Maverick

by Lisa Marie Rice

  There. That alone should have been enough for her to understand that she wasn’t ready for the world.

  Claire wasn’t in any way fanciful. Her thoughts had always been prosaic and reality-based, and her studies, and then particularly her job, had only honed that. She didn’t believe in fairies, or in angels, or in wishing things to be true because you wanted them to be true. She believed in facts.

  Her job had been to look facts square in the face, however unpalatable. A wishful thinker in the Defense Intelligence Agency was worse than useless—she was dangerous.

  So Claire was used to being brutally clear about the world, and as a consequence, brutally clear about herself.

  The fact that she’d ignored how much of a human wreck she was in order to fling herself up to Dan’s office was so un-Claire-like, it was as if another woman had done this. And she was another woman. The bombing had split her life into two, the Before Claire and the After Claire.

  The Before Claire had been decisive and business-like, humming with activity, busy with plans, focused and steady and ambitious. The After Claire… well, she was a pathetic husk of a woman, with no past and above all, no future, just an eternal, dark, airless present.

  Time to go. This wasn’t going to work, not on any level. She couldn’t in any way face the food, the evening, the man.

  Make your excuses and go, while you still can. Before you’re sick all over this nice man’s restaurant.

  Panic rose while she tried to make polite noises at what Stavros was saying.

  She was bathed in cold sweat, her head swam as if she were drunk or drugged. Voices sounded faraway, yet sharp and threatening. Her heart pounded, as if she’d just run a race, so fast and so hard it felt like it was going to pound its way out of her chest.

  It was horrible. It was why she so seldom went out. If she had a panic attack in her home, she could just stay rooted to the spot until it passed, no matter how long it took. No one to see her, no one to point fingers at the crazy lady.

  Outside… outside was a different matter. She’d once had a massive panic attack in the bank, feet nailed to the floor, sweat pouring over her, shaking like a leaf, unable to respond to anyone. The manager had called 911. Ever since then, she’d arranged for home banking.

  A huge one was coming. A tsunami rolling toward her, as her heart picked up speed and she had to stiffen her knees to stay upright. Panic attack plus nausea, a lethal combination. Oh God, she had to get out of here, fast.

  Maybe she could just rush down the stairs, hail a taxi and disappear. Dan knew where she was staying, of course, but who’d chase after a crazy woman?

  She’d have to leave behind her expensive down coat, but she could buy another one.

  She’d spend another of her sleepless nights, make the long trip back down to Florida, get into her house and lock the door behind her, and stay in, maybe for days. Listen to the slow tick tock of the clock on the hearth, echoing the thud of her own heart, one of the few signs she was alive.

  Claire ran through excuses in her mind as she thanked Stavros and turned back to Dan.

  I’m so sorry, I really don’t feel well, no, please don’t bother, I can catch a cab, there are plenty this time of the evening…

  Then a hot shower to try to chase away the icy chill in her core, which wouldn’t work. Slipping into bed, hoping for sleep, and that wouldn’t work either.

  Tomorrow morning, sleepless and exhausted, making her way back south again. Entering her big, silent house that reeked of loneliness, despair, and lemon polish.

  She clearly wasn’t capable of being out in the world. Maybe she never would be. Maybe she was broken, damaged beyond repair.

  The thought struck her like a sledge-hammer. Coming to Washington had been… been like a little test. One she’d failed miserably. She wasn’t capable of handling a trip and a perfectly nice dinner with a perfectly nice man.

  More than perfectly nice. Attractive, thoroughly male, yet without those creepy macho vibes that made her reject most advances. He hadn’t made one suggestive comment, had been the perfect gentleman, taken her to a nice restaurant. And she felt she was about to step into a deep, black hole simply because she couldn’t deal with the food.

  Dan appeared beside her, large hand reaching out to cup her elbow. His hand was warm, strong. He nodded over her head and Claire was stymied for a moment. Incapable of thought. Who was he nodding to?

  “Thanks,” he said and she turned her head. Behind her Stavros gave a two-fingered salute and smiled at her.

  “My pleasure,” he said and moved back toward the kitchen.

  Dan led her back to their table and she stopped in her tracks. He stopped, too.

  The table that had been groaning with food, huge platters of the stuff, enough to feed a family of eight, had been cleared. There were now two small plates—dessert plates from the look of them, as opposed to the enormous platters the size of an Olympic discus—with small tastings of all the dishes.

  Small enough so that her system didn’t go haywire at the sight. Oh God. That’s why he’d sent her off with Stavros. Not to admire the vases, but to have the waiter clear away the heavy platters of food and replace them with small plates and small portions. Small enough not to freak out the crazy lady.

  “This okay?” Dan asked quietly. He stood so straight, so still, his sharp, almost Aztec features, hard, dark eyes glittering. “Better?”

  She met his eyes. “Yeah. Better.”

  He held out her chair and she sat, gingerly, not entirely sure whether she was staying or would suddenly leap up and run out. It was touch and go.

  She folded her hands on the table. “How did you know?” she whispered.

  Dan shrugged. “I’m a soldier. Was a soldier. I’ve seen PTSD before.”

  PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. What some soldiers in the field got after battle. She hadn’t gone into battle. She’d just been blown up.

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he added, his voice low and intimate. “One of my buddies got blown up by an IED and wouldn’t leave the house for two years. Takes different people different ways.”

  Claire could absolutely understand Dan’s buddy. Not leaving the house for two years sounded perfectly reasonable. The outside world held horrible dangers, big black pits yawning open, ready to gobble innocent people up.

  He reached over and placed his big hand over her folded ones and let it rest there. She looked at it, mesmerized. This past year had not been kind to her. She was as white as skim milk, and had lost so much weight the tendons in her wrist and the back of her hand stood out. She was continually cold. Everything about her was pale and weak.

  Dan had been wounded in the blast, too, but he had bounced back. His hand over hers was broad and tanned and strong. It felt like a small furnace over her cold skin.

  They sat there, not talking, watching each other. And a funny thing happened. The heat from his hand spread, slowly travelling up her arm, warming her skin. She’d been trembling slightly, from the cold, from emotion, but the heat made her muscles relax, melting that inner tension that was with her, always.

  She sat back with a sigh, a fierce inner battle having been won. She was going to stay, she wasn’t going to run.

  Dan slid his hand back across the table. “We okay?” His deep voice was quiet.

  She looked into his dark eyes and found not a trace of censure or worry. No hint whatsoever that he’d invited a lunatic to dinner. A woman any other man would have dumped back on her doorstep in an instant.

  None of that. If anything, his body language was warm and welcoming. He leaned forward, watching her, a faint smile on his face.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’re okay.”

  He gave a sharp nod and picked up his fork. “Good. I’m glad.”

  He started eating, finishing the small plate in an instant. He was a big man, broad and thick. What he’d eaten wasn’t even enough to make starters for an active man his size. But he sat back with a sigh and nodd
ed his head at her plate. “It’s good stuff. You might want to try it.”

  Maybe it was the heat that had penetrated the normally icy chill surrounding her, maybe it was his smile, maybe it was the fabulous smells rising off the tiny plate. Whatever it was, she lifted her fork and put a bite in her mouth.

  Amazing. Her stomach didn’t close up like a fist. Bile didn’t tickle up her throat. Her head didn’t swim.

  Wow. She ate and the world didn’t come to an end.

  She finished about half of what was on the plate, then slid it away, not wanting to push her luck. Not wanting to throw up all over the nice linen tablecloth.

  “I haven’t eaten this much in one go in a year.” She patted her mouth with the napkin and sat back.

  “You need warm food and company while you eat.”

  She looked away for a moment. Food had never been a problem before… before. She’d enjoyed food as much as anybody else. But after she’d woken up from the coma, she never knew how food would hit her system. Once she’d fainted right out of her kitchen chair and it was only a miracle that she hadn’t had anything in her mouth, otherwise she’d have choked to death.

  She was really careful after that.

  If she needed company, though, she was out of luck.

  “Dessert?” he asked.

  Claire shook her head. She didn’t want more food. She wanted more information.

  “You were telling me about that day in Laka. There was shooting in the streets outside the compound and you rushed me to Post One. Then what?”

  Something flared in his dark brown eyes, something hot, instantly dampened. “We sat and listened to the fighting outside on Avenue de la Liberté for about an hour.”

  “They didn’t shoot at the Embassy, though, correct?”

  “No. The Red Army seemed intent on carousing in the streets and shooting up the lampposts, but until the bombing, they didn’t scratch the Embassy.”

  “That’s odd…”

  “Yes, it is strange,” Dan replied. “I checked in with the Ambassador’s residence and everyone was safe and then checked in with Marine House. It was better for everyone to just stay where they were. So we hunkered down and waited.”

  He was watching her carefully. Was he checking to see whether any of this jogged her memory?

  “And then?”

  He cleared his throat. “After a while, your friend Marie popped her head around the door. It was at last light. She wanted you to go with her. I was against it, but you insisted. Said you’d only be a minute.”

  Claire’s heart squeezed at the sound of Marie’s name. Whatever had happened afterward had cost Marie her life.

  Dan narrowed his eyes. “You don’t remember any of this?”

  Claire shook her head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  She kept quiet about her nightmares. They weren’t memories. They were only Hell. “So then what happened?”

  “After about a quarter of an hour I started getting worried. Checked in with the Ambassador’s residence again and then Marine House, and then I went looking for you.”

  “Were you armed?”

  His head reared back. “Damn straight I was armed. My Remington and my Browning.”

  Dumb question.

  “You weren’t anywhere in the Embassy,” he continued. “I checked the building.” He frowned at her. “I found it impossible to believe that you’d have willingly left the Embassy building, but the fact was, you weren’t there.”

  Why had she left the Embassy? Dan was right. If she had left, it had been insane of her. They’d had training courses and every course had stressed staying safe.

  DIA agents weren’t trained warriors. They had information, sensitive information, in their heads, and it was their duty to keep that head on their shoulders. Claire couldn’t even begin to imagine what could have convinced her to leave the safety of the Embassy and Post One, particularly if she’d had the protection of the Detachment Commander.

  So another mystery had just been added, as if she didn’t have enough black holes in her life.

  She leaned forward. “So then what?”

  “I was going out into the compound grounds.” He frowned and she understood. Protocol was that the Detachment Security Guard, and especially their Commander, stay inside the Embassy building in case of attack. He’d broken protocol for her. He could have been severely punished, could even have been given a dishonourable discharge for desertion. “I heard a woman’s whisper and then the bomb blew. I happened to be standing right behind a concrete pillar and that saved my life.”

  “Oh, Dan,” she murmured. She laid her hand on his forearm. “I’m so sorry.” She’d put him in danger and she didn’t even know why.

  He covered her hand with his and again, she felt the warmth creep up her arm. His jaws clenched. “I only wish I’d tried the grounds earlier. Maybe you wouldn’t have been blown up by a bomb. Maybe I’d have found you and brought you back inside. Maybe the past year wouldn’t have happened.”

  Claire blinked. He meant it, every word. It was there in every sober line of his dark face. Had he been beating himself up this past year? Blaming himself for what had happened?

  “Good Lord, Dan! You can’t blame yourself for the crazies in the Red Army! And you certainly can’t blame yourself if I was nuts enough to go outside. I had no business leaving the Embassy, and I can’t imagine why I did.”

  Dan’s face was even more drawn, narrow nostrils white with some strong emotion.

  “I thought you’d died,” he said starkly. “I thought I hadn’t been able to keep you safe and you paid for that with your life. That you were dead, and it was my fault.”

  Claire drew in a shocked breath. Both hands were on his forearm now and she could feel the steely muscle underneath. Everything about him was strong, grounded, healthy. She hated it that been carrying this guilt when all he’d done was protect her.

  And…

  Her eyes met his. His head had moved forward, too, until mere inches separated them. This close to him, touching him, inhaling the clean, musky scent of him… something lit up inside her head.

  The question came welling out from some hidden spot deep inside, completely unstoppable. It was out before she could clamp her mouth closed, another sign, if she needed one, that she was crazy.

  “We weren’t lovers, but—did we kiss?” she asked, shocked at herself as soon as the words left her lips.

  CHAPTER 6

  Private enterprise. There was nothing like it, Carl Heston thought as he parked just off Massachusetts. He’d been in government service and now he was in the private sector, and there was no comparison.

  Take this mission. In his base of operations, no less. Though when missions were out of town or abroad, the Boss was as generous as they come. Business class to Africa, all the way. Shit, that beat sitting on a bench in the freezing, noisy hold of a C-130, pissing into a bottle.

  This op didn’t require travel, just a little B & E and a little wetwork.

  Uncle Sam had spent over a million dollars training him to do just this. He’d served four combat tours. Breaking into a bed-and-breakfast and taking out some woman—piece of cake.

  And tomorrow there’d be $50K more in his account in the Caymans. Added to the cool million already there. Oh yeah, working for the Boss, that beat putting up with crappy XOs and sleeping on the stony ground and eating MREs for months. Not to mention getting shot at. He hadn’t yet been shot at once, working for the Boss.

  Cushy jobs, superbly well paid. Man, that was the way to go.

  And even better. He’d set up a network of operatives for the Boss, all over the country, good men all, and he got 10% of their fee.

  Heston got out of his Transit and started walking briskly toward Massachusetts Avenue. Just another businessman or lobbyist or lawyer. Washington DC was lousy with them and he was walking right through lawyer spawning grounds. Nobody even spared him a second glance, which was exactly as it should be. He had an excellent dark-h
aired wig covering his ash-blond hair, dark contact lenses covering his light-blue eyes, bushy dark moustache, big horn-rimmed glasses he didn’t need, and shoes that surreptitiously added three inches.

  The first things the police ask of witnesses: hair color, eye color, height, and distinguishing characteristics.

  Dark, dark, six feet, dark glasses, moustache.

  All wrong.

  Like many Special Forces soldiers, he was of medium height, and whippy rather than bulging with muscles. What kind of man he was could be easily hidden underneath the Brioni suit, Ikod shirt and Dior tie, carrying a Halliburton briefcase. You could stand in Dupont Circle with your arms out and touch someone just like him every ten seconds.

  Ah, but the other men wouldn’t be like him at all. They wouldn’t have his stamina, for one. Heston could outrun anyone. He could run until his heart gave out. The other men wouldn’t be as proficient as he was with a weapon—rifle or pistol, made no difference. Or knife. Or a goddamn rock, if necessary.

  He could outgun and outrun more or less any man alive. And his briefcase wasn’t filled with depositions and briefs. It held a lockgun, four ounces of C-4, his broken-down AR-7 in foam cutouts with the thermal imaging scope, a Walther P38, ammo for both, and a laser light, in case the B & B had security cameras. The thing weighed fifty pounds, but he carried it as if it weighed nothing.

  And it was nothing compared to the 150 pounds he carried when making HALO jumps. For which the fucking US government paid him a grand total of a fucking $50,000 a year.

  He earned much more than that with the Boss, and no Rules of Fucking Engagement, either, except for get the job done.

  Heston walked down Warren Street, right past the pretty, flimsy front gate with a discreet brass plaque. Kensington House. Fancy carved gate on a latch. No lock. No security cameras. No bars on the first-floor windows. He shook his head. Some people had shit for brains.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialled the Kensington House number.

  “Kensington House.” A brisk male voice.