by Fiona Quinn
“A romantic.”
“A romantic, yes, but not syrupy. She will not bleed for you in any color. You won’t have that ethos to lean into. You won’t have the shared background of physical pain and deprivation. She’s not pampered, but she was raised upper-middle class. Fine wine. Sometimes-foody. Flexitarian.”
“Flex-a-what? Should I be taking notes?”
“No. Just listen. Get a feel for this. It’s not academic. It’s,” she wiggled her shoulders as she looked at the ceiling, searching for the word, “natural. Flexitarian means she tries to eat mostly vegetarian, but she won’t argue with you about your choice to eat meat, and she might even eat it herself on occasion. But no pork.”
“Does she eat Halal?”
“Not that I know of. Just she doesn’t eat pork—well, meat. She doesn’t like it. She eats fish, though, and animal products—dairy. Why?”
“Just gathering data points. Okay. You’re trying to make the case that we’re opposites? Opposites attract or something. Uptown girl who falls for the guy from the wrong side of the tracks.”
She paused to consider him. “Is that how you see yourself?”
“Not at all. I’m just trying to understand the situation and your thought process because, as you said, this is a psyops, and that’s not my specialty.”
“Right, well, psyops, to get you onto the compound so you can do what you do best, take down Omar Mohamed Imadi.”
Chapter Ten
Kira
“Wow, you’re up early, or late… What time is it there?” Kira looked over at her clock and did a quick computation. “It’s one in the morning in Doha.”
“Archie needed a bottle. I tell you, doing this mothering thing without a nanny is exhausting. I’m not used to having to do nighttime feedings.” London leaned toward her computer screen, where she had the video chat running. “You look terrible.”
“Gosh, thanks.” Kira smoothed her hair back.
“Didn’t you sleep? You don’t have an infant screeching you awake. And I will tell you, I’m glad that William uses hearing aids and can put them on his bedside table, or he’d be awake too. There are things to look forward to later in life.”
“I assume there are things to look forward to now. I’m just hard-pressed to think of any of them.”
“I heard.” London sighed.
“Have you met him?”
“Your intended? No. Tell me, what’s his name? What does he look like? What does he do for a living? Is he independently wealthy?”
“Uncle Nadir didn’t say anything about him, only that the decision has been made. Did Uncle Nadir say anything about it to William?”
“No. Only that the guy is Saudi by birth, and he’s in Saudi Arabia with William’s son Karl right now. Apparently, Karl and this man are good friends. If they’re friends as well as business partners, I’d guess they’re about the same age, wouldn’t you think so? Karl is five years older than we are.”
“How’s Karl doing?” Kira asked as she brought her cup of tea to her lips.
“William is trying to decide if we need to fly into Riyadh on our way to Tanzania.”
Kira paused, teacup mid-air. “Why’s that?”
“Karl’s having trouble with his prosthetic leg. After he was shot, the security people put the tourniquet on him way up high on his leg—which I’m told is the thing to do, ‘high and tight’ is supposedly the mantra. Anyway, the tourniquet position meant that by the time they finally got him to the mainland, too many hours had passed for them to save his leg—well, and the gun was a rifle with those big bullets that splintered his femur.” London stopped to give a little shiver. “Horrible. Anyway, the way they cut off his leg makes everything hard to fit and makes rehabilitation so much more difficult for him. I tell you, it’s a rotten time for this to be happening. It opens old wounds.”
“From rubbing on the prosthesis?”
“No, I mean old emotional wounds. The wedding coming up and all. When the bad men were trying to hurt William,” she stopped to clutch at the top of her robe, “Christen tried to save her father by taking that shot. She’s a pilot, not a—what do you call them, infantry? Not a soldier that shoots people. She’s trained to fly helicopters. So it’s tragic that she made that mistake. Worse, William feels horribly conflicted. His son was wounded and left behind by Christen when she flew them off the island. And her leaving Karl there is why he lost his leg. But Christen saved William’s life and her own, of course. It’s just a lot for William to know that his children were endangered and that now Karl wants nothing to do with Christen. The family is always on tenterhooks around her. She’s a difficult child who wants her own way no matter how it impacts her family.” London sighed. “I guess I just need to stay out of it.”
“Lula was there on the island when that happened. What is she saying about all that?”
“She said that the helicopter was full, that there was a lot of shooting. Christen did what had to be done. Lula says that Christen’s decision-making was based on what she was trained to do for the army. We can’t really fault her. She did what she learned as best practices. Selfishly, I’m glad that she did what she did. I got to keep my wonderful husband, though his heart is broken. He’s such a good family man.” She lifted Archie to her shoulder and started patting him on the back.
“Oh, dear.” Kira drew in a deep breath as she looked up to the ceiling, then focused back on London’s image on her computer screen. “That’s a piece that I hadn’t considered.”
“What’s that?”
“I wasn’t thinking about last year’s fiasco when I was working with the venue for Christen and Gator’s celebration. Since I know so little about the couple, we just took a stab at the decisions. We picked a 1940’s kind of a World War II pilot theme for the party. I hired a swing band. I had the designers do little wooden planes to add to the centerpieces outside of the ballroom. You know how cute they used to paint the old warplanes with the ladies' pin-up images and names on the side. “Betty Blue,” and what have you. We were having ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’ and ‘Rosie the Riveter’ kinds of war propaganda posters in the corridor on the way into the ballroom, and then inside it was sort of the Hollywood glam look. Think Rick’s Café in Casablanca—romance and military. But now that seems really wrong since there was aviation involved in the tragedy last summer.”
“No. No. I like that idea.” She lifted Archie when he belched. “Does that feel better, lovekins? Let’s finish our bottle, and then we’ll go back to sleep.” London looked back at Kira. “Can you arrange for a casino? William loves to play roulette and poker. We could have them play with fake money and their winnings donated to the charity of their choice in Christen and Gator’s names. Oh, I really like that idea. Keep going with those plans.”
“Okay.”
London pulled her brows together. “You really don’t look like yourself. Why don’t you go to the spa and get a little pampering? Relax a little.”
“I have a lot to do before I head to Tanzania. I’m supposed to talk to Bruno here in a minute. I should probably go to the bathroom and get myself another cup of tea, so I’m ready.”
“All right. Thank you.” She looked down at her infant. “I think Archie’s fallen asleep.” She smiled. “I’m going to go lay him in his crib and try to get some shut-eye, myself.”
“London?”
“Mhmm?”
“Do you think you could try to get some information about this man that Uncle Nadir picked for me? His name? Maybe even a picture?”
“Kira, you know that’s men’s business. I rather like how the male and female roles are separated out here in Qatar. I think I’d like to live here most of the time. It’s freeing, isn’t it, to be unburdened by responsibility and under the protection and guardianship of my husband? And, now,” she smiled, “you’ll have your own husband-protector when you move here, then we can see each other all the time.”
Kira swallowed audibly. “I have to go. I’ll send you an emai
l about what I find out from Bruno about the food I’ll be bringing to Davidson Range. Sleep well.”
When the screen went black, Kira sat very still, feeling fragile, as if she moved too quickly right now, she’d shatter into a million pieces.
Chapter Eleven
Ty
“Is he okay in there?” White asked, backing away while breathing out forcibly to clear her lungs.
Rory was snoring loudly and had just gas bombed them, completely oblivious that his crate balanced on Ty’s shoulder as Ty navigated from the jet to the pickup truck, waiting for them at the hangar.
“It’s the meds. He’ll be up again in a couple hours, right as rain.”
“Good. He’s a huge part of the next step, and we need him bright-eyed. Our clock is ticking,” White reminded him. “We have four days for cupid’s arrow to pierce the fair maiden’s heart.”
Ty squatted as he lowered the crate down to the open tailgate and slid Rory into the back.
“Are you ready?” She clambered into the back of the rented pick up and over to the integrated attachments that would keep Rory safer should there be an accident.
“I’ll follow your directives. Four days… It’ll be a trick shot to pull this off.” He moved along the side of the truck bed to inspect her work and make sure Rory was secured. “You have a backup plan, right?”
White crawled back out like a crab. “This is the backup plan. If you fail at your mission, soldier, our only recourse is to storm the castle and hope that in the mayhem, Omar doesn’t slither through the cracks and disappear.” She accepted Ty’s hand as she jumped down from the bed. “No pressure, though.” She brushed her hands off on the back of her pants.
“Yeah, right.”
“If you can keep it together to maintain your cover story while you were put through SERE—your survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training, and torture sessions, then I don’t think that Princess Shakira will be your undoing.” She leaned over to grab a set of keys from the side pocket of her briefcase, tossing them to Ty.
Ty repeated, “Princess?” as he snatched the keyring from the air.
White shrugged. “Royalty, like we discussed, but not a direct line to the throne.”
“We were counseled about this when I was a Ranger. Foreign royalty is a no-go.”
“How’s that?”
He sauntered toward the driver’s side of the truck, using the key fob to disengage the locks. “There was a Marine—a Mormon guy—who met a woman while he was on tour in Bahrain. I don’t remember the specifics. This was years back.” When White opened her door and climbed in, he did the same, leaving the door open for a moment to let the built-up heat rush out the door. “She wasn’t allowed to leave the country because she didn’t have her father’s permission. But the guy’s Marine buddies helped him sneak the princess out of Bahrain. He was in love with her—it’s not as clear if she felt the same.” He pressed the engine button to get the air-conditioning started. “They eloped—against both of their faiths. He got in big trouble with the military, especially since it caused an international stink. A cautionary tale—stay away from foreign royalty, or I too will find myself in the stockade with my rank and pay stripped. And I’m not really down with that.”
White fluffed her shirt, dissipating the sudden heat from inside the sweltering cab. “So that was a personal relationship, personal choices, and personal ramifications. This is not. You need to remember that. I’m setting Kira up to fall enough in love with you so she will trust and lean on you to help her feel safe at Davidson Range. This relationship is going nowhere. It has an eight-day expiration date. Keep this at the forefront of your mind. She’s Qatari royalty.”
“And a U.S. citizen, you said.” He adjusted the hot blast of air from the vent away from White and then him.
“She is Qatari royalty. Your relationship will be lab engineered. I’m being as upfront with you about all of this as I can because the science that I’m applying to make her feel she’s falling in love with you will also impact your brain.” She paused. “What was that look that just crossed your face?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking she sounds like a mess. Ladies in distress aren’t my type. It’s a psyops mission. It doesn’t matter what I think about her as a person.”
“Oh, but it does matter,” White said forcefully. “I told you, her psych eval shows she is highly, highly, highly intuitive. She’ll know if you’re just playing a role.”
“You expect me to fall in love with her?”
“Let me go back and tell you, no, she’s not a damsel in distress. She’s a woman in conflict. She’s a woman who has an enormous amount of pressure on her shoulders put there by everyone she holds most dear. But she has thwarted those demands for a decade to live her own life and pursue her own objectives. You happened to be walking into the picture as this situation in her life comes to a head. We’re actually very lucky. If this operation took off just a week from now, it’s very likely we’d fail on this front, putting everyone in a lot more danger.” She reached out and pulled her door shut. “I chose you specifically for this mission because I believe you will fall in love with her, and she will perceive your emotions as authentic. And, if and when you do fall in love, you can remember this is a science experiment. Your emotions are being manipulated. It’s not real. And, when this is over, I can help you undo it.” She reached for the briefcase at her feet.
“How’s that?” he asked as she dug around the bottom of her bag.
She pulled out a pharmacy bottle, gave it a little rattle, then extended it to him. “There are studies that find if we start you on an antidepressant medication, that will help. Granted, it takes six to eight weeks to get the medication fully into your system,” she explained as Ty accepted the bottle and read his name on the label. “This assignment will last approximately eight days. So there will be an uncomfortable period. Think about it like you were shot, and you need to rest and recover.” She reached over and tapped the bottle. “If you start now, then any continued lovesickness might only last for a couple of months. Then you’ll be okay.”
“That’s kind of cold.” The Velcro closure rasped as Ty pulled at the flap on his thigh pocket and pressed the bottle inside.
“I’m a frosty bitch when it comes to saving the world from terrorists.” She shrugged. “Sue me.”
His mind was whirring, thinking of the ramifications of this mission. “Did you list these meds in my file?”
“I did not. I know how something like that could affect your future military assignments.”
“Career.”
White acknowledged that with a nod. “You follow the label as it’s typed up. When that one’s done, we’ll start weaning you off, depending on how you’re doing. It’s our little secret.” She winked, then pulled on her seat belt. “I have a warm spot in my heart for you, Ty.” Her voice turned serious. “One of my best friends, John Grey, is alive today—survived the attempt to torture and kill him—because you dangled out the side of a hovering helicopter and put your life on the line for him. I will always have your back. I think you can see that’s true. After all, there are a lot of teams I could have chosen to take down Omar Mohamed Imadi. I’m paying part of my debt by choosing Echo.”
“Thank you,” Ty said with conviction.
“And as we move forward, the least I can do is try to give you a bandage for the wounds I anticipate I will be inflicting.”
“Staunch the bleeding. I appreciate your candor.” He put a hand on the steering wheel, sent a glance out the back window at Rory’s crate, then put the truck in gear. “Side effects?”
“Maybe. Everyone’s different. If they become intrusive to your work, let me know, and we’ll quietly find a solution. I’m not throwing you to the wolves. You’re essentially my asset, and I will protect you. And that includes your heart.”
He dipped his head. “Thanks.” The way he said it was a throwaway phrase. He didn’t mean it to show gratitude. He just wanted to move the c
onversation along. Ty had zero interest in taking the drugs. He’d been in the military for almost half his life—sixteen years. He’d been through all kinds of horror and near-death situations. He’d experienced the broadest spectrum of human emotion. A scientifically devised crush on a woman?
Yeah, that didn’t worry him at all.
He could handle it.
White pulled out her phone and tapped the directions app. “I have an appointment for you at the salon. We need to get you cleaned up. While your long hair and beard work for you in the Middle East, they won’t work for you on this assignment. I’m saying mani-pedi, probably a facial. You’re looking scuffed up from wherever you came in from before I found you in Djibouti. You need a clean-cut military look. You’re not a special operator. You’re a K9 handler and trainer up at the fort. Sometimes you handle the K9s overseas if needed. You go where you’re told. If Kira asks, tell her the truth, you live on base. But right now, you’re staying at a hotel up the street from her house because you’re training Rory for a mission where he’ll be doing close protection for a VIP. Since Rory has been off working on missions with special forces, you want to give his polite-company skills a polish. All of that is true. But you should phrase it in that way, should she ask.”
Without comment, Ty followed the map out of the parking lot and down the street.
“I need you to open your mind as you drive. This assignment is going to be a crash course in psychological manipulation. You’re to take it in. Other than my specific directions, I want this all to just kind of free flow in your subconscious as you interact with Kira. Nothing plastic. Over the next four days, you will be working Kira’s emotions with specific tasks and, at the same time, be fluid and natural. INFJ, she’s intuitive like your brothers on a mission when everything just flows because you can taste the wind.”
“While poetic, that’s not really how that goes. We flow because we’ve trained day in and day out.”