Chapter 64
Abby couldn’t stand to look at any of them other than Colonel Beale.
If she looked at Group Captain Cutcher, she’d freak out.
Her job was to be a pilot, not try to answer impossible questions about the proper action against an ally’s foreign intelligence service.
If she looked at Dilya or Miss Watson, well, she’d barely kept the tears at bay the first time.
And Derek? He had her in such a jumble inside that she didn’t know which way was up.
His touch, probably meant to soothe, had risked tipping her over the edge into hysterical weeping, which she would not do in front of her commander.
No one, man or woman, had ever had that effect on her, that deep connection.
He embodied new territory she was in no way equipped to navigate.
So, like an LZ that was truly too hot to land in, she’d avoid the whole zone.
If she looked at the dog… It was Dilya’s dog, so who knew what its superpower might be.
Focus on Beale. “Awaiting orders, Colonel.”
“I don’t have answers, Captain. And,” she stepped back to peer around the side of the helo toward the Base Hangar, “I’d estimate we have about thirty seconds to come up with a plan.”
Abby swallowed hard to keep the churning knot in her gut down where it belonged. All she could think to do was shoot them. This was getting far too real. Unless—
“Shoot them, ma’am.”
“Now just a moment, young lady,” Captain Cutcher reached for her sidearm and suddenly Misty’s long rifle was poking against her back.
“Two nights of practice…” Abby let it hang in the air.
“Ha!” Derek selected a frequency and clicked his radio’s mike. “Double-check your weapons. Sims only. I repeat, Sims only. Take the Brits down Delta style in sixty.”
Abby called her own team and began issuing orders. No need to confer; they were in such synchronicity. As soon as they finished, she had a horrid thought. “But they’ll have live weapons. When they fire back at your men—”
“If we give them a chance!” Then Derek laughed as he grabbed her hand. “C’mon! You wanta see the fun up close, don’t you?”
Hot Rod was just rolling up in the DAGOR with Compass beside him.
“You,” Derek beeped Dilya on the nose and got his hand swatted. Oddly, she caught him with her wrist rather than her hand and he reacted as if it truly stung.
Abby wanted to give her a cheer.
“Stay the hell out of sight. You too.” He pointed at the dog, then shifted to point into the Chinook’s cargo bay. The dog went and, after a confused scowl at Derek, Dilya followed.
“Misty. Up.” Derek called out as he dragged Abby toward the DAGOR.
Misty slung her sniper rifle over her back and vaulted up to the .50 cal Browning machine gun that had been mounted on the turret. “Only got live rounds here, boss.”
“Then don’t hit anyone.”
“That’s against my nature.” She grinned as she faced forward.
She stood on the middle seat of the row behind the driver and navigator.
That raised her upper torso above the roll bars, but placed her hands on the handles of the big machine gun mounted on a turret.
It could swivel three hundred and sixty degrees around her.
Derek boosted Abby onto the tailgate. “Hang on!”
The extra heartbeat that he spent with his hands around her waist as if relishing the memory—which she did as well—and almost left him behind.
Hot Rod did his usual bolting toward the action before everyone was fully aboard.