Personal Target: An Elite Ops Novel (20 page)

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk about that summer,” she started.

For a moment the silence was so complete, she wondered if his headset was on a different channel.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind talking about that summer. It’s the miscarriage I’m having trouble with.” His voice dripped ice. “Why don’t you just drop it?”

All right, so she probably deserved that.

“I will, after I say one more thing.” The darkness and shadows made her bold. Not being able to see the temper in his eyes that was clearly audible in his voice enabled her to keep going. “Not telling you before was wrong of me and not well done. I’m sorry.”

For a moment there was only the gentle hiss of the headphones as a reply.

“Okay. You’ve said it. I’m not ready to accept your apology yet. I’m not sure when, or if, I’ll ever be ready.” Nick’s tone wasn’t as chilly as the one he’d expressed earlier, but it wasn’t warm either.

“Fair enough. I just wanted you to know.”

“So now I know. Can we please drop it?” His voice was even and steady, but there was something more, something unsettled there. She could feel it.

“What is it? There’s more here than you’re saying.” She was pushing, despite her better judgment.

“No, there’s not.” The cadence of his speech was no longer smooth.

She couldn’t stop herself, even though she knew he might skin her alive with his words. “I don’t believe you.”

“Dammit. Haven’t you done enough, Jenny? Just drop it, for fuck’s sake.”

Okay. This was definitely not the time to let it go, not if she really wanted to know what the deal was. “No. I won’t drop it. There’s obviously something else you want to say here.”

He reached to flip on an overhead light above them that he hadn’t used before. “Yes, you’re damn right there is something else I want to say. When I came back that spring after I enlisted, I was coming back for you. I was rethinking that whole new direction I’d taken. I thought I was in love with you, and I was going to ask you to wait for me. To marry me.”

The skinning she’d all but asked for had begun. She was beyond speaking and could only stare at him. His eyes were blazing as he gazed unblinking at her and continued telling her exactly what he thought.

“Crazy idea, I know. I didn’t figure it out until you’d dropped off the freaking face of the earth. You didn’t return emails, letters, phone calls, nothing. I couldn’t understand what the hell I’d done wrong. Now I find out you were pregnant, and you didn’t tell me. You could have had my baby, and I might never have known.”

He’d come back to propose when she was in China? God, she’d been the idiot. It had never occurred to her that he would have wanted to marry her then,
before
he knew that there’d been a baby. Even though he’d told her Sunday night that he’d come back to find out what was wrong, she’d never considered the possibility that he’d come to propose to her as well.

“I would never have done that—not tell you about—” She stopped and stared straight ahead into the night, longing for darkness inside the cockpit again. How could he possibly believe her? Why had she thought pushing this conversation would be a good idea?

“How do I know what you would have done? I don’t know who the hell you are anymore or even who you were to begin with. How can I trust you when you kept this from me?”

She swallowed hard. She’d started this, and she’d finish it. Ten years ago she’d had no idea how much she’d hurt him. Tonight she deserved every bit of his ire. He’d wanted to marry her. God, what had she done? The loss of what-could-have-beens washed over her.

Still, she was dry-eyed when she turned to face him.

“I was young, stupid, and scared. I’m sorry.” She put her hand on his arm. “Please. We can’t keep fighting like this. I shouldn’t have brought it up again. Not here. Not now.”

Something changed in his eyes when she said that. She wasn’t sure what, but she hoped she was getting through. She needed him to believe that they could work through this together, painful as it was.

“I’m going to need time, Jenny. It hurts too much to just let this go.” His jaw clenched as he spoke; the tension was obvious. That had cost him to say.

She nodded. “Fair enough.”

He kept talking like she hadn’t said anything. “But know this. Mad as I am, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Get some sleep. We’ll be landing in a couple of hours.” His voice was still gruff, but that cold, icy tone wasn’t as arctic.

She touched his arm again, and he glanced at her for a moment before refocusing on the controls and reaching up to turn off the light.

“I trust you,” she murmured.

Saying that, even knowing how angry he was with her, wasn’t hard. She did trust him. He would protect her to his dying breath. Deep down she’d always known that.

The question was, would he ever be able to trust her?

Thursday, early morning

Ingal, Niger

N
ICK DIDN’T REALIZE
how wiped out he was until they approached for landing in Ingal. The exhaustion was more than physical. The mental strain of the past twenty-four hours was kicking his ass. At five
AM
it was still dark, but a front had come through, clearing away the clouds that had cloaked them all the way from Niamey. Light from the moon and stars overhead illuminated the flat area of sand that passed for an airstrip and enabled him to land the plane.

He set down with a jarring thud that shook both him and Jennifer in their seats. A private airport didn’t necessarily mean a maintained landing strip. He parked the aircraft. Everything felt extraordinarily quiet after the roaring vibration of the engine.

He and Jenny hadn’t talked any more after their argument, and Nick was grateful, even though engine racket wasn’t the reason. The headphones would have allowed for easy conversation, but he couldn’t have handled any more after their gut-wrenching discussion on the flight out of Niamey.

Jenny had slept. She must be as tired as he was, if not more so. He was used to pushing himself like this, she wasn’t.

Two flood lights lit the makeshift airport that consisted of dried-mud buildings. In the distance, more lights outlined palm trees surrounding the oasis of Ingal. They were still seventy miles from the Paleo-Niger dig site, and they needed a car, preferably a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

A man wearing the combination veil and turban of the Tuareg walked out of a shack next to the landing strip. Nick prepared to get out and bargain for several things, including a place to rest for a few hours. In the shadows of the light illuminating him from behind, the man had a peculiar gait. Jenny stared as the man made his way toward them with a distinct limp.

“Oh my God. I think I know him. That’s Bill.” She opened the plane door. “Bill?!” she called.

Bill?
“How can you possibly recognize anyone in the dark wearing the
tagelmoust
, the veil?” Nick’s throat was dry from the arid extremes of the area. Not having spoken in several hours made his voice crack like a thirteen-year-old’s.

She glanced back at him. “The way he walks. Bill had polio as a child.”

“Bill?” Nick asked aloud this time.

She shook her head. “That’s not really his name. It’s Balfama Tamunominini.” She said the name with a perfect accent and smiled. It means
‘Don’t be afraid, God is with you.’
Everyone on the team just calls him Bill.”

“I can see where that would be easier.” His tone was as dry as the night air.

“Bill runs the supply transport for the Paleo-Niger Project. His job here at the airstrip makes him a perfect fit. He’s done it the past two times the group has been at the Jobaria dig with the Russ Foundation. He’s one of the only people in the area with a four-wheel-drive truck who is not government or military. Most civilians travel by camel or on foot.”

Of course they do
, thought Nick. God forbid we be running for our lives in the harshest desert in the world with access to more than one four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Calling out a greeting in French, she hopped out of the plane as Bill limped toward them. The man obviously recognized Jenny as she drew closer, bypassing the formal Nigerien greeting of a handshake and giving her a warm hug instead.

Nick was introduced in a combination of English and rudimentary French. After finding out that they were the most recent strangers arriving in town, Nick left Bill and Jenny to catch up as he gathered their gear. When he came back to the mud shack airport office with their luggage, Jenny was still buzzing.

“Later in the day, Bill is planning to run supplies to the dig site. He says we can rest at his place for now and hitch a ride when he drives out.”

“Okay.” Finally, some good news. That gave them time to grab some real food and maybe get cleaned up.

Bill put a plastic gallon jug of water on the counter in front of them. “Drink,” he said.

Jennifer nodded, took a deep sip, and handed the jug to Nick. He wasn’t thirsty, but he took a slug of the lukewarm water anyway. If you waited till you actually felt thirsty to drink in the desert, it was already too late, and you were on your way to being dehydrated. He’d learned that in Afghanistan.

Without a word, Bill took one of the bags Nick was carrying and placed it on his own shoulder along with the jug of water and led them out of the building. He directed them down a dark path into town with a flashlight.

Even in the early morning blackness Nick could see that Ingal was a study in contrasts, with the desert bordering against an oasis.

Bill handed him the jug as they walked, and Nick took another hit of water before passing it on to Jenny. The air was so very dry. It had a different feel from Niamey.

“I imagine this is beautiful in its own way during the day, but God it’s harsh,” said Nick.

Jenny took a deep sip from the plastic container. “It’s a town of nomads. We’re in what’s known as the Sahel, the transitional space between the Sudanian Savanna of southern Niger and the Sahara. They’ve been experiencing perpetual drought conditions over the past several years that have pushed the desert farther and farther into this area.”

Nick could see that. The streets of Ingal were nothing more than dry sand, but light from the stars overhead and sporadic oil lamps outside various residences showed that the entire area was also filled with surprisingly lush gardens and fruit trees around the houses. Bill’s flashlight illuminated the walls of the homes as they walked past.

The houses were built of mud and straw that looked almost like cement or as if the material had baked in the desert sun. He realized it most likely had. Some residences had tents attached and others had mat-like coverings over what would be considered a front porch. There were occasional straw huts as well.

“Why are all the homes built so differently?” asked Nick.

Jenny pointed at one of the baked cement-like walls they passed. “You have permanent residents here who live in the mud huts. That construction material is called
banco
. But the Tuareg and Fulani are nomads and constantly moving, so most Tuareg homes are tents. The Fulani live in collapsible huts made of mats. That makes it much easier to transport their homes with them.”

“How many people live here?”

The enthusiasm in Jenny’s voice was tangible. “Depends on the time of year. Ingal’s population is usually around five hundred, but each September it increases to several thousand. Tuareg and Woodabee nomads arrive for the Cure Salee festival marking the end of the rainy season. Most have left the area now that it’s December, and Ingal’s just a wide spot in the road on the edge of the Sahara. Still, the oasis and spring make this place very important to the area.”

The walk was warm and dusty, even in the early morning. Nick suspected he smelled ripe, but he wanted food and a place to close his eyes more than he wanted to be clean. He wouldn’t be any good to Jennifer in the shape he was now.

Bill directed them down a street lined by another
banco
wall and stopped in front of a combo tent-and-mud-hut dwelling. A fruit tree grew in the front yard, shading the roof. He pulled aside the material covering the door and motioned them forward, lighting an oil lamp as they stepped inside.

The room was large and significantly cooler than expected. Desert nights in December were cool, if one considered sixty-eight degrees chilly. Most likely the house would feel like a pizza oven in a few hours when the temperature climbed closer to ninety-five.

Bill set Nick’s bag on the ground. “You rest here,” he said, pointing to a foam pallet covered with brightly colored material. “I take you to dig soon.”

“Merci, mon ami,”
Jenny said and gave Bill another hug. Thank you, my friend.

The Nigerien spoke with her a few more minutes before leaving them alone in his hut. Nick couldn’t understand much. He had never learned French. Farsi, yes, but he was clueless in Paris and Niger.

Jenny turned from the hut’s entrance. The light did odd things with her shadow on the wall of the hut.

“He’s going to gather the supplies and be back in a couple of hours when it’s light. After that he’ll take us to the project site,” she explained.

Her voice was stronger than it had been when Nick had found her in Niamey. She was a bundle of energy as she paced across the dirt floor. “This is good,” she said. “There’s water here for washing up. He’ll bring us something to eat, too.”

Nick sank to the pallet. “Where’s his family?”

“They died in the 2010 famine. Our dig was here right after that in the fall. That’s when I first met him. He was grieving so. He had a wife and two children. He’s never remarried.”

Nick sat, calculating how long it had been since he’d slept . . . at least thirty-two hours. “I’ve got to sleep, or I’m going to be worthless.”

“Yes, you should,” she said. “I rested on the flight.”

“Will you promise not to go anywhere while I’m asleep?” He’d have to trust Bill’s word that he and Jenny were the only strangers in town for now. He’d have to trust Jenny as well, to do as he asked her.

After everything he’d learned in the past twelve hours about their shared past, he wasn’t so sure he could trust her for much of anything, even for her own safety. But he was out of options. He had to get some shuteye.