by Sandra Hill
He was waiting for her down the street at the Roux on Orleans Restaurant in the historic Bourbon Orleans Hotel, where he said he would have a cup of coffee and check e-mails. Camille loved New Orleans and all its history, but she hated this particular hotel with a passion because of its very history. It was close to the bridal shop, though, and it would have taken too much of an explanation if she’d urged Harek to wait for her somewhere else.
He stood when he saw her. “Finally! I just got an e-mail from Ivak. They’re expecting us to stay for lunch.” He was already closing his laptop and putting it, along with some paperwork, into his carry bag.
So much for her plan to get out of a day together. “Um . . . I was beginning to think maybe we should just go to a library or the park or something and go over the mission details. You know, like the CO recommended.”
He gave her suggestion serious thought, his head cocked to the side, and she noted, once again, just how attractive Harek was. Even today, wearing faded jeans and a ratty old gray T-shirt with the logo “Mensas Do It Smarter,” he was sex on a stick. Add to that the subtle scent of chocolate, and she was facing a sexy Fudgsicle.
“No. Let’s put the top up on the Benz, and you can drive while I grill you on mission details. That will give us roughly an hour going and an hour coming back. And, actually, it’s a good idea for us to do some ‘homework’ today. I just got some alarming updates that you’ll want to know about.” He glanced meaningfully down at his laptop case.
How could she argue with that? She nodded and they walked out of the restaurant side by side. As they approached the ballroom, which was set up for some kind of formal reception with floral centerpieces on the round tables and silver flatware bracketing china plates, she stiffened, as she always did, and a wave of nausea swept over her.
“Hey! What’s the matter?” Harek asked, taking her by the forearm to prevent her keeling over.
“Don’t worry about it. I have this reaction every time I enter this hotel, and pass that room.” She waved a hand toward the ballroom.
He frowned with confusion.
“This hotel—that ballroom, in particular, the Orleans Ballroom—has a lurid history. It was the scene of the famous Quadroon Balls where free women of color entered into a sort of servitude to white men of that time. One of my ancestors—my grandmother, about ten times removed, another Camille; I’m named after her—stood on this very spot and became a sex slave to a man who was a sugar planter. She was fifteen years old.” Truth to tell, Camille had come to love James Bellefleur and bore him two bastard children, joyfully. Probably some Stockholm syndrome kind of thing, or another emotional aberration psychologists would have a name for today.
“You know all this from history books?”
“Not exactly. There’s plenty of historical detail on the Quadroon Balls and plaçage, but my ancestor’s story I know from her diaries,” she explained. “I swear, though, that I have a genetic memory of the event. Or maybe it’s true that the ballroom is haunted. The ghosts of all those slave brides, who weren’t really slaves or brides.”
“Slavery!” he muttered. “A thousand years, and I am still being harangued over my sin.”
Harek’s reaction was not what she had expected. “What? What did you say?”
“Nothing of import. I do not understand by half what you said. Are you a quadroon?”
“Hardly. A quadroon is one-quarter black. I do have a minuscule amount of color in my blood, though. Does that bother you?”
“No. Why should it?”
She shrugged. “Bothers some men, believe me. I know from experience.”
“Your ex-fiancé?” he guessed.
“One of them. Not Julian. He’s Creole himself.”
Harek still seemed confused.
“Anyhow, plaçage was a recognized practice here in the South long before the Civil War,” Camille said, and gave Harek her short lecture on the subject. “Woman of color, the lighter the better, would enter into an agreement with a white man she met at one of the Quadroon Balls, essentially becoming his common-law wife—his placée—for life, or as long as he wanted her. In the best of circumstances, the women were given homes, usually on Rampart Street, money to live on, and their children would be free. Meanwhile, he had his own family back on the plantation and legitimate children.”
“They were mistresses, then?”
“No!” she said, more vehemently than was warranted, she supposed. “They called themselves concubines, not prostitutes, but to me, it was slavery pure and simple. The women did it for survival, not by choice, and it was a despicable practice.” She looked at him. “You don’t seem shocked.”
He shrugged. “Camille, thralldom has been around since the beginning of time. Even the Bible mentions slavery, and there were certainly such practices in Viking times,” he said, his face oddly red, as if he had a personal interest in the subject.
“Are you defending slavery?” she spat out.
“Whoa!” he said, putting up his free hand. “I never said any such thing. I was merely pointing out that slavery was a part of many cultures at one time. Yes, it was a sinful custom, but it must be judged through a historical prism.”
“Bullshit!”
He laughed. “You are right, of course. My boss would certainly agree with you, though he would use a different word.”
“Your boss? At the security company?”
“No, a higher-up boss.”
They had arrived at the car; he handed her the keys and she used a remote button to put up the soft top. Then she slid into the driver’s seat, and Harek arranged himself on the passenger side, after sliding the seat back as far as it would go, with the laptop on his raised thighs.
“So, what’s the big news?” she asked as she eased the car through downtown traffic and then onto I–10.
“Boko Haram has taken an entire village. Killed a hundred adults, men and women, and abducted fifty girls and a dozen boys.”
Camille’s face took on a grim expression. “Slaves. They’re going to make those poor children into slaves.”
“That’s why it’s so important to you to be part of this mission, isn’t it? The slavery aspect?”
She nodded, banking down the emotion that would have her either weeping with sorrow or shouting with outrage. WEALS learned early on to keep personal feelings at bay lest they act irrationally and satisfy those chauvinists who still felt women didn’t belong in the military.
He reached over and squeezed her right hand, which was on the steering wheel. “We will conquer these terrorists and bring back the kidnapped children, that I promise you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I have insider information,” he told her, “or you could say, higher information,” he added, under his breath.
“Higher than what?”
“Higher than hell,” he said, which made no sense at all.
“Sometimes you are really weird,” she commented.
“You have no idea.”
Chapter 7
The best things, and trouble,
come in small packages . . .
Now Harek understood why he had been assigned to this particular mission.
Michael delighted in placing the vangels in impossible situations related to the most heinous sins they’d committed in their human lives. Vikar’s pride was tested by being forced to live in a run-down castle in a little town in the middle of nowhere. Trond’s sloth was surely tested as a Navy SEAL whose least strenuous exercise involved six-mile runs before breakfast. Ivak’s lust had nowhere to go in an all-male Louisiana prison. Mordr had to control his wrath in a Las Vegas home full of children. Sigurd didn’t have much to envy in his island hospital.
And now Harek, the greedy one, who had dared to venture into slave trading, was practically joined at the hip with a woman who loathed slavery in any form. How would she react if she found out about his history? Probably shoot him with an AK–47, or cut off his balls with a KA-BAR knife.
/> “You’re muttering to yourself,” Camille pointed out.
“Must be a sign of old age.”
“How old are you?”
“Older than you could ever imagine.”
She arched her brows at him.
“Watch the road,” he warned. Then, “Twenty-nine human years.”
“Just like me,” she noted. Then, “As compared to nonhuman years?”
“Something like that.”
“See. That’s what I mean about your being weird. You’re always saying things like that.” In a surprisingly good masculine voice, she mimicked him, “I answer to a higher authority. Older than you can imagine. Nonhuman years, baby.”
“I didn’t say ‘baby.’ ”
“It was implied. And what’s with those pointy teeth, anyhow? Trond has them, too. Is it a family characteristic? Seems to me it would be easy enough for a dentist to file them down.”
“You don’t like my fangy teeth?”
“I didn’t say that.” She blushed. “I was being rude, wasn’t it?”
“Very.”
“It’s just that you’re so vain in other ways that I would think you’d go for perfection.”
“In what ways am I vain?”
“The mousse.”
He groaned. That again! “It’s not mousse. It’s gel. And besides, I didn’t use anything today.”
“I noticed.”
She noticed too damn much. “We were going to be riding in an open convertible, and I didn’t want bugs clinging to my hair.” He smiled at her.
“Good thinking.” She smiled back at him.
He felt a little warm jolt, not down below, but in the region of his heart. From a shared smile? “If we’re going to be rude, let me ask you this, m’lady. Why do you downplay your looks?”
She passed a driver in a minivan that was going too slow, then eased back into the right lane before answering him. “What makes you think I downplay my looks, m’lord?” She put emphasis on that last word, just to show that she’d noticed his “m’lady” slip of tongue.
He must be more careful with her. “That woman last night could have any man she wanted. Then today . . . well . . . look at you.” Now that was rude. But, truth to tell, he was a bit irritated that she hadn’t taken any trouble with her appearance to go with him today. She wore beige linen slacks with a darker beige, short-sleeved blouse, and brown sandals. Her beige—all right, brown—hair was pulled back into a ponytail. (What happened to the golden highlights?) And on her face was not a speck of makeup, not even a swipe of gloss, let alone that fuck-me red lipstick. Drab colors.
But she didn’t seem to mind his rude perusal. In fact, she grinned. “What makes you think I’m looking for a man? Step out of the Dark Ages, my friend. Women do not need men today.”
If she only knew! He really did come from the Dark Ages. “You need us for some things,” he argued, and realized he had veered into a subject area that could be dangerous as quicksand for a celibate like himself. “Let’s get down to business,” he said, and opened his laptop. “The thing you have to understand about BK is that they have a deep-rooted religious conviction that compels them to declare jihad against Christians, especially American Christians. In fact, not just Christians. Any non-Muslim people.”
“They aren’t the first people to use religion to justify evil.”
He nodded. “To them, we’re a threat to their culture and way of life. One example is the education of women.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Face it, we’re not going to change their beliefs or actions by declaring them terrorists.”
“They are terrorists.”
“Of course they are. But let me give you an example. Suppose there were people in this country—vigilantes of a sort—who went after people who perpetrated atrocities on black people, Ku Klux Klansmen of the vilest sort. Would you frown on the vigilantes’ methods, but secretly applaud their ends? Left-handed justice?”
“That’s an unfair comparison.”
“Maybe so, but you need to go into this mission understanding that the Muslim extremists believe they have a moral obligation to preserve their society in the old ways. Leastways, some of them do. Diplomacy is not going to work. Violence is the only thing they understand, and even then, when we kill them, they will consider themselves martyrs for a holy cause.”
“I find it hard to believe that rape and sexual slavery of women or forcing young boys to become soldiers and kill their own families fall under the umbrella of any religion.”
“You’re right. While the group’s original intent was merely to change Nigeria’s practice of allowing girls to go to school, it has snowballed into something way bigger. A political rebellion. And, of course, when a group grows the way BK has, there are bound to be rebels with their own causes and practices, like rape.” He could have expounded further on the subject of soldiers at war and rape, but he did not think she would appreciate his telling her that, from the beginning of time, warriors had considered rape one of the prizes of victory, a salve to the adrenaline rush of battle. Not that he condoned, or had ever allowed his troops to do such, but many had, and still did.
“Do you have any idea what our role will be there on this mission? I mean, specific jobs?”
He shook his head. “All I know for sure is that Wings is interested in taking out the terrorists”—especially the Lucipires, and saving those evil ones willing to repent—“but the SEALs are most interested in rescuing the captives. The duties will overlap, of course, but we won’t know until we get back on base exactly how the mission will be executed.” He had ideas, of course, and suggestions, but that info could wait.
“How long do you think the mission will last?”
“Probably only a few days, from insertion to extraction. The longer we’re there, the greater chance of BK noticing our presence and moving their operation. Or attacking.”
For the next half hour or so as Camille drove expertly off I–10, onto I–310, and then the longer trek on US–90, he told her all he knew about the region they would be visiting, its language, terrain, and customs. And he gave her up-to-date figures on the terrorist membership, its kills, and atrocities.
His lesson was interrupted by Camille exclaiming, “Holy moly! You didn’t tell me your brother owned one of the grand old sugar plantations.”
“I’d hardly call it grand.” The sign for Heaven’s End had been painted and rehung, and the roadway, or allée, leading up through a corridor of live oak trees had been cleared, somewhat, but it was still a run-down plantation in much need of TLC. Or a demolition.
“It was grand at one time,” Camille said in a steely voice.
He glanced at her to see what had brought on that reaction. “Heaven’s End was built by my grandfather many times removed . . . the one who ‘bought’ my grandmother Camille at a Quadroon Ball. It was here that he lived with his real family.”
Oh crap! “Wow! Talk about coincidence,” Harek said, but what he thought was Michael! How could you?
He could swear he heard a voice in his head say, How could I not?
The last time Harek had been here, it had seemed more like a tropical jungle with huge trees barely peeking out here and there from the overgrown foliage. Now, the kudzu and wildness had been cut back, exposing ancient oaks, tupelo, chinaberry, willow, and sycamore, and, in the distance, he could see an orchard brought back to life, bearing blossoms of what he supposed would be cherries, figs, apples, pears, plums, and peaches. Flowering bushes, like bougainvillea and magnolia, were enormous with age. Their scent was almost overpoweringly sweet.
Despite all the improvements, the roughly two-hundred-year-old main house was still a major work in progress, as evidenced by the scaffolding around all parts of the mansion. Workmen were repairing the hipped roof, which had caved in here and there, and painters were sanding down the many layers of peeling paint off the exterior. It was a raised, Creole-style house, the kind where the main living area was on the seco
nd floor, and the ground floor had been used for kitchen and storage rooms in ages past. There were three-story columns that rose all the way to the top floor; those, too, had been sanded down, preparatory to being primed and painted. Once gracious galleries that surrounded all sides of the house were filled with comfortable chairs and rockers and colorful potted flowers. Thankfully, the wide steps—about twelve feet wide—that led from the front drive up to the second floor entry had been repaired. Harek had almost broken a leg falling through the rotten boards when he was here last time. Broken glass had been replaced in the floor-to-ceiling windows, a necessity when snakes had been a huge problem in the beginning.
If Camille was upset about this being the former home of her grandfather, so to speak, wait until she saw what Ivak was doing with the slave quarters. He’d turned the cottages into living quarters for his vangel workers.
“Have you been here before?” he asked her.
“Once. About ten years ago. But it was vacant and overgrown. A tear-down, I would have thought.”
“Ivak said that it’s been vacant since the 1970s. He bought it two years ago. His wife, Gabrielle, is a lawyer, and they have a little boy, about a year old. So, progress has been slow, as you can see.” He was blathering to fill the silence.
She nodded, hearing but not really hearing him, her gaze rapt on the scenery they passed.
“Are you okay? Do you want to go back to New Orleans?”
Camille had pulled up to the front of the mansion, and although she had stopped the car, the motor was still idling. She appeared angry, or sad, as she stared out at the plantation house and grounds.
She shook her head. “No. It’s just a building, a piece of land. It has no meaning to me.”
