy she’d plucked off the cliff. He actually shook her hand and smiled before moving off toward the prisoners. More than most got from the silent ghosts of Delta Force.
    A bunch of the flyboys and ground crew gathered around her. The news of the mission’s success had swept through the base, and the story of the defile had already been spread by one of the Little Bird pilots. Mark could see it sweeping through the crowd.
    And Beale, calm as could be, completely unaware of the men’s stares, stripped her flight suit halfway down, tied the empty arms around her slim hips, and turned to inspect her bird. Peppered with hundreds of holes, one of the main rotor blades so chewed up it would need replacing, and a slow stream of black hydraulic fluid dribbled down the side of the engine housing. She climbed up with the crew chief to see where the damage originated, and thirty pairs of eyes followed her.
    Hard to blame the guys. Five hundred miles from nowhere and only one woman in sight. A real stunner, too. But that wasn’t the real reason they stared. She’d flown into a place no sane person would go to bring her action team out. For doing that, for protecting the team at any cost, there wasn’t a man here who wouldn’t throw himself in front of a bullet to save her, not even if she looked like a heifer.
    Did she know that she’d mesmerized an entire base of the toughest warriors on the planet with that single act, never mind the dozens before it?
    Did she have any idea that she’d done the same to him?
    ***
     
    “What the hell is this, Captain?”
    Emily rolled off her cot and hit the ground,