Exclusive. Katherine Garbera

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СКАЧАТЬ recommended her as UBC’s Berzhaan correspondent.”

      “Babe, it’s not your fault she was taken.”

      “I know that. Really I do, but she wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for me. I have to do what I can to help her.”

      “You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”

      “I don’t think of it as stubborn,” she said. It was her job to get to the bottom of situations like Andrea’s. To find out exactly where her friend was.

      “Can you please just let this go?”

      What exactly was he asking her? Even Ty, who wanted her in the anchor chair, understood why she needed to go after this story. And Ben, who supposedly knew her better than her boss, should understand. “No.”

      “Dammit, woman. Sometimes you make me crazy.”

      She could tell he was trying to get them back on track. Away from the fight they both were dancing around, but she wasn’t ready to backpedal and say that everything was okay.

      “Too bad.”

      “Tory…”

      “I can’t just let you blow this off like it means nothing. This is what my job is. I can’t refuse assignments because you think they might be dangerous.”

      “That’s not what I meant.”

      “You like my job as long as I stay in New York while you go jetting around the world. I’m not a slippers-and-martini-holding kind of woman.”

      “I know that.”

      “Then act like you understand what it means.”

      He said nothing for a moment and the cab pulled to a stop in front of the doctor’s office. She paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk.

      “Listen, I’ve got to go.”

      “Babe…understanding your job isn’t the problem. I have a hard time thinking of you in danger and me not being there to save you.”

      “I don’t need you to save me.” She’d spent her entire life proving that she didn’t need anyone, afraid to let any person glimpse her vulnerabilities and insecurities. But she feared she needed Ben. He was the only man she’d ever really felt comfortable being herself around. The only man she’d let see the real Tory.

      “But I need to. It’s part of my makeup.”

      She understood that about Ben. She liked the fact that he did want to protect her. But that didn’t mean she’d avoid danger to please him. “Get over it.”

      “I’m trying. I really am.”

      She knew that. She loved him for it. The way he fought against his own instincts because he knew that she didn’t like it when he acted all macho. “Do you want to know my travel plans?”

      “Hell.”

      “Is that a yes or no?”

      She entered the building and took the elevator up to Dr. Waters’s office. She signed in and found a seat in the corner, still waiting for Ben to respond.

      “I guess that’s a no.”

      He cursed savagely and she just waited, knowing he was fighting the same battle within himself that she always waged. They were both so strong-willed that their relationship wasn’t smooth sailing for either of them.

      “Ben?”

      “It’s not a freakin’ no. Yes, tell me when you’re leaving for Berzhaan. I’m going to be out of radio range for the next thirty-six hours. E-mail me your schedule.”

      “I will,” she said, hating the feeling in her stomach that came from this new discontentment between them. It had been growing lately and she knew she was to blame. She wanted more from Ben but was afraid to ask for it. She could handle the toughest assignments, ask the hard questions of politicians and world leaders, but she had no idea how to ask Ben for what she wanted.

      “Be safe,” she said, quietly.

      “You too,” he said, and disconnected the call.

      The capital city of Berzhaan wore its Russian influences well. Old and majestic, the architecture harkened back to a more civilized age. Ben rubbed the back of his neck as he ducked out of the busy foot traffic and into a familiar fast-food establishment where he was to meet his contact.

      No matter what he might want to believe about a more graceful age, he knew that men like him had always been around and that fighting was something that had come naturally to this land in every age. There was something wild and untamed about the Middle East. Something that made even the most determined atheist sense there was a higher force at play in this land.

      Ben ordered a Big Mac and fries from the attendant in perfect Russian. Most of the locals spoke Berzhaani, which was derived from Arabic, and Russian, after the country’s long relationship with the former Communist nation. No matter where he was in the world, he could get a Big Mac, but there was still something a little weird about ordering one in Russian.

      Ben found a table in the back of the restaurant and sat down. He opened the bag and prepared to wait for his contact. He’d just reached in to snag a fry when the clerk yelled out to stop him.

      “Wait, sir. That is the wrong bag.”

      Ben pushed to his feet and handed the clerk the bag he’d been given. The new bag was slightly heavier and Ben glanced inside to see a small yellow capsule nestled in with his super-size fries.

      “Thanks,” he said to the clerk, and worked his way back out to the street. The last time he’d had fries had been with Tory in her apartment right before the start of this mission. They’d lain on the floor, watching another one of her favorite Tom Cruise movies and eating junk food.

      He wanted to go back to New York, tie her to a chair and lock her in her apartment. He needed to know she was safe. She wouldn’t understand it and he wasn’t ever going to let her know it, but she made what he did worthwhile. Knowing that she was safe while he saved the world, or at least a small portion of it, made it easier for him to sleep at night. And he didn’t want her anywhere near Berzhaan.

      The Kemeni rebels had scattered after their defeat and the death of their leader Tafiq Ashurbeyli, during their takeover of Suwan’s capitol building last February, but they were still out there. The last thing Ben wanted was for Tory to come here and start poking around.

      The woman had a real talent for finding the truth and she never stopped once she was on the trail of a story. Should he have told her he’d be going after Andrea? Would she have listened to him and stayed in Manhattan? He doubted it.

      He pocketed the capsule and blended into the throng of people on the street. He wanted to examine the information he’d been given, but he knew he couldn’t out here.

      A late model car pulled to a stop next to him. Ben identified Salvo and slid into the car. Salvo pulled away from the curb.

      “How’d СКАЧАТЬ