Page 13

CHAPTER 13

F leur sat in the admin tent, waiting for Rana to return from her translation duties in Tammara’s group. There had been two people who’d come to the camp for shelter and food. The newest members of the camp had said it was being circulated that the camp was closed and wasn’t taking any more people. That rumor would stop women fleeing abusive relationships or those destitute from seeking shelter. That broke her heart. For four years, she’d battled to take care of and relocate countless refugees from the fighting. Witnessing the hoards of people who’d once processed into the camp dry up to a trickle hurt to the point of feeling utterly defeated.

The small convoy of people going to Al-Tanf tonight was preparing to depart. She’d packed a change of clothes and toiletries and given the small bag to Ronan that morning before relieving Rana. The events of the last months had scarred her. She couldn’t deny it. From grief to anger to the stupidity of considering moving people by herself through the tunnel systems she didn’t know and couldn’t navigate, she sat at the small table and examined each of the phases she’d gone through. Thank God Ronan and Shelly had stopped her and made her see the foolishness of her plans.

Miller entered the tent and sat down in front of her. “Are you looking for refuge?” She smiled at him.

“More than you could believe.” Miller sighed and rubbed his face. Leaning closer, he whispered, “Has Ronan said anything to you about who the person inside is? It’s been three days since we found out.”

Fleur glanced across the tent. The two women were working with the structure’s representative and engrossed in their conversation. She shook her head. “I haven’t seen much of him, but he hasn’t said anything.”

Miller leaned back and shook his head. “I guess I’m expecting a miracle.”

Fleur sighed. “We all are, but hopefully, we can continue with the drawdown and close up shop. ”

Miller’s head whipped her direction. “What? That’s a change of tune for you, isn’t it? You were the biggest proponent of keeping this camp open.”

She nodded. “I’m tired, Miller. I’m going home after the camp shutters. It’s time.”

“Huh.” Miller blinked and looked at the floor. “Sorry to hear that. I really am.”

Fleur smiled at him. “Really? Why? It wasn’t like we were going to be assigned together again.”

He lifted his eyes and blinked at her. “What?”

“I asked why you’re sorry that I’m ready to go home.”

He shrugged the question away and said, “Oh, well, we’ve been through a lot. Thought you were digging in and wanting the camp to stay open.”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. Yeah, I made a loud stink about it in the beginning. Hell, I even attempted to find a way to get some of the people out via the tunnels.”

Miller frowned. “Did you give up that idea?”

She lifted a hand. “Yeah. I stopped the process. Ronan will get the convoys running again, and we’ll close. It might not be in two months, but hopefully, my security supervisor, who brought Guardian in, can get us more time to move everyone. ”

“We need to move them as soon as possible.” Miller shook his head.

“We’re picking up transport vehicles tonight,” she reminded him.

“He’s taking all his team with him?”

“I think some will remain here. I’m not sure; I didn’t ask, but I assume he won’t leave the camp unattended.”

“No, probably not.” Miller stood up. “If I don’t see you before you leave, be safe.”

“Okay, thanks.” She leaned back in her chair and watched the man leave the tent. He was so damn stressed. She couldn’t imagine the pressures weighing him down.

Rana walked into the tent not much longer. Her face was tight with stress.

“Are you all right?” Fleur asked.

“I am. The sessions are difficult.” She shrugged. “Tammara does miss some of the conversation, so it is best that I am there, but it is hard to hear even though I know things they talk about happen.”

“I can imagine.” Fleur put her hand on top of Rana’s. “Thank you so much for helping. It’ll only be for a few more months.”

Rana cocked her head. “So, the convoys will start again? ”

“I believe so.” Fleur nodded. “When I think of how stupid I was.” She shook her head slowly. “Thank you for going to Shelly. I wasn’t thinking correctly.”

Rana smiled at her. “We have to take care of each other.”

“We do, indeed.” She stood up. “I need to go. If you need anything while I’m gone, let Miller know.”

“I will. I hope you don’t have any problems,” Rana said as they switched positions.

“I think Ronan will be able to handle anything that comes our way.” She waved at Rana then left the tent. She was looking forward to leaving the camp. It had been a long time since she’d driven a convoy vehicle and even longer since she’d left the camp for personal time in Turkey.

She wandered over to the Guardian tent and noticed the other drivers were gathered there, too. When she approached, Ronan emerged from the tent. “All seven drivers are here?”

Wolf nodded. “We were just waiting on Fleur.”

“Then let’s go,” Ronan said as he started walking. “Fleur, with me. Everyone else in the transport with Wolf.” Fleur got into the Jeep’s passenger seat and glanced over at him. “Only two of you? ”

“Nope.” He pointed up. “We have an eye in the sky that will let us know if we have any problems.”

She glanced up and then back at him. “Will they help you shoot if someone attacks us?”

Ronan let out a bark of laughter and tapped a box in the back seat. “We have more than enough firepower should someone decide to be stupid.”

She glanced back at the hard green plastic box. The yellow print on the top read MK-153 SMAW. She grabbed the Oh Shit bar on the Jeep when Ronan popped the clutch, and the Jeep jerked forward. “What is a SMAW?” she asked as they pulled out of the compound.

“Shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon,” Ronan said as he looked in the rearview mirror, waiting for Wolf to catch up to him.

“Assault weapon?” she asked as they increased speed.

“Think rocket.”

She craned her neck to look back at the box. “You have a rocket in there?”

“Six. Just in case.”

“Oh.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Like it’s totally natural to bring six rockets with you in a vehicle.”

He glanced over at her, his dark mirrored sunglasses reflecting her image as he smiled. “It is for us.”

She blinked at him and then laughed. “Of course, it is.”

“Where did you grow up?” Ronan asked after about five minutes of silence.

“Washington State.” She smiled. “It was a great childhood. Dad was the best. My mom died in childbirth with my little brother. He didn’t make it, either.” She shrugged. “So it was just my dad and me. We did all the outdoor things. We surfed, camped, went on hiking trips, and played about every sport you could think of. I went to college on a softball scholarship.”

“Softball? What position?”

“Designated player.” She glanced at him when she said it.

He did a double-take. “Is that an actual position?”

“It was for me. I can smack the hell out of a ball, but don’t ask me to catch anything. I’ll miss eleven times out of ten. I could have been used as a defensive player, but thankfully, my coach knew I was crap and only used me as a pinch hitter or runner.” She laughed. “What sport did you play?”

“All of them,” Ronan said. “Baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse. ”

“Which were you best at?”

Ronan shrugged. “I was okay at all of them.”

“Okay?”

He smiled at her. “Good.”

“Just good?” she egged him on a bit.

“Okay, I lettered in all of them and had three scholarship opportunities. Football, lacrosse, and baseball.”

She laughed. “Which one did you choose?”

“None. My brother and I went to the Air Force Academy and from there went to flight training.”

“You’re a pilot?”

“I am,” he admitted.

“What kind of planes did you fly?”

“Heavies.”

She blinked. “What is that?”

“Big planes. C-17. We had high enough picks to go for the fighters, but our family’s business, Guardian, uses transport planes on the regular, so we trained on the heavies. Deacon has his helicopter license, too.”

“You didn’t?”

He shook his head. “Flying isn’t my passion. Some people want to do nothing more than be in the sky. I’m not that guy. Neither is Deacon. We’d rather run a team, make an impact one mission at a time, not be a glorified taxi driver.”

“I never thought of a pilot that way.” She’d always romanticized the job, thinking how great it would be to be able to fly a plane.

“You would after a while. We did our required commitment for the academy and the flight training and then came to work for Guardian. The training to be a team member was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but advanced special operations aren’t for the weak or the untrained. Deacon lives for this. I’m dedicated, and the job is everything to me, but my brother is on another level with it. We decided to split up and make our way on different teams.”

“And you love what you do.” She knew he did.

“I do. I enjoy the teamwork. These guys are just as much my family as Deacon and my sisters. Closer at times.” He glanced over at her. “What about you? How did you get here?”

“Oh, wow. That’s a convoluted process.” She paused before continuing, “Dad passed when I was in college. It hit me hard, and the scholarship wasn’t enough to cover all the expenses. Dad used everything he had to pay the rest without telling me, of course.”

“Of course,” Ronan said as he lifted his hand and placed it on hers. “I wouldn’t let my kid know if I was tight. I’d ensure they had everything they needed and deal with less.”

“Right? I realize that now, and that’s what he did. He took a second mortgage on the house, and I lost it because I didn’t have a way to make the payments. He had a small insurance policy, and I used that to bury him next to Mom and my baby brother, Ian.

“Anyway, I left school after my junior year and got a job working for a local construction company in project management. I used the school’s online program to finish my degree. Then, the company went bankrupt. It seems the owner and his wife lived way above their means. I had zero in the bank and ended up living on my cousin’s couch. I scoured the job openings and applied for everything I remotely qualified for, but there weren’t any offers and very few face-to-face interviews. That’s when I decided to look outside the United States. Nothing was keeping me there. I applied for a lot of different positions but was interviewed for the anti-trafficking position because it’s project management at the fundamental level. I run separate parts of the program and keep everyone accountable. That’s why I was reprimanded so severely when I went out after displaced people instead of waiting for them to come to us. I have a law enforcement title with no training or enforcement ability, but I have the desire to do the right thing for the right reasons.”

“Would you want to do project management in the States?” Ronan asked after they rumbled over part of the road that rattled the fillings in her teeth.

“I don’t know.” She gazed out at the emptiness and shook her head. “I have a substantial savings now. I think I’ll see if I can camp on my cousin’s couch again and look around since I don’t have an apartment. My goal when I came over here was to make a difference and, of course, receive a paycheck. Ninety percent of my pay has been shoved into savings for the last four years.”

“Keep in mind that Guardian is always hiring people with experience.”

“Yeah, at war stuff, right?”

Ronan barked out a laugh. “We’re primarily an investigative agency. Domestic Operations is our bread and butter. Our investigations branch is huge and has branches in almost every state. Overseas ops, which I’m a part of, is a small arm we’ve kept alive because of situations such as the IDP camps. Usually, we go in, do our jobs, and get out.”

That sounded ominous unless … “You mean, like rescue missions? ”

“Sometimes. Other times, we go after bad actors or squelch a situation before it becomes an international problem. There are various scenarios, but we always work within the confines of our charter, which was drafted and approved by POTUS.”

She frowned. “What’s a POTUS?”

“An acronym for the President of the United States.”

“Oh.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Dang, the president, huh? That’s pretty impressive.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Ronan smiled. “I don’t usually think much about what has happened to get the company to where it is now. There’s a lot of history in the foundation of Guardian. Someday, I’ll have to ask my father about it. The pieces I do know have made an indelible impression on me.”

And that was probably why he loved what he was doing. She wished her passion was as firmly entrenched as his. She thought she’d found that passion working with the IDPs, but lately, she’d been questioning everything. “Growing any company into an international success would be pretty difficult. Only the truly dedicated would succeed.” She gazed out across the countryside. She was dedicated to the people they served in the camp, but she wasn’t sure she was making any significant impact .

Ronan flicked his hand to his ear. “Go ahead.”

He glanced at her and then to the rearview mirror. “How long?”

“Got it.” He put on the brakes and brought the vehicle to a stop. The truck behind him pulled up beside them, and Wolf got out. Ronan looked at her and pointed to the truck. “Go get in the back of the truck with everyone else and tell them to get down as low to the truck's frame as possible. Keep quiet and do not come out no matter what.”

“Is there trouble?”

Ronan smiled grimly. “Nothing we can’t handle.”