Uphold the law and the rules, because that’s who you are, she reminded herself, logging out and snapping the laptop shut. And that’s why they hired you.
Olivia had always been the person to do the right thing, and she prided herself on that. She knew she couldn’t exclusively interview Ryder. She couldn’t base an entire ethical and cultural inquiry on the testimony of one man. She couldn’t humor his suggestions of corruption. And, on pain of death, she could not find herself getting sucked into his sexy energy.
As she stood up and passed her reflection in the mirror, she leaned forward to look closer at herself. The jetlag was glaring. She was tired, but it was getting late, and she’d made a promise to be at the mess. She needed to turn off her thinking hat and put on her social hat. Rapport went a long way, especially if she was going to start interviewing people. They needed to know she was a woman of her word and a woman of principle.
Just as she turned to leave, she looked back into the mirror one last time to check for any mistakes. Anything that might chip away at her credibility. Her black jeans and loose white top created a mod image. Her hair was up in that smooth, bouncy, brunette ponytail that was her trademark, and her tortoiseshell glasses were on. Professional casual. Not provocative. But stylish.
Deep down in her heart, she couldn’t stop thinking about whether or not the allegations were true. She couldn’t stop thinking about how Ryder was involved. And she couldn’t stop thinking about how Ryder was affected. Never before had she experienced an internal conflict of that caliber.
12
The small metal structure stuck in the middle of the compound didn’t look big enough to fit fifty people. It barely passed as a building, she observed, but as she crested the threshold of the double doorway, she had to acknowledge that the so-called ‘mess’ wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined.
They’d done a good job making the place feel homey. Whoever ‘they’ were. ‘They’ were very clearly not the commander. That man had no hand in making anything comfortable.
Mood lighting, plastic chairs circled around metal tables, and posters made the place appear social. Even the ground had area rugs, likely picked up at the local market. They had a Malian handmade aesthetic similar to those she’d seen in other Muslim countries.
Guys left and right did a double take as she entered. She tried not to make a big deal of the attention she was receiving. Her acceptance into the pack was tenuous, and behaving in an offensive manner could mean social rejection. Surprised looks told her that not everyone had expected her presence at the mess, though she was sure they’d all learned of her presence on the compound by then. No doubt they had many questions. Troops were typically tight, like family, and she was their new foster kid.
Olivia counted three females present in total: herself and two civilian cryptologists. They made up about fifty percent of the compound’s total female population, which ranged widely in age and demographics. There were no female operators.
A few of the junior SEALs she had seen before gave her polite acknowledgments and nonchalant head nods. From what Olivia knew about male behavior, especially military male behavior, most would be watching her and watching each other, just to see how she mixed in. Some would jump at the chance to get to her first. Some would sit back to see how she handled it. Would she play easy? Hard to get? Fun? Serious?
“Bar’s at the back.” One of the older guys nodded to her.
Olivia smiled politely at the enlisted sailor as she walked by, trying to not miss a beat. She couldn’t ignore the Sports Illustrated posters that hung on the walls, which didn’t just feature athletes. She wondered if she should make a note in her report, citing the bikini posters as a barrier to a female inclusive environment. She didn’t want to be that girl, but she was there to consider the effects of toxic masculinity on workplace culture, after all.
Bad decisions.
Illegal acts.
As she walked toward the back of the room, she forced herself to be as casual and natural as possible. A flat-screen TV hung on one wall and a dartboard on another.
Everywhere, sailors shot curious looks in her direction.
Sizing her up.
Checking her out.
She probably already had her fans and critics. Enemies, even. People who didn’t want to talk. People who wanted her to go away. Some of the guys wouldn’t respond well to being infiltrated by a social scientist writing a report on workplace problems that resulted in a culture of entitlement, toxic masculinity, and a divergence of values.
At one side of the room, Bruce and his gang were beckoning her over. They mixed with the civilian cryptologists, both male and female. It seemed like a safe landing place for her. She shuffled toward them, hoping her regular confidence would carry her body. She normally exuded self-assurance. She was the type of woman who made heads turn as she strolled the streets between meetings in downtown Washington. She was beautiful enough, sure, but Olivia had been told once that it was the way she held herself. Proud. Full of self-respect. But the inner conflict that raged within crippled her secure attitude and fostered a noticeably tepid demeanor.
When she reached one of several long, rectangular metal tables room, Bruce pulled out a chair near him.
“Glad you could join.” He smiled politely.
“Thanks for inviting me.”
A junior SEAL stood up at the other end of the table and asked if anyone needed a drink.
Bruce nodded to Olivia. “Beer?”
“Wine?” she replied, eyebrow raised.
“They have it, but it’s shit. We drink Flag here—a Moroccan beer.”
“Fine, get me a Flag.”
“Great—two.” He tossed a couple dollars toward the standing SEAL before looking back at Olivia. “It’s for the canteen.”
“Thanks.” She grinned, which was met by a warm look in response. “I’ll get you back.”
He laughed. “It’s a dollar. Don’t worry.”
Bruce had a softer demeanor than the others. He just seemed… like a comforting, nice guy. Time and time again, he proved to be a safety net for her. She was hoping he’d stay that way. She needed a friend. An ally.
But Olivia watched him dutifully before knighting him as trustworthy—she’d been burned in the past by men who’d presented themselves as ‘safety nets.’ Olivia had learned that the less you leaned on others, and the stronger you stood on your own, the less opportunity others had to chip away at your pride and credibility.
Olivia looked around. The mess wasn’t huge by any means. Not everyone on the compound was there, but they could probably all fit if they really squeezed.
“Didn’t tire you out too much from our workout?” Bruce asked her, bringing her attention back to him.
She grinned. “I needed a minute, I can tell you that much.”
“We’ll get you in good shape by the time we are done.” He chuckled casually and slugged back the rest of the drink.
One of the sailors across the table piped in, “Bruce would have been a pro athlete if he hadn’t joined the SEALs. No joke.”
“You were a SEAL?” Olivia said in surprise.
He nodded. “Feels like long ago now.”
“He’s being modest,” the other guy added. “He got into DEVGRU right after SEAL Team Six got disbanded. Got his worst scars in Pakistan. Tell her the story.”
Motioning to his eye, the other guy tried to convince Bruce to spit it out. Olivia was very curious about the story behind the glass eye.
Bruce just shook his head. “Not tonight. I don’t want to relive the past.”
More guys at the table were leaning into their conversation, Olivia realized. They were listening to her, curious what she would say and how she would react. She had no doubt half of them were still forming opinions on her. Friend or foe? Good question. Friend, she liked to think. She was there to help them since they couldn’t help themselves, apparently.
“Not all heroes wear capes,” one of the younger guys shouted j
okingly from the end of the table.
Bruce shook his head, annoyed.
“We all have scars. Sometimes you can’t see them.” She smiled at Bruce, empathizing.
He grinned back, and she didn’t miss his exhale of relief that she wasn’t pressing him, that she understood. Not everyone wanted to share their story over beers. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
She nodded.
The guy brought back their Flag beers, and Olivia cracked open and sipped hers. “Ugh.” Her nose wrinkled with disgust. She couldn’t help it, but she quickly regretted it. Some of the guys at the table chuckled.
“Who’s this high-class broad?” Zach Ennis, the cryptologist she’d met earlier, asked with a teasing grin.
“Cheers!” She raised her glass with a laugh. “I can handle some North African brew.”
They all raised their glasses in unison. The conversation at the long table began moving quickly. It was mostly just banter between the sailors and staff about stuff she didn’t understand: what had gone wrong on the last operation, what they would do better next time. She listened for clues or insight, knowing it all could be useful later.
Bruce began an intense conversation with the guy beside him about the changes in the Saharan desert. He was animated and loud, an odd contrast to his behavior toward her earlier. Nonetheless, the conversation was illuminating—and terrifying. Apparently they’d been rotating to Mali long enough to notice the impact of climate change.
All the while, she continually scanned the room. A certain someone wasn’t there. If he had been, she would have noticed when she first walked in. There was something very noticeable about Ryder. Not all the SEALs were as tall as him, nor were they all as handsome. Quite a few of them were actually smaller, more like little ninjas. That certainly went against her preconceptions.
Ryder had an air about him. A stiff spine. A lordly step. Almost like an overconfident Italian American. She grinned. The fact that she didn’t have to face him so soon and explain why she couldn’t see their deal through caused her both relief and disappointment. She so desperately wanted it to just be him.
“Looking for someone?” Bruce said to her from the side of his mouth.
She shook her head casually, and he became reabsorbed in his guy talk.
Letting her hair down, proverbially and literally, she unwound her tight ponytail and let her brunette locks cascade over her shoulder. But she was careful not to fluff or play with her hair flirtatiously. She didn’t want to send the wrong message. Despite how engrossed the men were in their conversation, she knew they were analyzing her on the side. Did she talk too much or too little? Did she get the joke? Could she play along with the dirty humor? Was she too sensitive? Rowdy? Prudish?
She remained confident. Polite. Professional. Neutral.
Bruce looked back to her. “Are we boring you?” he asked as she stifled a yawn.
“No, I’m still jet-lagged,” she explained, trying to get into their conversation. But before she could say anything else, one of the guys at the table jumped in about some sports thing, pulling Bruce’s attention away again. Olivia found herself in a game of ping-pong, whipping her head back and forth to listen to whatever opinion was being spoken the loudest. Indeed, the more beers they had, the more their collective attention span mimicked that of a gnat.
She feigned interest and smiled, like she was engaged in the conversation with them as they periodically looked over at her. In her mind, however, she retreated, hoping the autopilot of her physical presence would be enough. Just as her eyelids started feeling heavy, and she debated finding her way back to her bunk for bedtime, the exterior door opened loudly, and the conversation skipped a beat.
She straightened her spine, feeling a change in the room, and she wasn’t the only one. The conversation picked back up quickly, but some of the lower-ranking sailors were anxiously looking at whoever had come in the door.
Oh, who was she kidding?
Olivia knew damn well who it was.
It didn’t take more than a moment before she spotted his hulking frame by the bar.
Ryder was picking up a Flag beer from the fridge. His face was expressionless as men approached him to talk. He was the type of man people flocked toward. A natural leader with natural authority.
His dark eyes scanned the room as he spoke with the SEALs around him. She avoided his gaze when he looked at her table, remembering that she had decided to renege on their deal. She knew her cheeks would flush if they locked eyes, and the jig would be up. A room of highly trained operators wouldn’t miss her reaction to him, and they would assume the worst, so she built a barrier of self-protection.
“Luciano.” Bruce nodded toward him. “Met him?”
“Yup,” she squeaked.
He gave her a suspicious look.
“What?” she demanded.
“He has that effect on women.” He nodded knowingly. “Good-looking guy.”
“Don’t extrapolate. You don’t know me well enough for that.” She shook her head furiously, quickly. Overselling it.
“Oh, I know you better than you think.” He hummed as he took a sip of his beer, beaming back at her. “Three tours with Black Ops.”
“That’s where you worked with him?”
“He served with me in Pakistan. He was younger then. Just joined,” Bruce explained absently. “Back when we were SEAL Team Six. Back when we had to kill Bin Laden.”
Olivia could tell there was more to the story—much more than the movies depicted.
“Do you know the master chief well?” she probed.
“As well as anyone, I guess. He’s a private person.” Bruce shrugged. “But he did save my ass, and I’ll never forget that.” He motioned to his eye. “I walked away from a bad situation with only this because of him. I should be six feet under.”
Bruce looked at Ryder and then back at Olivia, his eyes wild with mischief. She hoped he wasn’t getting any bold ideas. “He’s loyal to the end. Loyal to those he cares about. He’ll go down with the sinking ship,” Bruce said as he watched Ryder. “But that’s a man you don’t want to cross. Once you betray him, lose his trust…”
Bruce’s voice trailed off, and Olivia realized she was desperate to hear him finish his sentence. What would happen once you lost Ryder’s trust?
Before she could ask, Bruce shook his head and came back to the present. Olivia wondered how much history—how many secrets—these guys shared. But she couldn’t get into it further because the guys at her table started roaring. An Irish drinking song had come over the speaker plugged into the wall.
“This is it, boys!” Bruce exclaimed. “And girls,” he added with a wink. It was so ridiculously cheesy that Olivia nearly choked on her beer. The females at the table groaned in annoyance. Apparently Bruce didn’t know much in the way of wooing women—which was no doubt why he positioned himself as a safety net, Olivia thought.
‘Whiskey in the Jar’ blared through the speaker—it was one of those songs that everyone had heard, and some even knew some lyrics. What you didn’t know, you could make up on the spot. Bruce slapped her on the back and encouraged her to sing along with him and the others. The room of men fumbling over the lyrics was fucking hilarious, almost like an episode of sketch comedy—so much so that Olivia couldn’t help but laugh.
A bunch of the guys started doing the Irish drinking song thing, where they stood up and slung their arms over each other, belting out the ballad. The rest of the room did the same, and the party officially became vibrant. Zach Ennis reached over to her to encourage her to stand. He gently put his arm around her as the song continued. She smiled but shook her head, so he retracted his arm and stood up.
That’s when she realized how tired she was. She was well past the point of socializing. From the corner of her eye, she caught Ryder’s form at the bar, but it had stiffened. Tensed. Something had changed in his body language. She saw him walk out of the room like something had upset him. A tiny voice in the back of her mind w
ondered if it was something she’d done, or if it he was upset at seeing her laugh and smile at the men around her. Then she shook her head quickly. There was no way that was it.
The song ended, and another round was being delivered, but Olivia knew she’d had enough. She wasn’t remotely drunk, but with one more beer, she would be asleep in the chair, especially without Ryder around. He awakened every sense with his mere presence. She had been telling herself that this was because he’d given her a hard time, and she had to be on her toes. But she was beginning to appreciate that it all boiled down to her wild attraction to him.
Before a fresh green bottle of Flag was placed in front of her, she causally backed her chair up.
“Don’t go far,” Bruce advised her.
“Don’t worry – just the bathroom.”
He nodded, but his warning grew serious. “You’re still new here. You aren’t used to everyone, especially on a drinking night.”
“Is this level of drinking tolerated? My understanding was that deployed service members were limited in their alcohol allotment.”
Bruce laughed. “That’s the green army, sweetheart. The SEALs have big-boy rules, and they can do whatever the fuck they want to do.”
“Oh.” Olivia leaned back, surprised.
“Exactly. So don’t go far.” He nodded, insinuating everything. “Come back, and we will walk you to your bunk.”
She heeded the warning and quickly moved out of the room on her way to find the bathroom. She hoped some water on her face would help refresh her. What was so dangerous about these men? Was she overconfident in her safety?
Down the long metal hallway, there were some offices for the cook staff, and down a short set of stairs, a set of washrooms. The grated flooring below her made her footsteps echo in the quiet cavern. It was the type of flooring that let everyone know when someone was approaching. Stealth mode wasn’t possible there, which was an advantage since the both the men who had shown interest in protecting her had issued ominous warnings about her safety on the compound.
As she turned the corner into a small enclave where the washroom doors connected, she realized she wasn’t alone.
Desert Exposure Page 8