Читать книгу Operation Midnight - Justine Davis - Страница 10

“Coming up on the airport in about ten.”

Teague Johnson’s voice came through loud and clear over the headset, with none of the crackle or hiss the old headsets had been prone to. Worth the price, Quinn Foxworth thought as he lifted the flap on his watch that kept the dial’s glow from being seen. 0315 hours. Not bad, well within the parameters they’d set despite the … complications.

“Fuel?” he asked.

Normally it wouldn’t be an issue, they planned carefully, but they were carrying an extra passenger. And a half, he added with a grimace. That dog….

“It made a difference,” Teague answered. “It’ll be close, but we’ll make it.”

“Copy.”

He went back to his study of their unplanned-for passenger, while that half-passenger continued to study him. The dog’s dark eyes never left him, and he didn’t have to be able to see in the dark to know it, although his night vision was remarkably good.

He knew little about the workings of the canine brain. And had no idea why the dog seemed so … taken with him. It would be amusing if it wasn’t so puzzling.

His owner, on the other hand, wasn’t taken with him at all, Quinn noted wryly. Too bad. She wasn’t bad-looking. At least, from what he’d seen. And felt, during his cursory pat down and when he’d put a hand on a curved, tight backside to shove her aboard. It had startled him, that sudden shock of interest; there’d been little time for women in his life for … a very long time.

And there was no time now, he told himself. They’d be on the ground soon, and vulnerable for the few minutes it would take to refuel. And it had better be only a few minutes; they’d paid enough extra to guarantee it. They could have avoided this by using a plane, with longer range, but in this semirural area it would have meant transporting Vicente by ground to an airstrip, and then from an airstrip to the location on the other end. And that would have made them even more vulnerable.

The unexpected intrusion of woman and dog hadn’t delayed them much, since he hadn’t wasted any time dithering about what to do. But it was costing them more fuel; even though she looked to weigh maybe one-twenty at most, the dog added another forty-five or fifty pounds—five of that fur, he thought—and together that was the equivalent of another passenger about Vicente’s size. On an aircraft this small it mattered, not so much in space as in fuel efficiency. But their timetable, and getting Vicente out of there, had been the most important thing.

And secrecy. The man was a valuable commodity, and they couldn’t risk leaving behind somebody who could tell anyone anything.

He felt the shift in angle of the chopper, knew they were approaching the small airfield where they would refuel. He saw the woman’s head come up a moment later, as she apparently realized it, too. Her gaze shifted to the port window, then, obviously able to see nothing but night sky, shifted forward, as if she were trying to read the controls for a clue.

Could she? Did she know something about helicopters, or aircraft gauges? She didn’t seem to be affected by the flight, no sign of air sickness or dizziness when they had made any quick changes. Unlike Vicente, who had required a serious dose of motion sickness medication to tolerate the flight. Quinn had been glad to give it to him; drowsiness was a side effect, and that was fine with him.

He’d thought about making the woman take some, too, under the guise of not wanting her to throw up in his helicopter. But there hadn’t been time, and getting it down her would have been too much hassle. Besides, he wanted a chance to assess her under controlled circumstances. And there weren’t many more controlled circumstances than strapped into a helicopter seat at ten thousand feet and a hundred and thirty-five knots.

So far, she hadn’t been trouble, but he wasn’t about to turn his back on a woman who rushed a man with a drawn weapon. And even when her face had been hidden as she clung to that damned dog, he couldn’t escape the feeling that she was thinking like mad, and that didn’t bode well for keeping things simple.

As they dropped lower she became more alert. He smothered a sigh; as if he could hear her thoughts, he knew she was trying to figure out a way to escape. He reached out and slid down the built-in shade on the porthole she’d been looking out; the more ignorant they could keep her of the surroundings, the better.

He flicked a glance at Vicente, who seemed to be sound asleep, propped in his corner. He was a tough old bird, he’d give him that. He’d barely turned a hair when they’d shown up in the middle of the night and taken over. But given his history, that wasn’t surprising.

But this young bird, this wary, watchful female of the species, he didn’t know. So he had to assume the worst.

“It’s all yours when we touch down,” he said into the headset.

“Problem?”

“The old man’s asleep. Our uninvited guest is plotting.”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing. And how do you know I didn’t mean the dog?”

He heard the short laugh. “The dog clearly thinks you’re some kind of dog-god. The woman, not so much.”

“Figures,” Quinn muttered.

Another laugh, and as if in punctuation they dropped rather sharply.

“Got the signal light,” Teague said.

Moments later he set the craft down with the gentlest of thumps, barely perceptible, nearly as soft as he himself could have managed. He’d have to let the guy fly more often, Quinn thought.

The noise lessened as the rotors slowed. The fuel truck was already there and waiting, as planned, a good sign. He would have preferred to keep her running, but the crew here wasn’t trained for a hot refuel so they had to shut down. They didn’t want the kind of attention flouting the local rules would bring. The anonymity of the small field was worth it, they’d decided.

Teague waited until the rotors had stopped, then opened his door and stepped down to the tarmac. There was a floodlight on the side of the hangar they were closest to, and it brightened the interior of the helicopter. Quinn glanced at Vicente, making sure he was truly sleeping; he hadn’t seemed to stir at all, even when they’d landed. The old man better not be getting sick on them. But his eyes were closed and Quinn could hear, in the new silence, the soft sound of snoring. Maybe the guy just was particularly susceptible to those meds, he thought.

The quiet seemed deafening, nothing but the brief exchange between Teague and the fueler and the sounds of the process audible in this dead time between night and morning. He’d read somewhere that more people in hospitals died at 3:00 a.m. than any other time, that it just seemed to be the time people gave up.

Not sure why that had occurred to him just now, he wondered if he could just leave the headphones on and stave off whatever she had in mind. But the moment it was quiet enough to be heard, she dove in.

“I need a bathroom.”

Ah. So there it was, her first approach, he thought. Short, to the point, grounded in reality, and hard to deny. But deny he would; they couldn’t risk it. For what it told him about her, he filed it away in his mind in the section he’d labeled “uninvited guest.”

“Hold it,” he said, brusquely, taking the headphones off. He stood up, even though he had to hunch over; he needed to stretch his legs after the hours of being cramped on the floor.

“I can’t.”

He nodded toward the dog. “If he can, you can.”

She drew back slightly. When she spoke, her tone was that of teacher on the edge of her patience to an unwilling-to-learn child. “He’s a dog, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Definitely got a mouth on her, Quinn thought.

“I noticed,” he said drily. And now that he could see her better, could see that his earlier impression had fallen short of the reality, he silently added, and I noticed you certainly are not.

He felt another inner jolt, a flash of heat and interest, more intense than the first time, fired further by thoughts of that mouth. He clamped down on it harder, angry at himself; he never let anything interfere on a job. It was why jobs kept coming.

“Then you should know he can hold it longer. How do you think they wait all night inside a house?”

“I never thought about it,” he said, although now that she’d said it, it sparked his curiosity. “Why can they?”

She seemed startled by the question. But she answered reasonably. “My guess is it’s because when they were wild, they had to, to hide from predators. Now will you please find me a bathroom?”

“Hold it,” he repeated.

“I’m a human, not a wild animal,” she snapped.

“You think humans weren’t wild once?”

“Some,” she said pointedly, “still are.”

He ignored the jab. “So hold it,” he said a third time, trusting his instincts and her body language that this was just a ruse to get out of the helicopter and onto the ground, where she likely figured she could make a run for it. Not a bad plan, and just about the only one possible given her circumstances.

“Humans haven’t needed that talent since we hit the top of the food chain,” she said.

Oh, yeah, a mouth. And a quick wit. If he wasn’t otherwise occupied, he’d like to find out just what else went on in that mind of hers.

And he interrupted his own thoughts before they could slide back to that mouth.

Teague was back then, announcing they were all fueled up. As he started to climb back into the pilot’s seat, the woman turned her plea on him. The younger man looked startled, then disconcerted, and Quinn had to admire the way she switched to the younger, possibly more vulnerable target.

“Bathroom?” Teague echoed. He flicked a glance at Quinn.

“She can wait.”

“How would you know?” There was the faintest change in her voice. Her snappishness had an undertone now, just a slight flicker. But he recognized it; he’d heard it too often not to.

Fear.

Now that he thought about it, it was somewhat amazing that it hadn’t been there before. Something he should remember, he told himself. She doesn’t scare easy, or she hides it very well.

“You’ll wait.”

“Want a mess in your pretty helicopter if we’re in the air when I can’t?”

“Then I’ll push you out.” She drew back, eyes widening. He pressed the point. “Or maybe the dog.”

She gasped, as if that thought horrified her even more. And there’s my lever, he thought, as her reaction confirmed what he had suspected from the moment he’d seen her racing across that stretch of open yard after the animal. She’d risk herself, but not the dog. She’d protect him, no matter what.

He pounded the point home.

“He won’t save as much gas as you would, but maybe some.”

She stared at him, saying nothing, but he could almost hear her mind racing, trying to analyze and assess if he really meant what he’d just said.

“Get us out of here, Teague,” he said, and reached for the headphones. He put them on before they were really necessary, and pretended not to hear her call him an epithet he’d last heard from the lips of his ex-wife. Except she’d said it sadly, ruefully, whereas there was nothing but venom in this woman’s low, husky voice.

Still fighting, he thought, but not stupidly. She didn’t try anything she was doomed to lose, like getting past him, or striking at him.

He filed the knowledge away in his head as he settled into his cramped spot on the floor, shifting once to avoid pressure on the spot on his left leg where she had kicked him. She’d fought hard. He was lucky she hadn’t gotten his knee—or worse—with that blow, or he’d be gimping around for two or three days. As it was, he was going to be feeling it for at least that long.

And if looks could kill, he’d already be dead.