Target Engaged by M. L. Buchman Page A

it; they never questioned him about that. It was a giddy feeling, being able to shape such an elite force to the mission at hand.
    Richie had tried to tag him with “Bond.” Chad had shot for “Superman,” based on Kyle’s last name, which Duane had immediately rejected with a suggestion of “Clark Kent” because “ain’t Kyle so purty and nice?”
    Carla was the one who finally tagged him with the simple “Mister Kyle,” as if he were in the Avengers TV show and she was his pretty and dangerous sidekick. She’d rejected “Ms. Peel” by knocking Chad back on his ass when he suggested it. Instead, his prone epithet of “Wild Woman” had been what stuck, because she could unleash “wild” big-time when that’s what was needed.
    For all her attitude, Carla never questioned Kyle either. She was simply a fantastically creative weapon that he could aim and fire with no question of her ability to deliver every time. In planning, in operations…and in bed.
    They’d been sleeping together for half a year—sharing a place just off base when they were here at Fort Bragg—and oddly, he knew her less well than most women he’d slept with.
    She had proven herself as capable as Kyle or any of the guys. Any lack in upper body strength was more than compensated for with sheer tenacity. And in bed she always packed a sexual fire that burned him up in the very best ways.
    He studied her sidelong, but nothing stood out, other than being an exceptionally beautiful woman. But despite giving selflessly to the team and to him personally, it was almost as if she wasn’t there.
    Then she turned and caught his inspection, and he knew he was being an idiot. Her frank look showed a woman who was one hundred percent present and accounted for. It must be the jags of coming off the live shoot that were confusing him.
    Yet he’d had such thoughts before. Or he was losing his mind. Always a possibility.
    They were done with the Operator Training Course. There would be plenty of specialty training, on top of the never-ending general training of Delta. But none of them knew what came next.
    And they certainly looked out of place here, every one of them.
    The airplane’s first class shoot room was somewhat the worse for wear, but the maintenance guys were pretty good at putting it back together each time the trainees tore it apart. So here they sat in a room that could have been comfortably cruising at thirty thousand feet, dressed in tight-fitting black and wearing enough live ammo to take down a dozen shoot rooms. They sat as comfortably in vests loaded with magazines and with HK416 suppressor-equipped, night-vision-scoped rifles across their laps as real first class fliers did with their whiskey miniatures and tablet computers.
    â€œYou’re only the second one ever to notice the vent system.” Colonel Gibson opened the conversation.
    Carla hesitated and then nodded. “And you were the first. I was wondering how you guessed I was there. As we walked the hallway, I found myself wondering how smoke is cleared out of the rooms without any windows.”
    â€œI spotted the vents clearing the smoke during the initial demonstration. Happened to have blinked my eyes closed and turned away when the flash-bang went off. Spent six months waiting for a chance to use that fact.”
    She stuck her tongue out at the Colonel, who laughed softly. Colonel Gibson didn’t look as if he was someone who did that very often.
    Kyle could see the others exchanging looks. He agreed with them. “Wild Woman” was the most out-of-the-box thinker they had. None of them had thought about how the room itself functioned.
    â€œAs you are no doubt aware,” Gibson resumed, “the operational tempo at Delta has never been higher. After twenty years of mostly being called to the point of launch and then receiving mission aborts, The Unit has been on