Tess was unconvinced. And very fierce. That was anger coloring her cheeks. Anger at Sophia. “No means no. Why should the rules be different for women than they are for men?”
“I should have walked away,” Decker said, refusing to forgive himself.
“Yes,” Tess agreed. “You should have. But she shouldn’t have—”
Decker cut her off. “She did what she did because she felt threatened. I should have figured that out. She’s not the bad guy here.”
“You aren’t either,” Jimmy had told him, but it was pretty obvious that Deck didn’t believe him.
“He told me he’s hoping to get a permanent assignment as part of your team,” Tess told Decker now. They were still talking about Dave Malkoff.
“He should be leading his own team,” Decker countered.
“He doesn’t want to,” Tess said. “And he’s vehement about it.” She laughed. “You would have thought I was suggesting he stick needles in his eyes. I was, like, ‘Keep breathing, Dave—no one’s going to force you to be a team leader if you don’t want to be one.’ ”
The barn started to shake. Aftershock.
“I guess he doesn’t want the responsibility.” Deck laughed, but it was without humor. “Right about now, I can’t say I blame him.”
They were all getting blasé about the aftershocks that regularly rocked the city. Jimmy didn’t bother to move as Decker stood and hung the kerosene lantern from a hook on one of the overhead beams. It could hang there and swing without any danger of being knocked over.
“I think it’s because he knows his own strengths and weaknesses,” Tess told Deck as the world stopped shaking. “Dave’s very good at some things, but his people skills really do need work. He doesn’t inspire supreme confidence across the board—the way you do.”
Decker was silent, just looking at her, rubbing his forehead as if he had one bitch of a headache. He glanced over at Jimmy, as if trying to decide whether he really was asleep.
So Jimmy moved his foot. Just a little. Just enough to let Decker know that he was conscious and listening.
“What happened this morning was, um—,” Decker started, but then stopped and swore softly.
Tess was holding her own mug of coffee with both hands. “You don’t owe anyone an explana—”
“I don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I make a habit of—”
“I don’t,” she said. “Deck, believe me, no one does. But even if you did, so what? If it was Jimmy who . . . Well, does anyone think less of James because he does make a habit of—”
“Yes,” Decker said. “There are definitely people who think less of him. I think less of him for the way he treated you.”
Tess was silent.
Jimmy had his eyes closed—he was barely even breathing at this point. He knew that Deck was disappointed in him, but it was still remarkable how much it stung to hear him speak those words. I think less of him. . . .
He sensed more than saw Tess glance over at him. When she finally spoke, she’d lowered her voice.
“I knew exactly who he was when I invited him in that night,” she told Decker. “Don’t you dare think that he took advantage of me, because he didn’t. If anything, I took advantage of him. It’s just . . . things don’t always work out the way you plan, you know? Sophia—she did what she did because she wanted to get her gun in her hand. But she didn’t factor shooting and missing into her plan. There were things about my night with James that I didn’t factor in either. I didn’t expect to like him so much—to keep on liking him after we, you know, hooked up. I thought there’d be an ick factor—like, he’d be all fake and, I don’t know, smarmy, I guess. And then I’d be kind of relieved when he left in the morning. But . . .” She laughed. “I liked him. I still like him. He’s . . .”
Jimmy held his breath.
“Sweet,” she said.
What? It took everything he had not to laugh out loud. That was like calling an alligator cuddly.
“It sounds stupid,” Tess continued, “but he is. He tries to hide it but . . . he’s a good person, a good man. And he’s in bigger trouble than you know, by the way.”
“Actually,” Decker said, “he’s way better off than I thought.”
Jimmy had expected him to question her. Trouble? What the fuck? He wasn’t in trouble. But saying that he was better off than Decker thought? What did that mean?
Shit.
“But talk about things I didn’t factor in,” Tess said. “I never in a million years expected to be working so closely with him again. With either of you.”
They fell silent then, just sipping their coffee. Jimmy could smell the cup Tess had brought out for him. He wanted it, but he couldn’t possibly sit up now.
“I’m sorry I agreed to let you come here,” Decker said quietly.
“I’m not,” she said. No hesitation. But again she laughed. “Jimmy probably is, though.”
She was right. Jimmy was very, very sorry. About too many things to count.
“I pretty much threw myself at him this morning,” she told Decker. “He’s not . . . He didn’t want to, but we were trying to make it look like . . . and I took it too far. God.” She laughed. Or maybe this time it was a sigh. “You’re not the only one capable of making stupid mistakes, you know. We didn’t even have a condom. It was beyond stupid, and now he’s completely freaked out. About everything.”
How could she sit there and tell Deck about that? Did she get off on twisting him totally into a knot? God damn, Jimmy had told her that Deck had a thing for her and . . .
But, of course, she now assumed Jimmy had been wrong. It wouldn’t occur to her that Deck was nuts about her despite the fact that he’d gone and let Padsha Bashir’s runaway bride give him a face dance. It wouldn’t occur to her that it was, in fact—in Jimmy’s mind at least—proof positive of Decker’s deep affection for Tess.
Decker was silent. Probably drawing and quartering Jimmy in his mind.
“Will you do me a favor?” Tess asked him. “When he wakes up, will you reassure him that it’s never going to happen again? I was half asleep and . . . He’s made it really clear that he’s not interested, so . . .”
“Yeah,” Decker said. “I’ll make sure he knows.”
“Thanks. We’re all under a lot of stress—you even more than the rest of us. I just . . . I wanted you to know that you’re not the only one who’s had a lapse in judgment.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I am aware of that. It seems to be contagious.”
Jimmy heard her stand up. “I’m going to get more coffee. Want anything from the kitchen?”
“No,” he said. “I’m good. Thanks.”
Jimmy heard Tess walk across the barn, heard the door open and then close behind her.
“You know,” Decker told him, before he, too, stood up and walked away, “you’re an even bigger asshole than I am.”
There was a light burning in the barn.
Sophia saw it from the yard and hesitated just inside the gate. If she could see it, the police patrols could, too.
But then she realized that it was okay. These people weren’t hiding. They were allowed to be here. They could have the lights on.
The man behind her touched her arm. Until he’d spoken to her after materializing like a sudden apparition in the Tea Room’s outdoor garden, she hadn’t recognized him as the short-haired CIA agent in the ill-fitting dark suits she’d dealt with all those years ago. But the sound of his voice had erased her doubt that the two radically different looking men were one and the same.
“I’d like to introduce you to our Kazbekistani hosts only after we get you cleaned up and dressed in American clothing,” he—Dave—said now.
Yes. That was smart. Sophia saw that there was a light coming from the house, too. The door to the kitchen was open, and she could see people moving around inside.
Their hosts. As in K-stani citizens. Did they support Padsha Bashir? They probably did. Most Kazbekista
nis kept their heads down and supported whoever was currently in power. Supporting the opposition could get a person killed.
There was a lot in Kazabek that could get a person killed. Like standing in a yard and catching the attention of people with an allegiance only to keeping their families alive. People whose lives would be changed by the blood money from a warlord’s hefty reward.
She had to keep alert. She wasn’t out of danger, not by any means.
“I’ll need to color my hair before I meet anyone.” Sophia spoke just as softly as he had.
“We’ve already thought of that,” he told her. “We’ve got everything we need to darken your hair right in the barn.”
We.
“Who’s we?” she asked. She should have asked before this. But she had been so relieved to see him, she’d actually fallen into his arms and hugged him like a long lost brother. And when he’d told her they needed to get to safety, that he had a place they could go to talk, she’d followed.
“We’ll talk inside,” he said, gesturing toward the barn with his head.
So she followed Dave again—he’d actually told her his name, which either meant the CIA had had a policy change, or he was no longer with that particular alphabet agency—silently across the yard.
The barn door opened, and an American woman was there to help hurry her inside. Through her heavy veil, Sophia caught only a glimpse of a round female face, a face that looked as if it could belong to Shirley Temple’s even sweeter granddaughter.
A quick glance around revealed that they were sharing this barn with a tired-looking horse. It was a rustic building, part wood, mostly stone and clay. A lamp hung from one of the beams, and the light didn’t shine into the far reaches of the barn. Still, she could see that there was someone—a man—sitting back in the shadows.
“Who’s we?” she asked again. She sensed more than saw someone else behind her, someone besides Dave, hidden from her view by the folds of her burka and this blasted veil.
“Friends,” Dave told her. “We’re friends.”
“My name is Tess,” the woman told her. “The first thing I’d like to do is take you into one of the horse stalls, sit you down, and see if you need medical attention. Is that all right with you?”
“You’re safe here.” Dave’s familiar voice came from behind her again. “You can take off your veil.”
“She’s probably a little overwhelmed,” Tess told him—understatement of the century. She moved directly in front of Sophia, making sure she could be seen. “I’m sure you’ll take it off when you’re ready.” She smiled. “It’s very warm in here, and I apologize for that, but all the doors and windows are shut so no one can see in. No one can see you. You are safe now.”
Sophia realized she was clinging to her veil with one hand. Her other was hidden in the folds of her robe, wrapped around the larger of her two guns, finger on the trigger.
Tess kept on talking, her voice musical and reassuring. “I’m not a medic, unfortunately. I can really only handle basic first aid. Scrapes and the like. Murphy’s our medicine man. He’s very good. A former Marine—”
“No such thing,” a new voice, a man’s voice interrupted, not from behind her, where Dave still was, but from the side. She hadn’t seen anyone over there. He, too, moved so that she could see him. He was racially mixed, very tall and wide, with a smile that was nearly as friendly as Tess’s. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”
“My bad,” Tess said with a conspiratorial smile for Sophia. “Murph’s a Marine. I know you’re probably not thrilled at the idea of a male medic—I wouldn’t be—but I’ll stay with you. Okay? You’re safe here. In every way.”
Sophia found her voice. “I don’t need medical attention.”
Tess stepped to the side to start leading her toward the back of the barn, but Sophia could hear the smile in the younger woman’s voice. “Good. That’s good to hear. We don’t have a lot of water to spare, so we can’t offer you more than a sponge bath, but I do have some clothes I can lend you. They’ll be a little large—I’m bigger than you—but they’re clean.”
“How many of you are there?” Sophia asked. She couldn’t get a sense. And she wasn’t going to take off this veil—or let go of her gun—until she had a better explanation for “Who’s ‘we’?” than “Friends.”
“There are five of us,” Tess told her.
Michel Lartet had been Dimitri’s friend.
Sophia stopped walking, and Tess, no doubt astute enough to realize she needed more reassurance, moved in front of her again.
“You’ve met me,” Tess said, “and Dave, and there’s Murphy and Nash and . . .”
The ghost of an odd look crossed her face. It was little more than a hesitation, but it was enough to push Sophia over the edge and into deep suspicion. Especially since Dave’s words from out in the yard came back to her with a rush—We’ve got everything we need to darken your hair. . . .
How did he know she was blond? He’d never seen her—not even once—without her burka and veil. And Tess spoke to her as if she knew who she was, yet Dave had never known her as anything but Miles Farrell.
“And Decker,” Tess was saying, but Sophia spoke right over her.
“Tell your friends not to touch me—tell them to move back!” Her voice came out sounding very sharp.
Tess looked behind Sophia. “Give her space,” she warned whoever was back there, before speaking to Sophia. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
“Yeah, but if I don’t get some answers, I’m going to hurt you,” Sophia told her, bringing her gun up and out. It flashed—a reflection from the lamp overhead—as she aimed it at Tess.
“Nash—don’t!” Tess barked. She looked back at Sophia, her hands held out slightly in front of her but down low, reassuringly. She completely ignored the gun. “Sophia, what questions do you want answered?”
Screw this veil. It made it impossible to see—and this Tess woman had just answered one of her biggest questions: Did they know who she really was?
Apparently, yes.
“Tell your friends to move—slowly!—to where I can see them,” Sophia ordered as she pulled off her veil with one swift yank. “Tell them if they get too close, I will shoot you. Tell them to keep their hands in sight.”
She’d been sweating beneath her burka, and her hair was soaked and sticking to the sides of her head, to her face.
“No one’s going to hurt you,” Tess was repeating.
“Shit, Dave,” she heard one of the men say—not Murphy, but another. “You didn’t check her for weapons?”
“Sophia, listen to me,” Tess said, her smile long gone. “We’re not officially connected to any government organization—U.S. government, that is. We’re civilians.”
Dave and Murphy and another man—movie-star handsome, with dark, wavy hair—moved into view. They were carefully keeping their hands where she could see them.
“I was rescuing her,” Dave said. “I didn’t think I had to—”
The movie star let loose a string of unprintable words. “Tess, for Christ’s sake, at least move back!”
“We’re Americans,” Tess continued, moving not at all, “who work for a private company which is, in turn, contracted by the U.S. Government. We want to help you, Sophia. We’re going to get you out of Kazbekistan.”
It sounded good. It sounded better than good. But how did she know it wasn’t just a story they’d made up? An attempt to get her to go—compliantly—to Bashir’s palace.
The movie star kept his hands in sight, and still moving slowly, he stepped directly in front of Tess, putting his body between her and Sophia’s gun. Some of the tension left his handsome face. “Decker said she was armed.”
“Decker,” Sophia repeated. Tess had said the fifth member of their group was named Decker.
“What was I supposed to do, Nash?” Dave was pissed. “Force her to surrender her weapons? Or maybe you think I should have knocked her onto the concrete and cuffed her there at th
e Tea Room? Heck of a way to reassure her she was safe.”
“If you’re going to stand in front of me, don’t talk about her, talk to her.” Now Tess was angry, too.
But only four people stood in front of Sophia. “Where’s this Decker?” She looked toward the corner, where she’d caught a glimpse of that man when she’d first come in. He’d moved closer, his hands up, but he was still in shadow.
“I’m Decker,” he said, in a voice she’d heard before. It was . . . No, it couldn’t be.
But he stepped into the light, and it most certainly was. “If you have to aim that weapon at someone, Sophia, aim it at me.”
Troubleshooters 08 Flashpoint Page 28