The Phoenix Agency: The Sum Is Greater (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by M. L. Buchman

  She didn’t trust handsome men. Everything came too easy to them. Even tromping jungle with him didn’t change that. But she couldn’t deny that something was there between them.

  “Green.”

  “What?”

  “Your eyes, ma’am. They’re green. Never thought about that possibility. Right nice eyes. Hardly sarcastic at all.”

  They really did have a connection that went deeper than making noise.

  Damn it! She hated facing the truth.

  Hannah waved him into her shipboard cabin.

  Jesse wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but a stone-faced Delta operator wasn’t it. He’d seen a hundred thoughts slide by behind those green eyes, but not a single hint of what she felt about any of them.

  “Maybe I should just go.”

  “Your choice,” she shrugged, then stepped past him.

  But he’d seen an emotion this time. Fleeting, hard to pin down, but it might have been hurt. There was no way that any decent person could walk away from that. He stepped in, shut the door, and leaned back on it.

  It was a narrow space. A bunk bed and tiny desk. Through a side door there was a small room all done in stainless steel: sink, toilet, and showerhead with a drain in the middle of the floor.

  “Officer quarters. Very fancy. They must like you.”

  She dropped down to sit on the bunk but didn’t say anything. The lower bunk had been made up, the mattress on the top bunk was still rolled up and unsheeted.

  “Maybe some handsome lieutenant took one look at the beautiful Delta and vacated his quarters to serve her every whim.” He eased out the desk chair and straddled it to face her. “You look like a horse what forgot to come in from the rain, Hannah.”

  “Gee, thanks, Outlaw. You say the nicest things to a girl.”

  “It’s either that or go back to the idea I had before you fainted in my arms.”

  “What was that?”

  Jesse made a show of pulling off his hat and checking inside it.

  “What?”

  “A lady forgets a kiss like that and I have to wonder where I lost my ego. I think it just died a lonely and sad death.”

  That earned him a flicker of a smile, but that was all. “Something stuck in your craw, Hannah? Best just to say your piece and get it out.”

  She nodded wearily.

  He’d forgotten that Delta operators weren’t known for speaking. So he kept his mouth shut long enough for her to overcome the high fence of that internal habit. Sure enough, she finally nodded again before asking her question.

  “You didn’t say anything? To them?” She waved toward the upper decks.

  “About a sonic boom loud enough I’m surprised it didn’t sink our boat and send us swimming with the crocs? Not a thing. I don’t think Patty bought it, but she’s a smart enough gal to keep her mouth shut between pilots—once I played dumb.”

  “A sonic boom? Is that going to happen each time we…” Hannah trailed off.

  “Kiss? I’m hoping not or we’re going to be disturbing a whole lot of folks. Maybe we could get a desert island, just you, me, and our sonic boom. I suppose I could get used to wearing earplugs while we—”

  “I’m serious, Jesse!” It was a cry of dismay that forced him out of the chair to come sit beside her. He reached out to put an arm around her hunched shoulders—

  “Don’t touch me!” She cringed away.

  He yanked his arm back in shock. Jesse knew his jaw was down, but he couldn’t do anything about it. All he wanted to do was touch Hannah Tucker. Hold her close. For as long as she’d let him.

  “What happens if we touch, Jesse? What if we make love? Do we knock a jet out of the sky next time? This is scaring the shit out of me!”

  “So this isn’t about me?”

  “Why do men always think it’s about them?” Hannah glared at the ceiling. Then she sighed. “I really, really liked kissing you, Jesse. But this whole sonic thing… I was a much happier woman before you told me about it.”

  Jesse suspected that he might be much happier as well. At least at the present moment. But ending up dead was probably their only other option. They wouldn’t have escaped the first flashlight beam sweeping across them without her gift. He’d probably have been taken hostage or, more likely, killed while the world was still hanging upside down if not for her. Now he’d turned her world upside down.

  They sat on the bunk, with just inches between them. She’d planted her elbows on her knees. Her beautiful, light blonde hair hid her face. He had to catch himself before he reached out to play with the ends of it.

  She needed answers.

  If only he had some.

  “Go shower.”

  “That solves anything?”

  “Well, I’d make some comment about how long you been growing ripe in the field, Hannah, but I’d be lying. You smell like heaven to me. Just go wash up.”

  “I don’t have anything to change into.”

  “I’ll go find you a fresh change of clothes somewhere. While you get naked in the shower,” Jesse sighed. “Alone. Being noble sucks, just so you know.” He had a hand on the doorknob before she spoke again.

  “You think there’s an answer to this?”

  “Got to be, Hannah. We’ll find it.”

  “Good. Because I wasn’t joking before about what I’d like us to do together.”

  He couldn’t turn around or they would be doing it, and knocking jets out of the sky be damned.

  Jesse opened the door and the colonel standing there almost knocked on Jesse’s face.

  “Excuse me. I was looking for Master Sergeant Tucker.”

  Hannah looked up at the familiar voice. Her commanding officer was standing opposite Jesse, his fist still raised in midair.

  His gaze traveled past Jesse and found her.

  She managed to reach her feet without collapsing. This didn’t look good in any fashion. She tried on her best salute, which in her current state, wasn’t much of one.

  “Colonel Gregorio.”

  He saluted back, “Master Sergeant.” He shifted his attention back to Jesse, who was even taller than her CO.

  “Chief Warrant 3 Jesse Johnson,” Jesse saluted.

  “Chief,” Gregorio nodded a terse greeting. Then asked her, “May I come in?”

  Jesse glanced to her for permission. At her nod, he stepped aside. He probably didn’t know what he was taking on by offering to face down a Delta Force colonel, but she wouldn’t put it past Jesse to try if she asked him to. Again, he wasn’t like any man in her past.

  With the two men in the tiny room, it suddenly felt very crowded.

  He’d been Major John Gregorio when she’d first joined the teams. He’d been her champion since the first day. Delta assigned women for deep-cover ops when it was easier for a team to blend in as a couple. But solo recon had remained in the men’s world—until she’d come along.

  Unlike SEAL Team 6, Delta was based on small teams operating with a high degree of autonomy. Occasionally even carrying out solo reconnaissance. It was the rare operator who had the skill set for those types of missions and they were in high demand. Hannah had proved to Major Gregorio that she was the perfect solo operator. A loner by nature, more comfortable outdoors than in, with all of the skills demanded of a solo operator—not just a shooter or tracker or breacher, but all three and more. Now as a Delta Force colonel, he’d come to rely on her skills and her stealth.

  She glanced at Jesse, but he was keeping his expression carefully bland as he closed the door, remaining rather than departing. He didn’t shrink in size, the way most men seemed to around Gregorio. He appeared to grow bigger and stronger.

  Maybe there was a man who could take on a Delta colonel, even though there was no need.

  “What can I do for you, Colonel?”

  “Sit down before you fall down, Tucker.”

  “Yes, sir,” she dropped onto the bunk and it took everything she had to not keep going and simply collapse onto the pillow.
She’d long since lost track of the last time she’d slept. One of the main drawbacks to operating solo—you had to stand both watches to not miss anything and to stay safe.

  Gregorio sat at the desk chair, and only cocked a questioning eyebrow when Jesse came to sit beside her.

  “You the pilot who hauled her out?”

  “It was more of a team effort, Colonel.”

  Gregorio nodded.

  Hannah waited.

  Gregorio waited too. He didn’t generally like talking in front of strangers.

  At the moment, she didn’t give a damn.

  Jesse’s politeness broke first. “Perhaps I should go.”

  He was partway to his feet when Hannah placed a hand on his arm to stop him. He looked down at her with those sky-blue eyes she’d had no chance to appreciate last night… Only last night?

  She shook her head infinitesimally, begging him not to go.

  He settled again, then looked down at her hand on his forearm.

  Hannah snatched her hand back.

  She could see Gregorio making the straight-ahead assessment of the situation, but he was totally wrong.

  If it had only been about sex, she’d have merely been embarrassed. Maybe not even that. She wasn’t above telling the colonel that he could stay the hell out of her personal life.

  This time, she was just glad that she hadn’t sunk the aircraft carrier.

  Jesse kept his mouth shut as Gregorio started questioning Hannah.

  “I reviewed the transcripts of both of your debriefings on my flight down.” Which meant that a bird colonel had traveled a long way just to speak with Hannah; probably receiving live updates on the debrief while in transit. He then began asking nuanced questions that Jesse could see Hannah struggling to answer.

  It wasn’t because of her exhaustion. These were the deep-level questions that any typical debrief would probably miss. He didn’t bother with the mundane topics such as enemy strength or lessons learned. He went down another level, way past the merely tactical and deep into the strategic.

  Jesse’s awe of Hannah grew as she reached down and unearthed answers.

  Assessment of NERC reactive abilities against different size and style of strike forces?

  Locals’ leanings and concerns regarding the NERC presence—would they protect the guerillas from fear or loyalty? Or bribery? Or betray them if given half a chance?

  What changes had she noticed in operation or training patterns from their former FARC group profiles? Might these new renegade and splinter groups combine forces, or fracture further? Founded on political ideals, the FARC revolutionary army had become very comfortable with the financing possible through drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom. The NERC were now the traffickers with only marginal attention to the political rhetoric. They would be loath to give up these lucrative ventures for any reason.

  The questions went on until she was weaving.

  “Enough already,” Jesse leaned in to stop the process.

  The colonel met his glare blandly for a long moment. Maybe it wasn’t too late to recall that the colonel outranked him by approximately forty-three pay grades and could squash him like a horsefly, even if he was in a different command. They were both US Army Special Operations.

  “Okay,” Gregorio nodded as calmly as he’d done everything else, without a flicker of emotion. “I have one more question, then I’ll go.”

  Jesse waited.

  Hannah looked almost blurred past recognizing with exhaustion.

  “I also read the debrief by the extraction team. They report a sound that they could only equate to a sonic boom. It drew their attention back to your position on the river. There is no evidence of any other aircraft, of any type, in the area. The sound was not monitored as directional, or arriving or departing the area. No light or other explosive indications were observed. Neither of your reports reflected this. Comments?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Hannah shook her head several times. “Not a thing.”

  Jesse judged that she was being a little too emphatic in her denial to quite be believed—even though he himself knew it was true; she couldn’t hear what she did. He kept his own mouth shut rather than lying to a superior officer.

  After another of his long silences, the colonel stood.

  He saluted them both. “Sergeant Tucker. Chief Johnson. Damn fine work. Glad you both made it out intact.”

  They both saluted back even though the colonel indicated they should remain sitting. It was just as well, he doubted if Hannah could stand.

  “Chief, I hear that you’re on temporary leave.”

  “Yes sir. Standard practice after loss of an aircraft. Time for full processing of the report, acquisition of a new bird, and it gives the pilot’s nerves time to settle as a ‘best safety practices’ consideration.”

  Colonel Gregorio nodded, because of course he knew all that. “You hail from San Antonio.”

  It wasn’t a question, so Jesse didn’t bother answering.

  “You’ve got a flight booked to go home.”

  Again Jesse saw no point in repeating things that Hannah’s CO already knew.

  The colonel eyed Hannah carefully for a long moment.

  Jess saw that she was asleep sitting up. He rose and eased her down to the pillow, lifting her legs onto the bed.

  Not a twitch. She was all the way out between one breath and the next.

  Then he stood, facing the colonel, and waited.

  “I’m dropping her from light duty to leave status as well. What she did in that jungle for three weeks was as impressive as hell.”

  Three weeks? He’d been tapped out after one night. He looked down at the slip of a pretty blonde asleep on her bunk and just couldn’t equate the deed with the woman.

  “I could have sent in a full squadron and not learned as much. See if you can talk her into going to San Antonio with you.”

  That was about the last thing he’d ever expected to hear from the stern colonel.

  He moved to the door and rested his hand on the handle, but didn’t open it.

  “This is important. There are things I’m not supposed to talk about. But while you’re in San Antonio, have her look up a former Delta by the name of Mark Halloran. Better yet, Faith Wilding.”

  “The author?” One of his favorites and he had no idea she was a Heart of Texas girl—because the best of Texas was San Antonio, not some Podunk town like Brady in the geographic center. She’d started a new military thriller series that was a riveting read and sexy as hell. Married to a Delta, no wonder she wrote the way she did.

  “That’s the one. Faith Halloran now, except on her book covers. They’re both local.”

  Jesse let his silence ask why.

  “She didn’t hear a thing?”

  And suddenly the conversation took on a whole new meaning. The colonel knew something that neither he nor Hannah did. Even understood why he hadn’t spoken: to both defend Hannah and not lie at the same time.

  “No, sir. Not a thing.”

  Colonel Gregorio stared at him for a long moment, then nodded to accept Jesse keeping her secret.

  “Hannah Tucker has a need of home, Chief Johnson. A bad need that she’ll never acknowledge. However, you do anything to mess up my best field operative, you’ll have me to answer to. Are we clear?”

  Jesse hadn’t found many officers who could deliver a threat and make it sound real. Drill sergeants had whupped that out of him back in Basic Training.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered carefully. He didn’t salute, because the colonel’s question had nothing to do with the military.

  And he didn’t doubt the unspoken threat for a single instant.

  4

  “Tell me what I’m doing here again?”

  “Beats me. Either it’s because of your colonel’s orders or because you’re crazy about me.”

  “Must be the colonel’s orders,” because Hannah wasn’t going to admit that she could be getting crazy about a tall cowbo
y after less than two days.

  She stared out the rental car’s window. They’d left behind the congested area around San Antonio International Airport, heading northeast into the countryside. She missed the thick green forests of home, though not enough to ever go back. Even the NERC-infested jungle was more familiar than the open Texas prairie. Though this did look to be much more peaceful.

  The view out the window was as perplexing as the man taking her there. The man-made skyscraper landscape of downtown San Antonio had given way to suburbs and then a softly rolling terrain that invited the eye and left her wondering what lurked down in each little holler. Trees dotted the broad grasslands, only occasionally clumping together into a copse. No forests here, but it was welcoming nonetheless. The grasslands were divided by barbed wire fences, with some split rail and plank fences near the homes. Horses and cattle grazed in lush pastures near low wooden barns and single-level ranch houses.

  She turned to the view inside the car.

  Looking at his profile, there was no imagining the warrior that experience had taught her lived there. He was the handsome sidekick, the boy next door—not the Night Stalker warrior who shot a man dead for wearing his hat, which was now tucked gently between the dashboard and the windshield. On the boat, he had helped her finish off the guerillas and dumped their bodies over the side without a moment’s hesitation while she was figuring out how to drive the thing.

  There was also no sign of the man who had decided it was his duty to take care of her. Though that was a little easier to imagine. He’d woken her in time for their flight off the carrier, even left enough time for her to shower. While she slept, he’d scared up a kit for her, one that included a fresh change of clothes. Seven hours’ sleep on the carrier and six more on the flight hadn’t been enough to make up for the multi-day deficit. Even so, he’d made sure she was as comfortable as possible on the flight from the carrier, through Bogota, and on to Texas.

  A considerate man. She’d even seen him discreetly slipping some protection out of his duffle and into his pocket, just in case. A careful man as well.