Delta Force Defender

“We need to talk, Martha Drake.”

She choked and pressed the phone to her heart. “Who are you? Are you the one who sent the skull and crossbones?”

Skull and crossbones? That was a new one. He filed it away for future reference.

He shrugged off the wall and straightened his spine. “I’m Sergeant Cam Sutton, US Army Delta Force, and you discovered some bogus emails that compromised my team leader, Major Rex Denver.”

Martha’s expressive face went through several gyrations, and then she settled on suspicion, which seemed to be one of her favorites. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

He pulled his wallet from his pocket and slipped out his military ID. He held it out to her between two fingers.

She wasted no time snatching it from him and holding it close to her face, peering at it through her glasses. After perusing it for at least a minute, she handed it back to him. “Bogus emails?”

“Major Denver never did any of those things in those emails—” he jabbed the corner of his ID card in the general direction of her nose “—and if you hadn’t turned them over to the Agency, Denver wouldn’t be in the trouble he is now.”

“If I hadn’t...” She stamped one booted foot. “What did you expect me to do with them?”

“We can’t keep talking out here. Let’s go inside.” He jerked his thumb toward the bar.

Her gaze bounced to the large picture window of the bar over his shoulder and back to his face. The crowd inside must’ve reassured her because she dipped her head once.

Cam circled around Martha and opened the door, holding it wide for her to pass through. As she did, he got another whiff of her fresh scent, which seemed to cling to her.

DC office workers, unwinding at the end of the workweek, packed every inch of the horseshoe bar. They seemed more interested in socializing and watching the football game on the TVs over the bar than quiet conversation, leaving a few open tables toward the back of the room, near the restrooms.

Cam placed his hand on the small of Martha’s back and steered her toward one of those tables. She’d twitched under his touch but didn’t shrug him off. He’d take that as a good sign.

When he pulled out her chair, her eyes beneath her arched eyebrows jumped to his face, and she mumbled, “Thank you.”

After he took his own seat across from her, he folded his arms and hunched over the table. “Why weren’t you surprised that somebody tried to push you onto the subway tracks?”

Her nostrils flared, and then she pursed her lips. “I told you. I thought it was an accident. I still think so.”

“Really?” He reached across the table so quickly she didn’t have time to pull back, and smoothed his thumb over the single line between her eyebrows. “Then why are you jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs.”

Martha’s mouth hung open, and Cam didn’t know if it was because he’d presumed to touch her petal-soft skin, or because he’d laid on a thick Southern accent. That slack jaw made most people look stupid, but Martha couldn’t look stupid if she tried. It made her look—adorable.

“Cat?” Her soft voice trailed off.

“You know—long tails, rocking chairs going back and forth.” He hit the table with his flat hand, and she jumped. “Nervous, jittery. Don’t deny it.”

A cocktail waitress dipped next to their table and tossed a couple of napkins in front of them. “What can I get you?”

Cam plucked a plastic drink menu from a holder at the side of the table and tapped a picture of one of the featured bottles of beer. “I’ll have a bottle of this.”

“I can’t just point at a picture.” Martha snatched the menu from his hand and flipped it over, studied it for what seemed like ten minutes and then asked about twenty questions about the chardonnays. When she finally tucked the menu back in its holder, she said, “I’ll have a glass of the house chardonnay.”

When the waitress dived back into the crowd, Cam drummed his fingers on the table. He needed to start at the beginning with Martha. She clearly liked to take things in order.

He took a deep breath and started again. “Can you tell me about those emails? Where they came from? What they said, exactly, or close to it?”

“I should report you.” She flicked her fingers at him. “What are you doing in DC? Why aren’t you on duty?”

Cam narrowed his eyes. She didn’t want to report him. Her voice had quavered, and she’d broken eye contact with him. If she’d turned those emails over so quickly, there shouldn’t be anything stopping her from turning him over—but she didn’t want to go there.

“I’m on leave. I’m not here on any official business, just my own.” He crumpled the cocktail napkin in his fist. “Look, I know Major Rex Denver, and I know he’s innocent of these charges.”

“He went AWOL.” She sniffed. “Running indicates guilt.”

“Not always.” He smoothed out the napkin and traced the creases with the tip of his finger. “Not if you think there’s a conspiracy against you and you’re going to be railroaded.”

“A conspiracy?” Her eyes widened and seemed to sparkle in the low light from the candle on the table.

“Here you go.” The waitress set down their drinks and spun away before Cam could tell her to close out the tab and that he didn’t need a mug.

He watched Martha over the bottle, as he tipped the beer down his throat. Maybe this night would be longer than he expected.

“We think someone is framing Denver, and it started with those emails.”

“We?”

“The Delta Force team that Major Denver commanded. We were all—” he put down the bottle harder than he’d planned “—dragged in for interrogation. Do you know what that’s like? You’re doing your job, doing the right thing, and bam. They’re lookin’ at you like you’re vermin.”

She nodded and took a big gulp from her wineglass. “I do know what that’s like. I turned over those emails and all of a sudden, I’m suspect. They’re checking out my communications, my files.”

Cam’s pulse ticked faster. That’s why Martha was none too anxious to report him. They’d grilled her, too.

“Exactly.” He touched the neck of his bottle to her glass and the pale liquid within shimmered and reflected in Martha’s eyes. Whiskey. Her eyes were the color of whiskey. And right now he was a little drunk just looking into them.

Cam cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. “I don’t trust them, any of them. All I know is Denver is not guilty of those crimes, and I’m gonna prove it.”

Martha took another sip of wine from her half-empty glass, her cheeks flushed like a rose stain on porcelain. “I’ll start at the beginning with the emails.”

“Did the CIA determine where they came from?” He scooted forward in his seat.

“I didn’t get all the details because why would they tell me anything? I’m just the one who discovered them and turned them over.” She cupped her glass in her two hands and rolled it between her palms. “They were looking at Dreadworm though, you know that hacking group?”

He nodded, not wanting to interrupt her flow. This stuff had been bothering her for a while, and he just became her receptacle—a very willing one.

“But I don’t know if they ever determined how my email inbox became the target, or at least they never told me. Dreadworm was just the messenger, anyway. The conduit for the message, if you will—and that message was that Major Rex Denver had been working with a terrorist group plotting against the United States.”

Cam slammed his fist on the table, the tips of his ears burning.

Martha held up her index finger. “But I noticed something strange about those emails.”

“Yeah, they were filled with lies.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but it didn’t seem as if the person who composed the emails was a native English speaker.”