He actually slept past the sunrise, and he slept hard, but at least his dreams were pleasant, of floral scented hair and
unbelievably soft skin, before the normal routine in the med tent woke him up.
Mike handed him breakfast, more protein bars. "We let you sleep in because Sam found out around four in the
morning what was up." Mike said. "He's on the hunt for you, we decided to tell him you were on patrol. Eat up. You'll
need the energy to shave the tiger."
Suzette looked over from the breakfast dishes she was collecting. Mondays she pulled food duty alone. Andi got an
hour's phone time every Monday morning and used the entire allotment on one call. But she always came in so alive
and glowing inside afterward that Suz actually couldn't force herself to mind doing all the work once a week. It was
always good to see the tall English doctor happy. Happy in a way she'd been for several days now without a phone
call as the cause, Suzette thought, eyes sliding over to where Mike was squatted down on his heels talking to the
American operative. She still felt a bit guilty about not telling Sam the truth when Mike had fielded him earlier, lying
that the soldier wasn't present. Their administrative head had always known he could rely on her to give him the
unpolished truth about anything. With a shrug, she told herself that she had not *lied* to him. She simply had not
corrected an assumption. Once the soldier were gone things would go back to the way they were and it would never
come up anyway.
"I'm supposed to get those." Molly popped into the tent, hair bouncing cheerfully to match her bright grin, extending
her hands to take the tray Suzette had piled dirty bowls onto. "Gimme, gimme, gimme." Suzette handed them over
without qualms.
"Ooh." Molly glanced into the back of the tent where the shadows still reached this early in the morning. "Andi's guy."
Her brow wrinkled. "I thought he was on patrol or something. Sam's looking for him." There was a brief pause and
then she added cheerfully. "Nice chest."
"Why thank you." Suzette brushed at an imaginary speck of dust on her blouse. "I owe my mother for it, I suppose."
Molly burst into giggles and Suzette smiled and rolled her eyes. "Stop staring." She admonished. "He belongs to Andi
now."
Molly sighed.
"Think he's got a brother?"
"One should hope not." Suzette stated. Making shooing motions with her hands. "Go, go. Allez. You have work, oi?"
Molly's brow wrinkled.
"Should I tell Sam he's in here?"
"Mon Dieu, no." Suzette snapped automatically. Checked herself. "I do not need thunderclouds this early in the
morning. Let Sam discover him when he is elsewhere."
"Huh." Molly commented, eyes shining.
"What?" Suzette demanded defensively. Molly shrugged, the picture of childlike innocence.
"I didn't say anything."
"And you will not." Suzette threatened, holding up a finger sternly. "I would hate to have to hurt you for spreading
untruths about my character."
Molly made a snorting, choking noise and fought down a smile as Suzette's eyes started to narrow.
"Work to do." Molly sang her reminder and hastily swept out of the tent. Leaving a trail of laughter behind her as soon
as she was clear of the door.
"You're a scary lady sometimes." The voice, smooth as honey, offered behind her and Suzette spun around, eyes still
narrow. Not having seen Swanson come in in the first place.
"I am." She agreed, recovering and arching an eyebrow as she ran her finger slowly down his chest. "And you should
not be so fast to forget it is so."
"Little hard to forget." He stated. Edge of his lips twitching upward briefly. "Considering you had me on my knees last
night."
"Where you belong." Suzette quipped and was pleased to see the flash in his eyes. She gave him a smile and turned
her back on him, letting her hips sway as she walked to the other side of the tent to attend to clearing up the last of
the breakfast dishes.
Mike, who'd given up whatever he'd been pretending to talk to Hector about in favor of turning his head and watching
the soap opera unfold at the mouth of the tent, let out a coughed laugh and tried to hide it by rubbing his hand over
his mouth.
"Daaaamn." He commented with a smile.
"Shut up." Swanson answered mildly as he joined them. To Hector he offered:
"UN’s sending some people over for our burglars. You want to talk to them before the party starts?" Usually one man
could do the interrogating for the team. But everyone knew it was a bit personal and Hector was the team leader on
this mission thanks to the fact he'd been taking the flak for them with the staff here.
"Hmm..." Hector said, standing up and stretching until his fingers brushed the top pole of the tent that made the roof.
"Discuss the UN and the burglars, or discuss how utterly whipped you are by a certain French doctor....let's see....
hard choice actually."
"Will you shut up and stay on subject?" Swanson said, his fair but tanned face flushing a bit.
"I don't know, Mike, maybe we should send Suzette in there. If she can bring a Delta to his knees, who knows what
she'll get our guests to spill." Hector said and Mike laughed.
"I'm so going to punch you and you're really going to feel it." Swanson grumbled.
"Oh relax." Hector said and clapped him on the shoulder. "Coulda been worse. Mike could have brought you to your
knees."
"Are you saying I'm not as pretty as Suzette?" Mike asked, rubbing his chin which still had some stubble on it. "I'm
insulted. After I distracted Sam and everything."
"Garrett, burglars, UN." Swanson said to get the men back on subject and off him.
"Did you tell the UN they were unharmed?" Hector asked.
"Yeah, but they don't know that yet." Swanson said and smirked. Hector smiled and looked at Mike.
"I've found the threat of torture is so much more fun than the actual torture itself." He said with a wry chuckle.
"I don't know," Mike shrugged and dead panned. "I kind of like the torture." He straightened up and flexed his
bandaged hand, which was a bit stiff still. Suzette had ripped him a new breathing hole over that this morning. Again.
So he'd gotten a kick out of watching someone else suffer. Not that Swanson didn't deserve it. You couldn't play with
fire like the French doctor and not expect to come out burned. Biting back a chuckle he couldn't help but notice that
the blond Delta kept going back however. Or that Suzette taunted him into it either.
"Come on." He stated, heading for the entrance. "Let's see if your Southern charm is more effective than the rest of
us managed." He didn't really expect they'd get much more out of the men than they already had. But it never hurt to
try and the more they scared them the less likely it would be that they'd get hit this way again once word got out. And
it would. UN would let these schmucks go within a day or two.
Suzette ignored them as they left. But she couldn't help but think how much, in such a little time, such a small team of
men had managed to turn everything inside out. She stood by her first declaration. They should never have come
here. Andi and Mike and now that - that - surfer dude! Her life would be much easier once the American soldiers were
all gone. She didn't like complications.
"Don't doubt the Southern charm." Hector said as they exited the med tent, Swanson immediately lighting up a
cigarette as they walked. "Got the latex?"
"Always." Swanson said with a chuckle and looked over at Mike. "You probably don't want to watch this." He said
outside the tent. Hector walked in and untied the men, then turned a chair around and sat in it, straddling it, his
forearms resting on the back of the chair as Swanson came in and stood in the corner, rubbing his arm.
"Y'all need to listen up." Hector said, affecting an even thicker drawl. If these guys watched any western TV, they'd
probably seen the Dukes of Hazzard, or something depicting southern red necks and hillbillies after all. "I'm gonna try
to get you boys outta this, but you gotta work with me here."
"We have nothing to say to you." One said, in pitch perfect English, the line obviously rehearsed.
"Now, see, that's too bad. Here I was hoping we could cut a deal or something. My friend here," Hector jerked his
thumb behind him to indicate Swanson, still smoking. "He's not right. In the head. If you know what I mean. He's got
this habit, and I've been working on it with him, but he's getting anxious."
"Your habits are of no interest to me."
Hector scratched his head. "I think they should be. See, Blonde boy over there, he's here as a condition of parole,
from prison ya know." Hector said as Swanson started to hum. "You know us Americans, we'll take anyone into our
country, why not our military? And since y'all already called us nothing but a bunch of killers, who better to recruit,
right?" Swanson started to rock a bit as Hector spoke. Hector looked over at him and shook his head. "We've been
here so long, he's starting to run out of his meds....I'm at the end of my rope here, fellas. See...we never guaranteed
the UN that you weren't hurt...all we have to say is that you got roughed up when we were subduing you...."
Swanson then took the cigarette out of his mouth and started to laugh like a mad man as he pressed it to the bare
flesh on his arm, laughing and laughing and laughing, as Hector shook his head again.
"See what I mean? Only a matter of time before he wants to hear someone else scream. He's sick, he needs
sympathy."
"What was that? What did he say?" One of the other men asked the English speaking one of the team. The rest of
them didn't understand English well but what they had understood sounded threatening. And bad. Very bad if the
light haired man was burning himself and laughing when he looked at them. Ali had agreed to go on this raid because
the pay had been part of the supplies taken and he'd performed raids like this before. But he'd never known that the
charity workers had soldiers that worked for them. Dark, silent soldiers that came out of nowhere and overwhelmed
him and his friends. They hadn't signed on to fight soldiers. Just to steal supplies the charity workers had plenty of.
"He is trying to scare us." The English speaking member of their team told them in their own tongue. Sounding
confident. Ali wasn't sure how confident he had a right to be. He knew the English speaker was only a very small man
compared to the warlords in the area. A small arms trader who barely made enough to smuggle more in. Ali had
known him for over a year now and wasn't sure why he suddenly thought he had a right to be so confident.
Ali looked at the dark haired relaxed soldier now. He didn't have anything else to tell him. He wasn't going to get paid
for this job and he'd already spoken to another man with short sandy hair, the one that had punched Aden. But the
light haired man was looked at them in a way that made him nervous and he was more than willing to tell what little he
did know again. Mostly it would be to place the blame of hiring them directly on the arms' dealer's shoulders.
"You won't hurt us." The English speaker stated, looking at Hector as he pronounced the words in clipped English.
"We are going to the UN. We will tell the CNN reporters there if you do."
"Shit, you believe this?" Hector said, turning to Swanson, who was circling the Africans with all the peacefulness of a
caged and antagonized lion. "They're gonna cry to CNN. Thought we were dealing with men here." He shook his
head. "No, you don't understand. We never told the UN how many we had. Just that we had some. And my my my,
you boys sure put up a fight when y'all snuck up on us. We were well within our rights to put you down."
He looked at Swanson, still circling, still smoking, still burning, screeches of laughter escaping his lips from time to
time. He'd stop to exhale a plume of smoke at one of the captives before moving on. "Why don't I leave you boys here
with him?" Hector said, standing up. "I think I need some air, think about my options here."
Ali wasn't entirely sure what had been said. But he understood the picture quite well. The dark haired man was
leaving. And the light haired one wasn't. Aden whispered his name behind him and Ali nodded. Omar was speaking to
the soldiers but he was going to get them all killed. Ali had a family at home and he wanted to go back to them. He
wasn't a soldier. He didn't fight for a warlord. He was a simple thief. Facing off against laughing soldiers didn't come
into that equation.
Omar's eyes flickered to the circling soldier. He was fairly sure nothing bad would happen to him. At least that was
what he had been told. That everyone was too worried about what the English and American new casts would say to
abusing prisoners. It had made sense when the man in the suit had told him so. Now, watching the soldier that had
been talking to him stand up as the circling one slowly tightened his circuit, he wasn't so sure. He wasn't even sure
which soldiers these were. Rumor had talked about Americans, Rangers, that were staying at the camp and he didn't
think the man in front of him sounded English. But maybe Rangers didn't care about CNN.
"Omar." It was Ali behind him and the voice was high with fear. "Tell him what he wants to know. We're not going to be
paid for this and dealing with soldiers was not part of the bargain."
Omar wavered. It was true. They hadn't been expected to deal with soldiers. The man in the suit had said nothing
about that. Only the supplies he'd wanted. Ali had already babbled it all to one of the other soldiers last night. Or at
least most all of it. He hated being humiliated in front of the soldiers. But he thought he would hate being hurt more.
"Omar." Ali's voice again and bordering on the tone it had last night before he'd started spilling what little information
he had known.
Omar looked at the tall soldier that spoke with the oddly sliding words.
"What kind of deal?" He asked in cautious English.
Hector turned around and sat back in the chair, and smiled at the men. "That's better." he said, his thicker than
normal drawl dropped in favor of the men's own language. "Now onto who hired you, where's the drop off, and how
much were you to be paid?"
He watched the men in front of him, knowing they'd talk now. Mike was wrong, the threat of leaving Swanson alone
with these men had been more than enough to get them talking. "The deal is, you tell me what I want to know, and it
checks out, we hand you off to the UN unharmed. Oh, and one more thing....the UN won't believe you. Because either
we won't lay a hand on you, or there won't be enough for your children to cry over. Got it? Good. Now start talking."
Swanson retreated into a darkened corner, coming out only when they would falter or fall silent, then their words
would rush out like an avalanche until he retreated again. When the men were done talking, and Hector knew
everything he needed to know, both Deltas walked out.
Swanson peeled off the thick layer of latex on his arm as he hit the sun, revealing unmarred skin underneath. "They
always fall for that. I swear, if this Delta thing don't work out, Hollywood here I come!"