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“How’s our little musician doing?” he asked, turning to Laura as he rested his hand upon Kamaria’s tiny shoulders.
Laura pulled a turkey-and-cheese casserole out of the oven and placed it on a pot holder in the middle of the maple table. Immediately a delicious smell filled the air. “Beating along in rhythm with whatever comes on the radio. Her hair is long enough to braid now. With the temperature so warm today, I thought she might like to have it up off her neck. Do you like it? Come and sit down. Everything’s ready to eat.”
Morgan sat at the end of the table next to Kamaria. “Yeah, she looks cute in braids. Umm, that smells good. Turkey casserole?” He enjoyed being with his wife and daughter for lunch every day. Eyeing Laura, who was wearing jeans and a pink tank top, he admired her figure. His wife had carried four of their children. She was in her forties, and looked more beautiful to him than ever. Her waist was not as small as it used to be, but then, she was a mother. To him, she was still the special woman he’d met so many years earlier at an airport near Washington, D.C.
Kamaria thumped his arm with the spoon. He grinned and wiped her mouth and chin with his napkin, mopping up the drool that was soaking her T-shirt at the collar.
Laura placed the Waldorf salad in front of him, then put a portion of casserole on a plastic plate in front of their daughter.
When Laura sat down, Morgan gently placed the fork in the toddler’s small hand to show her how to hold it properly. The daily lessons were slowly having an impact. Kamaria waved the fork around before plunging it like an airplane into the casserole in front of her.
Laura finished serving and said, “Why are you looking so upset? I can see it in your eyes.”
Grimacing, Morgan said, “I can’t hide a thing from you anymore, can I?”
“Not after all these years of marriage, darling.”
“I’ll tell you after lunch. Let’s enjoy the time we have now.”
Nodding, Laura acquiesced, filling him with relief. Since the terror his family had suffered during a kidnapping by drug lords years ago, Morgan knew he couldn’t protect them from everything, and that ate at him. The kidnapping had been the druggies’ way of paying back Morgan for disrupting their cocaine trafficking out of the Caribbean and South America. He shuddered as he remembered how he, Laura and Jason had been taken to different parts of the world and held without ransom.
Morgan had felt so powerless. Once they’d been rescued and brought back together, Morgan had moved his family out of Washington, D.C., to the protective mountains of Montana.
Since then, he’d done everything in his power to keep his family safe. He had taken Perseus deep underground. To this day, no one except high-echelon members of the CIA and top-ranking military personnel knew the whereabouts of his supersecret organization. And since that time, Morgan valued and cherished moments with his family as never before. But whenever he was faced with a new trial, he couldn’t help but think of the emotional impact of the kidnapping on his family. Especially Jason, who had been six years old at the time. Jason didn’t trust anyone anymore, least of all his father, who had been unable to keep him safe in a world gone bad. And Morgan, no matter how he tried, could not repair that terrible rift that lay like the Grand Canyon between them. Over the years, it had driven them further and further apart, until Jason refused to talk to his father, even though Morgan tried often to reestablish connection with him.
As she ate her salad, Laura watched Morgan guide a spoonful of casserole into Kamaria’s bow-shaped mouth. Laura’s heart swelled with joy. Little Kamaria had been found in the rubble of a Southern California earthquake she herself had been caught in. While Laura was recovering in the hospital at Camp Reed, she had helped take care of Kamaria. When she’d discovered that the little girl had been orphaned by the quake, Morgan had agreed with her request to adopt her. Morgan liked the name of his sister and mother for the baby. Laura liked Kamaria. She ended up with a huge name of Rachel Alyssa Kamaria Trayhern.
Laura knew having a baby in the house again had been very healing, especially to Morgan, who had never had this kind of relationship with his two eldest children, Jason and Katy. Now he was devoting quality time to Pete and Kelly, their fraternal twins, and Kamaria. Laura knew he took parenting very seriously and was trying to make up for all the mistakes he believed he had made with their first two children.
Even now, as Morgan smiled at Kamaria, he turned to his wife and said, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” His voice was low with pain, and Laura felt for him. “What if I’d spent this kind of time with Jason? Would things be different now?”
Laura reached over, taking his hand to comfort him, all the while wondering if he already knew about Jason’s transfer, and if he didn’t, how he would react when he found out….
Chapter 3
After lunch, Morgan stood with Laura in the backyard, watching as Kamaria happily played in her sandbox with a red plastic pail and scoop. The dappled sunlight felt good, and he slid his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I didn’t want to spoil our lunch,” he began. His mouth flexed and in a lower tone he added, “I have some bad news about Jason.”
Knowing what was to come, Laura leaned against his tall, strong frame, studying the darkness in his gray eyes.
Sighing, Morgan closed his hand around her right shoulder. “You know Red Dugan? The C.O. of the Eagle Warrior Apache Squadron with the 101st Airborne? I think you met him at that military convention in D.C. last year. Anyway, I got a call from him today. He told me that Jason had been transferred to his squadron at Fort Campbell. Dugan told me on the q.t. that Jason literally got kicked out of his old squadron. He has a personality problem, Laura. Pilots on two different Apaches asked for him to be transferred to another team. That kid is causing nothing but trouble no matter where he goes.”
Trying to wrestle with his anger, frustration and shame over his son’s actions, Morgan continued, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
Laura looked up at her husband. Although little Kamaria was only two years old and wouldn’t understand adult problems, Laura kept her voice low to protect her from the discussion that was to come.
“Synchronicity strikes again, Morgan. I was going to tell you once lunch was over that I just got a call from Jason.” She saw surprise flicker in his eyes before they narrowed with pain. Her heart ached for him. “I didn’t want to tell you earlier and ruin your lunch. I know how upsetting this is for you. Jason never wants to talk to you, and tries to time his calls to when you aren’t around.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was going to tell you now, but you beat me to it.”
Raking the fingers of his free hand through his hair, Morgan gave a jerky nod. He walked on across the wide green yard, with Laura at his side. “I swear that kid is hell-bent on self-destruction. I don’t know what to do to stop him.” He turned to his wife, who seemed so small next to him. She was petite, yet strong in ways he never would be. “Red told me in no uncertain terms that this is Jason’s last chance. If he can’t get along with the new pilot assigned to him now, then he’s out—with a bad conduct discharge.”
“Oh, God,” Laura whispered, pressing her fingers against her lips. “When he called earlier he never mentioned anything about that.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. He evades, Laura. He never tells either of us the whole story. We only get it piecemeal from my friends at the Pentagon. If not for them, we wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Well…he sounded good, Morgan. He really did. Even hopeful. And he was more open than usual. He’s been assigned to a female helo pilot—one of the few women currently flying the combat birds in the U.S. military. Jason said he likes her. Well, he didn’t go that far, but he sounded more hopeful than I’ve heard him sound since he joined the Army two years ago.” She reached out and slid her fingers down Morgan’s arm.
Feeling anguished, Morgan groped for Laura’s slender, warm fingers and gently wrapped his around them. Looking over her head, he saw Kamaria toddling around in the sand, waving the red scoop in her right hand, the pail in her left. One of their cats, a calico by the name of Tortie Girl, was walking in front of her, tail held high, as if to tease his daughter. The look of joy on Kamaria’s face as she gently reached out to touch Tortie Girl’s tail with the red shovel made him feel a little better. Kamaria smiled more than any of his other children. But then, Morgan reminded himself, she hadn’t suffered the strain of his parenting during the difficult times in his past. With a sigh, he hoped he was a changed man and that his youngest daughter would grow up without that stress affecting her.
“What else did he say?” Morgan murmured, looking at Laura once more. It hurt to know that Jason never wanted to talk with him. But why should he? They were icy cold with one another and the conversation always ended up with Morgan berating Jason. He knew he shouldn’t, but he didn’t know how else to handle his troubled son.
Laura slid her arm around her husband’s waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. The warm summer breeze was wonderful, the scent of the pines a balm for how she felt right now. She shared the rest of her conversation with Jason with Morgan, as she always did. Her heart ached when she saw the worry and frustration in his eyes as she stood with him at the far corner of the fenced yard.
“Did Red say anything about Chief Annie Dazen?” she asked when she was done. “That’s who Jason’s assigned to.”
Shaking his head, Morgan muttered, “No. He did say that he was giving Jason the very best chance he could by putting him with the top pilot in their squadron. And I owe Dugan for that.”
“He’s doing this because of you, Morgan. Everyone in the U.S. military respects you, no matter what service they’re in.”
“I guess so,” he mumbled, “Red told me that. And I thanked him.”
“A BCD? Oh, God, Morgan, I hope Jason turns around. He’s been in a downward spiral ever since being kicked out of Annapolis.”
“He’s angry.” Morgan’s mouth flattened as he looked sightlessly at the mountain that rose in front of them, hundreds of fragrant pine trees blanketed the slope, standing at attention like green guardians. “He’s angry at me. Probably doesn’t trust me after what happened when he was six. He’s carried that anger ever since the kidnapping. I know where it’s coming from.” Shaking his head, Morgan rasped unsteadily, “I screwed up so badly when he was young….”
“Shh,” Laura whispered. She turned and placed her hands on his upper arms, giving him a slight shake. “Listen to me, darling. You did the best you could. I was concerned about our high visibility in the Washington, D.C. community back then. And yes, we did talk about moving, or at least keeping our address secret. We just didn’t do it soon enough.”
Miserably, Morgan looked down at her. “I should have listened when you first suggested the move. So much bad came out of the kidnapping…for everyone….” He lifted a strand of her shoulder-length blond hair and gently placed it behind her ear. Laura had also been kidnapped, and raped repeatedly by the drug lord, who was trying to get even with Morgan for his efforts to disrupt his billion-dollar drug trade. His wife had spent years in therapy, climbing out of the hell that experience had left her in, and it had forever affected her—and him—as a result. Morgan now realized that when a woman was raped, a part of her was murdered, never to return. In an alarming way, the drug lords continued to get even with him to this day for his arrogant belief that no one would dare to harm his family. He had been so terribly wrong in his assessment of their safety back then.
“Jason is still paying a price for my bad judgment. My arrogance. I don’t blame him for being angry with me, Laura. I just wish like hell he’d quit rebelling against the world because of it. It’s me he wants to get at.”
Tears stung Laura’s eyes as she searched her husband’s gaze, which was filled with pain. She could see he wanted to cry, but Morgan never cried. He was a warrior from a dynasty of warriors who had served their country faithfully and fully. Tears were not an option for him, no matter what. If only Morgan could cry and release some of that pain that never left him. Laura always found release from crying. It was like a storm moving through her, cleansing her of ugly feelings. Afterward, she always felt lighter, cleaner, and relieved of the burdens that had made her weep.
“Listen to me, Morgan. Jason got the best psychiatric counseling we could give him. We did all we could to undo the damage done to him by that drug lord over in Hawaii.” Sliding her hand against his face, she whispered, “All we can do is love him and be there for him, darling. This is painful for everyone. We’re all hurting, and it hasn’t gotten any easier as he’s grown older.”
A groan broke from Morgan’s tight lips when he saw tears brimming in Laura’s eyes. Threading his fingers through her hair and taming the strands tossed by the breeze, he said, “Let’s hope that Annie Dazen is a guardian angel for him, because it’s Jason’s last stop on this downward spiral. If he gets a BCD…well, I don’t know what will happen to him. No corporation will want him. No one will hire him. It’s a black mark on him for life.”
Nodding, Laura said, “Yes, let’s hope Annie can pull a rabbit out of the hat for all of us.” Morgan himself had been marked as a traitor to his country, she reflected. And yet, in time, he had managed to clear his name. A BCD, however, was different. She hoped it didn’t happen—hoped her son’s life wouldn’t be marked forever.
“Let’s get to work, Mr. Trayhern,” Annie said when she saw her new copilot come through the door at the side of the hangar. Dressed in his flight uniform, he walked proudly, with his broad shoulders squared and his chin lifted almost arrogantly. At 1500, the temperature was nearing ninety and the humidity made the air feel like a soaked sponge. She had changed into her one-piece flight suit, and had her helmet sitting on the fuselage skirt.
“You look like you’re ready to go up.” Jason saw her slightly tilted eyes sparkle with mischief above her high cheekbones, her full mouth slightly curved in one corner.
“Yes, we are. You got your helmet with you?”
He halted before her in the busy hangar. “It’s in my locker. I, uh, didn’t think—”
“Go get it and meet me out on the apron.” Annie turned and called over to her crew chief to get the helo pushed out of the hangar so they could fly it. As she twisted to glance across her shoulder, she saw Trayhern stand uncertainly for a moment, a confused scowl on his features.
“Problems?” she demanded.
“No.” Jason studied her face, which was now dead serious. As nice as Ms. Dazen had been upon first meeting, she was all business now. Turning, he hurried back across the hangar toward the locker room.
A short while later, Annie stood beside the bird as her crew prepared it for takeoff. She looked up at the light blue sky, which was filling with cumulus clouds, and surmised that a storm could result around 1600. Sweat trickled down her rib cage and she turned to see Trayhern trotting out of the hangar.
She was pleased to see that he took her request that they fly now seriously. There was a guarded look on his face and that was fine with her. Colonel Dugan had said to test him immediately on his flight capabilities. The colonel wanted to know just how good—or bad—Jason Trayhern was behind the stick of a helo. And so did she.
As he came up, Annie introduced him to her three-person flight crew. To her relief, he shook hands and murmured words of greeting to each. At least he had some sense of civility.
When he moved to where she stood near the step on the side of the Apache fuselage, Annie pulled on her fire-retardant flight gloves. “You get the lower cockpit.” Since she was pilot in charge, she could choose to sit in either spot. She preferred the upper cockpit because it gave her more visibility.
“I need the upper one,” he replied. “I fly better in that position.”
Hearing the steel in his tone, she smiled crookedly. “Do you always get what you want, Mr. Trayhern?” He was trying to intimidate her. On purpose? Or was it just his warrior attitude?
“Usually.” He saw the challenging glint in her eyes as they narrowed speculatively upon him. Annie was three inches shorter, but with her proud carriage and bearing, he could swear she was his height. Maybe it was her cocky Apache pilot stance. No one flew this combat bird who wasn’t an aggressive type A personality, someone who lived for confrontation.
“Not today, Mr. Trayhern. Now, climb up.” As she motioned to the dark green metal shield that covered one of the wheels of the helo, she saw him frown. This was the first test: would he take orders from a woman? Standing relaxed, she watched what looked like anger move across his face. Did Trayhern know how easy he was to read? He put the helmet on his head and fastened the strap beneath his square chin. She saw a couple of small scars on his smoothly shaved jaw. Had someone picked a fight with this guy? More than likely.
She watched as he put one black flight boot onto the first rung and hoisted himself upward. The cockpit Plexiglas opened on one side only. Just above it, less than a foot away, were the four blades of the bird. She watched as he expertly slid in and squeezed himself into the narrow confines of the front, lower cockpit. Spec 2 Bobby Warner, one of the mechanics on her crew, climbed up and knelt beside him, quickly helping Trayhern with the array of harnesses that had to be put on and locked securely into place. Once Warner was done, he turned and grinned down at her.
“Ready for you, ma’am.” Then he stood up and moved to the end of the skirt so she could ascend.
“Excellent, Warner. Thanks.” Annie threw her helmet to him and then quickly climbed into the upper cockpit. This was home to her. She slid down onto the seat, the two HUDs—heads-up displays—in front of her. Each cockpit had the exact same equipment, so if one pilot was incapacitated the other could take over flying and get them home safely.
Warner handed her the helmet.
“Thanks,” Annie murmured. Within moments, she was strapped in and ready to go. Plugging the cord from her helmet into the radio receptacle, she switched to intercabin intercom.
“You read me, Mr. Trayhern? Over.”
“Read you loud and clear, Ms. Dazen.”
“Good.” Annie looked over and gave Warner a thumbs-up. Below, standing near the nose of the helo, where Annie could see her, was her crew chief. Kat stood with a pair of earphones on, the phone jack plugged into a side panel of the Apache. She would be responsible for starting of the bird.
“Okay, Kat, let’s get this show on the road,” Annie murmured. She nodded to Warner and gave him the signal to shut and lock each of the cockpits. Excitement thrummed through her. Flying was like breathing to Annie. Her adrenaline surged as soon as she felt the whine of the twin engines. Below, she saw her crew scurrying about efficiently. Kat gave a thumbs-up and Annie pressed the mike close to her lips.
“Okay, Mr. Trayhern, this flight is all yours. Power up.”
Annie pulled a clipboard from a side pocket of the cockpit and placed it across her knees. Before she had been assigned with the 101st, she’d been a flight trainer. The clipboard held a list of all the maneuvers she was going to put him through and grade him on. He didn’t know, of course, that she’d been an inspector pilot. Annie wanted him to be as relaxed as possible on this flight. There wasn’t a pilot alive that didn’t tense up and screw up when an IP was in the cockpit, grading him or her. Annie wanted to give Trayhern a chance.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled to herself. Trayhern had clearly dropped the anger she had seen in him on the tarmac, and was all business now. That was good. She heard him communicate with Kat Lakey on the ground. The blessed flow of air-conditioning began just then and Annie sighed in relief, because the cockpit was like a sauna until the cool air got turned on. Sweat dribbled down her left temple and she swiped it away.
When the Apache’s first engine started, the familiar high, shrieking whine began. The second engine came on next, and Annie saw Kat pull out the intercom cord and lock the panel down. Then the crew chief backed off and lifted her arm straight up, twirling her fingers, which was a signal for Trayhern to engage the blades.
The shuddering started. Annie absorbed it like a lover. The Apache was the most feared combat helicopter in the world. To her, it was like a dinosaur, ugly as sin, but lethal. When the blades started slowly turning around and around, she felt lulled, like a child cradled by its mother. There was something comforting and soothing about the shaking that went on as the blades whirled faster and faster.
She heard Jason call into the tower at Ops for takeoff permission. Once it was granted, she saw Lakey duck beneath the carriage to remove the chocks from behind and in front of the wheels. Once the crew chief was clear, Annie heard Trayhern’s deep, unruffled voice in her headset. “Ready for liftoff, Ms. Dazen?”
“Yes, I am, Mr. Trayhern. Let’s fly….”
Annie held the pen in her right hand, the clipboard across her thighs as the Apache lifted smoothly from the ground. She talked him through the air corridors flight pattern that every helo had to follow when taking off from the base. Once they were out over the countryside, the flat plains of Kentucky changed to gentle, rolling hills, a landscape of green, as they flew across the state boundary into Tennessee. The massive Army base sprawled across the state line, part in Tennessee, but the bulk of it in Kentucky, where ninety-three thousand acres had been set aside for flight training and firing ranges.
At this time of day, flying was often rough, and Annie was jostled continuously as the helo hit air pocket after air pocket. As the summer sun beat down on the earth, thermals rising off the hills created unstable conditions that made flying a challenge.
“I remember this,” Jason said, feeling the collective and cyclic in his hands. It felt good to be flying again. They were at five thousand feet and heading to a restricted air space where they could fly maneuvers without hitting a civilian plane.
“What? The thermals?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. He’d been nervous, but the comforting shudder of the helo had taken his anxiety away. “We all went through Apache training school in Alabama. I remember I always got afternoon flights, when the humidity was at its highest. It wasn’t fun at first. My lunch was always comin’ up. Flying out of this base reminds me of afternoon flights at Fort Rucker.” Southern states in the U.S. always got high humidity coming in off the Gulf. At Fort Collins, Colorado, the air was much drier, making it easier to fly.
Chuckling, Annie looked around the sunny cockpit, then drew down the dark visor on her helmet. “Oh, yeah, bag time. How long ago did you last eat?”
He laughed shortly. “Bag time” meant throwing up during flight, into a red plastic bag that was stored in the right pocket of every cockpit. “Not to worry this time around. I learned a long time ago to eat lightly at lunch.”
“Fill a few, did you?”
“A couple. You?”
“Nah. Indians don’t get airsick.”
Smiling slightly, Jason found himself curious about her Native American background. “I see….”
“In all honesty,” Annie told him, “I had two hundred flight hours in helicopters before I came into the Army. And I was kidding about Indians not getting airsick. We’re human just like everyone else.”
“I’ve never flown with an Indian before. I guess it’s something I’ll have to get used to.” Well, that didn’t come out right, did it? He cringed over his spontaneous choice of words. It was one of his problems: foot-in-mouth disease.
“Now, should I take that comment as an insult or a compliment?”
Jason frowned, his gaze flying across the cockpit dials. “No, it’s me not thinking,” he said abruptly.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Pretty much. And I apologize.”
She heard him almost choking on his words. Was it because he didn’t say he was sorry very often? Or was he genuinely trying to get along with her but fumbling it? Annie chose to believe the latter, not wanting to think that he was prejudiced on top of everything else. After all, this was his first day in a new squadron with a new air commander. He had to be nervous.
“You don’t know much about Native American culture, do you?”
“No…hardly anything. You’re the first person I’ve even run into that was Indian.”
“I see….” The helo jostled and dropped a good ten feet when it hit a huge air pocket. Annie smiled as she felt Trayhern adjust and stabilize the bird.
“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t get to know anyone too well,” he told her.
