LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d been in the loading area with his platoon, piling food, water and medicine into the choppers, when his sergeant, Sean O’Hara, had ordered him to go see Morgan at 0600.

      Turning now, Quinn headed up the stairs to the second floor, where Logistics, the heart and brains of Operation Sky Lift, was located, and where Morgan had an office. En route Quinn passed a number of office types descending rapidly, their hands filled with files and, more than likely, orders.

      Pushing the stairwell door open and striding forward, Quinn located Morgan’s office halfway down the passageway, which was also crowded with busy personnel. Tension was high; he could feel it. Shrugging his broad shoulders, as if to rid himself of the accumulated stress he felt in the building, Quinn halted in front of the open door and rapped once with his knuckles. Morgan Trayhern was behind the green metal desk, head down, writing a set of orders for a woman officer in a flight uniform. Quinn saw the black wing insignia sewn into the fabric of her suit and knew instantly that she was probably a helo pilot.

      Morgan lifted his head. His scowl faded. “Quinn! Great, you’re here. Come in.” He raised his hand and beckoned him into the office. “I’ll be just a moment.”

      “Yes, sir,” Quinn said. He took a step inside and stood at attention. The woman pilot, a Marine Corps captain, nodded toward him.

      “Ma’am. Good morning.”

      “Good morning, Corporal. At ease, please,” she said.

      Quinn nodded and relaxed into an at-ease stance behind her, near the wall. “Yes, ma’am.”

      “You had coffee yet, Quinn?” Morgan rumbled as he signed the second and third sets of orders before him.

      “No, sir.” Quinn kept his helmet, which was splotched with desert camouflage colors of yellow, brown and gray, beneath his left elbow and against his hip. He noticed Morgan was dressed in civilian attire—jeans and a red, long-sleeved cotton shirt with the cuffs rolled up to just below his elbows. He looked out of place in the marine-green office.

      Gesturing to his right, Morgan said with a grin, “Grab a cup of java, then. I managed to scrounge up my very own coffeemaker. A rarity, you know. Help yourself, Son.”

      Quinn smiled slightly and moved toward the machine. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

      Blowing out a breath of air, Morgan put the pen aside and gave the thick set of orders to the helicopter pilot. “There you go, Captain Jackson. Congratulations. You and your copilot are now responsible for Area Six. We’ve transferred the other team to Area Five.

      “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. We’ll do a good job.”

      Morgan smiled up at her. Captain Jackson was in her middle twenties, with short black hair, intense gray eyes and a sincere face that was currently filled with excitement. H.Q. had just gotten a whole new batch of helicopter pilots transferred in yesterday from other Marine Corps bases around the U.S. Having new pilots on board would give the hardworking helo crews stationed at Camp Reed a desperate and much-needed rest from the twelve-hour days they’d been putting in for the last two weeks. Pilots could fly only so long without sufficient rest and recoup time before they began making critical mistakes. Jackson was one of many personnel scheduled to come to Morgan’s office today for orders.

      “Good luck out there, Captain.” Morgan rose. “And be careful, you hear? Things are unstable right now. We’ve already had a helicopter crew murdered by a survivalist group in Area Five.”

      She came to attention. “Yes, sir, we’ll be careful. Thank you, sir.”

      “Dismissed,” Morgan murmured. He stood and watched the woman, who was nearly six feet tall, big boned and athletic, turn on her heel and quickly march out the door. Swiveling his head, Morgan gave Quinn Grayson a warm look. The corporal had just poured a cup of coffee. Moving to the machine, Morgan poured himself one, too.

      “Come with me, Quinn. Now is about the only time today I might get to see Laura. You remember my wife?”

      “Yes, sir, I do.” He sipped the coffee tentatively. It was fresh and hot, and he savored it. “She’s here, too?” How could that be? Quinn knew Laura lived in Montana, near the headquarters Morgan kept for Perseus in Philipsburg. Quinn and his fire team had been selected to be part of two different Perseus rescue missions in Iraq, where pilots were that had been shot down in the No Fly Zone earlier in the year. He and his team had been flown back to the secret headquarters in Philipsburg, an out-of-the-way place only a few tourists and trout fishermen found in the summer. It was a perfect hiding spot, Quinn had thought. He’d met Morgan’s lovely blond-haired wife there by accident, when she’d brought over recently baked cookies for all of them. It was a thoughtful gesture that was as surprising as it was unexpectedly generous. Quinn had relished his share of the chocolate-chip cookies, and so had his grateful men. He had found Laura to be beautiful, elegant and sensitive. Quinn thought Morgan was the luckiest man in the world to have a wife like that. Cookies during a briefing. He’d never get that in the Marine Corps. No, he liked working with Morgan and Perseus. But he wondered how Morgan’s wife had wound up in the midst of this disaster.

      “We were at a hotel in south Los Angeles, celebrating New Year, when the quake hit,” Morgan explained as they left the office and headed down the stairs. “Laura was trapped in wreckage.” At the bottom of the stairs, Morgan pushed open the door. Gesturing toward the end of the passageway, he took quick strides toward it. Quinn, who was six foot tall, and shorter than Morgan, had to lengthen his stride to keep up with him.

      “Your wife was trapped?” he asked with a scowl as they moved out the doors and into the brightening day. The sun was going to rise soon and already the darkness of the night had fled.

      “Yeah,” Morgan muttered. “Thank goodness a Marine Corps rescue officer and her dog located Laura.”

      “Is she all right, sir?” They hurried down the stairs toward the hospital a block away. The world around them was already in high gear. The shrieking whine of jets at the nearby airport filled the air, along with the deeper chugging sounds of diesel truck convoys loaded with supplies lumbering across the base. A whole fleet of helicopters were taking off one by one, hotfooting it out of Camp Reed with the first supplies of the day for desperate people across the disaster area.

      Quinn drew abreast of Morgan as he walked swiftly toward the hospital.

      “Laura suffered a broken ankle. She had surgery here. Then, shortly after the surgery, she developed a blood clot. They had to string up her leg with a pulley, and she was tied down like a roping calf.” Morgan grinned wryly. “My wife is not one to lie in bed all day and do nothing. We had to wait until some blood-thinning drugs were flown in from Seattle for her.” He rubbed his hands together. “Today, she gets out of her contraption and into a wheelchair. The doctor says the clot is dissolved and her ankle is stable enough for her to be a little more active.”

      “Almost two weeks in a bed would drive me nuts,” Quinn muttered. It would. He was restless by nature, and loved the outdoors and the strenuous activity demanded of marines.

      “Yes, well…” Morgan chuckled “…if it hadn’t been for a tiny baby the team rescued from beneath the rubble, Laura would never have survived bed rest. She’s been taking care of Baby Jane Fielding for the nurses. And the hospital staff bring up other infants so Laura can hold them and bottle-feed them. They’ve been keeping her busy.”

      Quinn smiled knowingly. There was no doubt about Laura’s maternal side. He liked that about women in general, although in his world, he saw mostly women marines, with tough, demanding jobs. Still, he saw that nurturing side in many of them, too. It was something he enjoyed about women, in or out of the service.

      They hurried into the chaotic, busy hospital and up an elevator. Quinn was glad to escape the bustle once they arrived at the private room where Laura Trayhern sat in her wheelchair, an infant wrapped in a pink blanket in her arms.

      “Hello, Quinn.” Laura greeted him warmly as he approached. “You look well.”

      “Thank you, ma’am,”

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