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

for help. Only the hand showed, reaching through a tear in the skin of a shattered helicopter.
    The heat of fire brushed her cheeks. And she breathed in the stench of kerosene igniting as Jet A fuel poured from a sheared gas tank onto the fire.
    Her hands were too heavy. Too slow. Too weak.
    Even as her fingers reached out, the hand slid out of reach. The helicopter’s carcass falling away, tumbling earthbound while she remained trapped in the sky.
    Trapped where…
    Someone shook her shoulder. Shook it again.
    By reflex, she grabbed the hand’s ring finger and flipped it back hard, eliciting a sharp yelp. Her attacker withdrew rapidly, tumbling away to get clear of the pain as her instincts continued to drive the finger up and back.
    Tumbling like a helicopter falling through a perfectly blue sky.
    A big finger, a big hand.
    She didn’t know this hand.
    It wasn’t her father’s.
    Then she was awake and instantly knew the hand. Had been impressed by its combination of strength and finesse throughout the long repairs, its ability to make the finest adjustments or bend a panel by hand to custom fit an airframe that had been through too much battle to easily fit factory-fresh parts.
    Connie let go immediately and tried to stammer out an apology as Big John began to massage his hand tentatively, as if he weren’t sure it were safe to touch.
    “We’re landing in five.”
    Major Beale’s voice sounded over the intercom.
    Five minutes. Kabul air base.
    Connie leaned forward and offered to inspect John’s hand.
    He withdrew it quickly and banged his elbow on the cargo door frame.
    He hissed out a sharp breath.
    “Everything okay back there?”
    “Fine, Major.” His answer rough and abrupt. “Banged my goddamn funny bone. Zinging like hell.”
    Again Connie could only sit and watch. Retreating meant she didn’t care. Assistance from her clearly wasn’t wanted or welcome. Helpless once again, she could do nothing but sit and watch as they touched down.
    ***
    “They’re waiting to load us now,” Major Beale announced before John could stop clutching his elbow and cursing.
    “Who?” He looked at his hand and flexed the fingers. That was going to sting far longer than his elbow. Connie didn’t look like a fighter. He had to remember that you didn’t get to SOAR without being the very best. Minimum five years in the Army and two years of SOAR training before being declared mission qualified, if you survived the entrance exams. A weeklong interview that he remembered with abject horror. It almost made the month of Green Platoon testing seem survivable.
    “Try looking out your window.”
    He hitched himself up to his knees and looked out the shooter’s window. He could feel Connie move behind him to peek over his shoulder. An absolute awareness that made him think thoughts he definitely shouldn’t about a woman serving beside him.
    He didn’t see anything but a curving wall of gray.
    Connie slid open the cargo door as the rotor wash eased and the engines wound down. Kabul, with its own unique odor of spiced lamb, too much mint, and fresh sewage.
    Then his brain got the perspective.
    Not a gray wall, but rather the side of a C-17 Globemaster III. Not a C-5, but still three stories tall of aircraft the length of half a football field.
    What it also told him was that he had to wake up fast. Before the hour was out, he was going to wish he’d found some way to wake Connie without touching her. He flexed his hand again before unsnapping his monkey line, stowing it neatly, and stepping out of the Hawk.
    He was assaulted by the typical mayhem of a military airfield.
    The C-17 loomed above them, a towering mass in the night, each of her four jet engines about the size of the Hawk’s cabin area.
    Viper , Major Henderson’s bird, had landed on the other side of the jet’s tail. Even as John watched, the lower part of the tail unhinged and a massive ramp swung down to the ground. Two DAP Hawks on a jet transport meant