by Lucy Monroe
“So, what do we do?”
“We talk to him,” Neil said before Roman could answer. “What? If the guy is as good at his job as you implied these TGP agents should be, he might have information that will help us identify the threat to the JCAT.”
“What about Tanya?” Kadin asked.
Here they went again. “What about her?”
“Her computer was clean. So were all the computers in the medical center,” Neil supplied.
“Can you get in the security center?” Roman asked.
“Do they even have a computer?” Kadin wondered.
Neil said, “I’ll find out.”
“Okay, so we talk to Vincent?” Kadin asked, looking for confirmation. “You think he’ll tell us the truth?”
“Yes, we talk to Vincent, but no, I doubt he’ll reveal himself. However, we’re trained to read the truth on a man’s face and in the way he uses his body.”
Neil sat down at the small square table in the community room and started doing something on his computer. Without looking up, he said, “Maybe he’s trained to lie without tells.”
“Even the best liars have tells,” Kadin asserted.
“Besides, I don’t think we should wait for him to tell us the truth,” Roman said. “I plan to tell him.”
That had Neil looking up from his computer. “Blow our cover?”
“No, blow his.”
Kadin looked unhappy despite Roman’s assurance. “If he is a trained agent, he’s got his doubts about us too.”
Neil asked, “Why would he?” And then immediately he looked mad at himself for having done so. Roman gave him the benefit of the doubt—he’d been focusing on whatever hare he’d been chasing on his computer.
“The fact we don’t wear military insignia?” Kadin asked with all the sarcasm the question warranted.
Roman added, “The distance between us and the baby grunts.” Plus a hell of a lot of other tells that wouldn’t matter at all if Bennet Vincent was who he was supposed to be.
“Stuff that a normal bureaucrat wouldn’t think twice about,” Neil said, reflecting Roman’s thoughts.
Kadin was looking more and more cranky by the minute. He didn’t like surprises. “Right, but if Geronimo here knows what he’s talking about, and even I got to admit, he usually does, Vincent’s no ordinary bureaucrat.”
“This is all speculation,” Roman felt he had to say. “He might just be a government suit with an uncanny ability to get past his guards to make nocturnal calls back home.”
“Right.” Kadin didn’t even pretend to be convinced.
Roman sighed. “Right.”
“Now is the time to do a search of Tanya’s quarters, since she’s working in the clinic,” Neil said.
Roman nodded. “I’ll search the doctor’s rooms.”
“I’ll take the dorms.” Kadin looked entirely too happy at the prospect that the dorms might not be empty. The man thrived on adrenaline.
Two hours later, they were all back with not a single thing to show for their time. Kadin hadn’t even gotten a chance to put anyone in a sleeper hold.
Roman was not in a happy place as he finished off a protein bar while he and the others determined their next move. He was willing to figure out where the threat originated, but he hated like hell not to have made a single move forward in that direction. Nothing pointed toward Tanya, but nothing pointed away from her either. Their discussion devolved into snark more than once, but none of them took the negative tones seriously. They were all equally frustrated and used to working together.
The sound of approaching footsteps had them all switching the topic with seamless ease.
Roman was only mildly surprised when he found Tanya on the other side of the door to their chalet.
She smiled in that warm, friendly way she had that went straight to his dick. “Hi. Fleur told me you didn’t all accompany Ben on his trip to the mine.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Did you have a reason for stopping by?”
“You’re doing that ‘avoid the answer with rudeness’ thing again.”
“You’re surprised?”
“No. I’m getting used to you.”
He wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “So?”
She grinned again. “I’ve got to make a call on a local village and I thought you might want to come along, experience one aspect of the true Zimbabwe.”
“I have a job here.”
She looked less than impressed by that claim. “And he’s at a mine more than thirty miles away.”
He couldn’t argue with that logic. Not when all he was supposed to be doing was supervising a bureaucrat’s security detail. And strangely enough, he discovered that he wanted to go to the village with Tanya. And not because it would be an opportunity to observe her and try to get her to spill where she was keeping the JCAT software. Not good. Not even close.
“Who else is going?” he asked.
“One of Mabu’s men and an intern in training.” She looked regretfully at Kadin and Neil. “I’d invite you two, but there’s not room in the Rover. Unless you want to pile in the back with all the medical supplies?”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll take a rain check,” Neil said.
What the hell? The man wasn’t getting any rain checks with Tanya and Roman gave him a look saying so.
“I’d come, but I want to talk security with Mabu,” Kadin said with a straight face.
Tanya smiled and nodded. “Okay then, are you in?” she asked with a pointed look at Roman.
“That’s not much security for venturing outside the compound,” he said, instead of answering, knowing it would annoy her and not sure why he wanted to.
Tanya’s eyes tightened, but she shrugged. “Can’t be helped. Sympa-Med won’t spring for a bigger security staff and we’re down two right now.”
“Why?” He couldn’t tell if she was irritated with him, or the insufficient security.
“One man has returned to his village to marry. He won’t be back for a month, but Mabu is doing his best to hold his position open for him.”
“He’s coming back without his wife?” Kadin asked, sounding scandalized in a way Roman had never heard him.
Tanya didn’t look happy about it either, but she sounded resigned. “It’s the way of life for too many here.”
“And the other missing man?” Roman asked.
“His HIV status went to full-blown AIDS. He returned to his village too, but he won’t be back.”
Roman said, “I’d think men would be lining up to take the job he left open.”
“Definitely, but Mabu handles hiring security staff and Fleur leaves him to it. He’ll find the right person.”
“I see.” Though truthfully, Roman didn’t. He couldn’t understand Mabu’s willingness to leave the security of the compound at risk while he took his time finding the perfect man to guard Sympa-Med’s assets.
“So, are you coming?” Tanya asked again.
“Yes.” Hell, even if he hadn’t been inclined to already, the minute she’d told him there was only one security man assigned to her trip, Roman knew he had no choice.
They were in the aged Rover, bouncing over something that might have resembled a road when the intern turned around from the front seat and said, “Weren’t you supposed to go to Tikikima? I thought I’d be making this trip on my own.”
Tanya shook her head decisively, a frown giving her sweet features an unaccustomed fierceness. “It’s not fair to send a trainee for a village visit alone.”
“But Sympa-Med—”
“Is too worried about offending the powers that be to see a situation for what it is sometimes. Going to Tikikima would be a waste of resources right now. I can reverse the circuit on the next traveling clinic and go there first if it’s so important, but I’m not putting off an acute situation for a bit of political maneuvering.”
“Oh, that will go over well with Sympa-Med.” The intern turn
ed around to face the front again, shaking his head.
“What did he mean?” Roman asked.
She grimaced. “Sympa-Med has a strict schedule and route the traveling clinic is supposed to follow. On my last circuit, I had to skip the final stop because one of my team was seriously ill and I had run out of supplies in the last village because of a disease breakout.”
“And the suits back in the States are complaining you didn’t follow their plan?” Typical bureaucrats.
“Actually Sympa-Med’s suits are in France and yep, they’ve e-mailed Fleur twice and called her once to demand I take the traveling clinic to Tikikima.”
“Why don’t you just do it?” From what he could tell, Tanya was all about helping people. He didn’t see her refusing to go somewhere she was needed.
“Because we have lots of other people who actually need our medical services and that particular village is within walking distance of a stationary indigenous clinic. As far as I can tell, they’re only on our circuit because the village officials have ties with Sympa-Med’s main office. It’s all a power game to them, but we’re treating live people who would go without medical help otherwise.” The passionate belief in her voice was only matched by her clear frustration.
“Fleur’s okay with you ignoring directions from the home office?”
Tanya’s expression revealed that the opposite was true, and it didn’t make her happy. “She’s annoyed with me, but no one’s threatened to terminate my contract.”
“And if they did?”
“Then, I’d have to look for another relief organization that could use my training and expertise.” Tanya’s voice rang with both certainty and sincerity, the tones of an idealist still convinced in her ability to do right.
He had a very hard time reconciling this woman, one who would risk her position and the anger of a doctor she clearly admired, in order to do what she thought was right, with a woman who would sell her country’s secrets. Not only that, but if her espionage required the cover of traveling relief worker, she wouldn’t risk losing that position. If she was the information leak.
Maybe it wasn’t just his libido telling him Tanya was innocent. Maybe his gut was saying the same thing. And maybe it was time he started listening.
He’d screwed up badly once before, allowing personal feelings to blind him to the truth until it was too late. He’d vowed never to do that again.
If he ignored Tanya’s innocence because of his feelings for her, he would be doing the same thing. That would be stupid. Monumentally so. And Roman was not a stupid man.
“So, why this village?”
“It has a large population of children, and the mothers are more open to modern medicine than in other villages. We’ll be doing a wellness check, weighing children, checking for disease, treating what we can.” Her hazel eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
If it wasn’t genuine, he could not see it, which would make her more than an expert liar. It would make her a master at the craft. And that? He did not buy it.
“Sounds like you’ll be busy.”
“I will, but it’s worth it. So many villages continue to rely on the old ways. If a child gets sick, the village shaman or a medium will be called in and asked to intercede with the ancestors on their behalf.” She bit her lip, her expression turning troubled. “They reject modern medicine, but going to the ancestors is not going to cure malaria, or AIDS. Not that we’ve got enough of the antivirals to touch that epidemic, even today.”
“That doesn’t discourage you?”
“It hurts that so many children die, but we make a difference. If only a dozen children live that would not have, isn’t it worth everything we do? And we treat way more than a dozen.”
“I like your attitude,” he admitted.
She cocked her head to one side, looking at him as if trying to decide his sincerity. “I thought you didn’t like me at all.”
“I like you too much,” he said, with more honesty than he’d intended.
He didn’t know what it was about this woman that made him admit something he would normally keep under wraps.
“Really?” she asked, the shock in her voice belying any thought she was flirting, or coyly fishing for compliments.
Without conscious volition, he ran his fingertip down her smooth cheek. She was just so damn sweet. “Yes, really.”
Her eyes widened, the pupils expanding.
“So, what else happens at the village? Will you treat adults?”
“Some, but most will hold off in favor of having the children seen. When we’re all done, we’ll share in the evening meal. There will be music, traditional dance, storytelling.” The soft breathiness of her voice did not match the mundane nature of her words.
He reached out and ran his fingers through her golden-brown hair, the silky strands sensually caressing his hand. “That sounds like a party.” He could so do this woman.
“It is.” She grinned, her gaze both heated and teasing. “Why do you think I wasn’t willing to miss it?”
Dropping his hand, he shook his head. “Somehow, I think the work actually takes precedence over the entertainment in your mind.”
“Don’t be fooled. They’re both important.” Her tone was as serious as he’d heard it to date. “That’s one of the things I’ve learned living here; don’t dismiss the chance to enjoy life trying too hard to make someone else’s better.”
“That’s a pretty important lesson.”
“I thought so. In America, we’re raised with a results-oriented mentality that doesn’t work for every situation. It’s way too easy to get discouraged trying to apply that attitude to relief work.”
“Because no matter how much you do, there’s always more to do so the results are always skewed.”
She gave him a surprised look from her hazel eyes. “You sound like you’ve got some experience.”
“Fighting the good fight has a lot of the same drawbacks.”
“There’s always someone out there ready to threaten our nation’s security,” she guessed accurately.
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you left the lab? You felt like you could make a bigger difference to the American people protecting them than trying to develop new weapons or anti-weapon technology?”
She understood his former job better than he would have expected her to. “I’m a damn good scientist, but when it comes to being a soldier, I’m the best.”
“No false modesty there.”
“Waste of breath.”
She laughed. “I see.” She gave him another probing look. “I’m still trying to work out what you are doing here with Ben. Is he somebody special, traveling incognito? One of the President’s advisors maybe?”
“You’re assuming I’m something special.”
“You just got through telling me you’re the best. That usually implies Special Forces. Maybe I’m naïve, but I wouldn’t expect an average bureaucrat to have a security detail made up of Special Forces soldiers.”
“Actually, depending on the level of threat, it’s not unheard of.”
“So, you’re not going to tell me?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Right.” The look she gave him dared him to stick with that particular party line.
“Elle says your brother is stubborn as a mule with an attitude problem.”
“Your point?”
“I think it might run in the family.”
A grin flirted at the corners of her mouth. “You can count on it. My grandmother locked herself into the local library and went on a hunger strike until the city council agreed to leave Catcher in the Rye and other supposedly subversive books in the stacks. She was seriously opposed to censorship, but she didn’t limit her opposition to rhetoric.”
No more than the woman in front of him was content to take a passive stance in regard to the needs she identified here in Zimbabwe.
“Let me guess, she was the librarian?”
“Yep.”
“Ancestors are a big thing among the Zimbabweans.”
“So you said. Not only are you stubborn, but you’re not bad at misdirection.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” And why did that knowledge make him smile?
She gasped.
He did a quick inventory of their surroundings, but there was no threat he could see. “What?”
“You smiled.”
“So?”
“I never saw you do that before. Not even at Elle and Beau’s wedding.”
“You find that odd?”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
She shook her head. “Wow. You’re so serious.”
“Isn’t that a redundant observation when you reacted with such shock to my smile?”
“Are you teasing me, Mr. ‘I don’t show frivolous emotion’?”
“Could be.”
“Well.”
“Well?” he prompted.
“I think I like it.”
“I think you’re flirting.” And he was damn sure he liked it despite the fact he should not. He muttered a Ukrainian curse.
“Oh,” she gasped.
“Now what?”
“Elle said that, when the zipper on her wedding dress got caught. Your mother and grandmother started yelling at her to beat the band.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Neither was I once I convinced Mat to tell me what it meant.”
“I’m surprised my brother told you.”
“I tricked him into it.” Tanya smiled smugly. “He might be a brilliant scientist, but he’s kind of hopeless at male-female interaction. Chantal has her work cut out for her with that one.”
“So she has said more than once.”
“Smart woman.”
“You would think so.”
“Don’t you?” Tanya asked.
“I have only met my sister-in-law a couple of times, but yes, I found her intelligent.”
“She’s also sweet.”
“Yes.”
Tanya studied him for several silent seconds before asking, “Do you like sweet?”
“I prefer stubborn.” Damn it, why had he said that?