This bird was a working one, though. Used for combat. It was set up for insertions, with benches along the back and side, and a matted open interior to carry extra men and equipment. The straps at arm’s length along the wall were a dead giveaway that this chopper had seen some action. You needed something to grab hold of to stabilize yourself when the pilot banked hard to the right or left.
At the moment, rather than ferrying a team into battle, the chopper was full of sleeping civilians. Amy Chastain had taken the back bench. She was sitting in the middle, her head tilted back against the wall, with a child curled on either side using her thighs as pillows. Someone had handed out blankets, and periodically she’d stir, check on her sons, and drag the blankets back up to their necks. Not that her ministrations did much good; within seconds the vibrations traveling through the walls and floor rattled the cloth back down the slope of their shoulders. But he had to hand it to her. At least she tried to tend to her kids—she tried over and over again. She was determined to keep her kids warm and safe.
Something softened in his chest, went disgustingly gooey.
Scowling, he dragged his gaze away and scanned the rest of the refugees. Because that’s what they were now, fucking refugees. Estranged from their government and country. The country that he’d given the best years of his life to.
He nipped that line of thought in the bud, since all it did was lead to heartburn.
At the moment, Marion and Kait were sound asleep—Marion curled on the side bench and Kait on the floor beside it, her cheek pillowed on Cos’s shoulder. He, along with the rest of the men, sat along the walls, either dozing or stoically waiting with eyes closed and bodies relaxed.
Oddly, the atmosphere inside the bird was eerily familiar. It had the same sense of exhausted relief and anticipation that accompanied an evac after a mission. The relief that you’d made it through one more mission alive, relatively unscathed. The anticipation of returning to base, sleeping in your own bed, eating something that wasn’t out of a tube or a pouch.
Not that they were returning to his base, or that he’d be sleeping in his own bed.
And that was the whole fucking problem, wasn’t it? He had no Goddamn clue where they were headed. The tension inside him tightened a notch. It would be nice if he could see out a damn window and pinpoint what direction they were headed: east, west? Were they over water? Land? Mountains?
But like all working birds, this one’s windows were reserved for the cockpit. From his current position, all he could see was the dense black of night out the windows in front.
Wolf was sitting across from him, his back against the wall, head back, eyes closed. He looked like he was getting a nice nap in. Mac rolled onto his knees and crawled across the matted floor. Once he was close enough, he kicked the warrior’s huge boots and settled next to him. The big bastard didn’t open his eyes, but Mac caught the sudden tension in previously loose muscles, indicating consciousness.
“Near as I can figure it, we’re closing in on five and a half hours in flight. I won’t ask what kind of speed and fuel capacity this bird has.” Mostly because he knew the annoying bastard wouldn’t satisfy his curiosity. Mac wouldn’t if their positions were reversed.
“Wise of you,” Wolf murmured without opening his eyes.
Asshole. Mac’s mouth quirked.
“You could at least fill us in on where we’re headed.”
“I could . . .” Wolf agreed, his voice trailing off.
Mac grunted in irritation. He considered kicking the asshole again. It wouldn’t loosen the guy’s tongue, but it would give Mac some satisfaction. “How much longer?”
Christ, I sound like one of Amy’s kids.
“As long as it takes.”
Which could mean anything from a minute to a fucking week. Knowing he wouldn’t get anything more from the bastard, Mac settled back against the wall to wait.
It turned out that Wolf’s “as long as it takes” boiled down to ten minutes. Suddenly the chopper’s speed subsided. After a few seconds it slowed even further and banked to the right, straightened out, and dropped.
Wolf’s men stirred and stretched. Mac could hear the pilot talking into his comm, but the words were garbled by engine vibrations and the beat of the rotor. He stretched up against the wall, trying to get a glimpse out the cockpit windows. But all he could see was a ring of mountain peaks breaking through the milky glow of dawn. Without any reference points, those peaks were impossible to identify.
There wasn’t much sense in standing and losing his balance if the bird suddenly banked, not when his boots would be hitting the ground soon enough anyway. He’d wait until the ground was stable beneath his feet before launching a recon and identifying where the hell they’d been taken.
As the bird settled on the ground, he expected Wolf’s men to rise in anticipation of departing the cramped interior. But nobody moved. The rotor slowed, slowed even more. Still no movement from anyone in the bird. The engine died, and blades went still.
But nobody moved a fucking muscle.
What the hell?