Strangers When We Meet

by Merline Lovelace

  “Can I ask a favor, ma’am?”

  “Sure.”

  “When Major Petrovna and I entered the headquarters building a little while ago, we passed a passel of civilian contractors. Would you check and see if there was a meeting or briefing in the conference room they might have been attending? If so, I need the name and telephone number of the officer who set it up.”

  “No problem.”

  She punched a button on her intercom. Within moments, she’d obtained the requested information from the conference-room scheduler.

  “It was a briefing on the proposed new exo-atmospheric defense system,” she informed Dodge. “Lieutenant Colonel Haskell from the plans directorate conducted it.”

  She scribbled his name, office symbol and phone number on a pink memo slip.

  “Thanks.”

  Stuffing the slip into a zippered pocket of his uniform, Dodge waited for Petrovna to make her farewells. Once they were back in the sedan and headed for the quarters set aside for the visiting team, he tried again.

  “About the voice you heard in the hallway. You sure you don’t want to tell me why it spooked you?”

  Petrovna’s jaw clenched, stretching her scarred skin tight over the bone. “I make the mistake. We will speak no more of it.”

  Wrong. They would speak about it a whole lot more, once Dodge got a tag on Dog Voice.

  “You will take me to my quarters so I may rest from the flight,” she announced coldly. “Tomorrow, you will report at oh-six-hundred. We must breakfast before the in-brief.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, with just enough of an edge to cause her to cut him a quick look.

  “You must escuse me if I sound…” She waved a hand, searching for the right word. “If I sound…”

  “Uptight?” Dodge supplied helpfully. “Like maybe you sat on the pointy end of a missile?”

  Her jaw dropped. She stared at him for several seconds before a gleam of what looked suspiciously like laughter lit her eyes. She controlled the impulse before it could make it to her lips.

  “You will excuse me,” she said again, repressively. “It has been a long day.”

  Dodge figured that was as close as he was going to get to an apology. Nodding, he cut through the traffic headed off base and circled the parade ground. Stately homes left over from the cavalry days lined two sides of the meticulously mowed field. On the south end were the long, low buildings that once had housed unmarried cavalry officers. They now served as Visiting Officers’ Quarters.

  The buildings’ exterior retained the look of the 1880s. The redbrick walls, tin roof and long, white-painted porches were all original. Successive renovations, however, had brought the interiors up to modern comfort standards. Each suite contained a living room and bedroom, with a bath and small kitchenette tucked into the hallway between the two. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in earth-toned fabrics, and the accessories scattered around the rooms reflected Warren’s frontier heritage. Lamps made of welded horseshoes sat on the end tables. A shadow box displaying crossed cavalry swords hung above the campaign-style desk. Framed prints and wide windows brought Wyoming’s spectacular mountains and rolling plains into the room.

  In keeping with his cover of a reservist recalled to active duty to assist during severe pilot shortages, Dodge was quartered in the VOQ across the parking lot. He would have preferred to bunk down with his cousin Sam on the Double H, but the ranch was more than an hour’s drive north of Cheyenne. This arrangement let him keep a closer eye on his charge.

  He’d checked the major’s suite earlier to make sure the cupboards were stocked and the protocol office had delivered the prerequisite gift basket. It sat on the coffee table as Petrovna skimmed a quick glance around the living room and dropped her briefcase on the desk. After ascertaining that her suitcase had already arrived, she confirmed the room numbers assigned to her teammates before dismissing her escort.

  “I will see you tomorrow.”

  Dodge ignored the brush-off. The woman intrigued him in more ways than one. With her odd reaction at wing headquarters front and center in his mind, he tendered a casual invitation.

  “The pantry’s stocked with soup and such, but I could pick up you and your folks after you’ve rested and take you to dinner.”

  “We ate the sandwich on the airplane.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Da.” The blonde held out an impatient hand for the key. “You may leave now. And…” As if recalled to her manners, she gave him a quick nod. “I thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Her brief spate of cordiality ended, she dismissed him once again. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  Damn straight she would, Dodge thought as he tipped two fingers to his forehead in a casual salute.

  It took every bit of Lara’s iron discipline to keep her face expressionless and her voice steady until the door closed behind the American officer.

  As soon as it shut, her discipline imploded and the tremors she’d fought with every ounce of her being took over. Her arms and legs began to shake. Her breath shortened to strangled gasps that cut through the silence of the suite like a Cossack saber.

  That voice! That rasping growl! It couldn’t be the same one she’d heard that horrific night. It couldn’t.

  Blindly, she groped her way to the nearest chair and collapsed. Her breath razored from her lungs through a throat clogged tight. As if it were yesterday, she could feel the heat scorching her face, her hands. Feel the paralyzing panic as the wall of fire roared toward her. She’d screamed for Yuri, for Katya. Dragging off her heavy military overcoat, she’d wrapped it around her head and was about to plunge through the wall when her husband burst through the flames with their baby daughter in his arms.

  Lara didn’t cry. Not anymore. She hadn’t since the night her husband died in her arms. But she couldn’t hold back an agonized groan as she rocked in the chair and tried to force the searing memories back into the black corner of her soul where they would always live.

  Larissa Petrovna was front and center in Dodge’s mind when he pushed through the door at the end of the long hall and stepped into an early dusk. The ever-present Wyoming wind nipped at his face and hands as he walked past the blue sedan he’d been assigned for the duration of the Russians’ visit. He would have preferred to chauffeur the major around in his rented 4x4, but protocol dictated a vehicle with USAF markings and license plates for their official duties.

  His quarters were just across the parking lot. The rooms were similar in design and layout to Petrovna’s, and a hell of a lot more comfortable than some of the rat holes he’d occupied during other ops. As he keyed the lock, he kept returning to that business outside the wing commander’s office. What the heck was that all about?

  Tossing his hat and keys on the table, he checked his watch. Just a little past six. He fished out the piece of paper with the number jotted down by the wing commander’s administrative assistant. Colonel Haskell had probably left for the day, but Dodge decided to give him a call anyway.

  Haskell picked up on the third ring. He was, he informed Dodge, just on his way out the door.

  “Then I’ll make this quick. I understand you gave a briefing at wing headquarters this afternoon.”

  “That’s right. The subject of the briefing wasn’t classified, but I’ll tell you right up front I can’t discuss any of the specific issues we addressed over an open phone line.”

  “I’m more interested in the attendees than the issues. One attendee in particular. A civilian contractor.”

  “There were upward of thirty contractors in the room.”

  “This one spoke in a low, sort of rasping voice, as if he had something stuck in the back of his throat.”

  “I know who you mean. His name’s Hank Barlow. He’s the CEO of E-Systems.” He paused a moment. “What’s your interest in him?”

  Dodge fully intended to report Major Petrovna’s reaction to this guy Barlow. It had been too odd to let
pass. He’d confine his report to those with a need to know, though.

  “I heard his voice as he was going out of the head quarters and I was coming in,” he said easily. “Thought I knew him from somewhere and was curious as to his identity.”

  “Now you know. Want me to track down his number for you?”

  “That’s okay. I can get it. Thanks.”

  He hung up and made two additional calls. The first was to the Office of Special Investigations. The OSI conducted counterintelligence ops within the air force, in addition to investigating everything from terrorism to desertion, drug trafficking and/or murder.

  The local OSI duty officer patched him through immediately to the F. E. Warren detachment commander, Lt. Colonel Paul Handerhand. Hander hand listened without comment when Dodge described Major Petrovna’s odd behavior, and promised to have his people check out Hank Barlow.

  “I’ll do the same,” Dodge advised.

  That was met with a short silence. Handerhand had been read-in on some of Dodge’s background and knew he’d been brought in from an outside agency. That was all he knew.

  “Let me know what you find out,” Handerhand said briskly.

  “Same goes.”

  Dodge disconnected and pressed the star key on his cell phone. The instrument looked ordinary enough, but Mackenzie Blair Jensen, the agency’s guru of all things electronic, had crammed in enough circuitry to bounce signals off a supernova. The device also performed an instant thumbprint, iris scan and voice analysis to identify the user’s biometrics and detect if he or she was under duress before connecting to OMEGA’s control center.

  The high-tech control center was located on the third floor of a town house in the heart of Washington D.C.’s embassy district. All a casual passerby would see if they strolled past the town house was a discreet bronze plaque identifying the building as home to the offices of the President’s Special Envoy. The title was one of those empty honorifics dreamed up to give a wealthy campaign contributor a chance to rub elbows with Washington’s movers and shakers. A mere handful of insiders knew that the President’s Special Envoy also served as director of OMEGA. As such, he fielded highly trained and specialized agents, only at the direction of the president and only when it wasn’t expedient to use other, more established agencies.

  Which said a lot about Washington’s determination to make sure this START III inspection went off without a glitch. With the international situation so precarious and wild-eyed insurgents blowing themselves up all around the world, the last thing either the U.S. or Russia needed was an incident that could lead to a nuclear showdown.

  Feeling the weight of all those nukes on his shoulders, Dodge held the cell phone up so the scanner could beam his iris print. Seconds later, his controller’s face painted across the screen.

  “Hey, Dodger.”

  “Hey yourself, Blade.”

  Clint Black, code name Blade, had been with OMEGA almost as long as Dodge himself. They’d worked several ops together and would trust each other with their lives. That trust didn’t extend to women, though. Blade was still plotting payback for the fun-loving UPI reporter Dodge had whisked out from under his nose last year.

  Although…Dodge and everyone else at OMEGA had been watching with some interest the fireworks that sparked between Blade and one of the newer agents. The betting was Blade’s sharp edge was about to get blunted, big-time.

  “How’s it going out there in cowboy country?”

  “It’s going,” Dodge replied.

  After a succinct status report that included his initial impressions of the three Russians, he broached the reason for his call.

  “I need you to check out a dude by the name of Hank Barlow. He’s the CEO of E-Systems.”

  “Hank Barlow. E-Systems. Got it. Anything in particular you want me to look for?”

  “See if he has any connection to our visiting Russians.”

  “Roger that. I’ll get back to you.”

  Blade hung up and keyed the name into OMEGA’s computers. While the supercomputer did its thing, he skimmed a glance around the busy control center.

  It was geared to operate 24/7. Active and passive electronic countermeasures prevented interception of its encrypted emanations. Communications techs kept the array of computers and wall-size digital displays humming. Even the field-dress unit, which could turn a grungy agent just back from three weeks in the jungle into a tuxedoed James Bond in the blink of an eye, had at least one team member working some esoteric disguise or another.

  Blade dragged his chair closer to the operations control panel to key in the name of the individual and company Dodge had just requested data on. Blade intended to run both through a wire-tight screen. He’d done enough covert ops for OMEGA to know success or failure on any mission hung by a thread. A late contact, a small detail buried under others, a blurred photo—any or all of them could spell disaster. He’d just started skimming the info that came when his nemesis strolled in.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  Victoria Talbot, code name Rebel, caught the low mutter and pasted on a saccharine smile.

  “Good to see you, too.”

  Blade blew out a slow breath and swung around to face the honey-haired operative. She was dressed in her usual leather: bomber jacket, thigh-hugging pants, boots, all the same thin, supple black. All she needed to complete the image of an oversexed biker babe were a few tattoos.

  It wasn’t that Blade disliked the woman. Hell, the truth was, she turned him on. But they’d had this love/hate thing going ever since they’d clashed during Rebel’s first week at OMEGA. It had been a simple misunderstanding, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t need to knock Blade flat on his ass. Wouldn’t have, if he’d had the least inkling she would even try.

  They were both professionals. They’d smoothed things over. On the surface, at least. But they both knew whatever the hell was going on beneath that surface would blow up in their faces one of these days.

  “You need something?” he asked, with a credible attempt at civility.

  “No. Just wanted to check on Dodge.” She cranked her too-sweet smile up another notch. “I thought I could help, since he and I are both former air force.”

  And Blade wasn’t. Obviously she thought his stint as a lowly army special-forces grunt didn’t count for squat when dealing with one of her fellow hotshot pilots.

  “Thanks anyway, but I’ve got it under control.”

  “You sure?” Her glance flicked from him to the screen. What she saw there made her lift a brow. “Hank Barlow? Is that the E-Systems guy?”

  She crowded closer to peer at the screen. Too close, dammit. Blade got a whiff of her scent as she leaned over his shoulder. How the hell could leather smell so sexy?

  “E-Systems,” she murmured. “Yep, that’s him.”

  Much as it galled him, Blade had to ask. “You know him?”

  Rebel hitched a hip on the console, forcing him to scoot his chair back to give her room.

  “I hauled Barlow across the pond a couple times when I was still flying VIP transport,” she commented. “He was heading some high-powered trade delegation. Had ambassador status, or something close to it. Why are you checking him out?”

  “Dodge says he’s at F. E. Warren.”

  “So?”

  He stifled the urge to tell her this was his op and she could take herself and those come-get-me leathers elsewhere. Talbot might rub him exactly the wrong way, but she was as good at this business as any operative he’d ever worked with.

  “One of the members of the Russian inspection team froze up after a chance encounter with Barlow. Dodge wanted me to see if the man has a connection to Moscow.”

  “I can answer that,” she said with only a trace of smugness. “The trade delegation I just mentioned? They were negotiating with the Russians.”

  Chapter 3

  Dodge was still chewing over the information Blade had relayed when he crossed the parking lot between the VOQs at oh-dark-thirty the
next morning. The insulated bomber-style jacket he wore over his flight suit provided more than adequate protection from the predawn chill, but not from the doubts swirling around inside his head.

  Blade had confirmed Larissa Petrovna’s presence in Moscow during at least three of Barlow’s visits to that city. What was their connection? And why had she denied there was one? OMEGA was digging deeper into Barlow’s background. In the meantime, Dodge would do his damndest to find out what was going on behind the major’s ice-maiden facade.

  Lieutenant Tate and Senior Master Sergeant Lewis were waiting at the entrance to the VOQ. They peeled off to collect their charges, and Dodge rapped on Petrovna’s door. When she answered, he almost did a double take. The woman looked like a ghost in the dim light spilling into the hallway. Purple circles shadowed her eyes. Tired lines were etched into her face. She wore a black turtleneck sweater under the jacket of her navy suit instead of yesterday’s white blouse. The dark shades contrasted cruelly with her pallor.

  Jet lag must have smacked the major right between the eyes. Or was her obviously restless night connected to her knee-jerk reaction yesterday? Dodge’s gut told him it was the latter, but he kept his expression polite and his voice casual as he offered a choice of breakfast establishments.

  “There’s a Burger King on base as well as the chow hall. Or we could drive into town if you prefer.”

  “The dining facility is best. I will get my briefcase, then we go.”

  She left the door standing open while she disappeared into the bedroom. Dodge was careful not to step inside uninvited. The treaty protocol had emphasized that inspectors’ living quarters were to be accorded the inviolability given to the private residences of diplomatic agents.

  Dodge’s duties as an escort required him to make sure the major’s basic needs were taken care of, however. He scanned the living area with a quick glance. Interesting that Petrovna hadn’t yet left her mark on the room. No clothes or books lay scattered over the furniture. No dirty dishes sat in the sink or on the kitchen counter.