“Ah. Gotcha.”
Tango smirked. “You knew it couldn’t be that easy, right?”
“Well, I’d hoped.”
* * * *
Celia started yawning a little after nine o’clock local time. It felt like she’d been in Melbourne two weeks instead of less than two days.
Doc noticed and pointed it out to Papa. “I suggest we discuss the logistics of her contact sooner rather than later.”
He nodded. They’d kept her laptop and other communication electronics, but gave her back the camera. She’d taken a few pictures during the afternoon, careful not to show any of the men’s faces or other identifying features, except for Quong, of course.
She didn’t know if Papa was just humoring her by letting her do that, or if he would let her eventually leave the group with her data.
“How is he expecting to hear from you?” Papa asked her.
“E-mail, at least. Or Skype.”
“No Skype tonight,” he said. “I need Lima to work out logistics on a more secure sat-link connection for that. Hold on.” He left the living room. He returned a moment later with Lima, who was carrying her laptop.
She felt a burst of indignation before reining it in.
Same team, girl. They’re smarter than you. Don’t forget that.
Lima powered her laptop up and started typing.
“Do you need my password?” she asked.
He snorted. “Naw, I’m good.”
Heat filled her face again. How had she gone from leaving Chicago feeling cocky and smarter than everyone else, to now feeling like a freaking idiot about to get everyone killed?
After another moment, he stopped typing and turned the computer around to her. She noticed he’d also put a piece of black tape over her webcam. She pointed. “What’s that for?”
“So someone can’t remotely access it and see what’s going on,” he said. “We can pull it off when you need to use it.”
“Oh.”
He had a blank e-mail form displayed, but the screen looked…weird. “What is that?”
“I mirrored your e-mail account through an anonymous back-road underground server system. Not untraceable, but close enough.”
“What can I write to him?”
Papa took point. “Tell him you haven’t reached your objective yet, but you’re working on it. And that you’ll update him soon. Those words.”
“I don’t talk like that.”
“Maybe not, but if someone’s intercepting his e-mails, you don’t want to put him at risk any more than you already have, do you?”
I’m an idiot.
“Don’t feel bad,” Papa assured her. “You’re new to this. This is black ops intel 101 stuff to us. Don’t put his e-mail address in yet, just type the message and then let me read it.”
She thought for a moment before she started typing.
Greetings from Melbourne!
Just a quick note before I go to bed, didn’t want you to worry. :) Haven’t reached my objective yet, but I’m still working on it. I’ll update you soon.
((HUGS))
Ce.
She turned her laptop around so Papa could read it. He nodded. “Perfect. Put in his e-mail address and hit send.”
She did.
“Now how do I check my e-mail?” she asked. “I need to see if he sent me anything.”
Lima took the laptop back, tapped some more, then returned it to her.
Again, it was her account, but the interface looked odd.
Lima shrugged. “Rather not risk it. Sorry, nothing personal.”
Nothing from Mike or her sister. Not that she expected anything from her sister. Carole’s personal laptop had died a month earlier, and they didn’t have the money to replace it yet. Mike had promised to call Carole and keep her updated.
She returned the laptop to Lima. “Thanks.”
“Sorry,” Papa said, “but you have to understand I need to do this our way.”
“I get it. I won’t say I like it, but I get it. A deal’s a deal.”
“Go get some rack time,” Papa said not just to her, but Doc and Tango, too. “Take that one bed in the middle bedroom for tonight,” he told them. “It’s available right now. It’s big enough for all three of you.”
She’d noticed the men seemed to take shifts sleeping, which made sense. They used the beds as well as bedrolls on the floor that looked damned uncomfortable.
Before she could object, Doc had reached for her hand and helped her up off the couch. “Rack time, then.”
Tango grabbed her stuff and they all moved into the room. They only turned on a bedside lamp. One of the other guys was softly snoring on a bedroll on the floor in the far corner.
The bed looked like a full-sized mattress. “Going to be a tight squeeze,” she whispered.
“You’ll sleep in the middle snug as a bug,” Tango said.
She blushed. “I need to change clothes.”
“Go ahead. You know where the bathroom is.”
She rooted through her bag, briefly embarrassed to realize that in the repacking Tango had to handle her panties and sports bras, too. She found a T-shirt and shorts she slept in at home, and her toothbrush, and took them across the hall to change. When she returned and tucked her stuff into the bag, the men were already positioned on their sides in the bed.
With a tiny bit of space in the middle.
Yeah, like this won’t be awkward.
“I…could sleep on the floor,” she offered.
“Nope,” Doc said, patting the mattress. “Papa said you’re our package. You sleep with us, eat with us. The only thing you don’t have to do is shit or shower with us.”
“Unless you want to,” Tango playfully offered.
“Um, thanks. I’m good.” She had to climb up from the end of the bed. She was glad to see the men kept T-shirts and their pants on, although they were now barefoot.
She tried to settle in between them, their backs turned to her, without wiggling around too much. Closing her eyes, she hoped she’d be able to get at least a little sleep.
What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Nineteen
When Celia awoke early the next morning, the light filtering around the edges of the room’s curtain was still the purplish grey of just after dawn.
She was shocked to realize it was the best night’s sleep she’d had for as long as she could remember.
The man who’d been on the bedroll on the floor was gone, replaced now by a different man. Tango and Doc were still asleep. Carefully, so as not to wake the men, she crawled out of bed the way she’d gotten into it, over the end. She grabbed clothes and her jacket, used the bathroom and changed, and then made her way out to the kitchen to find someone had brewed coffee.
One of the twins was stretched out, asleep, on the couch. The other sat up in a chair in the living room and silently nodded to her when she crossed the room on her way to the kitchen.
When she looked out the back window, she spotted Papa out there, shirtless, doing what resembled tai chi.
On his back, over his well-muscled right shoulder blade, he sported a tattoo that looked a little like a tribal…monkey.
Well, duh, of course.
She wondered if Doc and Tango also had them.
And where.
Stop it!
She couldn’t help it. The testosterone was so thick in the house she could jump in and swim through it.
Or maybe drown myself in it.
Didn’t help that while the best night’s sleep she’d had in ever, it had also been filled with dreams of the hot hunks on either side of her.
Celia suspected the men would be able to handle her and the situation a lot better than she would handle them. This much close contact with this many good-looking guys would play hell with her concentration.
Jeez, I’m pitiful.
She didn’t find any mugs in the cabinets. In fact, she didn’t find any dishes, or silverware, in the cabinets. There
were two large plastic crates on the floor in the corner, both open, and that was where she found reusable plastic coffee mugs. She got one out, rinsed it in the sink just to be on the safe side, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Then she pulled on her jacket and carried her mug outside.
It felt chilly, although the sky looked a little less overcast than it had since her arrival in Australia. The only indication Papa had given of noticing her arrival was a slight hesitation when she opened the back door and stepped out into the yard.
She opted not to speak, to lean against the side of the house and watch him. Apparently the chill didn’t bother him at all. He was barefoot, too, his T-shirt carefully folded and resting on top of his tactical boots, which were on the ground not too far from him.
As part of whatever routine he was doing, he took a couple of steps and a turn that gave her a profile view of his body.
Yum.
She held her mug with both hands and slowly sipped the contents. Yes, she supposed special ops guys had to be in great physical shape, but since this was her first real-life experience with any of them, she found herself pleasantly impressed.
They were in far better shape than she was. Pear, or hourglass, were valid shapes, but not for the kind of life these men endured. These men were all chiseled, fluid rock, sculpted perfection.
She was just…
Blah.
Finally, he finished his routine and slowly turned to her. “Good morning. Thank you for not interrupting me.” He grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it on.
Her face heated. “Sarcasm?”
“No, not that time. I don’t mind being watched. I would have minded being talked to before I was ready, unless it was an emergency.”
“Ah. Then thank you for the show.”
She mentally winced. Oooh, that was stupid.
Good grief, at this rate, they’d give her the nickname of “Turnip.”
If she was lucky.
But he smiled. “You’re welcome. If you ever wish to join me, feel free.”
She suspected he was tossing her a bone by being nice. “I don’t know tai chi.”
“It’s not difficult. Just repetition. Gives me a chance to zone out and gather my thoughts before the day starts. Just follow along enough times, you’ll pick it up.”
“Without talking?”
“Preferably.” He pulled his socks and boots on. “I’m guessing Doc and Tango are still asleep?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to wake them up.”
“Want to help me fix breakfast?”
“You cook?”
“I don’t want to starve.”
“But you’re like the leader, aren’t you?”
He walked over, smirking. “I am the leader. Was that a yes or no?”
“Um, sure. Yeah.”
“What, don’t think I can cook because I’m a guy?”
“No, I just didn’t think you’d, you know, do grunt work.”
His smile faded. “We’re all grunts. And we’re all equals despite our ranks. You’ll learn that about us. I don’t ask my guys to do something I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself. I’m not one of those commanders whose only goal in life is command. My guys bust their asses. Least I can do is take a turn cooking.”
“Point taken.” Her respect for him rose a few notches. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I suspect you’ll be asking me a lot of questions.”
“The house. Where did it come from?”
“We have contacts,” he said. “All over. One of our contacts knows a real estate agent who handles rentals. Untraceable names and funds used to get them.”
“Ah. That explains the furniture.”
The smirk returned. “That’s what caught your interest?”
“Well, no dishes in the kitchen, but beds and a couch and kitchen table?”
“Ah.” His smirk turned into a smile. “See? There’s hope for your powers of observation yet.” He opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen, leaving her standing there and unable to think of a snappy comeback.
Dammit.
She followed him inside.
* * * *
She helped Papa scramble eggs and fry ham steaks from the fridge. He told her the pots they were using were part of their mobile kit. They even had tents and tarps they could use if they had to for shelter, but when one was available, a house was, obviously, preferable to being out in the elements.
As the aroma of food filled the room and filtered throughout the house, men began stirring and making their way to the kitchen. She noticed everyone took turns making more coffee when it ran out, and everyone washed and dried their dishes and utensils and put them back in the kit.
Hell, Carole and Celia still hadn’t trained Daryl to put down the toilet seat when he was done, much less wash a dish. He was a nice guy, but he took things for granted much of the time, that the women would take care of things for him.
It’d always been a silent irritation for Celia, and a not-so-silent one for Carole, but considering that was the only real fault he had, and he was a good husband and father as well as a hard worker, Celia had cut him slack about it mostly to keep the peace around the house.
Doc and Tango awakened and made their way to the kitchen. Celia could tell from the way they both hurried in and slid to a sudden stop that they’d probably wondered if she’d really hung around, or if she’d tried to escape.
“I didn’t flee in the middle of the night,” she snarked to them by way of greeting.
Papa laughed. “Score one for the civvie girl.”
After confirming her presence, Doc disappeared again. He returned a few minutes later with a small case in his hand. When Papa held out his finger to Doc, she realized what it was.
Stick tests.
“Every morning,” Doc told her. “It’s part of our routine. I already did myself.”
Doc stuck Papa, then Tango, and her. She realized she was holding her breath as the test processed, even though she knew she likely had not been exposed since Doc had stuck her yesterday.
At one point, Dr. Quong emerged, received a stick test of his own, ate his breakfast in an uncomfortable, glaring silence, and then retreated back to the garage to his work.
After breakfast, Papa and Lima gathered everyone who wasn’t asleep for a confab around the kitchen table.
“We don’t know much more than we did yesterday,” Papa told them. “Nothing new from Arliss. Nothing from the food chain. But Lima did find out something.” He handed the briefing off to him.
Lima cleared his throat. “Rumbles around back channels say there are feelers out for independent contractors.”
“What does that mean?” Celia asked.
“Mercenaries,” Doc and Tango said together.
“I don’t know yet if the two are connected,” Lima continued. “Might be coincidences. But those kinds of feelers have been largely absent as of TMFU. It’s weird that we got orders, we get warning there’s a leak, and then this. I’m trusting my gut here.”
“We need to bug out?” Papa asked.
“Not yet,” Lima said. “Give me a chance to do some more poking. I got current files on food chain staff that could be our suspects, if that’s where the mole is.”
“Do we know for sure there’s a mole?” Celia asked. “Are we sure that’s what the message meant?”
“One-hundred percent,” Papa said.
“Then how do we even know when it’s safe? What if your Arliss guy figures it out? How does he get in touch with you?”
“Same way he did this time. You don’t need—”
“To know,” she finished. “Yeah, okay, I get it. Just checking we’re not worried over a false alarm.” She chafed to be doing something. Sitting around and waiting wasn’t sitting well with her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Papa smiled. “I’ll let you know when the time comes. For now, stick with Doc and Tango. I may have some questions for you to pose to your friend in a day or two.”
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“Okay.”
There wasn’t a lot she could do except sit on the couch and watch TV. Which, she soon realized, wasn’t something she wanted to do. At least not the news. There were unconfirmed reports of massive riots breaking out in Beijing. The smuggled cell phone video footage looked horrifying. Citizens being slaughtered as waves of people obviously infected with Kite ran through crowds, Chinese troops and civilians alike fleeing the onslaught.
Officials denied everything, said it was merely a civil disturbance. That everything was under control.
Yeah, right.
She changed the channel and found a rugby match. This one a quarter final from two years earlier. One of the teams, dressed in black uniforms, was doing some sort of pregame war dance.
Doc laughed. “Love the All Blacks.”
“Huh?”
“Their hakas. They’re great.”
“What?”
“Sheltered snowflake,” Tango teased.
The men killed some time explaining the pregame dance ritual to her. By lunchtime, she was ready for a distraction.
“I’ll cook,” she offered.
“Well, it’s just sandwiches for lunch,” Tango said, “but you can cook us dinner.”
“Are we really going to do nothing but sit here?” she asked.
“We’re not sitting,” Doc said. “We’re waiting. Recharging. Believe me, we enjoy this in small doses. We get few and far between times like this. It’s the closest we get to R and R anymore.”
“If we’re lucky,” Tango added.
She hadn’t really thought about that part of the equation. “Yeah, I guess you’re all pretty much on duty all of the time, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” Tango said. “You catch on quick.”
She wasn’t used to that. She was used to her cushy little forty-hour work week, then going home and reading or watching TV or playing with Emily and Roger.
She could sleep late on Saturdays and Sundays.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m sooo in over my head.