Strategic Engagement (Wingmen Warriors 5)

Mary Elise braced her shoulders with the same defensive bravado she'd worn when telling him the rabbit died.

"Hello, Danny."

Chapter 2

Mary Elise decided the inside of that box might not be too bad after all. At least in there she could only hear Danny. Now she could hear and see him. All of him. Every damned fine inch of him.

Dim lights filled the gray cavern, glinting off Daniel's dark hair, casting shadows along the angles of his face. His lanky good looks had hardened into a lean body cut with whipcord strength that stretched just shy of six feet tall.If only she could distance herself from his appeal, but the day-from-hell wreaked havoc on her normally rigid self-control. Instead, she could only stare at him and soak up the differences wrought by age.

One gloved hand flattened against the side of the plane, he lounged with that same loose-hipped carelessness he'd worn when she'd told him she was pregnant. As if her announcement hadn't meant the end of his Air Force Academy dream since cadets can't marry until after graduation.

Except his dream hadn't ended. He'd won the Academy ring and wore the flight suit now, wrinkled though it might be at the moment.

Attraction be damned, she wanted to flatten him right onto his awesome butt. Care about something. Let it be important to see the woman you almost married. She'd never been head-over-heels in love with him, but she had loved him. Once. He'd been her friend, and the betrayal of how easily he'd let go after she lost the baby had hurt.

His indifference hurt now.

He shouldn't still have the power to wound her. Her ex had done so much worse to her and she'd held strong. She'd be damned if she'd let Daniel trample her heart with one distant kook.>"Roger that, Captain."

The thud of boots faded. Chains jangled in the time fugue of waiting. Was it safe to talk? Engines roared and grew louder. Forget waiting.

Mary Elise opened her mouth and shouted. And couldn't hear herself over the engines.

Her heart hammered her chest. The boys wriggled closer. She screamed. A soundless shriek swallowed by the din.

The crate vibrated, joggled as the plane moved. Faster. Forward. Picking up speed. The roar built, swelled. Tension clenched her chest until each breath became a struggle like Trey with his asthma.

The box tilted back. Gravity slid her with the boys until she landed against the wooden wall as the plane…

Went…

Up.

Oh, God. They were airborne.

Airborne. And not a damned moment too soon.

Captain Daniel "Crusty" Baker maxed the throttle. Level at twenty-eight thousand feet. Time to plow through the night sky out of Rubistanian airspace so they could crack open the crate. He'd tried to keep the takeoff as smooth as possible for the boys and their nanny, but he couldn't risk letting them out.Not while a pair of enemy MiG-21s flew an ominous escort in the star-studded sky.

Swiping aside the unopened bag of licorice, Crusty switched to closed interphone frequency. "Hold tough in back, we're almost over the border."

Where he hoped the MiGs would peel away.

"Roger, sir," answered Senior Master Sergeant J. T. "Tag" Price, loadmaster for the mission. "We're hanging in there."

Relief pilot, 1st Lt. Bo Rokowsky, loomed, strapped in behind Daniel, restless energy filling the cockpit.

Copilot, 1st Lt. Darcy "Wren" Renshaw, worked from the right seat, punching numbers into the navigational system. "Five minutes and counting down."

No room for error with those MiGs hungry for an excuse to pop them with an infrared missile. Damn, but he owed this crew. Sure the mission had been CIA sanctioned—barely. Approved in a sped-through process that would likely leave heads rolling later when their new squadron commander returned from TDY—temporary duty.

Renshaw had signed on out of friendship. Tag out of honor. Rokowsky out of craziness. The wild-eyed lieutenant constantly gave new meaning to their squadron motto of Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.

Daniel adjusted airspeed, keeping his eyes trained on the holographic HUD—heads up display—perched at the bottom of his windscreen. He owed Renshaw double. Her boyfriend, who worked for the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations, had used his old CIA contacts to push through paperwork for this embassy run in less than forty-eight hours after the call from the economic attaché. The final mission orders had even included a couple of the Air Force's elite security forces, Ravens, to accompany them.

Who couldn't offer protection against the MiGs keeping pace alongside.

Daniel's gun weighed like lead in his pocket. The Rubistanians knew. Of course they knew. But their government couldn't search without concrete evidence the boys were in that crate.