Close Quarters

by Lucy Monroe

  For her part, Fleur appeared to be equally aware it wasn’t worth her energy to try to kick the commanding officer out. He stayed clear, didn’t touch anything, but his eyes were everywhere, assessing each minute movement of both Tanya and Fleur’s gloved hands.

  Tanya did not relish arbitrating things between them, so she was very glad neither pushed it.

  They worked on the soldier for two hours and shot him full of antibiotics when they were done.

  “He shouldn’t be moved for twenty-four hours, but then I recommend transporting him to a U.S. military hospital,” Fleur said as she peeled off her gloves and tossed them in the container for items that had touched bodily fluids.

  Roman nodded. “He going to regain full mobility?”

  “He was pretty torn up.” Fleur gave the noncommittal shrug that said she just didn’t know. “I did what I could, but this may well earn him a medical discharge.”

  The sound of the other Marine private swearing in the other room showed that he had heard the exchange.

  Roman nodded and left to speak to the other soldier. He didn’t come back, but Tanya didn’t mind. She didn’t need the distraction while she and Fleur sanitized the space around their patient, changing his bedding with practiced movements while he remained sedated.

  He started to wake, moaning as they finished. Fleur administered pain medication as the other Marine hovered in the doorway.

  “Can I stay with him?” the man asked.

  “Don’t tire him,” Fleur warned.

  “I won’t.”

  “Come get us in the office if he shows any signs of taking a negative turn.”

  The young soldier nodded, looking perfectly capable of watching over his buddy.

  “Good.” Tanya gave him a reassuring smile. “One of the interns will be in to watch over him as soon as they finish the wellness clinic, but I can stay in here now if you’re worried.”

  “You wouldn’t leave if he wasn’t stable, would you?”

  “Absolutely not. The fact we had to sedate rather than put him under general anesthesia, which he would have gotten in a hospital, means his recovery will have fewer potential complications.” The potential for complications mid-procedure had been exponentially higher, but there was no reason to share that information with the Marine now.

  “Go ahead, Doc,” the man in the bed said. “Tommy has my back.”

  Tommy nodded firmly.

  “Okay then. Our office is the room in the southwest corner of the chalet.”

  “I’ll yell loud enough for you to hear me in the latrine if he needs you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She left and went to join Fleur in the office. The compound’s doctor was already writing up the paperwork for the procedure they’d just done, but she looked upset.

  “Are you okay?” Tanya asked, leaning back on Fleur’s desk rather than sitting at her own.

  Fleur looked up with haunted eyes. “They were shooting at Ben.”

  “Whoever it was missed him.”

  “But he could have been hit.”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t sure what Fleur’s point was. They lived in a dangerous part of the world. No getting past that and Ben Vincent’s job painted a big red target on his forehead.

  “I don’t want him hurt.”

  Tanya felt her entire Fleur–paradigm shift. “You’re falling for him.”

  “Yes.”

  The quick agreement without even an attempt at denial scared Tanya to her toes. “He’s leaving—you know that, don’t you?”

  “Nothing says I have to stay here.”

  The air came and went in Tanya’s lungs, but she still felt she was growing lightheaded. “You’d leave Sympa-Med?”

  “If it meant I could have a family again, a real life with Ben and Johari? Yes, I would leave.”

  Tanya was glad she was leaning against the desk because she wasn’t sure her legs would have held her otherwise. “I thought—”

  “That I would give up my life to serve others as you have done?”

  “Well, um…yeah.”

  “I have and did, but this thing with Ben, it was something I thought I would never have and now I think it might be possible.”

  “And it’s worth changing the dreams driving your heart.”

  “Yes, I think it is.” Fleur sounded even more astonished than Tanya felt.

  “For what it’s worth, I think a chance at that kind of happiness is worth some sacrifice. You’ve given so much already, but you deserve happiness too and if that means leaving Africa, then you go.”

  Fleur stood up and grabbed Tanya in a hug that shocked her even more than the conversation.

  Tanya wasn’t an idiot though and she hugged her friend back, trying to share her own strength with the other woman. Tanya had a feeling Fleur was going to need it.

  “You think he will want me?”

  “I think if he doesn’t, he’s a fool and he hasn’t struck me as the stupid type.”

  Fleur’s laugh was choked and Tanya pretended not to notice.

  They broke apart and Tanya said, “I’m not sure this is the best time to do this, but I need to go back to the States in a few weeks. For my father’s sixtieth birthday.”

  Then she explained about the call from her mom that morning.

  Fleur said, “I’m sure we can do without you for a couple of weeks. You’re not going to want to make the trip to turn right around and come back again.”

  “I suppose not, but what about you and Ben?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to run away in the night. These things take time.”

  “True.”

  “You know I’ll be recommending you for my job when I leave.”

  “I’m not a doctor, just an EMT.”

  Fleur shrugged. “I didn’t say they’d give it to you, but you deserve it.”

  Tanya grinned, though her eyes burned with emotion at the thought of losing Fleur.

  For something like, oh, the second time in their friendship, Fleur pulled Tanya into another hug. “I’m sorry about your father.”

  “Me too.” Tanya stepped back, leaning on Fleur’s desk again. “Mom said he should be fine, but I have this terrible sick feeling in my stomach. My dad could have died.”

  “I cannot believe he fought a carjacker.” The disbelief in Fleur’s tone matched the feeling still most prominent in Tanya whenever she thought of what her father had done.

  “I know, right? I mean, yes, he loves that car, but arguing with a man holding a gun? That’s crazy.”

  “They think you’re crazy for working here.”

  “True.”

  “So, maybe you come by it more naturally than you thought.”

  Tanya laughed. She’d never once thought she was like her parents, but maybe she was…just a little.

  “Everything okay with my wounded soldier?” Roman asked from the doorway.

  Fleur turned around and met his gaze unflinchingly. “Your soldier?”

  “He’s on my team. I’m responsible for him.” And the fact the other man had been shot was not sitting well with Roman’s highly developed sense of responsibility. That was obvious.

  Tanya wanted to comfort him, but right now, the best she could do was send him mental waves of strength and understanding. She had no idea if that kind of stuff worked, or not, but it made her feel better.

  “He woke from sedation fine and is responding well to the pain meds.”

  “Good.” Roman looked between Fleur and Tanya, an unreadable expression on his arresting features.

  “Did you need something else?” Fleur asked.

  “An Army helicopter will be here tomorrow early afternoon. It will transport our wounded private to the closest military hospital.”

  “It’s not quite twenty-four hours, but that should be fine.”

  Roman nodded, but didn’t leave.

  If he’d been looking at Tanya, she would have thought he was hoping to talk, maybe even go to the dining ha
ll together, but his gaze was fixed on Fleur.

  Finally, the other woman asked, “Was there something else?”

  “I need you to perform another small surgical procedure.”

  Fleur frowned. “On who?” Then she flinched as if struck. “Is it Ben? Was he hit after all?”

  “No, I’m fine, Fleur.” Ben came into the small office, his face set in serious lines.

  Roman’s gaze flicked to Tanya and then back to Fleur again. “It’s Tanya.”

  “Me?” Tanya demanded in shock, the sensation of having dropped down the rabbit hole washing over her. The phone call from her mom had been disconcerting enough, but this was just plain outrageous. “I do not need surgery.”

  Another man came into the rapidly filling office. She thought his name was Drew, but she couldn’t remember for sure. The attractive black man smiled in a way that made her feel like everything was going to be okay.

  His words quickly dispelled that sense of peace though. “Please, hear us out.”

  So far, no one had been speaking to her.

  And Roman didn’t change that when he said to Fleur, “She’s got that chip from Sympa-Med in her back. It has to come out.”

  Fleur narrowed her eyes while Tanya felt her mouth fall open like a gaping fish. “Why?” they both asked at the same time.

  Roman’s gaze slid over to Tanya, this time staying. “It’s a matter of national security. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “No.” Fleur shook her head for emphasis.

  Tanya crossed her arms, absolutely refusing to accept such a lame statement. “Bull-pucky.”

  Once again the women spoke in unison, and with the same intent if different words.

  Roman looked at Fleur, his expression set in stone. “Either you do it, or Drew does.”

  Fleur stepped up to Roman, getting in his personal space in a way she never did with people, her eyes snapping. “Now you listen to me, Mr. Soldier-Man. You are not cutting into my friend’s body without a sound explanation why.”

  “He’s not cutting into me at all.”

  Fleur turned to meet Tanya’s gaze. “He doesn’t strike me as a frivolous man.”

  “I’m not,” Roman said.

  Tanya remained silent.

  “If he comes in here demanding this absurd thing, he has his reasons. If they are good enough, no soldier-butcher is cutting into my dear friend’s flesh. I’ll do it.”

  “It’s my body. My chip. I’ll say what happens here,” Tanya said, feeling the situation spiraling away from her with no hope of holding on to control.

  It was not a pleasant feeling and she was sorely tempted to kick Roman in the kneecap. She moved to sit at her desk, landing on her chair with a frustrated thump.

  “You don’t want to claim what’s on that chip, trust me,” one of the other soldiers said from the doorway. Tanya thought this one was Neil.

  What was this? Some kind of Soldiers-R-Us convention in her and Fleur’s office? She’d missed her invitation and she had a feeling she would rather have skipped the party too.

  “The only thing on it is my medical information,” she said, trying to figure out where all of this was coming from, much less where it was supposed to be going.

  “No.” That’s all Roman said. One word and no frickin’ explanation.

  His kneecap was looking less and less appealing as she considered spots farther north.

  “Then what is?” she demanded of the man standing behind him, figuring that for whatever reason, Roman was back to his annoying habit of ignoring her questions when he didn’t want to answer them.

  “Stolen military software.” This time it was Drew speaking again, and he watched both her and Fleur closely as he did it.

  Roman was giving him the glare of death, but the other man seemed immune. “This was the plan, remember?” he said to Roman.

  His words only half-registered with Tanya as she reacted to his first statement.

  “What? No way! Not possible. Even if something like that was put on the chip before it was embedded, the information would be more than three years out of date.” She was actually due to have the battery replaced on the GPS unit soon, but the chip hadn’t been fiddled with since its initial insertion when she came to work for Sympa-Med.

  “It’s new and dangerous technology,” Roman deigned to clarify.

  “Not possible.” It just wasn’t.

  Neil frowned at Roman and then offered, “Your chip doesn’t just have a GPS tracker; it has a wireless transceiver.”

  “What does that mean?” She’d never pretended she was up on all the latest computer stuff.

  “It means someone has been using you as a mule to carry stolen information probably since the chip was installed.” Roman’s voice had zero inflection and that bothered her. A lot.

  Shouldn’t he be upset on her behalf if all this was true? They might not be in love, but he’d said their sex wasn’t casual. And they were friends, at least. Weren’t they?

  For reasons she’d rather not face, his indifference bothered her more than the knowledge that someone had somehow put some kind of government secret on the medical information storage chip in her body.

  And she wasn’t sure she was convinced it had happened anyway. In fact, she was pretty sure she wasn’t convinced at all. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it.” There was no room for doubt in Roman’s tone.

  Suddenly, it was too much. Everything they were saying, Roman’s attitude, it was all overwhelming. She couldn’t…didn’t want to believe it.

  Yet if she accepted it, what did that mean about last night and today?

  Tanya jumped up from her desk and rushed toward the doorway, shoving both Roman and the other men aside in her need to be out of there. “I want some air.”

  Roman grabbed her arm before she could make it out of the room. “The chip needs to be destroyed before anyone else downloads the information on it.”

  “Anyone else?” She stopped and swung around to face him. “Who has already downloaded it?”

  “Me.”

  “How?”

  He held up a small, black hand-held device of some kind. For all she knew it was a game controller, but the look on his face said otherwise.

  “What is that?”

  “A wireless receiver with a storage device.”

  “You used it to download information from my security chip?”

  He nodded.

  “When?”

  His look was not forthcoming, but suddenly she knew exactly when. Bile rose in her throat. She yanked her arm from his grasp and ran for the washroom.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The pain rolling through Tanya was so intense, expelling the contents of her stomach wasn’t going to purge it. That didn’t stop her stomach from heaving until the painful cramps produced nothing but dry heaves. She couldn’t help doing so.

  She’d never felt so used, so betrayed. Not even when Quinton told her she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted to build his future with. They’d gotten together their first week on the project, stayed together when they re-upped for another two years in the Peace Corps and remained a couple for four years. They vacationed together, met each other’s families and he’d been the first man she’d ever taken into her body. He’d told her he loved her. She’d said the same.

  She’d felt the same, but the night they discussed what they were going to do once their current commitment to the Corps was over, it had ended.

  He’d told her that she’d been good for him, that she’d made his time in the Peace Corps better, but he was moving on. He’d seen her as a convenient friend and bed partner for four years, even though he’d said he loved her. He’d played her and she hadn’t even known it.

  He said he wanted a normal life. He wanted to go into politics and his time in the Peace Corps was going to score him major points with the voters. It was almost as good as a military record and he didn’t have to risk killing anyone, or being shot just for wearing a unifo
rm.

  The thing that had hurt the most, that had almost destroyed her, was that he had admitted he’d known she wasn’t the right woman from the beginning. And four years as her lover had not changed his mind.

  She hadn’t believed Roman loved her, as she had Quinton, but she’d thought her super-soldier respected her. No way did he.

  If he had, he simply would have asked her to let him scan the chip. He wouldn’t have tricked her into letting him do it while he used her body and violated her trust. The worst part was this awful feeling that she’d brought it on herself. She’d thought she’d learned something about men after Quinton, but she’d still assumed that Roman would not hurt her sexually. She’d absolutely believed that, to the point she’d followed his carnal directions without hesitation.

  She hated feeling as if she’d brought this violation on herself, by trusting the wrong person, by believing too easily in his sexual honor. Not only that, but she’d believed they were friends. They weren’t. No, a friend would have told her why he was here.

  Which was actually still kind of cloudy in her mind. Why had Roman and the others come to Zimbabwe?

  It wasn’t to protect Ben, that was for sure. Ben was here to audit human rights violations at the mine. That had nothing to do with military secrets, did it? Why had Ben been with Roman when he’d made the demand to remove Tanya’s security chip?

  Was everyone lying to her?

  A fist pounded on the door. “Tanya, open up!”

  The sound of Roman’s voice sent another wave of nausea through her. “Go away!”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She didn’t deign to answer. The truth was, she couldn’t. Everything inside her was all messed up. She didn’t know what words to say to make him leave if, “Go away,” didn’t do it. She didn’t know what words to use on herself to make it stop hurting.

  She’d known falling in love with Roman would lead to heartbreak, but she hadn’t known the agony would come so quickly. Even after Quinton, the idea that one human being could use another so callously was anathema to her.