Close Quarters

by Lucy Monroe

  She hadn’t had sex in so long she almost wondered if casual wasn’t better than nothing. It wasn’t that she needed the sexual release, like that mare in heat she so did not want to emulate. But she missed touching. She craved the intimacy of skin against skin. Of course, her job required she touch her patients, but she always did it through a layer of latex. Policy dictated she not even take a child’s temperature without donning gloves. Though the locals might be affectionate with each other, they maintained a certain distance from her. Not because they rejected her, but out of respect.

  One of the things she missed the most about home was her brother’s hugs. He always made her feel safe and that was not a sensation she’d been accustomed to since reaching adulthood.

  There was no guarantee that sex with Roman would include affection, but she had a feeling he would be so good at the sex part, she wouldn’t mind. He exuded masculine sexual magnetism and primal aggression, an irresistible package wrapped in darn near irresistible pheromones.

  Besides, holding out for a relationship had only left her alone…and lonely. Chances were, she’d spend her life as alone as Fleur and maybe it was time to face up to that reality.

  Why shouldn’t Tanya take comfort and human connection where she could get it? It wasn’t as if she was going to start sleeping with any man who would have her.

  She still didn’t like the idea of casual copulation, but sharing her body with Roman wouldn’t be casual. Just because he had no feelings for her didn’t mean she couldn’t indulge in the feelings that had been growing inside her since their first meeting. After all, Quinton had not loved her either, but she’d loved him.

  Okay, she’d believed he loved her, but that only made her a fool, not a moral paragon. Knowing Roman’s feelings for her extended only to the physical had to be better than the self-delusion she’d lived under with Quinton.

  If there was a chance of sharing intimacy with Roman, she owed it do herself to pursue it, for the short time it could last.

  Didn’t she?

  Wasn’t a slice of happiness, no matter how temporary, better than none at all?

  Ben thought nothing of dosing the dinner of the Marine sharing his room that night with a compound that would induce heavy sleep. The private would wake the next morning feeling refreshed and no worse for wear. The other young Marine sharing the room was on guard duty and would actually be easier to slip by than a well-trained soldier sleeping lightly in the same room.

  Keeping to the darkest shadows, Ben made his way silently to the far side of the compound. He used his satellite phone to connect to TGP’s server and made a text call to Whit.

  He had to wait about ten minutes for the Old Man to answer.

  They exchanged pass codes.

  Whitney texted, “What is your status?”

  “In the compound. Think four of the guards in my ‘security’ detail may be undercover military black ops,” Ben sent back.

  “Hell.”

  “Answers one question, sir.” Ben typed. “The military has not approved the technology leaks.”

  “At least whoever ordered these agents didn’t approve them. We know damn well one arm of the military doesn’t always speak to the other.”

  “Just the like the government.”

  “Exactly.” The one-word text managed to convey both disgust and cynism.

  “Proceed as you think best.”

  “Permission to reveal my own assignment?”

  “If necessary, but under no circumstances reveal your agency.”

  Ben smirked as he typed, “I’m just a drone for the State Department.”

  “Precisely.”

  “One last thing…” He wasn’t sure exactly how he wanted to break this news, but with the Old Man direct was usually better.

  “What?”

  “One of my guards is Elle’s brother.”

  It took a few seconds to receive an answer, which said more than any texted words could have. “Our Elle?”

  “Yes.”

  “That could complicate things.”

  Ya think? Ben shook his head even as he texted back. Complicated was a simple word for a very complex situation. “Yes. He didn’t tell his family he would be seeing Tanya Ruston.”

  “Shit.” So, his boss had drawn the same conclusion Ben had.

  Ben typed, “I concur.”

  “I met her at the wedding. She’s a good person.” Despite the silent nature of their communication, Ben could “hear” the frustration and concern in his boss’s words.

  “Agreed.” He liked Tanya Ruston, in a very different way than he did Fleur Andikan, but no less significant for a man who was used to solitude and trusting almost no one.

  “I don’t want her disappearing.”

  Neither did Ben. “I’ll do my best to head off that possibility.”

  “See that you do.”

  “Disclosure may have to come sooner than later, sir.”

  “Follow your instincts. They haven’t steered you wrong yet.”

  “Will do. Out.”

  He disconnected the satellite transmission and carefully made his way back toward his room.

  As he passed behind Fleur and Tanya’s hut, he noticed a movement. The shadows resolved themselves into the shape of Fleur sitting on a board swing hanging from the baobab tree behind her hut. The gentle sway back and forth ruffled her sari skirt.

  He came out of the shadows before he’d made any conscious decision to do so. “Dr. Andikan. It’s a lovely night to gaze at the stars.”

  She turned her head slowly, as if his presence did not surprise her at all. The kind of trauma she’d experienced in the Rawandan genocide of the Tutsi often left survivors with a heightened sense of their surroundings, coupled with varying levels of paranoia that never went away completely. “Mr. Vincent, are you finding it difficult to adjust to the time change?”

  “Ben, please.” Drawn by an invisible, but irresistible force, he stepped closer. “I was in the mood for a walk.”

  “Without your guards?”

  “Yes.”

  Her lovely face creased in a frown. “This compound is secure, but you are here for reasons that will not make you popular with those in power. You should consider asking for company on your evening strolls.”

  “They were all sleeping, except the guard with night duty.”

  “Not all. One of them, that big one, was patrolling the grounds not too long ago.”

  Ben filed that information away with his other knowledge of his security detail. “Perhaps Kadin found it as difficult to sleep as I did.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What about you? I would think you would be exhausted after the kind of days you put in.”

  “Sleep is sometimes an elusive guest.”

  More likely she was haunted by past ghosts, but he did not call her on it. “I am sorry.”

  “Do not be. I find the quiet soothing and there is too little of that during the day.”

  “I am interrupting your solitude. I should go.” There was no question whether he wanted to; he didn’t.

  “Peaceful company is not an interruption.”

  “And you are so sure mine is peaceful?” He didn’t feel peaceful. At thirty-five, he was long past the time when his hormones controlled him, but around Fleur, Ben’s libido became youthful, overwhelming again.

  She looked at him for several moments before answering. “Yes, I think you know how to be peaceful. I think you also know how to make war, which does not fit your role here.”

  “I look dangerous to you?” Now that was a first. Part of the continued success of Ben’s cover was how innocuous he appeared—the mild-mannered accountant, who was neither an accountant, nor mild mannered.

  “You look like you could be dangerous.”

  “I can be,” he found himself admitting. “But you never have to fear that.”

  “So, tonight, you are not dangerous.”

  “No.”

  “Then you are welcome to share
my view of the night sky.”

  Her acceptance shocked him, but he wasn’t about to reject it.

  He settled against the tree trunk. “There are the same number of stars in the sky wherever you are in the world, but our ability to see them is limited by our environment. Here you can see millions.”

  “Their beauty reminds us that life is not all sorrow.”

  “Johari reminds you of that as well, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes. She reminds me that life is precious and surviving violence is a blessing, not the curse it sometimes feels like.”

  “Does she have nightmares?”

  “No. She smiles. She laughs. She lives.” The satisfaction Fleur felt at that was clear in her voice.

  “And you? Do you do those things?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “She helps.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “And Tanna, does she help you?”

  “She is so pure of heart. Innocent in ways I will never be again. She’s lived on this violence-ridden continent for eight of the last ten years, but she remains optimistic and trusting of the nature of others.”

  “You are not.”

  “No.”

  He wasn’t offended. “I am not either.”

  “We need people like Tanna in our lives to remind us.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Do you have someone like that, back in the States?”

  Ben thought of the other TGP agents and the cynicism that came with their job. “No,” he said with regret.

  “I am sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  Silence reigned while she swung for a few long minutes before she asked, “Are you really going to report human rights violations?”

  “If I find evidence of them, yes.”

  She nodded. “The pity is, you probably won’t. The mine you are auditing is run by the government and they are mindful of regulations, but other human rights atrocities happen all around us. Young boys stolen from their villages and sold to work farms in South Africa, only to be turned in as illegal immigrants a couple of years later and sent back with no hope of finding a job to support themselves, much less a family.”

  “But none of the mine workers are slaves?”

  “Not that I am aware of, though the possibility cannot be dismissed entirely. And how does one define slavery? Being forced to work long days under dangerous conditions for no more than a place to sleep and one, maybe two meals a day?”

  “That’s what I’m here to look into.” And he would. It wouldn’t be the first time Ben had needed to fulfill the requirement of his cover while resolving his assignment for TGP at the same time.

  The fact that he now had three objectives did not escape him. He needed to audit the mine labor practices, find the source of the technology leakage and shut it down, and possibly protect Tanya from an assassination team.

  No problem.

  The jeep carrying Bennet Vincent, the two Marine privates and Face to the first meeting with the mine directors had become a distant rumble when Roman turned to find both Neil and Kadin waiting to talk to him.

  He opened his mouth to ask Neil for a status report from the night before, but Kadin didn’t give him a chance. “Our State Department official has some pretty strange nocturnal habits.”

  Roman jerked, not expecting that conversational direction at all. “Don’t be cryptic, Trigger. It only pisses me off.”

  “Yeah, maybe I like pissing you off.”

  Roman just shook his head. “Maybe you do. Now tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “He left quarters last night.”

  “The latrine is fifty feet behind the chalet.”

  “He wasn’t using it and he was alone.” Kadin’s brows rose. “At least in the beginning.”

  “Who did he meet?”

  “Dr. Andikan, but it wasn’t planned.”

  “You’re sure about that, are you?”

  “I eavesdropped.”

  “Good man.”

  “I live for your approval, chief.”

  “You know Geronimo wasn’t a chief.”

  “Might as well have been.”

  “You’re a smart ass, Kadin.”

  “So?”

  Neil gave his fellow Atrati team member a mild frown. “He got out of his room without waking his guard?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Kadin’s eyes gleamed with undisguised approval. “He got to the other side of the compound without any of us noticing.”

  “You noticed,” Roman pointed out.

  “I was walking the perimeter. I would have missed him if I wasn’t feeling jumpy and checking every shadow.”

  Roman said, “You’re always jumpy.”

  “You always check every shadow,” Neil added.

  Kadin smirked. “Maybe. Doesn’t change the fact the D.C. suit got out of his room without waking his Marine-trained guard.”

  “I know you think Marines are superhuman, but they sleep like anyone else,” Neil jibed.

  “Like hell.” Now that was a real Kadin glare, the kind you took note of or paid the consequences for later. Roman’s team wasn’t known for bothering themselves about a little consequence or two. “Marines sleep with one eye open and that private is no exception.”

  Neil gave a fair impression of a man who was bored, rather than impressed.

  Heading off the explosion he knew Spazz was angling for, Roman said, “So, Bennet Vincent knows how to move with stealth.”

  “Super-stealth,” Kadin insisted.

  “Super-stealth.” Roman rolled his eyes. “What was he doing on the other side of the compound?”

  “Texting, using a satellite hookup.”

  “So, he was checking in with his superiors.” Right. That kind of communication was hinky any way you looked at it. Vincent could have made the satellite text call in his room, unless he was feeling extremely cautious about being interrupted.

  Damn.

  Kadin’s expression said he smelled the hinky too. “In the dead of the night, having snuck past his guards and us.”

  Neil’s brows drew together, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah.” Not likely. Shit on a shingle.

  “This might explain something I found,” Neil said then.

  “What did you find on Bennet Vincent?” And why hadn’t Neil brought it forward before?

  “Nothing.”

  He just gave Neil the “do you want to live to see lunch?” look.

  “I mean it. I did a routine background search on Vincent and found nothing. He’s so clean, he could do an infomercial.”

  “So?”

  “So, I dug a little, wanted to know what part of the State Department signs his paycheck, that kind of thing.”

  “Not exactly public record.”

  “And that matters to me?” Neil’s sarcasm was justified.

  “Of course not.”

  “So?” Kadin prompted, showing he was as impatient as Roman to find out what Neil had uncovered.

  “So, I couldn’t find it.”

  Had he heard right? Neil admitted he hadn’t been able to find information on a computer network he’d hacked more times than Roman even wanted to think about. “You couldn’t find it?”

  “The closest I got to the account was the Presidential office umbrella.”

  “So? He’s here on behalf of the President,” Kadin pointed out.

  “Not exactly. While the audit was a Presidential mandate, the other human rights auditors came from the regular bureaucratic pools. This guy works for somebody, or something as deeply buried as the Atrati.”

  Roman got that feeling in his gut that he’d learned a long time ago he couldn’t ignore. “TGP.”

  “Say what?” Kadin demanded.

  “The Goddard Project.”

  Neil frowned. “Never heard of it.”

  “Very few have. It’s an agency with the mandate to protect America’s technological integrity.” And Roman still wouldn’t know anything ab
out it if his sister hadn’t gotten herself fired and Myk hadn’t gotten himself hired not long after.

  “Sounds exciting,” Kadin said dryly.

  Neil’s frown moved one degree toward real. “Hey, don’t knock my obsession.”

  “You aren’t like other techies, Spazz,” Kadin assured the other Atrati agent.

  “Neither are these agents,” Roman said. “My sister, Elle, worked for them until her cover was compromised.”

  “Your sister?” Kadin asked.

  “Yes.”

  Shaking his head, Neil laughed. “Hell, is your whole family made up of secret agents?”

  “Nah. Matej is a scientist to his fingertips and Myk has never been secretive about working for the government.” He’d been an agent though. Maybe it was in their DNA.

  “So, you think this guy is a Goddard Project agent?”

  “It’s a distinct possibility.” He didn’t know of another agency buried that deeply, but then, that would be the point, wouldn’t it? “One thing I do know is that when we tried to get intel on Elle, all we could find out was that she was being paid through the State Department.”

  “You investigated your sister?” Kadin asked with curiosity, but no shock.

  “We knew she was federal, but she wasn’t telling us anything.”

  “And you hit a wall?”

  “The same one you did, except we didn’t get as far as the Presidential umbrella.”

  Neil shrugged. “Yeah, well, you’re not me.”

  “Neither was the agent I asked to help.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me?”

  “You were on assignment under no-contact orders.”

  “That’s okay then.”

  “If you ladies are done working out your emotional shit…” Kadin let his voice trail off.

  Neil told him to do something anatomically impossible before asking, “You think Ben’s here investigating the same thing we are?”

  “Technically, we are not investigating.”

  “To neutralize the real threat, we have to investigate.”

  Roman didn’t bother arguing. Truth was, his men were right, but he wasn’t going to let their obvious liking for Tanya Ruston compromise their objective either.

  “Considering the directive of TGP, it’s almost a certainty that if one of their agents is here, he’s investigating the leak in military technology.”