by Susan Grant
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “It’s too dangerous for you here.”
“Kyber said it’s too dangerous for me there.”
“Bah! He sees the UCE only from his own perspective. You know this.”
“I also know that you see it only from yours. I’m reserving judgment until I see more of the world, especially after hearing you two argue politics and get nowhere. And see this world, I will.”
He gave a clipped laugh. “Now that I finally have you, Banzai, I won’t let you walk away without a fight.”
The wind whipped both Bree’s hair and the torn, billowing fabric of Ty’s shirt, giving her a peek at his grime-streaked chest and hard abs. Sitting in the truck with his week-old beard and tattered clothes, he looked like a vagrant on a field trip. Not that she was much better off. She couldn’t smell the manure anymore, which didn’t say much for the odor coming off her body and his.
Then she noticed that he was watching her. It hit her that he’d seen her entire observation of his body. To her horror, she blushed, a reaction that he greeted with a slight, almost imperceptible curve of his lips.
She tried to grab back the fraying thread of their conversation. “Now that you have me? That sounds awfully possessive.”
“We treasure hunters are like that about our booty,” he drawled.
Great. So, he was a treasure hunter. A mercenary. She’d never fully believed Kyber, thinking he had exaggerated, as he was prone to do, to disparage the son of his enemy. Now Bree didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’d been shot down, put in stasis, healed in a prince’s palace, and now she was riding in a cattle car with Indiana Jones! A man who thought he’d salvaged her when in fact she had salvaged him.
Approaching headlights filled the cattle compartment with a white glare. Bree and Ty ducked down. When the truck was past, Bree snatched the old clothes she’d taken out of the sack. She wadded up Ty’s outfit and boots and threw them at him. “I suggest we change clothes before anything else happens. I doubt Kyber will think to look for us in a truck full of cows, but you never know.”
She crawled away, carrying an armful of clothing. Wobbling like a drunk in the moving truck, she used a couple of dozing cows as a privacy screen, turned her back to Ty, and pulled her shirt off over her head. Cool air hit her bare stomach. “So, you hunt treasure...”
“As a pastime,” he said.
“What does a treasure hunter in this time do, exactly?”
“You could say I specialize in reclaiming what others allege are impossible finds. You and your wingman were the ultimate in impossible finds, considered lost for good. That was too much of a challenge to pass up.”
She was eternally grateful he hadn’t. “So, you do it for the sport, not the money.”
“Oh, no. Not the money. Never that. I appreciate a good challenge. Treasure seeking gives me that.” His battered prison pants landed hard in the corner of the truck.
Bree peeked over her shoulder as she buttoned a tunic shirt over a pair of baggy trousers. Ty, his back to her, thrust one arm into the sleeve of a faded blue long-sleeved shirt. He was broad-shouldered, but with an athlete’s lean, efficient body. If he’d had any body fat before, it had evaporated in the past few weeks. Every sinew, every muscle on his naked back stood out. “How about being a playboy?” she asked. “Is that challenging, also?” There was something about him that made her want to keep flirting with him, even though she knew she shouldn’t. It was like sneaking four more Oreos out of the box when you knew you should have stopped at two.
He sounded intentionally bored. “Ah, my status as a playboy. At times, the job can be high-maintenance—the social drinking, the dining out, the endless luxury hotel rooms. But mostly it’s easy work.”
She snorted. She knew he was teasing her, but he had self-confidence—lots of it. Well, he’d need it to get through what she expected of him. “I’ve never met a real-life playboy. Now I’m traveling with one. Should I be worried?”
His gaze slid over her simple outfit as he shoved his shirt into the waistband of his pants. Shadows hugged the hollows of his face. “Do you want to be?”
She knew better than to answer that question. But she persisted in her impromptu interview as she folded up her old outfit and draped her travel pack over the new one.
This outlaw son of the world’s most famous army officer half scared and half fascinated her. And now she’d broken him out of jail. Had she opened Pandora’s box? “You said you don’t hunt treasure for the money, yet you came all the way around the world to find out if Cam and I were still alive.”
“Actually, it was mummies I thought I’d find. I was going to bring you back and put you in the Smithsonian Museum. But then”—his eyes glinted—“I found you alive.”
His features were as rawboned as the elder Armstrong’s were: defined cheekbones, an angular jaw, square chin,
and those vivid blue eyes contrasted with thick, dark brown hair. But while General Armstrong looked mean and hard, Ty lacked his father’s stark severity and purpose, although Bree knew better than to fall for that. Ty Armstrong was a hardened combat veteran, and he’d come halfway around the world, risking death, to find her. “So, you’re rich and bored. That’s what I see.”
“I’m a military man. I don’t have time to be bored.”
“But you’re rich.”
“My family is. I live by my own means.”
“Except for having access to an army’s worth of equipment for your treasure-hunting trips.”
Ty’s body went rigid, and his expression sharpened. “The underwater vehicle. You know about it?”
“Kyber mentioned it.”
“Did he say where it is? The UV?”
She winced. “He said he destroyed it.”
“It destroyed itself. It’s set to explode if anyone attempts unauthorized use.”
“Too bad. We could have used the transportation.”
“Yes. And I wouldn’t have had to pay the bill when I arrive home.”
“That would be millions, Ty.”
“Two hundred and seventeen million UCE dollars, to be exact.”
This time she had the feeling he wasn’t joking. “Where would you get the money?”
“I can’t, of course. And that’s my dilemma. I’ll have to repay my father in a different way.” As he contemplated her, something intense and speculative sparked in his eyes.
“Uh-uh. No way, Ty.” She raised her hands. “I’m not the answer.”
“But you are. Don’t you see? Your connection to the past will revitalize what’s at risk of becoming stale at home. It will inspire.”
“And you called my plan to rescue Cam impossible? Listen to you! Revitalize the UCE? How would I do that?”
“You are a shining symbol of all that makes the UCE great. You’d make appearances, motivate the population.”
“Nothing I say or do could help. I saw the tax revolts, the boycotts. Excuse my saying so, but the UCE needs a better government. Not an artifact.”
“The UCE needs you.”
“Are you listening to yourself? Starvation has eaten away at your brain, Tyler Armstrong! I’m not the answer to your debt. Or your country’s problems. I’m afraid you’ll have to think of another way to pay back your dad. You should have bought submarine insurance.”
She sat on a bale of hay and pulled on her boots. “Just don’t forget how you lost your UV, Ty. It exploded, from unauthorized use. I can blow up just as easily.”
His brows lifted. “Shall I consider that a warning?”
“Consider it a reminder. I’m not a prize. I’m not your little challenge. I’m an air force pilot on a mission.”
“To find your wingman.”
“Yes.”
“In an underwater cave in the middle of the Kingdom of Asia on one of the most rugged stretches of coastline I’ve seen.”
“Yep.”
“That’s not a challenge?”
“Well...”
“Yet, I�
��m required to assist you because you released me from prison. How did you put it? A deal’s a deal.”
She grinned with wry amazement. “Wow, Ty. You catch on fast.”
She made her way to the rear of the raised bed of hay and fell onto her back. “I’ve slept on better, but this will do.” She draped one forearm over her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this exhausted in my life.”
Ty lay down next to her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry.”
She reached over and gave his hand a quick squeeze. His callused fingers were warm and strong. Surprise at the contact flickered in his eyes. It was a spontaneous move, a gesture of friendship, but it was with unexpected reluctance that she pulled her hand away. “You need to eat, Ty. We’ll tell the driver when he stops.”
“What we need is water. I can live without the food.” He chuckled. “I’m not happy about it, but I can. But I’m going to make up for lost time—and lost meals—when we get to New Seoul.”
“And then we’re supposed to find the Cheju Precinct and the Celadon. Whatever that is.”
“It’s likely an inn. Or I hope it is. When Kyber mobilizes his security forces, we won’t want to be caught out in the open.”
She frowned at the stars overhead. “New Seoul is so far from the cave. Too far south. But the shadow people...they might have information about Cam. Otherwise, I’d have suggested we get off halfway, not even go all the way to Seoul, and hide where no one would think to look for us.”
“Suggested? To put it mildly. Likely it would have been more like you dragging me out of this truck.”
“Hey. The sooner we would have stopped, the sooner you’d have eaten.”
“Eat? With what money?”
“In that sack I was given, I found digital credits, but not a lot. When those run out I have some jeweled trinkets I took from my room. They’re small but look expensive. Though I’m worried we’ll be caught if we try to sell them.”
“If it comes to that, we can find someone to buy them who’ll send the pieces on to the black market in Macao. They can launder anything there, trinkets to humans.”
“I thought Macao was part of Kyber’s kingdom.”
“Technically, it is. But controlling the lawlessness and chaos would cost too much in time and money, and lives, so Kyber leaves it mostly alone. The only thing he insists on is Macao’s loyalty to the crown, which they give happily to keep him off their backs. Sometimes I think the UCE could take a lesson or two from the man about some of our colonies.”
Bree came up on her elbow. “Did you just give Kyber a compliment?” she teased.
Ty’s mouth gave a wry twist, and he laced his hands behind his head. “For a domineering, autocratic despot, he’s doing something right. For over a century, they’ve surpassed us in all areas, including technology.”
The world had changed, she thought. “There was a time, my time, when the U.S.A. was the innovator.”
“Innovation.” Ty looked grim. “A lost art.”
“Find it,” she said. “Get it back.”
“Our national focus is on stability. Keeping the peace.”
“You mean keeping the colonies in line.”
A parade of emotions crossed Ty’s face, doubt, anger, and despair among them. She remembered the doubts she’d seen in him at the dinner with Kyber, and wondered again what opinions he kept hidden. “The UCE brought stability to the world. Look at history. There hasn’t been a major war since the late twenty-first century.” His voice dropped lower, as if he were worried about others listening in on their conversation. She’d bet Ty had been walking on political eggshells all his life, never able to trust anyone fully with his private, political thoughts. “Of course...some wonder if we created peace at the expense of something more precious.”
Some? Bree wondered whom he meant. Probably himself. Maybe others he knew. Other officers? Could be. Discontent in the ranks of its officers could bring a government down. Bree had seen examples of that in her own time. Grandfather Vitale had told her that the military was like an intelligent, intensely loyal guard dog. If mistreated, it turned vicious. And like a highly valued watchdog, the military worked best as a supporting player. Its role was to support a government, to protect a government, not to be the government. General George Washington himself had recognized that when he shocked the entire world by resigning his commission in the Continental Army before taking over the presidency of his newborn nation.
“And you?” she ventured carefully. “Do you think something precious was lost to have peace in the world?”
His answer was totally unexpected. “I don’t know that we can say anymore that the world is at ‘peace’. It’s not just the UCE that’s experiencing unrest. The Euro-African Consortium has seen a number of attempts at revolt. Everywhere but in this kingdom. But then what of the ‘shadows’ who are helping us? What role do they play? Are they revolutionaries? Or only troublemakers? They certainly aren’t loyalists. I think we’re seeing a world at the threshold of change.”
She watched his expression twist. It was as if he feared that change as much as he longed for it.
“And you’re not sure if the UCE will get through it,” she finished for him.
Ty rolled onto his back. His body language told her that he wanted the conversation to be over. “That was not what I said, Banzai. I merely stated the facts of the world political situation.”
Don’t take me farther down that road. She could hear the warning without him voicing it. Bree knew then that he agreed with her but didn’t want to admit it. How could he? His father was the most powerful military man in the Western world. On top of that, he himself was a military officer, which required him to appear loyal in public and use private avenues to convey his concerns no matter who his father was. As a fellow officer, Bree understood. She had represented her country, defended it with loyalty and honor, though there were times when certain policies she had been obligated to support seemed...well, not the courses of action she’d have chosen, though she would have upheld them all the same.
But for Ty, the UCE’s colony problems weren’t just a particular campaign but the entire national focus, and the virtual underpinning of the current government’s powerbase. It put Ty and any other like-minded officers in a real quandary. To refuse to defend the policy of mistreating the UCE colonies would be treason. And yet supporting a flawed directive, as he was under oath to do, was to go against his principles.
And he had them. Principles. Somewhere.
Or so she hoped.
She went back to thinking of her immediate situation and not the grander scope of world politics. A treasure hunter playboy would make her search interesting. An unprincipled treasure hunter playboy would make it a disaster.
She’d pray for his principles.
The truck drove on through the night. The cows drowsed, quietly chewing their cuds.
On their backs, Bree and Ty watched a black sky full of stars. Then, out of the blue, Ty spoke. He sounded more like himself. “I was thinking...you informed me a little while ago that you’re equipped with defense measures similar to my UV, and you’d explode with unauthorized use. Tell me, Banzai, what sort of use constitutes ‘unauthorized’?”
Holding back a smile, she rolled her head to look at him. “Forcing me to change my mind about finding Cam, for one.”
“There’s more?”
“Treating me like I’m booty.”
The little scar on his upper lip compressed, and she knew Ty was fighting a smile. “That’s two. More?”
“I guess you’ll have to learn the rest as you go.”
“So be it. Unlike you, Banzai, I don’t mind being taught.” Fatigue made his voice deep and raspy. He lowered it further and murmured, “Particularly when the lesson’s one I enjoy.”
She could hear his body shift positions on the hay. She remembered what he looked like without a shirt, and the heat of sexual attraction blossomed in her belly and spread to the four corners o
f her tired body. It made her feel languid and warm. Spontaneously, she slid her hand over the hay. When she felt the warmth of his wrist, she circled her fingers around it.
He said nothing. She said nothing. In the silence, they let their fingers twine together. The more she touched him, the more she wanted.
Her hand slid up his arm, pushing up his sleeve. His biceps was rounded and firm under her palm. She rolled onto her side, facing him. His body was so close...so warm. She ached for more. But then she remembered how badly she smelled. How dirty they both were.
She took back her hand and rolled onto her back. She could feel Ty’s frustration rolling off him. It joined hers and created a tidal wave of dissatisfaction.
Unlike with Kyber, she could easily imagine making love with Ty: him, lean and strong, and her, needy as she lost herself in the sensations he conjured.
She hadn’t stopped to ponder it, but now that she took the time to do so, she saw how ragged she was, emotionally. The past few hellish weeks had taken their toll. It would be nice to be able to lose herself in something—or someone—if only for a few hours. She’d tried with Kyber, but hadn’t been able to do it. But what about Ty? She sure thought of him enough, whether it was with anger, annoyance, or desire.
Bree stared at the stars overhead, her pulse racing. It had been a long time since she’d let a man get under her skin. Hell, it had been a long time since a man had gotten anywhere at all with her. Again, she thought of the conversation she’d had in Life Support with Cam as they’d dressed for their last mission, when Cam had accused her of being afraid to let a man get too close.
Fear wasn’t a factor when you hooked up with the right guy. Ty felt more “right” than anyone had in a long while. Or maybe ever. But as Cam always said, finding out for sure would require taking risks with her personal life—something Bree had been averse to before.
And that, she decided, was a long time ago. She was in a new world now, with new rules. It was time to let the old game plan go and see what happened next.
* * *
