Destiny's Woman. Lindsay McKenna

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 up on the res, I did. Why?” Akiva was becoming uncomfortable. She saw that glint in Maya’s emerald eyes and sensed she was up to something. That got Akiva’s attention, for her superior was a woman of immense mystical powers. Oh, everyone in the BJS—Black Jaguar Squadron—talked about Maya’s secretive background. It was whispered that she was one of the elite Black Jaguar Clan, a group of mysterious and powerful spiritual warriors who kept a very low profile, yet were out there on the leading edge, fighting the darkness. Akiva believed those stories about Maya, because among her own people, the jaguar was a living spirit. At one time, in the Southwestern U.S., jaguars had roamed freely—until miners had killed them all off and made coats out of their beautiful black-and-gold skins. Often Akiva had wanted to ask Maya about her background, for the rumors about her and her healer sister, Inca, were well known at the base.

      “When was the last time you were on a quest?”

      Shrugging, Akiva muttered, “Five years ago, I suppose. Why?”

      “Aren’t vision quests about deprivation? You don’t drink water. You don’t eat. You starve your physical body in order to make it a receptacle so that spirit can come to you and give you a dream…a vision that will help you grow and become an even better warrior than you are now, right?”

      “Yes…” Akiva eyed Maya with growing distrust. She felt her C.O. heading toward some unknown goal with this unexpected maneuver in their conversation. She knew Maya’s mystical training had taken place among her people in Brazil, where she was born. Oh, Maya never talked about it, mysticism was not a common topic of conversation on the Black Jaguar Base. Daily combat missions and the interdiction of drug shipments was what their lives revolved around. So it was a big surprise that threw Akiva off balance when Maya started talking to her in an intimate, knowing tone about her own background and belief system. Native Americans had vision quests; it was one of the sacred rites they chose to undertake, sometimes on a yearly basis.

      It was a time of cleansing, a time to pray for healing of any bleeding wounds within them. And it was a brutal physical test, draining participants on the physical dimension in order to leave them open for spirit to speak to them—if they were fortunate enough to have that happen. An individual could go on a vision quest for four days and receive no vision, nothing. That was about the worst thing Akiva could imagine happening.

      “Where are you going with this little analogy?” she demanded huskily, watching her superior like a hawk. Akiva could feel the energy shift, change and become very solid around Maya. Akiva was not clairvoyant, but she had a kind of all-terrain radar that she called “blind faith knowing.” It had saved her butt many times out on gunship missions when deadly Black Shark Kamov helicopters, flown by Russian mercenary pilots paid by drug lords, had hunted her. She could sense the Kamovs before she ever saw them. Apache helicopters couldn’t pick up the radar signature on the Kamov, so all the pilots in the Black Jaguar Squadron had to more or less rely on their well-honed intuition to be able to feel the enemy out before the drug runners shot them out of the sky.

      Raising one eyebrow, Maya said quietly, “I want you to consider this new mission like a vision quest, Akiva. You will go in knowing there’s likely to be physical deprivation and emotional demands placed upon you that you aren’t sure you can deal with adequately or appropriately. In the process, there’s going to be surrender to a higher power, just like on a quest. You have a hatred of white men. You’re going into this vision quest with the opportunity to transcend your wounds by trying to rise above them.” Maya’s eyes glittered knowingly. “You’re going to have to put your people and the mission before your own personal pain. In a vision quest, you are asked to put all your personal feelings aside and concentrate on praying to the Great Spirit for guidance, support and help. This black ops mission is well beyond you in some ways, and we both know it. I’m putting my money on you—that you’ll transcend the fires, become better than you are presently, and grow into the job requirements. I’m not asking you to do anything more than you would in a vision quest, where the demands are just as brutal.”

      Akiva stared at Maya as her huskily spoken words went straight to her hurting heart. The truth behind them reverberated through her like an earthquake, and Akiva sensed the greater stage where this conflict was being played out, in the unseen worlds that surrounded them. She felt the importance of Maya’s words.

      “Joe Calhoun symbolizes your wound because he is a man,” Maya continued softly. “He didn’t cause your pain or your wounding, but because he’s a man, he becomes that for you, Akiva. He’s innocent in all of this. I’ll be having a similar meeting with him in a little while, to tell him he’s been selected for the black ops mission with you. Try to see him as an individual, not as the man or men who wounded you as a child growing up.”

      Akiva’s gold eyes flared with surprise. She’d never spoken to Maya—indeed, not to anyone—about her childhood. As she looked into her C.O.’s deep green eyes, she felt heat flow through her and touch her aching heart. Yes, she was scarred, deeply wounded by white men. But how did Maya know?

      Akiva thought better of asking. Maya was a medicine woman of her clan, and one simply did not go up and baldly ask how she knew a person’s mind and heart. Medicine people often knew the unknowable, for they could pierce the veils of mystery and see a person’s past as well as her present and future.

      Akiva shifted uncomfortably in her chair now that she knew Maya had seen her ugly, sordid past. Shame flowed through her, for she didn’t want anyone to know the torment and trauma she’d suffered and endured. The gentleness in Maya’s tone ripped off some of the scabs over that festering wound that consumed her heart and spirit. Akiva could better keep her defense in place against someone who yelled at her, than she could against compassion and nurturance. Her life, thus far, had not included such things, so she didn’t know how to deal with them.

      “Your entire life, Akiva, has been a vision quest. I know you understand this.”

      Wincing, Akiva jerked her gaze from Maya’s face to the tiled floor beneath her booted feet. She stared, unseeing, down at her highly polished combat boots, her black uniform blousing along the tops. Gulping, she gripped the arms of the chair. Red-hot pain gripped her heart. Her breathing deepened.

      Maya reached out and placed her СКАЧАТЬ