Flying Monkeys

  Kilo had hoped for a relatively quiet and gripe-free trip, but it was not to be.

  Foxtrot practically had his head hung out the window. “It’s gorgeous up here. Who the hell would want to leave here for Florida?”

  Aaaaand here we go. Again.

  “I grew up there. Who in their right mind would want to live in a place where you have to shovel your ass off every winter? And did you ever notice your farking mosquitoes there are bigger than the ones we have in Florida?”

  Foxtrot turned and grinned. “I’m going to have fun busting your chops while we’re there.”

  “Yeah? Well, at least I’ll be in Florida. We ever get our asses into the wild northern yonder, I’ll be sure to bust your ass about every little thing.”

  Kilo didn’t know if he’d get a chance to visit any family while in Florida. They probably couldn’t afford the risk. His father still lived there, and his younger sister, north of Tampa.

  They’d lost his mom and older brother in a flu epidemic fifteen years earlier.

  Kilo had considered calling ahead to his contact, then decided against it. Either they would or wouldn’t be allowed onto the base. As they pulled up to the gate, they tugged their surgical masks down so the MPs could see their whole faces. Then they presented their fake IDs, which had been issued to them by Bubba. They were valid military IDs, they just listed them as Ken Barbie and Louis Johnson instead of Carlos Romero and Leo Briggs. Apparently they were as good as Bubba said they were, because after a quick scan of the IDs, a clear stick test, and a quick comment that face masks weren’t mandatory on base as of that time, the MPs waved them through with no further questions and a brief set of directions on how to find Sgt. Kensey in his hangar office over near the flight line.

  “How long’s it been since you’ve seen this guy?” Foxtrot asked.

  “Oh, about six years, since we’ve never flown through here. I spent a year stationed out here before I joined the team. Did a lot of wilderness training out on Rainier and Saint Helens.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  “You never asked.” Kilo flashed Foxtrot a wide, sarcastic smile.

  “Not like we’re getting married, dude.”

  “We could be.” He pulled up in front of the hangar and shut the truck off. “We sleep together all the time and never have sex.”

  “Asshole.”

  “And see? Then there’s the names you call me. Tsk. No wonder we’re not married.”

  Kilo successfully suppressed his laugh at the glare Foxtrot beamed him. Kilo loved teasing his partner, mostly because he considered it payback for what he had to put up with.

  They got out and Kilo took the lead. They found the sergeant inside the hangar, where he was giving a group of guys their orders for the day. When he dismissed them, the man smiled and waved at them, heading over. Instead of an unlit cigarette hanging out of Mal’s mouth, Kilo was glad to see the older man working on pulping a toothpick.

  “Hey, there. Haven’t see you in a while, L—”

  “Louis,” Kilo finished for him, shaking with him.

  The veteran was a quick study and nodded. “That’s right. Louis. Who’s your friend?”

  Foxtrot shook with him. “Ken.”

  “Sure you are. Let’s go into my office.”

  Mal shut the door behind them and dropped his voice. “Had an unusual e-mail this morning from an old acquaintance of mine who I thought had dropped off the face of the earth years ago,” he said without preamble. “And now you’re here.” He smiled. “Damn, this place will get exciting for a change, won’t it?”

  McChord wasn’t the snazziest of assignments. In its day, it had been a larger base. Now it mostly ran support and maintenance for the Coast Guard air units, and anyone heading to or from Alaska, or providing support for units doing training maneuvers in the area.

  “Looking for a ride, Mal,” Kilo said. “Down-low. We’ll get you orders if you can get it for us.”

  “What do you need? I’ll find it for you if I don’t have it.”

  “Need a long-haul cargo shipper,” he said. “Fixed wing, big enough to make a long jump and carry a big vehicle inside.”

  “How big a vehicle?”

  “An RV. Don’t ask why.”

  Mal looked puzzled. “An RV? What the heck is that?”

  “You know,” Foxtrot said. “Weekend getaways, camping with the folks. Recreation vehicle.”

  “Oh, you really mean an RV.”

  “That’s what I said,” Kilo said.

  “You looking for a wide-body? A heavy?”

  “Not that big.”

  Mal’s smile widened. “And you’ll need a pilot, too, right?”

  “Yep.”

  His smile faded. “SOTIF?”

  Kilo exchanged a glance with Foxtrot. “Why?”

  “I have great idea, but need to know a little more.”

  Kilo nodded, pointing to himself. “Kilo, and Foxtrot.”

  Mal’s eyebrows lifted. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “You’re the Drunk Monkeys.”

  Foxtrot lifted his index finger and pressed it against his lips.

  “Okay,” Mal said. “No wonder my friend was so spare on details in his e-mail.”

  “Right now, our unit is stateside,” Kilo said. “Need to head to other climes for a while with some precious cargo.”

  “No combat or hot zones?”

  “Define hot,” Foxtrot snarked.

  “Shh,” Kilo said. “No combat in the foreseeable future,” Kilo assured Mal.

  “Then I might be able to get you a C-160 Zeus, complete with a pilot. Problem is, the crew is short by three. Pilot only.”

  “A Zeus? Holy crap, that’d be perfect,” Foxtrot said.

  Kilo ignored him. “Well, a couple of our guys have some flight time. One of our guys is a large helo jockey with some fixed-wing hours. What happened to the rest of the crew?”

  Mal’s entire demeanor changed, turning somber. “Don’t know if you heard this scuttlebutt or not. There was an untimely evac out of El Segundo due to the base getting overrun by Kiters and rioters. The Zeus was down on the flight line. The pilot was there, the rest of the crew was elsewhere on the base when shit got hot and heavy. They’re MIA, presumed deceased.”

  “Shit,” Foxtrot muttered. “What kind of fucking asshole leaves their crew behind?”

  Mal was about three inches shorter and twenty years older than Foxtrot, but he pulled himself up tall and stepped into the younger man’s face. “Don’t you dare make assumptions, asshole. When you’ve got a ground crew practically pushing you down the runway, and a control tower screaming orders at you to take off, you go, full crew or not. You don’t question, you don’t hesitate. You take orders and go.”

  Kilo would have laughed at the way Foxtrot, a seasoned veteran of many a firefight, looked like he was about to shit himself, except Kilo realized how upset Mal was over this.

  He must really respect the pilot to be defending them.

  “Apologize, dude,” Kilo told Foxtrot. Technically, since he outranked Foxtrot he could order him to apologize, but any apology he had to order out of the man wasn’t worth the air to say it.

  “I’m sorry,” Foxtrot said. “We barely made it out of LA, too. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

  Despite his faults, Foxtrot did have sincerity on his side. Kilo could tell Foxtrot felt awful about what he’d said.

  Mal nodded and stood down. “Good enough. Well, let’s go see if we can talk you into a Zeus.” He stepped back and opened the door. “I’ll run us down there in my Jeep.”

  “The Zeus is here?” Kilo asked.

  “Yeah. The Punchy Panda.”

  Foxtrot let out a snort.

  Mal frowned. “Don’t let the plane’s name fool you. Captain Kyong Tran will rip you a new one and have you giving thanks for the opportunity, if you’re not careful.”

  “I guess we should go talk to a pilot,” Kilo said.

  Chapter Nine
>
  Maybe I should think about Florida.

  Kyong knew the more time that passed without any word about the fate of her crew—or of her commanding officer, for that matter—that she should press for a change, a reassignment.

  Mal really liked her, and not in a creepy way. She could tell he was concerned about her and her future. Kept dropping not-so-subtle hints about how a change in latitude and attitude maybe being the best thing for her right now.

  If not Tampa, she could get herself reassigned to another part of the country, where life moved at a slightly easier pace. Or, if she ended up in Tampa, maybe she could get a little excitement crewing on a hurricane hunter from time to time.

  That wouldn’t be so bad.

  She liked to fly. Loved it. Lived for it. But she’d be the first to admit she didn’t have the thrill-seeking, adrenaline-junkie personality some pilots possessed. She’d deliberately chosen to take a transport/tanker track in the academy, instead of fighter pilot or bomber.

  She wanted to fly, not die.

  Good on those who had that do-or-die initiative. They needed every last one of those kinds of personalities they could get in the military. And if she needed to be pressed into service doing something like that, okay, sure. She’d follow orders.

  Didn’t mean she’d like or enjoy it.

  I should move their gear.

  She plopped herself onto the deck in front of the storage lockers where her crew’s gear still sat, untouched. They’d been between permanent assignments, in transition, and had kept their stuff stored on board until they knew where they’d end up. So used to traveling light anyway, they’d kept their stuff stowed here.

  They had only arrived at El Segundo two weeks before the shit hit the fan. They’d been flying supplies between Hawaii and Guam for months on a semi-temporary assignment when they’d been moved stateside again. Yasco hadn’t told them where they’d end up, although he’d mentioned something about them maybe being assigned to Denver, the old Buckley base, which would have been okay with her.

  Not her preferred station, but certainly not the worst assignment possible. Winters and winter flying were a bitch there sometimes, depending on the weather, but there were always worse places, like active hot zones.

  I should put their gear in storage. If any next of kin did inquire about Andrews, Porter, or O’Connell, the military could ship their personal effects to them.

  She just couldn’t bring herself to do it, to remove their gear and hand it over to some faceless government wonk who’d toss it all in a dark storage unit somewhere after making a notation in their personnel records. Kyong was about to close the lockers again when she heard the sound of a Jeep approaching. She walked over to the doorway and saw Mal driving up with two guys, one riding shotgun, the other in back.

  When they pulled up under the shade of the Panda’s starboard wing, she climbed down the stairs and walked over as Mal shut off the Jeep.

  “What’s going on, Mal?” she asked as she leaned against the front driver-side fender.

  The two guys with him wore nondescript unis that could be civvie clothes, khaki trousers and black T-shirts that looked like they were painted onto their ripped and ready torsos. The one in the backseat had brown eyes, black hair, and caramel skin she wanted to lick from head to toe to see if he tasted as good as he looked. The other was a blond-haired, blue-eyed cutie with a rugged jaw and quiet good looks. She suspected could get pretty loud in the sack, if he wanted.

  What? Wait. Idiot.

  Yes, it’d been way too long since her last ride in a rack. Over three years. She’d been too damned busy, for starters. Then TMFU hit and the last thing on her mind had been getting laid. She’d never been in the market for a relationship. Well, mostly because the guys she’d slept with weren’t exactly relationship material, or looking for anything more permanent themselves. She’d simply been seeking a good time, a warm body, a temporary diversion.

  These two guys hit her radar, hard.

  Both men seemed intently focused on her, too.

  Obviously, I’m overdue for a psych eval. Sex should be the absolute last thing on my mind right now.

  “Want to introduce you to a couple of friends of mine,” Mal said. “This is Foxtrot”—he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the backseat passenger—“and Kilo.” The blond hunk riding shotgun nodded. “Guys, this is Captain Kyong Tran.”

  “Nice to see you have friends, Mal,” she said. “Is there a reason for this social call?”

  Mal grinned around the toothpick he was currently in the process of pulping. “Remember how I was talking about you maybe getting reassigned?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How you feel about joining a SOTIF team?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she took another appraising look at the two men Mal had shuttled out to her plane. “What the hell?” Her PT stats were great, but no way in hell could she ever qualify for a SOTIF team.

  Not that she wanted to in the first place. That would mean deliberately putting herself in the line of fire, charging into places others ran from. Flying into an unfriendly zone was different than heading in there to the front lines.

  “I think you’re off your goddamned rocker, is what I think,” she said.

  * * * *

  Kilo wished the pilot would take her mirrored sunglasses off so he could get a better look at her face. Somehow, he’d either missed the memo or hadn’t paid close enough attention when Mal was telling them about the Punchy Panda’s pilot on their ride down to the plane. He’d related her stats, that she was thirty-four, a decorated and skilled pilot, experienced, everything they’d need for their mission.

  Through all of that, the fact that Captain Tran was a woman had totally escaped Kilo.

  Until he’d set eyes on her, that was. Even in her flight coveralls he could make out her slim, athletic build. Around five nine or so, her straight brown hair was pulled into a short braid and pinned into a bun on the back of her head, out of her way.

  She was four years older than him, outranked him, and he strongly suspected he’d be trying to plant his dick inside her if he spent too much time around her.

  Holy crap.

  “Look, we need a plane and a pilot,” Kilo said. “From what Mal told us, you’re perfect.”

  “I also don’t have a crew. Did he tell you that, or did they start sending you SOTIF guys through flight school and not bother to mention it to the rest of us?”

  Aaaand she’s feisty.

  When his cock stirred, he fought the urge to adjust his trousers.

  Down, boy.

  He realized Foxtrot had gone uncharacteristically quiet and glanced back at him. His partner’s gaze was anchored on the pilot.

  Oh, boy.

  “Do us a favor and come talk to our CO with us,” Kilo said.

  “Why should I?”

  He got out of the Jeep and motioned for her to follow him a few steps away so he could lower his voice and speak to her out of Mal’s hearing. “We’re on a top-secret mission. it’s no exaggeration that the world is at stake.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest while he stared at his own reflection in her mirrored sunglasses. “Isn’t the world always at stake with you SOTIF guys? Look, I’m no warrior. I’m a pilot.”

  “And a pilot is exactly what we need. This is all top secret. We’re trying to protect people working on a Kite vaccine. And we need to move them and their research to Florida. You and your plane are perfect. Don’t make us waste valuable time hunting around for another plane and crew to do this, huh? Adding you to our unit will attract a hell of a lot less attention than us sniping another plane and crew from an existing unit elsewhere. And we need a full-time fixed-wing pilot. We have a helo jockey, but while that’s helpful, current events have proven we need more than that.”

  Foxtrot walked over and joined them. “Look,” he said, voice low and focused on Kilo, “if she doesn’t want to, I’m sure we can find a better pilot.”

  Whether his part
ner had intended to pull a Roscoe with the woman or not, it had the effect Kilo wanted.

  She ripped off her glasses and rose up on her toes to get in Foxtrot’s face. Gorgeous brown, almond-shaped eyes full of ammunition, aimed, primed, and ready to fire on his partner.

  “What’s your rank, again, soldier?” she asked, sounding about a hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller than she really was.

  Foxtrot leaned back but didn’t give ground. “Um, PFC.”

  She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “Let me tell you something, PFC supersecret guy. I’m a damn good pilot. I can probably outfly most if not all of your choices for your cargo jaunt, so don’t pull that shit with me, you hear?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “What was that?”

  Kilo struggled not to laugh as Foxtrot snapped to attention. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

  Captain Tran held her position and death-glare another long moment before finally stepping back. “At ease.” She looked at Kilo. “So take me to this CO of yours before Foxtail here pisses me off again.”

  “Foxtrot,” Kilo said, laughter breaking through. “And yes, ma’am.”

  I think we just found our pilot.

  Chapter Ten

  General Arliss reviewed status reports and personnel files. He was on the hunt for an elusive prey.

  So far, there’d be no takers for the bait they’d laid out that the Drunk Monkeys were heading to Salt Lake City. Part of him had hoped there would be, simply so he could have the satisfaction of having the mole taken out.

  The Los Angeles earthquake, while horrible, had been a bonus for him. It meant Macaletto was considered MIA out there as a result of everything that had happened. Originally Arliss had set up the ops as totally black and off the books, but the unhappy coincidence made his life easier, for once.

  Meaning virtually no paperwork on his part once he’d changed the rosters and listed Macaletto as having flown to El Segundo. They were operating under a state of emergency in that region. One missing officer out of hundreds—thousands—of missing officers and enlisted men was nothing.

  He still didn’t feel comfortable rescinding the OTG order he’d given SOTIF1 back when they were in Australia. He didn’t want to do it too soon and expose any vulnerabilities in his overall command chain. While he felt relatively certain his own hive and food chain were once again in order, he couldn’t stake his life, or theirs, on the fact that other hives and food chains might be compromised.