Close Quarters (15 page)

Well, at least that humiliating moment would be worth something. Though how anyone was supposed to know about it since no one besides the soldiers and she and Fleur had been in the building at the time, she couldn't guess.

And then she remembered the security guard. He'd gone to the dining hall for food during the surgery on the Marine and returned sometime later. The story of her “illness” was probably already spreading around the compound, despite the fact she'd spent the afternoon giving children vaccinations.

Gritting her teeth against the annoying reality that right now the only person with the answers she needed was Roman, Tanya turned back to him. “Where are you taking me?”

“We'll hike south toward Zimbabwe's border with South Africa. I have contacts there who can get us transportation home. If I can get them to come across the border, we'll arrange a meet. Otherwise, we'll have to make our own way and connect with them in South Africa. As long as the kill order is in place, regular military or government channels aren't safe.”

“I've always wanted to see more of South Africa.” Though the idea of walking there was pretty daunting. She liked to camp as much as the next person, but this was serious travel without so much as a pack mule.

Kadin smiled at her, his eyes warm with approval. Roman's were filled with something else entirely and it wasn't anything she wanted to acknowledge, so she turned away from him toward Fleur.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Fleur shook her head and laughed in patent disbelief, but very little humor. “I'm not in danger of a sniper's bullet.”

“But they'll come here, looking for me.” That's what Roman and Ben were counting on, wasn't it?

“I'll keep Fleur safe,” Ben promised with an expression that cheered Tanya despite the hellacious day she'd had.

She met him square in the eye. “You better do right by her.”

“I plan on it.”

Fleur made a
pfft
sound, but Tanya saw the happiness glowing in the other woman's eyes, regardless of the danger and the day's revelations.

“You keep her safe,” Fleur said to Roman, her expression devoid of all the warmth it had had a second ago.

“That's the plan.”

Tanya wanted to ask why he was set on protecting her, but she wasn't sure she wanted the answer, so she didn't say anything at all.

“Take a nap. You'll need your energy tonight,” he said to her.

She nodded and turned to leave the room, feeling that her entire life was on the verge of irrevocable change. And not for the better.

 

They left the compound in the small hours of the morning, after the moon had set. Tanya had insisted on carrying her own light pack on her back, despite the now sore incision below her shoulder blade.

Roman had grumbled, but in the end he had allowed it. He, Kadin and Neil carried bigger packs, and they were fully armed.

The three men had blackened their faces, and then Kadin had helped her do hers. Roman had been watching the whole time, his expression one she couldn't begin to read. And frankly, right now, she didn't really want to.

It was hard to believe how quietly the men moved, considering their size, and the amount of weapons they carried, not to mention their packs. They also never tripped, no matter how dark it was.

She couldn't say the same, but she never fell. Not once. Every time she tripped, Roman's hand was there, steadying her. He'd directed Kadin to take the lead and Neil was somewhere behind them. She hadn't actually seen them since they'd left the compound.

She didn't know how long they'd been walking when Roman handed her a water bottle. She drank just enough to rehydrate a little and then handed it back to him. He took a drink and then slid it into the net on the side of his pack without making a sound. He repeated the action at regular intervals. He seemed to know just when she needed hydration, but he also showed an uncanny sense for timing their bio breaks to just before she had to break down and ask. Twice he gave her half of an energy bar with her water, which she ate while walking.

They walked until almost dawn when Kadin led them to a rock outcropping. Roman quietly told her that now was time for her bio break before bed. She didn't demur, but went where he indicated, finding a spot where she would have relative privacy. She'd been camping with the traveling clinic too long to worry about someone hearing her pee on the ground, but visual confirmation was something else. The men had put up two tents and thrown a camouflage net over them by the time she returned to their resting spot. They'd used the natural long grasses to add to their concealment and she felt as safe as she considered was possible under the circumstances.

Kadin climbed into one of the tents and Roman indicated with his hand she should get into the other. She didn't know who was taking first watch, or where the others were sleeping, and she didn't care. She was exhausted physically, emotionally and mentally. She simply had no reserves left to worry about the mundane. She wasn't even sure she'd notice if an assassin walked right into camp and pointed a gun at her.

More than ready for a break after the day's revelations, having her security chip removed and their long trek, she dropped to her knees and climbed inside the tent. She didn't worry about the black gunk on her face, the mild hunger pangs cramping her stomach or anything else for that matter. She just stripped off everything but her tank top and panties before lying down on the lightweight sleeping bag that had been spread out on the floor of the small pup tent. She was asleep a few seconds later. The sensation of warmth pressing along one side came some time later, but she was too out of it to even try to determine what that meant.

She figured it out pretty darn quickly when she woke up, though. Roman was there, already awake and watching her.

She glared, but she didn't speak. She knew sound could carry and she wasn't jeopardizing the men trying to save her life with a fit of pique. But when they got to a safe place? Roman Chernichenko was going down. How dare he think it was okay to sleep with her after everything he'd done? If he needed a place to bed down, he could have shared Kadin's tent. It might have been a little crowded, but she was sure they'd done it before. They were super-soldiers, after all. Or something anyway.

She was no longer convinced Roman was even in the Army as he told his family. But his duplicity with them wasn't her problem. She had enough to deal with on her own.

She grabbed her clothes and yanked them on, determined to be anywhere but in that confined space with the man who had shattered her heart. When she exited the tent, Neil was waiting with a whole energy bar and some water. She ate her breakfast and then took care of her morning ablutions while the others broke down and packed away the tents.

It was still light out when they started walking this time. When they stopped that night, sometime after midnight, they had reached a small river, but she was not sure which one it was. Geography had never been her strong suit. If it wasn't on the traveling clinic's itinerary, there was little chance of her getting her bearings. And since all her itineraries had taken her north, this was completely unknown territory for her.

Roman and Kadin agreed on a campsite in a stand of trees near another outcropping of rock about a hundred yards from the river. The men spoke quietly, but they did speak. Tanya hoped that meant they'd made it out of the compound without anyone following them. They had MRE rations and Tanya ate hers without complaint.

“You used to bad food?” Neil asked her.

She shrugged. “You don't want to know some of the things I've eaten in my years in Africa. Offending the villagers when they open their homes and kitchens in hospitality isn't an option.”

Neil grinned. “I can just imagine. I've eaten a few bugs in my time.”

“Bugs are better than grub worms.”

“Don't ruin my dinner,” Kadin whined.

A small smile curved Tanya's lips. “Don't be a baby.”

Kadin mock growled, while Neil said something scathing about his soldiering abilities. It was a well-earned light moment that ended, for her anyway, the moment she met Roman's eyes.

Her smile disappeared and she broke gazes with him immediately. Though not before she'd seen how taut his jaw went.

Was he irritated she and the others were joking around?

“Are you going to come back?” Kadin asked her.

Tanya had been asking herself that very question on their long walk. There wasn't much to do besides try to avoid falling, or tripping, rather. Roman was just as adept that night at keeping her from falling as he had been the night before. And she'd even said thank you once. Go her.

Not that she wanted to say anything else to him, but she wasn't the asshole.

The upshot, though, was that she'd had plenty of time to think. Too much time. Her mom would have called it brooding, and she might have been right. Tanya didn't care what she called it. All she knew was that the shock she'd felt the day before when she'd learned Roman had used her sexual trust in him as a weapon had worn off. What was left behind was the constant throb of pain in her heart and lots of questions she didn't have the answers for.

Why her? How could he? Who had used her as an information mule? What a terrible label, but then being one wasn't so great either.
Was she coming back to Africa?

“Tanya?” Kadin prompted.

“Sorry, I spaced out there for a second.”

“Are you?”

What? Oh, coming back to Africa. “I don't know.”

Kadin nodded, like he understood and maybe he did. Something had led him from soldiering to joining whatever group Roman was with. Had he been disillusioned too?

“How did you end up here anyway?” Neil asked.

“I'm sure it was in my file.”

“That you were in the Peace Corps, yeah. On a soil reclamation project, right?”

“Yes. It was important work. It still is, but I saw a greater need.”

“For medical workers,” Kadin said.

“That's right. There are medical schools in most of Africa's countries, but the graduates often don't stick around to practice here. I've read that the most costly export to the U.S. for Nigeria is medical doctors. That there are actually more Nigerian doctors in the state of Illinois than in the country of Nigeria. It's crazy, right?”

The two men made noises of assent, but Roman remained quiet. If she didn't know better, she'd say he was brooding. Probably he was planning how best to use other people to accomplish his goals.

Right. She needed some sleep maybe.

“Fleur trained in Nigeria, didn't she?” Neil asked.

“She did, but she stuck around, trying to make a difference.” In Africa, if not the country of Nigeria. But then Rwanda had been her homeland and that was the one place she had vowed never to return to.

Kadin finished his energy bar and tucked the wrapper into his pack. “She has made a difference and so have you.”

“Maybe, but as much as I love Africa, as important as the work we're doing is, it might be time to go home.” She'd known that someday she would return to the States, just not when. After the phone call from her mom and learning she'd been used to transport military secrets, she couldn't help feeling that maybe God or the universe, or her own subconscious was trying to tell her something. It was time to make a change.

“The fact you still see America as your home says a lot about what you are doing in Africa,” Roman said, his tone strangely subdued.

Tanya shrugged, but she wanted to ask what he meant.

His lips twisted as if he knew she was biting back a question. “You came to help, not to make a life for yourself. There's a difference.”

“Yes, there is.” Not that Quinton had thought she could see that difference. He'd dumped her without even giving her the chance to try to make a life back home, to be part of that normal couple he was so certain he wanted.

She could admit now that a big part of the reason she'd returned to Africa had been because she'd needed a purpose, something to keep her going. She'd been hurting so much from Quinton's rejection, the EMT training and making plans to return had given her something to dull the pain. What would dull the pain of Roman's betrayal, of learning she had been nothing but a disposable pawn to be used by people bent on stealing and selling her country's secrets?

B
eyond ready for some serious rest, Tanya stood up and went to where the sleep shelters had been pitched. She looked back at Roman. “Stay out of my tent.”

“The closer I am to you, the safer I can keep you.”

“I'll risk it.”

“I won't.”

“It's not your decision.”

“It is.”

“You're an autocrat.”

“If you say so.”

“If someone has to sleep with me, then it can be Kadin.”

Kadin made a sound that could have been a hastily smothered laugh, though what he found amusing about this situation, Tanya couldn't begin to say. Neil whistled under his breath and then leaned back to watch, like it was a prize fight or something.

Tanya frowned at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” The man did not do innocent well. “Just relaxing.”

Kadin muttered something under his breath that sounded like, “Relaxing, my ass.”

“Kadin, if you don't want to sleep in my tent, I understand.” She hadn't considered he'd be opposed to the idea. It wasn't as if she was going to jump him.

The idea of sex with anyone but Roman felt like trying to run with her shoes on the wrong feet. The idea of sex
with
Roman carried a whole host of emotions she'd rather not dig into, since not all of them were negative.

And if that didn't make her a world-class idiot, she wasn't sure what would.

“If that's what you really want, it's no problem,” Kadin said, giving Roman an indecipherable look.

“That is not going to happen.” Roman's voice cracked like a whip in the air between them.

His reaction was a little over the top, in her opinion. That scowl probably scared terrorists, but she didn't care.

She wasn't about to let him intimidate her. “It's my tent, I say who goes in it.”

“Actually, it's my tent.”

“Then I'll sleep in the other one.”

“No.”

“Stop being so unreasonable.”

“I'm not the one being unreasonable.”

Oh, that so was not going to fly with her, not even if it had jumbo jet engines. She used one of the really coarse Ukrainian phrases she'd learned from Elle.

His scowl went nuclear.

She glared back. “Kadin is just as capable as you of protecting me in my sleep.”

“No. He is not.”

She shot a glance at Kadin, but the man did not seem offended by Roman's arrogance. If it weren't beyond the realm of probability, she would think he looked more than passing amused.

“I don't care if you are the top super-soldier here, I prefer to sleep with Kadin.” As the words left her mouth, she realized how they sounded. She just didn't care.

They knew what she meant.

Both Neil and Kadin snickered anyway, but Roman looked ready to kill someone. Or at least how she thought a man would look just before doing grievous bodily harm. And the look wasn't directed at her.

She'd worry about his friends if she thought Roman had any intention of acting on his expression.

“It's my operation, I say who plays what role,” he gritted out, delivering each word with deliberate emphasis.

“Like you assigned yourself the task of using sex to get information out of me?” Darn it. She did not want to get into this right now. Not in front of Neil and Kadin, but nothing could un-say the words. And part of her wanted the confrontation, no matter where they were or who was with them.

“National security takes precedence over hurt feelings.”

“Is that in your super-soldier manual?” she derided.

“It's the truth.”

“Your truth.”

He shrugged, but he didn't look as if he was feeling even sort of casual about their conversation. That was the only thing stopping her from screaming at him.

“You could have just asked.”

His expression said that had not been an option he had even considered. “I wasn't one-hundred percent convinced you were not part of the espionage.”

She really hadn't believed he could hurt her more than he already had, but she'd been wrong. Knowing that when he'd had sex with her, he'd still been unsure about whether or not she was guilty was every bit as devastating as discovering he'd had sex with her to find out information in the first place.

“If our country's security is in the hands of men like you, I've got to worry, because your instincts suck.” Going on the offensive felt a lot better than giving in to fresh pain.

Both Kadin and Neil made more stifled sounds of amusement, but Roman just glared at them.

He looked back at her, his expression an odd mix of things she didn't want to believe. “I made the mistake of putting personal feelings ahead of the assignment once. I lost my best friend and two other good agents. I'll never do that again.”

“Bully for you.” She hated, absolutely hated, that his words had elicited understanding and sympathy. “You're still not sleeping in my tent.”

He surged to his feet and crossed the twenty feet between them before she even thought of reacting. He grabbed her arms, holding her in front of him. Though his grip wasn't near anything tight enough to hurt, she wasn't going anywhere.

“My team and I put our jobs on the line to keep you from getting killed. If I think it's necessary to share your tent to keep you safe, that's exactly what I'm going to do.”

She stared up at him, his insistence making her feel safe instead of angrier. What did that make her? She'd already opted into the world-class idiot's club. What was left?

“I can't stand the thought of you touching me, even just to brush against me in sleep,” she admitted, tugging against his hold.

He flinched, his jaw going tight. “I never hurt you in bed.”

“But you
did
hurt me.”

“You knew the sex couldn't lead to anything more.”

Like that mattered. “I trusted you completely on an intimate level. You violated that trust.” And she didn't know how to get past that reality.

He looked away. And it shocked her. She'd expected another comment along the theme of the ends justifying the means. “That was not my intention,” he finally said.

A sound of disbelief escaped her. “How could it be anything else?”

“I wanted you. You wanted me.” He shifted his head so their gazes met again. “Sex was inevitable.”

“You think so?” Frustratingly, part of her had to agree with him.

“Yes.”

“So, you decided to use it?” To use her.

“Yes.”

“Damn you.”

This time the flinch only registered in his eyes, but it was still there.

“You should have trusted me,” she insisted. This all would have been so much better if he had trusted her, even a little.

“I don't trust anyone but my team.”

“Not even your family?”

“I don't put myself in situations where that comes to the test.”

She believed him. They all thought he was still an Army scientist after all. “You should tell them the truth.”

“I'll take it under advisement.” His tone and expression belied the words though.

His relationship with his family wasn't her problem, but she could not help feeling sorry for him. The Chernichenkos were really great people, but Roman's reticence about the truth of his life created an impenetrable, if invisible, wall between them.

She should be happy about that, but she was not the vindictive sort. It just wasn't in her nature.

“Everything I thought I could believe in is in jeopardy.”

Suddenly, instead of holding her arms, he was holding her, tucking her up against him in an unexpected hug that felt way too comforting. “I know.”

“You can't know. You don't trust people anyway.”

“How do you think I got this way?” he asked dryly. “I know I betrayed your trust too, and asking you to believe in me again is asking a lot, but I know what I'm doing.”

“I never said you didn't.”

“You don't approve of my methods. In anything.”

She felt an urge to say that wasn't true, because the almost defeated tone in his voice bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Only it was true. In her estimation, he'd screwed up and in doing so, he'd shredded her heart.

So, no, she wasn't going to tell him it was all okay, but she couldn't get rid of the desire to do so either.

He sighed against her hair. “I can keep you alive, but you need to let me do my job.”

“I'm not stopping you.”

“You're trying, but I'm going to do it my way.”

“Your arrogance isn't really endearing right now.”

“I didn't think you ever found it anything but annoying.”

She shrugged. “Why can't Kadin be my nighttime guard?” she asked.

The rigid lines of Roman's body answered without words. He'd used her sexual desire for him, but his for her had been real. Even now, with everything between them, he was at least semi-hard. She could feel his sex pressing against her stomach.

“That is not going to happen,” he said again. Like that response was all he could come up with.

Maybe it was. Sexual possessiveness was probably new for him, especially toward someone he'd considered a possible spy.

“I haven't forgiven you.”

“That doesn't matter.”

She was sure that for him, that was true. For her? Not so much. She wanted to stop hurting and she knew forgiving him was a step she'd have to take in that direction, but it wasn't a step she could take right now.

He let her go and stepped back. “You might want to consider sleeping in the bag rather than on top of it, if you're going to strip down to your panties again.”

She didn't bother to respond, just turned and dropped to her haunches to crawl inside the small tent.

Instead of the anger she should feel at losing the argument, she was just tired. As much hiking as she did for the traveling clinic, she had never put in the hours walking she had tonight and the night before.

 

Roman settled beside Tanya in the small tent, surprised to find her exactly as he had the night before. But then maybe he shouldn't be. She was probably delighted to ignore any instruction of his she could get away with.

He wished he could take her semi-clothed body as an invitation, but he doubted she would ever be offering one of those again. Acknowledgment of the loss sent an unexpected shard through what he almost believed was his heart. He still wanted her with a hunger that was both ever present and insatiable.

The prospect of never again burying himself inside her made his entire body clench with frustrated need.

That had definitely not been part of the plan.

 

With a sense of reality and fantasy converging, Fleur stared at the woman who was supposed to pretend to be Tanya. The agent had parachuted in somewhere over the savannah. She'd managed to sneak into the compound and then into Fleur and Tanya's chalet without security being the wiser.

Rachel Gannon looked so much like Tanya, Fleur wasn't sure they would have noticed if the agent had walked in through the front gate.

“From a distance, no one would know you are not Tanna. Anyone who does not know her well, would not guess even face-to-face, I think.”

Rachel shrugged, exactly as Tanya would have done. “My training in theater comes in handy sometimes. The videos you have of her on your blog were very helpful. I studied them on the flight over.”

“You're amazing.”

“Thank you.” Rachel smiled. “Coming from you, that is quite a compliment as you seem to know Tanya better than anyone else.”

“She is my closest friend. I consider her the sister I lost.”

Profound grief shadowed Rachel's eyes for a brief moment, then she was back to projecting Tanya-like warmth. “You're very lucky.”

Fleur looked sideways at Ben and then back to Rachel. “I agree.”

She had always vacillated between feeling blessed and cursed to have survived her family's deaths in the massacre, but she'd finally come down firmly on the blessed side. She had Johari. She had Tanya. She had Ben.

He had held her again as she slept the night before. His calm presence had settled her as nothing else could have after her best friend's disappearance into the African night.

He handed Rachel the cleaned and still functioning security chip. “I have installed a nice surprise for anyone who downloads what they think is the JCAT software. It's a virus that will destroy the hard drive of whatever system it is uploaded to, as well as any systems connected to it. They'll have to have a firewall as sophisticated as the one at TGP to detect it.”

“Oh, good job.” Rachel grinned. “I love surprise presents like that.”

Fleur frowned. “I thought you were going to try to catch the spies in the act.”

“There's no reason to let them know we're on to them here at the compound,” Ben said. “Too much risk for collateral damage. We'll wait until they are on the isolated road between here and Harare before springing the jaws of the final trap.”

“So, you're going to let them make the download? Isn't that risky? What if they realize Rachel isn't Tanya?”

“You said it yourself, only those who know her well would be able to tell the difference. And the only one in the compound who could easily get close enough to download the file is you.” And he clearly did not suspect her.

“But what about the medical part of her job?”

Rachel shrugged that uncanny Tanya-like shrug again. “I'm trained in field medicine like all TGP operatives. I don't have her expertise, but I think I can keep up the pretense for as long as it takes to lure our perps into making their move. They've got to be getting desperate by now. She was scheduled to stop in Tikikima over two weeks ago. If they have buyers or an auction lined up, her deviation from her itinerary has to have them in a tizzy.”