Tinderbox (Flashpoint Book 1)

by Rachel Grant

  The entire region inched ever closer to the flashpoint.

  “China has done a terrible job of protecting Djiboutian cultural heritage sites,” Morgan said in a hard tone. “I wouldn’t count on them to protect Linus.”

  “I want to know when we can announce this find,” the tourism minister said. “A site like Linus will do wonders for our tourism industry.”

  “We’re waiting for the potassium-argon dating results,” Morgan said. “Announcing a find of this kind without a solid date is the equivalent of skipping peer review before publishing in a scientific journal. It would make the find suspect, as if we weren’t confident in our analysis to hold it up to scrutiny from the expert community. I’m a contract archaeologist. I know what I’m doing and am good at my job—and my job is to find sites along the proposed railroad corridors—my job isn’t to provide the full spectrum of paleoanthropological analysis. For that, you need an expert. Once the experts have weighed in, we will announce the find. We should have a definitive date for the fossils in two to three weeks, and two of the experts I’ve contacted have said they could work from photos for the preliminary evaluation but would prefer to see the bones in situ.”

  Pax wondered what that missing skull would mean for this, and hoped to hell the US military did have it, and it hadn’t been damaged.

  Or China might be given point on protecting Linus after all.

  “In the meantime,” Morgan said, shifting her attention to Lemaire, “I plan to start surveying the other APE tomorrow. We’ll leave Linus alone, and tell no one the site location, while we wait for the date and experts.”

  The minister nodded. Pax respected that Morgan had just bought time for O’Leary to get the skull back in place. If it hadn’t been damaged. And if it had been taken by the US military in the first place.

  Chapter Nine

  Pax unlocked the door to Morgan’s apartment in Djibouti City. He shoved it open, then stepped back. He wouldn’t leave her alone in the hall, so he had to scan what he could see of the room before stepping inside.

  This kind of security sweep was usually done with a handgun. Pax had opted for the M4, but then, he wasn’t in the mood to dick around. If anyone was inside Morgan’s apartment, they’d be sorry.

  The one-bedroom unit was empty of invaders, and he shut and locked the door, then turned to face Morgan. “Has anything been moved?”

  She frowned as she scanned the room. Her beautiful eyes were hooded as if she were using X-ray vision to detect changes.

  Her eyes at half-mast like that were very, very sexy.

  “Yes. My papers have been gone through.”

  “What?”

  “That stack of books, next to the desk. They’re in the wrong order. I was reading the Rickety Cossack book, but it’s second in the stack. I don’t remember the last time I cracked open the physical anthropology textbook, but I know it’s been weeks, yet it’s on top.” She stepped forward. “And the human evolution coloring book, my mom sent that. It arrived just two days ago. It shouldn’t be with the reference books. It should be with the dictionary coloring book and crayons. They’re gifts for Hugo.” She pointed to a second coloring book and box of crayons that sat on the desk by a cup full of pens.

  “Hugo?” Pax asked.

  “His father owns a restaurant down the street. Hugo is one of the only people who speaks English in the neighborhood. I’ve been teaching him to read.”

  She frowned again as she looked at the books. “One of the geology studies is gone. It wasn’t even mine. Broussard left it here for me to use as a reference—it was a rare monograph, a geologic survey of French Somaliland done by the Vichy government during World War II. Broussard will be upset that it’s gone.”

  “Who is Broussard?” Pax asked. He was beginning to think he should start writing these names down. A chart might be necessary.

  “Andre Broussard is the French geologist who initially dated the strata in the valley where we found Linus. He’s the one who told China to stop destroying sites and paved the way for my contract. He conducted a geologic survey of the proposed railway APE, and recognized that artifacts littered the ground all along the route.”

  “Pretend I don’t remember what APE stands for.”

  She smiled. “Sorry. Area of Potential Effect—the project footprint where everything will be destroyed by construction. Broussard’s geologic study has been an enormous help for my survey. The government provided this apartment, and Broussard lived here before me. He returned to France in January, but knowing I’d need them for my survey, he left behind several reference books and the monograph. I’m supposed to mail the books to his home in Paris when I’m done.”

  “So the monograph is missing, and books have been moved. Anything else?”

  A cell phone began to ring and vibrate.

  “Is that your ringtone?” Morgan asked, turning toward the sound.

  Pax glanced behind him. There was a phone on the tiny kitchen table. “No. That phone isn’t yours?”

  She shook her head. “My phone was smashed yesterday.”

  No time to flee the building, so Pax pushed her into the bedroom—as far from the phone as possible. It could be the trigger for a bomb.

  The phone stopped ringing, and nothing exploded.

  Twenty seconds later, it began to ring again.

  “Should we answer it?” Morgan asked.

  Pax was at a loss. This wasn’t his specialty. She needed someone who was trained to protect VIPs. What the fuck was his XO thinking?

  I requested this. It’s my own damn fault.

  “Stay here,” he said and stepped into the kitchen. He picked up the vibrating cell and swiped a finger across the touch screen, then hit the speaker button. He said nothing.

  “Dr. Morgan Adler,” a male voice said, “leave Djibouti.”

  Chapter Ten

  Morgan wanted to snatch the phone from his hand and ask who the hell the caller was, but Pax disconnected and ripped the battery from the phone before she had a chance. “You have thirty seconds to pack. You handle clothes, I’ll grab your papers. No time to grab all the books, so pick three. Give me a bag.”

  She plucked a canvas bag from the closet and threw it at him. “My field notebooks are more important than any of the books.”

  In her bedroom, she filled a second bag with clothing and a third with boots and her secondary dig kit.

  She was at least thirty seconds over her time limit when he stood in the bedroom doorway. “Time’s up. We’re leaving.”

  She hesitated in the main room. Did he get the USB drive from the desk drawer? She turned toward the desk but he caught her arm. “Nope. We’re leaving. You can come back later. Maybe.”

  She followed him out the door. He tossed the bags in the rear of the SUV. In moments, they were peeling out of the parking lot. He drove a twisted route through town, taking side streets she never would have explored on her own.

  “It’s a waste of time looking for someone following us when they’ll easily spot us on the road to the base,” she said. Shit. The base. It looked like she was moving there after all. In spite of O’Leary’s horrific move, she had no choice but to accept his offer of protection.

  “We aren’t going to the base. At least not yet.”

  “Then where are we going?”

  “I have no fucking clue.” He took a sharp left, then an even sharper right. His eyes darted from the road to the rearview mirror. “Gotcha, asshole.”

  “There’s someone behind us?”

  “Yep. White Toyota Land Cruiser. There had to be someone watching, someone following. They knew we were at your place. Someone knew it was time to call, that you were there. Whoever it is probably followed us from the minister’s office.”

  His turns were erratic. The large SUV swerved and skidded, and a few times, she thought he might lose control. “You aren’t…trained for high-speed chases, are you?” The words came out high-pitched, having been forced through a throat tight with fear.


  He glanced sideways and grinned. “Why do you ask?”

  She screeched as they took a turn on two wheels. “No reason!” she shouted over the loud, rapid drumming of her heart.

  “Don’t worry, babe. I got this.”

  And then, as if he’d been faking the erratic, poorly executed maneuvers, he slipped through a tight hole in traffic and changed lanes with smooth precision, quickly distancing them from the white Toyota, which was stuck in a traffic snarl he’d created with his horrible driving.

  She caught his smug grin. She rolled her eyes and hoped he didn’t notice her heart was still in overdrive. “Not a bad bit of rescuing,” she said as nonchalantly as she could muster.

  He laughed. “Sometimes I even amaze myself.”

  It was her turn to laugh. A guy who could quote Han Solo might just be her catnip.

  He flashed a grin but kept his focus on the road. They were heading away from the base.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Not sure. I need to call my XO, update him on everything. I can ask what he knows about Linus.”

  “Good idea.” She’d like to know exactly what O’Leary had done before she faced him. She pointed to a turnoff that would take them to a public market. It was early afternoon. The market would be busy with the sun past its zenith. “We can park in the large lot at the edge of the market. Plus, I can buy a new hat.”

  He followed her advice and crammed the oversized SUV into a tiny parking spot that meant they’d both have to exit from the driver’s side. The lot was a sea of battered cars and trucks, but mostly void of people, who would all be milling around the crowded market.

  Pax glanced down at his combat uniform. “I’ll stand out here in my camo, and this is one place we want to blend.” He unbuttoned the outer shirt. Underneath, he wore a T-shirt that had “US ARMY” emblazoned on the front.

  “I’ve got a tee you can wear. It’ll still be obvious you’re US military, but at least you’ll look off duty.” She climbed between the seats and leaned over the backseat to root around in her bag of clothing. She pulled out a men’s extra-large Washington Redskins T-shirt she used as a nightshirt, then climbed back to the front and handed it to him.

  “The Redskins?” He made a face. “Don’t you have a shirt from a good team? One without a racist name?”

  “Sorry, the DC area has been my home base for the last eight years.”

  After the sneak peek she’d had last night in her CLU, she watched with interest as he peeled off the Army shirt. He had a beautiful chest. Wide, thick delts. Hard, cut pecs covered in just the right amount of coarse hair that faded over his abs but gathered again around his belly button and arrowed downward in a thin line.

  She didn’t know if she’d ever seen a finer display, and the lust she’d been trying to keep in lockdown broke free. Her hand moved of its own volition, and she touched his ripped abs. He jolted away, but now her brain was on board, and she followed, running her fingers over the smooth skin that covered taut muscles. Liking the feel, she shifted from fingertips to palm, sliding across his flat stomach. His muscles tightened as she explored.

  She traced the line of hair downward, but he caught her hand and brought the palm to his mouth. He pressed his lips into her skin. “Don’t do this, Morgan. Don’t start when you know we can’t finish.”

  She wanted to slide her hand back down his chest, over his stomach, and follow that line into his pants. She wanted to grasp his growing erection and slide her hand up and down the shaft. She wanted to watch his face as she stroked him. She wanted to bend her head down and take him into her mouth. To run her tongue over the tip of him. To taste his arousal, and then to wrap her lips around him and take him deep into her throat.

  He would come hard and fast the first time. He’d pulse into her mouth, and she’d suck until he had nothing left to give. And then, after he had time to recover, she’d straddle him and he’d fuck her deep and hard. He’d suck on her sensitive nipples as he thrust into her. She’d tilt her face upward and shriek with release.

  She could see it all in his eyes, sitting there in the front of the SUV as people passed behind the vehicle, heading to the market. He wanted it too. As badly as she did. This wasn’t the time and certainly wasn’t the place. But it would happen. It had to. Every moment they spent together was like the ocean after a large quake, before the tsunami. Slowly, the tide pulled the water out, but eventually, that wave would come in. The longer it took for the water to retreat, the bigger the wave would be.

  The trick would be keeping her head above water as the wave engulfed her. She could lose herself in Peace Love Blanchard.

  It was that damn adrenaline. That damn need for release. Today had been almost as horrific as yesterday and her body was an adrenaline factory working overtime.

  This level of arousal from a simple touch was insane. They barely knew each other. She wasn’t familiar with adrenaline-fueled lust but was starting to believe it should be a controlled substance.

  She slipped her hand from his. “Where are you from, Pax?” Her words were husky. As if they’d just done everything she’d imagined and her voice was hoarse from crying out during orgasm.

  “Oregon.”

  She smiled. “Right. Those hippie parents. Portland?”

  He shook his head. “Eugene.”

  “How long have you been in the Army?”

  “Don’t do this,” he said again. “We aren’t going to share our life stories. This isn’t a first date. We aren’t going to have sex.” He paused, then added, “Ever.”

  “Ever?” she challenged. “Not even stateside?”

  “Morgan, when you leave Djibouti, we’ll never see each other again.”

  “That’s how you roll?”

  “That’s how I roll. But with you, I won’t even roll. You are my job. My assignment. And I don’t fuck on the job.”

  She’d be hurt by his rejection, except his pants bulged with an impressive erection. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him. He just didn’t intend to act on it.

  He grabbed the Redskins shirt and pulled it over his head. “This is how we’re going to do this. We’ll head out into the market. You’ll look at hats and tourist items. You will hold my arm, like we’re a couple.”

  “Won’t that be a problem? Given that this is a Muslim country?”

  “They’re used to seeing Americans acting American in the marketplace. They might frown, but I’m big and mean looking, and I’m not willing to take a chance on being separated. I’ll make some calls as we stroll, like I’m talking to close buddies. We stay together every moment. The crowd swarms and tries to separate us, you will not let go of my arm. Understand?”

  She nodded. “You sure you want to leave the SUV?”

  “Yes. We’ll be looking for familiar faces in the crowd. Tell me if you recognize anyone.”

  “Okay.”

  He reached for the door, but then paused. He met her gaze. “I’ve been in the Army since right after I graduated high school. It’ll be fourteen years this June. A soldier is the only thing I know how to be.”

  That damn inevitable tsunami. The retreating tide before the wave was pulling him out too. He was just better at fighting the undercurrent than she was.

  As instructed, Morgan held his arm. She even leaned against him and gazed up at him with doe eyes, causing him to laugh. She enjoyed being silly in the midst of such bizarre circumstances. Yesterday was a terrifying memory, and today had brought new and strange horrors. She’d been assaulted, and someone had invaded her apartment.

  They’d called her and told her to leave Djibouti.

  Was Etefu Desta behind that phone call?

  They really had no proof Etefu Desta had done anything. Just the word of the militants who’d shown up at the site yesterday. It was pure speculation that his henchmen were behind the IED and sniper attack.

  What if the warlord was the scapegoat for someone else? How would they possibly know?

>   Had the man she’d shot woken up from surgery? She didn’t even know the poor guy’s name. Today she’d sent another man to the infirmary, but he’d also had it coming.

  Why had he returned to the site alone? Had it been an abduction attempt?

  That made her wonder if she’d been grabbed because she was a woman, or if it had to do with Linus. She’d been told blondes drew more interest on the auction block. Before she came to Djibouti, one official had offhandedly remarked she might consider dying her hair.

  She wished she’d listened, but she’d never expected to get on anyone’s radar. Her project was low-key. A blip on the railway construction calendar. Notable only because the US military was eager for completion of the rail line.

  Clever of the Djiboutian government to tie the two together as they had, giving the military motivation to expend funds they wouldn’t otherwise allocate.

  The natural resources minister had known of her father, which made her wonder if they’d known her gender all along and only feigned surprise. Had they selected her not because she had a PhD and a willingness to travel to an unstable region, but because they hoped threatening her would draw in her father and the might of the US military?

  The idea was ludicrous. A conspiracy that would have had to go back to the early contracting stage, when no one had any idea of what she’d find. She was officially losing it to even have followed that train of thought. Her grip on Pax’s arm slipped, a side effect of her thoughts going off the rails. She took his arm again, and they resumed walking.

  The market was crowded, a mix of Djiboutians, Somalis, and French nationals who wandered through the heat. Buses were parked at haphazard angles throughout the market, with stalls set up before them. Some vendors sold their wares from blankets spread over the hard ground.

  At the edge of the market was a woman with a burlap sack full of different currencies: Ethiopian birr, euros, US dollars, Kenyan shillings, and Djiboutian francs. Most vendors at the market preferred the Djiboutian franc. A check of the stash of money she’d grabbed when she packed her clothes revealed no francs amongst the euros and dollars, so she pulled Pax in that direction.