Forbidden River (The Legionnaires #2.5)
Brynn Kelly
CHAPTER ONE
THE CHOPPER APPEARED on the horizon, hovering like a dragonfly over the slate-blue mountain range. Right on time. A second later the bass throb of its blades ricocheted around the valley, on air so crisp Cody Castillo felt he could reach out and snap it.
He hauled his kayak and paddle from a baggage cart parked outside the airport terminal, loaded with the few supplies he needed for a river paddle. Food, pup tent, sleeping bag, thermals, first aid kit, safety gear, wet weather gear. His gut fizzed. One night in an alpine hut—alone, hopefully—and then nobody and nothing for four beautiful days. Fuck right off, world.
CROOKED VALLEY AIRPORT, the sign read. Well, Crooked Alley. The V had fallen off the line of letters spaced along the roof of the squat hangar that passed for a terminal. The Y was on its side, the T just hanging in there. Way out here at the end of the world, if you needed a sign to tell you where you’d wound up, you were crazy lost.
He’d been to plenty middles of nowhere—Marfa in Texas, the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, Camopi in French Guiana... Like this, they weren’t the kinds of places you happened upon, pit stops on a road trip, derelict stations on a train line. Nope, it took full commitment to get nowhere. For him, in this case: a ride in a rattly legion Peugeot 4WD from his base at Calvi to Bastia, a ferry from Corsica to Nice, a flight to Paris and then Auckland, via Hong Kong. That sucked up the first forty-eight hours of his leave. Then to Christchurch and a two-day wait for a flight over the Southern Alps aboard a five-seater Cessna piloted by a farmer who might have learned to fly in World War II, going by his age and the way he dipped and dived like he was still dodging the Luftwaffe. Just one journey left—a chopper ride to the source of the legendary Awatapu River—and then he was on his own steam.
Cody laid the kayak on the deserted tarmac, grit scraping the hull. Yep, Crooked Valley/Alley was his kind of airport, where the arrival of a plane seemed to baffle the skeleton staff. No baggage carousels—just the cart pulled by a quad bike, driven by the ace pilot himself, once he’d shut down the plane. “Security” was a ninety-year-old unarmed guard in a uniform she might have worn for half a century, shrinking into it every year until it hung off her like a kid’s costume. No gates, no announcements—more a bus stop than an airport.
The helicopter began to descend, surfing the clouds sloshing over the range. Ah, New Zealand. A throwback to the days when the biggest threat to aviation was a Canada goose. One-third the size of home—
One-third the size of Texas. A long time since Texas had been home.
As it neared, the chopper mutated from insect to bird to machine, the blades beating a different note from the engine. An older model Eurocopter. Not the armored, camo-painted Puma or Tigre he usually rode but a tidy little écureuil. A squirrel. He shaded his eyes as the chopper kissed the tarmac and settled, late-afternoon sun bouncing off the windshield. The rotors slowed until the disc dissolved and the blades became distinguishable—twelve, nine, six, then the regular three as they whined to a stop. What was the pilot’s name again? Cody squinted, trying to picture the address on the confirmation email. Tia, right? Tia Kupa.
The pilot’s door hinged back and he stepped out. No, not he, not with those curves rounding out the tight blue jeans and that thick black hair swaying to her shoulders. She, and one hell of a she.
She swiveled and walked his way, shoving her hands in the pockets of a black leather flight jacket. The kind of woman his mom would call handsome rather than pretty. Statuesque. Square jaw, cut cheekbones, smooth skin a little darker than his own, dark brown freckles splattered across her nose and cheeks. Maybe thirty, so about his age. She had the commanding aura of an officer, someone who quietly assumed she’d be respected, and thus was respected. Māori, he guessed.
“You’re my guy?” She pushed sunglasses off her face and looked him down and up. Her eyes weren’t the brown he’d expected—not that he’d stopped to think about it—but a blazing green, almost hard to look at with the sun striking them. “The kayaker?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tex—I mean Cody.” It felt weird to be that guy again—no one called him Cody anymore. But introducing himself as “Texas” felt off. His commando team had inflicted the nickname on him years ago but he didn’t offer it around.
She assessed his shiny orange kayak, nose to stern. “You might want to ditch the price tag.” She nodded at the ticket attached to a grab loop.
“Yeah. Easier to buy a new kit than transport it.” Not that he needed to explain.
“If you have the money, sure, why not?” There was a bite in her voice. Yep, she had him all figured out. The kind of adventure tourist who bought new gear and chartered a helicopter? He wouldn’t take kindly to that guy, either. But hey, who cared what she thought, as long as she dropped him somewhere remote and deserted. “I’m busting for a wee. Keep an eye on her for me.” She waved vaguely at the chopper.
He looked left and right. Apart from the security guard, who was sitting slumped at a graying bench dragged up against the hangar wall, there was no life for several dead-flat miles. “You expecting a hijacking or a parking ticket?”
“Funny,” she said, her tone indicating it wasn’t. “Don’t go any closer till I get back.”
She flicked her sunglasses onto her nose and walked away, ruffling her hair, her stride lithe and confident. Owning it.