by Cindy Dees
“With all due respect, how do you know? Not many people have the background to read my algorithms and actually make sense of them.”
He shrugged. “I have a little experience with computers. I built a face-recognition program a while back that uses similar algorithms to analyze variations in facial bone structure.”
“Where did you learn how to do that?”
“MIT,” he confessed.
“You went to MIT? I didn’t know they let in good old boys.”
He commented lightly, “They let in a few of us crawdad suckers every year to populate the bottom of their bell curves. Makes everyone else feel smart.”
She laughed. “They don’t let any dummies into that place.” So, he wasn’t just a hunky grunt after all. “How did you go from MIT to an ambush that nearly did you in?”
His eyes shuttered and she felt his sharp pullback. He answered tightly, “ROTC. My folks had saved for my college, but they couldn’t afford to put me through an out-of-state school on their own.”
Silence fell between them. Before it could get awkward, she asked, “How’s your program to check my work coming?”
“Almost done. How’s your pass through your equations coming?”
She shrugged. “Slow. It’s hard to see mistakes in my own work. I could use another set of eyes on it.”
“You want me to take a look?”
“Have you studied chaos theory?” she asked in surprise.
“Some. My undergrad degree was math. My master’s was in computer science.”
Well, well, well. A math geek, huh? They might just have stuff to talk about at the breakfast table after Operation Bunk the Hunk concluded. His hotness factor went up, if possible, a few more notches.
“Aren’t you just full of surprises,” she murmured.
He raised his soda can to her in mock salute. “And to think I can even wrestle alligators.”
“Wrestle alligators!” she exclaimed. “Are you insane?”
“Nope. Just a kid from the bayou.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Does anyone actually buy that load of hooey?”
His eyes sparkled like blue diamonds. “You’d be surprised how many people do.”
“Well, I’m not one of them, mister. You can drop the dumb soldier act with me.”
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the desk, and said low, “Yeah, but you wanted to go to bed with the dumb soldier.”
“I want to go to bed with the really smart guy more,” she retorted.
He shook his head. “I dunno. That’s not generally my experience with women.”
“Exactly how many astrophysicists have you dated?”
Skepticism still glittered in his gaze. “We probably should get back to work. After all, the fate of the world is depending on us.”
“You can stop saying stuff like that. It’s stressing me out too much to think.”
He snorted. “Your brain doesn’t slow down even when you’re unconscious. Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
She started. “What did I say?”
“Something about an operation and a hypothesis. And a short skirt, I think.”
Oh, Lordy. “I must have been dreaming,” she replied hastily. Eek. Must be careful about her thoughts right before she fell asleep.
“Mmm. Must have,” he murmured noncommittally. She looked sharply at him to see if his eyes revealed more, but they were expressionless.
She turned back to her work, inexplicably embarrassed. What if she’d said more that he wasn’t telling her about? That would be bad. Really bad.
Carter had to turn away to hide his amusement. When she’d started mumbling and thrashing in the other room last night, he’d raced to her side to make sure she was all right and no one had broken into the cabin to snatch her.
Instead, there she was, chattering up a storm about Operation Land Sexy Hunk and slinky negligees and red lipstick and mental notes about not acting desperate. It had been so adorable and sexy he’d nearly crawled into bed with her and made love to her right then. But he suspected that if she even caught a hint of him thinking she was desperate, she would metaphorically head for the hills and never come down.
Somehow, he was going to have to make her think she was taking the lead and seducing him. Frankly, he was fascinated to see what she came up with by way of doing so. But for the moment, they had a true crisis on their hands, and it was his job to give her whatever she needed to solve it.
He stood up. “I’m going to go speak to the general about getting you more computing power.”
She didn’t look up from her keyboard and merely grunted an acknowledgment. A strand of silky chocolate hair had fallen over her face, and she was typing too furiously to push it out of the way. He couldn’t resist. He reached over and tucked the wayward strand behind her ear, which was as delicate and pink and soft as the rest of her.
He slipped out of the room. As he moved into the hallway, he exhaled hard. Just being in the same room with her stretched him tighter than a high wire. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so attracted to a woman. Her combination of innocence and brains was absolutely lethal.
He tried to shake off his improper thoughts of her as he stepped into the general’s office, but she was always there, the feel of her lurking in his palms, the sweet taste of her on his lips.
“Captain Baigneaux. How’s it coming?”
“Slow. This facility just doesn’t have enough computing power for her.”
The general looked surprised. “What the hell does she need? The Pentagon’s Cray array?”
“She could keep it busy for a couple of hours, I expect.”
“The Department of Defense can’t just cough up that kind of time. It takes months to schedule a run that big.”
“We don’t have months. Her calculations show the asteroid hitting in a little over two weeks.”
Fiske swore under his breath. “I’ll make some calls. See what I can do. But you damn well better be right about this or heads are gonna roll.”
Namely, his head. Carter answered grimly, “I’m sure about her, sir. Dr. James knows her stuff. And about that supercomputer access—I may know where she can get some heavy mainframe time elsewhere. If you’ll let me make a call of my own first?”
“By all means. I hate to ruin the big brass’s day.”
Like the general was chump change? Although at the levels Fiske would have to go to to get Lily the computer power she needed, Carter supposed a lousy one-star general didn’t pull much weight.
Carter pulled out his cell phone before he remembered it got no signal down here. He excused himself from Fiske’s office and went to the comm center to make a secure call.
He stepped into a soundproof phone booth, and in a few moments, his boss, Navy Commander Brady Hathaway, came on the line. Brady commanded the military side of a secret surveillance facility in the Caribbean that was housed inside an extinct volcano. H.O.T. Watch was where Carter had worked for the past few months.
“Boudreau, how’s your mission going?” Brady asked warmly when they were connected.
Carter winced. Of all people, Brady knew just how screwed up his former operator was, and just how big a deal it was for Carter to get back out in the field like this, even if it was a simple mission to collect a civilian female and talk to her.
“I’m holding up so far, but it was a close thing in that second attack. Are you sure you want me out here, sir?”
“Yes, I am. Keep an eye out when you’re above ground at Camp Nowhere, though. That place has no perimeter fence. It may be remote, but it’s open country out there.”
“Roger, sir. I’ll keep it in mind.” Although, he doubted anyone had followed them out here last night. The road behind them had been deserted and dark for hours. They hadn’t seen another car for most of the drive.
“Any ID on these Russians?” Brady asked.
“The campus police at the university have all the descriptions they collected from the b
ystanders. You can get the workups from them.”
“Will do.” A pause, then Brady asked quietly, “Any more freeze-ups?”
Carter sighed. “I’m okay for the moment. I brought Lily here so I’d have a secure place to brief her in and hide her from the Russians. But we’ve got a problem. She needs more computer juice than they’ve got here. What are the odds we can get her access to Big Bertha?”
That was their nickname for H.O.T. Watch’s supercomputer array, whose main job was to continuously sort through video surveillance imagery from the entire western hemisphere in search of threats.
“I suppose that could be arranged. I’d have to talk to Jennifer about it.”
Jennifer Blackfoot was Brady’s civilian counterpart at H.O.T. Watch Ops. She ran all the CIA and other civilian intelligence agents attached to the operation.
Brady continued, “You want to bring your astrophysicist down here?”
Carter frowned. She wasn’t his astrophysicist. Not by a long shot. He had to admit he liked the sound of it, but the reality was that the good doctor was just impressed by all the secret military stuff and not necessarily him. Belatedly, he mumbled, “I’ll bring her to the island if it’s necessary.”
“It may be. I don’t know if we can remote link you to Big Bertha. I’m assuming you want to run simulations of the asteroid impact, but I doubt you’ll have the bandwidth at your end to handle that many packets of data per second. Bertha can really pour out the calculations.”
Carter was fully aware of just how powerful Bertha was. He was one of the techs who’d helped soup her up over the past several months into the monster she was today. “I’ll look into it and get back to you, boss.”
“Let me know what I can do for you.”
“Thanks.”
“And, Carter, good job getting back in the saddle.”
He disconnected the call with his boss glumly. Hell, he’d only managed to save Lily by the skin of his teeth. Had he needed to shoot his pistol one more time to save her, she’d be in the custody of the Russians and imprisoned or dead right this second.
Some protector he was. Did he dare take her out of here under his protection? Or should he call his boss back and ask one of the other operators to take over protecting her? The mere thought of all that crackling sexual energy of hers pouring toward some other man who’d take what she had to offer and not look back made his teeth gnash.
Who was he kidding? He was a mess and she’d be a fool to get involved with him. Hell, he couldn’t even keep her safe from a simple assault. If he gave a damn about her at all, he’d step aside and let somebody else take over this mission.
Chapter 5
Lily looked up when Carter stepped back into the little workroom. His expression was stony. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he sighed, sounding aggrieved. “But I don’t think we’re going to be able to run your simulation here. This facility’s servers can’t handle the data stream from a supercomputer, despite General Fiske’s belief that this is the best computer facility in the whole wide world.”
She smiled in commiseration.
Carter continued, “The good news is, though, I found us a computer. The bad news is you’re going to have to leave the country to get access to it.”
Apprehension tightened her gut. “You said I’m going to have to leave the country. What about you?”
“Look, Lily. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not capable of looking out for you adequately. I’m going to call in someone else to provide security for you.”
“But I don’t want anyone else!”
“That’s sweet of you. But I know some guys…married guys…who can get you where you need to go safely.”
“But will they understand the math? Can they help me with my work? Can they act as sounding boards for me when I need to brainstorm something?” she demanded.
“You don’t need me for that. You know what you’re doing,” he replied grimly.
Panic beat at her ribs. “That’s not true. I’m not nearly as smart as you seem to think I am. If my theory works, it’ll be mostly dumb luck. I need you to check my work and verify it. People’s lives are riding on us getting this right.”
“There is no us, Lily.”
She stared at him in dismay. No them? No Operation Sexy Southerner? “Oh,” she said in a tiny voice. “I thought… Never mind. My mistake.” She turned away lest he see her disappointment and think she was even more pathetic than he already did.
“Hey.” He spoke from directly behind her.
She sniffed, hoping he’d mistake the sound for allergies or something.
“Lily.” His hands touched her shoulders, turning her gently to face him. “What’s wrong?”
Dear Lord. Please don’t let her break down and sob like a child who’d just dropped her ice-cream cone in the dirt. “N-nothing’s wrong.”
He chuckled lightly. “If I know one thing about women, it’s that when they say nothing’s wrong, something is definitely wrong. Talk to me, sugar.”
“I just thought…maybe we…you…” She burst out all in a rush, “Don’t you like me? Even a little bit?”
“Excuse me?” He stared blankly at her.
Darn it, did he have to go all dense and man-stupid on her now? She didn’t want to have to explain herself.
“Did I come on too strong? Or seem desperate? I mean, I suppose I am desperate. It’s not like guys like you come along very often, and certainly not one as hot as you who will give me a second look. Ohmigosh, I can’t believe I just called you hot to your face. You’re probably insulted…master’s degree from MIT…I’m such a dork…”
Two fingers pressed gently against her lips, stopping the flood of babble spilling from her mouth.
“I like it that you think I’m hot. I think you’re hot, too.”
She stared up at him. No matter how often he said it, she still had trouble believing him. “Really?”
He sighed. “Yes, really. I’m not passing you off to someone else because I don’t like you. Hell, I ought to pass you off precisely because I like you too much. But in reality, I’m calling in someone else to look after you because I’m a mental wreck. I don’t trust myself to keep you safe, and I care about you too much to let my stupid male ego get you hurt.”
“But you did fine back at the campus. You chased off those Russians twice and got me safely out of there.”
He shook his head in denial. “It was a close thing both times. I got lucky. You got lucky. I could’ve gotten you killed. Thing is, I was so determined to get back into the field and prove that I could beat this thing in my head that I put your life in danger. That’s unconscionably selfish of me. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“But I don’t want anyone else protecting me,” she insisted.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Yes, Carter, I did. But that doesn’t change how I feel. I believe in you.”
“But it’s not logical,” he said desperately.
“You’ll do just fine. You thawed right out when I gave you that massage.”
He snorted. “It’s not like we can call a time-out mid-shoot-out for you to give me a massage before we get back to the fighting.”
“No, but it does mean you’re capable of coming out of an episode much more quickly than you thought you were. If we can find the right triggers, we may be able to teach your mind to release the muscle spasms in a matter of seconds and not minutes.”
He blinked, startled. “What were you doing on the computer while I was gone?”
Busted. She confessed, “This facility has some psychology books in its intranet online library. I did a little reading about psychosomatic events.”
He shook his head. “You were supposed to be saving the world.”
For a moment, she controlled an urge to stick out her tongue at him as it would be entirely unprofessional. But then she thought better of it and stuck out her tongue anyway. “Tough. I was saving you i
nstead. And you’re every bit as important.”
“I’ll be just as dead as everyone else if Armageddon happens,” he declared.
She fired back, “All the more reason to get you fixed now so you can enjoy your last few weeks on earth before you get fried.”
“I hate arguing with smart women,” he grumbled.
She’d take that as an admission of defeat. The matter of her bodyguard settled, she announced, “I’ve done about all that I can here. I’m going to need that mainframe of yours to start running simulations.”
“Then I have a few more phone calls to make. You and I are going on vacation tomorrow.”
She frowned. Vacation? What was he talking about? They had urgent work to do.
He said, “It’s probably too late for us to leave the base tonight. I’ll ask the general to arrange transport out of here in the morning.”
“And where exactly are we going?” she asked, perplexed.
He grinned. “Paradise.”
He obviously wasn’t planning to tell her any more. He was probably going to whisk her away to another classified military base tucked away in some god-forsaken corner of the planet.
“Can we at least get an office with windows next time?” she asked.
“Sorry. There won’t be windows, but they’ve got the prettiest beaches you ever saw.”
Beaches? That sounded distinctly better than a salt mine.
“Let’s call it a day, Lily. I don’t know about you but I’m beat.”
She was feeling a little wrung-out, too. The low-level hum of claustrophobia she’d been fighting all day had taken its toll on her. “Thank God. I’m more than ready to get out this box.”
“Sugar, if you needed distracting, you should have told me,” he murmured in gentle reproach.
“And there’s one more reason I need you as my bodyguard,” she declared. Carter led her to the elevator, and her palms actually broke out in a sweat on the long ride back up to the surface.
They’d been in the elevator about a minute when he murmured, “Breathe, chère. Ride’s almost over.”
“How’d you know?” she gritted out from behind her clenched teeth.
