Free Heart Strike by M. L. Buchman

in front of a line of big hangars. Across from them, blinding in the sunlight despite her sunglasses, were four monstrous fixed-wing C-130 Hercules in white livery with an orange stripe, and a row of Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters in the same colors—Coasties called them Jayhawks, probably for their bright plumage. As a Delta operator, even during training, she was used to flying on the Night Stalkers’ versions of the Black Hawk, which were all painted pitch-black without even a unit designation on their sides.
    The flight had taken almost the same amount of time she’d been in Venezuela.
    It wasn’t quite that bad. She’d landed at eight a.m. and hadn’t left until after lunch, which was still ridiculously short for a new country and a new continent. She didn’t feel like a jet-setter at all; she felt much more closely related to a dirty dishrag.
    Over lunch in Venezuela she’d gotten to know the team a little. Most of it had been strictly social, rather than any mission recaps, as Fred had led them out to the hotel’s patio restaurant for lunch. At least the view had been good, overlooking the five-mile-wide outlet to the massive Lake Maracaibo.
    Richie had sat to one side of her, which had continued to frustrate Chad, and surprisingly, Carla had sat to the other. Richie had continued being thoughtful but awkward. Carla, even more surprisingly, had become polite and a little bit reserved. The change was so dramatic that Melissa hadn’t known what to make of her but had been too exhausted to pursue the matter.
    â€œWe were going to start your training here in Maracaibo,” Agent Smith had explained, “but decided that was too obvious. So we’ll finish it here.” And then he hadn’t elaborated at all.
    After lunch, still stuck in the “I (heart) Aruba” T-shirt because they kept moving her along faster than her brain could catch up and send her somewhere to change, she’d been returned to the Maracaibo airport and flown out to Clearwater, Florida.
    She’d slept for the two hours of the flight and felt as if she could use a couple dozen more. Actually, she wished she hadn’t slept at all. That wholly insufficient amount of sleep had given her body a chance to report how exhausted she truly was. Now it was complaining bitterly about having to move around again.
    The pilot came down behind them and pointed them toward the farthest hangar, of course, shimmering in the heat rising off the long stretch of asphalt. At least she hoped the heat was blurring the air and not melting the landscape like some Salvador Dalí painting.
    â€œWhy are we here again? I can’t remember.”
    â€œThat’s because they didn’t tell us.” Richie reached out and easily plucked her duffel off her shoulder.
    The sudden lightness almost did send her to the ground, as she staggered against a weight that was no longer there. If she hit the tarmac, she’d probably fry like an egg by the way the late afternoon’s heat was re-radiating off the surface. She grabbed the duffel back—Melissa always carried her own load.
    Richie looked a little bummed, Mr. Helpful stymied in his quest to be Mr. Way Too Helpful. So she gave him a pleasant, “Oh.” Then thought to expand it with, “That explains why I can’t remember.”
    â€œI can conjecture.”
    â€œGo for it,” she said, because her mind certainly wasn’t working on such matters. However, it was busy noticing that, despite being the tech guy, Richie had lifted her duffel easily. No matter his long and lean build, he was Delta strong. The Unit’s Selection Process and Operators Training Course didn’t favor the bulky. Wide-shouldered Chad was the largest man she’d ever seen in Delta and even he was barely six foot. But just because Richie was slender didn’t mean he could have survived the training if he wasn’t powerful. It was