Tall, Dark and Devastating: Harvard's Education

“I can’t believe you haven’t at least tried to get friendly with this woman. If I weren’t a happily married man, I’d be pulling some discreet moves myself. I mean, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, she’s—”

“What exactly do you envision her role at FInCOM to be?” Harvard enunciated very clearly.

“All right,” Joe said with a shrug. “Be that way.” He drew in a deep breath, taking the time to put his thoughts into words. “Okay, I see her continuing to climb FInCOM’s career ladder and moving into an upper-level position—probably onto Kevin Laughton’s staff. She’s worked with him before. He was the one who insisted she be part of this program in the first place.”

Kevin Laughton and P.J. Now Harvard had to wonder about that relationship. Inwardly, he rolled his eyes in disgust. Everything became more complicated when women were thrown into the equation. Suddenly sex became an issue, a motivation, a factor.

A possibility.

Damn, why couldn’t P.J. just stay in the FInCOM office, safe and sound and out of sight—a distraction for after hours?

“I see her as being the voice of reason and being right there, on hand, so that when a terrorist situation like that incident at the Athens airport comes up again, she can tell Laughton to get the SEALs involved right from the start instead of waiting a week and a half and getting five agents and ten civilians killed.

“The U.S. has a no-negotiation policy with terrorists,” Joe Cat went on. “We need to go one step further and consistently deliver an immediate and deadly show of force. Tangos take over another airport? FInCOM snaps to it, and boom, SEAL Team Ten is there within hours. The first CNN report doesn’t bring attention to the bastards’ cause—instead it’s an account of how quickly the Ts were crushed. It’s a report on the number of body bags needed to take the scum out of there. Tangos snatch hostages? Same thing. Boom. We go in, we get them out. No standing around wringing our hands. And eventually the terrorists will realize that their violent action causes a swift and deadly reaction from the United States every single time.”

“And you think P. J. Richards will really reach a point in FInCOM where her opinion is that important?” Harvard let his skepticism ring in his voice. “Where she can say, ‘Call in the SEALs,’ and have anyone listen to her?”

“On her own? Probably not,” Joe said baldly. “She’s a woman and she’s black. But I do think Kevin Laughton’s going all the way to the top. And I think P. J. Richards will be close by when he gets there. And I’m betting when she says, ‘Call in the SEALs,’ he’s going to listen.”

Harvard was silent. Damn, but he hated politics. And he hated the image of Laughton with P.J. by his side.

“So since our goal has changed,” Harvard asked, crossing his arms and trying to stay focused, “do we still try to convince FInCOM to let us run training ops that extend past their current ten-hour limit? And what about our request to go out of the country with the finks? If you’d prefer to just stay here in Virginia—”

“No,” Joe said. “I think it would create more of an impression on P.J. if we put on a real show—you know, let her feel the impact of being in a strange country for these longer exercises.”

“But you just said Veronica—”

“Ronnie will be fine if I go out of town for a few days for something as safe as a FInCOM training exercise. And I can’t stress enough the importance of convincing P.J. that the creation of a CSF team is not the way to go,” Joe told him. “And the way I think we can do that is to set up and run two different forty-eight-hour exercises either in the Middle East or somewhere in Southeast Asia. We’d let the finks take part in the first operation. And then, after they fail miserably again, I’d like to set P.J. up as an observer as Alpha Squad does a similar training op—and succeeds. I want her to see exactly how successfully a SEAL team like Alpha Squad can operate, but I want her to get a taste of just how hard it is first.”

“We’ll need to make a formal request to Admiral Stonegate’s office.”

“It’s already sent. They’re pretty negative. I think they’re afraid we’re somehow going to hurt the finks.”

Harvard smiled. “They’re probably right. God only knows what will happen if the finks don’t get their beauty sleep.”

“I’ve also put in a call to Laughton’s office,” Joe told him. “But I’m having trouble reaching the man. So far, his staff has been adamant that the rules stand as is.”

The door slid open and Blue stepped onto the deck. “Sorry I’m late.”

Harvard looked at Joe. “He look sorry to you?”

“He’s trying.”

“He’s not succeeding. Look at that smile he can’t keep off his face.”

Blue sat down. “Okay, okay, I’m not sorry. I admit it. So what are we talking about? P. J. Richards? Her test scores are off the scale. And I assume you’re both aware she’s an expert-level sharpshooter?”

“Yeah, we’ve already voted her in as Wonder Woman,” Harvard told him.

“What we’ve got to do now,” Joe said, “is make sure she’s got the same warm fuzzy feelings about us that we have about her. We want her going back to Laughton and telling him, ‘These guys are the best,’ not ‘Whatever you do, stay away from those nasty SEALs.’ She’s been kind of aloof, but then again, we haven’t exactly welcomed her with open arms.”

“Consider that about to change,” Blue said. “I heard Lucky talking before I left the base. P.J.’s having dinner with him—the Alpha Squad’s ambassador of open arms—right this very moment.”

Joe swore. “That’s not what I had in mind. You’d better go and intercept that,” he said, turning toward Harvard.

But Harvard was already running for his car.

P.J. punched her floor number into the hotel elevator.

Well, that had been a joke.

She’d finally decided to take some action. Over the past few days, she’d come to the conclusion that she had to attempt to make friends with one of the SEALs. She needed an ally—because it was more than obvious that these big, strong men were scared to death of her.

She needed just one of them to start looking at her as if she were an equal. All it would take was one, and that one would, by example, teach the others it could be done. She could be accepted as a person first, a woman second.

But that special chosen one wasn’t going to be the SEAL nicknamed Lucky, that was for sure.

He had a nice smile and an even nicer motorcycle, but his intentions when he’d asked her to join him for dinner hadn’t been to strike up a friendship. On the contrary, he’d been looking for some action.

A different kind of action than the kind she was looking for.

He’d fooled her at first. They had a common interest in motorcycles, and he let her drive his from the base to the restaurant. But when he rode behind her, he’d held her much too tightly for the tame speeds they were going.

And so she’d told him bluntly between the salad and the main course that she wasn’t interested in anything other than a completely nonsexual friendship. By the time coffee arrived, she’d managed to convince him. And although he wasn’t as forthright as she had been, from the way he kept glancing at his watch she knew that he wasn’t interested in anything other than a sexual relationship.

Which left her back at square one.

The doors opened, and P.J. stepped into the small sitting area by the elevators. She searched through her belt pack for her key card. She almost didn’t see Harvard Becker sitting in the shadows.

And when she did see him, she almost kept going. If she’d had any working brains in her head, she should have kept going. But in her surprise, she stopped short, gaping at him like an idiot. He was the dead last person she’d expected to see sitting in the hallway on the soft leather of the sofa, waiting for her.

Harvard nodded a greeting. “Ms. Richards.”

She had to clear her throat so her voice wouldn’t come out in an undignified squeak. “Were you looking for me? Am I needed on base? You could have paged me.”

“No.” He stood up—Lord, he was tall. “Actually, I was looking for Luke O’Donlon.”

“He’s not here.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

P.J. started for her room, afraid if she didn’t move, her anger would show. Who was he checking up on and trying to protect? Her or Lucky? Either way, it was damned insulting. She unlocked her door with a vicious swipe of the key card.

“Do you happen to know where he was headed?”

“Back to the base,” she said shortly. She wanted to slam the door behind her, but she forced herself to turn and face him.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” he said quietly.