3
Tess watched the soldier palpate gaps in the ceiling. His brain better be as honed as his body, because she sure wasn’t seeing a way out.
Damn straight he was a pretty boy—or would have been, once. Caramel-colored hair blended with his tan, and his grim expression made his cheekbones look sculpted, his defined lips determined and his jaw even squarer. His narrowed eyes were pale—blue or maybe green. And still his face nagged at her memory, like meeting a guy you hadn’t seen since junior high and searching his features for the boy you remembered.
But the stubble, the crooked nose, the lines dug out between his eyes, the sun-worn skin... He was rough and a little frayed, too. And there’d been nothing delicate about the solid body pressed against hers last night. Just the thought... Whoa.
Hell, she didn’t even know the name of the guy who’d lulled her into her first proper, blessed sleep in nearly a week. Evidently it’d once been stenciled on his chest pocket but only a few faded strokes remained. An F? Or an E?
“What’s your name, soldier?”
A pause. “Flynn.”
“That doesn’t sound very French.”
He tugged at a board, acting like he hadn’t heard. It shifted, and dirt showered him. He was hiding something, for sure. Debts? Petty crimes? Recruits to the legion could change their names—was it the same for native officers, if he even was French? His French accent sounded kosher but she’d have sworn his Australian accent was authentic, too. Beaut, he’d said last night. Did anyone but Australians say that? Wouldn’t his native language be more likely to slip out in a drugged daze? And he’d said bloody hell—the French didn’t say that. Any minute, the neurons would connect, telling her where she knew him from. Something told her it wasn’t her visit to the French base—it went further into the past, to somewhere unexpected, somewhere dark. Damn, that was annoying. When she’d taken her first good look at his face, a frisson of danger had crawled up her spine—her subconscious issuing a warning? Why?
“Flynn who?”
“Does it matter?” His gaze was locked on the ceiling.
Well, hey, if he was a mystery, he was a welcome one. She froze. Unless he’d been planted down here to extract information. Crap. Al-Thawra had a rainbow of nationalities. Was he pretending to be a French soldier to earn her trust? That could explain the erratic accent and her usually reliable instinct pricking up.
Maybe Hamid was still trying to figure out if Tess had a copy of her dossier—using a carrot this time, rather than a pair of pliers? Tess chewed her lip. She’d know from the emails, as carefully worded as they were, that Tess hadn’t had a chance to get the evidence to Quan in Addis Ababa, and she hadn’t risked storing it online. Thank God caution had stopped her short of mentioning the backup of the dossier to Flynn—if that was his name. Could he be here to stage a bust-out so she’d lead him to it?
No. She was going loco. Too much time alone, locked in her head. If he got her above ground, at least she’d have options. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to do what she did best—prod him for information, push him a little, see if he slipped up. A wee game. Hey, she didn’t have anything else to do.
“Do you have a big family in Corsica?” she said.
He stiffened. “No.”
She waited, but he offered nothing more. Could be a good sign. In her vast experience with liars, they usually spoke too much, not too little.
“Did you grow up there?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just making conversation.”
“How about we focus on the task at hand? You’ll have the rest of your long life to make meaningless small talk.”
“Humor me. I’ve had no one to talk to for six days—and days last a mighty long time down here.”
“Fine. You want to talk, let’s talk about you. Where are you from?” He didn’t even pretend a genuine interest. Though if his French accent was faked, too, why did his words roll over her skin like velvet?
“The States,” she said, with a sly smile.
“Well, yeah. I meant...” He met her eye, then looked away. She detected a faint curse—called out on his own caginess. He crouched beside a wall and began examining it. “You know what I meant.”
Ah, what the heck. It was all on the internet. “I’m based in New York when I’m in the States, which isn’t often.”
“Where are you mostly?”
“I live in Addis Ababa, not that I’m there often, either. I cover Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan... So I’m mostly on the road.”
He was silent a few seconds, regarding her with raised eyebrows. “Wow, you didn’t land the cushy job. Did you piss off your bosses?”
She laughed. “I begged to be posted here.”
“What are you running away from?”
“Nothing. I like it here.”
He returned focus to the wall. “Where did you grow up?”
“Fort Bragg, mostly, though we moved around.”
“The army base?”
“That’s the one. My mom and brothers are still headquartered there.” She swallowed. And her mom had just become an al-Thawra target, too. Your other whistle-blower will soon meet the same fate as the first. Nice and tidy. Was Hamid bluffing? Tess could only hope Lieutenant Colonel Newell was one step ahead of Hamid—it was her job to know what people were thinking before they thought it, to outmaneuver them before they took a step. Which had sucked when Tess was a teenager, but now...
“You’re an army brat.” He ran his hands down the padded straps of her bag, frowning. “That ain’t gonna work,” he muttered.
“What isn’t?”
He fished around in the bag, emerging with a small rolled bandage. “Fort Bragg. That’s in the South, oui?”
“North Carolina, yeah.”
“You don’t sound Southern.”
“My accent comes and goes, a little like yours.”
“We did a joint exercise off Hawaii with some guys from there,” he said, his voice tight, evidently ignoring her dig. “Stevens, Porter, Luiz... Know them?”
Common enough surnames and it was a big base. Lucky guess?
“Mauricio Luiz?” she said.
He unwrapped the bandage and snapped it taut. It ripped. He swore. “Sounds right.”
“Blond guy?”
He looked at her sideways. “With a name like that? Nah, Colombian or something. Short guy, burn scar across his neck, tattoo
