Linda Howard: All The Queen's Men

"Why not?" Tucker said again, and a hint of steel underlay the easiness of his tone. He wanted an answer, and she suspected he usually got what he wanted.

Oddly, though, she wasn't intimidated. Part of her even relished this little showdown, getting their animosity out into the open and going one-on-one with Tucker.

"What difference does it make?" She returned his cool look with one of her own. "Regardless of my suspicions about you, I'm doing my job and keeping my mouth shut. My reasons aren't any of your business. But I'd bet the farm your real name isn't Darren Tucker."

He grinned suddenly, surprising her. "Dallas said you were stubborn. Not much of a reverse gear, was the way he put it," he said, settling his shoulders more comfortably against the wall.

Because Niema had heard Dallas mutter something very close to that, after one of the few times they had gone head to head about something, she found herself smiling, too.

In that more relaxed atmosphere he said, "What makes you think my name isn't Tucker?"

"I don't know. Darrell Tucker is a good-old-boy Texas name, and every so often I hear a little bit of Texas in your accent, so the accent and the name fit- but you don't, somehow."

"I've traveled a bit since I left home," he drawled.

She clapped her hands twice in mocking applause. "That was very well done. A homey piece of phrasing, the accent a little heavier."

"But you don't buy it."

"I bet you're very good with a lot of accents."

Amused, he said, "Okay, you aren't going to believe me. That's fine. I don't have any way of proving who I am. But believe me in this: My priorities are getting that building blown and all of us safely home."

"How can you get us home? We're splitting up, remember?"

"By doing all my preliminary work right, by anticipating as many problems as I can and taking steps to counteract them."

"You can't anticipate everything, though."

"I try. That's why my hair is going gray, I sit up nights worrying."

His hair was as dark as her own, without a silver thread showing. His sense of humor was wry, tending toward the ironic; she wished he hadn't shown it to her, wished he had maintained the silence between them. Why hadn't he? Why now, of all times, had he suddenly breached the armed truce?

"We're in."

She whirled to the radio set as the whispered words came plainly through the speaker. Incredulously she checked the time; thirty minutes had passed since she had last looked. She had been so focused on her confrontation with Tucker that she had forgotten to fret.

Like a flash, she knew: That was why he had done it. He had distracted her, using the one subject he knew she wouldn't be able to ignore.

Tucker was already at the radio, slipping on a Motorola headset. "Any problems?"

"Negative."

That was all, just three whispered words, but they were in her husband's voice and Niema knew that for now, at least, he was all right. She leaned back and focused on her breathing, in, out, keeping the rhythm regular.

There was nothing Tucker could do now to distract her, short of physical violence, so he left her alone. She checked the radio settings, though she knew they were right. She wished she had checked the radio detonator one more time, just to be certain. No-she knew it was working perfectly. And Dallas knew what he was doing.

"Has Dallas ever told you about his training?"

She flicked an impatient glance at Tucker. "I don't need distracting. Thanks for doing it before, but not now, please."

A faint quirk of his brows betrayed his surprise. "So you figured it out," he said easily, and she immediately wondered if distracting her had indeed been his intention. Tucker was so damn elusive that even when you thought you had him read, it was possible you were reading only what he intended you to read. "But this is more in the way of reassurance. Do you know about his training?"

"That he took BUD/S? Yes." BUD/S was Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training: extensive, and so grueling only a tiny percentage of men who tried actually completed the course.

"But has he told you what that training entailed?"

"No, not in detail."

"Then take my word for it, Dallas can do things no ordinary man would ever dream of doing."

"I know. And-thanks. But he's still human, and plans can go wrong-"

"He knows that. They all do. They're prepared."

"Why didn't he want you to go in?"

There was an infinitesimal pause, so brief she wasn't certain she had heard it. "Despite what he said, Dallas doesn't think I'm as good as he is," Tucker said with wry humor.

She didn't believe him. For one thing, Dallas respected him too much. For another, that tiny pause before he spoke told her he had been weighing his response, and his answer wasn't one that had required any weighing.

Whoever he was, whatever he was hiding, Niema accepted that she wasn't going to get any straight answers from him. He was probably one of those paranoid spooks everyone read about, who saw spies and enemies everywhere, and, if you asked him if it was supposed to rain the next day, would wonder what you were planning that required bad weather.

Sayyed's voice whispered over the radio. "Trouble. Activity in the warehouse. Looks like they're getting ready to make a shipment."

Tucker swore, his attention immediately focused on the situation. It was imperative the warehoused store of bacteria be completely destroyed before a shipment was made. The warehouse was usually deserted at night, with guards posted outside, but now there was activity that prevented Sayyed from planting his charges.

"How many?" Tucker asked.

" I make it. . . eight. . . no, nine. I took cover behind some barrels, but I can't move around any."

They couldn't let that shipment leave the warehouse.

"Dallas." Tucker spoke the name quietly into his headset.

"I'm on the way, Boss. My charges are set."

Niema's nails dug into her palms. Dallas was going to Sayyed's aid, but they would still be badly outnumbered, and by moving, Dallas was risking exposure. She reached for the second headset; she didn't know what she was going to say to her husband, but she didn't have the chance. Tucker's hand shot out; he jerked the plug out of the radio set and tossed the headset aside, his dark gaze cool and hard as he met her stunned look.

She found herself on her feet, her shoulders braced, hands knotted into fists. "He's my husband," she said fiercely.

Tucker put his hand over the tiny microphone. "And he doesn't need the distraction of hearing you now." He added deliberately, "If you try anything, I'll tie and gag you."

She wasn't without some training herself, and Dallas, once he realized he couldn't convince her to play it safe and sit home like a good little wife, had been teaching her how to fight in ways her self-defense class had never covered. Still, her level of expertise in no way matched his, or Tucker's. The only way she could take him, she thought, was to catch him totally by surprise, from behind.

But he was right. Damn it, he was right. She didn't dare say anything that could break Dallas's concentration.

She held up her hands in a brief gesture of surrender and moved three steps away. The hut was so small she couldn't go much farther anyway. She sat down on a pack of provisions and tried to beat down the suffocating waves of anxiety.

The minutes crawled by. She knew Dallas was creeping toward the warehouse section, using every bit of cover available to him, trying not to take chances. She also knew that every passing second put the terrorists that much closer to leaving with the shipment of bacteria. Dallas would be balancing caution with expediency.

Tucker spoke into the headset. "Sayyed. Report."