Chapter 1
Major Jack "Cobra" Korba, USAF, had mastered butting heads with mountains by the fifth grade when he discovered his ability to make people laugh. But right now he suspected there wasn't a knock-knock joke on earth that could offer much help against the 6500-foot rocky peak screaming toward his windscreen at three hundred knots.
"High terrain. Coming thirty degrees left," Jack clipped through the headset to his copilot.
Adrenaline crackled inside him like the popping flickers of light across his night-vision goggles— NVGs. The gear strapped to his helmet narrowed his vision into a neon-green tunnel.
"Copy that, Cobra, thirty degrees left," affirmed his copilot, Captain Derek "Rodeo" Washington.
The C-17 cranked left, massive cargo plane hugging craggy landscape. Desert dunes and jagged ridges whipped past in an emerald kaleidoscope haze.
He lived to fly. But today he flew as lead pilot for this mission so that others might live. One person in particular.
Rodeo ran his hands along the dimly lit control panel checking readings while Jack gripped the stick. No steering yoke like with older cargo planes, the Air Force's C-17 boasted the stick and grace of a fighter jet despite its hulking size.
Four more C-17s packed with Army Rangers trailed behind in formation. Total night swallowed them, no lights on the wings or ground. Only minimal illumination on the instrument panel guided them through the roller-coaster pass in their low-level flight.
Hazardous as hell to fly with NVGs, but necessary for stealthy penetration into enemy territory to offload cargo holds full of Airborne Rangers—the final phase of the mission to seize a Middle Eastern terrorist camp. Aside from having ties to 9/11, the radical faction had assassinated the ambassador to Rubistan and taken three American hostages.
Jack worked the rudder pedals, refusing to allow the need for vengeance to chink his concentration. Mountains to the left and right posed a constant threat outweighed by the benefits of masking them from detection by enemy radar. Visually, dark aircraft blended with the thrusting backdrop of sand and rock. Sound reflected off the mountains until pinpointing a plane's locale became all but impossible.
Hell, yeah, the protection from enemy ground-to-air missiles offered a hefty payoff to counterbalance the perils of weaving 174 feet of hurtling metal through a serpentine pass. At night.
All the more reason to nail this final training run over the Nevada desert. Soon to be a Middle Eastern desert. He contained the anticipation. Had to stay focused. Training missions could prove as deadly as the real deal.
Rodeo keyed up his mike. "Sixty seconds to turn point. Right turn three-zero-five degrees. Climb to 3700 feet. High terrain this leg. Peak, right side of corridor, 4900 feet. Stand by to turn."
"Copy, co." Jack's gloved hand clenched around the throttle, nudging it forward. "Heading three-zero-five. Climb to 3700."
Clipped numbers and confirmed calls zipped back and forth, every contingency considered. Jack hoped. Damn but did he ever hope since this was their last chance to work out any bugs.
Dust swirled in a murky haze from the 40,440 pounds of thrust from each of the four jet engines powering the C-17 past the arching peak. He steadied each breath in time with his heartbeat. Only a week until the three American hostages would be rescued. Only a week until Monica's sister would be free.
Major Monica Hyatt—the one mountain of will he couldn't move. His heart rate kicked an extra beat ahead of his breaths.
And God knows he'd tried to sway her to the point of screwing up their relationship so damned bad there was no going back. Probably for the best given that when Monica discovered he'd kept the plans for this mission from her, his flight surgeon ex-lover would likely take a scalpel to him.
Only by the grace of God and connections in D.C. had he managed to land himself in the position of primary planner as well as lead pilot. Having Monica in his biscuits was a distraction he couldn't afford right now. Not that she was speaking to him, anyway.
"Cobra, check right."
Mountains dipped beyond his windscreen. Jack roped in his thoughts. The weight of lives in the plane, as well as on the ground in that camp overseas pressed on his shoulders heavier than the bulky NVGs anchored to his helmet. "Copy, co. Got it visually."
Jack angled through a saddle dip where a valley divided crests into a stretch of desert waiting to welcome the aerial assault from rangers offloaded into the drop zone. Low and slow. He eased back on the throttle.
Keep cool. Laid-back but steady, his lifetime mantra.
Time to offload the troopers from the 75th Ranger Regiment. Jack thumbed the mike button to signal the loadmaster. "Tag, level at 3800 feet."
"Roger, Major. Level at 3800 feet. Ready when you are."
The loadmaster snapped through the checklist calls and confirmations until control panel lights signaled dual doors opening with the loadmaster, Tag, orchestrating. Tag, a looming silent mystery around the squadron and a magician in the air, offloaded cargo with a swift efficiency that resembled a disappearing act.
Fifty-five seconds later, one hundred and two paratroopers from his plane split the inky sky. Jack's grip around the stick loosened. The boulders on his shoulders crumbled. Sure the C-17s still had to return to base for a no-lights landing, but it was only their butts on the line now.
He shrugged through the tension.
With pressure easing, piddly ass concerns trickled over him like the sweat down his back. Such as the fact that his arm hurt like a son of a bitch from the immunizations required for a deployment to the Middle East. His hand slid up to rub the sore inoculation site.
Rodeo nodded toward his arm. "You okay, Cobra? They pumped us full of more crap than normal for this one. Damned morphing virus strains."
"This new anthrax shot feels like the time I picked up one of my sisters' curling irons while it was still plugged in." And it wasn't as if he could call on his favorite flight surgeon for TLC anymore. "Sometimes it's tough to tell which is worse, the shot or the disease."
"You'll survive. My mama used to dose me up with every inoculation the minute it cleared the FDA, sometimes before." A military brat, Rodeo had grown up around the world, moving with his Army medic mother. The guy could party in four languages and never left a friend alone in a bar fight.
A wingman to trust.
Why then did he trust Rodeo with his life in the air, but hadn't told a man he considered his best friend about the mess with Monica? "Doesn't seem your mama stunted your growth."
Rodeo's deep chuckles rumbled through the interphone without arguing. No need since his wiry height spoke for itself. "Made any plans to kill time before we ship out?"
"Me. My pillow. One-on-one for twelve hours straight." Jack pushed the throttle forward, climbing into the opaque sky.
"Don't hand me that hangdog crap. Let's head down into Vegas and hit one of the casinos' all-you-can-eat setup before we're stuck with a week of that mess hall shit on a shingle. Crusty was telling me the Rio's got this kick-butt Carnival World Buffet." He kissed his gloved fingertips. "Everything from sushi for me to those cheeseburgers you love. Too bad Crusty's already over in Rubistan. He's always up for food."
Vegas? Irritation and memories chewed his hide. "Thanks for the offer, but my bed has a kick-butt pillow that won't take me a half hour of driving to find."