Читать книгу Top Gun Guardian - Carol Ericson - Страница 11

“Bryan!”

Buzz grinned. Raven must be really mad to use his real name instead of his nickname. He had to play this right because he needed Raven for the plan to work.

He waved to the mechanic he’d called earlier. “Did you do the pre-flight? Everything ready to go?”

“You’re good to go, boss.” The mechanic flashed him a thumbs-up.

Clutching a drowsy Malika to his chest, Buzz strode across the tarmac to his Jetstream. Two steps up and he felt a tug at his shirt. He suppressed a grin and twisted his head over his shoulder.

Raven’s dark eyes sparkled, practically shooting sparks. “Where are you taking Malika and why?”

“I’m taking her to safety.”

“Are you crazy? You’ll have the entire CIA, FBI and probably the U.S. Military after you, not to mention some of those huge Burumandan security guys.”

He pointed to Naru, the Burumandan driver waving on the tarmac. “You mean like him? I’m not as crazy as I look, Raven. I have President Okeke’s permission to take Malika. We’d already discussed and planned it.”

Her black, sculpted eyebrows collided over her nose. “But why? I thought that’s what you were all figuring out in the conference room. Are you telling me President Okeke doesn’t trust the United States government?”

“He trusts me more. And you.”

“Me?” Raven ran a hand through her silky hair, the color of velvet midnight. “I just met the guy.”

“You saved his daughter’s life.” Malika stirred in his arms, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose. “We can’t waste any more time out here. I have to get her in the plane and get going.”

Raven took a step down, one heel digging into the asphalt of the tarmac. “I can’t come with you.”

“President Okeke specifically requested that you accompany us. He wanted to ask you himself at the hotel, but the Secret Service agent interrupted him.”

Buzz held his breath. Raven lived and breathed her career, and Buzz could imagine how she felt being relegated to babysitting duty. Now through a set of crazy circumstances, the new president of Burumanda needed her help. Buzz would have to keep pounding on that to convince her to come along.

“The president believes his daughter’s safety rests with you. He never would’ve hatched this plan if not for his confidence in you, Raven.”

She shook her head and pursed her lips. “I can’t rush off and leave everything, especially for some cockamamie scheme of yours. If you’re involved, trouble is not far behind. How do I even know you have President Okeke’s permission to take Malika?”

“And why would I want to kidnap the president’s daughter?” Of course, he didn’t have to tell Raven about the link between the assassination attempt on President Okeke and Jack Coburn’s disappearance. That wouldn’t convince her of anything except his insanity.

Raven’s right foot joined her left foot firmly on the ground. “I can’t do it, Buzz. You’re on your own.”

Buzz clenched his jaw. That’s not the first time she’d said those words to him.

Malika squirmed in his arms, lifting her head from his shoulder. “Raven?”

“You’re going to be fine, Malika.” Raven flashed a fake smile. “Your father asked Mr. Richardson to take you someplace safe.”

“I know. You are coming, Raven?”

Raven’s shoulders slumped. “No. I can’t come with you, Malika, but you’ll be safe with Mr. Richardson.”

A tremble rolled through Malika’s small frame and she choked on a sob. “Please, Raven.”

“I’m sorry. I—I just can’t.” Raven clamped her bottom lip between her teeth.

Buzz’s pulse leaped. Was that a quivering lip she was biting? Nah, this was Raven Pierre, career girl extraordinaire.

“Say goodbye to Raven, darlin’. Let’s get you buckled in nice and tight.” Buzz turned to duck into the hatch of the Jetstream.

Clawing at his arms, Malika wailed. “I want Raven.”

She wasn’t the only one.

Raven grabbed the handrails and leaned forward. “You’ll be fine, Malika.”

“No, no.” Malika buried her face against Buzz’s chest, and he patted her back.

Without Raven, his plan looked as though it was going to deteriorate rapidly. He liked kids, but this motherless little girl wasn’t going to be too happy with his male companionship.

Raven sighed and launched forward, nearly barreling into his back. “All right. I’ll come along, at least to get you settled.”

Malika sniffled and a big smile claimed half her face.

Buzz narrowed his eyes as he transferred Malika to Raven’s waiting arms. The girl’s cries had done more to convince Raven to come along than Buzz’s assertions to her importance to President Okeke. Had he just fallen into a rabbit hole?

He sat at the controls while Raven buckled Malika into one of several seats facing the cockpit and retrieved two blankets from a bin on the side of the plane. She tucked the blanket around Malika, twitched the girl’s pigtails and then buckled into the seat next to her.

She let out a breath. “Where to, flyboy?”

“Just relax and enjoy the ride.” Buzz adjusted his headphones and flipped a few switches. No need to tell Raven their final destination. She’d just gotten used to the idea of traveling along with Malika. He didn’t want her to go ballistic about the location just when she’d accepted her fate.

Buzz gave a final wave to the ground crew and Naru waiting next to the car, and then taxied down the abbreviated runway. The meeting at the hotel had probably ended by now, and everyone would know he’d taken off with the president’s daughter.

He scanned the darkening skies and settled back into his seat as he pulled on the throttle, sending the nose of his plane toward the heavens. He hadn’t filed a flight plan with air traffic control, since he didn’t want anyone picking up his trail.

The CIA wouldn’t come after him, at least not yet. The Agency wouldn’t want to anger President Okeke and if the president trusted his daughter’s safety to him and Raven, the CIA would just have to deal with it…for now.

The plane climbed to cruising altitude and Buzz stretched his legs. He could use a cup of coffee about now. Too bad he wasn’t flying one of the big commercial jets. He glanced over his shoulder at Raven flipping through a magazine she must’ve had stashed in that huge bag of hers.

He preferred the company on this small plane to a bunch of overworked flight attendants anyway…even without the coffee.

Raven peeked over the top of her magazine. “Are we in for a long flight?”

“About seven hours.” He pointed to Malika curled up in her seat, the blanket tucked up to her chin. “You should follow Malika’s example and take a nap.”

“Seven hours?” She dropped the magazine to her lap. “I guess I can’t just land and turn around then.”

“I didn’t know that’s what you’d planned. You volunteered to get Malika settled, remember?”

“Settled where, Buzz? Where are you taking us?”

He took a deep breath and shifted his gaze back to his control panel of blinking lights. “Oklahoma.”

Raven gasped and then laughed, but the sound held no humor. Buzz had noticed that about Raven before. She could laugh but it didn’t mean she was happy. That kind of laughter always made him uncomfortable, and it hadn’t changed.

He twisted in his seat to find Raven’s head touching her knees and her shoulders shaking from the laugh that wasn’t a laugh. Buzz raised one eyebrow. “Why are you laughing?”

Not that he minded. He preferred it to her throwing things at him, especially when he was trying to fly.

Raven jerked her head up. “Come on, Buzz. Don’t play the slow cowboy with me. You know why Oklahoma is significant.”

“Because it was my home. Because I wanted to take you there after we married. Because it’s where I wanted to raise a family…with you. But now it’s just a safe place for Malika until Burumanda’s political situation cools down and she can be reunited with her father.” He shrugged. “Not significant at all.”

“It was your home?” Raven brushed strands of her hair from her face. “You didn’t return to Oklahoma after leaving Prospero?”

“No. I live in Dallas now, but I still have my folks’ ranch in Oklahoma. I figure I can protect Malika there.” He patted the empty co-pilot’s seat next to him. “Do you want to join me up front? You were getting good at flying before…”

Before she’d taken off like a scared rabbit once he mentioned marriage, family and forever. Raven had never had an example of any of those things in her life. Her wealthy family had lived abroad, dropped Raven off at boarding schools and stashed her with nannies.

Obviously not wanting a trip down memory lane, Raven scrambled from her seat and lurched toward the cockpit. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Nothing. Relax and enjoy the view.”

After fifteen minutes of companionable silence as the Jetstream cut through the night sky, Raven tapped his shoulder. “Why didn’t you settle in Oklahoma? It’s all you ever talked about.”

It’s all he’d ever talked about? No wonder he’d scared her off.

He lifted the shoulder where her hand still rested. “Wasn’t ready.”

Once he retired from Prospero, he’d discovered all his plans for the ranch had become meaningless without Raven. And all the women he’d met since lacked Raven’s spunk, her beauty, her sexiness, her…

She squeezed his shoulder. “Well, you’ll get there one day. I know the ranch meant a lot to you after your parents died.”

The transponder beeped and Buzz flicked his radar screen. “There’s another private plane in the area. We’re too low for a commercial airliner.”

Raven slouched to peer out her side window. “Is it close enough that we’d see it? It’s clear out here.”

“It’s behind us. You might be able to see its lights if you went to the back of the plane, but it’s okay. He’s not going to run into us or anything. We both have transponders.”

Buzz tried to contact the other plane on the radio, but the pilot didn’t respond. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he clenched his hand on the steering wheel.

Raven’s gaze took in his white knuckles and the straight line of his mouth. “Are you sure it’s okay? Could that be the CIA after us?”

He shook his head. If it were the CIA, the pilot would be all over that radio giving him orders. If it were…someone else, the pilot might want to follow him silently.

“Buzz, you never told me what a commercial airline pilot was doing at the U.N. during President Okeke’s address. And how did you get so chummy with the president that he’d let you fly off with his daughter?”

Buzz blew out a breath. He might as well tell her the rest. “Jack Coburn is missing.”

“Jack?” Raven gripped the arms of her chair. “What happened?”

“We’re not sure. He took a job as a hostage negotiator after Prospero. He disappeared in Afghanistan while on a job trying to negotiate the release of some doctor.”

“What does President Okeke have to do with Jack’s disappearance and why are you involved?”

“It’s Jack.”

She hugged herself, hunching her shoulders. “I know you guys would do anything for each other, but how is his disappearance related to President Okeke?”

Buzz rubbed his eyes. “It started with a drug deal between a Mexican cartel and a group of terrorists out of Afghanistan. Jack’s name came up in the chatter. Riley was able to link the terrorists with an arms dealer.”

“Riley Hammond, the Navy SEAL from Prospero? I thought he was taking tourists out on a dive boat in Cabo?”

“He took a detour to help out. We all did. Ian Dempsey located the weapon the terrorists bought with their drug money—turned out to be a biological weapon.”

Raven covered her mouth with her hands. She’d worked with them at Prospero for a time, so Buzz felt sure not much shocked her. She’d been tough…and brittle since the moment he’d met her. The brittleness—that’s what had sabotaged their relationship.

“If Ian had something to do with locating that weapon, it must’ve been in the mountains. Did he leave his job leading mountain-climbing expeditions?”

Buzz cocked his head. She sure knew a lot about his former comrades. “We all dropped everything as soon as we got the call from Colonel Scripps.”

“I’m sure you did. And what’s this third link? What does the biological weapon Ian recovered have to do with President Okeke?” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think he’s in the market for this biological weapon, do you?”

“I wasn’t sure—” he glanced back at the slumbering Malika “—because it was rumored he had ties to some terrorist groups, but after I met with him I think he’s clean. The Agency also believes Okeke has the means to deliver a virus, weaponize it.”

Raven hugged herself. “That’s scary.”

“That might be what the rebels are after, or maybe someone is using the rebels to get to Okeke. The region of Burumanda, before it was a country, was a hotbed of terrorist training activity. A lot of terrorist groups around the world wanted to keep it that way.”

Pressing her fingers against her temples, Raven closed her eyes. “Why isn’t anyone else looking for Jack? Why is it up to you guys? None of you is even on active duty anymore.”

Buzz ground his teeth together. This was the hardest part. “The CIA thinks Jack turned. They think he leaked information to the terrorists, is maybe feeding them intelligence about the delivery method for this virus.”

Raven’s eyelids flew open. “No way. That’s not possible.”

“That’s exactly why I’m here.”

“I-is the CIA, I mean, are they going to suspect you kidnapped Malika to get information about Jack?”

“Kidnapped isn’t the right word.” He scratched his chin and yawned. “I took her with her father’s permission, but I’m sure they’ll suspect I did it for my own reasons.”

“And did you? You’re not using that little girl, are you?”

Buzz shook his head at Raven’s sharp tone. She’d become very protective of Malika in a short space of time. Must be because she’d saved her life, or at least saved her from a kidnapping. “You know me better than that, Raven. I’m the kid-friendly one around here. If I didn’t think I could do a better job of keeping Malika safe than a bunch of by-the-book spooks at the Agency, I wouldn’t have taken her.”

“You’re right.” She sighed and pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m still on edge…and I missed my date.”

“Aww, I’m sorry. Let me guess. Broadway show and a hip new restaurant? Or a tapas bar and some club in the Meat Packing District?”

“It all sounds so shallow when you put it like that, Buzz.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and slid from her copilot’s perch. “But a helluva lot more fun than sitting on a porch sipping lemonade and watching horses run around. Now I’m going to try to get some sleep before we arrive in Nowheresville, Oklahoma.”

Six hours later and with no other planes invading his air space, Buzz landed his Jetstream safely at the small White Cloud municipal airport. The morning sun streaked across the broad expanse of sky like a runny egg yolk. His stomach rumbled and he figured their first stop would be breakfast at the Arapaho Café.

He taxied to a stop next to the hangar and completed his post-flight check. Rubbing his eyes, he turned in his seat to face his sleeping passengers. Raven had reclined both seats, and her long legs were stretched out in front of her while Malika was curled into a tight ball, her head resting on Raven’s shoulder. At least she wasn’t drooling this time.

He should get a picture for blackmail purposes.

Hunching forward, he entered the cabin and nudged Raven. “We’re here.”

Raven started and grasped the arms of her seat, digging her long nails into the leather. “What? Already?”

“We’ve been flying for six hours. It’s morning, or almost.”

Raven stretched out a hand and touched Malika’s cheek. “Malika? Time to wake up.”

Buzz squinted out the window, running his tongue across his teeth. If only he’d had time to pack a bag with a toothbrush. And if he felt that way, Raven must be itching for a shower and some clean clothes. Of course she wouldn’t be able to buy any designer duds in White Cloud, and they needed to get that little girl something to eat first.

Malika opened her big brown eyes with a flash of fear, until her gaze settled on Raven and the anxiety melted away.

“Are you hungry?” Raven tweaked one of Malika’s pigtails. “Buzz, we’re going to need something to eat before anything else.”

Buzz raised his brows. Who had stolen his tough-as-nails Raven and left this squishy marshmallow in her place? “Sure. I was thinking the same thing. After I check in with the ground crew, we’ll hitch a ride into town. I doubt there’s anything to eat at the ranch.”

They disembarked, and Buzz bundled Raven and Malika inside the hangar while he secured the plane. One of the guys at the airport agreed to loan Buzz his truck.

As Buzz squeezed Malika between himself and Raven in the front seat of the truck, Raven’s jaw dropped. “You mean this guy who’s a stranger is letting you take off in his truck? How does he know we’re not going to hit the highway and steal it?”

Buzz chuckled as he threw the beat-up truck in Reverse. “He has my Jetstream. I’d say that’s a fair trade.”

“How does he know you didn’t steal that plane?”

“It’s called trust. There’s a lot of that in a small town. Besides, there are no strangers in White Cloud. That guy is cousins with my best friend’s ex-girlfriend.”

Raven rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

They bumped along in the truck for a few miles before they careened into town. The streets were mostly empty at this time of morning, except for a couple of trucks parked in front of the Arapaho Café. Retired ranchers up at their customary time and looking for a little company.

And Buzz probably knew all of them.

Scratching his chin, he shot a glance at Raven and Malika. He couldn’t exactly tell the good people of White Cloud that he was hiding an African president’s daughter in their midst. The assassination attempt at the U.N. had been splashed all over the news, but Malika’s picture hadn’t been splashed anywhere. The government had suppressed any news of her attempted abduction and Raven’s role in her rescue.

He blew out a breath and squared his shoulders. The plan came to him in a flash and Raven might even laugh about it…someday.

He pulled up to the curb and pointed to the restaurant. “I hope you ladies are hungry.”

Buzz yanked his coat around his wrinkled suit and opened the door of the truck for Raven. She hopped out and scooped Malika from the seat. “Ahh, I can smell the bacon from here.”

“Bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy. The Arapaho has it all.” Buzz pushed open the door and several pairs of eyes turned in their direction.

“Well, if it isn’t Buzz Richardson.”

“Must’ve dropped out of the sky.”

“It’s Steve’s boy.”

Raven stiffened beside him as he raised his hand in greeting. “Hey, guys. It’s good to be back.”

“Whatcha doing here, Buzz? You gonna take up residence at the ranch?”

Buzz shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the rack by the front door. “Just thought it was time to bring my wife and our new daughter home to White Cloud.”