Rush (Carolina Bad Boys, #5)(81)

We weren’t military.

We weren’t from the CIA Viper Pit.

We weren’t Black Ops.

We were darker than that.

Unlike previous operations managers who’d relayed years of orders over secure lines and in scrambled codes, Blaize had come on the scene, giving it the personal touch with an up-front team meet-and-greet. Yeah, the woman’s touch in the form of intense head games more mind-fucking than any passive-aggressive wifey could come up with.

By the time she’d debriefed us with her high-heeled boot up our collective asses, read us the riot act, and nailed us to the wall over every single possible past mistake and mission mishap, I’d gone home and drunk a bottle of tequila.

Blaize did have nice legs though.

I rubbed my sleeve across the mask of my helmet then peered at Storm . . . then gawped at the cockpit. The empty fucking cockpit.

“Wait. Who the fuck’s flying this thing?” I asked.

“Autopilot.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Autopilot?”

“Jerry-rigged autopilot.” His smug smile did not put me at ease.

“I do not want to know.”

“Probably not, but it involves a selfie stick and duct tape and—”

“La la la . . . I can’t hear you.” Jesus Christ. I was gonna die tonight. I just knew it.

“What can I say? I’m a modern day MacGyver.” Storm waltzed into the cockpit, checked the instrument panels, and sauntered back out.

Miraculously, we were still airborne.

Maybe I should get a different job.

“I was just fuckin’ wid ya about the selfie stick, couillon.” Storm’s guttural Cajunese came on like he’d flipped the switch from shadow operative to country boi. “Fully on automatic flight control. Wouldn’t want you to shit your pants before you take the big leap.”

“I hate you.”

“Good thing we’re in range,” Storm said.

Clapping my hands together, I put on my announcer’s voice. “Welcome to pitch-black Beirut! The terrorist hotbed of the Middle East and every operative’s favorite holiday destination for sleepless nights, unexpected espionage, and fun, fun fireworks in the form of mortar shells! It don’t get much better than this.” I fist-bumped Storm. “Eat your heart out, Disney World. Right?”

Storm’s boots rang across the metal grating of the floor before he slid open the door on the military black chopper. “Extraction in six hours. You have the coordinates.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I saluted him with two fingers off my brow and a hand at my crotch.

“I swear to fuck, Walker, if you make me touch soil in this godforsaken hellhole I’ll shoot you myself.”

The wind screamed inside. I shouted over it. “Relax. Cakewalk.”

“That’s what you said in Afghanistan when we got stranded in the fucking mountains for two weeks straight and I almost froze my balls off.”

“I ever tell you I’m scared of heights?” I peeked outside, the rushing atmosphere almost dragging me through the gaping maw of the chopper.

The aircraft hovered at a mere 13,000 feet above ground.

“Not a fan of the Mile High Club?” Storm took my helmet when I handed it to him.

“Oh, I did that. Air Force One. Press Secretary. Took the edge off.”

“Well, I ain’t fucking you.”

I shuddered. “Fuckin’ hope not.”

“Three minutes before we’re over missile range. Get the fuck out already.”

“Hang on.” I tucked my braid into the back of my black suit.

“Don’t be such a fucking diva.” Storm buckled me into my helmet and attached the oxygen hose.

“Diva?” I mouthed at him. “Gonna tie your nutsack in a knot when I get back.”

He gave me a grin and two thumbs up before he booted me out of the helicopter.

The immediate rush—the immersion into absolute nothingness—engulfed me. Cut off from the world, free falling, I swooped through the night like my spirit animal, the Thunderbird.

Fifty seconds into the HAHO jump, I pulled the ripcord, the sudden jump and bodily slump tugging a grunt from my chest as the parachute took my nosedive into a slower pace. I had thirty miles to navigate, airborne and undetected into enemy lines, while Storm disappeared above and behind me.

That was the plan anyway.

Dropping down through the elements, the Thunderbird in me wanted to stream faster. The mythical bird wanted no constraints and no ties to this political world where lines were drawn in the sand—black, white, and every shade of gray in between.

It wanted to fly.

Being Lakota meant I listened to the voices of my ancestors.

Family.

Swooping into a slipstream air current, I remembered mine. The people and the place I’d told Hunter about, finally. Some still alive. Some buried. Memories and visions surrounded me, ghosts as close as the cloudburst I broke through. I’d hidden everything away for so goddamn long sometimes I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore.

Hunter had thought I had no ties to this earthly life.

Truth was the bonds of this life tried to tether me to the land of my people.

I’d slipped free of the knot. I’d flown away. I’d left everything that mattered.

Adjusting my direction as the lights of Beirut swam below me, I checked my gages.