Daisy had her first real laugh of the day.
“They’re ten, twelve, and fifteen years older than me. They weren’t as lucky as I was. They grew up with our father, so no, they don’t consider Alistair their father, which is unfortunate. As far as I’m concerned they got the booby-prize, after what Ethan Squires put them through.”
Leo winced. “You don’t pull any of your punches, do you?”
Daisy shrugged. “They each have their own story to tell, and so does my mother. And I have mine. When you combine them all, I don’t think my conclusion is that far out of reach.”
“So if you’re not a fan of your biological dad, why are you here rattling cages?”
“Because I love my siblings and they want our father rescued. I might not like him, but I certainly don’t wish him dead. So my family and I agreed that I was the best one to send. Rattling cages is something I excel at.”
2
Leo’s lips twitched. The way she talked, he didn’t doubt it. Still, she might have taken on the dweebs in the embassy, but what she didn’t know is that her quasi-father had been kidnapped by the Haqqani Network, and it didn’t get any uglier than that.
She raised one eyebrow. “Handsome, I see the wheels turning. Anything you want to share with me?”
“You think I’m handsome?”
“I told you I don’t lie. You’re hot. Somehow I can’t help but wonder if that was taken into consideration when they knew you would be dealing with a woman.”
“A smart, beautiful woman who rattles cages and speaks Dari. Quite the combo kit, Ms. Squires, or can I call you Daisy?”
“I think since I just said you were hot, calling me Daisy would be appropriate at this point,” she laughed. “But I must say, you do lay it on a bit thick.”
He took a slow sip of tea and she watched him. “I just call it as I see it. I’m taking a page out of your book, no lying.”
“No lying sounds good, really good.” She put both hands around her teacup. “Tell me how you fit into the picture. I’m assuming you’re here to assess whether my father can be rescued. Am I right?”
“Something like that.”
“Hey, you just promised not to tell any lies,” she complained.
The waiter came and poured more tea into their cups for the second time.
“At this rate, I’m going to float out of here,” Leo complained.
“The rule is, you have to turn over your cup, or they’ll keep filling it.”
“How am I ever going to get to do that, they don’t give me a chance to empty it?”
“My advice is that you drink faster.”
Leo knew she was laughing at him.
“Leo, what’s your assessment? What are you going to tell your superiors? Is a rescue possible?”
“Yes.”
“Then why no rescue for the reporter?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“Can you take some guesses?”
“Not my place.”
“For someone who wasn’t going to tell me any lies, you’re not very forthcoming.”
“But, I haven’t lied to you.” He watched to see if she would see the difference.
She picked up her teacup and smiled. “Good to know. So you’ll answer what questions you can, and pass on the questions you can’t, is that it?”
Leo nodded.
“I see you’re not drinking your tea,” she said as she nodded toward his cup.
“I figured out a third option. If I just leave it full, they can’t pour more into my cup.”
She grinned. “You’re right.” She took a long sip of her tea, then turned her cup over. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Always.” Anytime he had a chance to eat something other than an MRE, he was in.
“A meal or a snack?” she asked.
Leo considered. He still had to report back to Max and meet with the team. “Have you had lunch yet?”
Daisy shook her head.
“Let’s order food.” He lifted his hand and the waiter came over. “Can you bring menus?” Leo asked in Dari. The waiter nodded and immediately came back with menus. He explained the specials in English.
Leo went with the cinnamon lamb kebabs and Daisy chose the eggplant dish. The waiter said he would be back out with some spicy chickpeas to start.
“You grew up in an embassy, huh?” Leo said. “What was that like?”
“Mom married Alistair when I was six, and he was the ambassador to Tajikistan at that point. His appointment lasted for twelve years.”
“No wonder you’re so comfortable with the Dari language. Tajikistan’s national language is Tajik, so learning Dari was pretty easy, huh?”
“Exactly. I learned Russian while I lived there too. When I went to the International School, everything was in English but Tajik and Russian were the two compulsory second languages.”
“Do all of your siblings speak as many different languages?” Leo asked.
“Pretty much. My older siblings spent a lot of time with my parents in Africa while the esteemed doctor was chasing everything from HIV to Ebola. They speak a lot of different African languages, while I grew up speaking more Middle Eastern languages.”
Leo heard the bitterness in her voice, but her countenance didn’t seem ready to share, so he didn’t ask about it. Instead, he decided to stay on safer topics.
“But you do speak African languages according to your file.”
Daisy grinned as she grabbed some chickpeas. “That must be one hell of a dossier you have on me. It couldn’t have been the CIA who put it together, otherwise, the two CIA guys in the embassy would have known who I was. I didn’t realize that special forces were investigators.”
Leo smiled and helped himself to some chickpeas, happy that they had brought a bottle of mineral water to go with it. Spicy, crunchy nuts and sweet tea together sounded awful. He poured the water into both of their glasses.
“Yep, they definitely pegged you right in that thick dossier when they said you were smart. Which guys did you have figured as CIA?”
“There was the prick who kept trying to bully me. He was playing bad cop. I’d say this was his first field assignment. Then there was the one in the blue suit who didn’t say a word, but he winced when the dumbass snarled at me. He must have been his superior. I’d say dick-boy is going to get an earful today.”
Leo let out a laugh. “Yep, that’s how I read it too. The blue suit is Tom Ludlum; he’s a good guy. I would be surprised if he doesn’t send that young guy back to the States. I don’t think he’s salvageable.” Leo stopped talking as the waiter set down their food in front of them. It looked fantastic and smelled even better.
Daisy smirked.
“What?” Leo asked.
“Mine’s better than yours. Check it out, I got a side of braised pumpkin with yogurt.”
Leo looked. “You might be right. Are you a vegetarian?”
“Nope, just in the mood for eggplant.” She started in on her food, and Leo followed suit. It gave him a chance to figure out what he wanted to ask next. He needed to find out exactly why Dr. Squires might have been targeted by the Haqqani Network. Any additional information he and his team could find out would really help before starting a mission to get him the hell out of their hands.
“You’re looking at me funny,” she said as she started in on the pumpkin side dish. “Just spit out whatever you have to say.”
“Can you think of anything that your dad might have been doing besides inoculating children for polio, that might have pissed off the Haqqani Network?”
Daisy set down her fork and pressed her napkin against her clean lips. “My father could have done damn near anything. Let’s begin with all the stupid moves he made in Pakistan. Dr. Williams was incensed that he had put their entire project in danger by his foolhardy moves. Seriously, polio is this close,” she put her thumb and forefinger together up to her face. “This close to being eradicated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These are the l
ast two countries where it is endemic. Until men and women like Dr. Williams, and all of the local villagers who are working with him, can disrupt the transmission of this virus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, all other countries are at risk of importing polio into their country, especially those countries that are vulnerable.”
“Which ones are vulnerable?”
“Those with poor immunization plans or poor health and public services. This is vitally important. And Ethan Squires is letting his impatience put it all at risk. He never cares about long-term repercussions. He just plows ahead, because his ego demands an immediate reward.”
Leo heard the bitterness in her voice. It sounded deeply personal and filled with pain. What had her dad done to her to deserve those thoughts from such a compassionate woman?
“So he’s done this before?”
“Oh yeah, he has. It doesn’t matter whose life he puts at risk, as long as he gets that adrenaline high of being the medical God of the moment.”
“Who else has he harmed?” Leo asked gently.
“You name it. The great doctor dragged our family to Swaziland in 1991 to help combat the measles outbreak. This was when the vaccines were available, but cases were surging. My mom didn’t want to go. But she was young and tired, and really didn’t know just how dangerous it was. He took them into the thick of things. Karen was ten and Brian was eight when they both contracted the disease. Karen almost died, and Brian was left sterile. To this day I don’t know why she stayed with him after that.”
“But she did, because you’re here,” Leo nodded to her to keep eating. She moved some of her food around on her plate.
“Yes, she did,” Daisy admitted reluctantly. “I was a surprise baby. After the measles outbreak, Mom mostly stayed in the States, but she agreed one last time to go overseas. She said my father guilted her into it because he hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with me. He promised it would be safe.” Her voice trailed off.
Leo saw how her fist clenched on the table and he wanted to console her, but it wasn’t his place.
“Was it safe?” Leo asked after the waiter left.
She shook her head. “This time it wasn’t a disease. Mom got pregnant again. We were in the Brazilian rain forest. He had left us in a village that only spoke Portuguese, Mom and I didn’t. She ended up having a miscarriage. I remember her crying in pain and me trying to give her food and water, trying to fix her, but she was too delirious to take in food or water. I kept kissing her forehead like she always did to me when I was sick, thinking that was something that would make her better, but it didn’t. Finally, I went to the neighbors next door begging for help. They didn’t understand me. There was no ambulance, nothing like that. A woman came to help Mom. They took me away from her,” her hand dropped from the table to clutch her stomach. “It seemed like forever that I was at the neighbor’s house. I thought she was dead. When my father eventually found me, I was inconsolable. He didn’t tell me anything, he just left me at the neighbors for a long time, until finally, he brought me to see my mom.” She rested her fist back up on the table.
“How old were you?”
“Four.”
Leo pictured everything in vivid detail. The idea of Daisy, practically a baby, going through that horror, made his blood boil. How could a real man have done that to his wife and child?
This time when he saw the knuckles on her fist turn bone-white he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and put his hand over hers, his thumb smoothing across her taut knuckles.
She looked up at him, her expression confused. What? Was she not used to being touched by a man?
“Leo?” she began.
“What happened then?”
Her breath shuddered.
“Mom didn’t look like Mom. She was so thin and gray. I wasn’t allowed to hug her, and she kept crying a lot. I remember being so scared. Mom ended up lying down in the backseat of the jeep on the drive out of the jungle. Usually, I sat on her lap, but I wasn’t allowed to do that either. My father tried to get me to sit on his lap up front, but I screamed and pulled away from him. I did everything possible to stay with my mom. He had to let me stay in the back, and I sat on the floorboards of the backseat. I got to hold her hand, even when she was asleep. On the entire two-day drive it seemed like I never slept once. I know that can’t be true, but even thinking back on that time as an adult, I think it was true, ya know?”
God, it was so heartbreaking. He nodded at her, willing her to continue. When she didn’t, he asked another question.
“What happened when you got out of the jungle?”
“Dad got Mom to a real hospital. This time I didn’t have a choice but to be separated from her. Again, I thought she was dead. But I didn’t cry, I didn’t make a scene. I just let myself be taken away from the big white building and accompanied my father to some room he had rented. I never talked. I remember him trying to make me eat, but I refused. He must have talked to me. He must have tried to get through to me that Mom was okay and in a hospital to get better, but nothing penetrated—in my four-year-old brain she was dead and gone. I was in shock. I wouldn’t eat, I wouldn’t talk, I wasn’t present.”
“How long did that last?”
Big hazel eyes looked up at him. “I don’t know. I never asked that question as I grew up. It seemed like forever as a child. But one day my father forced me into a car and we went back to the big white building that had eaten my mother. She came back out. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. She looked like my mother again, but I wasn’t the same little girl. I didn’t talk. I didn’t cry. I just clung to her. It was that way on the entire flight back to the United States. Finally, we got to my grandparent’s house and everything was better.”
She gave a false smile. “See? Happily ever after.”
Leo snorted. “I can just see the traumatized baby that you were.”
She pulled her hand away and put it into her lap, foregoing the food on her plate.
“Really, it was fine after that.”
Leo nodded to her water. “Take a sip, you need it. As for the fact that you were fine after that, if that’s what you need me to believe, then I’ll believe it.”
He nudged her water glass closer to her.
“You’re kind of bossy.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I believe you were the one who slapped the table at six men in a conference room and told them to get their shit together. I’m a pussycat.”
“Yes I did, so what are you going to do about rescuing my father?”
“We’re doing it. Right now, my team is doing reconnaissance. There are a lot of facets to this operation. Me getting information from you is just one angle. They’re going to ping me when they have more news. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to ask you questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you had the gumption to stand up to all of those men. I gotta tell you, you made quite a picture slapping that table. You say I’m bossy? Well compared to you, I’m a pussycat.”
Daisy’s lip lifted. “I might could remember doing that,” she said as she picked up her water glass.
“Might could? I recognize that turn of phrase. What part of the South did you call home in the States?”
“My mom’s dad worked for the state department. He and grandma have a big house in Ashburn Virginia. That’s where Brian and Karen had been staying while Mom and I were in the jungle. Jim was already attending college at Georgetown University.
“When Grandpa Eddie found out about everything that happened in Brazil, he went ballistic. At least that’s what Karen told me. I wasn’t there when it happened. He didn’t allow my father to stay at the family house. He closed ranks around Mom and us kids. Apparently, he hired the best lawyer in D.C. for his youngest daughter, and had the marriage dissolved in less than two months.”
“I’d like your grandfather,” Leo said with a smile.
“Just so long as you never got on his bad side,” Daisy nodded.
3
“I’m surprised that after everything your mother went through, she would be willing to get married again, especially so soon after the divorce.”
“So was she.” Daisy was eating her food again. She had a sparkle in her eye. “Alistair was everything my father wasn’t. She met him when he came to visit Granddad at the house. He had been working for him at a mid-level cabinet post when he met my mom. According to Alistair, it was love at first sight. He put my mother and me first in all things. We were treated like the sun and moon in his universe. He hadn’t been angling for an ambassadorship. When he got selected to run the Tajikistan embassy he was ready to turn it down. It was Mom who had to talk him into taking the post. She was convinced he could do great things. And he did.”
“I saw that you went over there. Didn’t you stay until you were sixteen?”
Daisy nodded.
“And your siblings?”
“They stayed back home. By that time Karen was going to NYU, and Brian was immersed in high school and didn’t want to leave. So he stayed with my grandparents.”
“So it was just the three of you in Tajikistan?”
She nodded. “I went to the International School. I loved it there. Every day I learned something different, and I’m not talking about school, I’m talking about the country and culture. Not to mention all the things I learned living at the embassy.”
“Like what?”
“Since I was so young when I arrived, nobody paid any attention to me, so I was in and out of Alistair’s office all the time. As long as I was quiet and out of the way, it was amazing how many meetings I got to attend. I was small for my age, so that lasted until I began to develop. Up until that time, most people thought I was seven years old at the most.”
“Really? The other diplomats really put up with that?”
“Not everyone. The autocratic countries were paranoid, but most Western countries didn’t give it a second thought, unless there were delicate topics being discussed.”
“No wonder you can handle your charity at such a young age. It must have been child’s play. Most people in your position would have a master’s degree or Ph.D., but you haven’t even graduated college.”
Her Sensual Protector: A Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 5) Page 2
