by Vicki Hinze
“Ah.” They walked over toward the building. The majority of the parked vehicles were Jeeps and trucks, which seemed prudent considering the U.S. side of the crossing station was fairly isolated. A bus sat with its engine humming about 300 yards inside the U.S. border, accepting passengers who had walked over. They most probably worked in or near Devil’s Pass, the small town that had sprung up about ten miles north. There was literally nothing between the station and it but dry, cracked land, dirt and the occasional cactus that was too stubborn to die.
“Ready to meet Wexler?” Ben rounded the rear of a blue Trailblazer.
“As ready as I’m going to get.” She fell into step beside him outside the cinder-block building, swearing her knees weren’t knocking out of fear; the ground was uneven. You can do this, Darcy. You must do this.
When she walked through the door, a cold blast from the air-conditioner slapped her in the face. Welcoming it, she inhaled deeply. A water fountain was near the door, white tile on the floor, whitewashed walls, directives pinned up on bulletin boards everywhere. Two small offices stood off to the right. The first had a sign on the door that read, Private. The second door’s sign read, Station Chief. Darcy assumed the blond guy in his mid-forties sitting behind the desk was Lucas Wexler. There was nothing remarkable or memorable about his face, which seemed to be a GRID requirement in recruits. Definitely a pattern there.
“I’ll tell him you’re here,” Ben said from beside her. “Be careful around him, Darcy. He plays the devoted husband, but he hits on anything female. Not sticking my nose in your business, just preparing you, though I’m sure you’ve been hit on enough times to recognize the signs.”
Protective. She could kill a man in a dozen ways without putting herself at risk and Ben knew it. Yet he was still protective of her. Charming. Darcy’s heart skipped a beat, then thudded against her chest wall. “Hasn’t happened lately,” she confessed, “but I remember.” She followed Ben over to Wexler’s office and paused outside the door.
Ben stuck in his head. “Burns’s replacement is here.”
Wexler looked up from a report he was reading and saw Darcy. Surprise lighted his eyes and he slowed his gaze, giving her a leering once-over that totally ticked her off.
“Well, hi there.” Wexler stood up. “You must be Darcy.”
“Agent Darcy Clark,” she said, holding her ground outside the door.
“Come in, come in.” He sat back down. “Thanks, Ben.”
Summarily dismissed, Ben reluctantly walked away. Darcy understood that. Ben didn’t like leaving her alone with Wexler for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was saving his own neck. She wasn’t yet steady on her feet, and Ben knew it. He had to be worried. What if she hyper-stimulated and had an attack coming out of the gate?
“I’m glad you’re here,” Wexler said. “I was afraid it’d take a couple weeks to get a replacement for Burns.” Wexler grinned and seemed innocent enough until she met his eyes. In them, she saw a predator’s gleam. He launched into a briefing on his policies and procedures.
Darcy’s stomach clutched and her anxiety level spiked. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Ben through the glass wall. He’d noticed Wexler’s once over and, gauging by his expression, was clearly irked. He grabbed a glass of water and plopped down at his desk near the window, where she supposed he caught about every third word of Wexler’s lecture on how he ran his station.
A little brown book half-stuffed into Wexler’s desk drawer snagged her attention. It wouldn’t have, but all through Wexler’s diatribe, he kept cutting his gaze to it. The repetition caught her attention. Later, she’d need to take a look at it.
Finally, a full ten minutes later, he finished. Her nerves were fairly frayed. The noise level outside the office hadn’t knocked her off balance so much as the bull being slung inside. But she’d observed plenty in addition to the brown book. Wexler was affable, relaxed, a good old boy who kept his proverbial nose clean and spent more time chasing women than keeping up with his duties as station chief. That too made him a prime target for GRID.
“You sure you got all that, Darcy?” He searched her face. “You look a little pale.”
She felt a half step from hitting the floor. Her stomach was churning, her head foggy and she felt clammy all over. “I’m fine, Lucas. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry. I know it’s a lot to remember, and you’re not expected to nail it all down now.”
Tossing aside the extraneous material, she had two minutes of essentials. Even without total recall, it wouldn’t have been a problem. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She stood up.
Wexler dragged a hand through his hair, preening. His left hand was bare, but the telltale circle of white skin was all too apparent. The jerk had taken off his wedding ring. “If you have any questions, my door is always open.”
“Thank you,” she said then left his office and moved to her assigned desk. Ben was sitting at it. “Um, I’m supposed to be here.”
“Take the desk behind me,” he said. “It’s less noisy.” It would be. It sat nestled between the two offices, which acted as a decent sound barrier. “Thanks.” Perusing a stack of reports, Ben didn’t look up. “Did I hear you call him Lucas?” A muscle in his jaw ticked.
What was he angry about? “That’s what he said to call him.”
“Wedding ring was off, right?”
“Got it in one.”
“Scum.”
“That’d be a fair assessment in my opinion,” she said before thinking.
Ben looked up at her then. Their gazes met, and he smiled.
Wexler left his office. “I’ll be back in about an hour.” When the door closed behind him, Darcy checked to make sure no one else was around. Mindful of the camera in the corner of the room, which recorded every word and action, she schooled her expression. “Ben, would you please show me one of the traffic stalls?” She lifted a sheaf of papers. They crackled. “Regional is asking questions on this monthly report I can’t answer without the nickel tour.”
“Sure.” If he was perplexed, he didn’t show it, just stood up and came around his desk.
Darcy walked to one of the booths with him, looked around, and then stepped outside. When they were in a “dead zone” for the monitoring equipment—far enough away from the stalls but not close enough to the building to be recorded—she asked, “What’s this brown book of Wexler’s?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen it,” Ben said, “but anytime I get close to him, he stashes it.”
He’d done the same thing with her. “I need to get a look at it.”
“How? He’s got it with him all the time.”
“We’ll figure out something. It needs to be soon.” The proverbial clock was ticking. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The old axiom ran through her mind and she fleetingly wondered who’d first said it. Regardless, it was wise then, and it was wise now. “He’s protecting that book, Ben. The prospect of anyone discovering its contents scares him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Hypersensitive to input, remember?” She stepped closer, dragged a fingertip down Ben’s face from his temple to his jaw, following a trickle of sweat. “His body language is a dead giveaway.”
His breath caught. “Okay.” He frowned and tilted his head. “For the record, is this touch personal or another test?”
She looked up at him. “Does it feel personal?”
He hesitated, swallowed hard and let out a huff of breath. “Yeah, it does.”
“Then it probably is.” She shrugged, stepped away and walked back inside the building.
That afternoon around three, Wexler walked out of his office and stopped between Darcy’s and Ben’s desks. “Ben,” he said. “I’m changing the schedule to take nights for a while.”
“Nights?” Ben didn’t bother to hide his surprise.
“Yeah.” His eyes shifted. “Elizabeth is nagging me to go to the opera on Thursday. I can’t get out of it unless I�
��m working, so I’m working.” He shrugged, and then turned to Darcy. “Here’s your cell phone. Keep your calls limited to work or I’ll get chewed by Regional.”
He didn’t say it, but his expression warned her that if he got chewed, so would she. “No problem.”
Nodding, he started to walk away, stopped and turned back to her. “Darcy, what are you doing after work?”
“Nothing.” Her nerves stretched tight. He was going to move on her.
“Why don’t you meet me after at the Oasis after your shift? It’s a local bar, just on the edge of town.” He smiled. “I’d like to buy you a margarita to say thanks for helping us out in a pinch.”
Right. Sure you would, you jerk. “Love to, Lucas.” She smiled at the slime, pitying his poor wife, Elizabeth. How did she handle his flirtations?
“Great.” Wexler strutted out of the station and climbed into his dusty red truck. When he backed out of the parking slot and took off down the road to town, Ben stood up. “Darcy, would you come out to the stall with me? I forgot to show you how to reload the observation camera.”
“Sure.” She stepped around the desk and snagged her leg on a bent piece of metal stripping. It dug into her flesh. “Dang it.” She tore the sliced fabric away from the metal.
“Are you bleeding?”
“It’s nothing.” It wasn’t. So why was her heart beating ninety beats per second? Why did she have that clammy-all-over feeling again? And why did she have chills racing up and down her backbone as if someone had just walked on her grave?
You’re fine, Darcy. She walked outside.
Inside the stall, Ben reached up and opened a control panel on the observation camera. “You have to disengage the camera to change the tapes. The first thing you do is to get a new tape ready—so you minimize the length of time the camera is down.” He did that and then continued. “Next, you push this button right here to shut down the system to make the switch.” He pushed the button. The stall system shut down.
“Listen to me.” Though speaking freely, he still dropped his voice and spoke rapidly. “I put Wexler’s brown book in your car under the front seat. I snatched it while he was in the john.”
“He left without it?”
“Not exactly,” Ben said. “He left with a blank one I bought that looks just like it.”
Darcy frowned. “If he notices the difference—”
“If he opens it, we’re toast.” Ben nodded. “I know. But I had the chance, so I took it. You need to look it over, get to the Oasis and switch them back.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
He nodded. “And keep that cheat at arm’s length. He comes across cool and laid-back, but he’s got fangs and claws and he loves to use them.”
“I can handle myself, Ben.”
“Can you?”
There was no accusation in his tone, but there was uncertainty. She didn’t like it. Yet under the circumstances, she couldn’t complain. She felt more uncertainty than he possibly could. “Now, we’ve got to get back online.” He reached for the button to reactivate the system. “The new tape is in, the old one you label and file in media storage and we’re done.”
“Where’s media storage?” she asked.
“The office inside with the Private sign on the door.”
“Okay. Great.” She walked back to the building, grabbed her purse and rounded a corner to the front door. Beside it, someone had hung a poster for the July 4th Independence Festival being held in Town Square from 7:00 p.m. until midnight.
Darcy’s stomach flipped. Everyone for miles around would be at the Independence Festival, making it an easy mark for a secondary GRID attack—no doubt aided by Paco Santana and Wexler, though currently she had no hard proof of it, only Ben’s word.
What was his word worth?
She watched Ben walk back into the building, take a seat at his desk. Instinct told her he was honest. And his gaze was clear. The truth hit her like a physical blow. She trusted him.
When had that happened? How had it happened? She, who had been taught since raw-recruit training as an S.A.S.S. operative, never to trust anyone; she, who had avoided personal attachments—even interaction—with any man since the fire, trusted Ben Kelly implicitly.
Her head swam, her stomach revolted. Lights flashed colorful spots before her eyes and she broke out in a cold sweat.
In a near run, she slammed against the restroom door and barely made it into a stall before throwing up.
A mile from the station, Darcy pulled over and looked through the brown book. Every page was filled with numbers. Just numbers.
She thumbed through. Fifty pages, maybe more. She’d have to call it in to Maggie at Home Base on the way or she’d be late meeting Wexler.
Taking off, she pushed aside the phone Wexler had issued her and pulled out her own from her purse, then punched in the number for Home Base.
Nothing.
She checked the battery and tried again.
Still nothing.
Had to be in a dead zone, though there weren’t supposed to be any. Resigned, she opened the book to the first page and began reading the numbers. Fortunately, the dirt road leading from Los Casas to the Oasis was as straight and barren as it gets—no houses, no businesses, not even a road sign for over five miles. In long stretches, the trail was pitted with potholes so deep she feared the rented tan Jeep might fall in and not be able to get out of them, even with four-wheel drive. When she wasn’t rocking and rolling through potholes, she was stuck in ruts that’d keep a train on track. The potholes were a pain, but the ruts were helpful. Still, she could read a bit. About a mile out from the Oasis, she had covered nearly thirty pages of the book.
The sun hung low in the sky, streaking it pink and gold. Grateful for that sensory respite, she hooked a right into the Oasis parking lot and saw Ben’s Jeep. She pulled up alongside him. “I need help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can you keep Wexler busy for ten minutes? That’s all I need.”
“Sure.” Ben hooked his arms on her door at the window. “Why the delay?”
“Cell phone’s dead. I can’t call in my findings.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.” She stuck her thumb between the pages to hold her place. “It’s in numeric code.”
“How long is the thing?”
“About fifty pages.”
Shock stretched Ben’s eyes wide. “You’re going to remember the numeric sequences for fifty pages of code?”
“Yeah, if I can just read them once.” She sighed. “I told you, Ben. Perfect recall.”
“Yeah, but code?”
“Anything. Everything.” They were wasting time she didn’t have to waste. “Will you do it?”
“Sure.”
“Then go.” She shooed him. “Go.”
He turned toward the door. “You’re impressive, Darcy.”
“Not me, my memory. It’s not me.”
“It’s part of you,” he countered.
He had her there. “Okay.” She sighed. She couldn’t help it. “Go, before he comes out looking for me.”
She finished the book in short order, then exited the Jeep and went inside.
Dust filmed the darkened windows, but half-inch wide cracks let the weak sun slant inside across the wavy wooden floor. Red booths lined three walls and a long beautifully carved bar ran the length of the fourth. It looked totally out of place.
“Darcy.” Wexler stood up from the booth in the farthermost—and, naturally, the darkest—corner. “Over here.” He waved.
Totally predictable. She dusted the thigh of her navy uniform slacks and walked past a couple snuggling on the dance floor. At least the music was soft and low and not blaring, and there were only a handful of other people in the place. She could do this. She really could.
Forcing herself, she smiled and slid into the booth.
Wexler sat down, then yelled across the bar. “Hey, Mick.” He twirled his fingertip.
“Margaritas.”
“You got it, Wex.”
Apparently Wexler was a good customer.
Rubbing something beside his right leg, he leaned over, closer to her. “When Mick brings the drinks, tell him you like his bar.” Wexler pointed to the ornate fixture. “He got it out of a place down south and brought it back up here by mule. It’s his pride and joy.”
Darcy nodded, more than a little perplexed. If Wexler was being genuine, then he was also being thoughtful. If he wasn’t, he was softening her up. She wasn’t yet informed enough to take a bet on which would prove true, though she leaned toward the latter.
Two margaritas later, Wexler excused himself to go to the bathroom. The little brown book lay on the cracked red vinyl beside a patch job done with a strip of silver duct tape. Darcy checked the blank book’s exact positioning—this could be a test—then switched out the books, giving Wexler back his with the codes.
Double-checking, she nudged its placement to make sure she wasn’t a centimeter off the mark. If she’d had more time, she could have had Maggie or one of the other S.A.S.S. operatives prepare a duplicate book with altered number sequences.
Risky, and truthfully it was a fanciful idea Colonel Drake would never approve. She wanted Darcy to follow the supply line to get them all, including the GRID thugs and, Darcy hoped, Thomas Kunz.
Wexler returned to his seat, and Ben, who’d been sitting on a stool at the bar, put his money down to cover his tab. “Might see you later, Mick.”
Darcy stomached a flush of insecurity, and then one frustration-filled. He was leaving his options open to come back because he doubted her ability to handle this. She’d have laughed at that before the fire—dangerous missions had been her forte then. Missions with survival odds so slim they would have raised the hair on Ben Kelly’s neck and scared the sand out of him.
But that was before the fire. And she was not the operative now that she had been then. She wasn’t the woman now she had been then, either.
That had more frustration building inside her. And more fear.