LITMIR.BIZ

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pushed herself off the bed. It would probably be best to get as far away from the bed as possible with Harvard in the room.

      “Those electronic locks are ridiculously easy to override. Getting past ’em doesn’t really count as breaking.” He looked at the ceiling, squinting suddenly. “Damn, I can feel it. They’re starting without us.”

      “How does the captain’s poor wife feel about being dropped in on at this time of night?”

      “Veronica loves poker. She’d be playing, too, except she’s in New York on business. Come on, Richards.” He clapped his hands, two sharp bursts of sound. “Put on your sneakers. Let’s get to the car—double time!”

      “I’ve got to get dressed.”

      “You are dressed.”

      “No, I’m not.”

      “You’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Not exactly elegant, but certainly practical in this heat. Come on, girl, get your kicks on your feet and—”

      “I can’t go out wearing this.”

      “What, do you want to change into your Wonder Woman uniform?” Harvard asked.

      “Very funny.”

      He grinned. “Yeah, thanks. I thought it was, too. Sometimes I’m so funny, I crack myself up.”

      “I don’t want to look too—”

      “Relaxed?” he interrupted. “Approachable? Human? Yeah, you know, right now you actually look almost human, P.J. You’re perfectly dressed for hanging out and playing cards with friends.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were dead serious. “This was what you wanted, remember? A little platonic friendship.”

      Approachable. Human. God knows in her job she couldn’t afford to be too much of either. But she also knew she had a tendency to go too far to the other extreme.

      As she looked into Harvard’s eyes, she knew he’d set this game of cards up for her. He was going to go into Joe Cat’s house tonight and show the rest of Alpha Squad that it was okay to be friends with a fink. With this fink in particular.

      P.J. wasn’t certain the Senior Chief truly liked her. She knew for a fact that even though she’d proved she could keep up, he still only tolerated her presence. Barely tolerated.

      But despite that, he’d clearly gone out of his way for her tonight.

      She nodded. “I thank you for inviting me. Just let me grab a sweatshirt and we can go.”

      This wasn’t a date.

      It sure as hell felt like a date, but it wasn’t one.

      Harvard glanced at P.J., sitting way, way over on the other side of the big bench seat of his pickup truck.

      “You did well today,” he said, breaking the silence.

      She’d totally rocked during an exercise this afternoon. The FInCOM team had been given Intel information pinpointing the location of an alleged terrorist camp which was—also allegedly—the site of a munitions storage facility.

      P.J. smiled at him. Damn, she was pretty when she smiled. “Thanks.”

      She had used the computer skillfully to access all kinds of information on this particular group of tangos. She’d dug deeper than the other agents and found that the terrorists rarely kept their munitions supplies in one place for more than a week. And she’d recognized from the satellite pictures that the Ts were getting ready to mobilize.

      All three of the other finks had recommended sitting tight for another week or so to await further reconnaissance from regular satellite flybys.

      P.J. had written up priority orders for a combined SEAL/FInCOM team to conduct covert, on-site intelligence. Her orders had the team carrying enough explosives to flatten the munitions site if it proved to be there. She’d also put in a special request to the National Reconnaissance Office to reposition a special KeyHole Satellite to monitor and record any movement of the weapons pile.

      There was only one thing Harvard would have done differently. He wouldn’t have bothered with the CSF team. He would have sent the SEALs in alone.

      But if Joe Cat’s plan worked, by the time P. J. Richards completed this eight-week counterterrorist training session, she would realize that adding FInCOM agents to the Alpha Squad would be like throwing a monkey wrench into the SEALs’ already perfectly oiled machine.

      Harvard hoped that was the case. He didn’t like working with incompetents like Farber. And Lord knows, even though he’d been trying, he couldn’t get past the fact that P.J. was a woman. She was smart, she was tough, but she was a woman. And God help him if he ever had to use her as part of his team. Somebody would probably end up getting killed—and it would probably be him.

      Harvard glanced at P.J. as he pulled up in front of Joe Cat’s rented house.

      “Do you guys play poker often?” she asked.

      “Nah, we usually prefer statue tag.”

      She tried not to smile, but she couldn’t help it as she pictured the men of Alpha Squad running around on Joe Cat’s lawn, striking statuesque poses. “You’re a regular stand-up comic tonight.”

      “Can’t be a Senior Chief without a sense of humor,” he told her, putting the truck in Park and turning off the engine. “It’s a prerequisite for the rank.”

      “Why a chief?” she asked. “Why not a lieutenant? How come you didn’t take the officer route? I mean, if you really went to Harvard…”

      “I really went to Harvard,” he told her. “Why a chief? Because I wanted to. I’m right where I want to be.”

      There was a story behind his decision, and Harvard could see from the questions in P.J.’s eyes that she wanted to know why. But as much as he liked the idea of sitting here and talking with her in the quiet darkness of the night, with his truck’s engine clicking softly as it cooled, his job was to bring her into Joe’s house and add to the shaky foundation of friendship they’d started building nearly a week ago.

      Friends played cards.

      Lovers sat in the dark and shared secrets.

      Harvard opened the door, and bright light flooded the truck’s cab. “Let’s get in there.”

      “So do you guys play often?” P.J. asked as they walked up the path to the front door.

      “No, not really,” Harvard admitted. “We don’t have much extra time for games.”

      “So this game tonight—this is for my benefit, huh?” she asked perceptively.

      He gazed into her eyes. Damn, she was pretty. “I think it’s for all of our benefit,” he told her honestly. He smiled. “You should be honored. You’re the first fink we’ve ever set up a poker party for.”

      “I hate it when you call me that,” she said, her voice resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to stop. “And this isn’t really any kind of honor. This is calculated bonding, isn’t it? For some reason, you’ve decided you need me as a part of the team.” Her eyes narrowed speculatively. “It’s in Alpha Squad’s best interest to gain me as an ally. But why?”

      She was pretty, but she wasn’t half as pretty as she was smart.

      Harvard opened Joe’s front door and stepped inside. “You’ve been doing that spooky agent voodoo for too many years. This is just a friendly poker game. No more, no less.”

      She snorted. “Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Senior Chief.”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      P.J. WAS LATE.

      A truck had jackknifed on the main road leading to the base, and she’d had to go well out of her way to get there at all.

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