Read Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of Stone for Free Online Page B

officer for the base operations, raised her dark brown brows as she looked across the wooden floor at Maya’s pitiful excuse for a work area—a dark green metal, military issue desk that was battered from years of use. Maya was pouring over several maps spread across it, her face intense, her hand on her chin as she studied them.
    “What? Oh….” Maya looked up. She nodded to Dallas. Glancing down at the watch on her left wrist, she blew a breath of air in consternation. “Yeah, it’s time all right.”
    Dallas moved inside the office and shut the door. She was dressed in the uniform of the day—a black, body-fitting Nomex fire retardent flight suit. Her black flight boots gleamed in the fluorescent light from a fixture above the desk. Running her fingers briskly through her short sable hair, she met Maya’s gaze. “Did you sleep at all?”
    “What do you think?” Maya grimaced, then straightened and opened her arms, stretching languidly like a large cat. “I’ve got the nightmare from hell visiting us for six weeks. I couldn’t catch a wink.” Maya quickly wrapped her loose ebony hair into a chignon at the nape of her neck placing a thick rubber band around her tresses to keep them in place.
    “Hmm.”
    “You aren’t upset about York coming?” Maya took her knee board, which she used to write things down if she needed it, and strapped it to her right thigh with Velcro. She reached into a glass sitting on her desk and took out several pens, placing them in the left upper sleeve of her uniform.
    “Upset? Yeah. Lose sleep over the guy? Not a chance.” She grinned wolfishly.
    “You Israelis are one tough lot,” Maya grumped. “Has Penny got the coffee on in the mess hall? I desperately need a cup before we take off.”
    “Yeah, everyone’s up and around,” Dallas murmured as she opened the door for her C.O. “ Edgy is the word I’d use….”
    Maya grinned tiredly. “Edgy? As in on edge dancing on the edge of a sword? No kidding. Come on, I need my intravenous of java before we blow this joint and meet our male comrades in arms.”
    Chuckling, Dallas, who at five foot eleven inches was almost as tall as her C.O., followed Maya down the dimly lit hall of the two-story building. Their headquarters sat deep in a cave, well hidden from any prying eyes that might try and find the complex. Maya grabbed her helmet on the way, stuffed her black Nomex gloves into it and then picked up her chicken plate, which was the name for the bullet proof vest they each wore when they flew a mission. Though they were normally called flak jackets, the army slang name was more commonly used.
    Maya moved rapidly down the stairs and out the door. If not for the lights hung far above them on the cave’s ceiling, finding their way out of the place would be impossible. Familiar sounds—the clink of tools, the low murmurs of women’s voices from themaintenance area—soothed Maya’s fractious nervousness. She felt wired—and suspected it was because she would have to meet her worst enemy today.
    “You’re jumpy,” Dallas observed, coming up and matching her long stride. “You sensing something?”
    With an explosive laugh, Maya said, “Oh, yeah. Trouble with a capital T in the form of Major Dane York. How’s that for a mouthful, Klein?”
    Chuckling, Dallas opened the door to the Quonset hut structure that housed the mess hall and kitchen facility. “Mmm, it’s more than that. You usually get this way when you smell Kamovs around.”
    As Maya made her way into the small mess hall which was lined with a series of long picnic tables made of metal and wood, she saw that about half of her crews were up and eating an early breakfast. She called to them, lifting her hand in greeting, and then picked up a metal tray to go through the chow line. The flight crews had been up and working for several hours. There was ordnance to load on the Apaches, fuel to be put on board and a massive amount of software to be checked out to