Destiny's Woman. Lindsay McKenna

      Akiva was in her element here at the squadron. She’d thrived as a combat pilot and more than earned her keep. But now she was being asked to step into a command situation, and that was a whole other story. Not every officer had the capability, intelligence, sensitivity or desire to manage a base operation. If Akiva took the assignment, she’d be sorely challenged to develop new skills. Could she? Would she?

      Worst of all, Akiva’s prejudice against white men would be the test. Could Akiva lay her prejudice aside and treat everyone fairly, including her second-in-command, Joe Calhoun? Though Joe was half Comanche, Maya knew Akiva thought he was white. However, Maya decided not to bring this point up because Akiva had to learn to deal with not only white men, but men in general. Joe would be a real challenge to Akiva. Maya already knew that Joe realized Akiva would be a challenge to him. He already knew Akiva didn’t like him, but he didn’t understand why. It wasn’t Maya’s job to fix this. It was up to Akiva and Joe to hammer out a truce for the higher goal of the mission.

      “Let’s look at this possible assignment another way,” Maya said, purposely keeping her voice low and soothing. Ordinarily, she left the door to her office wide-open; it was one of her policies here at Black Jaguar—an open door to the C.O. so that everyone knew they counted and could walk in and speak to Maya whenever they had a problem. That plan had worked well, but today, Maya had closed the door. She knew about the explosion to come, and did not want Akiva embarrassed by her knee-jerk reaction to what would be asked of her.

      Opening her hands, Maya continued, “I’m asking more of you, Akiva, than I’ve ever asked before. This assignment is not about a guy named Joe Calhoun who has been chosen as your copilot and executive officer at this new base ops. It’s really a question of whether or not you want to take on a commanding officer’s role or not. You must rise above your personal prejudice. That is what a good C.O. does. Everyone should be treated equally and with respect.”

      Nostrils flaring again, Akiva felt an internal trembling from her gut up to her throat. She was breathing chaotically because she was upset. Her fists tightened on the fabric of her black, body-hugging Nomex flight suit. “I would go to hell and back for you, Maya. Anything you’ve ever asked of me, I’ve tried to do to the best of my ability.” Her voice broke. “If you gave me a woman copilot and X.O., I’d say without hesitation that yes, I’d try my best to be a leader. But you’re throwing this white guy into the equation. Isn’t it enough that it’s going to be damn dangerous, with a lot of stress on the three-person ground crew and two pilots involved? Why throw in white bread?”

      Mouth quirking, Maya said, “We don’t always get everything we want in life, Akiva. You know that better than most.”

      “No kidding.” Her voice grated as she exclaimed, “I want this assignment, Maya. I know I can do it. I just don’t what an anglo along for the ride and in my rear seat.”

      “Joe Calhoun is our best night operations pilot. He taught night ops back at Fort Rucker for the last two years. He’s here now, teaching all our pilots on the Apache Longbow upgrade. You even took training from him. You know how good he is at what he does. This little experiment in a bottle that the Pentagon wants us to undertake in Mexico in order to disrupt drug shipments across the Gulf to U.S. soil, is very important. The government is modeling this mission based on the success we’ve had down here in Peru, stopping cocaine shipments to Bolivia with our Apache gunships. Mexico is home to one of the big drug cartels. The Feds want to set up this base in the jungle—a place near what was once used by drug dealers as a touch-and-go ops to land and take on a lot of drugs. It’s the perfect locale for us to hide.

      “I want this black ops experiment to be successful, Akiva. I need you to rise above your own prejudice toward white men and look at the larger picture. Through our work here, we’ve halted fifty percent of the drugs flowing to Bolivia for shipment across the world. That’s fifty percent less on the world market. The Pentagon is finally interested in the plan that I initiated here years ago. At long last they’re willing to invest time, money and coordinated effort to see if they can apply what we’ve learned here elsewhere.”

      Maya got up and jabbed her finger at her colleague. “And you’re the best pilot for this, Akiva. I need your aggression, your nose for combat, your fearlessness because we don’t know what you’re up against once we get that Apache helo, that three-woman ground crew and your copilot set up in the jungle. I don’t want to see our years of hard work screwed up because you can’t get a handle on your prejudice.”

      Lips flattening, Akiva looked up at her C.O., who stood six feet tall in her black flight uniform. Maya’s ebony hair shone with reddish highlights beneath the fluorescent lights. Maya wore no insignias on her uniform—standard operating procedure for a black ops covert operation, so as not to reveal any hint of who they were or where they came from. Still, Maya was a powerful woman, and Akiva’s respect for her transcended her own anger and frustration.

      “Listen,” Akiva growled, “I don’t want to screw up your plans. I agree with them. I want to see what we’ve carved out here in the jungle put to use elsewhere, too. My gun sights are on the druggies. It does my heart good to turn them back or down ’em. Please…I don’t mean to be a pain in the butt about this. I know I am.”

      “Yes,” Maya said mildly, “you are definitely being a pain in the butt, Akiva.” She came around her desk and sat on the edge of it, facing the pilot. Placing her hands beside her, Maya let the tension in the room build along with the silence. Akiva’s jaw was set, her full mouth a slash as she struggled to suppress her emotions. One of the many things Maya appreciated about Akiva was that she was always a straight shooter and honest about her thoughts and feelings. That was okay as a pilot. But as a commanding officer, Akiva couldn’t afford to use bald, undiplomatic words with the people on her team; it would cause immediate problems for everyone.

      “You know, there’s a big difference between being a gunship pilot and being an officer in command of a base.”

      “I know that.” Her mouth puckered, her arched brows knitted, Akiva flashed her a frown as Maya regarded her thoughtfully. “And I feel I can do it.”

      Maya had her doubts. Pilots were a fraternity; and although they faced many stresses, not to mention outright danger, Maya knew from her own experience that it was easy to be a pilot than a manager of people.

      “You know, when I hatched the plan for the Black Jaguar Base ops at Fort Rucker, I was mad as hell at the army establishment, at the prejudicial way they were treating our company of women training for Apache gunship flight.”

      “You took your anger and did something proactive with it,” Akiva agreed in a low voice. She tried to relax. Sitting back, she folded her arms against her chest and crossed her legs. “And every one of us women were with you all the way on your concept for this base.”

      “Yes, that made it easy for me to get on with my plans.” Maya saw the defensiveness in Akiva’s body. The intent expression on her oval face and the predatory look in her flashing, gold-brown eyes told Maya that Akiva wasn’t really listening to her; she was still wrestling with the fact that Chief Warrant Officer Joe Calhoun was to be her second-in-command.

      “If you think that putting this ops into place was easy, Akiva, you’d be wrong. It wasn’t. I had never thought of myself as a C.O. All I wanted was to be allowed to fly combat and do what I loved most. I never entertained the idea of being here in this capacity, believe me.”

      Akiva looked up at Maya, her eyes flat with confusion. “Who else did you think would do it? You created this place, this idea, out of nothing. Sure, we all helped, but you were the guide. You’re the one who had the vision.”

      “Vision…hmm…Yes, that’s the right word to use here, Akiva.” Maya smiled slightly. “Among your people, the Apache, do you have vision quests? A ceremony where you don’t eat or drink for three to four days, and you pray to your spirits for guidance and help to reveal the future?”

      “Yes, we do.”

      “And you’ve gone on such vision quests?”

      “Growing