Combat

One Julie Giraud was crazy as hell. I knew that for an absolute fact, so I was contemplating what a real damned fool I was to get mixed up in her crazy scheme when I drove the Humvee and trailer into the belly of the V-22 Osprey and tied them down. I quickly checked the stuff in the Humvee's trailer, made sure it was secure, then walked out of the Osprey and across the dark concrete ramp. Lights shining down from the peak of the hangar reflected in puddles of rainwater. The rain had stopped just at dusk, an hour or so ago. I was the only human in sight amid the tiltrotor Ospreys parked on that vast mat. They looked like medium-sized transports except that they had an engine on each wingtip, and the engines were pointed straight up. Atop each engine was a thirty-eight-foot, three-bladed rotor. The engines were mounted on swivels that allowed them to be tilted from the vertical to the horizontal, giving the Ospreys the ability to take off and land like helicopters and then fly along in winged flight like the turboprop transports they really were. I stopped by the door into the hangar and looked around again, just to make sure, then I opened the door and went inside. The corridor was lit, but empty. My footsteps made a dull noise on the tile floor. I took the second right, into a ready room. The duty officer was standing by the desk strapping a belt and holster to her waist. She was wearing a flight suit and black flying boots. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun. She glanced at me. "Ready?" "Where are all the security guards?" "Watching a training film. They thought it was unusual to send everyone, but I insisted." "I sure as hell hope they don't get suspicious." She picked up her flight bag, took a last look around, and glanced at her watch. Then she grinned at me. "Let's go get 'em." Thatwas Julie Giraud, and as I have said, she was crazy as hell. Me, I was just greedy. Three million dollars was a lot of kale, enough to keep me in beer and pretzels for the next hundred and ninety years. I followed this ding-a-ling bloodthirsty female along the hallway and through the puddles on the ramp to the waiting Osprey. Julie didn't runshe strode purposefully. If she was nervous or having second thoughts about committing the four dozen felonies we had planned for the next ten minutes, she sure didn't show it. The worst thing I had ever done up to that point in my years on this planet was cheat a little on my income taxno more than average, though-and here I was about to become a co-conspirator in enough crimes to keep a grand jury busy for a year. I felt like a condemned man on his way to the gallows, but the thought of all those smackers kept me marching along behind ol' crazy Julie. We boarded the plane through the cargo door, and I closed it behind us. Julie took three or four minutes to check our cargo, leaving nothing to chance. I watched her with grudging respectcrazy or not, she looked like a pro to me, and at my age I damn well didn't want to go tilting at windmills with an amateur. When she finished her inspection, she led the way forward to the cockpit. She got into the left seat, her hands flew over the buttons and levers, arranging everything to her satisfaction. As I strapped myself into the right seat, she cranked the left engine. The RPMs came up nicely. The right engine was next. As the radios warmed up, she quickly ran through the checklist, scanned gauges, and set up computer displays. I wasn't a pilot; everything I knew about the V-22 tiltrotor Osprey came from Julie, who wasn't given to long-winded explanations. If was almost as if every word she said cost her money. While she did her pilCoonts, Stephen is the author of 'Combat' with ISBN 9780812576160 and ISBN 0812576160.