First to Burn (11 page)

* * *

After the crunch of Theresa’s footsteps had faded in the direction of the housing area, leaving Wulf with nothing but sticky citrus-scented hands and the memory of her distracted goodbye, his commander stepped around the corner.

“Think that’s the end of it?” Deavers asked.

Wulf snorted. “I figure it’ll take her half an hour of internet research, tops, to blow that story. Hemoglobin was the only big word I could scrounge. Remember that immune booster shot they stuck in us?” Hopefully it would stop her talking to other people tonight.

“So she’ll ask more questions.” His boss sounded tired.

“She’s not a quitter. On the other hand, I didn’t get the sense she’s going to call JAG.”

“Thanks for that.” The pause was heavier than a combat load. “Don’t know what happened with me.”

“Thought about visiting the chaplain? Seems like a squared-away guy.” There were times Wulf wanted to talk about the fog that enveloped him when his brain mixed the voices and faces of people who’d died alongside him in previous centuries with the people around him now. While he couldn’t take his problem to the chaplain, his boss could try.

“I’ll be fine.” Chris raised his fist, and a moment later Wulf connected his in a familiar bump.

“I think you will.” He must have sounded authentic, because his friend’s shoulders relaxed.

“I better scrounge up that emergency leave paperwork.” His boss snorted. “Enjoy Rome, but don’t forget
force protection.
I hear Cruz has an unopened box in his footlocker.”

“Sir.” Since Special Forces never used their commander’s title privately, maybe saying it would shut Deavers up before he followed that thought too far for Wulf’s comfort. “Sir, it’s inappropriate—”

“Right, she’s an officer, you’re not. Still—” Chris broke into laughter, the normal kind that sounded like something a person would hear at the unit picnic at home station.

Good
he
could see the humor in the situation. With his future on the line, Wulf couldn’t. “Sir, I’ve been ordered to pack.” As he left his grinning commander, he tossed over his shoulder, “And Sir? Fuck off.”

Chapter Nine

Wulf replaced the porcelain cup in its saucer. Without the CIA agent across the table, the croissants and hot coffee would be ideal after two days transiting between Caddie and Karachi. Although he hated coordinating with the CIA even more than drawing a crapfest burrito from patrol rations, he was too damn blond to recon Karachi’s docks without drawing attention from Pakistan’s secret intelligence service. The U.S. consulate was the place to acquire a CIA beard.

J.T. Smith, pseudo public-affairs assistant, had the bleary eyes of a college student killing time between frat parties and a ruddy complexion that broadcast permanent discomfort in the tropical sun. He’d been in Pakistan three months but, according to taxi drivers who loitered down the block, hadn’t mastered the exchange rate between dollars and rupees. Because he overpaid for every ride or scrap of information, he’d become excessively popular among those seeking to simultaneously mislead American intelligence and make a buck. Sticking to J.T.’s rising star was perfect cover for playing dumb American.

“The rules of engagement don’t permit us to operate on this side of the border.” He stifled his urge to add,
So we can’t claim expenses when we do.
“We need your help to find out when we’ll have space to move a surveillance antenna.”

“An antenna? How’s that getting here?”

Look out the window.
How do you think
,
super spook?
“By ship. We have to know when the containers in the way move and we have space to land a stealth-technology CH-47.” In case Smith didn’t know his helicopters, Wulf whispered, “An invisible Chinook. Bigger than the sneaky bird we flew in the Abbottabad op against OBL.”

“Wow.” Smith’s eyebrows jumped so high on his forehead Wulf wondered for an instant if the guy was conning him back. “How many of those do you have in theater?”

“Classified. But I can say less than a baker’s dozen.” If Smith passed that canard to his superiors, he’d find out how hard they could mock a guy who believed what he heard from the army. Interagency feuds were bitter; intra-agency ones, brutal. “What’s the wharf situation?”

“Want to head over and see? I’m free this morning.” The agent grinned like a puppy.

“My captain hoped you’d show me around.”
Deavers knows the CIA can’t resist meddling in Special Ops business.
“Do you have a terp on call?” He’d no intention of letting Smith know he understood the lingua franca.

“My local interpreter’s the best.” Smith pulled out a cell phone.

“Keep this off the airwaves.” Wulf wrapped his hand around the number pad. “Ask him to show up, but don’t say why.”

The new American consulate occupied twenty acres next to the Port of Karachi, so it took less than a half hour for Wulf and his escort to leave security and be driven to a corrugated metal shack at the Western Wharf. Afghanistan was far from the sea for a man raised at an oar bench, and normally Wulf would revel in the briny wind off Baba Channel. Today all he wanted was intel.

Although it wasn’t yet ten-thirty, the wharf’s chief guard invited them to share a hookah. A clipboard hanging behind the Pakistani’s head noted vessels and destinations, and Wulf expected to know the shipping details by the end of the smoke break. With the right cabbie, he’d make his flight to Dubai and be in Rome for dinner. He was due for a break, if only because he had to endure this CIA kid’s chatter for another hour.

* * *

Sweat stuck Draycott’s stained
salwar
pants to the creases of his groin while he crouched near a stack of concrete blocks. Despite his racing heart, he forced himself to breathe with the wheezing rattle of a near-dead beggar. When he’d donned this stinking outfit, he’d anticipated nothing more exciting than counting rusty containers as they loaded onto the equally rusty
Horizon Kaptan
, not the arrival of a Special Forces sergeant from Camp Caddie. A month ago he’d noticed the Green Beret and put a name on the eerily familiar face: Wulf Wardsen. He should’ve trusted his intuition and probed deeper after that hair-trigger manager had screwed up and killed an aviation warrant officer, but instead he’d ignored his doubts and recertified the supply line. His mistake might roll up the network.

He knew who the Director would blame.

“This is an efficient facility for its age.” Wardsen and his companions lounged by the hookah, close enough for Draycott to hear the interpretation of the sergeant’s next question. “But surely the new wharf will better meet modern standards?”

“The Western Wharf exceeds world standards.” The guard defended his fiefdom. “We accommodate Panamax ships. What ports along the Indian Ocean do that, I ask you? Name one.”

“That rust bucket loading out is no Panamax. I doubt it can carry more than a hundred, hundred-fifty containers.”

As soon as the sergeant’s challenge was interpreted, the security officer burst into praise of the ship in question, the one that would load ten particular Black and Swan containers.

In contrast to the guard’s volubility, Draycott doubted his own powers of speech, because at this angle he could see the other side of Wardsen’s face. His temple had a star-shaped scar of pale skin. It was the same scar at the same spot where the man in the Mogadishu bar had lifted his fingers to mockingly salute a green CIA agent on his first day. That mark was branded as permanently in Draycott’s memory as it was on the skin of the man smoking the hookah and asking about shipping schedules.

This soldier
was
that man, not a son of, not a relative, and the knowledge froze Draycott as surely as if he’d been dipped in liquid nitrogen. It wasn’t the impossibility of a man not aging for forty years that chilled him, since he’d stolen a photo from CIA archives of arms deals during the Iran/Iraq war. He already knew the Director and his two partners hadn’t gained a wrinkle or lost a hair since the day in the eighties when they’d shaken Saddam Hussein’s hand in front of a secret camera. No, it wasn’t this soldier’s eternal youth as much as the logical next question: if the sergeant shared the Director’s extraordinary ability, had he been sent by the Director?

Had his position become redundant?

He saw two choices. He could update the Director and gamble that the intelligence protected him. If it didn’t, he’d have to run. His wife had mentioned retiring from Northern Virginia traffic to Florida, her Plan B. Everyone had a Plan B. He had C, D and X, one of which might hide him from the Director, but he couldn’t be sure Jane would accept a fugitive life. She’d never break contact with her daughter.

The beggar he played shuffled to the end of the wharf, not waiting to hear the soldier ascertain that the Turkish vessel and its load were bound for Durres, Albania. The fetid air inside a public outhouse that dumped into the bay choked him, but behind its door no one would see a beggar use an encrypted smartphone.

“You have an emergency?” The Director never used names.

“Yes, sir.” Because the Director revered formality, Draycott spoke as if his boss was the crown prince of a repressive oil state. He never let himself mock the Director, not even silently, since the coworker who’d once performed an unflattering impersonation had found his dog’s head in a sink. “I apologize, but Charlie network’s turned red. A Special Forces soldier from a camp near the Paktia facility showed up in Karachi this morning to observe cargo loading.”

“Can he be neutralized?”

“Unclear, sir.” He had to convey the soldier’s extended youthfulness without betraying his own knowledge of the Director’s past.

“Explain.”

“The soldier seems familiar from my previous career.” As he brushed away flies attracted to the salt in his sweat, he waited, but no prompt came from the Director’s end. “He strongly resembles a mercenary I encountered in 1968. If it weren’t impossible, he could be the same man.” He needed more air. The stench pressed on his chest until all he could manage was a croaked, “He hasn’t changed a bit.” While he parsed his superior’s silence, the faint warble of a call to morning prayer emerged from the phone. Automatically, he calculated the Director’s location as an Islamic country approximately five hours behind Pakistan time. That equaled West Africa: Morocco, Senegal, or Mauritania. Mali was too chaotic.

“Describe this soldier.” The tone of the order brought to mind the one time he’d seen his boss personally execute a man. A Hong Kong syndicate leader had cheated the opium scales, so the Director had sliced fat from the man’s buttocks and weighed it, announcing the total until the man died. Chinese operations had been fully compliant for the seven years since, and Draycott’s own ass still tightened with fear at that hollow pitch.

“Blond. Blue eyes. He’s a staff sergeant.”

“Not an officer?”

Relief rolled through Draycott, so sharp and hard he almost staggered against the feces-encrusted wall. The soldier wasn’t part of the organization and hadn’t been sent to take over. “No. Goes by Wardsen. Wulf Wardsen.”

Although Draycott didn’t recognize the language, the Director clearly swore. Draycott also heard shattering, as if glass or china had hit the floor.

“That bastard. Sends his brother to—” The Director stopped.

His boss had a personal rival, and that equaled a lever. Perhaps the Director didn’t yet realize, but a tiny shift in the power balance had occurred.

“Sir, Wardsen knows this week’s cargo is en route to Albania. Shall I divert the ship? Or prepare a welcome in Durres?”

“We can’t wait two weeks for Durres. I want him neutralized sooner.”

“Yes, sir.” The memory of the speed at which Wardsen had thrown the knife at the Belgian’s throat forty years ago filled Draycott’s mind. He suspected he’d agreed to the largest challenge of his career.

“Until I send a takedown team, watch him. I want to know everything he does, everyone he talks to, every bite he eats and every thought he thinks.” A sound like a fist pounding metal, perhaps a steel file cabinet or table, filled Draycott’s ear. “Everything!”

“As you wish, sir.” Ankle-deep in shit, Draycott suppressed the joy of living another day from his voice. From here on out, each day could be his last.

Chapter Ten

Theresa leaned against a stone balustrade midway up the Spanish Steps. A mix of Romans and tourists filled the piazza below the widest staircase in Europe, everyone chatting, strolling, waiting, smoking—the things city dwellers do outside on a warm evening. For the next eleven days, instead of being a soldier stuck inside barbed-wire barricades, she was one of these free people. Free to eat and drink, free to roam and, most of all, free to roll her eyes while listening to her mother nag.

“No, Mom, I’m not phoning Uncle Sal. He’s not really my uncle and I haven’t seen him in twenty years.” Like a good daughter, her first call from her disposable cell phone was to let her mother know she’d arrived in Rome. She was a day and a half late to her destination, but after a nap and a shower, she felt ready to tackle the city. If she could get off the phone.

“I told him you were coming and now your cousins want to meet you!” Her mother’s voice rose with joy knowing unattached Italian men inhabited her daughter’s time zone.

“So he has a bunch of loser sons who want to meet a green card.” She had no illusions about how her mother presented her unmarried offspring.

“No, darling, some are nephews.”

“You’re incorrigible.” Half her brain listened to her mother describe the Silvios and Tonios in her first stepfather’s family tree while a quarter of her mind worried about pickpockets and the last quarter watched couples wander through the June twilight.

“What did you think of the clothes I sent?”

“Everything’s beautiful. Thank you.” She would not-not-not remember Wulf finding the lace bra. That piece of clothing had stayed in her footlocker at Caddie. “I’m wearing the poppy-print skirt.” Left to herself, she would’ve paired khakis and polos with running shoes and a black nylon daypack and wandered around resembling a retired teacher.

“Look inside the purse. I sent a list of how to wear the outfits.”

“You didn’t.” Theresa shook her head while she watched the crowd at the bottom of the steps.

“Of course I did. You wore sweatpants eleven days in a row. I will never forget that.”

“Ma, it was the state play-offs. It was my uniform. And I was in high school.”

“Well, you’re not in high school anymore, and you’re not getting any younger, so wear the clothes the way I listed them.”

She sighed. At the border between casual and fancy, the wide belts, retro dresses, cropped pants and ballet flats made her feel dressed to go out, never mind that she knew no one here.

Her mother was still talking. “When you told me you were going to Rome I had to watch
Roman Holiday
again, and of course that led to
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
and
Charade.
”

A bigger-than-medium blond man stood in front of the glove store across the piazza. In the dusky light, the angle of his shoulders made her abs clench.

“Impossible,” she whispered.
He
was in Afghanistan. He had to be.

“Not at all. Carl watched the movies with me. I knew the belts and dresses would work because you do have my figure.”

She lost the man’s shape in the throng loitering around the sinking-boat fountain. Her hand tightened on the phone as she stretched to look over the potted azaleas. He hadn’t walked. He’d glided like a predator.
Hunting.
Her shoulder blades prickled, suddenly chilly under her thin top, and she glanced up and behind, but the man didn’t appear above her on the steps. Damn, she’d taken her eyes off the piazza, even though he couldn’t come down from above if he’d been below her. She swung back to scan the crowd.

“Sweetheart? Is everything all right?” Her mother’s voice had slowed.

She’d gone too long without speaking. “Sure. Everything’s fine, Mom.”

The couples mounted the steps, connected by hands or entwined arms, focused on each other. The singles talked fast into phones or stared at tiny screens. No one made eye contact with her. If she vanished, none of these people could describe her. None of them had seen her, except for the man who’d disappeared. The tight skin on the back of her neck told her that he’d looked at her. Carefully.

“I put Uncle Sal’s phone number in the black purse for emergencies. Call him.”

Tourists parted around the man, who appeared from the crowd at the bottom of the steps.

“Ohmigod, it
is
him. What’s he—”

“Who? Who?”

“Nobody.” Theresa answered her mother without taking her eyes off Wulf. He’d come for her. She couldn’t remember if she’d told him where she was staying, but maybe Jennifer had. She forced herself to sound casual as her mother pressed for more. “Just a guy.”

“A man? You met a MAN already? Is he Italian?”

He started up. In contrast to the men lounging with cigarettes or using mobile phones, he looked at her without distractions chiseling bits of his attention. As they locked gazes, his undivided regard made her aware of her mouth.

“Gotta go.” She licked her lips. “Call you later.”

“Wait! Be care—”

“Love you, Mom.” She disconnected as her tongue moistened her lips again. They hadn’t been chapped after her flights, but right now they’d become too dry.

Wulf reached the landing below her and kept coming. She could spot a fellow soldier halfway across a concourse at Newark by relying on posture and haircut and a dozen other cues, but in the violet evening light Wulf looked nothing like an American. His thighs pressed the seams of his linen pants until she might have believed he was a German soccer player or an Austrian skier during the off-season. The flat front of the pants emphasized that his stomach and abs were as carved as the marble statue in the fountain. She knew how those muscles looked and how they felt under her hand. They felt
whole
and
healthy.

“Why are you here?” She held out a stiff palm to stop his advance, although she recognized his presence as inevitable. If the powers that be needed to keep tabs on her now that she knew about the hush-hush experiment, who better to send?

“Theresa.” His voice rumbled up the six steps that separated them.

She shouldn’t allow him to use her first name but—
sayonara
, self-preservation—she wanted to hear it again. “After our last discussion, I won’t believe you need a checkup.”

* * *

Although he was close enough to touch Theresa, Wulf suspected he’d have better luck if he stayed two steps lower to reduce his threat profile. He paused, eyes level with the hollow of her throat. Perhaps her swallow indicated nerves that matched his. “I had leave. Recalled you didn’t have a tour guide.”

“You already have a job. Three thousand miles away.” She crossed her arms, unbending.

“My boss thinks I need a break.” His voice came out as even as he intended, no hint of his racing heart.

She countered with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t buy it.”

“Can I convince you across a plate of pasta?” He touched his right hand to his chest, then held it out, palm open as if making an offering.

“No thank you.”

“There’s a wonderful restaurant on Via Margutta.” Let her agree, let her take his hand, because if she turned him down, he didn’t see how he’d persuade her to ignore what she’d seen on the helicopter. “Join me.”

Shaking her head, she refused, and he dropped his hand to his side. He hadn’t prepared for the way her white shirt molded her waist and outlined her breasts. Maybe Cruz would have expected the visuals to be this much fuller than her uniform had let on, but he was struggling to focus facing her pair of high and tights.

He’d been silent too long, staring, and her eyebrows had drawn together. Being civilized meant conversation, even if the Viking part of him wanted to throw her over his shoulder and run for a longboat, even if the red flowers printed on her silk skirt made him yearn to inhale her heady opium, even if she was sure to intoxicate more than any other contraband. “Poppies?”

“My mother’s unintentional homage to Afghanistan’s cash crop. At least, I hope it was unintentional. Sometimes hard to tell with her.” The slight warming in her voice nourished hope that if he kept her talking about clothes or her mother, she’d change her mind about dinner.

“Beautiful flowers.” She wore that skirt without knowing where he’d come from or where he had to go next week.

“And a useful painkiller for injuries.” The edge returned to her voice.

He’d come to Rome to win her trust, misdirect her if he could, mislead her if he had to, but not to argue. That wouldn’t help his cause. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She might imagine her crossed arms posed a barricade, but they also deepened the shadowy cleft between her breasts. “Don’t think about what I saw on the helicopter? I was stuck in Kuwait for twenty-two hours. The airport had free wireless.”

She’d done the research he’d warned Deavers about. If he couldn’t convince her to stay silent, he’d lose his team. Loki had dangled her in front of his eyes to mock him, because no gods allowed men like him to have everything they wanted.

“Did you know I was an undergrad molecular biology major?”

That phrase,
molecular biology major
, carried a ring of doom.

“My thesis was a study of oxygen-carrying capacity in the blood of certain mammals. Specifically, I researched hemoglobin.”

“Ouch.” He let her see his wince. “You caught me.”

“Somehow I don’t think it was the only lie you’ve told.”

“I’ll concede one or two others.” He hoped his smile appropriately blended charm and contrition. “But I trusted you with the important stuff, remember? Helping Deavers with his wife, saving Nazdana and the twins. I never lied about them.”

“You’re not playing fair.”

Exploiting the softening of her mouth, he said, “Don’t forget Mir-Meena. If not dinner, what about a gelato?” He willed her to stop fiddling with her purse strap and agree, so he’d have a chance to salvage the life he’d built in Special Forces. “Have you tasted every flavor yet?”

While she studied him, he wondered whether desperation worked for him or against him.

“My favorite is
nocciola
, although I could be persuaded to try anything you want.” He gambled on her being too kind to kick him while he was down, literally, on a lower step.

Her eyes answered before her mouth did. The brown warmed like rocks kissed by the sun and the tiniest lines gathered at the corners. “You think that will make up for the complete line you fed me about hemoglobin?” A smile flitted across her lips, then disappeared, but he recognized opportunity.

“Come for one scoop, then let me know if you forgive me.”

“If I agree—and that’s an if—” she inhaled as if preparing to dive. “Does the dinner invitation stand?”

“It does.” He had his wish. He only needed one, but if granted a second, she could take another deep breath while he watched her shirt buttons stretch. A man in his position shouldn’t wish for too much, but maybe he’d be lucky.

“You’ll stop the bullshit? First lie, and I’m gone.”

“Promise.” He put his hand on his heart. Even to himself, his latest lie sounded sincere.

* * *

The three blocks to the vine-shrouded osteria left the hubbub of the Spanish Steps so far behind that Theresa pictured a Tuscan village. The restaurant’s interior was decorated in reds, blues and golds. Fringed lamps hanging between the ceiling beams cast light on a mix of paintings and gilt-framed mirrors. While she admired the decor, which felt more than slightly like a high-end speakeasy, Wulf requested a table, his Italian flawless.

“How many languages do you speak?” she asked after they were seated. The phrases she’d learned from Nonna—mostly
mangia
,
mangia
—were as useful here as junior-high Latin.

“Italian’s the most beautiful.” With his straight face undermined by the deepening smile lines at the corners of his eyes, he continued, “The language matches the women.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me—the number of languages is classified information.”

“You said it, not me.” His full smile highlighted how ridiculous continuing to interrogate him across a vase of peonies was, but didn’t provide answers. “May I recommend the risotto?”

After six months with pans of food on a steam table as a visual aid and two and a half days of airport food, using a menu, even the English one the hostess provided, overwhelmed her. She followed Wulf’s suggestions and chose risotto made with vodka and pistachios as a first course, and
veal saltimbocca alla romana
for her main dish.

With the basics of ordering food and tasting the wine accomplished, they circled back to looking at each other and hunting for things to say that weren’t weirdly awkward. Every question she wanted to blurt out sounded crazy across a pressed tablecloth, but what she knew about him
was
crazy. They had to start somewhere.

Her lips parted, but he jumped first. “Your name’s Italian, isn’t it?”

If he wanted to exchange background tidbits as a warm-up, she’d play along. “My grandparents emigrated after World War II. One of my grandmothers came to America on the
Andrea Doria
, before it sank.” In college she’d crafted a version of her family story that she could share to appear normal when others inquired. “And you? What type of name is Wardsen?”

“A Danish patronym. The ending
sen
means son of.” His shoulders twitched as if he’d startled himself.

“Son of Ward?”

“Ward’s a modern version of Wonred.” His eyebrows drew together in thought. “My...ancestor...was named Wonred.”

“Your parents really chose Wulf? Or is it a nickname you adopted when you joined—”

His brief head shake reminded her not to name his unit.

“Wulf’s better than Wonred.” He shrugged. “That means lackwit or sloppy drunk. I’m officially a son of a drunk.” As he enunciated the last word, his eyes darted first to one edge of the table, then back to the flowers on the other edge, as if he’d become suddenly wary of an unexpected attack. She had the impression this anecdote might be one of the more truthful things he’d told her. “Don’t know why I still use it.”