Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mistaking her for a man. She wasn’t like the Major, too willowy to be a man, or Kee, too generously proportioned to be masked by a mere flight suit. Connie’s standout feature despite full gear: she simply moved in a way that no man would, or could. A neatness. A lack of wasted motion. A… He wasn’t sure.
    He puzzled at it as sleep overwhelmed him and took him under.
    ***
    Connie stretched, and every joint popped or cracked. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been this tired. Not since the month-long hell of Green Platoon training. Or perhaps during her SERE course. She’d survived, evaded, and resisted for the two full weeks of the field test. She’d never been captured, so she hadn’t needed the fourth letter of the acronym, escape. She also hadn’t slept more than thirty minutes at a time in fourteen days.
    She leaned back in and squinted, but her eyes were too tired to determine if the readout was a “4” or a “9.” She gave it up.
    “Let it go,” as John had said.
    Glancing forward revealed Major Beale in rear quarter profile. Clay was invisible in his armor-wrapped copilot seat just six inches forward from Connie’s right shoulder. She could just lean on the back of his seat and she’d be asleep in seconds.
    The Major rarely spoke as they flew. Emily Beale ran a quiet ship, which was fine with Connie. The air waves were silent as well. They were just ferrying to Kabul. Too high to be susceptible to enemy ground fire. If there had been a briefing about their mission, she’d missed it while working on the chopper.
    As if sensing her attention, the Major turned to face her through the gap between the seats. With a sharp nod, then a soft shrug, she communicated her thanks for fast repairs and her lack of knowledge regarding the reason for the move. No briefing missed. All communicated without risking waking John by using the intercom.
    She turned to look at John.
    He’d stretched out, his feet propped on their duffels strapped to the rear cargo net. His head reached most of the way to his seat. You could fit a stretcher and a doctor in the space he took. Maybe two.
    But there was room beside him. Not as much as you’d expect in the cargo bay of a Black Hawk. If it weren’t for all of the mods and extra ammo for a DAP Hawk, you could fit a dozen troops, or half a dozen with some serious in-country gear. But even with the DAP’s unique load, there was room for her. She could see that he had moved to the side before passing out. Leaving more space.
    For her.
    She felt uneasy sitting there, looking down at the open space left by the kindness of a man still in helmet and full gear, unrecognizable if not for his physical scale.
    But she didn’t sleep well beside others. Too much of her life alone. Mother gone early, Dad on assignment. Her fading grandmother had made sure she was fed, but the rest of her life had been up to her. To her alone.
    Even in the Army it was easy to be alone. To just be quiet. Stay out of the jokes, the pranks, the incessant rivalry to be the best at something. You could be accepted for your proven skills, the only test that really mattered once you were past the lowest units, and not have to interact or often speak.
    Women were almost always afforded more space to sleep in the Army. Often cots when guys had hard ground. Or at least they were put with other women. And her time hadn’t been frontline hardship. Except for frequent weeklong exercises and war games, most of her career had been in helicopters. Choppers almost always returned to a base at night.
    If your bird was parked in the wild, you didn’t sleep. You hunkered down wide-eyed and watched for bad news crawling through the high weeds.
    Her body begged her to lie down beside him.
    Finally too tired to think, she did stretch out beside the sleeping Staff Sergeant.
    Hard against the opposite cargo-bay door.

Chapter 7
    A hand reached for her. It was a hand Connie knew like no other.
    It reached for her, begging