Forbidden River (The Legionnaires #2.5)(4)

“Not for me. I’m a legionnaire.”

She gave him that sideways look again, pulling on her headset and handing him his. “What, like the French Foreign Legion?” Her voice boomed through the intercom.

“Oui, Légion étrangère, mademoiselle.”

“You are so full of shit you could be a long-drop at a campground in January.”

“No idea what that is, but it sounds bad.”

She checked the panel above their head, again following her fingers with her eyes, and adjusted a lever. “Seriously? You’re a legionnaire?”

“Yes, ma’am. Caporal Cody Castillo du groupement des commandos parachutistes du 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes de Calvi.”

She did a three-sixty check through the windows, and engaged the starter. “Commandos parachutistes,” she repeated disdainfully. “A parachute commando?”

“You know, most people are impressed by that.”

“You’ll never catch me jumping from a perfectly good aircraft.”

“Afraid of heights?”

“Only of falling from them, which is totally rational and something you should be grateful for right about now.”

“Yes, ma’am. That I am.”

“Are you for real with that ‘yes, ma’am’ thing?”

“Habit. My abuela would have me over her knee if I didn’t show respect to women.” Okay, so he might be hamming it up there. His grandmother controlled the family fortune from a laptop, not a rocking chair. Why haul your grandson over your knee when a withering stare was plenty scary?

As Tia worked the controls with deft fingers and sharp eyes, a muted whine filtered through the headset and the shadow of a blade glided across the ground in front, slowly pursued by another.

“Vous parlez très bien fran?ais,” she said.

“So do you.”

“Expensive education—and that’s about all I remember. But you had an abuela?”

“My family’s from Mexico.”

“And you’re not?”

“Texas—born and raised.”

She gave a sharp laugh. “Right, so you’re a legionnaire commando from Texas.”

“Now, what have you got against Texas?”

“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not what I...” She shook her head. “It’s just one of those places that seems, I dunno, mythical.”

You’re not what I...expected? Hell, neither was she. “Says the woman who lives in Middle Earth. But go ahead and believe what you want about me. I just care that you’re a good pilot.”

The seat underneath him hummed, as if the chopper were straining with impatience. He knew the feeling.

“The best,” she said.

“Where did you learn to fly?”

She sighed, a scratch through the headset. “Would you ask me that if I was a guy?”

“Uh, yeah.”

She increased the engine speed and the blades whipped faster. “I get asked that a lot and you know what? My male counterparts don’t. I’ve checked with them. They don’t get the question.”

Shit. Was she right? Would he ask a guy that question? “Ma’am, I got total respect for all pilots—planes, helicopters, fucking hang gliders. Takes guts and brains and composure, and that’s something few people have.”

She scoffed, as if she wanted to be pissed at that but couldn’t manage it. “Nice recovery.”

The chopper lifted without a shudder and skimmed above the tarmac. He liked the way she talked. Sharp and combative but with enough humor that she didn’t cross into mean or bitter. Sparring, not landing real blows.

“You don’t mention on your website that you’re a woman. You don’t have a photo.” Because he was damn sure it would’ve given him extra incentive to book her, on top of her stellar reviews and safety record. “Was that deliberate?”

“I don’t say I’m a man, either. If people assume the wrong thing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t want my gender to help me or hold me back. I’ve had journalists wanting to make a big deal out of it. Even a publisher once, though she was more interested in...” She frowned. “I say no to everything. I don’t want to be the ‘plucky aviatrix keeping up with the big boys.’”

He got the feeling that’d happened before—and that it was the big boys who did the keeping up. They rose over a braided river, the shallow, bleached water in no hurry. The Awatapu’s lower reaches. Around him the chopper felt weightless, a mosquito next to the albatrosses he was used to.

“I guess what I’m asking,” he said, “is how a civilian pilot in probably the least gun-crazy country in the world knows her sniper rifles.”

“Nine years in the New Zealand air force.”

Ah. “Flying choppers?”

“Yep, though I started on transport craft—Orions, Hercules.”

“They’re still making those things?”

“The ones I flew were Vietnam relics. Of course I grew up with visions of racing Skyhawks, but by the time I enlisted they’d been sold.”

“You didn’t fly other jets?”

“We didn’t have any.”