Midnight Trust

by M. L. Buchman

  He was cool with each of the couples individually. Never bothered him being a fifth wheel…or a seventh as in this case. Their team was a monster truck with duallies: Kyle and Carla steering, the other two couples as the dually power wheels, and him hanging out as rearguard. Sometimes he found a ride-along, but never for long.

  But something about this sucked today and he half-wished the military hadn’t decided to test the functionality of fraternization between team members on their team. He wouldn’t wish away a single member, but it sucked to not quite belong either.

  Especially because he’d been chased out of his own goddamn bedroom.

  It was midsummer, so having a balcony that faced due north didn’t help either. The sun was fifteen degrees north of overhead in Medellín. It meant that it had been burning in under the edge of the awning and broiling him from the knees down all day without him really noticing. Shorts. Why the hell had he opted for shorts?

  From the nose over, his punched face was angry purple. And now from the knees down, his legs were even angrier red. And inside he was goddamn green!

  Since when was he ever envious of someone having a woman? Jealousy? Him?

  Shit, Chad. Get your fucking act together.

  He sat up and ignored the painful stretchiness in his calves and the sudden pounding of his pulse in his face.

  Maybe if he just went and took the woman down but good. He knew they’d both enjoy it. One good round and they’d clear the air. Even if they were done after that, no question it would be good. Their stolen moments on the Maracaibo mission had proved that there was nothing other than incredible going on between them.

  He pushed to his feet, ignoring the big white palm prints he left on his red knees. The wind shifted slightly with the evening. The flavors of Medellín wafted across the balcony. Grilling beef for carne asada. Frying onion. Poblano chili peppers being charred to remove the skin and sweet roast the insides.

  Not just woman, woman and food. The evening was looking better already.

  He stepped into the suite’s shared living room just as Fred Smith let himself in through the front door.

  “Chad! Good. Roust the others, would you. We’ve got a small side mission while Langley chews on the data about la Capitana.”

  “Food first.” Now why did he choose that one? Because saying, “Must get laid first,” wouldn’t exactly improve the conversation. He could feel his merry tumble with Tanya slipping out of his fingers.

  “Got it all set up downstairs. Bandeja Paisa. Ten minutes.”

  Chad’s stomach growled audibly, sealing his fate. Should he knock on his own door to roust Tanya first or last? Ten minutes, they could have a quickie at least. He thumped a hinge-rattling fist on Duane’s and Richie’s rooms, calling out “Ten minutes. Food.” Across the suite, he did the same thing on Kyle’s.

  As he moved to his own door—no knock, he was just gonna go in; his room, after all—Tanya opened it and stepped into the living room.

  Chad couldn’t seem to process what he was seeing. It had been three years since he’d seen Tanya out of battle gear; she’d still been wearing her shredded and bloodied battle shirt at breakfast. He liked her scuffed up and muddy—all snarled up and ready for action. But now she was wearing fresh-washed jeans, a t-shirt that was nicely tight and too short by several inches of perfectly toned midriff, and her sleek blonde hair shone almost as brightly as her brilliant blue eyes.

  “Damn, woman!” He barely managed to gasp it out.

  Tanya laughed in his face.

  She couldn’t help it.

  Chad looked like he’d slept in a tumble dryer and only lately escaped. He was wide-eyed and rumpled. His face was already shifting from blue-purple to yellow-and-green. And his pale legs—even lighter than her own—were as electric red as a neon beer sign—a sunburnt beer sign.

  “You better go shower.”

  “Hoping you’d scrub my back,” he offered her a wolfish grin. Lopsided, because of the stiffer side of his face.

  She stepped around him and gave him a shove on the shoulders. He limped as he went, and it didn’t look like a sympathy limp. His knee must still be hurting no matter what he’d been pretending yesterday. Pretending he hadn’t been hurt after getting so much of her sympathy the night before? Had he changed his story just to keep her off balance?

  No. He’d been pretending it was less than it had been so that he wouldn’t get cut out of the operation. Then he’d chased her on a motorcycle over the brutal terrain, which must have him hurting as much as her shoulder. Good!

  Carla stepped into the suite just in time to see Tanya close the door behind Chad. She raised a single eyebrow.

  “Go to hell, little sister.” Carla was over six inches shorter than she was, after all.

  “Not saying a word.”

  “About what?” Melissa eased up with the loose-hipped walk of a recently very happy woman.

  Carla made a show of locking her lips and tossing away the key.

  “I surmise,” Sofia was still brushing her long dark hair to a shimmer as she joined them. “That Carla’s unspoken words are because Tanya is not presently in with Chad humping his brains out. I’ve observed that Carla has an exceptionally one-track mind. Sex fixes everything in her world view.”

  “No. It screws everything up, but since that’s nothing new, I figure I might as well have fun while everything is being a mess.” Then Carla slapped her hands back over her mouth before tossing away another imaginary key.

  All three women turned to look at her. As if Tanya hadn’t spent the first half of the day (that was supposed to be her night) wondering why Chad didn’t come into the room and the second half (when she still only slept in starts and fits), wondering if she should go fetch him.

  “I think that you are all having a one-track mind on this subject. Who didn’t have sex last night?”

  “Oh, I like this conversation,” Duane called out to Kyle as he took the brush from Sofia’s hands and continued brushing her hair for her.

  “It’s quite simple,” Richie remarked as he stepped up and took Melissa’s hand. “Guys, raise your hands if you can’t imagine keeping your hands off your wife.”

  All three guys raised their hands.

  “I am hating all of you.” Tanya’s body had a clear preference. Men were pleasant and forgettable—wholly forgettable. Chad was…not.

  Carla mumbled something, but kept her lips clamped as if they were still locked.

  “She says, ‘So, have some sex.’ I’d second that vote,” Melissa added cheerfully.

  “Mm-hm,” Carla mumbled.

  “Wild sex,” Melissa corrected.

  “So, are we almost ready?” Fred came over from where he’d been talking on his phone.

  Chad stepped out of the bedroom behind Tanya.

  Every single face in the suite turned to look at him. Most of them were grinning like love-sated fools.

  “What?”

  Tanya’s back was to him. She alone didn’t turn. It would be so easy to reach out and stroke a hand over her hair and down that lovely back. The tight shirt revealed the muscle definition of her shoulders. The neck scooped a few inches below her hair, showing the tan of a woman who lived mostly outdoors that was echoed in the narrow slice of the gap between her shirt and jeans. The curve at her spine, bridged by her jeans, invited his hand to slip down the gap and see just how well he remembered the feel of her exceptional butt against his palm.

  He tore his attention back to the group.

  Carla’s jaw was firmly clamped shut, or just maybe she was smiling.

  “Hello? Food?” Fred rang the Pavlovian bell and Chad’s stomach grumbled again, which broke up the group far more than it should have. Duane slapped a hand onto Chad’s back hard enough to sting as he howled with laughter. Sofia and Melissa actually leaned on each other’s shoulders they were giggling so hard.

  “What?...No!” Chad didn’t want to know. “Never mind.” Ever! “Food. Now! C’mon Fred,” the only
person as in the dark as he was. “Let’s get away from these loons.” He stepped around Tanya without even tracing a finger over a long knife scar on her biceps that hadn’t been there three years ago. The scar didn’t bother him, it was part of their trade. But that he didn’t know its origin, hadn’t been there to murder the man who gave it to her…that bothered him.

  He really was losing it.

  He didn’t wait for Fred to lead the way out the door and down the stairs onto the street.

  The restaurant, less than two blocks from their suite, was a recent favorite: Paisan Comida—literally "Medellín Native Food” or “Local Food.” It was as unpretentious as its name. The concrete frontage had been painted a brilliant sea blue as part of a block-long mural. The mayor had given the Comuna 13 youths thousands of gallons of paint to beautify their neighborhood as they saw fit. Some parts of town were wild graffiti, others were actual building-by-building paint jobs. This area was halfway in between. No matter what, that single mayoral act had been the beginning of the turnaround for the area.

  Inside, the owner’s hand had taken over, painting with broad strokes in warm oranges and reds. Traditional art hung haphazardly on one wall, lit by twinkle lights. It wasn’t arranged by some plan, but rather by three generations of women who had run the place. Wide-brimmed hats of woven black-and-white straw hung next to a grinning mask tattooed in more-vibrant-than-Crayola colors. A rug that might have been a neon stork delivering a baby in swaddling clothes, or perhaps a toucan delivering a banana, hung next to a Flower Festival basket filled with a brilliant bouquet of irises and gladioli.

  “My boys!” Estela greeted them with a happy cry as they came in. She waddled out from behind the counter.

  “How did you get even more pregnant than last week?” Chad bent down to hug her.

  “I’m bigger than a horse. Soon I will be too big to fit inside my own restaurant. I will have to have you kill my husband for doing this to me.” Her liquid Spanish was as beautiful as she was. Her face glowed gloriously bright as she hugged Duane as well. He and Chad had extracted one of the last drug-gang leaders from the neighborhood, arriving almost too late to save Estela’s and Ramiro’s lives. The very quiet trip that Jesús Rivera had taken on an unmarked DEA plane back to the States had solved that problem. There the coward had spilled his guts about every supplier, enforcer, and runner he had—without even being offered leniency. Two judges and twenty police officers had also been taken out of circulation—including two second lieutenants who had not gone so quietly into the night.

  She’d pushed her two biggest tables together, which meant that the back half of the tiny restaurant was theirs. Several of the locals came up to greet them as well.

  Estela drifted back to her small kitchen and the food was soon flowing outward in platter-loads big enough to make up for his last week in the jungle.

  Fred made several failed attempts to divert attention to their mission, but the distraction of Estela’s Bandeja Paisa completely outclassed him. The meal nestled around the base of a small cast iron pot of Colombian beans mixed with pork hocks and green plantain. A generous mound of sticky white rice and a corn arepo cake for some carbs. Pork cracklings and powdered pork—shredded so fine it almost did look powdered—were kept company by a chorizo sausage because a growing boy could never get enough meat. A baked plantain for sweetness, a pair of fried eggs for color, and an avocado for the hell of it.

  “A warrior’s lunch.” Duane chortled as he dug in. “And it’s everywhere in Colombia. I’m in heaven.”

  “At Estela’s it is a glorious mountain to conquer,” Chad couldn’t agree more.

  “You’re both oafs. You must tell the cook that it is the best you’ve ever eaten,” Sofia teased them, then raised her voice to do exactly that.

  “I could bathe in this hogao sauce,” Duane dredged up more of the sharp salsa.

  “You smell like it. Your stink reaches all the way over here, bro.”

  Sofia leaned over to sniff at Duane’s shoulder. He took the opportunity to kiss her soundly. Very soundly, continuing until Kyle scoffed, “Newlyweds.”

  “Hmm,” Sofia hummed happily, then ended the kiss. “He doesn’t smell like hogao, but he certainly tastes of it. Only better.”

  Duane, the dog, just smiled.

  Chad couldn’t help but glance at Tanya. She’d ended up across the table from him, between Carla and Richie. He tried sliding a foot over to rub against her ankle, but when Richie looked up in surprise and scanned the table, Chad slowly withdrew his foot.

  Chad’s foot sliding against her ankle had sent a warm tingle of surprise up Tanya’s spine.

  She didn’t want Chad’s warm tingles.

  Under the table, she managed to kick Richie’s shin from a slightly unexpected angle. Richie startled and Chad’s foot instantly slid off her ankle.

  Why was she resisting him?

  He was an exceptional lover—unless he’d gotten even better over the intervening years.

  He was very pretty, especially out of his clothes. He could pass for a Greek god with that body.

  She even liked him.

  And there was the problem. She did like Chad. With only a few memorable exceptions, she’d “liked” all the men she’d slept with, but that was all.

  She liked Chad…a great deal.

  Not acceptable! Not in her world—not anywhere in her life.

  Focusing on her food wasn’t sufficient distraction. Even at this table of America’s super warriors, Chad stood out. He wasn’t the leader or the brains. Richie and Duane were the tech guy and explosives guy. But in a group of incredible sharpshooters—you had to be or you weren’t part of Delta—Chad was their top sniper and weapons specialist.

  She’d used her looks and her brains to survive, even thrive in this clandestine game of international conflict fought with drugs, trafficking, subterfuge, and great scads of money. But she’d started out as a shooter.

  The Tzahal—the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF—had recognized that quickly. She could tear down a jammed Uzi faster than most grunts could change magazines. She’d made kala sa’ar (designated marksman) before she was out of boot camp. The day they’d issued her an IWI Galatz was still one of the most memorable days of her life. Mossad and ultimately Kidon had made sure that she was an expert on a hundred different weapons systems—because you never knew what would best fit the mission in the field. But that old wood-stocked sniper rifle had been her constant companion for two years in the Tzahal and her first two in Mossad—Israel’s answer to the CIA.

  Her mission profiles had somehow slid out of her control since then.

  She put down a forkful of homemade chorizo sausage she’d just sliced—it suddenly tasted like sand.

  Tanya’s life of comfortably carefree solo missions had been broken by three days of service with this team several years ago. It had led her into more and more “cooperative missions” and ad hoc teams that had culminated so horribly just three nights ago with her team suffering a death, a grave injury, and a complete loss of confidence. She was—

  “What do you say, Tanya?”

  “To what?” She’d completely missed the talk around the table and Smith’s question made no sense.

  Most of the people around the table were looking at her with a puzzled frown. Carla’s expression was blank, assessing. Her eyes didn’t need to flicker sideways to Chad to state the core of the question.

  Clearly Smith had been laying out some sort of mission. Her inclusion might be simply because she was a handy asset. But Carla would know that the mission wasn’t the real question for her.

  It was Chad.

  Tanya looked at him, without looking at him. Instead, reviewing his expression in memory from when her gaze had flicked around the table. It was…hopeful.

  That almost tipped her into the “no way” column. She’d be fine again on her own. No more teams. Just her and the enemy for however long she could last.

  But Carla’s neutral gaze was unwaver
ing, forcing her to face her own reasons.

  A chance to fight once more with this team was attractive. And if Tanya dodged out because of Chad, she knew that she wouldn’t be living up to Carla’s standards. Anyone else and she’d tell them to go to hell, but not “sister” Carla. Maybe if Tanya just this once—

  “She’s in,” Carla looked away with no other acknowledgement. Either Carla got tired of waiting, or she read Tanya’s answer before she knew it herself. Tanya would wager on the latter.

  It was impossible to miss the sigh of relief from Chad.

  Her decision had been important to him. More important than just where was he going to next get sex? That was unclear.

  More important to her than merely choosing her next lover?

  That too was unclear.

  9

  “Weren’t we just here?”

  Chad glanced over at Tanya as the sunset chased them up the rear ramp on the MH-47G Chinook.

  “But if we were, it was going that way.” He pointed down the ramp in the direction they’d slid and tumbled into the jungle river.

  After dinner and a planning session, the team had taken a couple of unremarkable Toyota Corollas to a small clearing deep in the Medellín hills before donning their gear.

  They’d scrounged up enough for Tanya. Over that tight t-shirt from Sofia, one of Richie’s camo shirts fit her well enough. Melissa had remarkably long legs, which meant her slacks had fit Tanya nicely. Night-vision goggles and a new radio came out of general supplies. They’d all donned Ecuadoran military insignia patches for their collar points. They also had Colombian insignias tucked away in case they needed them.