Wingman (Elite Ops) by Emmy Curtis (21)

Colonel Duke Cameron didn’t recognize the man who stared back at him in the mirror. What had happened to him? Clean-shaven, pressed uniform, an uncertain look in his eyes—defeated even. Was this him? Or just some sap who’d had the warrior in him snuffed out through a series of promotions?

With every rank attained, it seemed like another little piece of him had been suppressed until he’d become a completely different officer. But now something inside him was fighting to get out.

He was in his final year of running Red Flag. A hefty retirement check was in his sights, along with a brand-new career. Fishing charters maybe. Or being a golf pro. That’s what he told himself anyway, but it was becoming more and more obvious to him that he couldn’t go quietly into the night; he was a fighter.

It was supposed to be a smooth transition. But this year’s Red Flag had become a total fuck-up. It was eating away at him—the lack of control, the loss of the two pilots in a horrible crash on the second day of the exercise. He could feel it roiling inside. He should be out looking for the missing pilots. He should be doing something, goddamn it.

He grimaced in the mirror. The special operator in camo face paint bringing the fight to the enemy, the Osprey pilot who executed the most deadly attacks and fearless rescues had become…this. An insipid commander who played by the rules and respected the line of command. And the latter was sticking in his gut like a five-pound wad of chewing gum.

The three-star general who had shown up from the Pentagon had basically given all operational control of the base, and Red Flag, to a third-party military contractor. And here he was, hunched over a sink in the men’s room, not wanting to return to his office lest something else happened that would make him feel even more impotent.

Two planes had crashed the day before, and TGO, the contract company that had paid for Red Flag this year, insisted on being in charge of the search and rescue. The general had agreed, which left Duke sitting with his fucking thumb up his own ass while they dicked around, seemingly unable to find two planes and two pilots on a desert range.

He splashed water on his face slowly, wanting to prolong the moment until he had to go back to his desk and answer every call with a weak “I don’t know” response. Because he didn’t know a goddamned thing. It was like the whole of Red Flag—Duke’s whole reason for being at Nellis—had been taken away from him. His entire scope of responsibility had been reduced to sitting at his desk, wondering what had happened, and being completely out of the loop.

Someone rushed into the bathroom and ran for one of the stalls. He knew how that felt. But anyway, it was a good enough reason to give the poor guy some privacy. Cameron left, and only realized that he’d slammed the door open with such force that it had bounced against the wall when a couple of officers stopped talking and stared at him. He resisted the urge to apologize.

He was losing control of Red Flag, and himself.

He wasn’t the squared-away colonel they saw. He wasn’t the obedient by-the-books officer he’d accidentally become. He’d never been that. And it was only now—in the face of losing pilots on his watch—that he was able to really see himself for what he’d become.

The bottom line was that the higher up you rose through the ranks, the more you had to lose. He only had two years to go before his twenty years was up. He just had to keep his head down to get full retirement. At forty-three, he’d be able to get another job, and with his military retirement check, be able to live a quiet, easy life.

Back at his office, Captain Olivia Moss jumped up as he entered.

“Sit down, Captain.” He’d been trying to persuade her that she didn’t have to stand every time he returned to his office, but she was struggling with the lack of protocol he was apt to enforce in his own domain. Maybe because he was a walking contradiction.

“I just wanted to remind you that it’s eighteen hundred hours, and you have a date. I wanted to be sure to give you enough warning so you can go home and take a…” Her voice trailed off as if she’d only just realized how inappropriate it would be to talk to a commander about his showering habits.

Then he focused on what she was reminding him of. A date? “What in the hell are you talking about? What date?”

Her face fell, and her gaze dropped to her planner. “Um. You have a seven o’clock date with a Casey Jacobs?”

He took an uneasy breath. “It’s not a date,” he bit out. “It’s an…appointment.” At least, he hoped. Maybe he hoped. Shit.

Captain Moss frowned. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.”

She looked so stricken that he eased up. “It’s not a date. She’s a retired major. She used to fly MC-130Js out of Germany. I met her a couple of times when we were deployed. And now she works for TGO. My only goal for the meeting is to try figure out where my pilots are.” And what else she knew about TGO.

He visualized how she had looked in his office that afternoon. Beautiful as usual, sharp as usual, but with an imperceptible barrier between them. He was sure she knew something about the crash and why her company was taking forever to find the aircraft and the pilots.

He told himself again that it had nothing to do with the looks they had exchanged when they’d crossed paths in Afghanistan. Nothing to do with the time they’d taken shelter in the same bunker when their base had been attacked by insurgents. Nothing to do with how she’d been his “what-if” person. Nope. Nada.

Captain Moss had been right, however. He did need to get back and shower before he met her at the officers’ club. The base was on lockdown; otherwise he’d have been happy to meet somewhere downtown. There was always something to do in Vegas. But this was probably better. More professional.

“Okay, I’m off,” he said, locking his office door. “I’m your first call if you hear anything, okay? Gossip, whispers—anything. Got it?”

She looked affronted. “Of course, Colonel. I have some lures out. As soon as my hook tugs, you’ll be the first to know.”

He smiled. You could take the woman out of Montana, but…“I’m relying on you to reel in a fifty-pounder.”

“You got it, boss,” she said as he left.

Casey Jacobs had her phone in her hand and was pacing inside her hotel room. She should switch the phone off, right? But maybe her company would get suspicious if she did. Her nerves were wrangling about her as if her aircraft were taking small-arms fire on descent. Her brain was jumping from thought to thought. She had to calm down.

She took some deep breaths and sat on the bed. Then after a couple of seconds, she put the phone in the drawer of the bedside table. It would be better if it rang and she didn’t hear it. Less suspicious maybe.

All she’d done was make an innocent inquiry about the equipment on the planes that had crashed, and her world had collapsed around her. If she kept her mouth shut, everything would be okay. Maybe.

Her friend at TGO headquarters had warned her off. Suggested that TGO tapped its employees’ phones. Suggested that they sued whistle-blowers. Suggested that when the whistle-blowers committed suicide, that maybe it wasn’t exactly suicide. What the hell had she gotten into?

But if they had tapped her phone, they would have already heard her panicked message.

Even if she didn’t know any specifics, she already had the sense that her new company, and her new boss, Mr. Danvers, were somehow above the law. Their letterhead boasted names from the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. From high up in the Pentagon. From the White House.

She had to try to persuade them that she was on board. But her military training—and her honor and integrity—were battling against her survival instinct. She just plain didn’t know what to do.

Her company had sued a former whistle-blower for $50 million and won. The man had been close to destitute as the court only allowed him to keep enough money for rent and little else. No one had raised an eyebrow when he’d killed himself. Except now she’d been given reason to wonder. Malcom, her work buddy at TGO, had suggested to her that TGO had ruined him and then killed him to stop him from talking.

Could that happen to her?

The bedside table vibrated, making her jump. She leaned over and opened the drawer, peering in, not daring to touch the phone in case…well, she didn’t really know.

The number was a Nellis one. She frowned and slid her finger across the screen to pick up the call. “Hello?”

“Thank God you’re there, baby.”

She frowned, not being able to place the voice. “Who is this?”

“Really? We flew together in Afghanistan and you don’t even remember me? I saved your life.” He sounded hurt.

She grinned. “Animal? Is that you?” Relief threaded through her as she sat back down on the bed. He had saved her life, and the lives of her crew. He’d taken out the nest of a surface-to-air missile that had locked on to her aircraft, and then he’d taken out the missile too. He’d been laughing over the intercom as he had performed a maneuver that had seemed to defy physics as he saved them. An American-educated Korean national, he sometimes sounded more of a Floridian than a native Seoulite.

“You know it. How’ve you been? I hear you defected to TGO,” he said. His tone was casual, but there was something tense lying under it.

He stomach clenched again. She took a breath. “I’d never defect.” She left it hanging there.

He paused. “Then I’m calling in my chips.”

“Your chips?” As soon as the words were out, she knew what he meant.

“I saved you, so you can help me save someone else. Hopefully,” he said after a beat.

“What do you need?” she asked, knowing she was already in the hole. They wanted to go search for the missing pilots.

“I need you to get us off base. I hear TGO—not the air force—has it on lockdown,” the Animal said.

“I don’t know how…” Her mind started whirring, and he fell silent to let her think. “How many of you?”

“Eight, give or take.”

“Can you tell me what you’re planning?” she asked. And then she remembered about her phone. “Oh, wait. Don’t even tell me. There isn’t enough booze or women on base to satisfy the Animal?”

“Riiiight?” he said, obviously perplexed.

“Let me call you back.” She hung up before he could say anything else, and picked up the phone on her bedside table. She redialed the number he had called from. “It’s me.”

“Okay. Sure you’re not in the CIA instead of TGO?” the Animal said, a touch of humor in his voice.

She wished.

“I’m just being careful. As should you. Can you get a minivan from transport and make out like you’re all going to party? I’ll make sure I’m at the back gate. What time?”

“As soon as possible. It’ll take me about fifteen minutes to get a van. Hold on.”

She could hear him talking to someone.

“Yeah. Fifteen minutes. Let’s make it twenty. I need to pick up some supplies.”

“You’re going into the desert, aren’t you?” she asked. “You’re going to look for the two pilots.”

“We’re going out looking for our friends.” Animal’s voice was firm and unbendable. “The way we’d go look for you, if you’d crashed out there.”

“I know,” Casey said simply. She had no doubt about that. And if she were still in the military, she, too, would have busted out of lockdown to search for missing airmen.

She looked at the clock by the bed. Twenty minutes from now would make it ten after seven. She hoped Cameron would wait for her. “See you there.”

Grabbing her bag and car keys, she slipped on her sneakers. She was already in the dress she’d planned on wearing on her date. No. Not a date. Nevertheless, she picked up the shoes that she might put on, to make it feel more datelike. She didn’t know. Would strappy sandals make it seem too datey? Would sneakers make her dress look stupid? Urgh. She’ll make up her mind in the car.

She ran down the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator and was in her car within five minutes. She drove past the officers’ club on the way to the gate, just to see if Cameron was already there. If he’d been waiting for her outside, she’d have stopped to tell him she had an errand to run first.

She parked her car at the visitor center and walked over to the TGO guys manning the gate. When they saw her coming, they ran to the door of the security hut and held it open for her.

“Good evening, ma’am. What can I help you with?” the younger of the two men said.

“My friends want to go out on the town tonight. I told them they could go.” She rolled her eyes as if totally exasperated with them.

“I’m afraid the base is on lockdown,” the young guy said.

“It’s okay, Scott. This is a senior VP at headquarters. She speaks for Mr. Danvers.”

The young man looked confused.

“Mr. Danvers is the CEO of TGO, Scott,” the older man said, as if he were talking to a kid. He got off his swivel chair and came from around the high desk, shaking his head. “Can’t get the staff these days.”

She grinned. “We were all new once,” she said.

The older man shook his head as if in dismay. “He’s not that new,” he said dryly.

She handed her TGO ID to the younger security guard and signed a piece of paper on the clipboard he handed over. As she did so, she realized her mistake. Her name was documented now. Danvers would know she’d let the airmen out. There was no getting away from it. She saw a minibus from the air force recreation facility headed toward the gate. It wasn’t hard to figure it was them, as they were the only vehicle exiting the base.

“Here they are,” she said, trying to inject a cheeriness into her voice when all she was feeling was doubt, bordering on fear. “If you could let them out, and then I’ll be following them in my car.” She didn’t know why that had slipped out, but as soon as she said it, she knew she’d feel safer off base.

She opened the door and breezed out of the security hut. Her car keys in hand, she dashed to her car and pulled in behind the minibus.

The younger guy opened the electronic security gates. She waved at him to thank him, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at the old security guard who seemed to be shouting at him. With a radio to his ear, the older guy slammed his hand down onto the control board, and the gate started to close on her.

Adrenaline shot through her. She wasn’t stopping. If he’d called it in, she was in deep trouble. She needed to get out, maybe find a lawyer. Hide. She gunned the car, stomping on the gas.

A motorcyclist in black came up behind her. Nope. No way she was stopping. She took one last look at the security man, who seemed to be punching all the buttons on the gate mechanism in fury.

She accelerated through the gate as it was closing, clipping a side mirror off her car. She was free. She took a deep breath. There was no talking her way out of this one. She was on the run now. She just had to keep one step ahead of TGO.