Target of One's Own

by M. L. Buchman

  Zoe had barely made it through the door of her room without laughing in Leola’s face. She’d briefly imagined that being naked beneath a two-thousand-dollar Kiki de Montparnasse negligee robe was how all sexy Senegalese women greeted their guests. All the closed doors of Senegalese homes, each with a nearly naked Leola behind it was so unlikely that it was funny.

  Leola and Christian were a perfect match—both in it for whatever they could get. Instead Zoe remembered the people at the beach or out by the tree having tea, simply glad to be together. Real friends. Normal people, belonging. She could see herself with them and that made her like the city.

  Realizing that Leola’s greeting was intended just for Luke had almost killed her sense of amusement.

  Until, unimaginably, it was Zoe’s ass he’d grabbed as soon as they’d turned the landing. Her desire to ask if Luke was out of his mind, wanting her over the gorgeous Leola, was short-circuited when Luke brushed her hair behind her ear and then traced his fingertips along her jaw the moment they’d safely escaped to her bedroom.

  She’d answered his silent question with just as many words by simply stepping into his arms. This time he’d undressed her and she him. She’d been right about the Sig Sauer compact sidearm he’d acquired in the handoff at the airport; wrong about him having a knife. He wore two.

  Always a light sleeper, she’d collapsed onto his shoulder afterward and not had a single thought until she woke in the morning. And that first thought, just as it was now on the plane, had been very simple: More!

  Luke’s hand didn’t press harder against her beneath the airline blanket. Instead, he started a slow, circular massage with the heel of his hand, sending successive shock waves of turbulence rushing through her system.

  Did he enjoy sending her flying like some RPA pilot? Did he get off on having such complete control over her body that she was utterly helpless? Remote piloting was her job, but his lightest touch stole her breath and mind. She felt she should complain, but her body won that argument before it even started.

  “You arranging the C-130?” Luke whispered from somewhere close by.

  Zoe had closed her eyes to revel in the sensations that were shifting from full throttle to wide-open turbocharger as well. She managed an “uh-huh” sound, but she wasn’t sure what she was acknowledging other than asking him not to stop. Oh, her apology for ordering the plane without involving him first. Maybe that was her form of remote piloting him. Did that make what he was doing to her body more or less manipulat—

  He nibbled on her ear and elicited another “uh-huh” that prayed he wouldn’t stop.

  “Almost as sexy as the way you drive.” His whisper, barely louder than the plane engine’s roar, sounded so close to her ear that it would have tickled if it didn’t feel so good.

  So he thought she was sexy because of how she drove? Why wasn’t that a surprise? Even as her body continued responding to his touch, Zoe knew it couldn’t be about her. That would have been too much to ask.

  Was this being about her driving better than it being about her online persona? She supposed it was. Driving a race car was closer to her true self.

  Did that make it okay even if it still wasn’t about her?

  Luke leaned close enough to brush a kiss across her lips. She’d expected a SEAL to be a masterful lover—they were good at so many things—but she’d never expected him to be a gentle one. It was an electrifying contrast. She let her body’s acceleration drive her deeper into the seat cushions. At least if it wasn’t about her, it felt as if it was.

  Thirty-six hours in Dakar and they were flying to South America. Not just as some “pretend” support team, but in the race where they’d have a far better chance at finding Hathyaron. She still didn’t doubt for a second after seeing that garage in his Pakistan compound that he would be racing at The Dakar.

  In the last thirty-six hours she’d also gained a lover against whom she had no resistance. And she didn’t want any.

  She opened her legs beneath the blanket and let him take her the rest of the way aloft.

  If this was flying, maybe she’d never come down.

  14

  Luke rubbed his thumb across the FIA driver license bearing his picture.

  International Competition Authorization.

  Authorization is given to this license holder

  to enter and/or drive in any event

  inscribed on the FIA Calendar National Race.

  What favors had Zoe called in with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to get these? Or maybe he didn’t want to know.

  Think, Luke. She hadn’t sold herself. She’d called SOCOM and told them what she needed. Then Special Operations Command had taken care of all of the details while their plane was en route. She and Luke would now both be fully registered with FIA including any fees and required qualifications—faked but on record. Exactly as he would have called for, if it had been his op.

  His op. Up until this moment, some part of him had thought it was. Assumed it was.

  Not so much.

  This op had been completely in the control of Zoe.

  He was…her personal assistant. As stupid as that sign she’d made for him to hold at the airport might seem, it was exactly what he’d become. Not a position he was comfortable with.

  Looking around didn’t make him feel any better.

  He, Zoe, and Christian were queued up in a hangar-sized shed in the Argentine seaside town of Mar del Plata. Of which he’d seen nothing after the thirty-hour flight had landed at midnight. The cars had been waiting as promised, with the keys left at the Avis rental counter—after four hours passed out in a hotel and then straight into the “scrutineering” shed by dawn with nothing but coffee and a chocolate croissant to ease the pain.

  His eyes hadn’t even focused until they were inside so he’d missed his first look at Argentina. Other than the Spanish and the Latinate complexion of at least some of the locals, they could have been in a steel barn in Brussels. Along this side of the building were dozens of desks manned by clerks who were checking over everyone’s documents to make sure they were in valid.

  “Scrutineering” was the in-depth inspection of both the drivers and their vehicles to make sure everything was in order. Christian’s vehicles (the Citroën and the support truck)—which had made their direct flight in half the time of their own route through Dulles, Panama, and Buenos Aires—were being inspected for compliance with The Dakar Rally’s safety and outfitting regulations. He hated flying civilian for that reason, but it wouldn’t have done to let Christian see the military C-130 that had delivered his vehicles. That would raise far too many questions.

  In the shed they were checking everything from tire size to engine horsepower to making sure that no unsanctioned navigation equipment had been installed. There were a dozen vehicles ahead of them in the long queue and a dozen more waiting to get in. Male drivers were standing near the desks, laughing and joking over past races and hot women, while they awaited their own inspection.

  Any of them could be Hathyaron. Hoping to spot someone of Punjabi, Pathan, or Sindhi descent—which constituted seventy-five percent of Pakistan’s population—was probably fruitless, but he kept an eye out.

  There were a few women competitors in the queue besides Zoe, a very few. A pair were over in motorcycles—tall, powerful-looking women who looked ready to wrestle the heavy machines through two weeks of sand.

  A tiny Japanese woman was clambering up into the cab of one of the massive Hino racing trucks along with two barely taller men. The ten-ton trucks took a crew of three: driver, navigator, and engineer. The three of them looked almost comical in the immaculate matching racing suits in front of their gigantic machine. Most folks in the scrutineering shed wore t-shirts and shorts because of the heat.

  Then he turned around and nearly rapped noses with a tall flaxen-blonde.

  “Hi,” she offered in one of those smooth Texas accents that always seemed to add extra syllables to the simple
st words. She held out a hand, which he shook while he was busy looking. Tall, with a men’s plaid work shirt unbuttoned low enough to allow her breasts to make a fine statement above, with the tails tied off to reveal flat abs and shapely jean-clad hips below. She was a treat all the way from her alligator skin boots to her straw cowboy hat.

  “Hi,” he managed in his Maine-flat mono-syllabic tone.

  “I’m Tammy Hall. And this must be your first Dakar Rally.”

  Luke nodded and managed to retrieve his hand. He recognized her type. Liked the type; had enjoyed its benefits any number of times. But he could feel the look Zoe was burning into his back.

  “Well, if you need any tips, you just feel free to come find me, honey.” Then one of the clerks called her name and she moved off with a feline smile (the sort worn by hungry lions) and a toss of her hair that floated half down her back.

  “Gonna be an interesting race,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Zoe hadn’t been glaring at him, instead she’d been cozying up to Christian.

  Luke thought about Tammy as he ran his thumb over the license again, so new he imagined that he could feel the heat of the plastic fresh out of the machine. Did the woman actually know she was trying to sell it so hard? He supposed she did, because he knew in retrospect that it had worked on him any number of times. He looked down at Zoe, again speaking intently with Christian and some other guy who stood the way a macho version of Tammy might.

  Had Zoe fallen prey to such games? He’d certainly never seen her play them. She teased and flirted, but she never did the flinging-her-body thing. She had to know how cute she was and how easy that would be to do.

  When the clerk called for his packet, not sure what else to do, he handed the entire stack over: license, passport, insurance, and whatever other cards SOCOM had determined he’d need to enter.

  There must be some way to get back control of the situation, but he didn’t see that happening anytime soon. He looked over the barricade at the Citroën. Now they were checking what was stowed in the narrow cargo space behind the driver’s and navigator’s seats: water, seat belt cutter, thermal survival blankets, flares, a horn, reflective triangle, spare tires, and the like.

  For the moment, Luke was merely “support crew.” He and Christian’s mechanic, the towering, soft-spoken Ahmed, were to drive the support truck. The clerk asked him several questions that he had no idea how to answer, but Christian stepped in and soon they were through the line. He noted that Zoe was asked far less.

  Not gender bias. She simply exuded that she belonged. He knew how to do that, but Zoe had unbalanced his world somehow. Being constantly a step behind had to end soon. Zoe’d had her days of fun, but she worked in a coffin and he worked in the real world. Enough already.

  They exited the far end of the queue to await the car’s clearance. A phalanx of reporters with cameras and microphones were lined up. Behind them, the parking lot was filled with ranks of inspected motorcycles, cars, and racing trucks. All were covered with bright stickers of team and race sponsors. He figured out that these were the ones successfully through scrutineering because large black-and-white racing numbers had been plastered on them. The magnetic decals were on both doors (both sides on the motorcycles), front bumpers, and the rear of every vehicle. It was a far cry from him and a couple buddies running dirt bikes in the Maine woods, or even a SEAL team doing offensive and defensive training in a line of Hummers.

  A woman jumped forward and snapped Zoe’s picture.

  “The Soldier of Style,” she gasped excitedly. “You’re racing The Dakar?”

  Luke was going to shoot himself. This couldn’t be happening.

  Zoe offered one of those light-up-the-world smiles that she’d used so lethally on Christian.

  “I am,” she matched the reporter’s own breathless speech. Tweety Bird DeMille was back in full force. “I’ve raced before, of course, but never anything as grand as The Dakar. My good friend Christian Vehrs needed a co-driver on short notice and offered me the slot.” She pulled a beaming Christian into the shot. One of these days, after they didn’t need him so much, he’d earn himself a bloody stump for the way he wrapped his arm so possessively around Zoe’s shoulders and pulled her hard against him. Or maybe Luke wouldn’t wait that long. It was one way to get Christian out of the car—make him bleed.

  Luke already knew he wasn’t the starting co-driver, but now he was completely sidelined, not even in the image. Not that he’d have let himself be photographed. And it wasn’t like he cared. Not a chance. Actually, it could be an advantage, now that he thought about it. Lurking in Zoe’s shadow might not be such a bad idea. Besides, she threw one easily as large as the far more obvious Tammy Hall without even trying. Letting Zoe think she was the one in control wouldn’t hurt his ego any. In the meantime, he could get it done.

  They all bubbled at each other about the amazing opportunity and the exciting route. The reporter was drawing obvious conclusions that Luke didn’t like at all. Zoe wasn’t his. He’d never even really cared if he had exclusive use of a woman while it lasted—after his ex-wife it never seemed to matter. Yet he wanted to slowly and painfully snap off each one of Christian’s fingers where they’d shifted to around Zoe’s waist.

  The reporter was worth watching. Hot German with cutely short, mid-blonde hair offset by a dark suntan, blue eyes, and nice curves—not quite the eye-poppers of Tammy Hall’s. And not a single distracting thought crossed his mind when he looked at her. Whereas looking at Zoe…

  Unable to stand watching Christian try to assert his claim on Zoe, Luke looked around again. Theirs was far from the only interview going on. There were lone reporters like this woman “Liesl Franks—freelance,” but most were TV cameraman and interviewer-with-a-mike pairs. Interviews were happening in half a dozen languages: Italian, French, and Spanish were most common. But he again spotted the Japanese team that was being interviewed by a crew with a kanji logo on their camera.

  Fifteen or twenty interviews were going on simultaneously and he could see the other drivers eating it up just like Christian.

  Behind them, rope lines held back a mass of fans stacked at least five deep down the whole line. Before or after interviews, drivers were going over to the line to sign programs, photos, jackets, even across the top of a woman’s breasts with a magic marker—one woman had already collected enough signatures there that she was running out of room for others to sign despite her hefty build.

  The major drivers stood out because they had a hired entourage of pretty local girls behind them, most wearing sexy tops and straw cowboy hats. There were more cowboy hats in Argentina than at a Texas rodeo. The girls were handing the drivers eight-by-ten color glossies and signing pens, snapping photos for the fans’ cameras, and whatever else it was that sexy entourage girls were paid to do.

  It was definitely wild.

  There was a flow to it though, that their party was disrupting. More drivers came out of the administrative queue, but Zoe was hanging tough with the Liesl woman, forcing other drivers to move around them. Zoe must be eating up her own hype. Sad.

  Three hundred and fifty-four vehicles were entered this year with an average of two drivers. Motorcycles only had one driver, but the massive trucks had driver, navigator, and engineer, so the count averaged out. Double that for two support personnel and another transport for each entry. That meant approximately fourteen hundred individuals and six hundred vehicles were involved in the race, not counting the race officials, media, entourage gals, and other hangers-on.

  And Hathyaron the arms dealer was one of them. Somewhere.

  Let Christian and Zoe bubble along; he hadn’t forgotten their target.

  It would help if they knew what he looked like. The Activity hadn’t been able to even confirm his nationality.

  “He’s probably a Legend,” Zoe spoke from close by his elbow. “Those are the ones who’ve done at least ten Dakars. It just seems likely after seeing that garage—it represents someo
ne who has invested a great deal of time and learning to prepare for this. Christian will know all of them. Liesl has also covered the last six Dakars and is writing a book about the Legends.”

  Relieved and without thinking, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her on top of the head, causing her to make a happy hum. Zoe hadn’t lost track of the target for a single second. She hadn’t bought into Liesl’s hype, Zoe had convinced the reporter to buy into hers. Any of his teammates, even Nikita, he’d have chucked on the shoulder or given them his “well done” nod. So why did he grab and kiss Zoe?

  Liesl hadn’t gone away—she prepared to snap his picture.

  And he prepared to reach out to grab her camera and smash it.

  Zoe simply held up a hand to stop her, then shook her head.

  “But—” Liesl protested as she lowered her camera.

  Luke absolutely didn’t want to be noticed. There was enough of that shit going on in the SEAL community and he certainly didn’t want anything else to do with it. The number of “Tell All” books was disgusting.

  There were also far too many news articles about ST6 operations. Actually, there’d been a spate of articles on missions that he knew for a fact hadn’t been run by ST6, but had been very vocally credited to them—probably by those assholes over in Delta Force. Maybe turnabout was fair play. He liked that idea. Not this mission, but after some future one; he’d definitely be dropping Delta’s name. For this one, an embedded-civilian style scenario, he wanted to remain as anonymous as possible.

  “He doesn’t like to have his picture taken,” Zoe tried offering.

  “But The Soldier of Style has two men vying for her attention. The story. Es ist wunderbar.” Liesl tried to raise the camera again.

  “Please, no,” Zoe already had control of the reporter without her even realizing it.

  Luke did still have his arm around Zoe’s shoulders. He gave a small squeeze of thanks and let her go to remove the temptation for the reporter.