Her Last Line of Defense (2 page)

Claire had been a politician’s daughter long enough to know tap dancing when she saw it. “Survival lessons?” she prompted.

Her dad set down the glass and dropped his soothing tone. “Since you have decided this is your course of action, foolish as it may be, I am helping you to implement your choice in the safest way possible.”

“Dad, really. The settlement at Río San Lucas is its own little town—just like Cooksville.” Their hometown was named after their ancestor, who helped settle central Virginia before the Revolutionary War. The redbrick house they were standing in had been commandeered by the British as a barracks during that war and barely escaped being burned by the Yankees during what her grandfather Cook had always referred to as the War of Northern Aggression.

But her dad was on a roll. “Cooksville isn’t surrounded by deadly rain forest, killer snakes and venomous spiders.”

Claire made a face. There he was harping on the snakes and spiders again, just because she didn’t even like the supposedly harmless daddy longlegs spiders. Maybe she should try killing them on her own rather than yelling for their housekeeper, Louella. She flinched at a tickle on her neck and realized it was a stray dark hair falling out of her ponytail. She really had to get over that.

“Not to mention jaguars, feral pigs and half-naked tribesmen who would be more than happy to add an exotically beautiful young girl to their harem, or squad of wives, or concubine crew, or whatever they call it down there.”

Claire had to roll her eyes. Brown hair, brown eyes and brown freckles scattered across a nose that hovered on the edge of snub was hardly exotic. And honestly, she’d had plenty of practice fighting off overly amorous men among the suit-wearing tribes of the Potomac River. A couple she hadn’t fought at all, but her dad didn’t need to know that.

“I will be fine,” she enunciated carefully. “So thank you, but no thanks. Dr. Schmidt will show me the ropes once I get down there and I won’t have any problems.”

“Claire, Claire, Claire.” Her father shook his carefully coiffed silver head in what she figured was mock ruefulness.

“Dad, Dad, Dad.” She copied him right back.

He dropped the Mr. Nice Dad act and pulled on his congressman face—not the kindly, wise face the cameras saw, but the face his opponents saw when they tried to block his bills or basically thwart his not-inconsiderable will. “You will take this training, or you won’t go to San Lucas. Not to teach, not to visit, not even to fly over it.”

“And I told
you
, if you try to pull my passport, I will go to the media. I’m sure that TV reporter you accidentally called a ‘slime-sucking son of a bitch’ on live feed would be happy to interview me.”

Her old man pulled his face into a half grin. “Ah, you wound me, Claire. To think that I of all people would be so obvious, and after all these years in politics, no less.”

A knot tightened in her stomach. “If you’re not going to be obvious, then what?”

“Dr. Schmidt is coming to the States on a fund-raising lecture tour in January, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Claire eyed him narrowly.

“And the settlement gets most of its funding from American donations, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she muttered. Dammit, she knew what was coming.

“If the kind European Dr. Schmidt is found to have some problem that might prevent his American visa from being approved, perhaps the nasty rumor of association with the narcoterrorists in the south of San Lucas—”

“Dad!” Claire’s chest tightened. “Dr. Schmidt has never associated with the drug runners—never!”

“Come on, Claire, we both know he doesn’t ask many questions when some scumbag shows up with a mysterious gunshot wound he got while “cleaning his automatic rifle.’” Her dad made air quotes with his fingers. “Your grandfather did the same thing when he ran the settlement, so don’t try to tell me different.”

Claire pursed her lips. “The settlement is neutral territory down there. That’s why they need me as a teacher. The local villagers know it’s safe to send their children for schooling so they can get an education, have a better life than what their parents had.”

“And do what? Move to the city where they can live in slums and pick over the garbage dump for food?” Dad shook his head. “Your mother and I had this discussion a million times. What if they are better off in the jungle, doing what their ancestors have done for thousands of years?”

“And what did Mom say? She was the one who grew up in the settlement.”

“Your mother was adopted into the tribe, knew the languages and cultures and was generally regarded as a world expert on San Lucas de la Selva, but even
she
didn’t know the answers. How do you expect to?”

This was what was so infuriating about arguing with her father. He had the politician’s trick of turning her argument back on her and twisting her words all around. She resorted to what
did
work: stubbornness. “I don’t expect to fix everything. I expect to go.”

“My God, you’re pigheaded.” He shook his head. “Just like your mother and grandfather. All right. You’ll go—if you pass the survival training.”

Claire protested but he held up his hand, his blue eyes blazing. “You are my only child, the only child of your mother, and I will be damned if I put you on a plane to the dangerous jungle when you can’t even make yourself kill a harmless spider here in Virginia. I’m willing to let you go, but not as some lamb to the jungle slaughter.”

“Fine.” Claire gritted her teeth and relaxed. She’d been a Girl Scout, knew how to build a fire, find out which way was north. This would be similar, only designed for a more tropical climate than central Virginia. “How hard can it be?”

Her dad smiled, but it was his sharky smile that Claire had never seen directed at her before. “How hard can it be?” he mocked. “I guess you’ll have to ask Sergeant First Class Luc Boudreaux. He’s the Green Beret soldier who will be training you.”

Janey pushed her light brown bangs off her forehead while Claire drank some water. “Green Berets are trained for anything and everything, but their specialty is working with and training indigenous forces. Back in the Vietnam War, they were the jungle warfare specialists—they called them the snake eaters.”

“Snake eaters?” Claire’s stomach pitched.

“They’ve branched out since, especially to desert and mountain warfare, but they are some of the toughest SOBs in the army.” Janey eyed her. “Well, if you have a Green Beret sergeant first-class training you, I won’t worry so much. Those guys know everything. You’ll learn how to take care of yourself or die trying.”

“Oh, Janey.” Claire staggered to a park bench and collapsed. “Why did my dad do this to me? Am I going to have to eat snakes?”

Her friend laughed. “Because he doesn’t want you to go, and yes, probably. But they taste kind of like tough chicken—so I’ve been told. Hey, and here I was complaining about a desk job.”

Claire sat up straight. When had she become a whiner? Whiners never won. “I’m still going to do it. I can eat snakes. I can survive in the jungle. I can do it.” She jumped to her feet and jogged in place, ignoring the burn in her thigh muscles. “Let’s go!”

Janey shook her head and smiled. “By the time you come back, you’ll be able to kick my ass. Come on, soldier girl. I’ll teach you some running cadences—they’ll help you breathe better. Repeat after me—okay?” She broke into a jog and Claire followed. “I wanna be an Airborne Ranger.”

“I wanna be an Airborne Ranger,” Claire managed to gasp.

“Live the life of sex and danger.”

“Live the life of—what?” Claire stopped again.

“Sex and danger, Claire, sex and danger. They go hand-in-hand for soldiers. The danger gets their adrenaline all revved up and they burn it off with sex.” Janey grinned. “Remember that time we were supposed to go shopping and I told you I had to work all weekend? Well, last year I’d gone out a couple times with this one marine right before he shipped out.”

“Yes?” Claire lifted an eyebrow.

Janey wiggled her eyebrows in return. “He shipped back in. In more than one way.”

“Janey!” Claire scolded.

“I know, I know.” Her friend didn’t look abashed at all. “But, Claire, he was so tan and buff—and eager, after a year in the desert. Social opportunities there are mighty limited.”

“So you took pity on a poor, lonely marine.”

“Believe me, I got as much as I gave.” Her friend got a quizzical look on her face. “I wonder if your Green Beret is fresh from the sandbox.”

“Sandbox?”

“What the soldiers call their Middle East deployments.”

Claire shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. Whoever he is, he’s probably some suck-up who thinks he can advance his career by doing a favor for a congressman.”

“If Sergeant First Class…you said Boudreaux, right? If SFC Boudreaux was an ambitious suck-up, he sure wouldn’t be in the Green Berets. Used to be Special Forces was a dead end on the army career ladder. Not so much anymore, but these guys are not your loudmouth glory hounds who go overseas with their general on fact-finding missions and brag how they heard gunfire from five miles away.” Janey frowned. “Man, I wanna go overseas. Riding a desk in D.C. is not what I had in mind when I joined the army.”

“I wish Sergeant Boudreaux would go back.” Claire knew she was probably pouting but didn’t care.

“He’s probably not any happier to do this than you are.” Janey did lunges to stretch her calf muscles. “He’s either missing out on team training time or personal leave. Instead of hanging out in the woods, doing mock warfare with his buddies, or even better, getting laid and drunk, he’s got to train some squeamish chick who once spent two hours looking for her convertible in the Tysons Galleria parking lot.”

“So I’m directionally challenged—I came out the Macy’s door instead of Neiman Marcus,” Claire mumbled.

“Claire, your dad had dropped you off that day—you didn’t even have your car.”

“All right, Janey, all right.” Claire’s face flushed. “Maybe I do need to reinforce some outdoor skills.”

Janey nodded and smiled encouragingly. “I’m sure you’ll learn a lot of useful things from Sergeant First Class Boudreaux.”

Claire knew her friend was worried about her being able to take care of herself, but at least Janey wasn’t haranguing her like her dad. Once she got back from San Lucas, it was time to get her own place.

“We’d better move before we cramp up.” Janey took off jogging backward, her face mischievous. “Here’s a new cadence especially for you. ‘I wanna be a Green Beret.’”

“I wanna…be a…Green Beret.” Claire was starting to puff again.

“‘Live the life of sex and foreplay….’”

“Janey!”

She tried to ignore her dad and her churning stomach, in that order, and focused on a large painted wooden logo on the wall. Black and silver, the words
De Oppresso Liber
were painted in a semicircle under a six-pronged star. She walked closer—the star was actually a pair of crossed arrows over a long, lethal-looking knife.

According to what Claire had found out searching online after her run with Janey, the Green Berets didn’t need any arrows or knives. They could probably kill somebody with a paper clip and a plastic drinking straw—the bendy kind.

De Oppresso Liber.
She guessed from her French and Spanish classes that the Latin motto meant From Oppression Freeing or something like that. Freedom from oppression. A noble goal.

In her own little way, that was Claire’s goal, too. Not that anyone would consider her oppressed. After all, her father was one of the most powerful politicians in America, her family had plenty of money and she had never wondered if she would have enough to eat. Nothing to complain about, yet…

She wasn’t truly free because she hadn’t tried to be. No Declaration of Independence had flowed from her pen, no charge up San Juan Hill, no stand at the Alamo. Well, maybe not that last one—she had cried when she visited the mission-fort in San Antonio and seen where real heroes had given their lives for their beliefs.

But it had always been easier to go along with her dad’s plans for her, especially after her mother died, when they had clung to each other in their grief.

Claire snuck a look at her father, who was giving a long list of instructions to his assistant. Her father had moved on, had even casually dated a few widows or divorcées. She was actually okay with that, knowing that he would always cherish the love he had for her mother. He had a good and full life, but Claire? Not so much.

Clinging time was over for Claire Cook, the Human Kudzu Vine. Her turning point had come six months ago on the second anniversary of her mother’s death, when she had steeled herself to look through the family photo albums her father had shoved to the back of the library closet.

Her mother had been the antithesis of “cling,” especially in the black-and-white photos of her as a young girl and then the faded color pictures of her as a teenager—always in the settlement or the jungle surrounding it. The only difference between her and the local girls was lighter skin and more clothing, on the insistence of her parents.

Claire moved along the wall to look at several photos of the base, as well as photos of men in green or tan uniforms. Each one’s face was carefully turned away from the camera or otherwise indistinguishable on film. Men building shelters, carrying weapons, reading maps. Men who had no doubt about who they were and what they were meant to do.

Seeing her mother’s joyful face and remembering the stories and struggles of their lives in San Lucas, Claire had carefully closed the album and written her grandfather’s successor, Dr. Schmidt.

Her father’s droning voice had stopped, and a new electric current ran through the room. She turned away from the wall. Three men stood inside the doorway, the older one some kind of commanding officer and the younger two his subordinates.

Her father leaped to his feet and gave the officer a hearty handshake. “Ah, Colonel Spencer, we spoke on the phone. A pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

“Congressman. Ma’am.” The colonel gave her a curt nod. Claire nodded in return, noting he didn’t verbalize his own delight. The colonel looked like a tougher twin of her father, his silver hair clipped close instead of styled, his green cammies neatly pressed.

If the colonel was spic-and-span army, his men looked like they belonged in the army jail. Were soldiers even allowed to wear beards? The taller, blond guy looked like he might be the cheerful type on a good day, but obviously today wasn’t a good day. He, on the other hand, looked like Miss Susie Sunshine compared to his companion. Claire had a nasty feeling that the darker man more closely resembled a man named Luc Boudreaux than Blondie did.

Blackbeard in the flesh. His eyes were two pieces of black coal, cold and glittering. His hair waved well past his collar, his beard covering most of his tanned face. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in months. Janey’s words about being fresh from the sandbox popped into Claire’s head. Fresh from the desert to the swamp. No wonder he looked ready to spit nails.

Colonel Spencer gestured to his men. “Congressman Cook, Miss Cook, I’d like you to meet Captain Magnus Olson and Sergeant First Class Luc Boudreaux. Captain Olson has kindly released Sergeant Boudreaux from his current duties to serve as your trainer.”

Their lips tightened briefly under all the facial hair. How much pressure had her father exerted on them? They certainly didn’t look like eager volunteers.

A knock sounded at the door. Claire gasped. “Janey, what are you doing here?” Her friend stood in her dress uniform, her hat under her arm.

Janey wouldn’t meet her eyes and snapped a perfect salute to Colonel Spencer and Captain Olson. The colonel returned it and the captain waved his hand vaguely toward his eyebrow. “First Lieutenant Jane Merrick reporting for duty, sir.”

“At ease, Lieutenant.” He took the packet of papers Janey offered him and scanned through the sheets, a cynical smile spreading over his face.

“Duty?” Claire asked. As far as she knew, Janey’s Pentagon stint was to last at least another six to eight months. Why would they send her to Ft. Bragg? “Are you here on account of me?”

“Sir, my commanding officer ordered me to report to Fort Bragg as a special liaison between his office and yours.” Janey still refused to look at Claire, but the tips of her ears were turning red. Captain Olson and Sergeant Boudreaux didn’t change expression but Claire sensed their disgust.

“Well, well.” Colonel Spencer slapped her papers against his open palm. “An unexpected present from our brethren—and sisters—in arms at the Pentagon. My memory is a tad faulty—are we conducting some joint operation that requires a liaison?”

“Sir, I don’t know. I am just following my orders.” Janey looked miserable but didn’t back down.

The colonel sighed. “Yes, I expect you are.” He turned to Claire. “Miss Cook, I assume you know the lieutenant?”

“Yes, we were roommates at UVA—University of Virginia. Go Cavaliers,” she finished weakly.

“I was a West Point man myself. Congressman Cook?” He turned to her father.

“Colonel,” her father said brightly.

“I don’t suppose you would know why First Lieutenant Merrick was plucked from her important desk job in our nation’s military command center and sent down to pal around with us lowly Special Forces types, would you?”

“A chaperone.” Claire jumped to hear the sergeant’s clipped Cajun tones. “Congressman Cook got himself a chaperone for his li’l girl.”

Her father’s mouth twitched guiltily. Claire wanted to die a thousand deaths. “Oh, Janey, I am so sorry he dragged you into this. Dad, how could you? Janey doesn’t deserve this.”

“Yo’
papa
don’t trust you’re alone in the woods with a big, bad Green Beret?” For the first time, Sergeant Boudreaux met her shamed gaze with a mocking one of his own. “You must be quite the tiger.”

“Shut your mouth, you!” Her father shot to his feet, his face mottled.

“No offense, sir, but you’re not my commanding officer, and last I checked, Fort Bragg is still in the U.S. of A., where freedom of speech still applies.”

“Zip it, Boudreaux,” his captain said without heat.

“Zipping it, sir.” He closed his mouth, his point made.

“No, you zip it, Dad!” Claire turned on her father. “That man is totally justified in his outrage.”

“Outrage,” Boudreaux mused. “Now that is a
fine
word for this situation.”

“You zip it, too! I’m trying to defend you here,” Claire cried in frustration.

He arched a black eyebrow at her. “
Bébé
, do I look like a man who needs defending?”

She huffed out a breath and turned back to her father. “You have constantly thrown up roadblocks to my plans, you have tampered with the workings of the U.S. Army, and meddled with the careers of Janey and at least three of her fellow soldiers. You’ve abused your authority and are a disgrace to your office.”

“I don’t know about that,
cher
,” Boudreaux interjected with a smirk. “Your daddy hasn’t been indicted, served prison time or accidentally killed someone—he’s an amateur in comparison to his fellow politicians.”

Captain Olson unsuccessfully muffled a snort. Colonel Spencer intently studied the ceiling, his jaw twitching.

Claire clenched her trembling fists. “Dad, I have had enough. I am going to San Lucas, Janey is going to Washington and these nice men can go wherever they had planned to go before you came along. Hopefully to a barber,” she added, ticked off at the sergeant’s enjoyment of her embarrassment. And who was he to call her
cher,
anyway, in that mocking French-tinged accent?

She hurried from the conference room, ignoring her father’s shouts, wanting to escape. She dashed into the humid Carolina afternoon, crossing the parking lot into a small landscaped grove with a picnic bench. The scent of pines didn’t quite cover the smell of diesel and something else pungent—explosives? She wasn’t sure. Claire climbed onto the picnic table, her feet resting on the bench.

A new scent came along, clean and masculine. She turned and stifled a yelp. Good thing Sergeant Boudreau was wearing cologne because she certainly hadn’t heard him approach. Of course, that would be a plus in his line of work. He stood next to her and stared across the parking lot, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, tightening the thin fabric across his zipper. Not that she noticed things like that.

“Don’t worry—you’re off the hook.” Claire didn’t want to meet his mocking glance again. “I’ll be fine—the Río San Lucas settlement is like a small town, running water and everything so I can wash my hair.” She gave a little laugh, trying to get him to leave her alone.

“Why you wanna go down to that jungle snake hole anyway, Mademoiselle Cook?” This time he wasn’t mocking, just curious. “You got somethin’ to prove to your
papa
?”

She tried to hide her flinch. “Maybe I have something to prove to myself.”

“There are easier ways to do that. Go mountain climbing or white-water rafting if you want to see how tough you are. Walk across the country to raise money for cancer, but moving to the jungle doesn’t make you tough—just foolish.”

Claire saw red. “Shut up! You denigrate my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather.” She slammed her fist into her palm as she named each of her family members. “They moved to San Lucas to serve people who had no one and had nothing. You talk to all the women who lived after my grandfather saved them during difficult childbirth—you talk to all their babies who lived because they had their mothers to breastfeed them. You ask them how foolish it is that they are alive and not buried in an unmarked jungle grave site!”

He stood in silence for a minute. “I apologize,” he finally said.

Claire almost fell off the picnic table. “What?”

He ran a strong hand through his wavy hair. “I have been extremely rude and my
grand-mère
and
maman
would pass me a slap. My only defense is that I’ve been overseas away from civilization too long.”

“How long?” she asked without thinking.

“Now that’s classified information, ma’am.”

His scornful attitude was back. “I’d say at least seven or eight months according to your facial hair,” she retorted. “If you don’t want people speculating, the least you could do is get a haircut and shave.” He did look good as a pirate—maybe he was descended from Jean Lafitte, the famous Louisianan pirate.

“Maybe you should sign up as an intelligence agent instead. It was actually eight months and ten days.” He rubbed his chin.

“Claire! Claire!” Her father’s voice echoed out the main door of the office building.

She pressed her lips together. She was definitely getting her own place, San Lucas or no. Dad had gone too far.

“There you are, Claire.” He hurried up to her, ignoring Boudreaux. “Now can you see how foolish this idea of yours is?” he asked, unknowingly echoing Boudreaux’s earlier taunt.

Next to her, the Green Beret sucked in a breath, obviously waiting for her to lose her temper with her father like she had with him.

But her will had been tempered into steel. “Who’s going to look like the bigger fool at the press conference I’ll arrange—me, for wanting to go to San Lucas, or you, for throwing so many inappropriate roadblocks into my path? Now you’re interfering with the U.S. Army.”

“And during an election year, too,” Boudreaux added helpfully. “Sir.”

“You’d do that? To your own father?” He was practically stammering in indignation.

“You were always talking about retiring.”

“Retiring! Retiring, not losing to that nobody state senator who’s running against me.”