Comeback

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“While you were in the air,” he agreed. “And there’s a travel outfit in that overnighter by the door.”

She opened her mouth, then decided to fill it with a torn piece of croissant rather than words. Just doing his job…and doing it well at that. After she swallowed, she said, “Thank you. Do I have time to change before we leave?”

Dobry frowned in doubt. “How fast can you do it?”

At that moment, she thought, What would happen if I ditched him and showed up alone at the plane?

Tempting. So tempting.

Taz would do it.

But Selena wouldn’t.

Not yet.

Instead she left her chair for the overnight bag and zipped it open with economical purpose, pulling out a deep turquoise shirt knit in a chunky, exaggerated weave, and a pair of her black cargo pants. She nodded approval at Randy, and then grabbed the bottom of her shirt—she was halfway to pulling it over her head before Janet laughed, a quietly amused sound.

Randy glanced at Dobry and said drily, “Point taken, but there’s a bathroom just down the hall that will do. I think we can spare the thirty seconds it’ll take for you to reach it. Not to mention it has a mirror—there’s makeup and jewelry in that case, too.”

Selena dropped her shirt and grabbed the overnighter. “Works for me.” She looked back at Dobry on her way out. “Faster than you can flush a urinal.”

When she returned just moments later, she found them up and waiting. She grabbed her croissant and a cream-cheese bear claw, wrapping both in a napkin and shoving them—along with a bottle of water—into her briefcase. At Dobry’s raised brow she said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m still making up for breakfast. I get cranky without my corn flakes.”

“Can’t have that,” Dobry said, trying to make it sound lighthearted and failing. Selena left the overnighter in her chair—let the CIA have the horse-imbued riding tights, and she’d buy Athena another pair of boots—and breezed out the door ahead of him, close on Randy’s heels. Once in the hallway, Janet said, “Randy will see you to the plane from here. Good luck, FLEAGAL… BLUEMAN.”

But it hadn’t taken luck to get Selena out of that embassy alive the previous winter. It had been persistence and a determined exploitation of all the tools she had on hand, from a sheaf of flying papers to decorative marbles and dry ice. It had been teamwork with Cole—an unusual remote teamwork where they’d each simply trusted the other to do what was necessary.

And now she was just as determined to do it again.

To judge by the action of the Starlifter crew, they’d been holding off departure. As soon as Selena and Dobry set foot on the plane, the pilot and co-pilot started takeoff procedure, assisted by the two flight engineers. One load-master double-checked the security of the pallets as Selena and Dobry settled into aft-facing seats, their gear stowed by the other loadmaster.

Selena waited for the crew to button up and take their own seats; takeoff wasn’t far behind. Once they were in the air one of the loadmasters offered them some MREs, and Selena was glad to supplement the pastries. She found herself with beef enchilada and used half the water from her appropriated bottle to trigger the flameless chemical heater. The loadmaster just grinned at her as Dobry ate his beef ravioli cold, shaking his head at Selena’s offer of the rest of her water.

After they tucked the resulting garbage away, Dobry cleared his throat and said, “I meant it, you know. I’ll do what I can to make this work—I want to stop that terrorist attack as much as anyone. Schoolkids? No way. And you’ve got Cole—JOXLEITNER—to worry about, but I’ve got my own motivations.”

“Motivation enough to get over how you feel about me?” Selena asked, and the loadmaster who’d been sitting with them suddenly found the need to inspect the pallets again.

“I don’t—” Dobry started, and stopped with a frown. No point in pretending, and he’d seen that.

Selena didn’t even try. “I took a lateral leap to a position you don’t think I deserve. Now I’m out in the field and you don’t think I’m good for that, either. Don’t even try to tell me those things don’t matter to you.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “I won’t. But other things matter more.”

She looked steadily at him, waiting for any sign of doubt, for his eyes to shift away from hers. They didn’t. She said, “Just keep that in mind. Whatever you think about me, getting Cole and Dr. Aymal out of Berzhaan is all that matters.”

“No arguments,” Dobry said, and when he saw her doubt, he added, “Look, I just want to get back in the field. I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize that. Anything.”

And that, she believed.

Chapter 7

The U.S. embassy in Berzhaan seemed strangely like home. Its exquisite Sekha carpets crafted from native silkworm, old-world light fixtures, rich inlaid woodwork…wonderfully familiar. Even the smell of the place— strong coffee mixed with wood polish and a slightly dry smell of age, reminiscent of old attics everywhere—spoke to her. Selena took a moment to breath deeply of it, ignoring Dobry’s impatient hovering and the emerging soreness from her hard ride down the mountain. Then she turned to the marine on guard desk duty and said, “We’re here to see Dante Allori.”

The young man returned her an inscrutable look, as if the statement wasn’t the least bit outrageous. “Do you have an appointment?” He knew perfectly well that she didn’t.

“Call Bonita,” Selena suggested. “See if she wants Selena to come up for a quick visit.”

Doubt sneaked out. “Selena Jones?” Maybe a little respect, too.

“Selena Shaw Jones.” She pointed at the desk phone and smiled, a little too sweetly. “Give it a try. Or don’t, and see what happens when she learns I was here.”

That got through to him—as did the fact that she knew Bonita, the ambassador’s personal assistant, well enough to say it. He reached for the phone, eyeing her as it rang through, and spoke a few quick words.

Selena smiled as he stiffened and held the phone away from his ear slightly. When he hung up, she offered, “Bonita has a way with words, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young marine said, putting some starch back in his shoulders as he nodded at the sleek, latest and greatest metal detector arch.

“New toys,” Selena observed. She pulled out her weapons, which had conveniently bypassed customs security checks as they slipped in through the States-occupied airfield west of Suwan—an airfield that provided operations support for the limited U.S. presence in Berzhaan and through which she and Dobry had entered the general population to reach the CIA station, emerging complete with a convincing set of papers. First her sturdy Beretta Cougar, meant for strong hands and long fingers. A variety of knives—the short tanto blade she’d had at the Farm, a lock blade Buck and a tiny stiletto she’d adopted after her previous Berzhaani adventures with the ice pick. She had a length of braided monofilament in her pocket, but left it there; the detector would ignore it.

Still, the young marine muttered something about “worse than a Klingon” as he secured her batch of goodies away in their own little lockbox. Even Dobry looked at her askance as he handed over his Smith & Wesson snub nose. “The point,” he said, “is to avoid conflict by avoiding detection. Or weren’t you paying attention to the classes we taught?” He certainly had. His new identification had included pictures in which he looked subtly but significantly different, and by the time they’d left the local CIA station, his appearance matched those photos—darker brows, colored contacts, a mole, a pair of distracting, trendy glasses with thick frames, and padding around his torso that turned his fit, burly frame into an entirely different shape. Five minutes to apply, two minutes to rip away.

But Selena had grown used to his barbs; over time she’d decided it was the only way he knew how to be. The marine had not, and bristled as he took the little revolver. Ah, youth. Selena felt old at twenty-seven, but she only smiled at Dobry. “Been there, done that,” she said, waiting for him on the other side of the detector. “A good backup plan or two never hurt anyone.”

The marine said, “I only wish I’d been here when you took down those terrorists last winter.”

“No,” Selena said gently, “you don’t.”

“Ma’am,” he said by way of apology, and made Dobry go through the detector three times.

“Selena! You look so much better without the blood. I’ve never considered it a suitable accessory.” Bonita actually rose from her chair, leaving her powerful domain—the phone lines, the scheduling tools, the customsized petite chair—to greet Selena. Her lips were stained their usual power-red, and today her nails matched. Such touches seemed out of place on a mature, gray-haired woman, and Selena knew darned well Bonita did it on purpose just to see who’d fail to take her seriously.

“Blood?” Dobry said, and eyed Selena as she drew back from the hug Bonita gave her. “From the hostage situation. Of course.” He already seemed tired of hearing about it. Poor Dobry. He didn’t look like the kind of man who took well to having his assumptions challenged, and his assumptions that Selena had arrived at the CIA overbilled, under-experienced and fading fast were taking a good hard hit.

“Goodness, no.” Bonita turned to him as if only then noticing him. “From the incident in Oguzka that morning.” She beamed at Selena. “I was so proud to hear you shot that one terrorist in the ass, my dear. Entirely appropriate. You didn’t mention on the phone that you’d brought a friend.”

Selena bit back a grin. Bonita in full keep ’em off balance mode. “This is Steven Dobry. We’re working together on this one.”

“This one what?” Bonita returned to her chair to survey Dobry over her neat desk. But Selena only waggled her eyebrows, and Bonita laughed. “Can’t blame me for trying,” she said. “The ambassador is waiting for you. Lucky you—you were the perfect excuse to delay a meeting he’s been grumbling about for days.”

“He’s doing well, then?” For Dante Allori had been shot during the hostage incident, and although it had seemed a minor wound at the time, a man of his age and physical condition didn’t always come back from the simple things.

“I’ve said as much in my e-mails, so I don’t see how repeating myself will do any good. You’ll just have to go see for your own eyes.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Selena said, and led Dobry to Allori’s office, knocking gently even as she opened the door.

“Selena!” Allori rose from his desk—bigger than Bonita’s, and nowhere near as neat—and smiled hugely at her. “What, no blood today?”

Dobry muttered, “Good God.”

“He means the hostage thing, not the village thing,” Selena assured him. “Dante, you look well!” In fact, the man had lost a significant amount of weight, and although his face held more lines and his hair more gray, he exuded a new vigor where before he’d only exuded dignity.

“Let’s just say I recently had a life-changing experience,” he told her. “New priorities. New tailor, too.” He patted his sleek suit lapels and leaned forward to take her hand, drawing her around the desk into a fatherly hug. “You, too, look well. A little thin, perhaps. A little ragged around the edges. Could be we took different lessons from those days?”

“Could be I’m still learning mine,” Selena said, all too aware of Dobry’s presence. “Dante Allori, this is Steven Dobry. We’re working together. I wanted to drop by and let you know I was here…and that I’ve got my ears open.”

“What can you tell me?”

“Just that we’re missing some people.”

Allori sat in his massive leather chair and tipped it back to regard her, then Dobry. “Mr. Dobry,” he said, and nodded an acknowledgment of Dobry’s presence. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the interesting little incident yesterday—wild west gunplay in one of the quieter old neighborhoods of this dignified city, involving several children?”

Selena recoiled at his words. “Children?”

“Not to worry. They’re safe. They somehow got it in their heads to drop their playthings on the heads of the Clanton brothers from the roof of their building.”

Selena smiled, brief though it was. Cole. Who else? Cole, through and through. Finding the unexpected, using every opportunity at his disposal. Trapped by the terrorists, she’d found she had a lot more in common with him than she’d once thought.

And it gave her a place to start.

“I’m not sure how I can help you,” Allori said, though he’d been watching her face and knew he’d said something of significance to her.

“You already have,” she told him.

Dobry cleared his throat and said, “Anything you can tell us that doesn’t quite seem ordinary could be of help. We’d also be pleased if you could advise us on the best locations for acquiring local information. We have some information, of course, but—”

Allori cut him off with a frown. “Your best source of that information is standing beside you.”

Selena trod lightly. Carefully. “We haven’t had much opportunity to put our heads together,” she said, saving face for Dobry—for if he’d listened to her, if he’d truly believed her capable in her legate posting here, he’d have known better.

“Ah.” Allori nodded his understanding. “As for the other, you have my complete cooperation. Things out of the ordinary it is.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, one quick riff and then silence. “As delighted as I am to see you, Selena, I’m surprised to find them asking this of you. And without official cover, unless I’m mistaken.”

“Don’t worry about me, Dante.” Selena couldn’t hide her grim response, not entirely. “I would have volunteered for this one, given a chance.”

At that, Allori’s perceptive gaze narrowed slightly. He knew Selena chose her words with care, and that they were to be plumbed for significance…and that whatever was happening, it was of personal importance to her. So again he nodded, and then he turned on his public persona for Dobry’s benefit. “Have you eaten yet? I know of a place you might find interesting.”