Darcy jolted. Almost pitched off the ledge. Just as she regained her balance, the water exploded in front of her. One dolphin, then another arced through the air, landing with a splash.>Max passed the clipboard back to Tag, circled to the passenger side of the truck and disappeared inside. Darcy exhaled a proverbial hurricane of pent-up air and energy.
Tomorrow she would find him during a break. If she and Max had a chance to talk more before their drink, she could ditch all the butterflies performing aerial maneuvers in her stomach.
She would prove to herself she wasn't afraid to take risks. Surely she'd only been avoiding them out of deference to her father's feelings. Right?
Not because dreams of a dank cement bunker still slipped past her defenses.
Darcy pressed her fingers to her eyes to swipe away sweat and memories she was beyond ready to erase. She focused her gaze as well as her thoughts on the present. The lumbering flatbed truck turned off the flight line onto the narrow road bordering the ocean.
Maybe rather than Max being a big preliminary risk, she'd found a temporary safe haven before she launched into the biggest risk of her life. Putting the past behind her. A mission more important than even her career.
Chapter 3
"If I'd wanted safe, don't you think I'd have opted for another career field?" Max asked the three military intel contacts standing beneath a palm tree. He kept his voice low, although their conversation would likely be masked by the crashing waterfall a few yards away. A pack of howling boonie dogs added to the jungle symphony of humming insects and rustling branches.
Max stared at the stony faces in front of him and knew he wasn't gaining ground. They were determined to tail his every move, had even been waiting when he'd stepped out of the water.
He draped a T-shirt around his neck and tried a different tack. "I'll concede the need for checking in with reports, but I can't keep tripping over your people."
"This isn't negotiable, Keagan." Crusty Baker hooked his hands on his hips. With his slack demeanor gone, the dark-ops test pilot's lethal edge gleamed in his eyes. All wrinkled flight suits and sunflower seed snitching aside, he made a helluva military intel contact. "Whether you like it or not, there are more people involved. Others at risk."
"You think I don't know that? That's the reason I want this operation streamlined as much as possible." His thoughts shot straight to Darcy. No way around it, her need-to-know-only status put her in a vulnerable position. Contact with him flat-out put her in danger. "This island is too small with too many unknowns. You need to step back and let me do my job."
The Army CID agent in charge of secured communications twirled a tropical flower between her palms. Not that anyone would recognize her as a lethal spook in her floral muumuu and hoop earrings. "You can send me on my way if you want, buddy boy. I'll happily pack up my encryption equipment and enjoy a vacation in the sun. But you'll find it mighty darned difficult to get those reports home by smoke signals and drumbeats."
"Okay." Max nodded his reluctant concession to the muumuu agent. "You've made your point. You I can understand. But Lurch over there..." He jerked a thumb toward the towering Special Operations para-rescueman leaning against a palm tree and eagle-eyeing every nook of the jungle. "He's gotta go. Too conspicuous."
Crusty shook his head. "Package deal. Sorry. He's in charge of physical safety. Checking for tails. Hauling your butt out of the water if things go bad."
"I don't need some baby-sitter bodyguard watching my back." Which was why he preferred to work alone. No one took his risks upon themselves anymore.
He stared out at the bay netted off into a sea pen and scrounged for a way to keep Darcy safe. "Put Lurch on another detail. Like watching the crew."
Crusty's jaw flexed. "Renshaw."
"Bennett and the loadmasters, too, of course."
Crusty snorted like Lucy exhaling.
Max gripped the ends of his T-shirt draped around his neck. "You got a problem?"
"She's really buying into the whole professor gig."
"That's the idea." What should have been an undercover victory fell flat. He should be dancing a damned jig over her acceptance of his fake persona.
Rogue thoughts tempted him.
It wasn't totally false. The professor "gig" required more than a few hours spent in the classroom. His deep cover had necessitated classroom lectures and tests to grade.
Operatives frequently had another area of expertise that offered excuses to be in places a known government employee could never enter. To talk freely with people who would clam up at the first signs of a badge.
Which was the beauty of it. Hiding in plain sight. Like with the muumuu granny operative beside him, who would suspect their accountant, bus driver, dental hygienist—professor—of working for the CIA?
Sure he was partially the doc, but his first loyalty lay with the Agency. And Darcy Renshaw had accepted a drink date from the professor, not the real Max who also worked ops in darker places. Max scratched the scar on his shoulder—a souvenir from just such an op.
He'd been diving in a South American port to blow up a submarine purchased on the black market for drug running. After setting the explosives, he'd stumbled on two armed diver guards. That scar served as a tangible reminder of how fast a mission could go bad.
Crusty squinted into the sun. "See if you can tone down the beach-boy charm."