Edge Of Truth

“What had you expected?”

He shrugged, shamelessly watching as she drew out another wipe and attacked a cheek. At least talking gave him an excuse to stare. “I didn’t get into it to be noble, if that’s what you mean.” Even at twenty, when he’d signed up, he hadn’t been naive enough to think it was all exercises and hard drinking—though that would’ve suited him fine. But he hadn’t counted on seeing so much death and misery in so many places. Like he hadn’t lived through enough of that growing up. He scratched his elbow and found a Band-Aid on it. Did she do that last night, too?

She closed her eyes and ran the wipe over them. It felt weirdly intimate, watching a woman clean her face—the kind of thing you only usually saw if you were screwing her. And this was not a woman he’d be screwing.

“Why did you get into it?” she said.

Deflect attention, a-sap. “You said al-Thawra’s a cover—for what?”

“You tell me. Who benefits from those conflicts you’ve been sucked into?”

“No one,” he spit out. Pain stabbed his torso, where that bitch had kicked him.

“Really?”

“No one I’ve seen,” he gasped, clutching his side.

“Maybe I should take a look at your ches—I mean check your ribs.”

He held up a palm. If he could survive broken ribs without medical help as a kid, he could survive them now. Anyway, if his ribs were cracked, a Band-Aid and nail scissors wouldn’t do shit. And the last thing he needed was those pretty fingers skating all over his chest. “Just bruised.”

A pause. “But someone benefits, right?”

“From war? Yeah, journalists.”

“You think?”

He shuffled back to rest against the cool stone wall, buying himself a few inches of space. “Gives you a job, doesn’t it?”

“I could say the same about you.”

“I’m guessing your job pays better than mine.”

“But there are easier and safer ways for both of us to make a living, right?” She stretched her legs out, angling them awkwardly to avoid his. “If the US and its allies invade Somalia tomorrow, to crush the supposed threat from al-Thawra, who benefits?”

“Supposed threat? That’s a whacked comment coming from a woman sitting on jihadist death row—or whatever kind of death row you think this is. Who benefits? How about the people who don’t get blown up in the next terrorist attack?”

“Oh, come on—you don’t believe the PR about war making us safer?”

“Ah, crap, really? I’m stuck in a hole in I-don’t-know-the-hell-where, about to have my head sliced off, having some philosophical debate with...” With a woman who was getting more attractive—and formidable—by the second. He swallowed. “With some lefto greenie...tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy-theory crusader.”

“Power and money, right?” She bulldozed on, but with a hint of a smile. “That’s what it’s about—what it’s always about.”

“Not from where I’m looking. You missed survival and the fact that some of us actually like defending innocent people.” God, now he sounded like he was on 60 Minutes, or whatever self-righteous program she worked for.

“Yeah, but you’re looking at the foot soldiers, right? And the victims—the poor people just trying to keep their goats and children alive. Who benefits from a war in Somalia?”

“Ah. That would be no one.”

“No one in Somalia, sure. But how about in America? In the UK, in France, in Australia, in every other country al-Thawra’s trying to provoke?”

“Sunshine, my brain’s too fuzzy to decode your conspiracy theory. And I’m guessing you’ve had no one to lecture for an entire week, so how about you lay it all out for me?” At least she wasn’t interrogating him about his yo-yoing Australian-French accent.

She smiled again, the pale light catching her eyes. He could get used to looking at a face like that. Pity he wouldn’t get a chance. “What about the good old-fashioned war profiteers? In the Civil War they were the carpetbaggers. In World War II, the industrialists. Now they’re the contractors and suppliers.”

“Bloody hell, I’m gonna need more painkillers—you’re saying al-Thawra’s a military contractor?”

“Not directly, but I have—I had—a paper trail proving that al-Thawra is controlled by the biggest military contractor and supplier in the world—Denniston Corp.”

“Seriously?” Half the legion’s supplies were stamped with that logo. “Okay, that could be interesting, if it’s true.”

“Oh, it’s true. It was the story I was chasing before I was captured. Denniston’s about to go bankrupt, and when they do, a whole lot of dirt will wash up. Not just the ties to al-Thawra, but money laundering, terrorist links, political corruption... Kickbacks have been bouncing around the world for years, and a lot of people have got very rich and very powerful—senators, members of Congress, business leaders, at least one prime minister. Jail terms all round.”

“Wasn’t Denniston the company set up by—”

“Senator Hyland, yes. When he left the marines, that’s where he made his money. Officially he’s sold out of it, but unofficially he still calls the shots—in Denniston and al-Thawra.”

“Isn’t he the guy running for—”

“President. Yep. If Denniston goes bust, he loses everything—including his liberty. The one thing that’ll save them is a lucrative multigovernment contract, and soon.”

Whoa. It was like having his own live news service. “And they’ll get this contract if there’s another war?”

“Bingo. Things aren’t profitable right now, with troops withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US and its allies wary about getting mired in another conflict. So Denniston and Hyland and his buddy Sara invented al-Thawra and Hamid, and she masterminded the LA attacks—using foot soldiers who genuinely thought they were martyring themselves in a jihad—and made it look like Somalia was sheltering the terrorists. This invasion would not only get Hyland out of the crap—it’d make him look good.”

“The presidential candidate was behind an attack on his own country? Bullshit.”

“You think al-Thawra kidnapped me just because of my profile?”

“Hey, I was kidnapped and I don’t know about any of this.”

“I’d just verified enough evidence to run with the story and, bam.” She gestured at the room.

Okay, the fact she was in an al-Thawra dungeon might back up her story. “Does anyone else know?”

“My producer knew I was chasing the story, and my crew, but I had to keep it contained—many people would do anything to prevent this getting out, or find a way to discredit it.” She chewed the corner of a fingernail. “I don’t know what happened to my translator—we were separated when al-Thawra sprang. The cameraman was killed.”

“The translator—Somali guy?”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

The woman was in her last days—did she need the details?

She swore, and rubbed her eyes with the fingers of one hand. “Oh God. Really?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I could see it in your face. Dead?”

Very. “Afraid so.”

She tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling, her shiny eyes reflecting the light. His gut twisted—he knew the pain and guilt of losing buddies. Hell, he might have just lost all the friends he had.

“So all this stuff about them kidnapping you because you offended Islam...?”

“As you so eloquently put it? ‘Bullshit.’” She lowered her head and stared at a stain on the mattress. “Hamid will play the publicity for all it’s worth, then kill me, live—so to speak. She’ll want to generate more anger in the States, so Hyland can stir up the political will to get over the line in Somalia.” She lifted her gaze. Strength had returned to her eyes, cut in with new anger. “She’s also eager to pull France into her game. Your execu—your capture could tip them.”

Subtle she wasn’t. “Hamid will assume you’ve told me all this, that I know her secret.”

She winced.

“Guess I was dead anyway,” he said.

“Didn’t want to say it.”

A clink and a squeal—the door upstairs. Footsteps crossed the floor above. Dirt drifted down between the boards, lit by slits of weak light. One soldier, by the sound of it.

“I’m just pissed I’m going to die before I get this story out,” she added.

A grin tugged at his mouth. Smart, gutsy and hot. If he could have chosen one person to share his last days, it might well have been someone like her. As the room lightened she was looking paler and more fragile—but there was fire in her, for sure. He twitched with competing urges—to fold her into him and hide her from all this, and to tease that flame out of her in a far less honorable way. He stayed rigidly still.

Above, one bolt shot across, then another. She gripped the mattress, knuckles blanching.

“Tess, look...” he whispered, ignoring the burn in his ribs as he leaned closer. He stopped short of making it Tess Newell, as he’d heard hundreds of times on TV. Tess seemed incomplete. “Them kidnapping me buys you more time. Sounds like they plan to kill us together, and if your theory is true—”

“It is true.”

“—they’ll want to drum up anger about me in France first, right? That’s got to give us a few days.”

“You’re a real comfort,” she said flatly, but her knuckles returned to a normal color.

“I’ll find us a way out of this.”

She smiled, sadly—acknowledging his attempt at solace even if she didn’t believe it. Well, damn, he’d just have to prove her wrong.

The hatch yawned open. He tensed. Or he could be wrong about the whole time thing. One burst of fire down that hole...

A rope lowered, from the hands of a woman in gray camo gear and a hijab. Flynn shuffled in front of Tess but she exhaled, pushed to her feet and hobbled past him.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Trust me, we want to cooperate with this.” She grabbed a yellow bucket from the corner of the room and hooked it up.

“That what I think it is?”

“Hey, at least they change it twice a day. Otherwise I guess the smell would float up.”

“Real hospitable.”

The bucket rose and disappeared. Something fell. Before he could warn Tess, it clonked her on the head. Another bucket. Clean, at least.

“You okay?”

“Peachy,” she said, rubbing her head. She ducked as a brown plastic packet thunked onto the dirt, then another. She threw one to Flynn.

“An MRE?” he said.

The hatch dropped and was bolted.

“The finest field rations Denniston produces. They earn a dollar in profit from every meal, and they supply dozens of forces around the world—sometimes both sides in a conflict. And that’s only one of their contracts. They might not be making the bombs but they’re sure making the money—or they were. Most countries have a stockpile of these things now, so they’re not renewing their contracts.”

He ripped open the plastic, went straight for a brownie and bit in. Scam or not, he was as hungry as a wolf. She sat on the mattress and hugged her knees again, pulling her socks away from her toes. He got the idea she’d spent a lot of the week sitting like that. It’d sure suck to be alone down here. Hell, it sucked anyway, but it sucked a little less with her next to him.

“You not eating?” he mumbled.

“Later. Hard to drum up an appetite for something with a shelf life of three years.”

“Takes that long to go through your system.”

“I don’t want to know about your system.”

There was that unexpected smile again. He’d have to watch that smile—better yet, not watch it. He studied the packet, speaking through a mouthful of brownie. “This one expired two years ago.” He shoved the last of it in his mouth.

“So now you’re speaking with a French accent.”

“Am I?” he said, trying to sound offhand as he fished out a packet of crackers. “I don’t speak English much, so I’m all over the place.” That was true enough. French had become his official first language when he’d signed his life to the legion nearly a decade ago. The less of his old identity that remained, the better.

He felt her gaze as he crunched, the sound bouncing off the walls like shrapnel. He glugged from his water bottle.

“What are you hiding?” she said.

He choked, and the water splattered his jacket. “What?”

“I once did a story on the legion. It’s not a career path for well-adjusted kids from good families. They say everyone’s hiding or running—or both. So what’s your story?”

“No story. I wanted adventure.”

“Come on—we could be dead by dawn.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“I’m not taking notes. You could at least be civil—this could be the last conversation of your life. Between you and me, what are you hiding?”

Between him and her and her audience of millions? “Maybe I’m just an idealist.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”

“What you said, about escaping—maybe it’s true of some of the foreigners. But for French officers it can be a quicker trip through the ranks, if you’re prepared to put up with a platoon of lunatics.” Again, not exactly a lie.

“And are they—lunatics?”

“Non,” he said. Watch yourself. “Most just need a job. Others want to earn a European passport. Sure, some are running, but they’re not serial killers.” He gulped. The words had slipped out. Dumbass. “They’re more likely to be escaping bitter ex-wives.”

“Ah. And do you have one of those?”

“No, thank God.”

“Where are you from?”

“I told you—France,” he said, too quickly.

“You already said that. I meant, where in France?”

Damn. “Corsica, where my regiment is based.”

“Corsica, huh? That’s the...parachute regiment.”

Mate, she sure paid attention. Proceed with caution, soldier. “Oui, le 2E Régiment étranger de parachutistes.”

“The elite force—paratroopers, commandos.”

He shrugged. “My parachute training is about as useful down here as your notebook.”

“Do you spend much time at the French base at Djibouti—Monclar?”

“When I’m in town.”

“Maybe that’s why you look familiar—maybe I saw you there, when I was researching my legion piece. I watched a few training sessions.”

Yeah, that wasn’t why. “That’s it, then.” Let it go, lady. He scanned the ceiling. Enough chitchat. “Is that the routine here—bucket goes up, food comes down?”

“Twice a day—morning and evening.”

He stood, and ran his hand over the wooden planks that marked the ceiling, ignoring the sting in his ribs and his throbbing head. At one point the gap was wide enough for a few fingers. He scanned the ceiling, then the hatch, then the room.

“Looking for something?” she said.

“Hooks, nails, staples, bolts. Anything that could attach to the wood up here.”

“It’s all rocks and dirt. You have an idea?”

“I’ll tell you if it works. What’s above us?”

“Some storage bunker, I think.”

“Empty?”

“Mostly.”

“Number of guards?”

“They come and go, usually in pairs. They might beef up patrols now—I don’t think I was much of a threat.”

You are to me, sunshine. “When they bring the evening rations and do the bucket thing, does one person do it, like then?”

Her gaze shot to a corner of the room, thinking. “Yeah.”

“Is it light or dark outside?”

“Dark—right after sunset, I think. They don’t seem to have electricity in this building—this is as floodlit as it gets.”

That presented possibilities. Maybe if he could create some leverage... “Give me a look at your bag.”

She chucked it over. “You planning to bust us out with tweezers and diarrhea pills?”

“Beats waiting for the execution.”

CHAPTER 3

Tess watched the soldier palpate gaps in the ceiling. His brain better be as honed as his body, because she sure wasn’t seeing a way out.

Damn straight he was a pretty boy—or would have been, once. Caramel-colored hair blended with his tan, and his grim expression made his cheekbones look sculpted, his defined lips determined and his jaw even squarer. His narrowed eyes were pale—blue or maybe green. And still his face nagged at her memory, like meeting a guy you hadn’t seen since junior high and searching his features for the boy you remembered.

But the stubble, the crooked nose, the lines dug out between his eyes, the sun-worn skin... He was rough and a little frayed, too. And there’d been nothing delicate about the solid body pressed against hers last night. Just the thought... Whoa.

Hell, she didn’t even know the name of the guy who’d lulled her into her first proper, blessed sleep in nearly a week. Evidently it’d once been stenciled on his chest pocket but only a few faded strokes remained. An F? Or an E?

“What’s your name, soldier?”

A pause. “Flynn.”

“That doesn’t sound very French.”

He tugged at a board, acting like he hadn’t heard. It shifted, and dirt showered him. He was hiding something, for sure. Debts? Petty crimes? Recruits to the legion could change their names—was it the same for native officers, if he even was French? His French accent sounded kosher but she’d have sworn his Australian accent was authentic, too. Beaut, he’d said last night. Did anyone but Australians say that? Wouldn’t his native language be more likely to slip out in a drugged daze? And he’d said bloody hell—the French didn’t say that. Any minute, the neurons would connect, telling her where she knew him from. Something told her it wasn’t her visit to the French base—it went further into the past, to somewhere unexpected, somewhere dark. Damn, that was annoying. When she’d taken her first good look at his face, a frisson of danger had crawled up her spine—her subconscious issuing a warning? Why?

“Flynn who?”

“Does it matter?” His gaze was locked on the ceiling.

Well, hey, if he was a mystery, he was a welcome one. She froze. Unless he’d been planted down here to extract information. Crap. Al-Thawra had a rainbow of nationalities. Was he pretending to be a French soldier to earn her trust? That could explain the erratic accent and her usually reliable instinct pricking up.

Maybe Hamid was still trying to figure out if Tess had a copy of her dossier—using a carrot this time, rather than a pair of pliers? Tess chewed her lip. She’d know from the emails, as carefully worded as they were, that Tess hadn’t had a chance to get the evidence to Quan in Addis Ababa, and she hadn’t risked storing it online. Thank God caution had stopped her short of mentioning the backup of the dossier to Flynn—if that was his name. Could he be here to stage a bust-out so she’d lead him to it?

No. She was going loco. Too much time alone, locked in her head. If he got her above ground, at least she’d have options. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to do what she did best—prod him for information, push him a little, see if he slipped up. A wee game. Hey, she didn’t have anything else to do.

“Do you have a big family in Corsica?” she said.

He stiffened. “No.”

She waited, but he offered nothing more. Could be a good sign. In her vast experience with liars, they usually spoke too much, not too little.

“Did you grow up there?”

“Does it matter?”

“Just making conversation.”

“How about we focus on the task at hand? You’ll have the rest of your long life to make meaningless small talk.”

“Humor me. I’ve had no one to talk to for six days—and days last a mighty long time down here.”

“Fine. You want to talk, let’s talk about you. Where are you from?” He didn’t even pretend a genuine interest. Though if his French accent was faked, too, why did his words roll over her skin like velvet?

“The States,” she said, with a sly smile.

“Well, yeah. I meant...” He met her eye, then looked away. She detected a faint curse—called out on his own caginess. He crouched beside a wall and began examining it. “You know what I meant.”

Ah, what the heck. It was all on the internet. “I’m based in New York when I’m in the States, which isn’t often.”

“Where are you mostly?”

“I live in Addis Ababa, not that I’m there often, either. I cover Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan... So I’m mostly on the road.”

He was silent a few seconds, regarding her with raised eyebrows. “Wow, you didn’t land the cushy job. Did you piss off your bosses?”

She laughed. “I begged to be posted here.”

“What are you running away from?”

“Nothing. I like it here.”

He returned focus to the wall. “Where did you grow up?”

“Fort Bragg, mostly, though we moved around.”

“The army base?”

“That’s the one. My mom and brothers are still headquartered there.” She swallowed. And her mom had just become an al-Thawra target, too. Your other whistle-blower will soon meet the same fate as the first. Nice and tidy. Was Hamid bluffing? Tess could only hope Lieutenant Colonel Newell was one step ahead of Hamid—it was her job to know what people were thinking before they thought it, to outmaneuver them before they took a step. Which had sucked when Tess was a teenager, but now...

“You’re an army brat.” He ran his hands down the padded straps of her bag, frowning. “That ain’t gonna work,” he muttered.

“What isn’t?”

He fished around in the bag, emerging with a small rolled bandage. “Fort Bragg. That’s in the South, oui?”

“North Carolina, yeah.”

“You don’t sound Southern.”

“My accent comes and goes, a little like yours.”

“We did a joint exercise off Hawaii with some guys from there,” he said, his voice tight, evidently ignoring her dig. “Stevens, Porter, Luiz... Know them?”

Common enough surnames and it was a big base. Lucky guess?

“Mauricio Luiz?” she said.

He unwrapped the bandage and snapped it taut. It ripped. He swore. “Sounds right.”

“Blond guy?”

He looked at her sideways. “With a name like that? Nah, Colombian or something. Short guy, burn scar across his neck, tattoo of a...snake, or something. Arrogant piece of shit.”

“Oh yeah, that’s him.” So Flynn probably wasn’t faking the military thing. “He’s a good buddy of one of my brothers. God knows why. Last I saw him, he’d bleached his hair.”

“That’d be right.”

“Have you trained elsewhere in the States? Maybe that’s where I’ve seen—”

He held up his hand, listening, as a car engine surged and fell away. “We’re near a road?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of traffic but it seems to be a public road. I’ve heard children’s voices, buses, donkeys...”

He scanned the room for the twentieth time. “So what stopped you signing up, like your brothers?”

Wow, he was as seasoned at changing the subject as a politician. “Hard to be a lefto, greenie conspiracy theorist and shoot people.”

“You forgot the tinfoil hat.” His lips pulled up into a lopsided grin. It made him look boyish. Cute, even. Green—his eyes were green.

She pulled focus. Like it mattered. “I was more interested in keeping the higher ranks honest than doing their bidding. I saw the crap my mom and brothers had to put up with.” She left her Bronze Star–winning father out of it—he’d been the type to serve up the crap, while cheating on her mother on every tour. “Mom was only too happy to send me to college to keep me out of uniform.”

“Bet she didn’t imagine you’d be the one winding up here.”

“Guess not.” Or the child who’d bring killers to her door. What was her mom doing now? No one in the family would sit back and wait for the authorities to act, despite their respect for the chain of command, but she’d know Tess’s abduction had put her at risk. It was only after she’d put Tess in touch with Latif six months ago, while he was still working as an IT security analyst at Denniston, that the conspiracy had started to become clear. And now Latif was dead—“collateral damage” in a drone strike against al-Thawra, as if that could be believed—despite Tess’s promise to protect him, and the evidence he’d left behind was her only hope. Too many deaths already.

Flynn pushed a finger through the gap he’d widened in the floorboards, then retracted it, his forehead wrinkling. Was he planning to yank the whole floor down?