Flashpoint (21 page)

He looked around—at Will Schroeder and Khalid, at the dozen or so other relief workers who were watching them, curiosity on their faces.

It was then that Tess saw something that looked an awful lot like realization flash in Jimmy’s eyes. Realization, along with a little bit of
Oh, crap, what have I done?

He laughed weakly, ran a hand—and she could have sworn it was shaking—through his hair, pushing it back, out of his eyes. “Well . . .”

“This is James Nash,” Tess announced as she went to get him something to drink before he suffered heatstroke. “My husband.”

She handed her water to Jimmy, who nearly emptied the bottle in one long swallow. Khalid was right there with more for him.

“Thanks,” Jimmy said.

The group had begun to disperse when it was clear he wasn’t some random madman off the street. But Will Schroeder and Khalid both remained nearby.

“Do you want to sit down?” Tess asked.

Jimmy shook his head. “No, I’m . . . Look, this is so stupid. I was . . .” He looked from Tess to Will and Khalid and back, and the smile he gave her was rueful. And terribly sweet. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but . . .”

Tess turned to Will and Khalid. “Will you give us a minute please?”

But Jimmy stopped them from moving out of earshot. “No, it’s okay. It’s just . . . I freaked out. I was across town and I started hearing these rumors about an explosion. And then people starting saying how some kid strapped TNT around his waist and walked into a relief aid station and blew himself up along with twenty people—all Westerners. And then I heard that it was here, in this same neighborhood that Khalid told me he was going to bring you to today, and . . .”

And he’d run, all the way here, to make sure she hadn’t been hurt. Tess’s heart was in her throat as she reached for him. “I’m okay.”

He held her tightly. “I know. I see. I’m”—his laughter was shaky—“a total fool.”

Will Schroeder was staring at them, openmouthed.

Jimmy ignored him as he pulled back to look at her. “I shouldn’t have let you go out without me. That’s not going to happen again. In fact, pack up your stuff. Khalid, get the wagon. We’re calling it a day.”

“It’s barely half past noon,” Tess protested. “We promised to stay for a six-hour shift.”

But Jimmy pulled her close again and spoke into her ear. “I need to contact Tom, stat.” More loudly, he said, “Our phones are out again, or I would’ve called you. I ran all that way, in this heat. . . .” He swayed. “Wow. Maybe I should sit down. . . .”

Tess wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Help me get him into the wagon,” she ordered Will. Her voice shook, and she hoped it came across as worry for Jimmy, rather than disappointment. This was all an act, a way to get her back to Rivka’s—to her computers.

And she’d actually thought . . .

Well, on the bright side, if she’d been fooled, everyone else surely had, too.

Jimmy’s knees gave out—he really was a brilliant actor—just after he was up and in the back of the wagon. Without Will’s help, and without Tess throwing all of her weight into keeping him from falling, he would have landed face-first on the wooden boards. As it was, it was quite a struggle to set him down gently. It somehow ended with Tess sitting in the wagon bed, with Jimmy’s head solidly in her lap, his eyes closed.

Khalid tossed her backpack in next to her and scrambled up onto the driver’s seat. He called out an order to his tired horse, some magic command to give the beast new life, and they lurched forward. Will had to jump back to keep the wheel from rolling over his foot.

“Thank you,” Tess called to him.

“I’ll see you,” he said.

“Yeah, he’ll be following you around in earnest now,” Jimmy murmured. His eyes were open, now, and when she looked down at him, he winked.
Winked,
damn it.

“No, he won’t, and when did we lose phones?” she asked instead of pulling back and letting his head bounce on the hard wood of the wagon bed, the way she wanted to. Khalid was still watching and listening.

“I don’t know when the system went down,” Jimmy told her. “All I know is that when I tried to use it, it kept cutting out.”

Tess leaned across him to reach her pack. Pulling it closer, she unzipped the side pocket that held her phone. She opened it and nothing happened.

Troubleshooting 101’s first rule was to always check the power button. Oops. It was off. She turned the phone on, and it immediately beeped.

“Mine’s still working,” she told him.

There was a message waiting, but Jimmy reached up and took her phone out of her hands. “Let me see that.”

“The signal’s not strong,” she said, “but the system’s definitely still up. Maybe you’ve got a hardware problem.”

He was pushing an array of buttons, clicking on the menu and . . . He handed it back to her.

“Aren’t you going to call Tom?” she asked. She looked at her phone. “Hey.” He’d deleted that message. “What if that was important?”

“It wasn’t,” Jimmy said. “I’m going to wait and send Tom email.” He looked pointedly up at Khalid and back. “Encrypted,” he mouthed silently.

“You didn’t even listen to it. How do you know . . .”
. . . it wasn’t important?
She figured it out before the words left her mouth.

He knew because he’d left that message. He’d called her when he’d heard those rumors about the suicide bomber, and her phone hadn’t been on. He honestly hadn’t known if she was dead or just an idiot.

He’d deleted the message, but he hadn’t been able to erase the phone’s list of missed calls—a record of the times that he’d called but hadn’t left a message. She quickly flipped over to that menu and . . . Whoa. He’d called her seventeen times in a forty-eight-minute period. While running through the debris-cluttered streets of Kazabek.

His freak-out hadn’t been an act. The act had come
after
he’d found her, safe and sound.

Jimmy was watching her from his vantage point, down in her lap. His expression was unreadable, but he was a very intelligent man. He had to know that she now knew . . .

“I’m sorry I had my phone off,” she told him.

“Wake me when we get to Rivka’s,” he said, and closed his eyes.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

“You did
what
?” Jimmy stopped right there in the doorway to Rivka’s barn, staring at Tess. What she had just told him was un-fucking-believable.

She, however, was maddeningly calm as she went inside and made herself comfortable on the overturned bucket that she’d claimed as her spot during their meetings. “I think you probably heard me perfectly well the first time.”

“ ’Scuse us.” Murphy attempted to squeeze past, Dave right behind him, and since squeezing wasn’t one of Murphy’s talents, Jimmy was forced to step farther into the barn.

“Will Schroeder?” he asked Tess.

“Yes. Will Schroeder.” She pretended to look over some notes she’d made on a yellow legal pad.

The early evening sun streamed in through the cracks in the battered wooden door, illuminating the dust that hung in the air.

It should have been soothingly pastoral.

But Jimmy was on the verge of meltdown, and Tess knew it, too. He could see wariness in her eyes as she risked another quick glance in his direction.

He cleared his throat. “You actually told him about . . . ?” He couldn’t say it. He probably could’ve screamed it, but he was trying his goddamnedest not to have a complete nutty. Especially since it would be his second for the day, and his policy was one nutty per millenium. If that.

“I told him we’re here to find Sayid’s laptop.” She finally met his gaze. “I had no choice.”

“No choice?” His voice sounded tight. “Are you trying to get me killed? Is this some kind of twisted revenge?”

Dave had just sat down, but now he stood. “Maybe we should give them a few minutes alone,” he said to Murphy.

But Murph settled back on his favorite bale of hay. “Are you kidding? This is just starting to get good. Revenge for what?”

Tess held her ground. “Of course I’m not trying to get you killed! Don’t be ridiculous.”

Jimmy couldn’t stop himself from pacing. “You don’t understand how much that prick hates me.”

“This wasn’t about you.” Tess put down her legal pad. “Look. If you could get past your childish bias against Will Schroeder for just half a second—”

“Don’t you god damn get condescending with me!” As he spun to face her, he lowered his voice instead of raising it, which was probably a mistake, because he knew from experience that doing so made him sound and look dangerous as hell.

Dave and Murphy apparently thought so, too, because they were both on their feet.

Ready to protect Tess.

From him.

“Jesus Christ,” he said to them. “What do you think? That I would actually . . . ?” He could see from their faces that they did, indeed, think exactly that. “God damn it.”

Tess was on her feet now, too, still talking. “—you’d realize this was the perfect way to deal with him. The
only
way. He’s ambitious, he’s smart, he’s eager to prove to Jackie Bennett just what she gave up by dumping him—and God, Jimmy, he knows who we are. He could blow our cover at any given moment. Now it’s in his best interest to keep quiet.”

“He didn’t know about Sayid.” He turned to Dave and Murphy. “Sit.”

They sat, but not without exchanging a look. Silently communicating exactly how they were going to take him down if he lost it and went for Tess’s throat.

Christ. Give him a break. He wasn’t a freaking animal.

“So I gave him a heads-up on a story that’s going to break big in twenty-two hours.” Tess was no longer trying to keep her annoyance from ringing in her voice. “Do you honestly think that after he heard the White House news bulletin that Sayid was dead he wouldn’t know exactly what we were doing here? This way, he’s on our side. Under our control.”

“
Our
control?
Your
control.”

“Yeah.
My
control.” Anger flashed in her eyes. “Is that what’s bothering you? The fact that I might have actually done something that you couldn’t manage to do? You know, you can be so
fucking
immature.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. The tough talk simply didn’t work well with that nose and those freckles. Pollyanna from the ’hood.

He must’ve sounded as if he were on the verge of madness—and maybe he was—because Fred and Ginger rose to their feet again, obviously eager to dance.

But this time it was Tess who glared at them. “You can’t be serious! You actually think you’re going to have to defend me—from
James
?”

Murphy shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Dave was less succinct. “The pressures in the field sometimes trigger volatile behavior. And in this particular group of personnel, there’s a greater degree of unfamiliarity among teammates—”

“Yeah, well, hello, Dave, meet James Nash. You, too, Murph. Shame on you. I happen to know that one of Jimmy’s goals on this mission—possibly even his primary one, despite the fact that it shouldn’t be”—that was a not so subtle message aimed with a flash of her eyes at him—“is to keep me safe. So in the future, please don’t insult him by implying otherwise.”

Tess was fiercely indignant—for him.

He’d treated her like shit more than once, including this afternoon when he’d refused to talk to her at all on the ride back to Rivka’s house. And he’d thrown a bona fide freak-out today, imagining the absolute worst-case scenario—Tess, torn to pieces by some zealot with a bomb.

In his mind, as he’d run all that way—seven miles—he’d sifted through the rubble and dust and blood, collecting all that was left of her.

And when he’d seen her sitting there, alive and unharmed, he’d nearly fallen to his knees and wept.

That reaction had scared him almost as much as thinking she was dead.

So he’d made up that story about needing to get in touch with Tom Paoletti. And he’d erased the frantic message he’d left on her voice mail.

But she was Tess. Smart and sensitive and clever enough to put seventeen missed calls and one wild-eyed son of a bitch together, to figure out the truth.

And instead of looking her in the eye and admitting he was in uncharted territory and quite possibly losing his mind, he’d closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.

He could practically feel her frustration, her questions, her need to talk to him on that ride home.

But he’d kept his eyes tightly closed.

Then she did it. “Sleep,” she whispered. “Really go to sleep, Jimmy, as long as your eyes are closed.” And she’d started running her fingers through his hair. “My mom used to do this when I was little,” she told him softly, “when I had trouble relaxing.”

And somewhere between wherever they were and Rivka’s, Jimmy had actually done it. He’d fallen asleep.

So completely that he didn’t wake up when they went through the gate into Rivka’s yard. And he didn’t wake up when Tess lifted his head and replaced her lap with a mere pillow.

He’d slept for nearly six hours in that wagon, shaded by an umbrella that Guldana had dug out of the storage shed and watched over by Khalid, who sat nearby.

Tess, on the other hand, had spent all of those hours hard at work, tracking Dimitri and Sophia Ghaffari through cyberspace.

He’d woken up with a headache and a sense of panic—not a good combination.

Khalid had informed him that Decker had checked in and set up a meeting—this meeting—for seven o’clock. It was now 6:58 and the motherfucker was on the verge of being late. Again.

Jimmy himself had had just enough time to splash water on his face and go looking for Tess—to apologize for failing to assist her, for sleeping the entire day away. Christ, when was the last time he’d done that?

But she had already been on her way out to the barn. And before he could even open his mouth, she’d dropped that bomb about Will Schroeder.

“Sit down,” she told Dave and Murphy now in that elementary schoolteacher tone that some women could do so well.

They sat, their inner eight-year-olds unable to defy her.

“They probably heard about that time in Istanbul when I threw Camilla Riccardo off the hotel roof,” Jimmy volunteered.

Tess turned her ferocious glare on him. “Why do you say things like that?”

He was trying to regain control by being flip. It usually worked. He tried again, adding the smile that usually got him laid. “Because I love it when steam comes out of your ears.”

She was unmoved. “You’re just perpetuating the nasty rumors,” she said as sternly as she’d spoken to Dave and Murph.

But schoolteachers had never frightened him, even as an eight-year-old. “Maybe I like the nasty rumors,” he countered.

“Maybe you do,” she threw back at him. “God forbid you ever allow yourself to feel too happy.”

Jimmy laughed his disgust. “Don’t even begin to psychoanalyze me, babe. You don’t know me at all.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “You’ve made certain of that.”

Decker closed the barn door behind him, and they all turned to look at him. Dave, Murphy, Nash, and Tess.

Sweet Tess.

Who, seconds earlier, had been standing there, looking at Nash with her heart in her eyes.

The tension in the barn was so thick it had practically formed a thunderhead churning in the rafters above them.

Nash was as close to becoming unglued as Decker had ever seen him. And Tess now looked as if she were about to break her own knuckles, she was clenching her fists so tightly. Anything to keep from bursting into tears.

Decker sighed.

She looked bone weary and miserable, as if the stress from the past few days was sucking the very life out of her.

It was entirely his fault.

For bringing her here.

And for leaving her alone with Nash last night. Nash, who hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of her despite Decker’s threats. He’d confessed as much this morning.

She was all over me.

Jesus, blame it all on
her
, you weak-willed son of a bitch.

No doubt about it, he was going to kick Nash’s ass, first chance he got. And get his own ass kicked right back, which was fine. He deserved it, fool that he was for thinking his warning would keep Nash away from Tess.

Decker had been too deep in his own misery this morning to register exactly how big of a goatfuck this entire mission had become, from every possible angle. Shit, where Nash and Tess were concerned, it had been a goatfuck before the word
go
.

Everything about this situation underlined the inherent wisdom of his policy to keep work and sex absolutely separate. If he ever had the chance to work for Tom Paoletti again—and as each hour slipped past, that seemed less and less likely—he was going to insist on leading only all-male teams.

That would handle the work part.

As for the sex . . .

Maybe in a year or two, Tess would be over her infatuation with Nash.

And maybe by then, Decker would have forgiven himself for taking advantage of Sophia Ghaffari.

Yeah. Maybe.

It would sure as hell help if he could find her and get her safely out of Kazbekistan.

“So my day sucked ass, too,” he said, breaking the silence, and Murphy, bless him, laughed.

“Who’s got good news for me?” Decker came farther into the barn. “What do you say, Dave? Can we pack it up and get the hell out of Dodge? Tell me please, sweet Jesus, that you found Sayid’s laptop this afternoon.”

Dave Malkoff shook his head. “Sorry, sir. I have nothing concrete—just a whole lot of public opinion that seems to imply Sayid was, indeed, staying with Bashir for an undetermined amount of time before the quake.”

Decker looked at Murphy. “Murph? You sitting on that missing laptop over there?”

“I wish. I’m still working on locating most of my contacts, boss. Although if you want some good news, Angel called. The caterer’s agreed to do the wedding lunch for only twenty bucks a plate.” He laughed. “I think she went into the negotiations flashing a few tattoos and packing some major heat. You can take the girl out of the gang, but you can never really take the gang out of the girl.”

“Why do I get the sense that you wouldn’t dare call Angelina a girl if you weren’t halfway around the world from her?” Decker asked, glancing over at Nash, who had folded his arms across his chest and was leaning against the barn wall, pretending to relax.

“You got that right,” Murphy agreed.

It was remarkable, really, how awful Nash looked. His clothes were stained with sweat and dirt. He was rumpled, as if he’d wrestled wild dogs in the dusty road before taking a long nap. Deck could see the line dividing clean from dirty near his partner’s ears and around his jawline. Nash had splashed water on his face rather haphazardly, as if the intention had been to wake himself up rather than to wash.

Which meant that it was possible that Nash had actually slept for part of the afternoon.

Which might explain the current friction—current additional friction—between him and Tess. If she had let him sleep for more than the three and a half minutes that he usually allowed for a combat nap . . .

“I was approached by Will Schroeder today,” Tess reported, her voice carefully void of all emotion as she sat on an overturned bucket. “Since he already knew that you and James weren’t your average relief aid workers and threatened to make that public knowledge, I made a deal with him.”

And so much for Decker’s theory about the too-long nap. She’d made a deal with Will Schroeder. Jesus. He didn’t dare look at Nash.

“I told him the truth—about Sayid. I thought our not getting kicked out of K-stan was more important than any one member of our group’s . . . discomfort at the idea of working with Schroeder,” Tess continued, carefully not looking at Nash either. “The pros seemed to outweigh the cons. He gets an exclusive story—but only when we’re ready to give it to him. We get his silence—and an extra set of eyes and ears out there. As long as he follows our rules—”

Nash couldn’t keep silent another second. “What makes you think he’s going to follow
your
rules, when he’s never followed anyone’s rules before?” he asked, pretending to laugh, pretending he was merely amused. But then he shook his head. “Never mind. It’s too late. We’ll just have to clean up this mess
after
the shit hits the fan.” He turned to Decker, still trying to play it übercool.