Hopefully, that wouldn’t be necessary.
A little before 5:00 a.m. local time, she was dropping the gear and white-knuckling the C-160 Zeus down onto a runway that literally appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a dark cornfield outside of Topeka, Kansas.
Two ground crew dressed completely in black, down to black earmuffs and black knit hoods over their heads and concealing their features, waved her in with dim glowing blue pylons. She powered down the engines and heard them chocking her wheels and connecting her ground straps before hooking up the fuel lines.
Less than thirty minutes later, an odd, two-toned beep chirruped over her radio on the same frequency. Two men dressed in black directed her down to the end of the runway, where she’d turn and take off to the west, into the light headwind.
As she swung around, the sun starting to crest the eastern horizon, she caught sight of the corn field beneath them literally sliding back into place, swallowing the runway and tarmac below.
“Cool, huh?” Victor said.
She looked at him. “What the hell was that?”
He grinned. “That’s so black ops, not even the damn CIA knows about it. We’ve had to fly in there a few times. You think that’s neat, you should see what it looks like when you have to stopover there. They’ve got an elevator and underground hangar system you would not believe. It’s a small city down there. I don’t even think the president knows about it. It’s so classified it makes top secret look like public domain.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right,” Zed said from his jump seat. “Stick with us, Captain, and we’ll show you things you ain’t never seen before.”
* * * *
She swung in off the Gulf, following coordinates she’d punched into her flight computer at McChord. They wouldn’t actually be landing on Alligator Alley. Kilo had done one better and found old Highway 29, which intersected the Interstate north to south. As she circled around once and noted the fresh orange spray-paint marks on the pavement, as well as a wind sock they’d considerately posted for her, she also spotted the five vehicles parked along the shoulder at the stoppage point.
She wouldn’t even have to turn around, just take off in the same direction, the barely negligible winds that early in the morning not an issue for her one way or another.
Ten minutes later, she was shutting down the engines and sitting back in her seat.
Victor patted her on the shoulder. “Great flight, Captain.”
Papa stuck his head into the cockpit, a large grin on his face. “You think you’re getting out of this outfit anytime soon, Panda, think again.”
She let out a laughing groan. “Panda? Really? That’s my code name?”
He shrugged. “Sorry. It’s too perfect.”
She unfastened her harness and started to climb out of her seat. She needed to walk around, use the head, and wanted to hug Kilo since she hadn’t seen him in nearly a week.
By the time she made it out onto the road, the men—and women—had already unloaded the RV and most of the cargo.
They were efficient. What impressed her was how fast the mostly civilian women and scientists had taken to their new way of life.
Kilo walked over, a proud grin on his face.
“Don’t start with me,” she warned.
Still, he grabbed her and hugged her, swinging her around. “I don’t care. I’m proud of you.”
“I flew a pretty easy run, all things considered.”
“And a pretty important one,” Kilo said. “Thank you for joining us.” Foxtrot walked over to them.
“You mean the unit? I was kind of ordered to do that, not that I minded.”
Foxtrot laughed. “That, too, but we meant the two of us.”
When they were ready to go, Papa walked over. “You good to fly?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Arliss has already confirmed the orders for you and the Panda at MacDill. Kilo and Foxtrot will drive up and get you all. By the time you get done signing forms and shutting things down, they should be there.”
She must have telegraphed her feelings when she glanced back at the Zeus. Papa reached out and touched her shoulder.
“She’s our official ride,” Papa assured her. “Don’t worry.”
“It’s stupid,” she said, “because I’m an officer, and I’ve been through other birds before, but she’s special.”
He nodded. “I get it,” he gently said. “They’ll always be your crew.”
He really did get it. It wasn’t just words. As a commanding officer himself, he more than anyone else there, except maybe for Chief, understood the mixed bag of emotions weighing on her soul. “Yeah.”
“Let’s get this bird off the ground again,” Foxtrot said. “We have to get you out of here before we attract any of the wrong kind of attention.”
“We put up road barricades,” Omega said, “but we don’t want them up any longer than necessary.”
With Victor, Zed, and Echo, she made sure everyone was clear and got the APUs fired up to start the engines. Minutes later, they were on the move again.
Taking off light was easy. She’d done the fuel calculations and they had more than enough to make the short hop to MacDill. It barely felt like she’d gotten up to altitude before making her final approach. This hop had been with her new ID beacon, the one now assigned to her plane. Different call sign.
As she angled north and to the west just a hair, Kyong felt how empty the Panda sounded to her trained ear, how different the controls felt, how it responded to her hands without a full load of cargo and fuel weighing her down.
She wondered if the ghosts of her friends, her crew, were rattling around in that empty cargo compartment the way they rattled around in her heart.
* * * *
One good thing about the military, when you said your orders were need to know, you didn’t catch any flack about it. It was a given that people didn’t push you for details.
Apparently, Arliss had made sure no one even asked. The head of the mod squad taking care of the Panda for Kyong went through the list before she signed off on it. During the two hours or so, as they walked through the plane and discussed everything, Victor, Zed, and Echo patiently waited in the shade of the wing.
Unfortunately, the Panda would remain that in her memory only. The Zeus was getting a new paint job and new tail numbers, in addition to the new beacon she already had. Kyong had taken pics of her before they’d left McChord so she’d have them.
She’d just finished her discussions with the mod squad when Kilo and Foxtrot caught up with them near the hangar. “How about we get some chow before we head on back?” Kilo asked. “The food here used to be pretty decent.”
She grabbed her command bag from the Panda. The bulk of her gear had gone with Omega and the rest of them when they unloaded.
Mal had promised to take care of Lee, Maggie, and Darrel’s gear when she’d left it behind at McChord. It hadn’t made sense to waste the fuel to carry it, no matter how sentimental she felt about it.
They weren’t there. They likely weren’t even alive.
On the off-chance they had survived, they’d still be out there, and hauling their gear all the way to Florida made zero sense.
She turned back to the Panda and stopped, came to attention, and saluted it. “Thanks, girl,” she said, reaching out to stroke its skin one last time before following her men and the others.
On the way home, they drove through St. Petersburg and crossed over the Tampa Bay Bridge. To the east lay the crumbling remnants of the old Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Beyond that to the west, the Gulf of Mexico glistened in the afternoon sun.
It didn’t look like the Pacific, but not in a bad way, either. She’d seen the Gulf plenty of times from the air, but most of her time in had been spent over on the Pacific side of the globe, or over land.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Echo asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. I wish they could see it.”
“Maybe t
hey can,” Foxtrot said, not needing any clarification on who she meant. “Maybe they can.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
She’d give Kilo and the others all due credit, the new safe house couldn’t be any more perfect for their needs. Once used as a marine research facility, it hadn’t taken much to get the new lab set up there and bring all the systems up and running. There was a solid bridge across from the mainland to the island, protected by a locked gate on the mainland side, but the causeway on their end of it sometimes flooded at high tide. Not that they cared, that just helped them out by keeping them isolated.
Built on stilts, the two-story facility was actually three buildings joined by gangways, one being the lab. The second building had been a dorm set up for resident and visiting staff, the third had been office spaces.
The six triads and Sin, the Irish scientist, took over the bedrooms in the dorm area.
Despite there still being three empty bedrooms in that building, the others were happy to bunk in what they’d assumed would be the much quieter office area.
The other two scientists took over two offices in the lab building for their quarters.
And they had plenty of room to grow.
Surrounding the buildings were plenty of trees and the gorgeous, white sand beaches Florida’s Gulf coast was famous for. The large dock on the bay side of the island would be perfect to hook up the plane, and also held several small skiffs the men had obtained. The facility had both a cistern and its own de-sal plant, and its solar and wind genny systems meant they didn’t have to be dependent upon power lines from shore or even worry about fuel for generators.
Kyong certainly wasn’t going to complain about their new digs. She wouldn’t bitch about mosquitoes, or humidity, or salty Gulf air so thick you could just about wring moisture out of it with your bare hands if you tried hard enough.
She wouldn’t bitch about a damn thing, because she could appreciate how farking lucky she was.
In her heart, she would mourn her three friends, her crew, her team. And even though logically she knew the guilt wasn’t hers to bear, she would still carry that with her, too. A permanent reminder of her responsibilities, and how important it was to never shirk her duties.
Her brother’s death was an all too poignant reminder of that little factoid, too.
Papa called them together that night shortly after ten o’clock. In two days, she’d go pick up the Derring 82X from where it was being transferred over to Ft. Pierce, on the east coast of Florida.
It had already received new ID numbers, a new beacon, and a few mods and other equipment they might need during their missions.
She was actually looking forward to it. It’d been a while since she’d flown something that small. It would be like driving a well-tuned race car after years of driving a moving truck.
“Good job today, everyone,” Papa said. “I know we’re all tired, and I know we’ve all come a long way from where we were just a few weeks ago. I want watches on the buildings and ground level. Bubba is working on getting us our own portable radar array, so that will make our job a little easier. I’ll be giving everyone free days here shortly, so be patient. But you’ve all earned as much rest as I can give you. Panda, Kilo, Foxtrot, you three take twenty-four off.”
She nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“No sir’s, captain,” he teased. “We’re all in this together. OTG means one-for-all. Tango, Doc, Oscar, Yankee, you’re up for first watch tonight.”
“Well, Sin,” Oscar said. “You’ll have a slightly quieter night.” The single scientist’s bedroom ended up sandwiched between the two sets of triads.
“Lucky me, mate,” Sin said. “Lucky me.”
“We’ll also start planning our Atlanta run tomorrow,” Papa continued. “Bubba is working on sifting through his contacts to find someone at the CDC he can confidently say is not wrapped around Silo’s finger.”
“What if he can’t?” Kyong asked. “What if there’s no one there we can trust?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Okay, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll hand out assignments in the morning. Good night, everyone.”
Some of them remained in the common area in the office building, but Kyong headed for their quarters. Her men followed her moments later.
Foxtrot closed the bedroom door and turned to where she was sitting on the bedroll and unlacing her boots. “You all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“You’ve been awfully quiet this evening,” Kilo said. “Just wondering.”
She paused. With her hands resting on her knees, she stared from Kilo, who was kneeling on the floor by his duffel, to Foxtrot, and back again.
“Just…thinking. Remembering.”
The men shared a glance but didn’t offer any response.
“You know I’m not delicate china, right?” She resumed removing her boots. “Just because I go a little quiet from time to time doesn’t mean I’m having second thoughts about us.”
She didn’t imagine the audible sighs of relief from both men.
After yanking both boots off, she tossed them to Kilo. “Guys, I…I didn’t even get to go to Tuan’s funeral, okay? Then my crew… I’m torn between wishing I was with my parents to help them out, and knowing that what I’m doing here, with all of you, is the best thing I can be doing to help them in the long run. I can’t help it. Worrying is what I do. It’s just the way I’m wired.”
“We’ll get him,” Foxtrot promised. “One way or another, Silo will pay.”
“Won’t bring Tuan back,” she quietly said. “Won’t bring any of them back.”
“Didn’t say it would,” Kilo said. “But it’s a start, isn’t it?”
Taking a slow, deep breath, she held it for a moment before letting it out again. Their room faced west, and a gentle evening breeze blew in through the screen of the open window. Between that and the ceiling fan, it’d be comfortable sleeping weather. She’d weathered a lot worse.
“You going to be okay with me doing the Atlanta run?” she asked them.
Omega was already working the logistics to set up the transportation and safe house on the Georgia end of the Atlanta run. They could breathe only marginally easier now that they knew the food chain between them and Arliss was secure, but not knowing how many other moles there were or where they might be meant they had to keep a low profile.
The men exchanged a glance. “We don’t get much say in it,” Foxtrot finally offered. “It’s the mission. Mission first. Papa assigns the people who are needed to the mission. You and Victor are our pilots.” He walked over and sat next to her. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about your safety, because I’m concerned about everyone who goes out on the missions. We all are. We’d have to be soulless dicks not to worry, but we don’t let that become our focus, and we don’t let it get in the way of the successful completion of our mission.”
“It’s kind of our way of doing things,” Kilo added. “We’re a unit, a team, but we’re also a family. So don’t worry about us worrying about you. We’re big boys. We can handle ourselves. You focus on whatever your mission happens to be so you get yourself and the rest of them back here safely.”
Kilo got up and walked over, sitting on her other side on the bedroll. The men reached over and each took one of her hands.
“We love you,” Foxtrot said. “There’s no two ways about it. And like the other five pairs or triads or whatever they are can tell you, no, this isn’t the ideal time to be in love. But it’s the only time we have, and we aren’t promised any more of it.”
“Yeah,” Kilo said. “That. What he just said.”
“I feel like I don’t fit in,” she admitted. “With the other women, or even with you guys.”
“Sure you do,” both men said.
Foxtrot took over. “Hey, you fit in just as well as anyone here.”
“Anyone can be a pilot.”
The men snorted. “Um, seriously?” Kil
o asked. “No, they can’t. Hey, everyone with us has a job. Your job is to fly our asses, safely, so we can do whatever it is we need to do to save the world. That’s pretty important, too, you know.”
Foxtrot dropped his voice. “The other women aren’t picking on you or something, are they?”
She loved his protective tone, but quickly answered, “No, that’s not what I meant. Not at all. Annie and Chief, sure, they were both in. But the others weren’t. And aren’t currently. Everyone’s got a job and I just…” She shrugged, not sure how to continue.
Feeling unsure about herself or a situation wasn’t something she was used to. Since joining the men, her normally cocksure state of mind had fled.
The only thing she was sure about was her feelings for the two men.
“Just give them a chance to get to know you,” Kilo gently counseled. “They like you. They don’t care you’re a pilot. It’s part of what you do and who you are, the way we all have our roles in this thing.”
“What do we do on the other side of this?” she asked. “Are we going to be okay? Or is this going to be a case of once our lives aren’t in danger, the three of us won’t have anything in common?”
Kilo gently cupped his other hand around her cheek and turned her face toward his. “We get through this,” he softly assured her, “and then we get to take the most kick-ass of vacations ever. All three of us.” He smiled. “And then we figure out where we want to live. The three of us. And we spend the rest of our lives being happy. The three of us.”
“You don’t want to be in after this?”
“Hell, no.” His smile faltered. “You do?”
“I never thought I had an option before. And I still have two years.”
Foxtrot squeezed her hand. “We’re due to opt-out. I suspect once we’re done with this mission, they’ll let us out based on, I don’t know, saving the world and shit. And I think General Arliss will be happy to push through an early discharge for you.” She met his brown gaze. “I wouldn’t mind meeting your parents and family,” he said.