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Shep chuckled and nodded. “Got me dead to rights on that one, Lockwood. Spot on.”
Tal leaned forward, giving Wyatt a glance. “Shep? What do you think of the assignment so far? Is it a go?”
“Yes. This is just like Afghanistan, Iraq and, later, outlying villages in Turkey me and my construction teams were assigned to, whether building irrigation ditches, drilling a well, or trying to otherwise improve their lives while bad guys lurked around. No difference to me.”
Tal’s lips thinned. “Remember? I told you there was a curveball to this assignment.”
Shep held her somber look. “You did. What is it?”
Gesturing to the screen, she said, “The PIC, pilot in command, and co-pilot both work for Shield Security out of Bahir Dar. Willow Chamberlin is the PIC. Your ex-wife.”
The pit of Shep’s stomach clenched like a painful fist. He stared at Tal, shock racing through him. He had very little connection with Willow. Shep never asked where she was or what she was doing. They kept their few emails brief, breezy and impersonal. But still he always looked forward to them, no matter how brief or blasé they were. Knowing he had hurt Willow badly, Shep sensed she was protecting herself from some immature actions on his behalf in the past. She was a feminist, and he’d overreacted to that side of her all the time. And because they’d both been cocksure and hotheaded, neither had given, nor even considered, a compromised middle-ground to keep their budding relationship viable. It had been a death-spiral for their marriage, no matter how well they’d gotten along in bed. That was all three years in the past, and now it seemed like another lifetime ago.
Tal studied him, silence cloaking the room.
Shep turned, his gaze on the screen as he stared at Willow’s image. In the displayed photo, she was wearing a dark-green one-piece flight suit with her name patch, ‘Chamberlin, W.’ stitched on it. On her left sleeve was sewn an American flag. On the right, as part of her undercover status, in big yellow embroidered letters was ‘Delos Charities’ with her name below it again.
His throat tightened. He was unable to tear his gaze from her oval, unsmiling face. She wore an olive-green baseball cap with the Delos logo on the front of it. She had her bright, carrot-red hair gathered into a ponytail. But it was those green eyes of hers, large, intelligent and taking no prisoners, that his gaze was stapled to. She was standing next to her Otter twin-engine aircraft, hands in pockets, looking supremely confident. He knew that look. After all, she’d been a badass combat pilot, hurling destruction below her to keep her comrades in arms safe on that ever-changing battlefield called Afghanistan.
“Willow and her co-pilot, Dev Mitchell, are both Shield Security employees, and they have a contract to stay at Bahir Dar for two years. Her job as PIC is to take all the supplies Delos ships in monthly to all the villages you see on that piece of paper. Her copilot is another ex-USAF transport pilot and Shield employee. Together, they fly into each of the dirt strips next to the villages, delivering the goods and supplies to the Delos charity that supports its population. Both had known one another at Bagram and become good friends.”
Shep noticed the black nylon drop holster around Willow’s right thigh and the .45 pistol in it. “So, nowhere in Africa is safe?” he asked, turning to Cav, the expert.
“Not really,” he said. “Some places are safer than others. Some places hire security guards to keep it that way. With domestic or foreign terrorism, no place in the world is safe anymore. It isn’t just Africa.” Cav pointed toward the screen. “As I understand it, Willow and Dev are in constant potential danger because they’re operating in outlying, rural villages. We know that Tefere’s soldiers rove these areas, looking for ways to rob and plunder the Delos charities in them. The only reason they haven’t been able to is due to a back-door agreement with General Hakym. He’s put a squad of ten soldiers at each Delos charity. They live in those villages and that has deterred several attacks by Tefere David on them, as a result. But it’s not foolproof.”
“And,” Wyatt said, “that’s all ending once we get our new security measures in place via Shield. We may also have to place a permanent security team at each location until Tefere David can be caught and brought to justice or killed by General Hakym’s soldiers. They are actively looking for him and his men, but it’s a big area and he doesn’t have unlimited resources to find the bastard.”
“I see.” Shep tried to settle his thudding heart as he kept his gaze trained on Willow’s face. Her nose was red from being out in the sun too long. She was a redhead; her skin was very white and very susceptible to too much sunlight. That was why she’d always worn a baseball cap at Bagram while she’d been stationed there in another desert country. The sleeves of her uniform were rolled up to just below her elbows and he saw the aviator’s watch on her slender right wrist. Willow was five foot seven inches tall, around a hundred and forty pounds. She was built lean like a greyhound, with small breasts and slender hips. To an outsider, it would be a hard guess she’d been a combat pilot. He smiled to himself, knowing she was a like a Belgian Malinois combat attack dog who took no prisoners. That side of her rarely showed, except when she was sitting in the cockpit of her F-16, taking out the bad guys to protect the American soldiers below her spread wings.
“Well?” Tal asked, holding Shep’s gaze. “Are you still in this assignment or not? You will be interfacing with Willow all the time. She and her copilot will be constantly flying in and out of the villages where you’ll be working to put the security fencing in place for each charity.”
He shrugged. “I’m okay with it.” He saw Tal’s eyes narrow speculatively on him, almost feeling her energy in his mind, trying to read his thoughts.
Wyatt added, “Look, Willow and Dev have worked with Delos out in that area of the world for a long time. They’re good at what they do. Both are savvy ex-military trained pilots and they know the lay of the land. You need to realize that they both have experiences and observations that are going to help the new Shield security team and your Delos employees, so you need to listen to them, Shep. Is that going to be a problem between you and Willow?”
Shep knew he was a stubborn but stable kind of personality. Just like Willow was, but he’d called her headstrong and bullheaded. When one puts two bars of titanium steel in a vice, not much give or flexibility is accorded one to the other. Wiping his bearded jaw, he said, “Not a problem. I value my people’s protection. I’ll listen to Willow and Dev’s experience and counsel. Just because Willow and I couldn’t make the marriage work doesn’t mean I can’t work with her on a professional level.” Shep saw the question in Wyatt’s eyes, but the Texan said nothing, only giving him a brief nod.
“Okay, everyone can leave except Tal, Alex, Matt, Shep and myself,” Wyatt told the room. Within a few minutes, the room was cleared out, the door shut, and silence returned to it.
Alexa said, “Shep? This is private between the four of us. We’re shutting off the recording equipment because it needs to stay within this circle. I know Willow personally. I’ve worked with her closely in the past. I was an Air Force officer and flew a Warthog combat jet like she did.” She opened her hands. “You might say we’re sisters of a sort because of the background and experiences as combat pilots that we share.”
“Okay,” Shep said, “what are you trying to say, Alexa?”
Her body language visibly uncomfortable, Alexa said, “I’ve never lost contact with her. We’ve always remained good friends. From time to time, Willow would open up to me about her marriage to you. It sounded more like a dog and cat fight. You two butted heads constantly. Neither of you, from the sounds of it, could make a compromise for the other. You were always both right. Neither was ever wrong.” She tilted her head. “Am I incorrect about my analysis?”
Shep could feel the tension rise slightly in the silence of the room. Women talked. He knew that. So, he wasn’t surprised that Willow and Alexa were tighter than thieves because of their mutual military background. Clearing his throat, he said, “No, your observations are correct.”
“Okay,” Alexa pressed, “if that’s so? What makes you think that you’ll be able to get along now for the sake of the assignment?”
It was a fair question and Shep knew it. He ruffled inwardly; his pride hurt. But then, he knew he had too much pride and wasn’t ever able to admit he was wrong about something. “Maturity? Time? We’ve been divorced three years. I’ve grown up, I hope, a lot since then.”
Wyatt jumped in. “Shep, with all due respect, I’ve looked at the reports from your people when researching your field notes. You are considered an able manager, you listen well, you ask for your employees’ thoughts and ideas. That’s very different than what we’re hearing about happened between you and Willow. You seemed not to be able to respect the other person’s ideas or experiences, at all.”
Shep felt the heat of the people at the table. It was a legitimate conversation, and he knew the Delos people were trying to ensure a successful outcome to this mission. He could feel them questioning if he could honestly carry off the assignment successfully, given his stubbornness toward Willow. Folding his hands over the manual in front of him, he gave them all a serious look. “No, you’re right. I’ll make it work because we aren’t married any longer. To me? Now? She’s just an employee from another company. I’m a professional working undercover for Delos. I’ll slip into my managerial mode, and we’ll get along and I’ll make it work.” He saw some relief in their expressions. They needed assurance that he would do his level best to keep it a peaceful venture, not a contentious one like their marriage had been for all those stormy years.
Tal sat back. “Okay, good enough, Shep. Wyatt is going to send Willow an encrypted file that will give her all the info on you, on the large Shield Security team coming in posing as Delos employees, and on the undercover Navy Seabee construction teams. Our next step is to find out whether she can work with YOU.”
CHAPTER 2
