Target of One's Own

by M. L. Buchman

  “Know my countries.”

  “Learned them in fifth grade like a good little boy?”

  “Learned them by reading the models’ profiles in Playboy.”

  Zoe couldn’t help glancing down at her own chest, well hidden by the pilot’s uniform she always wore when she was flying. Well, if that didn’t just put her in her place. Not a photographer anywhere would waste a single shot on her. Not even for an issue on the hot women of the most secret helicopter regiment anywhere.

  Poop!

  3

  “What the hell?” Luke flapped his carboard sign at DeMille as she breezed off the plane in the Blaise Diagne International Airport in Dakar, Senegal. No mistaking her, there couldn’t be two people like her on the plane—or anywhere, for that matter. Petite, blonde, outrageously flamboyant in bright yellow clothes, and a smile bigger than should be physically possible.

  “It means precisely what it says. And hello to you too, Luke.”

  He flipped the sign to look at it again, as if it would make more sense this time. It didn’t. It had been included along with his plane ticket and false ID that had already been waiting at Bagram Airfield by the time he got out of Pakistan and back into Afghanistan.

  Zoe DeMille, Personal Assistant. In large black letters.

  “Not your goddamn ass—”

  “Keep your voice down, Luke.”

  “It is down,” he struggled to rein it in. “I’m not your goddamn assistant, personal or otherwise.”

  “We are low profile here,” she ignored his protest.

  DeMille was anything but low profile. She wore oversized sunglasses—despite it being past midnight—with thick, plastic, yellow rims and pale yellow lenses. Her sundress—again past midnight, but he was pretty sure that’s what women called them—was sunrise yellow with blue butterflies sewn on to flutter about the skirt’s hem. The combination made her blue eyes stand out, despite the ridiculous tinted glasses. The dress stopped just above her knees, revealing surprising legs. He’d remembered being surprised the first time he’d seen those legs too. DeMille wasn’t the size of woman that a man expected to have good legs, but she did.

  He very slowly crumpled the sign in one fist, then folded his arms over his chest.

  “Oh, you’re so cute when you get like this that you just slay me. I swear on my favorite cat’s grave.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be your mother’s grave?”

  “Not dead yet. Duh.”

  Teach him to open his damned mouth. Figured she was a cat person. As if there was something wrong with a decent dog. Day he retired from the military he was going to the pound and getting himself a prime, Grade A mutt. Nothing wrong with a dog.

  Though there was definitely something wrong with this airport. The country had a perfectly serviceable airport right in the heart of the city, a city that now accounted for over twenty percent of the country’s population and more every day. So what did they do? They built a brand new airport sixty kilometers into the desert that was close to absolutely nothing. Open more than a year and the nearest hotel was still over thirty kilometers away—all one of them.

  The airport terminal was a shining multi-story edifice with four jetways, three of which stood empty. His plane had parked far out on the tarmac, then everyone had been crowded into buses for the drive to a small door at the bottom of the steel-and-glass terminal.

  He’d watched three planes debark over the last six hours as late morning became late afternoon, which accounted for all four flights that were scheduled for today. Not one had used the jetways, except DeMille’s of course. She’d strolled off the plane at the head of the line—which meant her pint-sized frame had traveled first class while he’d been crunched in coach.

  “You rich or something?”

  Behind her came a line of majestically dressed men and women in what he assumed was traditional attire. It was clearly one of those countries where people still thought plane travel was special and dressed up for the occasion. A heavy matron, in full head-wrap matching a floor-length dress of strongly patterned gold on red, stepped from the plane slowly but with immense dignity. A pair of tall, very handsome daughters tended her either side as soon as they were clear of the jetway.

  He’d been watching people unload all evening, for lack of anything better to do. The Senegalese weren’t as generally dark as the Nigerians, but they were close. They were a damned handsome race. Tall, shining white teeth, clear skin. And the Senegalese definitely knew how to build curves on their women. He wondered what the cultural rules were like about picking women up in bars here.

  “Not rich,” DeMille dragged his attention back down to her level. “The girl at the ticket counter is a fan and gave me a free upgrade to First Class.”

  “A fan.” He used a tone that had quashed the hopes of new recruits for the rest of their useless little lives.

  She just offered him a cheery, “Uh-huh.”

  Keep that up and he was going to start calling her Tweety Bird: small, yellow, terminally cheery, and far too cute for her own good.

  Well, he knew a fan of what, but he sure as hell didn’t get it. He didn’t work with anyone without investigating their background. Her service record was so stellar that it was hard to believe it wasn’t faked—except she was one of only two RPA pilots selected to fly for the Night Stalkers 5E, which said she’d earned every bit of it. But it was Nikita who had shown him Zoe’s social media profile.

  The Soldier of Style: Living in the Cutey-Edgy Budget Battlespace.

  It was catchy. Funny even. Didn’t mean he understood any of it though.

  When he asked if her number of followers was considered a lot of fans, Nikita had taken him to the US Army site. Okay, so the Army was still outpacing Zoe DeMille, The Soldier of Style, in popularity. But not by as much as he’d expected—or liked. He’d investigated the site, but couldn’t make any sense of it. Too foreign to his way of thinking. He’d finally asked Nikita to break it down for him.

  “She plays it clean. Not a single word about her day job. It’s as if she’s two people, one RPA pilot and one constantly reinventing herself. This site and her fans are all about the latter.” He’d tried to watch one of the videos, but gave up halfway through because he didn’t recognize the woman at all or understand what the hell she was talking about. The only thing she had in common with Chief Warrant Zoe DeMille was blonde hair and a thoroughly cheerful attitude. But the overexcited-by-fashion bit he didn’t get at all.

  Old Maine joke.

  Three blondes out walking in the Maine woods.

  First blonde, “Oh look, deer tracks.”

  Second blonde, “Those aren’t deer tracks, they’re moose tracks.”

  Third blonde is still looking down, puzzled by the tracks, when the train hits them.

  Zoe DeMille’s online persona in the “Fashion Battlespace” was absolutely the third blonde. Why would he want ditzy?

  Not that she made a whole lot more sense in real-space either. She was one of those women who looked permanently twenty, except for her service record and those eyes—when they weren’t behind yellow-colored lenses.

  He remembered those eyes from Honduras. They’d seen things so clearly, and in ways that they never taught in SEAL training. He’d been trained in threat assessment, but DeMille had been deeply attuned to emotional nuance so subtle that even after she pointed it out he often couldn’t see it—yet she’d been proven right every time. But this wasn’t some phony battlespace. Nor was it a real one. Senegal was one of the very few peaceful countries on the entire continent—not a single war since it gained independence from France in 1960.

  “Why the hell are we—”

  “Zoe!” The loud cry had Luke slapping for a weapon that he wasn’t wearing.

  “Christian!” Zoe cried back, pronouncing it to rhyme with Shawn, before tossing her gigantic electric-blue purse—it matched her dress’ butterflies for crying out loud—to Luke and letting herself be enveloped in a big hug by the
interloper. He was mid-height, slender, elegant in Armani or some such shit—you could smell the money on him from his leather loafers to his professionally trimmed beard—coming in with a little gray there, dude.

  “To meet you in person! It is such an honor.” Well, at least the suave bastard wasn’t sleeping with her. Not that he cared. Or had any reason to. Le Dude was so French that he should be in a Parisian café…in a movie…anywhere far away from here. Right. Senegal was a former French colony. The French colonialists had differed from the British: the Brits ruled, the French married in. An attitude that still hadn’t changed even in the post-colonial era.

  “What are you doing on this side of security?” Zoe was standing so close that they looked to be the oldest of friends on the verge of becoming lovers. Had they had online sex or whatever that was called?

  “Oh, I couldn’t wait. So I buy a ticket, oui?” He was one of those Frenchmen who was too handsome and knew it. They always made Luke want to squish them like a bug.

  Zoe acted like such things happened to her all the time. She looped an arm through this Christawn’s and walked off chatting away happily.

  Squashing him like a bug could be a kindness.

  Zoe could barely understand a word Christian was saying. It wasn’t his accent; her high school French had left her ear well enough adapted to easily understand his heavily-accented English.

  It was that watching Lieutenant Commander Luke Altman of SEAL Team 6, without watching him, was so distracting. A reflection in the darkened glass of the broken water-bottle vending machine. Another against a window facing the night.

  She ached to pull out her phone and snap a picture, even just for herself.

  Tall, rugged, pissed as hell about being in Senegal without her telling him why—there just hadn’t been time to tell him about Christian’s connection to The Dakar Rally where Hathyaron must have gone—and toting along a foul attitude and a bluebird Michael Kors purse. It was actually a knockoff, all her budget could afford, but she’d always liked it. Watching Luke carry it through the Dakar airport now made it her absolute favorite. Maybe that would be her next hair color, though she’d become attached to the daffodil-blonde—which her fans still favored too. It was time to stir them up, but not blue. Maybe she’d go to a true white next.

  Focus, Zoe! Never something she did well when she wasn’t flying.

  At the baggage claim, she handed Luke her ticket. “You know which one, Luke,” as if he was indeed her personal assistant.

  He offered her a narrow-eyed glare. She barely managed not to giggle as Christian led her aside. It would be obvious once Luke saw it on the baggage carousel, but he wouldn’t know that.

  “So, who is this Luke?” Christian asked in a barely lowered voice as he led her away. “Should I be terribly jealous?”

  “He works for me, Christian. He doesn’t sleep with me.” Despite her teases on just that point during their last mission together, he hadn’t done a single inappropriate thing. Ever. Of course not, why would he? Why would a man like him, who could choose any woman he wanted, be at all interested in someone like her? Even if he wasn’t married.

  He’d said he was, but she’d seen him head off on a date with Sofia. Her commander hadn’t said a word afterward and they’d given no other signs of being together. Just a Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma’am? That didn’t sound like Sofia. That totally sounded like a SEAL and she wanted none of it.

  “Ah. That is good. Your fans would be very disappointed if the lovely Zoe settled for such an angry man. You need a French lover.”

  “Like you?” Would she be interested? He was far closer to what she was looking for than the SEAL commander. His charm was as thick as his accent, both undeniably inviting.

  “Ah, my wife Leola is Senegalese. She does not have the French view of such things. You will meet her. Meek like a lamb in public. But her name, it means lioness. Curiously, her name is Italian even though she is a pureblood native.” He shrugged it off. “She is fierce in the home.”

  “And in the bed?” She felt decidedly voyeuristic for asking, but as he was French, he took it in stride.

  “One look at her and you will know how she is in my bed.” His tone spoke volumes.

  Zoe only had to look around to know that the Senegalese women were all shaped far more like Sofia than like her. Would Luke treat her differently if she had a real figure?

  Now there was an odd question because she couldn’t think of why she’d possibly care.

  She glanced back to see him carrying her massive zebra-striped suitcase. He ignored the wheels and simply carried it as if it weighed less than her handbag. She’d been unsure of what the future held, so she’d packed her civilian clothes—with enough changes to satisfy her fans for at least a week—and a full military kit except no weapons.

  Luke didn’t notice her glance. He wasn’t looking at her or Christian. His anger apparently forgotten, Luke Altman appeared to be ever-so-casually looking at nothing—which Zoe knew was when he was looking at absolutely everything. A man strolled by him—close by him. Moving well into his personal space, which was almost shocking. No one got close to Lieutenant Commander Altman unless he was playing a role. She’d certainly been deep inside his personal space for much of the Honduras mission—atypically so, even for her. It had felt natural at the time…still did in memory and—

  If she hadn’t been watching, she’d have missed the handoff.

  Luke had been wearing a small, efficient backpack before she’d burdened him with her handbag and suitcase. Now, after the man had brushed by him, Luke also carried a small satchel—the handoff so smooth that it had nearly been invisible. They were outside airport security, so she’d wager there was at least a handgun and a good knife in the newly-acquired satchel.

  A warm shiver slid over her skin. Knowing that an armed Team 6 SEAL was watching her back felt surprisingly good. Whoever said that having a highly-protective male in your life was going out of style needed to have their head fixed—if she’d had one in her past, her present might have been so very different.

  Zoe filed the idea away for her next media post.

  4

  “What the hell have you got in here, DeMille? You know this country never gets below 70, right?” Luke heaved the suitcase, as heavy as a field pack, into the back of the Frenchman’s waiting car.

  “A Vega II?” DeMille sounded passionately breathless, and was utterly ignoring him. No, purposely ignoring him. It wasn’t an accident that she hadn’t told him why the hell they were in Senegal, Africa, together. He hadn’t missed how often he was a target of her quick tongue.

  Altman looked around—Vega was a star in Lyra he’d used to navigate a few times on hikes—but it wasn’t even sunset. DeMille was staring at the bright red car.

  “Oh, Christian,” she whispered, like saying thank you after amazing sex.

  What the hell?

  “I bring it out special for you, dearest Zoe. I knew you would appreciate her.”

  “The 1962 Facel Vega II. Oh, with the manual four-speed,” still in that tone that was supposed to be reserved for the bedroom.

  It was a long car that might have been sleek half a century ago—so retro it was almost modern. Two doors meant that emergency egress from the back seat was poor. It looked like some primitive had been trying to design the future but reality had passed him by.

  DeMille was busy emoting over original leather. She rapped her knuckles on the wooden panel, which sounded metallic—which she apparently knew beforehand.

  When Christian opened the hood, she scurried to look. “The Chrysler 383 cubic inch Typhoon V8.” She held both hands to her heart.

  “She will go very fast,” Christian might be talking about the car or about DeMille.

  It didn’t sound as if she was faking it for the Frenchman’s benefit. It sounded as if she actually knew something besides blue handbags and zebra suitcases filled with ten tons of girl-shit.

  Why was it so hard to remember that she w
as an Avenger RPA pilot? She had skills, even if he only understood the one of them.

  Not that he understood a thing about piloting either—except for the data feed it provided. That he understood perfectly because it was a new key to survival and victory in modern warfare. And no one provided it like the 5E’s RPA team. The fliers of the 5E were amazing and he loved what their stealth-equipped aircraft could deliver, but at least half the reason he’d shifted most of his mission load to them was because of their RPA team.

  Sofia and DeMille. Two seriously skilled women, who were so different that it was hard to believe they were the same species, never mind the same gender. Sofia was everything a woman should be and DeMille was…

  She was talking gear ratios. The damned Frenchman was practically drooling. Well, whatever turned your crank. Christian’s hand rested casually at the small of her back as if she was the pinnacle of desirability and not…

  Shit!

  DeMille was like a woman designed just to confuse the crap out of men. Thankfully, she wasn’t his problem. Except she was. She’d dragged him to bloody Senegal. While he didn’t know what was going on, he’d bet she was way out of her depth.

  One of the airport “freelancers” came over with some hustle in mind. He knew the type. Hanging about and always vying to make an extra buck wherever they could. Rather than pull a gun on the guy, he gave him a friendly-seeming grab on his forearm. Pinching the ulnar nerve point, he turned him about and sent him on his way, letting him wonder how long it would be until his arm started functioning again. Take about thirty seconds, but Luke saw no reason to tell him that as long as he didn’t come back.

  The late-afternoon light blazed down out of the dusty blue sky. The parking lot could hold only a few hundred cars—smaller than the average American grocery store—but it was mostly empty. No sign of long-term parking lots, apparently not needed. Palm trees and irrigated grass made it appear First Worldly.