Target of One's Own

by M. L. Buchman

  Definitely time for a change of subject.

  “Why are your cars here, Christian, and not on a ship bound for South America?” She knew The Dakar started in less than a week and they should already be underway.

  Luke twisted to look at her. She could see the light bulb flash on over his head. Hathyaron. The Dakar. Undercover. Each piece fitting except for Christian being in Dakar, Senegal, rather Mar del Plata, Argentina.

  Christian sighed dramatically as he ran a loving hand over the smooth hood of the dark red Renault. The Citroën was appropriately lemon—citron in French—yellow.

  “My doctor, he says my spine will not survive The Dakar so soon after last year’s crash.” He blushed as if he was less of a man for having impacted his disks. No, it wasn’t a blush, it was anger. “I tell the doctor he is a criminal, but he insists that he will report me to the race association if I try to drive. They would take away my FIA license. So here my beautiful cars sit when they should be racing. It would have been my tenth Dakar, I would become Legend.”

  Legend was the label—and fee discount—that they gave to drivers who had started ten or more races. It was obvious that Christian didn’t need to worry about the ten percent discount off the thirty-thousand-euro entry fee. Not when the shock absorbers on each car cost over ten thousand apiece. It was his ego that radiated fury.

  Zoe had researched both the Dakar Rally and Christian on the flight over—the free First Class upgrade had thankfully included free Internet.

  She’d already known about the former being the most demanding car race in the world. Five thousands kilometers—in vehicles that made Huckfest jumpers look like kids driving Tonka trucks—over terrain that made the Pismo dunes seem little more than sand ripples on the beach.

  She’d also found a video of Christian utterly destroying what now must be the pile of parts that Ahmed was working on. Christian had jumped a dune, catching serious air—too much air. He’d flown off the top of the steep-backed dune with his nose almost straight up toward the sky. What had appeared to be a smallish dune from the front had turned out to be a catastrophically far fall on the back.

  The car had landed tail first, shattering the rear end. Then the front end had slammed down so brutally that it had folded everything except the driver’s roll cage in half. The car had tumbled down the dune like a shattered donut—spewing parts in every direction.

  His navigator had only broken his ankle, but Christian had to be airlifted out.

  “Maybe you should listen to the doctor.”

  His fury glared from his eyes for a moment, then she could see him visibly struggle for a long moment before he smiled and looked at her.

  “If that is what my Zoe thinks, then I will accept it.”

  But she’d seen the look in his eyes as his rage had turned briefly on her. It was a look that said he was capable of anything. She casually laid her hand against the handle of her knife where it lay flat against her opposite forearm under her blouse.

  While he struggled to regain control of himself—soothing his male ego by showing Luke all of the features of his cars—Zoe was left with a problem of her own.

  Two cars in Dakar instead of at The Dakar.

  An injured driver.

  Her entire plan for hunting Hathyaron the arms dealer while embedded undercover in Christian’s support team had just gone up in smoke. What had seemed like such a brilliant idea when she’d thought it up had turned into a boondoggle—something she’d wager Luke Altman wasn’t a fan of. And something that even if he didn’t report to her commanders, she’d have to.

  She didn’t have a Plan B. Needing one fast wasn’t helping her think clearly.

  Luke Altman was tolerating Christian’s ego, but that wasn’t going to last much longer.

  Unable to remain in place among all the shadows, she stepped out the garage door and onto the street. Christian’s garage door opened onto a typical Dakar street. It was reddish sand and under twenty feet wide. Two cars could pass, if one edged onto someone’s front stoop—narrow mosaics of colored stone swept clean several times a day. Occasional trees dotted the roadside, but the only one she recognized was a bougainvillea vine because of its lovely dark purple blossoms showering the street with its only color.

  The sand itself was gritty with bits of broken-off concrete from construction work. A small group of men were working a few buildings down. One was mixing concrete in a plastic bucket. He dumped it into a battered steel mold. Another man thumped it a few times with a board to settle the slurry, then flipped it upside down in the sand. When he lifted it clear, a concrete block, complete with its two large central holes, joined the rows of the ones they’d already made.

  That explained the grit already wheedling its way into her sandals. And the grit she felt inside seemed to make her blood flow sluggish and painful as well.

  Across the street, two men sat with ropes in their hands. The ropes led up to pulleys attached to the building’s third story, then back down to street level. Finished—and she hoped dried—concrete blocks were loaded into slings, then tugged up to the roof by the men with the ropes. Occasionally a fresh bucket of mortar was sent aloft to the men laboring on the third story. A half dozen others were sitting around, appearing to have no purpose other than visiting with the workers—perhaps their friends lucky enough to actually have a job. In a country where a living wage was $150US a month and unemployment hovered around twenty percent, there were plenty of friends to hang out.

  The work slowed at the site as more and more of them began watching her. She wore long pants and a knee-length caftan of spangled sunrise colors that Emilio Sosa had made for her when she’d interviewed him for a post after he placed second in Project Runway. She was decently covered—far more than usual—but she’d felt the need for it after this morning. Even that didn’t hide her from their attention. The question was obvious on their faces, Is she single? Would she marry me?

  She wanted to smack the lot of them. And smack herself for believing this was all going to be so easy.

  In the other direction, the back lane led toward the main road, a street busy with buses, taxis, and the constant interweave of pedestrians. Across the street she could see a lone tree. Its bole was painted red and blue. Beneath the overarching branches a group of people sat. Friends. Laughter. One making tea with long dramatic pours from one cup to the other. And musicians. Even from here she could hear the music: a guitar player hunched over his six-string as if he was nurturing it, a drummer with his instrument clamped between his knees, and a flute player who swayed with the music.

  In moments she forgot about the construction workers and let herself get lost in the music. The flute arced above the noise and hurry of the street; it seemed to float, echo, and beckon. Her heart leaned toward it until she almost stumbled forward.

  “He’s a griot,” Christian said softly, coming up beside her, wiping his hands with an oily rag. “Music is very important in Senegalese culture, and some are born to the music as their destiny. The skill is inherited. His father was a griot and his father before him.”

  “He had no choice?”

  “Music is not to be denied. Like a bard of Druid Europe, he holds great power. Traditionally, when he died he would not be buried, but rather placed inside the hollow center of a baobab tree that his music may live on. Though I don’t think they do that anymore.”

  A breeze stirred up the cloying scent of oil and grease from Christian’s hands. Splotches of oil darkened his knuckles. They reminded her of a past so dark that—

  If only she could just answer the flutist’s call. She would run down the street and never stop. She could taste the bitter adrenaline in the back of her throat, so sharp she wanted to cough it out, but feared she’d vomit out her breakfast of over-strong coffee, omelet, and Nutella on baguette instead.

  The shadows of the garage behind her and the promise of sunlight ahead of her. She’d race away until—

  Zoe turned and looked back into the garage.
She could see, by how studiously Luke wasn’t looking her way, that he was intently keeping track of exactly where she was. If she tried to run, he’d be on her in a flash.

  Did that make her feel better or worse?

  Trapped?

  Protected?

  Borderline hysterical?

  But it wasn’t him or his fine backside that was attracting her attention. Not even the impression of his palm on the small of her back that she could still feel resting there.

  It was the cars.

  The cars. The empty street. And her desperate need to escape.

  8

  “Christian?”

  Luke could feel Zoe’s voice through the street noise as much as he heard it. It resonated in some way that confirmed her identity through instinct long before he could have actually recognized it. It was down at the level of a SEAL training gestalt—simply known. When had that happened?

  Maybe because, while putting up with Christian’s ego, he’d pieced together DeMille’s plan…and how it had just broken. The key had been the change in her when she’d entered the garage.

  Tweety Bird DeMille—again dressed in yellow—had flown away and suddenly a very serious woman stood in her place despite the flowing clothes that made her look almost ethereally pretty. When she’d asked why the cars were still here in Dakar, he could hear the deep importance of the question. Then her vast disappointment at hearing of Christian’s injury was far more than mere sympathy warranted.

  And that had been the key to her plan. She’d intended to use her crazy fandom thing to get inside the Dakar Rally undercover to chase Hathyaron.

  Chief Warrant Zoe DeMille had never been stupid. He didn’t understand her most of the time, but she was as sharp as any Spec Ops soldier. He remembered how fast she’d put it all together while he’d been standing in Hathyaron’s compound in Pakistan. No more than a long pause over the radio and she’d thought up and implemented the whole plan.

  She wasn’t being some gushing fan of Christian Vehrs; she was trying to use the fact that he was a fan of hers. A plan that had been shot to hell because the guy had busted up his back.

  Yet she did her best to appear like a flighty airhead, running on no more than two moosepower. Moose were one of the dumbest animals on the planet—two moosepower was still dumber than a turnip green.

  He remembered a young bull that had walked into town and accidentally stepped on a low sports car—except it was an old ragtop. Its huge hoof had punched through the cloth roof and the flooring on the driver’s side. Each time it tried to lift its leg, the tendon at the back of its knee caught on the inside of the roof, making it impossible for him to withdraw his leg. So, he had stood there, looking perplexed, while Officer James had tried to figure out how to help half a ton of stupid wild animal that slashed his massive rack of horns at anyone who got close.

  He already knew DeMille was smart enough to be flying for the 5E, damn it.

  From now on, he was going to proceed on the assumption that she did nothing by accident.

  Had she leaned her car seat back into his chest to heat him up by looking down the front of her dress? No. That didn’t fit. But she certainly enjoyed teasing him. Though he still wasn’t sure why, she must have some reason. Didn’t she?

  “Christian?” DeMille’s voice was sweeter than fresh-boiled maple syrup. Okay, here came Plan B. Go for it, DeMille.

  “Yes? What can I do for you, my Zoe?” That possessive was going to get Christian in trouble yet. Luke just might leave him with far more than his back screwed up.

  “I’ve never driven a WRC car. Is there somewhere I can try? I’d love to video that for my fans.”

  And Christian lit up like he was Sylvester who had finally caught his Tweety Bird.

  What the hell? What kind of a Plan B was that?

  Luke glanced at the cars. Two seats: driver and navigator. No rear seat, not in a race car.

  Whatever naive ideas DeMille might have about being in control of Christian Vehrs, she was dead wrong. The man was dangerous. Luke hoped that she didn’t end up wishing she was dead because of—

  “Maybe we could drive somewhere together,” she made it a statement, not a question.

  Hadn’t he just seconds ago thought she was smart. She was being an idio—

  “No, wait, your back. How about if Luke and I each drive one. You could ride with Luke and film me for the post.”

  Okay, not as stupid as he thought…maybe. He still didn’t see where she was going with this.

  “What do you think?” And suddenly she was up close to Christian with a hand placed on the bemused man’s chest, pleading upward into his face as he was most of a foot taller.

  It should be ridiculous, but somehow DeMille made it coy and cute.

  Yes, cute as hell in the yellow drape thingy over loose slacks and blouse. She was also more concerned about clothes than common sense. These were high-performance race cars—what the hell would she know about those?

  “Oh, it would be so fun to drive even a little way.” “Oh, it’s such a beautiful car that you’ve built.” “Would you really let me drive one even though I’ve never done a rally drive?” “I have to go change! I can’t drive in these clothes.” And she was gone, running back into the house.

  Christian never got in a word edgewise. She’d accepted his agreement without him ever agreeing. She’d simply kept hammering on every one of Christian’s weak spots to keep his head spinning.

  DeMille better not try that shit on him, but it sure worked on Christian. The man was in a daze as he prepared the cars. Luke settled in to wait for Zoe, but didn’t have to wait long.

  He’d leaned back against the hood of the Renault, partly because it was comfortable, but mostly because it pissed off Christian.

  But he jolted to his feet when DeMille reappeared in three minutes flat.

  She now wore a form-hugging zip-front sleeveless shirt sealed up to her neck—with such a big-toothed zipper that it was easy to imagine pulling it down. The material—like her running shirt this morning—revealed there wasn’t a single thing wrong with her figure despite her slenderness. Her chest matched her, complementing her slim waist and good shoulders. Black jeans hugged her hips down to sensible shoes. A yellow leather jacket was slung over one shoulder with a casualness that said she absolutely knew she was on display. Not just on display, but loving it.

  She posed by the cars and did one of those coy smile things as Christian snapped pictures of her. They conferred quickly over the display on his camera and Christian plugged it into his phone to post two of the photos immediately.

  DeMille had leaned her shoulder against his as she dictated the captions for him to type in.

  For all that he’d known Zoe for three years’ worth of missions, he’d never really seen her as a woman until she was lying back on the Renault’s red hood, perfectly outlining her bright yellow clothes. Did she also have a red outfit in case she’d wanted to pose on the Citroën? What if his car had been blue or green? At least that would explain why her suitcase had been so damn heavy.

  Five-four of pipsqueak shouldn’t be able to look even half that good, yet she did. Dark, wraparound shades—with electric yellow frames of course—and she actually looked like one of those fashion magazine nymphs. She was sure doing a job of selling it to Christian.

  He made one final token protest that DeMille’s Tweety Bird mode instantly quashed. When the Frenchman caved to the inevitable and conceded that maybe a short drive was possible, DeMille pulled him down to her and kissed him on both cheeks.

  Not on the lips, Luke was pleased to see.

  Then DeMille winked at Luke.

  For the life of him he still didn’t know why.

  9

  Completely aside from her new plan, Zoe itched to find out just what the car could do.

  The engine’s throaty rumble begged to be allowed out to play. It ran smoothly, in perfect tune, but it had so much power she could feel it vibrating the car right through
the seat and the steering wheel. It was a vehicle that begged to move super-fast.

  And they were crawling behind a horse cart. The two-wheel cart had been piled high with someone’s household belongings: a dresser, bed, some bags of clothes. And the woman sat atop a pile of pillows, clutching a small houseplant to her chest and chatting with the drover as he shushed the horse along. Moving day.

  The delay was actually a good thing, even if it was making her crazy. It gave her time to familiarize herself with the cockpit. It was unlike anything she’d ever driven. She’d been in stripped-down vehicles before with no pretty trim and an exposed roll cage—that wasn’t the problem. But this dash and the controls weren’t stripped down at all.

  In front of the passenger seat were two screens the size of tablet computers, though thankfully their screens were dark at the moment—she didn’t need more distractions. There were several other instruments including a large compass. Rally racing was as much about navigation as anything. No GPS, no satellite images or ultra-hi-res maps, or even a cell phone was allowed. Old-school navigation. She knew The Dakar used a GPS monitor for the race officials, but it was very specifically crippled so that it couldn’t be used for long-range navigation.

  The center of the dash was filled with rows of switches. Each time she was trapped in traffic, waiting for pedestrians or a truck to get out of the way—they thought nothing of stopping in the middle of a one-lane road to make a delivery—she studied the panel. Lights, instrument power, yada, yada. There was a jacks switch, which must mean there were hydraulic jacks underneath in case a quick tire change was needed. CTIS she’d read about, but never used. It allowed the inflation/deflation of the tires while driving: softer for sand, harder for rocks or road. She tinkered with the settings until she could do it without looking.