I stared at him, finally realizing what he was alluding to.
“David, that’s not it. I haven’t seen Sebastian for ten years. We met again by accident, eleven days ago in Geneva.”
He looked dumbstruck. “But I thought… The way he behaved just now… Well, I see I was mistaken.”
At which point an announcement was made in English, French and Pashto to call us in to dinner.
“I do wish you well, Caroline,” he said, briskly. “And I meant what I said: you look lovely tonight.”
He smiled briefly, and then offered his arm to escort me in to dinner.
I accepted, baffled by his pleasantness and consideration.
He helped me into my seat, then with a half-smile, disappeared towards his place at another table.
Chapter 13
I sat at one of the long banqueting tables in a state of mild shock. I had never known David to be so considerate, especially when it was anything concerning me. During our 11 years of marriage, he’d been a domineering bully and… No, ‘domineering bully’ said it all. Since the divorce, I’d had nothing to do with him; I certainly hadn’t known he’d be in Afghanistan. Maybe he was working at the hospital at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
My attention was diverted when I noticed that the woman in green had swooped into the room and was eyeing the place cards. I had a strong suspicion that if I kept watching her, I’d see her swapping them around. Well, that was Sebastian’s lookout; I doubted he’d have too many problems with her – I was pretty certain he’d had plenty of practice dealing with slutty women. I tried to brush the thought away – I had other, more important issues to concentrate on tonight.
“Excuse me, ma’am, I think you might be in the wrong seat.”
I looked up to see a man in the Dress Blues of a US Marine Corps captain gazing down at me. He was perhaps a few years younger than me with a strong face, and clear, gray eyes.
“Captain Grant?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” he said, looking puzzled. “And you are?”
“Lee Venzi. I’ll be embedded with you for the next month. It’s good to meet you.”
He looked bemused. “You’re Lee Venzi?”
“Let me guess,” I said, with a polite smile, “you were expecting a man. I get that a lot.”
He gaped, looked thoroughly pissed off, then settled for a cool disinterest.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
We shook hands as he eyed me cautiously.
Don’t worry: I won’t bite – you’re not my type.
“Please don’t be concerned, Captain Grant: this is not my first time being embedded with US troops, and I don’t expect any level of comfort beyond that of the average private. I will try to impact on your command as little as possible. I would suggest we meet soon to discuss protocols for the next month. I’m not here to do a hatchet job, Captain.”
“Then you’ll let me read what you write before it’s filed?”
“That’s one of the protocols we can discuss, but no: my editor is the only person who sees my work prior to publication.”
It was important to explain up front how I worked. I didn’t particularly want to do that over the dinner table, but as he’d asked, I’d give him the courtesy of a clear and concise answer.
A reluctant smile crept across his face.
“Something to discuss, ma’am.”
“Certainly there will be many things to discuss, Captain,” I said, politely. “I have agreed to the rules of being embedded with your unit, but beyond that, my authorial independence will not be something we discuss.”
He raised his eyebrows but wisely didn’t pursue the point.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Sebastian enter the room and move towards a group of Afghan men dressed in the traditional salwar kameez, worn with the oval qaraqul hats. He exchanged some pleasantries, then went to search for his place card. He looked puzzled because it wasn’t in the general area that he’d expected. When he saw the Green Bitch, comprehension washed over him and he looked pissed.
I couldn’t help feeling a mean little frisson of self-righteousness.
Your problem, Hunter.
He seated himself politely next to the French woman, who looked like she wanted to perform a lap dance before the antipasti.
At first, he seemed to shrug off her advances, but then I saw her lay a discreet hand on his thigh and my blood boiled.
“Lee! Are you stalking me, woman?”
Liz’s dulcet tones turned heads and I couldn’t help smiling, more than a little grateful for her timely interruption of my silent fuming.
She was wearing an ankle-length dress in navy blue, so voluminous, that she looked like a ship in full sail.
“Hi, Liz. Thanks for the room-share. Let me introduce you to Captain Ryan Grant; Captain, Elizabeth Ashton – she’s a correspondent for The Times of London.”
They shook hands, each weighing up the other.
“Have you seen that miserable bastard Hunter is here?” Liz said to me, as soon as the brief pleasantries were over. “Up to his old tricks with the French floozie.”
I winced, and saw Captain Grant frown.
“Yes, there are a few familiar faces, Liz. Stroud and Van Marten are here.”
“Really? I must go and chew on their earflaps for a minute, Lee. I’ll see you later. Captain,” and she hurried off.
“A colleague of yours, ma’am?”
“Yes, and a friend.”
I could see that Captain Grant was beginning to be grateful that it was me and not Liz who was going to be embedded with him. But then his eyes flickered back to Sebastian, who was staring coldly at his dinner companion. When she laid a proprietary hand on his arm and leaned across to touch one of his medals, Captain Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he muttered.
He stood up abruptly and walked towards them. Sebastian rose to his feet and saluted sharply. It was clear the Captain was asking about the seating arrangements, and Sebastian was trying to point out he’d just followed the place card’s instructions.
I watched as Captain Grant took him to one side and seemed to be giving him a dressing down. Sebastian stood to attention, and I could see that he was gazing about three inches above the Captain’s left shoulder.
After that, Sebastian left the room, leaving the disappointed woman by herself, and Captain Grant returned to my side.
“Is there a problem, Captain?” I asked, casually.
“No, ma’am, just my interpreter; he’d been seated at the wrong table.”
“Your interpreter,” I said, feeling a cool shiver travel down my spine.
“Yes, newly assigned to my command.”
Oh crap.
“I gather you know him, ma’am?” he said, looking at me astutely.
“We’ve met,” I said, maintaining a casual smile. “Chief Hunter was the languages expert when I had my hostile environment briefing in Geneva. He lectured on useful phrases in Pashto, Dari and Arabic if I remember correctly.”
Captain Grant nodded, accepting my words at face value, and we talked about the forthcoming deployment to Leatherneck and beyond.
I didn’t see Sebastian again during the meal, and the Green Bitch had an empty space next to her for the entire time. I also noted that someone must have spoken to her, because she wore a black pashmina that covered up her cleavage and shoulders for the rest of the evening.
It was fascinating to see who had been invited to the dinner and who had not. There were a number of UN officials that I recognized, as well as British, German, and American officers. Among the Afghan men – and there were no women – I sensed there was something more going on than a simple meet and greet. I kept track of the comings and goings, who was talking to whom. There was definitely a cool excitement in the air.
The evening ended without any more tangible developments occurring. Captain Grant nodded politely and said he’d send a driver to my hotel at 5 am the follo
wing morning. We’d be loading up and heading out to Camp Leatherneck, 350 miles away along the notorious Kabul–Kandahar Highway.
Two decades of war and neglect had left the road connecting Afghanistan’s two main cities in disrepair. The US had funded the rebuilding of three-quarters of the road, with Japan chipping in another chunk of cash. It was currently in slightly better repair, but it had become a favorite target of the Taliban – and not a journey to be undertaken lightly, even by the mighty US armed forces. Certainly not by a woman-journalist from Long Beach.
I waited in the lobby for Liz, and when she finally emerged, she was fizzing with excitement. She eyed our driver, the same bulky Sergeant Benson who’d dropped me off at the start of the evening, before allowing him to escort us to our car. She grabbed my elbow and began whispering at top speed.
“I picked up some very interesting snippets, Lee. Something is definitely in the air.”
“Yes, I thought so, too. Azimi was talking to Chalabi, and you don’t often see Sunnis and Shiites being that friendly.”
Liz raised her eyebrows. “Interesting! Well, I’d say, looking at the bigwigs there tonight, it’s a US op. Could be going down from Leatherneck, Lee. Keep your ear to the ground for me, will you?”
“You think I’d hand you a scoop?” I said, teasing her.
“No, of course not, but I’m sure you won’t leave your old mucker out in the cold, either.”
“I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Huh, bloody colonials,” she snorted.
I laughed: to Liz, half the population of the world were ‘colonials’.
We drove quickly through the busy streets, people hurrying home before the self-imposed night-time curfew.
Back at the hotel, Liz tried to persuade me to have a drink with her in the bar. She’d heard that someone had gotten hold of alcohol from the local market. Apparently the blanket ban wasn’t taken too seriously by some of the locals, despite the Sharia law punishment for those who bought, sold or consumed the evil brew being a fine, imprisonment, or even 60 lashes with a whip.
“Come down with me, Lee, it should be a laugh. After I get out of this god-awful frock,” she said, tugging on the hem of her blue tent.
“No, thanks, Liz. I’m going to take a hot bath. Since it’ll be my last for a month, I want to enjoy soaking in an actual tub.”
Liz had just changed out of her dress and into her usual Berghaus hiking pants and long-sleeved shirt, when there was a soft tap at the door.
We were immediately on the alert: it was a golden rule never to let anyone know which room you were staying in. If you needed to meet a contact, you met them in the lobby. Journalists were deemed to be easy targets – and our bodyguard was long gone.
“Who knows you’re here?” Liz hissed at me.
“My embed liaison and my editor. You?”
“Same. Stay away from the door and get ready to phone for help.”
I picked up my cell, checking that I had Sergeant Benson on speed dial. I nodded at her, my finger poised over the button, and she called out aggressively,
“Yes?”
“Ma’am, I’m looking for Lee Venzi?”
I recognized Sebastian’s voice at once, relief, lust and irritation each took their turn as I moved towards the door.
“What are you doing?” Liz whispered, grabbing my arm.
“It’s okay: I know who it is.”
She relaxed a fraction, but still hung onto my arm.
“Is this a romantic assignation, Lee?” she said, with surprise and some annoyance.
“Sort of,” I muttered, “although I didn’t know he’d come here tonight. It wasn’t planned. I’m sorry, Liz.”
“This really isn’t like you,” she said, frowning.
“I know,” I said, apologetically.
I pulled open the door, and Sebastian quickly stepped into the room.
Liz’s face was a picture.
“Sebastian, you’ve met my friend Liz Ashton.”
“Yes,” he said, stiffly.
“Chief Hunter,” replied Liz, glaring at him with obvious dislike.
I rubbed my forehead.
“I’m sorry about this, Liz, but can you give us some time alone?”
She snorted and shook her head, muttering something that sounded like, “bloody fool”.
I presumed she meant me, although her words fit Sebastian just as well. I had a few choice words of my own to say to Chief Hunter.
“Two hours, Lee,” she said, glancing at her watch with zero subtlety. “I’ll be downstairs in the bar if you need me.”
She threw a final, accusing look at Sebastian and left.
I was still deciding what to say to him as I shut and locked the door, but before I could speak, he tugged me into his arms and kissed me.
His tongue was in my mouth and his hands pressing into my flesh, chasing all thoughts but one from my overheated brain.
When he finally let go, I was breathless and aroused – which was probably his plan – but I wasn’t letting his outrageous behavior go unchallenged either.
“What the hell are you doing, Sebastian?”
He shrugged and grinned at me. “I thought I’d kiss you before you yelled at me. Guess it didn’t work.”
“You think this is a joke?” I said, my voice rising with frustrated disbelief. “First David, now Liz. Why don’t you just skywrite it?”
“What did the asshole say to you?”
I sighed. “He’s not going to tell anyone – he was really nice about it.”
Sebastian scowled.
“Liz won’t say anything to anyone either – I’ll just have to listen to her chewing me out later. But I’d have much rather she didn’t know just now – she’s my work colleague. You’ve got to stop taking these risks, Sebastian. For my sake, if you won’t do it for yourself.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry, Caro. I just go a little crazy around you.”
Not good enough.
“Well, you have to get it under control. Now please, please tell me your assignment to Ryan Grant is temporary.”
He stared at me. “Fuck! I was wondering why they’d seated you next to him. Are you embedded with him? Shit!”
“Exactly my thoughts. He can’t know, or it’ll really screw things up for both of us – well, mainly for me. Sebastian, you’re going to have to act like you did in Geneva, as if you still dislike me – or at the very least, ignore me. Can you do that?”
“Fuck, Caro,” he sighed. “Yes, I can do it. But I’ll hate every fucking minute of it.”
“At least if we’re in the same Camp: I’ll know what you’re doing and that you’re safe.”
He gave me a small smile.
“Same goes for you. Yeah, there is that. And we might get a chance to… hook up?”
I shook my head, even as the image took shape.
“No, too dangerous. You can’t risk it and I definitely can’t risk it. Grant isn’t an idiot.”
“No, he seems on the ball.”
“On the plus side, Grant already thinks you dislike me.”
Sebastian frowned. “Because…?”
“Liz: she mentioned that we’d met in Geneva, and at that stage, she still thought you were an ass. Well, that hasn’t changed, but just a different sort of ass now.”
He gave me a crooked smile.
“An ass?”
“Big time.”
He leaned against the door and crossed his arms, his head cocked to one side, a damn sexy smile on his face.
“What happened with your little friend, Natalie?” I said, not prepared to let him off the hook just yet.
His smile vanished. “She’s no fucking friend: she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and then Grant kicked me out because of her.”
“What did he say to you?”
Sebastian shifted uncomfortably.
“Oh, well, never mind – I can guess. She didn’t look pleased either – I think she was planning to have you for desser
t. Was it you who told her to cover up?”
“Yeah, not that it made any difference.”
“She must have listened to someone. At least you tried. And you are very trying, Chief Hunter. Part of me wants to slap some sense into you…”
“And the other part?” he murmured, wetting his lips with his tongue.
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