Comeback

by Doranna Durgin

  And now she was just as determined to do it again.

  TO JUDGE BY THE ACTION of the Starlifter crew, they'd been holding off departure. As soon as Selena and Dobry set foot on the plane, the pilot and co-pilot started takeoff procedure, assisted by the two flight engineers. One load-master double-checked the security of the pallets as Selena and Dobry settled into aft-facing seats, their gear stowed by the other loadmaster.

  Selena waited for the crew to button up and take their own seats; takeoff wasn't far behind. Once they were in the air one of the loadmasters offered them some MREs, and Selena was glad to supplement the pastries. She found herself with beef enchilada and used half the water from her appropriated bottle to trigger the flameless chemical heater. The loadmaster just grinned at her as Dobry ate his beef ravioli cold, shaking his head at Selena's offer of the rest of her water.

  After they tucked the resulting garbage away, Dobry cleared his throat and said, "I meant it, you know. I'll do what I can to make this work—I want to stop that terrorist attack as much as anyone. Schoolkids? No way. And you've got Cole—JOXLEITNER—to worry about, but I've got my own motivations."

  "Motivation enough to get over how you feel about me?" Selena asked, and the loadmaster who'd been sitting with them suddenly found the need to inspect the pallets again.

  "I don't—" Dobry started, and stopped with a frown. No point in pretending, and he'd seen that.

  Selena didn't even try. "I took a lateral leap to a position you don't think I deserve. Now I'm out in the field and you don't think I'm good for that, either. Don't even try to tell me those things don't matter to you."

  He frowned, shaking his head. "I won't. But other things matter more."

  She looked steadily at him, waiting for any sign of doubt, for his eyes to shift away from hers. They didn't. She said, "Just keep that in mind. Whatever you think about me, getting Cole and Dr. Aymal out of Berzhaan is all that matters."

  "No arguments," Dobry said, and when he saw her doubt, he added, "Look, I just want to get back in the field. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize that. Anything." And that, she believed.

  Chapter 7

  The U.S. embassy in Berzhaan seemed strangely like home. Its exquisite Sekha carpets crafted from native silkworm, old-world light fixtures, rich inlaid woodwork…wonderfully familiar. Even the smell of the place—strong coffee mixed with wood polish and a slightly dry smell of age, reminiscent of old attics everywhere—spoke to her. Selena took a moment to breath deeply of it, ignoring Dobry's impatient hovering and the emerging soreness from her hard ride down the mountain. Then she turned to the marine on guard desk duty and said, "We're here to see Dante Allori."

  The young man returned her an inscrutable look, as if the statement wasn't the least bit outrageous. "Do you have an appointment?" He knew perfectly well that she didn't.

  "Call Bonita," Selena suggested. "See if she wants Selena to come up for a quick visit."

  Doubt sneaked out. "Selena Jones?" Maybe a little respect, too.

  "Selena Shaw Jones." She pointed at the desk phone and smiled, a little too sweetly. "Give it a try. Or don't, and see what happens when she learns I was here."

  That got through to him—as did the fact that she knew Bonita, the ambassador's personal assistant, well enough to say it. He reached for the phone, eyeing her as it rang through, and spoke a few quick words.

  Selena smiled as he stiffened and held the phone away from his ear slightly. When he hung up, she offered, "Bonita has a way with words, doesn't she?"

  "Yes, ma'am," the young marine said, putting some starch back in his shoulders as he nodded at the sleek, latest and greatest metal detector arch.

  "New toys," Selena observed. She pulled out her weapons, which had conveniently bypassed customs security checks as they slipped in through the States-occupied airfield west of Suwan—an airfield that provided operations support for the limited U.S. presence in Berzhaan and through which she and Dobry had entered the general population to reach the CIA station, emerging complete with a convincing set of papers. First her sturdy Beretta Cougar, meant for strong hands and long fingers. A variety of knives—the short tanto blade she'd had at the Farm, a lock blade Buck and a tiny stiletto she'd adopted after her previous Berzhaani adventures with the ice pick. She had a length of braided monofilament in her pocket, but left it there; the detector would ignore it.

  Still, the young marine muttered something about "worse than a Klingon" as he secured her batch of goodies away in their own little lockbox. Even Dobry looked at her askance as he handed over his Smith & Wesson snub nose.

  "The point," he said, "is to avoid conflict by avoiding detection. Or weren't you paying attention to the classes we taught?" He certainly had. His new identification had included pictures in which he looked subtly but significantly different, and by the time they'd left the local CIA station, his appearance matched those photos—darker brows, colored contacts, a mole, a pair of distracting, trendy glasses with thick frames, and padding around his torso that turned his fit, burly frame into an entirely different shape. Five minutes to apply, two minutes to rip away.

  But Selena had grown used to his barbs; over time she'd decided it was the only way he knew how to be. The marine had not, and bristled as he took the little revolver. Ah, youth. Selena felt old at twenty-seven, but she only smiled at Dobry. "Been there, done that," she said, waiting for him on the other side of the detector. "A good backup plan or two never hurt anyone."

  The marine said, "I only wish I'd been here when you took down those terrorists last winter."

  "No," Selena said gently, "you don't."

  "Ma'am," he said by way of apology, and made Dobry go through the detector three times.

  "SELENA! You look so much better without the blood. I've never considered it a suitable accessory." Bonita actually rose from her chair, leaving her powerful domain—the phone lines, the scheduling tools, the custom-sized petite chair—to greet Selena. Her lips were stained their usual power-red, and today her nails matched. Such touches seemed out of place on a mature, gray-haired woman, and Selena knew darned well Bonita did it on purpose just to see who'd fail to take her seriously.

  "Blood?" Dobry said, and eyed Selena as she drew back from the hug Bonita gave her. "From the hostage situation. Of course." He already seemed tired of hearing about it. Poor Dobry. He didn't look like the kind of man who took well to having his assumptions challenged, and his assumptions that Selena had arrived at the CIA overtoiled, under-experienced and fading fast were taking a good hard hit.

  "Goodness, no." Bonita turned to him as if only then noticing him. "From the incident in Oguzka that morning." She beamed at Selena. "I was so proud to hear you shot that one terrorist in the ass, my dear. Entirely appropriate. You didn't mention on the phone that you'd brought a friend."

  Selena bit back a grin. Bonita in full keep 'em off balance mode. "This is Steven Dobry. We're working together on this one."

  "This one what!"Bonita returned to her chair to survey Dobry over her neat desk. But Selena only waggled her eyebrows, and Bonita laughed. "Can't blame me for trying," she said. "The ambassador is waiting for you. Lucky you—you were the perfect excuse to delay a meeting he's been grumbling about for days."

  "He's doing well, then?" For Dante Allori had been shot during the hostage incident, and although it had seemed a minor wound at the time, a man of his age and physical condition didn't always come back from the simple things.

  "I've said as much in my e-mails, so I don't see how repeating myself will do any good. You'll just have to go see for your own eyes."

  "Yes, ma'am," Selena said, and led Dobry to Allori's office, knocking gently even as she opened the door.

  "Selena!" Allori rose from his desk—bigger than Bonita's, and nowhere near as neat—and smiled hugely at her. "What, no blood today?"

  Dobry muttered, "Good God."

  "He means the hostage thing, not the village thing," Selena assured him. "Dante, you look well!"
In fact, the man had lost a significant amount of weight, and although his face held more lines and his hair more gray, he exuded a new vigor where before he'd only exuded dignity.

  "Let's just say I recently had a life-changing experience," he told her. "New priorities. New tailor, too." He patted his sleek suit lapels and leaned forward to take her hand, drawing her around the desk into a fatherly hug. "You, too, look well. A little thin, perhaps. A little ragged around the edges. Could be we took different lessons from those days?"

  "Could be I'm still learning mine," Selena said, all too aware of Dobry's presence. "Dante Allori, this is Steven Dobry. We're working together. I wanted to drop by and let you know I was here…and that I've got my ears open."

  "What can you tell me?"

  "Just that we're missing some people."

  Allori sat in his massive leather chair and tipped it back to regard her, then Dobry. "Mr. Dobry," he said, and nodded an acknowledgment of Dobry's presence. "I don't suppose this has anything to do with the interesting little incident yesterday—wild west gunplay in one of the quieter old neighborhoods of this dignified city, involving several children?"

  Selena recoiled at his words. "Children?"

  "Not to worry. They're safe. They somehow got it in their heads to drop their playthings on the heads of the Clanton brothers from the roof of their building."

  Selena smiled, brief though it was. Cole. Who else? Cole, through and through. Finding the unexpected, using every opportunity at his disposal. Trapped by the terrorists, she'd found she had a lot more in common with him than she'd once thought.

  And it gave her a place to start.

  "I'm not sure how I can help you," Allori said, though he'd been watching her face and knew he'd said something of significance to her.

  "You already have," she told him.

  Dobry cleared his throat and said, "Anything you can tell us that doesn't quite seem ordinary could be of help. We'd also be pleased if you could advise us on the best locations for acquiring local information. We have some information, of course, but—"

  Allori cut him off with a frown. "Your best source of that information is standing beside you."

  Selena trod lightly. Carefully. "We haven't had much opportunity to put our heads together," she said, saving face for Dobry—for if he'd listened to her, if he'd truly believed her capable in her legate posting here, he'd have known better.

  "Ah." Allori nodded his understanding. "As for the other, you have my complete cooperation. Things out of the ordinary it is." He drummed his fingers on the desk, one quick riff and then silence. "As delighted as I am to see you, Selena, I'm surprised to find them asking this of you. And without official cover, unless I'm mistaken."

  "Don't worry about me, Dante." Selena couldn't hide her grim response, not entirely. "I would have volunteered for this one, given a chance."

  At that, Allori's perceptive gaze narrowed slightly. He knew Selena chose her words with care, and that they were to be plumbed for significance…and that whatever was happening, it was of personal importance to her. So again he nodded, and then he turned on his public persona for Dobry's benefit. "Have you eaten yet? I know of a place you might find interesting."

  Dobry would have bowed out—his mouth was open, his polite regret in place—when Selena overrode him. If Dante wanted to steer them toward a particular establishment, then by all means they would be steered.

  COLE SAT ON THE ROOF of a jouncing bus, turning it into a de facto double-decker. He wasn't alone—Aymal kept him company, along with a handful of other content travelers, tucked in amongst the luggage of the clattery old vehicle.

  "How many times?" Aymal asked him, keeping his head close enough to Cole's that they might not be overheard, but not so close that an unexpected bounce might cause them to smack skulls.

  A lesson hard-learned, that one. For while Cole knew their best chance of going unnoticed was to speak a decently local language—in this case, he and Aymal had Russian in common—and speak it normally, Aymal insisted on skulking and whispering at every opportunity.

  He probably hadn't been a very subtle insurgent, either.

  Now Aymal rubbed his eyes with one hand, careful to place his fingers so accidental poking during their jouncing would be unlikely—another lesson hard-learned—and said, "My head aches like fire, and I'm certain I have whiplash. Do you truly think it was necessary to trade our comfortable vehicle for this?"

  "I think," Cole said, summoning patience, "that the comfortable vehicle was as hot as they come."

  Aymal presented equally obvious patience. "This is the autumn season."

  As if Cole could think of the Russian idiom with his own brain going whocka-whocka-whocka inside his head and his side burning. Not bleeding anymore, because it had been fairly minor after all, an in-and-out under the skin just behind his hip that squeamish Aymal had sparingly cleaned with makeshift supplies. But skin was fussy like that; it didn't like to have gaping open spots. He said, "The circumstances under which we acquired the vehicle made it of interest."

  Aymal got it that time. "Still," he said. "Why this back and forth, back and forth? Why not go where you intend for us to go?"

  Oh, for Selena's patience. "Because we might be of interest, too. This gives me a chance to see if anyone has acted on that interest." If anyone got sloppy, following a bus from Suwan to the west-side village of Qundan and back.

  His news reporter persona—a disguise that would have to be reapplied or removed before too much longer—could also have walked into the building that ostensibly housed the newspaper. Did house the newspaper, but was also so much more…an underground highway, a sanctuary…a sly first step to reaching the actual CIA station. To reaching help.

  But having been betrayed on one level, Cole was not inclined to trust established underground options—not until he had some understanding of what had gone wrong. Best to bounce around on the top of this bus a route or two, establish they were in the clear and stash Aymal so he could poke around for some answers.

  It could be as simple as connecting with the local station chief.

  Or it could be that the station chief had been the one to sell them out.

  "WE DON'T HAVE TIME for this," Dobry said, not even looking at the restaurant's opulent decor as Allori put his head together with the young man who was handling seating requests. Russian architecture surrounded them, left over from earlier occupation and overlaid with the Berzhaani sense of style—elaborate scrollwork given more corners, complex patterns made more geometric. Clashing seemed to be of no concern; in someone's eyes, more was clearly better. Layers and layers of more.

  But Selena found herself tired of arguing with her erstwhile partner. "What did you have in mind?" As long as it involved food…

  "Standing out in the middle of a restaurant like two sore thumbs definitely wasn't it."

  She glanced at him, honestly surprised. "Don't tell me you're concerned that we won't be able to fade into the woodwork when we want to." She shook her head. "I've seen your work. Where's Waldo has nothing on you."

  He looked back at her, just as surprised at the compliment, and whatever he'd been building up to had been defused. But defused was one thing; in accord was another. "I just don't see the point in making this any harder."

  "If we'd been given an ops plan, I'd agree with you. But we're not breaking cover…we're creating it." Selena lifted her chin in acknowledgment as Allori gestured to them, follow me. "Looks like I'm coming back to Berzhaan to face what happened here so I can get on with my life."

  That should suit him, and to judge by his thoughtful expression as he moved past her to lead the way to the table at which Allori waited, it did. In the States, Selena would have found his assumed dominance to be offensive; here, she—

  Okay, she still found it offensive. But for all they'd clashed, Dobry hadn't pulled sexist crap on her, and she knew he was only settling into the culture here. Doing what he did best, which was to blend. As he pulled a chair out for
her, he said, "Then who am I?"

  Allori gave no indication that this was a strange conversational development. "Complimentary tea will be here soon. I hope you still like it sweetened with jam."

  "Very much," Selena said. "I've been a complete scandal at work."

  Dobry eyed her. "So this is where you picked up that habit."

  "Something from every place I've worked, that's my goal." Selena didn't bother to look at the menu. "Botsarma for me today—you should try it, Dobry. Lamb stewed with plums and veggies. It'll stick to your ribs and still leave room for pahlava."

  "Stuffed fish for me," Allori declared. "And you had best be a friend of Cole's, eh? A very good and trusted friend."

  Dobry's look turned sour, and Selena suddenly recognized it—the look that meant he'd be disagreeable because he felt threatened. And he felt threatened because he didn't have the background material on Cole to pull off such a role. She caught his eye. "Who better than me to prep you for that? And it's not something we'll spend a lot of time holding together. We're here, we're establishing ourselves with this meal, and if we need to fall back on this, we've got it."

  "Think of that on the plane?"

  She had to admit not. "Between the embassy and this place." She added, for Dobry's benefit, "I wouldn't have kept it from you if I'd thought of it before this. And I'm still open to alternatives."

  "And just maybe I'll think of something." For where Selena had emerged from the unprepossessing maintenance building on the embassy grounds that served as the station house with more ammo for her Cougar .45 and a variety of conservative women's clothing, Dobry had gladly gotten his hands on the case he had so reluctantly just left in Bonita's care. Makeup, latex, mold material and dyes, even a wig or two. Selena had no doubt they'd make use of it all on top of Dobry's already misleading appearance. If nothing else, her skin tones were too fair to pass on the streets without a second look. Dobry flashed her a look that said he was thinking it through, and said, "You need to be yourself, but there's no reason I should dangle myself out there naked. I've got papers for Kenneth Goff—I'll use 'em."