Tall, Dark and Devastating: Harvard's Education

“Start what?”

But Harvard had already disconnected the line. P.J. hung up the phone without sitting up. She’d gone to bed around ten, planning to get a solid ten hours of sleep tonight. Lord knows she needed it.

Bam, bam, bam. “Richards, open up!”

Now the fool was at the door. P.J. closed her eyes a little tighter, hoping he’d take a hint and go away. Whatever he wanted, she wanted to sleep more.

The past week had been exhausting. True to his word, the Senior Chief had stopped coddling her. She’d gotten no more helpful boosts, no more special treatment. She was busting her butt, but she was keeping up. Hell, she was out front, leading the way. Of course, the FInCOM agents were being trained at a significantly lower intensity than the SEALs normally operated. This was a walk in the park for Alpha Squad. But P.J. wasn’t trying to be a SEAL. That wasn’t what this was about. She was here to learn from them—to try to understand the best way not just FInCOM but the entire United States of America could fight and win the dirty war against terrorism.

Harvard hadn’t stopped watching her, but at least now when she caught him gazing in her direction, there was a glint of something different in his eyes. It may not quite have been approval, but it was certainly awareness of some kind. She was doing significantly better than Farber, Schneider and Greene without Harvard’s help, and he knew it. He’d nod, acknowledging her, never embarrassed that she caught him staring.

She liked seeing that awareness. She liked it a lot. She liked it too damn much.

“Oh, man, Richards, don’t wimp out on me now.”

P.J. opened her eyes to see Harvard standing next to her bed. He looked impossibly tall. “How did you get in here?” she asked, instantly alert, sitting up and clutching her blanket to her.

“I walked in.”

“That door was locked!”

Harvard chuckled. “Allegedly. Come on, we got a card game to go to. Bring your wallet. Me and the guys aim to take your paycheck off your hands tonight.”

A card game. She pushed her hair out of her face. To her relief, she was still mostly dressed. She’d fallen asleep in her shorts and T-shirt. “Poker?”

“Yeah. You play?”

“Gambling’s illegal in this state, and I’m a FInCOM agent.”

“Great. You can arrest us all—but only after we get to Joe Cat’s. Let’s get there quickly, shall we?” He started toward the door.

“First I’m going to arrest you for breaking and entering,” P.J. grumbled. She didn’t want to go out. She wanted to curl up in the king-size bed. She would have, too, if Harvard hadn’t been there. But sinking back into bed with him watching was like playing with fire. He’d get that hungry look in his eyes—that look that made her feel as if everything she did, every move she made, was personal and intimate. That look that she liked too much.

P.J. pushed herself off the bed. It would probably be best to get as far away from the bed as possible with Harvard in the room.

“Those electronic locks are ridiculously easy to override. Getting past ’em doesn’t really count as breaking.” He looked at the ceiling, squinting suddenly. “Damn, I can feel it. They’re starting without us.”

“How does the captain’s poor wife feel about being dropped in on at this time of night?”

“Veronica loves poker. She’d be playing, too, except she’s in New York on business. Come on, Richards.” He clapped his hands, two sharp bursts of sound. “Put on your sneakers. Let’s get to the car—double time!”

“I’ve got to get dressed.”

“You are dressed.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Not exactly elegant, but certainly practical in this heat. Come on, girl, get your kicks on your feet and—”

“I can’t go out wearing this.”

“What, do you want to change into your Wonder Woman uniform?” Harvard asked.

“Very funny.”

He grinned. “Yeah, thanks. I thought it was, too. Sometimes I’m so funny, I crack myself up.”

“I don’t want to look too—”

“Relaxed?” he interrupted. “Approachable? Human? Yeah, you know, right now you actually look almost human, P.J. You’re perfectly dressed for hanging out and playing cards with friends.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were dead serious. “This was what you wanted, remember? A little platonic friendship.”

Approachable. Human. God knows in her job she couldn’t afford to be too much of either. But she also knew she had a tendency to go too far to the other extreme.

As she looked into Harvard’s eyes, she knew he’d set this game of cards up for her. He was going to go into Joe Cat’s house tonight and show the rest of Alpha Squad that it was okay to be friends with a fink. With this fink in particular.

P.J. wasn’t certain the Senior Chief truly liked her. She knew for a fact that even though she’d proved she could keep up, he still only tolerated her presence. Barely tolerated.

But despite that, he’d clearly gone out of his way for her tonight.

She nodded. “I thank you for inviting me. Just let me grab a sweatshirt and we can go.”

This wasn’t a date.

It sure as hell felt like a date, but it wasn’t one.

Harvard glanced at P.J., sitting way, way over on the other side of the big bench seat of his pickup truck.

“You did well today,” he said, breaking the silence.

She’d totally rocked during an exercise this afternoon. The FInCOM team had been given Intel information pinpointing the location of an alleged terrorist camp which was—also allegedly—the site of a munitions storage facility.

P.J. smiled at him. Damn, she was pretty when she smiled. “Thanks.”

She had used the computer skillfully to access all kinds of information on this particular group of tangos. She’d dug deeper than the other agents and found that the terrorists rarely kept their munitions supplies in one place for more than a week. And she’d recognized from the satellite pictures that the Ts were getting ready to mobilize.

All three of the other finks had recommended sitting tight for another week or so to await further reconnaissance from regular satellite flybys.

P.J. had written up priority orders for a combined SEAL/FInCOM team to conduct covert, on-site intelligence. Her orders had the team carrying enough explosives to flatten the munitions site if it proved to be there. She’d also put in a special request to the National Reconnaissance Office to reposition a special KeyHole Satellite to monitor and record any movement of the weapons pile.

There was only one thing Harvard would have done differently. He wouldn’t have bothered with the CSF team. He would have sent the SEALs in alone.

But if Joe Cat’s plan worked, by the time P. J. Richards completed this eight-week counterterrorist training session, she would realize that adding FInCOM agents to the Alpha Squad would be like throwing a monkey wrench into the SEALs’ already perfectly oiled machine.

Harvard hoped that was the case. He didn’t like working with incompetents like Farber. And Lord knows, even though he’d been trying, he couldn’t get past the fact that P.J. was a woman. She was smart, she was tough, but she was a woman. And God help him if he ever had to use her as part of his team. Somebody would probably end up getting killed—and it would probably be him.

Harvard glanced at P.J. as he pulled up in front of Joe Cat’s rented house.

“Do you guys play poker often?” she asked.