Ride the Thunder Page 4

  Rhona stood up, placed her hands on her hips and held his stormy green gaze. “That’s why I’m here. Why the hell are you standing there? To get more flight hours?” That was an insult and Rhona knew it.

  Anger sizzled through Nolan. Especially when he saw that they’d given her the rank of first lieutenant—the same as his. She was his equal in every way under military law. In fact, her rank made her a full-fledged pilot, so she wasn’t really his copilot. That meant her skills were commensurate to his, whether he liked to admit it or not.

  Running his fingers distractedly through his hair, he glared at her. “Climb down off your high horse, will you, McGregor? Okay, you’re my co. I don’t like it, but I’m not gonna argue any further under the circumstances.” He saw his crew chief, Corporal Tavis Burt, ambling toward them. “It’s time to turn and burn, McGregor. You say you know Hueys. Well, I’ll be watching your every move until I’m satisfied you know what the hell you’re doing in that cockpit with me. If you’ve been out six months, your skills are gonna be rusty. You just sit in that seat and I’ll do the flying. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a pretty bauble taking up space in my cockpit to fulfill military and FAA requirements, and that’s it. I don’t need you. I don’t need your help or your input. Got it?”

  A wave of hurt washed through Rhona. She stood there, digging her fingers into her hips to stop the anger from spilling out. The venom in his look, in his words, scalded her. She saw the crew chief, a young man with red hair and blue eyes, hurrying toward them.

  “Yeah, I hear you, Lieutenant Galway,” she said with gritted teeth.

  With a sharp nod of his head, he snarled, “Fine. Now make your walk-around, Lieutenant, and I’ll talk to my crew chief.”

  The bastard. Rhona allowed her tense hands to drop from her hips. The walk-around was a necessary component of flying. She had to look for hydraulic leaks, make sure that all surfaces were intact and that nothing was loose or leaking. Beginning at the nose, she slowly moved around the Huey, her hand skimming the fuselage almost lovingly as she checked out the bird.

  Trying to put Nolan Galway and his acidic hatred of her out of her mind, Rhona kept one ear tuned to the conversation between him and the soft-spoken, gangly crew chief, who looked to be in his midtwenties. Rarely did an aircraft have all instruments operational. There was always something that was down or needed to be fixed, but wasn’t essential to the act of flying. A crew chief went over those errors with the pilot, so he knew ahead of time that a button, knob or piece of software wasn’t working right. If it was bad enough, the bird would be grounded until the spare part could be replaced. As Rhona looked up to check the tail rotor of the Huey, she saw that the young crew chief had dark circles under his eyes. The realization that everyone was working long, arduous hours with little sleep hit her again.

  As she came around to the fuselage door, where the dark green nylon netting held the cargo in place, the crew chief looked up. When he approached her, saluted and came to attention, Rhona did the same.

  “At ease, Chief,” she murmured. “I’m Lieutenant McGregor. Nice to meet you.”

  He flushed. “Yes, ma’am, same here.”

  Rhona saw Galway enter the chopper through the door and work his way forward to the right seat, where the pilot sat. She focused her attention on the nervous crew chief. He had acne, which had scarred most of his face, leaving it pockmarked. Feeling for him, she smiled slightly.

  “What do I need to know about this Huey, Chief? What’s down with it?”

  “Well, ma’am,” the corporal said unhappily, “the navigation software is out. Totally.”

  Frowning, Rhona said, “That’s reason enough to ground this bird, Chief. Why haven’t you?”

  “Well…er, ma’am, Lieutenant Galway is the pilot and he has final say on whether or not it’s a go. He says he can do visuals and get to area six with no problem.”

  Glancing up at the dawn sky, Rhona saw that it was cloudy, and looked like rain. Rhona said nothing. The chief was right: the pilot would make the final determination on this. “Okay. So, I get to play navigator today. Is that it?”

  Flushing slightly, he gave her a soft smile. “Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so. Do you have any problems with that? Lieutenant Galway says you’ve been out of the navy for six months.”

  Holding on to her simmering anger, Rhona said, “Not a problem, Chief.” She took the clipboard and pen he was holding toward her and signed off on the flight status of the helicopter and the fact that navigation software was inoperable. “What’s the prognosis on getting this fixed, Chief?”

  Grimacing, he reclaimed the clipboard. “Not good, ma’am. I had my team look at it last night, about 0100, and it’s fried.”

  “That means you need to have new software installed?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it does.” Hitching his thin shoulders, he gave her a sad look. “Unfortunately, Ops has relegated such things to the back burner because of the need for live-and-die supplies comin’ into Camp Reed first.”

  “I see,” Rhona murmured sympathetically. She gave him a perfunctory smile. “Well, no problem. I’m sure Mr. Galway can fly his route with his eyes closed. Thanks for your help. We’ll see you on the return trip.”

  Coming to attention and saluting, the chief said, “Yes, ma’am! Thank you….” He backed off and went to untether the blades and remove the chocks from beneath the wheels.

  Climbing into the chopper, Rhona moved forward, squeezing past the cargo and between the two seats. The chief slid the door closed and locked it behind her. Nolan was busy, she saw, and sat down. The familiarity of harnessing up, getting her copilot checklist situated on her knee board, felt good. Around them, the world was waking up. More trucks arrived, their bellicose diesel voices echoing up and down the flight line. Up ahead, the first Huey of the ten in line took off, heading for the area it was to service. They were number six in line for takeoff.

  “Let’s get to it,” Nolan growled, indicating their checklist.

  “Fine.” Rhona sat ready, pencil in hand to tick off each item.

  Nolan purposely ran through the preflight list fast. If he thought she was going to be slow or stupid, he was wrong. Her hand flew knowingly over each knob, each switch on the instrument panel. She was graceful, each movement flowing into the next. Only a pilot who had flown the Huey for a long time had that kind of familiarity with the location of each item in the cockpit. Well, maybe McGregor wasn’t as inept as he’d feared, after all, but he wasn’t about to hand the chopper over to her. No, as far as Nolan was concerned, she was nothing more than a hood ornament in that left seat, there only because of military and FAA flight regulations.

  “Where’s your flak vest?” he demanded, setting his notebook in a net pocket behind his seat.

  Frowning, Rhona realized he had on a flak vest, plus a .45 pistol in a black leather holster strapped across his chest.

  “They didn’t issue me one.”

  “Great.” He sat there stewing. Should he make her go get a vest and pistol, or just take off? Shaking his head, he muttered, “When we get back, get your butt over to Supply and get a vest and pistol.”

  “Fine, I will.”

  “It’s dangerous out there, McGregor. You look like Miss Innocence and I know the world’s probably a fluffy pink bubble to you, but out there—” he jabbed his index finger toward the Plexiglas cockpit window “—is trouble with a capital T. The area I fly into is a Latino barrio. The people there are nice enough, but with a lack of supplies, I’m not sure how long it will be before gang warfare breaks out. If we run into any trouble on this flight mission, you’re going to wish you had that vest and pistol.” He turned and looked at her. “You can go get it now. I’ll make the flight and come back and pick you up.”

  He was trying to intimidate her. “I’m touched by your concern, Lieutenant, but I think you got this backward. You can’t fly without me in this seat and you know it.”

  Shrugging, he muttered, “No one will know. J
ust you and me.”

  Rhona glared at him. “And you don’t think I’ll tell Ops, is that it? Are you setting me up to be the fall person here, Lieutenant? You know that if I do report that you’re flying this bird alone, they’ll can your butt. But that will also make me out to be a stool pigeon. How convenient.”

  Nolan saw the anger and hurt in her huge gray eyes. His conscience ate at him. McGregor was probably a nice enough woman. But he simply didn’t want her in his cockpit. “Yeah…okay…so sit there. But when we land, you stay in this bird. You do not get out of it. That’s an order. You hear me?”

  “I hear you, Lieutenant. Loud and clear.”

  Three

  January 8: 0610

  Nolan tried to ignore Rhona’s whiskey-soft voice as she called in to the tower for clearance to take off. The Huey was shaking and shuddering around them, and the vibration felt comforting to him. Right now, he was tense with her in his cockpit. Yet, grudgingly, he acknowledged so far she’d done everything she was supposed to flawlessly, and with the touch of a professional.

  Glancing at her out the corner of his eye, he saw the sharpness of her profile. She almost looked Indian to him, with that slightly curved, thin nose. Her skin was indeed golden-toned. And she had high cheekbones and black hair. But her eyes were gray. Maybe a half-breed? Nolan mentally corrected himself. He shouldn’t be thinking like that. It was a derogatory term, and it could get him in a lot of trouble with his superiors if he ever said it aloud. The last thing he needed was to be hauled up on racial or sexual harassment charges. Flying with a woman was going to force him to watch what he said, because he was used to working with men who shared a common understanding.

  “Ready for takeoff?” Rhona asked him. She repositioned the microphone near her lips. The helmet she wore was one from the pilot ready room, and didn’t fit her as well as she’d like, but now was not the time to ask to have a helmet made for her. Most pilots had helmets shaped and fitted to their skull, making them comfortable to wear for long hours.

  Rhona drew down the dark shield that covered the upper half of her face as the sun peeked above the horizon before them. She noted Galway did the same.

  “Roger. Ready for takeoff.” He notched up the engine power on the Huey.

  The familiar swift shuddering as the chopper’s blades whirled faster and faster was thrilling to Rhona. She sat with her gloved hands on her thighs. Doubting that Nolan was going to trust her to do anything in the cockpit, she relaxed and decided to memorize their flight route.

  The Huey lifted off and nosed down slightly as Galway coaxed the dark green helicopter up and forward. Ahead of them, Rhona could see the five other Hueys that had already lifted off. After they cleared Camp Reed airport airspace, they looked like a long line of geese in flight. Then, one by one, each banked and flew off to their assigned area within the quake zone.

  “Each helo has a specific area assigned to it?” Rhona asked.

  Nolan nodded. “Yeah. I have area six. It’s a two-square-mile piece of southern L.A. real estate in a Latino barrio.”

  She noticed he said “I” and not “we.” Rhona didn’t like the fact that he was trying to freeze her out. Stung once again, but saying nothing about it, she offered, “You want me to figure out the navigation for you?”

  “No. I can fly this route blindfolded.” His heart sped up. Rhona McGregor was saying and doing all the right things a co would do for a pilot. He saw her full lips tighten. She was gazing around as he leveled off at three thousand feet.

  “Looks like rain coming.” Rhona lifted her gloved hand and pointed in the direction they were flying. Below them, the undulating sandy, sage-brush-covered hills of Camp Reed were a blur. Ahead, Rhona could see the first signs of civilization, where the military reservation ended and the crowded suburbs of Los Angeles began. The houses made her think of rats in a maze: too many people in too small an area.

  “What did meteorology say?” Nolan demanded, frowning at the dark gray scud that obliterated part of the western horizon. Had Rhona gotten the weather report? A good co would have.

  “Weather desk said eighty percent chance of rain by 1400. Right now, we’ve got a cold front coming through. It’s a fast one, with a pretty hefty lowering of the barometric pressure.”

  “Yeah,” Nolan grumbled, “I can feel the wind tugging at her.”

  Smiling to herself, Rhona noticed he referred to the Huey he flew as a “her.” That wasn’t uncommon. Most men considered the aircraft they flew as feminine. She didn’t. To her, it was a “he.” The different gender dynamics were interesting, she mused.

  “It’s 0625 now,” Nolan said. “If I get help from the people in the barrio, which I usually do when I land, they’ll off-load this bottled water and we can do a quick turnaround.”

  “This cargo is going to supply enough water for a two-square-mile area filled with people?” Rhona glanced back at the cargo anchored solidly beneath the olive-drab nylon netting.

  Snorting, Nolan said, “Hell no! We can’t even begin to get enough water in to them. There’s a ground crew going in there today, a sergeant and a squad of marines. They’re going to set up an H.Q. in the barrio, try to figure out numbers of people, their needs and medical status. At the moment, however, I’m the only link they’ve got to the outside world.”

  Groaning, Rhona murmured, “That must be awful for them.”

  He glanced at her. “It’s not a pretty sight. People are hungry. They’re scared. They feel naked and vulnerable out there. There’s civil unrest, but with no police department to speak of, the place is in chaos. That’s why we wear flak vests and carry a weapon.” She was looking at him with soulful and compassionate eyes. Beautiful eyes, Nolan decided. The kind a man could drown in. Although her features were sharply defined, he found her arrestingly attractive. A strand of black hair had escaped near her temple and was peeking out from beneath the helmet she wore. The maddening urge to lift his hand and tuck that lock back into place with his finger surprised the hell out of Nolan. He didn’t want her in his cockpit. He didn’t want a female copilot at all. Yet, from a masculine standpoint, he was reacting powerfully to her quiet, unassuming presence.

  Scowling, he decided it was because she was a woman. Just being around one, Nolan found himself wanting to open up and talk. He had to continually stop himself from indulging in the normal chatter he had in the cockpit. Usually, he had some jokes to share, stories and small talk. But not today. And certainly not with her. Maybe if he could make her uncomfortable enough, not allow her to do anything except sit there, she’d get the hint and ask for a transfer to another pilot’s Huey.

  Of course, he might not get a replacement for her, Nolan calculated. Joyce had said that it would be no less than three days before a slate of fresh helicopter pilots could be flown in to help in relief efforts. Until then, Nolan might be stuck with her. Damn. Too bad she was so cocksure. There wasn’t a shred of hesitancy in Rhona McGregor. She obviously knew what she was doing.

  “So, is there gunplay where we’re going?” Rhona now wished she’d gotten a flak vest and pistol. On their return trip, she’d hitch a ride over to Supply and pick them up. For sure.

  “So far, no,” Nolan said. He banked the Huey as they flew over hills covered with homes. The wind was gusty, which was typical when a front was coming through. The gray, scudding clouds in the west were moving swiftly toward them. Behind them, the sun had risen and was peeking shyly from between the long filaments of clouds. It was a depressing-looking day compared to the normally sunny California weather.

  Rhona realized she was going to have to ask a lot of questions to get answers about their flight route and landing area. Nolan wasn’t going to volunteer anything. If she were a man, he’d probably be a chatterbox. Anger flared again. Yet when he spoke, she heard the concern in his voice for the people they were flying to help. She also saw it in the way the corners of his full mouth quirked. He might be a male chauvinist pig, a Neanderthal, but he did care. That was a point
on the good side of Nolan Galway, as far as Rhona was concerned. She noticed how his hands wrapped around the cyclic and collective, the gentle touch he had with them. He wasn’t one of those pilots that jerked a helicopter around, was rough or heavy-handed. No, he was smooth as a good sip of fruit brandy sliding down her throat after a long, hot day in the cockpit of her crop-dusting chopper. Rhona didn’t want to like him, because of his demeanor toward her, but she did admire his desire to help people in need. Maybe he wasn’t the villain she’d first thought. Maybe, with time, he’d settle down and accept her as a partner, a member of his team.

  Below, the expensive, red-tile-roofed homes began to disappear, replaced by stucco houses in bright pastel colors, with brown roofing. All of them had been flattened and dismantled by the quake.

  “See that dried-up square of yellow grass at two o’clock?” he said.

  Squinting, Rhona saw the rectangular area—a kind of plaza with houses squeezed around it. “Yes.”

  “That’s the barrio’s softball field. Doesn’t look like much because there’s been little rain this year, but that’s where we land. Señor Manuel Gonzalez is the senior man in the barrio. He’s responsible for getting the people to work together as a team. Nice old gentleman. Probably in his eighties. He’s got pure white hair and wears thick glasses. The ol’ gent can barely see, but he’s got a heart as big as this basin. And he’s a natural leader. The people love him, respect him.” Nolan smiled briefly as he eased the Huey down to a thousand feet, approaching the baseball diamond. “I’m lucky he’s there. He’s set a schedule of who gets what, and when. Everyone lets him do this. They realize he’s fair, and everyone gets something.” Mouth quirking, Nolan muttered, “And it isn’t much. The people have pretty much gone through all their canned foodstuffs and are now going hungry.”