by M. L. Buchman
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How little she knows!
Hope you enjoy this series launcher. More to come, I promise!
Also just released, another Night Stalker's Christmas, Christmas at Peleliu Cove:
Have a very Merry December, and a safe one!
This new series grew out of the Night Stalkers and Colonel Michael Gibson. When I first wrote about Michael in The Night is Mine, he was the super-warrior on the side. Little did I know that he'd step front and forward and—like the soldier he is—demand his own book, Bring on the Dusk. That in turn led me to studying a great deal about Delta Force in an effort to get it right.
And then Carla Anderson rolled out of my keyboard and onto the scene, literally, and the rest was history!
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Carla Anderson
rolled up to the looming, storm-fence gate on her brother’s midnight-blue Kawasaki
Ninja 1000 motorcycle. The pounding of the engine against her sore butt
emphasized every mile from Fort Carson in Pueblo, Colorado, home of the 4th Infantry
and hopefully never again the home of Sergeant Carla Anderson. The bike was all
she had left of Clay, other than a folded flag, and she was here to honor that.
If this was the
correct “here.”
A small guard post
stood by the gate into a broad, dusty compound. It looked deserted and she didn’t
see even a camera.
This was
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She knew that much. Two hundred
and fifty square miles of military installation, not counting the addition of
the neighboring Pope Army Airfield.
She’d gotten her
Airborne parachute training here and had never even known what was hidden in
this remote corner. Bragg was exactly the sort of place where a tiny, elite
unit of the U.S. military could disappear—in plain sight.
This back corner of
the home of the 82nd Airborne was harder to find than it looked. What she could
see of the compound through the fence definitely ranked “worst on base.”
The setup was totally
whacked.
Standing outside the
fence at the guard post she could see a large, squat building across the
compound. The gray concrete building was incongruously cheerful with bright
pink roses along the front walkway—the only landscaping visible anywhere. More
recent buildings—in better condition only because they were newer—ranged off to
the right. She could breach the old fence in a dozen different places just in
the hundred-yard span she could see before it disappeared into a clump of scrub
and low trees drooping in the June heat.
Wholly indefensible.
There was no way that
this could be the headquarters of the top combat unit in any country’s
military.
Unless this really
was their home, in which case the indefensible fence—inde-fence-ible?—was a
complete sham designed to fool a sucker. She’d stick with the main gate.
She peeled off her
helmet and scrubbed at her long brown hair to get some air back into her scalp.
Guys always went gaga over her hair, which was a useful distraction at times.
She always wore it as long as her successive commanders allowed. Pushing the
limits was one of her personal life policies.
She couldn’t help
herself. When there was a limit, Carla always had to see just how far it could
be nudged. Surprisingly far was usually the answer. Her hair had been at earlobe
length in Basic. By the time she joined her first forward combat team, it
brushed her jaw. Now it was down on her shoulders. It was actually something of
a pain in the ass at this length—another couple inches before it could reliably
ponytail—but she did like having the longest hair in the entire unit.
Carla called out a
loud “Hello!” at the empty compound shimmering in the heat haze.
No response.
Using her boot in
case the tall chain-link fence was electrified, she gave it a hard shake,
making it rattle loudly in the dead air. Not even any birdsong in the
oppressive midday heat.
A rangy man in his
late forties or early fifties, his hair half gone to gray, wandered around from
behind a small shack as if he just happened to be there by chance. He was
dressed like any off-duty soldier: worn khaki pants, a black T-shirt, and
scuffed Army boots. He slouched to a stop and tipped his head to study her from
behind his Ray-Bans. He needed a haircut and a shave. This was not a soldier
out to make a good first impression.
“Don’t y’all get hot
in that gear?” He nodded to indicate her riding leathers without raking his
eyes down her frame, which was both unusual and appreciated.
“Only on warm days,”
she answered him. It was June in North Carolina. The temperature had crossed
ninety hours ago and the air was humid enough to swim in, but complaining never
got you anywhere.
“What do you need?”
So much for the
pleasantries. “Looking for Delta.”
“Never heard of it,”
the man replied with a negligent shrug. But something about how he did it told
her she was in the right place.
“Combat Applications
Group?” Delta Force had many names, and they certainly lived to “apply combat”
to a situation. No one on the planet did it better.
His next shrug was
eloquent.
Delta Lesson One: Folks
on the inside of the wire didn’t call it Delta Force. It was CAG or “The Unit.” She got it. Check. Still easier to think of it as Delta though.
She pulled out her
orders and held them up. “Received a set of these. Says to show up here today.”
“Let me see that.”
“Let me through the
gate and you can look at it as long as you want.”
“Sass!” He made it an
accusation.
“Nope. Just don’t
want them getting damaged or lost maybe by accident.” She offered her blandest
smile with that.
“They’re that
important to you, girlie?”
“Yep!”
He cracked what might
have been the start of a grin, but it didn’t get far on that grim face. Then he
opened the gate and she idled the bike forward, scuffing her boots through the
dust.
From this side she
could see that the chain link was wholly intact. There was a five-meter swath
of scorched earth inside the fence line. Through the heat haze, she could see
both infrared and laser spy eyes down the length of the wire. And that was only
the defenses she could see. So…a very not
inde-fence-ible fence. Absolutely the right place.
When she went to hold
out the orders, he waved them aside.
“Don’t you want to
see them?” This had to be the right place. She was the first woman in history
to walk through The Unit’s gates by order. A part of her wanted the man to
acknowledge that. Any man. A Marine Corps marching band wouldn’t have been out
of order.
She wanted to stand
again as she had on that very first day, raising her right hand. “I, Carla
Anderson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution…”
She shoved that
aside. The only man’s acknowledgment she’d ever cared about was her big brother’s,
and he was gone.
The man just turned
away and spoke to her over his shoulder as he closed the gate behind her bike. “Go
ahead and check in. You’re one of the last to arrive. We start in a couple
hours”—as if it were a blasted dinner party. “And I already saw those orders
when I signed them. Now put them away before someone else sees them and thinks
you’re still a soldier.” He walked away.
She watched the man’s
retreating back. He’d signed her orders?
That was the notoriously hard-ass Colonel
Charlie Brighton?
What the hell was the
leader of the U.S. Army’s Tier One asset doing manning the gate? Duh…assessing
new applicants.
This place was whacked. Totally!
I love it when characters demand their own book! That's how My Wild Irish Dragon came about. The hero's feisty sister made it clear she had a story to tell too.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the release. I have heard fabulous things about it.
ReplyDeleteAshlyn, I know. It's just so much fun when they do that. I'm in the midst of another right now and it's just a blast.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shana, I've been hearing good things too, which always makes me grin, I'd read it, but then I'd get sucked back into that world. :)
Congrats on the new series, I love your stories because I enjoy seeing strong capable heroines!
ReplyDelete