“Hates them.”
Mark shook his head sadly at such a travesty before looking over at Emily. “My dad was stationed over at RAF Credenhill for a piece. While Dad was doing cross-training with Fay’s dad at the SAS, we did half a year of high school together.”
“Yet here you are.” Fay did not sound pleased at Mark’s sudden appearance. “I thought you’d retired. In fact, I recall stories about a hell of a retirement party out on that ranch of yours.”
Emily liked that Fay hadn’t so much as shaken Mark’s hand yet.
“Just a small gathering. Nothing much, but we had us a load of fun. Didn’t we, Emma? Fay, this is my Emily. Emma, my old friend Fay.”
Her grip was firm and friendly enough under the circumstances. “Are you the one staging a Yankee invasion?”
“I’m from DC, Montana, and temporarily Kentucky. All outside New England.”
“You’re all from the US, which makes you Yankees.”
“Not bona fides,” Abby joined them now that her helo had been rolled into the hangar and her crew had set to work on it. “They’re all from away. Yankees,” she tapped her chest, “only hail from the greatest state in the country.”
Derek had followed her over. “Listen to her and you’d think the rest of us never did a useful thing in all our days.”
“Might be. Might be,” Abby agreed. Then her crew chief called out for a hand and they both moved off.
“She’s from Maine,” Emily explained. “Nobody understands them in the US either.”
Fay looked toward Charlene One now under the bright lights inside the hangar and then the two more helos revealed in the C-5’s cargo bay. “Those Hooks are black.”
“They are?” Mark continued playing it coy for reasons only he would think were funny. “Oh right. Didn’t I mention that Emma here is Colonel Emily Beale, commander of the 160th SOAR Night Stalkers Regiment? How silly of me.”
“Your Emily,” Fay sighed. “You think I’d have learned by now that you never deal a straight hand.”
Mark slapped his palm to his chest as if mortally offended. He was overplaying the whole…
Emily finally caught on. Mark was never a goofball unless he was teasing someone or there was a reason. His fake Texan accent was mostly for the former and it was nowhere in sight, or hearing. Which meant he had a reason for doing this. He was dragging out the moment so that Emily could make her own assessment of Group Captain Fay Cutcher. Mark trusted Cutcher. Had kept up with her and not because she was an old high school girlfriend. No, it was because they could be useful to each other. But he knew he wasn’t a regimental commander and he wouldn’t make decisions for Emily herself.
Still, it wasn’t much to go on. This was a black-on-black operation they could never admit to. On the other side, grabbing Miss Watson was something the Brits could never admit to either.
The question became, was it the British establishment that had grabbed her or had someone gone rogue as Abby and Derek had labeled it? If the latter, perhaps she could trust Mark’s old friend. If the former, not at all.
44
“What did you think of her?”
“She dissed Yankees,” Abby sniffed at the air. “Not even worthy of my consideration. If she?—”
“No, Abby, be real.” Derek cut her off as they steadied one of the big rotor blades until it settled cleanly on the forklift’s tines. “She’s the commander of the Royal Air Force’s largest base. She could lead us to the kidnappers—or be in cahoots with them.”
Abby glanced over to where Beale and Henderson were still talking with the Brit. “Snap judgment, I haven’t a clue. But we had less time with her than folks from away have with rational thought.”
“Hey, I’m from away.”
“Like I said.” She loved it when others made her point for her. “Honestly though, how do you judge that?” Then she focused on his face. There was something bothering him, deeply.
A quick look around and she could picture Derek and Colonel Gibson standing together in the rain watching her. Talking about her or talking options? Guessing about Colonel Gibson, probably the latter. Her breath caught as she remembered her earlier conversation with Derek on the plane. Derek was a top marksman, but that didn’t mean he’d necessarily be shooting at a British soldier. Execute Miss Watson if they couldn’t rescue her? How cold-blooded was the silent colonel? Probably not for her to judge after his decades of service but that was a puddle far deeper than the ducks.
She couldn’t seem to stop keeping track of Derek. It was ridiculous that a single night with a man could let him slip so deeply into her thoughts. Well, it had been three nights: two simulated battles, with a very pleasant aftermath to the second, and sleeping on his shoulder.
“Did he—” She shook her head. Oh, he absolutely had. “Never mind. Not my business.”
“You’re a part of…” Derek flapped his hand helplessly, in no particular direction that she could discern. In her brief experience, he was, atypically for a D-boy, rarely at a loss for words. Something major was bothering him.
