Close Quarters (8 page)

“And the trip ended up wasted.”

“Exactly.”

“Is she really that unreasonable?”

“She's pragmatic. Fleur thinks I'm an idealist, and a somewhat naïve one at that. She doesn't like it when I buck the system.”

“She doesn't strike me as a traditionalist.”

“It's that pragmatism. Sympa-Med makes it possible for us to do what we do. She doesn't want to alienate them.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“It is, but sometimes, they're wrong.”

He laughed and Tanya felt the sound all the way through her. “You have a wonderful laugh.”

“And you
are
an idealist.”

“That's not a bad thing.”

“No, but I think you and Dr. Andikan are probably a good balance for each other.”

Tanya felt a real smile curve her lips. “We are. She's a good friend.”

“I'm sure she feels the same.”

“More than I realized, considering what Ben said she writes about me on her blog.”

Roman frowned at the mention of the other man.

She found that curious. “Don't you like Ben?”

“He's an unknown quantity.”

“I thought he was just a government bureaucrat?” she mocked.

“I'm not saying he's anything else. I'm simply saying he seems to have hidden depths.” And Roman really did not sound happy about that fact, or maybe it was the fact he'd admitted it to her that bugged him so much. He looked a little surprised by his own words.

 

“You think they were there for Tanya?” Kadin asked after Roman gave them the sit-rep upon returning early from the aborted trip to the village.

Once again, they were talking in the communal room of their hut. Drew had not returned from his trip to the mine with Vincent and his Marine guards, but they were expected back soon.

Roman's jaw went tight. “You know I'm not a fan of coincidences. Here are two Army recruits dressed as members of the Zimbabwe military working a roadblock. And this roadblock just happens to stop Tanya on her trip out of the compound? I wouldn't buy that story with counterfeit two-dollar bills.”

Kadin looked equally unwilling to buy the coincidence theory. He spat out a curse.

“Exactly.”

“But how did they know she would be on that road?” Neil asked, his brain clearly spinning as he worked this whole snafu out.

“That's a good question. If she didn't tell them—” Roman started to say.

But Kadin interrupted with biting frustration, “Come on, chief, you're not still playing that tired record.”

“Tell me why I shouldn't? She's the most likely person to divulge her own movements.” He didn't fully believe it, but he wasn't going to dismiss the possibility out of hand either. “She was damn calm when we realized there was a roadblock; the other two Sympa-Med people were not nearly as sanguine in the face of being detained by local military.”

At the time, he'd assumed she was braver than your average person. It hadn't been a stretch, since he'd pretty much determined that already. But now he had to at least consider the other possible reasons for her being so stoic.

“That's the kind of person she is.” Kadin gave him a look, the one that said he thought Roman should already get this. “You've already seen that. Hell, the woman runs a travelling clinic in an area rife with human trafficking.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “She was terrified at the prospect of a strip search, though.”

“What woman in her right mind wouldn't be?” Neil asked.

And frankly, Roman agreed with him, so he said nothing. Though there could have been other reasons for her to be afraid. No matter what Hollywood would have people believe, there was no honor among thieves. Especially the variety that blithely stole and sold countries' secrets.

Kadin gave him a look that said he was reading Roman's thoughts. “So, you
don't
think it was her?” he prompted with evident doubt.

They stood for several seconds, staring each other down.

“No, I don't,” Roman finally said, going with his gut rather than the rationale that didn't even carry a lot of weight in his own brain.

Neil asked in his matter-of-fact way, “So, who?”

“How public is the schedule for the traveling clinic?” Roman asked, assuming his communications expert would have an answer.

He wasn't disappointed. “Pretty public. They like to get the word out in advance, so people can travel from the surrounding villages to attend the clinics.”

“Anyone could have known she would be on that trip then?” That didn't give them squat.

“Well, as to that, the team originally assigned did not include her,” Neil put in, reminding Roman of what Tanya had told him in the Rover. Neil must have found it after they'd left. He was the information king and for that, Roman was always grateful. “She decided to go and Fleur did not overrule her.”

“That's interesting,” Kadin mused.

Roman pulled the odd electronic device he'd taken off the Zimbabwean soldiers out of his pocket. “So is this. Any clue as to what it does?” he asked Neil.

Neil put his hand out and Roman gave him the device.

The other man turned it over and examined it closely. “It has a nonstandard outgoing USB port, but nothing for input. This looks like an on-off button,” he said, pressing part of the shell. “I'm going to have to take it apart to figure it out for sure, but my guess would be it is some kind of hand-held, wireless transfer device. The fact that it doesn't have any input mechanism implies it is storage only.”

“Considering the miniaturization of storage devices, it could hold a hell of a lot, right?” Roman asked, his gut twisting at the implications.

Neil nodded. “Unless it's old technology, which it doesn't look like, it could easily hold the JCAT software.”

“Well, damn,” Kadin grumbled.

Roman agreed. Nothing about this assignment, or the woman who was supposed to be their target, was simple and straightforward. Not one damn thing. “If it was meant to make the transfer, Tanya had to have the program on her in the Rover.”

And what were the chances she had and didn't know it? Zilch, right? Damn. Shit. Piss. He released a frustrated growl as Kadin started glaring again. Not that the man's usual expression was all that pleasant, but he looked ready to kill someone and Roman didn't have a death wish. Or the desire to hurt his friend protecting himself.

“She might not have been the one with the JCAT software, even if the roadblock was put in place to make the transfer.” Neil didn't look like it mattered much to him either way. He had that “lost in thought” expression on his face that he got when faced with a unique computer problem.

“Right,” Kadin said. “It could have been one of the other two.”

“It could, but I have to make sure it wasn't Tanya.” Roman sighed, and debated not telling them his plan, then decided they'd figure it out once he started it anyway. “I told Corbin I would perform my own strip search.”

Kadin opened his mouth, but Roman forestalled him. “Don't. First, I've done worse and so have you to protect our country's interests. Second, Corbin wanted me to let the soldiers do the search. I convinced him it was my operation and that a public strip search wasn't in our country's best interests.”

“You've ignored Corbin before,” Kadin accused.

“When I thought he was wrong, yes. But I don't think he is. We need to know and we've already searched her domicile and workplace.”

“There are still the other computers in the compound.”

“Yeah, but that little gizmo implies that if she is the target, she had the plans with her today.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to release tension that did not want to let go. “Look, she's attracted to me. I'll seduce her and she'll never even know I did the search.”

Neil frowned. “Unless she has the JCAT, and then the leak has to be plugged.”

“Bullshit, she's not the leak and saving some Army brass's ass is no reason to take out a sweet woman like Tanna,” Kadin said.

For some reason, Kadin's use of Tanya's preferred nickname pissed Roman off. “I didn't say I was going to eliminate her, but if she's been selling secrets, she has to face the consequences.”

“You don't think having sex with you is punishment enough?” Kadin demanded with pure aggression.

Roman swatted at his head, but Kadin moved and swept at Roman's ankle with a low kick. Within seconds, they were in a sparring session more intense than anything they'd ever done before. The sound of sliding furniture told Roman that Neil was giving them a cleared area for their fight.

Neil wasn't foolish enough to try to stop it. Even friendly sparring between Roman and Kadin was dangerous to interrupt.

Kadin got Roman temporarily pinned. “She's not the information leak in this assignment. Open your damn eyes.”

His own inexplicable anger coming to the fore, Roman flipped Kadin and ground out, “They are open and they see you taking entirely too much interest in our target.”

“I'm not the one threatening to screw her.” With a powerful full-body heave, Kadin threw Roman off.

Roman used the momentum to roll into a backward somersault and come up on his feet in a crouch. “It's not a threat. I'll give her more pleasure than she knows what to do with.”

“And then break her heart,” Kadin practically shouted.

Roman stopped fighting and stared at his team member. “What the hell? Do you have a thing for this woman?” If the answer was yes, Roman did not know if he could back off and allow the other man to do the seducing. Shit. Could this situation get any more screwed up?

“Yeah, I've got a thing for her.”

Roman felt his insides twist to the point of pain. “You—”

“I've got a thing for you not breaking her heart.”

“Since when do we let hearts get involved with what we do?”

“You can't control what
she
feels.”

“What she feels is a physical reaction to my body, ass-wipe. She's not in love with me. She barely knows me, damn it.” And he wasn't the lovable type. He was too hard, inside and out. He looked around the room, but Neil wasn't in it. “Where's Spazz?”

“He's probably working on the new toy you brought him.” Kadin glared. “Don't try to change the subject.”

“Drop it, Trigger. We all have our jobs to do and they rarely fall in the without-consequences category. You of all my team should understand that.”

Kadin's expression turned to stone. “Maybe I should, but I don't. There's something there, between you and her. You send it fubar and that's your chance gone.”

“A thing between me and Tanya?” This wasn't about Kadin's feelings for the much too appealing woman. “What are you talking about?”

“She's your chance.”

“My chance?” He felt like an idiot repeating everything Kadin said, but none of it was computing in the world they inhabited.

“At normal. At life outside what we do. At love.”

“You're serious.”

“Yes.”

Roman shook his head. “You're talking about fairytales and sunshine up my ass. No matter what you think, neither one of those things are going to come true in this lifetime.”

“Just because you're a soldier doesn't mean you have to be alone.”

“Maybe if we weren't Atrati assassins. But Kadin, you and I, we're not like other men.” That chance Kadin was talking about, it had passed Roman by the day he'd walked out of the lab and started training to kill men with his bare hands.

“No, we're not.” Kadin looked tired all of a sudden. “Try not to break her heart, Roman. She's still so damn innocent.”

“It's just sex, Kadin. I'm not going to make promises.”

“If you say so.” But the other man did not appear convinced.

Roman ignored the small voice deep inside himself that said he wasn't either.

T
hat night at dinner, the whole security team and Ben squeezed around the table where Tanya and Fleur sat, forcing others who usually sat with them to eat elsewhere. Tanya found herself squished between Roman and Kadin. And rather than feeling overwhelmed by the men's size and presence, she felt safe.

After the day she'd had, safe was good. Very good.

Fleur had surprised Tanya by responding with preoccupied silence when told about the roadblock, rather than anger or frustration at the waste of scheduling resources. She still looked less than immediately present in her seat across the table from Tanya.

Johari sat beside the Tutsi woman, regaling her with a steady stream of school news and chatter about her friends. Fleur nodded in all the right places, but if she heard half of what her daughter said, Tanya would be shocked to know it. Johari finally wound down and started eating her dinner, leaving the adults at the table to carry the conversation.

Fleur turned to face Roman, her expression too odd to read. “I want to thank you, for saving Tanya.”

Roman shrugged. “I wasn't about to tolerate a strip search of myself.”

“I think we all know that if Tanya had not been in the Rover,” Fleur said, her voice laced with disgust, “no one would have insisted on anything of that nature.”

“What do you mean?” Roman asked with a quality of stillness that Tanya did not understand.

“Tanya was at risk for something far worse than the humiliation of a strip search.”

“You think they intended to rape her?” Kadin asked with a growl.

If Roman was right in his belief that the Zimbabwe soldiers had been there without official sanction, then the only scenario that made sense was that the roadblock had been a trap. A trap designed by predators who wanted to get their jollies hurting others. If not Tanya, then some other hapless woman. She could only hope that Roman's call to his superiors would force the horrible men to give up their plans rather than be caught committing human rights violations that could leave at least the Americans in prison.

“Soldiers believe they can hurt women that way if they want to,” Johari said in her near fluent English. “Girls too.”

Tanya's stomach tightened at the reminder that Johari had seen and experienced things no child should ever be forced to.

“It is a soldier's job to protect. If someone forgets that around Roman, or any of us, we don't have a problem reminding them,” Kadin said in a deadly voice.

Johari smiled at the big warrior. “Good. Maybe there are more soldiers like you somewhere.”

Tanya sighed. “There are good soldiers in Zimbabwe's army too.”

“But not the ones who ran the roadblock today.”

“No, those ones were not good men.” She couldn't stop the shudder that went through her at the thought of what those men could have done. A strip search would have been humiliating and traumatizing enough, but the idea of rape left her nauseated and shaken.

She felt Roman's hand on the small of her back, a steady, sure presence that comforted her more than it should have. “You are okay.”

She glanced sideways at him, making no move to shift away from his touch, wanting very much to lean into it. “Thanks to you.”

“I'm glad I was there.” Honest certainty laced his tone, melting barriers she'd erected around her heart when Quinton had dumped her and their relationship.

Despite tendrils of concern at how deeply Roman's words had affected her, she allowed herself to relax against his hand and revel in the small connection to his heat and strength. “Me too.”

“We missed out on the village party.” His thumb moved up and down her spine in an unconsciously possessive gesture that did nothing to shore up the walls tumbling from around her heart at a terrifyingly rapid rate.

“Maybe we can reschedule the visit before you leave.”

“There will be no travel for the next few days.” Fleur's voice brooked no argument.

Despite the intransigent tone of the doctor's voice, Tanya couldn't help asking in shock, “What? Why?” The traveling clinic never was put on hold. It was every bit as important as the stationary clinic to Sympa-Med's directive for the Zimbabwe team.

“Sympa-Med is sending representatives from the home office for a supervisory visit.” Fleur smoothed her blouse in a move Tanya recognized as suppressed agitation. “No one is to be away from the compound when they arrive.”

“That's ridiculous. When are they supposed to arrive? We can't stop our work just because they don't want to be inconvenienced waiting to meet members of the staff.”

“Sympa-Med pays our wages, they provide our supplies. If they want us to hold off travel for the next few days, we'll do it.” The ice Fleur usually reserved for people like Ibeamaka chilled her voice.

It bothered Tanya to have Fleur so clearly upset with her, but she couldn't leave it there. “How long is a few days?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you ask for a more specific schedule?” Tanya tried very hard not to sound like she was grilling her boss, but she needed answers. This situation simply didn't make any sense.

“I did.”

“And?”

“The director said he was surprised I was so keen to have a set schedule considering how little regard we show for the traveling clinic schedule.” Fleur's dark eyes radiated disapproval, directed right at Tanya.

Tanya felt her eyes widen, even as her mouth flatlined in a frown, more than a little irritated herself now. “That's stupid. We had good reason for putting off the last stop on our schedule.” Sheesh. How many times were they going to go back over the same thing? Talk about beating an issue to death. No one was going to convince her that putting Sympa-Med's schedule ahead of the health of her co-worker or the people they treated was the right thing to do, not even Fleur. “Sympa-Med's director is a control freak.”

“He is your boss.”

Tanya opened her mouth and then thought better of what she was about to say. She loved her position with Sympa-Med, even if the home office sometimes drove her nuts. Offering to quit in the heat of the moment was neither rational, nor mature. “I still think it's beyond unreasonable to expect us to stop all travel until they deign to show up,” she grumbled.

Fleur thawed a little, giving Tanya a commiserating glance. “To be fair, the director didn't put the hold on travel in place until after I told him about today's roadblock.”

“You called the home office on the sat-phone? I thought your weekly check-in wasn't until tomorrow.”

Fleur gave her a quizzical look as if not understanding Tanya's surprise. “We often speak between our scheduled calls.”

“I didn't realize that.” Of course, Tanya was busy with her own responsibilities, and usually spent a minimum of two weeks out of every month on the road with the traveling clinic.

“Their willingness to cover the cost of the calls shows how important our work here is to Sympa-Med.”

Personally, Tanya thought it showed a need to control. That money could be used more effectively elsewhere. However, it wasn't her call to make. Literally. “So, the traveling clinic is on hiatus for the next few days.” She couldn't make herself sound anything but grumpy about that fact.

“It will give us a chance to run an extra wellness clinic for the area children,” Fleur said. “Mabu can send his nephews as runners to the area villages letting them know about it.”

“Do we have enough vaccines to do the wellness clinic now instead of in the spring?”

“We should have enough for the number of children that will show up.” Fleur turned to Ben. “How did your meeting at the mine go today?”

The older woman's intention to change the subject was clear and Tanya had no desire to make her angrier by trying to pursue discussion of what was just as clearly a done deal.

“I didn't make any friends.” Ben sounded self-deprecating, but unworried by his claim.

“What happened?” Tanya asked.

Ben's eyes glinted with amusement. “I informed them that I would be interviewing the workers as well as going over all the books, comparing the compensation they claim to give their employees against their actual expenses.”

His gaze shifted to Fleur, asking a question that her own seemed to answer for him because he looked satisfied. When the African woman asked the next question, Ben actually glowed.

Oh, wow…her boss and the bureaucrat? Tanya would never have guessed it. She wasn't about to warn him off, even if she'd never seen Fleur respond positively to a man's interest.

There was a first time for everything and there was something special about Ben Vincent—she only hoped Fleur saw it too.

Tanya was relieved when the rest of the dinner talk centered around Ben's audit of the mine. She wasn't keen on rehashing the clipping of her wings by the head office, or thinking about the roadblock, or the aborted plans to strip-search her.

She'd never been so scared. And she didn't like the feeling. Not one bit.

Roman's hand on her back was incredibly comforting, but safe wasn't the only way he made her feel. If she'd wanted him before, it was nothing compared the positive craving she felt now. She wanted to share with him the deepest moment of connection two people could make. When he asked her if she wanted to take a walk after dinner, she didn't hesitate.

Not even when Kadin gave them a look that could have singed rock. If he didn't think she was right for his friend, the man was going to have to get over it. Because Tanya had every intention of drowning the emotions that had been trying to choke her all day.

The only thing she could imagine being strong enough to obliterate them, or at least her awareness of them, was the tsunami of desire the earthquake that was Roman Chernichenko caused inside her.

 

“I think your friend is falling hard for the leader of my security team,” Ben said to Fleur as they played an after-dinner game of
mancala
with Johari before she had to go to bed.

“She is not one for casual encounters,” Fleur said dismissively.

Johari took her turn, laughing in glee when she got one over both the adults. Fleur gave her daughter an indulgent smile. To see the girl enjoy life in such an innocent manner after all she had been through gave Fleur all the joy she would ever ask of life.

“Are you sure it would be casual?” Ben asked, apparently unwilling to drop the topic of a possible connection between the American soldier and Tanna.

Fleur felt a flutter of fear at the words. “You think she's really falling for him?”

“It looks that way to me.” Ben shrugged, as if his answer was of little import.

He was wrong. It was very important. “He will leave with you. He will not look back. It is the way of men like that. I will not see Tanya hurt.”

“Even men like him meet their personal Armageddons at some point.”

True, but more likely, he would use Tanna for his sexual pleasure and leave her behind. Fleur knew Tanna had already had her heart shattered by one selfish man, she did not want to see it happen again. “You think he wants her?” Just to be sure.

“That goes without saying. I think he wants her more than he is aware and that what he wants will surprise him.”

“You are a serious observer of human nature?” she asked, not at all convinced of the accuracy of this particular observation.

Ben's expression closed off. “It's part of my job.”

“What is your job?” Johari asked, her intelligent gaze trained on the American.

“I am here doing an audit of the local mine.”

“An audit, like to see if they are cheating on their taxes?” her daughter asked in confusion.

“No, an audit on human rights violations. The U.S. prefers not to do business with mines who use slave labor and other heinous practices.”

“Really?” Johari sounded highly skeptical.

Ben gave her a wry smile, acknowledging her attitude without denying or agreeing with what it implied. “That's the party line, anyway.”

“But you do not believe the government is sincere?” Johari once again showed more wisdom than typical of a girl her age.

“I think expediency often gets in the way of humanity when a lot of money is at stake,” Ben said, with what sounded like genuine regret.

“But you are going to try to protect the workers?” Johari demanded demonstrating a surprising idealism for a girl who had lived through the ravages of war.

Fleur loved hearing that innocence in her daughter's voice.

Ben met and held Johari's gaze. “Yes.”

“He will try.” Fleur did not believe in making, or implying promises one could not be sure of keeping.

But Ben shook his head. “‘There is no try'.”

“‘There is only do,'” Johari said with a laugh.

“What?” Fleur asked, looking between the identical smiles on the man and the child's faces.

Ben reached out and tugged one of Johari's many small braids. “It's a quote from
Star Wars
.”

“An American movie. We watched it at school,” Johari explained for her mother's benefit. “I want to be Princess Leia.”

“She's a fighter all right,” Ben agreed with obvious approval in his tone.

Fleur assured her daughter, “Then you have much in common with her already.”

Johari dropped her eyes in embarrassment at the praise, but she was smiling. A half hour later, she went to bed, leaving Fleur alone with Ben.

He looked at her in a way no man ever had before. She had had eyes of lust on her. She had been looked at with possession. Anger. Contempt. Respect. The whole gamut, but never with this combination of tenderness and desire.

It scared her to death.

“I was raped,” she blurted out. “By many men, soldiers of the Rwandan government who murdered my friends and family all because we were born Tutsi. I cannot…do physical things.”