Baron chuckled. “Other end of the spectrum here. In one of my evaluations, my sergeant used the phrase, ‘As unfocused as a pair of binoculars with the lenses installed backwards on one side.’”
That was something. With Baron’s lack of filter, digging info out of him would be a piece of cake.
“Anyway,” he said, “back to our cover story. Sounds like we’re organic fruit inspectors.”
Apparently Nessa had been given more info than Baron had. “We don’t inspect the fruit, we certify the growers and fruit packer as organic.”
“Looking for someone smuggling drugs into the country.”
“Yeah, the owner of the packing company suspects someone on his payroll of taking advantage of the frequent border crossings.”
Baron rubbed his jaw. “Why not call the DEA?”
“Good question,” said Nessa. She exited the freeway onto a two-lane road with green fields lining both sides. She didn’t admit that she had no idea what crops were growing here. It wasn’t grapes or oranges, but that’s about all she could say for sure.
Baron said, “Okay, so honestly, how much can someone be bringing in without cooperation from the owner. A few ounces here and there? A couple pounds, maybe? I remember Logan lighting up 50 acres of poppy fields with a flamethrower in Afghanistan. I just can’t conceive of an operation big enough to justify bringing in all this backup.”
Nessa bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t know how to respond without getting emotional about it. Just the thought of a few ounces of drugs knocked her off her game, so she just shrugged.
About a mile down the road they pulled up outside of a huge warehouse. She parked the Escalade in front of the two-story office building and they climbed out.
“We’re taking my car next time,” said Baron under his breath as they walked around to the back of the Escalade and opened the back.
“Problem with my driving?” asked Nessa.
“No,” said Baron with a sigh. “Ever since I agreed to take this job, six months ago, I’ve been dreaming about my intel-gathering fortress on wheels.”
“Oh.” Nessa debated whether to say what she was thinking or not, and decided to put it out there. “You sure have a way of making innocent statements sound chauvinistic.”
“I’m sorry,” said Baron, sounding sincere. He smiled and it was a crooked, good-old-boy, kind of smile. “I’m trying. I’ll try harder.”
“Thanks,” said Nessa. She popped open her briefcase and turned it away from him and tucked the keys into one of the interior pockets.
“If you want them to stop calling you nerd,” said Baron, “you should seriously reconsider that briefcase.”
“Funny,” said Nessa. “We’ll see who’s laughing after you see what I brought for you.” She handed over a box clipboard and a pocket protector.
“The clipboard I understand,” said Baron, opening the front flap of the clipboard and slipping something inside. He stared down at the pocket protector. “But what’s this thing?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” She looked for signs of teasing but didn’t pick up on any. “You’ve never seen a pocket protector?”
Baron laughed sharply. “Oh man, that’s perfect. I might have been wrong about having you as a partner, this is going to be fun! Now how do I put this thing on? No, don’t tell me, people might be watching out the windows.”
As Nessa worked on looking busy organizing her briefcase, Baron studied the pocket protector for a few seconds, then slid it over his pocket. “How do I look?” he asked, resting the butt of the clipboard on one hip.
Dang. He looked like the hottest nerd she’d ever seen.
Don’t gawk and don’t start drooling, she told herself. “You’ll do,” she managed to say, feeling out of breath. If this ruse of coworkers was going to work, she needed to figure out how to keep her eyes off of him.
3
Baron held the door for Nessa and forced himself to bring his eyes up to look around the inside of the building rather than staying tight on Nessa. He’d always been attracted to smart girls. Back when he was the guy who never talked, he’d observed a lot, and realized that girls who didn’t have much going on upstairs got old quickly.
Beauty and brains—Nessa Dimmick was his dream woman. A smart, beautiful girl like her would make it hard to focus on anything else.
The good thing was, based on his years of training as an intel expert and people reader, Baron was pretty sure she was digging him as well. That scared and excited him.
Of course, her being into him was just one scenario. There were two other possibilities. First, she might just be nervous about working in the real world instead of in academics. Baron saw it from people who came into the field after pushing papers for too long in their career. Overexcitement that read as physical attraction. The other possibility was even less likely—she had eaten some questionable Mexican food that was wreaking havoc on her bowels.
He really hoped the nerves he was picking up on from her were due to reciprocal attraction.
Yep, he was in bad shape if he couldn’t tell whether a woman liked him or whether she just had a nasty stomach bug. Other than a couple of awkward blind dates back home, he hadn’t talked to a real woman since sending Steph that Dear Jane letter before the Syria mission. If only he’d known his partner on this mission was going to be the perfect woman, he could have gotten some training or practice on how to talk to women without sounding like an idiot. No Filter Therapy, Baron called it, though his therapist had used some long-winded name for it. No matter what you called it, his free mouth had gotten him into trouble more than a few times already.
“May I help you?” asked the secretary with a warm smile. She had a headset on, but it appeared to be more than merely for telephone calls. Judging by the microphone on her desk, the screen behind her with a list of locations, and the key box on the wall, at least some of the dispatch and tracking of trucks took place right here.
“Hi, Linda,” said Baron, reading her name plate. “We’re with Valley Organics. We have an appointment with Mr. Thompson.”
Nessa handed over a business card. Baron tried not to notice how fluidly she moved, and purposely avoided looking at her attractive profile when she stepped in front of him.
Wait, where in the world had she gotten business cards? That extra day waiting on the dealership buyers kept costing Baron in the intel department.
“Yes, he’s expecting you. If you take the stairs in the hallway then go to the left, his office is straight ahead.”
They thanked her and found the stairs. Baron did the gentlemanly thing and let Nessa go first, then spent the rest of the time on the stairs trying not to notice how amazing she made a pair of work pants look. It really wasn’t fair for Sutton to give him a partner as attractive as Nessa. Didn’t he know Baron had spent the last eight years with a bunch of stinky, uncivilized dudes? This woman was all the way out of his league.
Focus, he ordered his mind. Intel. The mission.
A middle aged man with bifocals looked up from his computer when Nessa and Baron walked in. He stood and came around the desk to shake hands. “Glad to have you here.”
Baron saw Nessa look around, as if checking to see if they were alone. She said, “We hope we can help you out. We have a few questions about—”
“Can we walk while we talk?” asked Baron. The office was entirely too easy to bug and it sounded like Nessa was about to go into undercover stuff.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Thompson. He led them into the hallway, through a door that led to a landing giving them a view of the entire warehouse. The building was fifty yards long, with huge bay doors along one wall. A handful of them were open with trucks pulling in or out, or already being unloaded. All sorts of fruits and vegetables could be seen making their way in an organized flow in all directions.
The warehouse was noisy, but not quite enough to cover a conversation completely. Baron started down the stairs and the other two followed. He stopped
next to a huge conveyor that appeared to be polishing oranges and sorting them into sizes. The smell of the fresh produce made him miss the endless corn fields of Illinois.
“Can we talk here?” asked Baron, leaning close to Mr. Thompson.
“Yes. My office should be safe, but if you are more comfortable here, that’s fine.”
Nessa leaned in as well, bringing her delicious vanilla scent. Baron wanted to lean over to her hair and breathe her in, but he managed to resist. He opened his mouth to ask her to wait in the car so he could actually focus on the mission, but he caught himself just in time. That was one statement that wasn’t good therapy. Kissing her was a horrible idea as well, but with their lips so close together, that fact didn’t prevent him from thinking about it.
Pointing to the machine to bring himself back to the conversation and also throw off anyone who might be trying to eavesdrop, Baron asked, “How long have you owned the company?”
“Ten years,” said Thompson. “Ever since my grandpa passed away.”
“Any major issues?” asked Baron. “With any illegal activity?”
“No.” He made some motions toward a truck that was pulling in then angled toward the coolers on the far side of the building that were big enough for forklifts to drive into. He was on the same page as Baron, trying to make it appear as if they really were talking about organic certification. “I’m hoping to keep it that way. I love my business, love providing healthy food and supporting farmers on both sides of the border. My dad owned the fields you drove past on your way in, but he had to sell them ten years back. As a small time farmer, he couldn’t keep up with the big guys and he started losing money. We were able to survive as a packer and shipper. I just can’t stand the thought of all the good we do being countermanded by any of my employees engaging in anything illegal.”
Baron folded his arms and nodded along. His empathy wasn’t feigned; he had struggled for six months over questions about his duty to take over the family business. With one word he could have stopped the sale of the dealerships and stepped in to run them. And he’d be stuck behind a desk back in Bloomington, doing a job he wasn’t passionate about.
“Why not call the DEA?” asked Nessa.
Her direct manner was so incredibly sexy. Baron wanted to put the mission on hold, pull her aside and ask her out. If he just got it out of the way he might be able to focus better.
“I don’t have any proof,” said Mr. Thompson. “Just a feeling. I’m a farmer at heart and barely a businessman. We have GPS units on our trucks, and I’ve looked over the routes and data, but it’s so far over my head.”
Baron noticed a shiver of excitement pass through Nessa. Her heels even came off the ground an inch, like a kid about to get an ice cream cone. She really was a big data nerd, and Baron was absolutely digging it.
“How did you get in touch with Sutton Smith?” Baron was thinking about how much he was getting paid, and imagined a high-powered doctor from Caltech wouldn’t be cheap either. It seemed like overkill for the amount of drugs they would be looking for.
“Sutton’s wife, Liz, has a company that provides microloans to some women who are farmers in Mexico, trying to make it on their own. I met Sutton and Liz at an event and in the course of conversation, my suspicions, no, my fears came up. Sutton said he ‘has people’ for situations like mine but only if it’s a good cause.”
“Must be a good cause,” said Baron. “Because we’re here.” Thompson seemed legit, and while Baron couldn’t think of any reason why the man would call them in if he himself was involved in anything illegal, everyone was suspect. The vibe he picked up from the man was honest, though. “Is there anyone in particular you suspect?”
Thompson shook his head. “I wish there was. We have a redundant system, where no one can disable or fool the GPS trackers without alerting multiple people. Honestly I hope you find nothing and I’ve been imagining everything.”
“Me too,” said Baron. He didn’t want to waste his time, but he also hated the idea of this generational family business being taking advantage of. “Do you mind making some introductions to some department heads? Then we’ll look around here for a while.”
Thompson introduced them to the warehouse foreman, Manuel, the fleet scheduler, Nancy, and the head mechanic, Ollie. Each time, Baron found himself wishing he was the one introducing Nessa, and doing so as boyfriend-girlfriend. He was seriously female deprived after those eight years as a soldier. Again he thought about how unfair it was for Sutton to pair them up when Baron was so unprepared. At the same time, he wanted to buy Sutton a beer and thank him.
As he suppressed his silly fantasies, Baron watched each of the people they met for signs of nervousness or any suspicious behavior. It was hard to judge nervousness—and not just because he wanted to be studying Nessa instead—since they thought they were meeting organic certifiers, not undercover drug investigators. The type of nerves he was watching for would manifest differently under each individual circumstance. For the most part, the supervisors seemed willing to help, but also anxious to get back to their jobs.
Thompson cut them loose and they spent an hour walking around the warehouse with Baron making notes on pieces of paper he pulled out of his clipboard and interviewing a few employees. When he broke into Spanish with one of the truck drivers, he noticed Nessa’s eyebrows go up and her eyes shoot straight over to him. If he was picking up the intel correctly, she was enjoying it immensely. Baron realized the driver was watching him expectantly and had to ask him to repeat what he’d said.
As Baron continued the interview in Spanish, Nessa reached into her briefcase and pulled out some items—a tablet, some sort of testing kit, and an MSDS reference book. They continued through the warehouse and it was a constant struggle to keep his attitude professional because whenever he relaxed, he found himself grinning at her, which didn’t seem like organic certifier behavior.
The trucks were the obvious place to find out about smuggling, so after inspecting the inside of the plant, they went truck by truck, through the cab and the box. Baron placed his own tracking devices in each truck as they went.
Baron and Nessa didn’t banter, or even talk very much, so Baron couldn’t say why he found spending time with her so dang enjoyable.
By the time they finished at the warehouse, he’d decided he might not hate having a partner as much as he’d predicted.
4
“Think we’ll find anything?” Nessa asked as they drove away from the warehouse, this time with Baron in the driver’s seat. She actually liked this arrangement better because it meant she didn’t have to worry about being distracted by him and causing a major pile up.
“Tough call,” said Baron. “I’ll get you more data than you know what to do with.”
“I doubt that,” said Nessa with a laugh. “This may be a dumb question, but were those tracking devices you put on the trucks?”
Baron winced. “I must be getting rusty if you saw me place those.”
“How come you only put them on two trucks?”
“Two?” asked Baron.
“Yeah. Why not track all of the trucks? Was there something suspicious about those two?”
Baron smirked. “Maybe I’m not that rusty. You were with me the whole time and I got twenty-seven placed without detection.”
“All of the trucks?” Nessa wondered if he was pulling her leg.
“Every one of them on the premises.”
“Wow,” she said. “Guess we know why you made the team.”
Baron laughed and countered with, “I’m pretty sure I was on the team all along.”
“So, tell me this. Why don’t we just pull the data Mr. Thompson has from his trackers. Sounds like he spends a lot of money and has mountains of data.”
“There you go getting all excited again,” said Baron.
“I’m not getting excited,” snapped Nessa. She realized she had licked her lips and patted her hands on her thighs. “Okay, I’m a little bit excited. U
s data nerds don’t burn down poppy fields with flamethrowers, all right? Give us our forensic detective work once in a while.”
Baron gave her a movie star grin and she had to pull herself out of his deep brown eyes. “Like I said, I’ll give you way more than you want. I bet you the current GPS system is 90-something percent reliable. It’s that single digit percentage I’m worried about. And I bet it won’t be a simple case of seeing where the two trackers disagree. If there is anything illicit going on, I bet we see a discrepancy in the tracking systems across the board. I can’t wait to see your analysis.”
She could tell that he was not only dependent on her to analyze the data he was collecting, but anxious to see her opinion of it. That satisfaction felt better than any paycheck—as far as she knew anyway, since she’d never gotten a real paycheck in the field she’d spent so many years of her life in.
“So tell me this, Doctor Dimmick. Why do you want to keep a few ounces off the streets?”
Nessa tried to keep her cool. “What? Drugs are bad.”
“There’s more to it than that,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road.
“Why do you say that?” Oh no, did her voice rise just a little when she answered?
“C’mon, partner. I was high level military intel for a long time, remember?” His attention was split between her and the road and it made her nervous on multiple levels.
“Were you also an expert on driving over there? Because usually in the United States it’s a good idea to keep two eyes on the road.”
Baron smiled that half smile of his. “You’re changing the subject again. It’s not going to work. When I brought up the drugs the first time, I noticed your reaction. It was as obvious as your attraction to me.”
“What!” Nessa started choking even though there was nothing in her mouth. It was a good thing she wasn’t driving at the time or they would have ended up against the median.
The Honest Warrior: Navy SEALs Romances 2.0 Page 2