Really, really fast. Like, it's a dot one second, and then I blink, and it's recognizably an aircraft, and then it's flaring like a helicopter fifty feet above the ground and descending for a landing. The noise of the jet engines is…dispersed, somehow. I don't know how to put it. We're not that far away, but the sound seems…muted. Scattered. I doubt the people in the building on the other side of the hill will hear it at all, or if they do, it will be unrecognizable for what it is.
"Some kind of proprietary technology,” Nico says, answering the question that must be on my face. "Apparently, even the US military-industrial complex does not know how Roth has managed that trick with the engine signature, and he is neither telling nor selling."
"It's incredible. The sound isthere, but…" I shrug, at a loss for words, “dispersed, somehow.”
"It is. And very useful." He slides to his feet and rolls his shoulders, twists to stretch his broad back. "Ah, and here is the crew."
I watch them approach, and at first I wonder if my eyes are playing tricks on me, or if there is some weird perspective thing going on, because the one guy looks like he's…
Oh, no. He's just that big.
Jesus.
These guys are…
Jesus.
I sit down, rather involuntarily, onto the truck bed's gate. There are eight figures approaching, each one dressed in black fatigues and body armor—bullet-resistantvests, I suppose. They're armed to the teeth, all of them.
And they're fucking hot as hell, each one of them.
Including the two women. I'm straight, but I can recognize a gorgeous woman, and these two are goddamned stunning.
The men, now. The men.
Whoo, boy. The men.
Where to start?
The tall brown-skinned god with the short mohawk? The shorter powerhouse with the badass blond beard? The seven-foot-tall Polynesian behemoth? The Brazilian beefcake? The brothers who could be triplets, each of them hotter than the last, regardless of which order you put them in?
I need a fan. Or a cold plunge.
"This is ridiculous," I mutter. "Do you guys have a calendar?"
Nicolae frowns at me. "A calendar? Why would we need a calendar? I do not understand your question, I am afraid."
I snicker. "No, like…the firefighter calendar? They do them to raise money? The firefighters get their photos taken in various states of undress, like only wearing turnout pants or with a helmet covering their junk." I feel myself going red in the face. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."
Nico is grinning as he swaggers to meet his brethren, exchanging back-slapping hugs with the men and gentler, "she's one of the guys, but she's a girl" hugs with the women. "Miss Bennett was wondering when we are going to do a sexy calendar."
I blush so hard you could fry eggs on my cheeks. "Traitor."
One of the brothers—he bears a wicked scar on his face—raises his arms and flexes like he's competing against Columbo and Schwarzenegger. "I'm down. That shit would sell like hot cakes. We could do a whole merch line. Like a li'l gift shop. Plushy version of us."
The entire group turns to stare at him.
“You're a real dumbfuck, you know that, Sax?" This is one of the other brothers—a Robert Redford look-alike. "That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Do you ever stop and think before you open your fuck-tarded mouth?"
"That's offensive, Sol," the behemoth says—Big Voice. "Can't say shit like that."
"What? Fuck-tarded? What's wrong with it? It's not the R-word."
"It's close enough. No." Behemoth Big Voice pronounces "no" with a booming finality; the topic is closed.
Sol shrugs. "Whatever. Fine. But if anyone deserves to be called a fuck-tard, it's Saxon. And that's a hill I'll die on."
"Sol?" Big Voice's rumble is a warning.
