“I . . . I’m so sorry,” was all she could say. Her embarrassment only made her feel foolish.
“Don’t worry,” came a surprisingly soft voice from behind her.
She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her blouse.
Six said, “It happens to me all the time.”
It took her a full minute to get her body back inside the vehicle, to get the door closed, herself twisted into a reclining position on the front seat. Her tears and sobs had begun to subside. She wiped her face several more times, cognizant of the gaze of the quiet man in the dark, though she had no way of knowing for sure if his eyes were even open.
Finally, when she had recovered completely except for a few wet sniffs, she asked, “You think we’re going to get out of this okay?”
“Yeah, you’ll be safe and sound by this time tomorrow.”
He sounded certain, and this helped her greatly. But she asked, “What about you?”
He shrugged. “I take it day by day.”
She let that go, did not know what it meant but sensed not to press. While she wiped her eyes she asked, “Are you married?”
“Yeah.”
Slowly she lowered her arm from her face, looked towards the silhouette in the backseat. “No, you’re not. You just lied to me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know, but you are not married.”
He nodded; this she saw clearly. “You’re right. Impressive.”
She sat up straighter, leaned a little closer. Her eyes brightened as if she were playing a game. “Kids?”
“No comment.” He had loosened up a little; he was using humor, but he was still very much on guard.
“I can’t tell for sure, but I don’t think so.”
He said nothing.
“Mom, dad?”
“Dad.” He answered back quickly, too quickly for her not to believe him.
“Where are you from?”
“Michigan, Detroit.”
“Really? Me, too! Originally, I mean, before my family immigrated to Canada. Where did you go to school?”
A long pause. An admission. “Okay, I’m not from Michigan.”
Ellen laughed, surprised herself by the loud noise she made in the tight, hot car, “Sucker! Neither am I.”
She saw him smile again as he shrugged. “You are pretty good.”
With a long sniff and a wider smile she said, “You have no idea.”
TWENTY-TWO
An early April morning on the Sahel begins hot and sunny, gets hotter and sunnier by the hour, with the screech of birds and insects prevalent and energetic in the dry season. In the sweltering sedan, under the thick brown and green brush of the gully, Gentry flicked a centipede from the tip of his nose, tried to fall back asleep, but could not.
He rubbed his eyes, wiped away dried sweat that had formed on his eyelashes and on his forehead during the night. He cracked his window. Instantly fresh air entered the interior, and he inhaled deeply. He’d actually managed a couple hours’ sleep, not consecutively, but his body was tuned by half a lifetime of catnapping to get maximum benefit from minimum rest.
In the low light of the morning under the canopy of brush enveloping the car, he tried to plot out his day. He did not have his sat phone, so he couldn’t report to Sierra One what had happened. Not that he would have been looking forward to that call. The landing in Darfur was a snafu that was really no one’s fault and could have been worked around with relative ease. But everything that had happened since? All the threats to the operation since touchdown in Al Fashir? Court knew good and well that it was all on him. A string of fuckups on his part had put him here, now, and had put the CIA’s Operation Nocturne Sapphire, of which he was a crucial part, in mortal jeopardy.
So now what, Gentry? He looked over at the woman. He had not been this close to a female in a long time, with the exception of a venerable nurse or two in France and a veterinary assistant whose amateur needlework had unquestionably saved his life and the lives of those he went on to save the previous December.
This was different. She slept a few feet from him, calm and quiet now, and as near as he could tell from his limited experience with women, content. He’d heard her toss and turn for hours last night. A few times she’d called out in fright, waking Court in the process, but he had done nothing to help her.
He had no idea what to do. He’d had no training in providing comfort.