“I’m not sure,” Valentina Metrace replied, her voice cool. “That’s what I’m here to find out. We need to talk, Miss Russell, specifically, about you.”
A little startled, Randi stepped back, and the historian brushed past her into the room. “Are we secure here?” she asked bruskly.
“I’ve scanned for bugs,” Randi replied, closing and relocking. “We’re clean.”
“Good. We can get down to it, then.” Valentina paced into the middle of the room, her arms crossed. Abruptly she turned to face Randi. “What the hell is wrong between you and Smith?”
In her casual amiability over the dinner table, Professor Metrace had not seemed quite such a formidable personality. But in attack mode now, her eyes were steel, and Randi was aware that even without heels, the brunette was an inch or two the taller.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Professor,” Randi replied stiffly. “There are no problems between Colonel Smith and myself.”
“Oh, please, Miss Russell. The atmosphere over that table was so charged it would have registered on a Geiger counter. I’ve never worked with either you or Smith before, but I gather you must have operated with the colonel in the past. I must also assume that you both must be reasonably competent members of the Club, or you wouldn’t be here. But it is also obvious something has gone off between you.”
Damn it! And Randi had been priding herself on the way she’d been keeping the lid on. “It’s nothing for you to concern yourself about, Professor.”
Metrace shook her head impatiently. “Miss Russell. I am a professional at this game. That means I don’t work with people I don’t trust, and right now I’m not trusting anybody. Before I take another step forward on this operation, I want to know what exactly the bloody hell is going on between my theoretical teammates-in detail!”
Randi could recognize the gambit in play: belligerence, probably feigned, and a sudden slashing assault. Metrace was not merely demanding information. She was probing, testing Randi’s reaction.
The CIA operative strove to suppress her instinctive flare of anger. “I suggest that you discuss this matter with Colonel Smith.”
“Oh, I fully intend to, darling. But he’s not available at the moment, and you are. Beyond that, Smith seemed to be handling affairs better. You seem to be the one with her knickers in a knot. Illuminate me.”
This woman was infuriating, or at least that was how she desired to be at the moment. “I can assure you that any dealings I may have had with Colonel Smith in the past will have no effect on our current assignment whatsoever.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Metrace replied flatly.
Randi felt her control cracking. “Then you may judge that it’s none of your damn business!”
“Keeping my skin intact is my business, Miss Russell, one that I devote a great deal of loving attention to. And right now I am sensing a sour team and a mission aborted before it launches, because of personnel problems. I’m one of the mission specialists, thus, indispensable. I suspect Colonel Smith is as well. That leaves the little helicopter girl to get the black ball. I assure you that you can be replaced, darling. Now, watch me walk out of here and make it happen!”
The confrontation hovered on the verge of critical mass. But both women recognized that if a blow was thrown, it would be no scratch-and-slap cat fight; one or the other or both of them would be dead or critically maimed in seconds.
Finally, Randi took a deep, shuddering breath. Damn this woman and damn Jon Smith and damn herself. But if they were going to be operating together, Metrace had the right to ask and Randi the responsibility to answer.
“Ten years ago a young army officer that I was very much in love with was serving with a peacekeeping force in the Horn of Africa. We were going to be married when he got home. But he contracted something out of the African disease pool, something that medical science was just beginning to recognize. He was evacuated to a Navy hospital ship and placed under the care of an army doctor who was serving aboard at the time.”
Valentina relaxed minutely. “Colonel Smith?”
“He was a captain then. He made a misdiagnosis. It wasn’t really his fault, I suppose. Only a few tropical disease specialists really understood the illness at the time. But my fiancé died.”
The silence returned to the room. Randi took another deep breath and went on. “Some time later, Major Smith met my older sister, Sophia. She was a doctor, too, a research microbiologist. They fell in love and were engaged to be married when he convinced her to come and work with him at the U.S. Army Medical Institute for Infectious Diseases. Do you remember the Hades plague?”
“Of course.”
Randi kept her eyes fixed on the blandly patterned wallpaper. “USAMRIID was one of the first agencies called in to try and isolate the disease and find a cure. While working with the plague, my sister caught it.”
“And she died as well.” Valentina Metrace’s voice softened into compassion. The test was over.
Randi could meet the other woman’s gaze now. “Since then I’ve found myself working with Jon on a number of different assignments. For some reason we just keep getting tangled up with each other.” She continued with a wry, self-derogatory smile. “I’ve come to recognize that he’s a good operative and essentially a good person. I’ve also come to recognize that what’s happened in the past is…past. I promise you, Professor, that I’ll have no problem working with him as my team leader. He knows his business. It’s only that I have some memories to work through whenever we first come together.”
Valentina nodded. “I see.”
She turned for the door but paused halfway through the move. “Miss Russell, would you like to have breakfast with me tomorrow, before we get on the plane?”
She put no special emphasis on the “we” in the sentence. It was offered as a given.
Randi’s responding smile was open this time. “I’d like that, Professor. And call me Randi.”
“And Val for me. I apologize for coming on quite so strong. I was a bit uncertain about the scenario. I wasn’t sure if I might not be getting caught up in the fallout of some former romantic entanglement.”
“Between Jon and me?” Randi chuckled ruefully. “Not likely.”
The other woman’s smile deepened. “Good.”
After Valentina Metrace had left, Randi frowned. There had been no reason for the black-haired historian to look quite so pleased with that last answer she had been given.
Chapter Eleven
Over the Straits of Juan de Fuca
The Alaska Airlines 737-400 swept over the island-studded band of water separating the Olympic Peninsula and the United States from Vancouver Island and Canada. With cloud tendrils licking at its belly, it angled away to the northwest. As the Boeing leveled off at its cruising altitude, Jon Smith loosened his seat belt. The midweek morning flight to Anchorage was half empty, and he had the dual luxuries of no seat partner and a spot in the spacious A row just behind the cockpit bulkhead.
For the first time in weeks he was in civilian clothes, his uniform exchanged for Levi’s and a well-worn bush jacket. The change was a pleasant one. Glancing over the seat back, he could see Randi Russell and Professor Metrace spaced out farther back in the cabin.
Since last night Randi had apparently reestablished her equanimity with him. Looking up from the helicopter flight manual she’d been studying, she gave him a brief smile.
The professor was also reading, her nose buried in a massive bookmark-studded study of the Warsaw Pact Air Forces.
Professor. It still sounded odd.
His own briefcase rested under his seat, loaded with the latest USAMRIID downloads on the rapid diagnosis and identification of anthrax variants and their treatments. He’d get to them presently, but for the moment it felt good to sit back, stretch his legs out, and close his eyes against the warm morning sun pouring through the cabin window. Soon he’d have no time or opportunity to unload so totally.