Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone by Lindsay McKenna Page B

anyone who got assigned to Apaches. They were a breed apart, bloodhounds in the sky, looking for quarry. Grinning, Maya notched up to takeoff speed and gently lifted the fully armed Apache off the lava lip. Smoothly, she nudged the helo forward into the swirling clouds. Within moments, they were completely embraced by the thick moisture.
    “On glide path,” Jess called out.
    Maya flew by instruments only. Her eyes were narrowed on the HUD, watching the swiftly moving radar that whipped back and forth on the screen to create a picture of the approaching Eye. The winds were erratic at this time of the morning, because when the sun rose, the land heated up and made air currents unpredictable—and dangerous. Raindrops splattered across the windshield of her aircraft, falling from clouds which carried moisture from the humid jungle below. The Apache eased forward, closer and closer to the opening in the lava wall.
    “On glide path…”
    Compressing her lips, Maya tensed a little, as always. The aircraft was within twenty feet of the Eye. Right now, the wrong wind current, the wrong move with her hands or feet, would crash them into the wall. Easy…easy… She moved the aircraft smoothly through the hole and out over the jungle far below. They were at eight thousand feet now, and Maya eased away from the cliff to allow Dallas’s aircraft to exit in turn.
    “Switching to radar to hunt for the bad guys,” Jess called.
    “Roger.” Maya looked up briefly. She could see nothing but the thick, white mists all around them. It was dark and the Apaches ran with no lights on them. Their instruments were all they had. “Keep a lookout for Kamovs. I got a bad feeling on this one, Jess.”
    “I thought you might. Scanning beginning now…”
    Of course, Maya knew that even with their advanced radar, Kamovs had a certain type of paint on their fuselage that absorbed the Apache’s radar signal, so that what little pinged back to the instruments on board was negligible, and therefore unreadable. A Kamov could spot them in fog like this, providing the cloud cover wasn’t too thick, and nail them. Plus, their radar could send out a strong signal through thinner clouds and get an equally strong returning signal back from its target. Right now, they were sitting ducks and Maya knew it.
    “We’re out, Saber,” Dallas said.
    “Roger,” Maya replied. “Let’s split up, make less of a target of ourselves. Leave a mile between us and head for the meeting point. Keep your eyes and ears open, ladies.”
    “Roger that,” Dallas said.
    Inching up the throttles, Maya felt the Apache growl more deeply as it rose higher and higher. She wanted out of this cloud cover, to get on top of it so her 360-degree radar could detect and protect them from any lurking intruders. The Apache felt good around her. It was sleek and smooth compared to many other helicopters she’d flown. With a full load of ordnance on board, she felt the lethal power of it as well. At a flick of a switch on her collective, the stick between herlegs, she could send a fiery hell to earth in a matter of moments.
    As they rose to nine thousand feet, they suddenly popped out of the cloud cover. Above, Maya saw the familiar sight of the Southern Cross. She smiled a little at the peaceful looking stars as they glimmered across the ebony arc above them. And yet here they were in a cat-and-mouse game with killers who’d just as soon see them dead as alive. The incongruity of it all struck her.
    The helicopter dipped its nose forward as Maya poured in more power, and they swiftly moved along the top of the ever-moving clouds.
    “Beautiful out tonight,” Wild Woman murmured as she scanned her instruments carefully.
    “Yeah, it is,” Maya said. “I was just thinking how peaceful it looks up there, above us. And how Faro Valentino probably has his Russian merc pilots in their Kamovs hunting for us right now.”
    “Ain’t life a dichotomy?” Jess chuckled.
    Scowling, Maya kept