AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You trying to cheer me up?” Amy asks. “If so, you’ve got a hell of a way of doing it.”
Jeremy says, “Just wanting to make a point. The French get teased a lot about being ‘surrender monkeys,’ shite like that. Not true. After what they’ve been through, they’re just a bit more particular in choosing their fights. I’ve worked with enough of them in the field to know that.”
“Is that where you and Victor hooked up?”
The lead Peugeot makes an abrupt left turn without signaling. Jeremy holds on to the seat as their Peugeot follows. The road is narrow, ill-maintained, lots of cracks and potholes, but the ride is still a comfortable one.
“Yes.”
“Which field was that?”
“Chad,” he says, the memory now coming back to him, associated with burning heat in the day, shivering cold at night, and the smell of camel dung. “Victor and I were on a joint operation, surveilling a Boko Haram group on a march. They were approaching a village…out in the open in daylight.” The memory gets stronger and he squeezes his right hand into a fist. “Out in the open! We both were able to contact our respective militaries…we had RAF assets and a helicopter squadron belonging to their Foreign Legion at an airfield in N’Djamena…less than thirty minutes’ flying time away.”
Amy goes right to the heart of the matter. “Why didn’t they answer your calls?”
“Diplomacy,” Jeremy says, nearly spitting out the word. “We learned later that high-level negotiations were under way among the EU, the UN, Nigeria, Chad, and Boko Haram. Blasting this column away to atoms was going to upset these negotiations. We were told to stand down…and we watched as the village was burned, the men were lined up and shot, and the women and children were raped and then dragged away in chains.”
Jeremy realizes he’s let loose information about a highly classified operation, but so what? Poor Amy here is out of a job; she’ll probably never even get back to America. So what difference does it make?
He goes on. “That’s when Victor and I reached our…arrangement. Going forward, if we ever had a chance to do good and screw diplomacy, we would take it.”
Amy says, “I’m with you.”
“And glad of it,” he says, meaning every word.
“I know.”
“Do you?” he asks.
Amy says, “I certainly do. A while ago Victor offered you an opportunity to bundle me up and ship me home. You didn’t take it.”
Jeremy sits very still for a moment. “You heard us.”
“I did.”
“You speak French.”
Amy says, “I most certainly do. Hard not to, considering where I grew up.”
Jeremy quickly thinks things through and says, “You told me you were raised in LA.”
“I was,” Amy says. “Lewiston-Auburn, in Maine. Two closely knit towns with a huge French-Canadian population. You assumed I meant Los Angeles.”
He can’t help smiling. “Good job,” he says. “You fooled me.”
“Let’s see if I can keep it up.”
The driver in front slips on a set of night-vision goggles.
The Peugeot’s headlights switch off.
It feels like he and Amy are rushing through a dark tunnel, alone, unable to see a thing, not quite knowing where they’ll end up. But he’s still smiling, thinking of her, knowing he can’t underestimate her, not ever.
His iPhone vibrates.
Jeremy stops smiling.
He takes it out of his coat pocket, turns the screen so Amy can’t see it, notes the incoming phone number. Most calls at this time and place he would ignore, but not this one.
