WARRIOR (CROSSFIRE SEALS, #5) (8 page)

Sean Cortez sat across from her, long legs stretched out. The light from his tablet illuminated his face, making his watchful dark eyes gleam. Kit wished she had half his energy—the man was seemingly indefatigable, always up and about interviewing people, making plans for clandestine meetings and taping reports for the news service for which they worked. She was determined to copy his non-stop pace, even though almost everyone on the team had assured her she wasn’t the only one having a tough time keeping up with Sean and that he didn’t expect them to follow his schedule.

Other than talking to the man on the other side of the camera when she was in the States, she’d never met the celebrated road journalist in person before. Face-to-face, he was just as she’d imagined—bigger than life, intense about his work, and a demanding teammate. She’d applied to be on his team this time as part of her expanded work load precisely because of his focus and passion about his projects. Working on his team would teach her a lot more about international field work as a journalist.

So far, he’d kept her busy reading up on the Afghan-Pakistan border and its history and people. When they had a few spare moments, he’d quizzed her knowledge, always pointing out her wrong assumptions about people and culture. So much so that now, every time he asked her anything, she would give his question detailed consideration before replying.

“As in how am I at this moment?” she asked. “Or, how am I doing at my new job? Or, how am I doing in a general life sort of way?”

He laughed quietly. “You have a different answer for all three conditions?”

“Of course. Unless you just want the standard ‘I’m fine, thank you’ reply but then why ask in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“Right. So, should I reply for you myself or are you going to answer me?”

Kit looked down at her tablet. Some men were so prickly. No sense of humor at all. Not like Lucas Branson, who made her laugh so much for three days.

I miss Cupcake.

That line made her want to giggle again. What a ridiculous nickname. Besides, that was the name
she
used on him; somehow, it’d ended up being hers. Of course, how did one top Cucumber as a nickname? Well, she too could be short and sweet.

She typed: “
I miss Cucumber
” and hit send, then looked up at the man still studying and patiently waiting for her to say something.

“At this moment,” she said, “I’m just chilling. As for my new job, I think I’m doing quite well, getting the hang of working in a culture where women are second-class citizens. As for my general well-being, I don’t think it’s of any interest to you. Satisfied?”

“Of course your general well-being is of interest to me,” Sean said. He looked down, frowned and tapped on his tablet. His attention still on his screen, he murmured, “If it weren’t, I wouldn’t ask. You seemed so at ease with your new responsibilities. I’m very impressed with your prep work and the way you handled talking with the locals.”

Surprised, she stopped checking her Inbox. From just a few weeks with him 24/7, she knew praise coming from Sean Cortez was a rare thing. “Thanks,” she said.

“You told me when we started you wanted to learn about international field work. Are you ready to dip your foot in the water?”

“I thought that’s what I’ve been doing.” Part of her job had been scouting where the women folk gathered and seeing who indicated an interest in talking to the journalists.

“We’ll be out of the Swat Valley district tomorrow. There won’t be much contact with the locals because they’re more traditional in the mountains, especially with foreigners. Do you know why I picked you as part of the team? Besides your excellent resume and ability to communicate as a public info officer, of course.”

Her tablet was buzzing. That was quick. Lucas was sending a private message.

“I’m not as dumb as you think. You picked me because of my looks.” Kit grinned. “That came out wrong.”

Sean smiled back, amusement stamped on his face. “I think you like to tease, Kit.” He shifted in his seat. “But you’re right. You blend in with the locals, especially when you wear their clothes, and I wanted to take advantage of...your looks.”

“Ha. Knew it.” No doubt about it, because of her mixed Asian facial features, she had been able to get the Pashtun women to feel comfortable enough to talk to her through a female interpreter. She glanced down at her tablet again.

I can’t talk tonite. Debriefing. Not that kind.

She quickly typed back.
Aw. I’m not dirty-minded like you. I can’t talk either. No Internet soon. On field work. Will you text me soon?

Doing anything interesting?

They couldn’t talk much about their work, especially him, so everything was always vague.

I’m flirting with my team top guy. What about you? Anything interesting to report?

Someone soaped my back.

Oooh. You win. I hope to do that to your back one day soon.

Keep that thought, Cupcake. Got to go.

TTYL.

Kit signed off, feeling satisfied she got to talk to Lucas. Wherever he was, he had been busy, doing what SEALs do. It’d been almost a week since they last had a chat. She missed their quick back and forth texts. They had even Skyped a couple of times so they could have longer conversations, which tended to become hot and heavy after a while. Their mutual attraction hadn’t dissipated at all. A smile from him, even from a laptop image, would brighten her day. It was scary and exciting to feel this way about someone again.

“That’s not a smile about work, I bet,” Sean said dryly.

Kit looked up, startled. She’d totally forgotten about him.

“Sorry. I was multi-tasking, doing last minute stuff since I’m sure we won’t be able to find a wireless hotspot out in the countryside.”

Sean pointed to his tablet. “Same here. Were you talking to your boyfriend?”

Kit frowned. Boyfriend? Lucas and she were...what were they? Somewhere between friends and lovers. Or maybe more. She would like them to be more.

“Just a friend,” she replied instead. “And also emailing my mom. She’s a bit protective and if I don’t tell her I’d be incommunicado for a few days, she’d be sending a hunting party.”

Sean chuckled. “It’d be tough to look for you in these mountains. Swat Valley is a beautiful touristy place but the mountains, it’s a different story. Your mom would need a different kind of hunting men out there.”

Yeah, like my brother. He’s a—
and she grinned because Lucas’ voice came to her mind loud and clear—
fucking Airborne Ranger.
Oh, she was in so much trouble. That man was haunting her thoughts.

“You haven’t met my Mom. She’s very tiny but she always gets things done her way. The men in my family fear her wrath.” She laughed. Her mother was so typically cliché Chinese dragon lady, she suspected it was mostly an act. “She’s very good at wheedling information out of my brothers and me.”

“So you got that from her.”

Kit looked at Sean again in surprise. “Hey, full of compliments tonight. I’ll take it, Mr. Cortez.” She cocked her head. “Now, tell me what information you’re wanting me to try to get.”

Sean leaned forward and beckoned her to do the same so he could lower his voice even more. Curious, she did so.

“The teenager we’re going to meet with tomorrow—Minah—I need you to ask her about her groom, or rather, groom-to-be.”

“The interview would cover that, right?” Kit asked. Because of an opportunity presented by one of Sean’s sources, they’d decided to include
swara
, the custom of giving away a girl as payment for an offense in their investigative report on the recent killing of a famous Pashtun singer by traditionalists. “We have the names. What else?”

“The name interests me. I need you to delve deeper into the crime committed by her family against the groom.”

“Okay.”

“Go beyond what she’s going to tell you. I want more information about the groom, his clan, his whereabouts.”

“How would we connect our feature on the murdered singer with his background?” The Pashtun woman, popular among the city and country folks, and her father were gunned down. “I know her death was an assassination ordered by her former husband, who, from my interviews with the women, made me understand he’d felt humiliated and needed to restore his honor.”

That was why they were going to meet with this young girl, who, reportedly, had just been given away to an older man to restore family honor. They were going to weave the themes together as part of the investigation. The plan was to tie both stories to show how marriages were arranged and their consequences to the women involved.

“Latifah’s death might have been officially attributed to her husband. Although there’s no proof, I have reasons to believe the murder had Taliban-connected elements and I want to look at it from another angle.”

Whoa. “That would change the focus of our investigation.”

Sean shrugged. “I’ve changed my mind before. My sources told me this young girl’s husband, or whatever you want to call him, has radical connections. Some kind of middleman for the warlords and that he has many other side-dealings that had to do with all the skirmishes in the war zone.”

“But what about the women’s plight?” That was Kit’s main reason she had wanted to be on this team, for this particular project. The subject matter was different from the usual political topics. “What about Latifah’s story? And all the other women’s stories that I’ve gathered?”

Sean eyed her quizzically for a second and leaned over so close, his breath was hot against her ear. “You can have total control of that part of the report, if you get me the information I want from our girl tomorrow.”

Then he straightened back up and sat back against his seat, eyeing her contemplatively. Kit stared back at him, not at all sure what this all meant.

“Sleep on it,” he continued. He turned his attention back to his tablet and tapped a few times. “We have time.”

From then on, he appeared to be immersed in his work and Kit didn’t feel like asking more questions in loud whispers. The two interpreters were sleeping in the far end of the van, where they had arranged their sleeping bags over the longer seats. The cameraman and photographer were sitting in front with their guide. She could hear the murmurs, indicating they were still awake. Their own quiet conversation was a normal thing for the others because they had to conduct many of their meetings this way. Once they were out of the more touristy areas, being seen together in public too much would only invite trouble since none of them were married to each other, nor did they have any chaperones. All they had were international guides who arranged their meetings and were expected to sit in as “chaperones.” So when necessary, they had mostly used their laptops and cameras as a way to hold their more private get-togethers about details they had gathered, but that still hadn’t felt secure enough.

In the morning, they would be exchanging vehicles, going in two, rather than one, so as not to offend the Pashtun elders who were at the camps set up by the Red Cross and international peace organizations for displaced Pashtuns. These people were without homes due to the many bloody skirmishes in the region. Kit and her team’s plan was for the men to stay in the male side of the camp and take photographs while she and the female interpreter met with the women bringing the young girl. They were told there was a small building where they could set up a formal interview too.

Kit got up, pulling out a small pillow from her rucksack. She made herself as comfortable as she could. Letting her mind wander as she relaxed into sleep, it went to her favorite topic of fantasy these days—Lucas Branson. She wondered where he was—must be somewhere civilized, since he mentioned soap. Of course, he could have been lying. Sleepily, she hoped he was just kidding about someone soaping his back since that would mean a woman was around to do that. She didn’t think he would let Mink or Dirk soap his back. She grinned in the dark at that image. Now, that would be a great blackmail photo for Lulu.

In spite of the challenges of being in a long distance relationship, she and Lucas had grown to know quite a bit about each other. They’d planned on meeting again as soon as he was able to take a few days off and this time, they were going to spend some private time without their gang of friends. She looked forward to that a lot. It was crazy, but she missed touching him.

She’d learned quite a bit more about him through their communication too. He always asked her what she was doing at that moment. When she’d asked why, the answer was, as usual, simple and direct.

Want to see you in my head, especially doing something normal.

Why?
She’d asked again.

It relaxes me after a day of shooting at someone.

Kit yawned, letting go of consciousness with a final thought. Whatever would he think if he knew she was in Afghanistan among government insurgents and mountain warlords? He wouldn’t be so relaxed then, she would bet.

––––––––

L
ucas looked around. The war room was crowded, with two teams coming in—four or five actually, if one counted the contract agents—and seemed more so once the large screen filled up with the bigger-than-life video feed of Admiral Madison. There were only two women in the room—termed contract operatives over here, since some of the men weren’t familiar with them. Amber Hutchens and Vivi Verreau-Zeringue, members of the Joint Task Force which Admiral Madison had formed some time ago to get better Intel for his SEALs, were there. Ever since compromised Intel from the CIA had caused a SEAL squad to be killed in action, the admiral had taken to working with even more underground networks.

The move had paid off, netting Dragan Dilaver, the one responsible for the SEAL deaths, among other international crimes, with the help of Amber Hutchens. She was what Lucas would term, one hot chica. And she was also Hawk’s fiancée. His team commander had met her during the Dilaver operation and had fallen in love.

Not only beautiful, but one hell of a fighter too. Lucas recalled when the team had learned how she’d saved Hawk’s life all by herself, with a big bag of weapons and some grenades. Right now, she was bent over helping the tech get the live feed to work properly, giving the roomful of appreciative male eyes a nice view of...Lucas looked away, pulling a chair out, and nodding at Mink and Dirk to join in. They were gazing raptly at Miss Hutchens too and he gave them a meaningful look. They shrugged and came over. Okay, so it wasn’t politically correct to check out any women in the war room, especially one his own commander was about to marry, but thank the Lord for hot and capable women, anyway.