"Oh, you're plenty good enough, Cowboy. You cleared those heights long ago. Which is what's scaring the c.r.a.p out of me."

For lack of any better answer, Justin kissed her, kissed her with his whole heart.

She kissed him back just the same, with her heart wide open.

"Ready to go get 'em, Mama Bear?"

"Ready, sweetheart," she answered with her terrible Texas accent that came out sounding more like a female Humphrey Bogart.

It was good enough for him.

Chapter 23.

Justin didn't envy the ride they were having in the back of his Chinook or the Little Bird gunship that Claudia was flying close behind him. They had discussed a dozen scenarios to insert the action team, and the one they'd chosen wasn't a smooth ride.

A jump from a high-alt.i.tude aircraft was out of the question. Israel had one of the most advanced radar missile-detection systems ever built. It was used to spot incoming Scuds from Jordan or Egypt, or mortars from the West Bank. A plane entering Israeli airs.p.a.ce at any jump-capable alt.i.tude would certainly be spotted and fired upon.

Ramon Airbase was eighty kilometers from the nearest international waters so a HAHO jump was also out. By jumping from a high alt.i.tude and opening a flying chute right away, a team could travel forty kilometers and be very difficult to detect. But eighty was out of the question.

With water out of the picture, the only other HAHO jump option was to come in over the Sinai Peninsula, deliberately pop up until they showed on everyone's radar, and release the jumpers to fly the twenty kilometers across one of the most carefully watched borders in the Middle East to Ramon Airbase. Egypt was not what Justin would call a friendly country for launching a U.S. mission against America's closest ally in the region.

Fast and low was the answer. Fast and low in a hundred feet of helicopter meant a very rough ride for those in back.

That wasn't Justin's problem. His problem was getting them there in one piece. For reasons he couldn't explain, this flight was far more nerve-racking than his first foray in and out of the Negev Desert. Of course last time he hadn't had a chance to think about the flight beforehand. It had been an emergency exfiltration.

This was a preplanned mission, and it was white knuckle the whole way in from the coast. This time he'd had almost forty-eight hours to worry as a.s.sets were selected and recalled from leave, then traveled to the Peleliu for the detailed planning sessions.

"Danny, we need a flying song."

"I'm leavin' on a hee-lo." His copilot started them off rather than complaining. It meant he was as tightly wound as Justin was, not a good sign. Not a bad voice either.

"Didn't know that we'd be back here again." Carmen picked up the tune.

A surprise ba.s.s came over the intercom from Raymond at the rear ramp. "Oh man, I really got to go." Like he was looking for the bathroom.

"p.i.s.s off the ramp," Carmen said quickly to not interrupt the song and got some laughs.

"All our guns are packed, they gave us the go." Justin kicked off the verse.

"I'm seeing hard rock right outside our door," Talbot observed from his position at portside minigun.

"I really hate to think we're all gonna die..." Danny's morose tone drew laughter, and the song continued pinging around the Calamity Jane.

As it did, Justin could feel his nerves and those of his crew easing down and finding the groove. His crew's state of mind really shouldn't matter to him. He'd sworn it wouldn't.

Good luck with that, Justin.

When he'd first come back to flying from the hospital, he'd sworn he'd never get so close to a crew again. Never again risk having so much to lose. But this crew had grown on him until once again it was impossible to imagine flying with anyone else. If anything, he was in even deeper than he'd been with Mariko, Rom, and the other members of his first crew.

Like Kara Moretti. He was in so deep-they both were-that it was past imagining. Right at this moment, as he slewed around the edge of another wind-carved tower of stone, he finally understood her fear. How had he been supposed to see that the problem was she cared too much about him, rather than not enough?

He waited until the Jane was low in a canyon and their signals could only be intercepted by something directly overhead, like Kara's Gray Eagle Tosca.

Justin flipped his mic out of the helicopter's intercom circuit for a moment as he twisted through a hard ninety-degree turn in the dry streambed.

"Hey, sweetheart."

Kara jolted in her chair inside her coffin. She'd been so absorbed in monitoring the flight and the ongoing silence of the Israeli defense perimeter that Justin's voice was a visceral shock.

She had both Tosca and the small ScanEagle replacement bird aloft as well as two helos in flight, all of which kept her plenty busy.

The tactical display showed that Justin was down in a canyon, so it would be safe for him to transmit. But she was pushing the high ceiling of Tosca and any signal she sent from that big Gray Eagle would have a broad spread. She could listen, but outside of an emergency, she wouldn't transmit-and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d would know that.

"Just figured out some things," he continued.

Always thinking, aren't you? And he was; the man was always puzzling at his world until it felt all neat and orderly. Kara was more likely to beat it into submission until it fit her plan. She could hear the grunt that the g-force slammed out of his diaphragm as she watched him slalom through another hard turn on her display.

"Reckon I think too much." As if he'd heard her unspoken comment. "Finally understand I'm not the only one crazy in love. Wanted to let you know. I'm not the sharpest one in the herd, but I get there. Looking forward to it, sweetheart." He released his mic.

He'd called in the middle of a mission flight to tell her that? To tell her that she was crazy in love with him? He was such an idiot.

Of course she was- She tried desperately to make that into a wasn't but it didn't come out that way.

Of course she was? Crazy in love with a cowboy currently deep inside a country that would blow his a.s.s out of the sky if they spotted him and ask questions later?

Kara really needed her head examined. Or her heart, because it was being pretty stupid about this whole situation.

"Two minutes to target." Tago drew her focus back in. He glanced over from his own armchair and offered a smile that was encouraging rather than angry. She liked Tago's protectiveness of her, but she-Oh c.r.a.p, she was going to say it or at least think it!-loved Cowboy Roberts.

d.a.m.n him! And he'd left her with no reasonable way to respond.

She double-checked Ramon Airbase's alert status. It had remained quiet during last night's overflight to inspect the base for security changes. It was equally quiet and normal for the three hours she'd already had Tosca on station tonight.

Well, time for that to end.

What did you boys and girls learn in the month since we were last here?

Both SOAR helos were in position.

Claudia Jean Gibson was hovering the stealth attack Little Bird Maven II to the north of the air base, masked by a single convolution of the land.

And roaring up the wadis from the southwest were Justin and his crew in the Calamity Jane. Two birds was a minimum flight for mission safety reasons. They also needed both birds for this to work, as well as for the extraction plan to stand a chance.

No need to send a signal. One of the trademarks of the 160th was they could place themselves anywhere within plus or minus thirty seconds of plan. It didn't matter if it was a thousand kilometers into bad-boy land or meeting an aerial tanker during a Red Flag aerial combat exercise over the Nevada desert-at plus or minus thirty seconds they'd be there.

The 5D's goal was plus or minus ten seconds. We'll d.a.m.n well beat that tonight!

We! Kara surprised herself. It was "We." That much had become clear during the planning aboard the Peleliu as she worked scenarios and built the mission team. She might be sitting back in her safe and secure GCS coffin, but the only one who thought less of her for it was her own self.

Dumb, chick! Real dumb. Get with the effing program.

Captain Kara Moretti was in the 5D. And the 5D rocked.

Sure enough, at exactly thirty seconds to the witching hour, on schedule to the second, Michael's wife, Claudia Jean, kicked an illumination flare up and over the ridge that masked her from the base. Then she laid down the hammer and was scooting west, deeper into the hills.

The base took fifteen seconds to wake up instead of the nearly sixty it had taken them during Calamity Jane's first visit. Also, instead of coming alive in sections, the whole base snapped to at once.

Perimeter and runway lights flashed on together, dimmed a moment at the unexpectedly heavy load, and then brightened once more as the electrical grid stabilized.

Moments later, lights kicked on in two of the hardened hangars where they'd be warming up a pair of fighter jets as fast as they could. If they were on warm alert, the planes could be airborne in as little as three minutes, more likely six.

Humvees tumbled into action at various points around the base, but they were all inside the perimeter fence and Claudia's flare had been high up on the hill, well away from any perimeter gate. Ground forces weren't a threat, and hopefully Maven's stealth setup and rapidly changed position would mask Claudia from the jet fighters.

All attention shifted to the airfield itself along the northern edge of the compound.

Justin rolled down out of the southern hills close beside the Israeli residential area of Ramon Airbase.

"Ten seconds," he announced over the intercom.

A small area of salt pan and sand lay inside the perimeter fence but had been left rough. It was either for training exercises or the Israelis were serious fans of motocross.

It had several advantages for clandestine entry.

A small fold of land hid the exercise ground from the closer structures if Justin stayed low enough. He was nineteen feet from wheel to top of rear rotor. The fold of land would mask him as long as his wheels stayed within three feet of the barbed wire topping the perimeter fence.

Advantage two: the sandpit was at the far corner of the base from the airfield, meaning very little attention would be on this area at the moment.

And finally, the training ground was rough enough for their inserted team to disappear in moments even if his helo was spotted.

At five seconds, Raymond had the rear ramp open.

At three, Justin hopped the Calamity Jane over the perimeter fence with his wheels a foot above the wire.

At one, he was moving at fifty kilometers per hour and his rear ramp was inches off the sand.

"Rolling," Carmen called.

At zero, he could feel the weight shift as the Humvee they'd stolen last month rolled out the back of the helo, off the ramp, and hit the dirt.

At contact plus five seconds, the Humvee was on the sand going one way, and after less than a hundred meters inside the fence line, Justin had the Calamity Jane back over the razor wire and racing once more into the southern hills.

If the Humvee was spotted, it would look exactly as if it belonged-after all, it actually did. There wouldn't be any problems as long as no one looked too closely at the soldiers inside.

It was driven by Tom from The Activity exactly as it had been when it left the air base. He knew the airfield like no other and was there to positively identify the targets. Colonel Michael Gibson and Lieutenant Bill Bruce, Michael's right hand, rode as shooters, as did Tanya of Mossad's Kidon. The four of them were now out of Justin's hands until their mission was complete.

The Calamity Jane was at least two minutes ahead of the Israeli alert fighters-that's if they kept engines idling and c.o.c.kpits manned. Hopefully it would take them a full five minutes with cold engines and pilots in a ready room.

Justin needed the five minutes.

He cut south and then, against what they'd expect, he turned east away from the protecting hills.

"You better be right, girlie," he muttered to himself. Kara had insisted the fighters would be scouring the hills, never expecting an invading force to move deeper into the Israeli desert and expose itself on the flats of the Central Negev.

He kept as low as he dared, might have even spun his wheels a time or two on a bush. Eight kilometers east across the central basin lay the ruins of an ancient city, Avdat. It was a leftover from the old Incense Route that had moved valuable spices across the barren desert for over five hundred years in the times of the Greeks and Romans. Kara had told him all about it during the briefing. Woman's brain was a steel trap for details.

The Avdat ruins climbed the face of a hill above a parking lot. A complex jumble of buildings fronted the slope. Atop the crest was a large rectangular building, rather than the remaining outer walls of one. The rectangle was cut in two by a midline wall, making two temple squares.

Kara had gotten all excited about kings and spice routes.

All he cared about was the deep-walled courtyard that would hide his helicopter. The squared-off area to the rear was big enough for the Calamity Jane to hide through a few hours of the night.

Even if the IDF's jet patrols spotted the heat source generated by his hot engines, they wouldn't think to investigate in the middle of a World Heritage Site. At least he hoped not.

Four minutes after invading Ramon Airbase and delivering a kill squad of Delta and Kidon, he was parked within the ancient limestone rock walls. Inside of thirty seconds, the only sounds aboard the Calamity Jane were the bright pinging of cooling metal and the final thuds of the slowing rotors. Soon there was only the desert and his crew sighing with relief.

He couldn't agree more.

Chapter 24.

Kara tried to keep an eye on everything at once. She had the ScanEagle in an automated slow circle at its max alt.i.tude of twenty thousand feet, its cameras offering a wide-area tactical view. Tago had the controls of Tosca and was keeping his focus on the air base from twenty-nine thousand.

Willard Wilson was perched on a stool behind her. He'd been so busy hovering over her shoulder that she'd finally laid down a strip of red tape four feet behind her and Tago's seats.

"You cross this, and I'm gonna kneecap you. You talk to me while I'm running this op, same thing." To emphasize her point, she dialed open her small gun safe, then loaded and holstered an M9 Beretta. So far he'd believed her and kept both his distance and his silence. She didn't wear her sidearm often, but SOAR had made sure she was d.a.m.ned proficient with it. Yet another piece of training she'd never appreciated before.

At four minutes after contact, midnight dark and four minutes, Justin was tucked away in his World Heritage hidey-hole.

Claudia's Little Bird helo was a dozen miles west parked close beside the Egyptian border at the bottom of a canyon so narrow that only a Little Bird and an exceptional pilot could be parked there. That she did it at night just meant she was a member of SOAR's 5D, because no one else could. A patrol would have to stumble on the position by pure chance to find her.