“Dr. Guerriero, you have to let us persuade you to stay longer!”
Impatience chafed in Dante’s chest, the currents stronger along the fast-healing bullet tract. “Mr. Kauffman, you have to stop talking as if I’m going back on my word, as if I’m deserting! You knew the moment I stepped into your office two weeks ago that I was here for the hostage situation, not to join GAO. I am sure you also know that I am a freelancer, if the term can apply to voluntary work. I roam around offering my services where I can make a difference, then move on. I couldn’t have been clearer when I asked you to grant me temporary GAO credentials. As it turned out, it has been the only thing that has gotten me through the quarantine zone. Now it’s over, and so is our liaison, and I’m moving on, as has always been my intention.”
Kauffman’s lanky, relaxed posture eased even more, making his persistence even more droning, more effective. “That’s all well and good, as far as previous plans go, Dr. Guerriero. But things change. Things have changed.”
Dante stared at the fair, frail man who’d had him trapped in this office for the last hour. Who had him trapped, period. Dammit. What a disguise! Ivan Kauffman was anything but fragile. He’d never come up against fiercer relentlessness. He’d dragged him into a logic loop, and every time they bounced the same argument off each other, Dante felt his grip on his slipping. Ivan made him feel like trash for doing what he’d been doing for the last four years, something he’d thought effective and worthwhile.
He shook his head. The man was a juggernaut. He should have known he would be one. People who picked humanitarian work in the most dangerous places on earth were a special breed. They had to have steel running through them, had to be totally unpredictable. Like Gulnar…
“We don’t only need any and every capable medical person around here.” Kauffman made his main argument again, tireless, tiring to his listener. “But after what you’ve done, you’re not just an extra pair of sorely needed hands. Like it or not, you are a role model, a symbol of hope that good does triumph over evil and that humanitarian operatives are not just more vulnerable chips for terrorists to play with.”
Counter-arguments crowded into Dante’s mind. None of them seemed enough any more. He exhaled, irritated, cornered and hating it. “Really, Mr. Kauffman! This legend everyone is weaving around my role in the hostage situation is getting out of hand.”
“Modesty is very becoming, Dr. Guerriero, and also the mark of a true hero.” Oh, no. He didn’t get him that way. Dante had no ego to tickle in this direction. Kauffman continued, exchanging flattery for debate, “How many doctors breach impending disaster situations and not only manage to save almost everyone, but come out alive, too? Even we who live and work in areas of conflict do so only where there is relative safety. We take precautions and withdraw from openly dangerous situations. Not many risk throwing themselves into the line of fire, and almost none who actually do make it out get their charges out, too. This has been epic, and you’d better get used to it.”
Dante’s teeth screeched against each other. What he’d give for an episode of mass amnesia to counteract the sweeping mass hysteria! When would it pass? He just wanted to fade into the background, wipe this from the record, get on with his roaming—get away from Gulnar…
He exhaled again. “You know what, Mr. Kauffman? I was really indignant when you all insisted on downplaying Gulnar’s far more important role in this situation. Now I am just glad everyone decided to ignore her. I have never suffered anything more aggravating and oppressive than the status you’ve all thrust on me. I am happy she escaped the same fate.”
Kauffman gifted him with another of those impassive smiles that made him feel like an over-emotional idiot. Made the man such a nerve-fraying negotiator. “Such is the burden of heroism, Dr. Guerriero. Just as you’d accepted the possible outcome of severe injury or death, going in there, you have to accept the acclaim now you’ve made it out triumphant. And you also have to accept the responsibility that acclaim places on you.”
Dante heaved himself up to his feet. This wasn’t going to end unassisted. “That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Kauffman. I don’t have to accept anything. In my opinion, I’ve done my share, and that’s it. I’m out of here, and I’ll be eternally in your debt if you stop your attempts to emotionally blackmail me into staying, and if you let this be the end of this endless meeting.”
Without giving Kauffman the chance to bat a languid eyelid, Dante dragged the man’s hand for a hard, adamant handshake then turned and almost ran out of his office. And directly into Gulnar. And Emilio.
His heart stuttered. Everything inside him surged, almost burst out of him. Why didn’t you come to see me today?
He barely caught the reproachful roar back. She didn’t owe him anything after that morning when he’d behaved like an out-of-control teenager. She’d been gracious enough to laugh it all off and walk out of his room with a smile.
The moment she’d closed the door behind her he’d plunged into a hell he’d never known before. Not knowing if she’d ever return, where she was, how to contact her, what he’d say if he did—he’d felt abandoned, desperate,
like a kid in an alien world, and it had had nothing to do with her loss as an interpreter.
Next morning, and every day ever since, she’d come back during the morning visiting hour, ten to eleven a.m., behaving as if they hadn’t fought and survived by each other’s sides, as if they’d shared nothing but an aborted flirtation in one of his former American hospital’s cafeterias. And she’d mostly come with her shadow, her fellow GAO volunteer and nurse, the hunky Emilio Fernandez.
He’d lived for that hour. Then she’d deprived him of it today. The almost suicidal despair that had robbed him of all reason and power when the seconds had ticked by and she hadn’t appeared had decided him. He was running out of there.
Tomorrow. He’d go back on the road tomorrow. And to hell with recuperation.
“Dr. Guerriero! Good thing we caught you. We were told this was one of your stops today.” It was the Portuguese nurse who addressed him. Gulnar only looked at him. Burned him down to the bone.
He swallowed the roiling hunger, the crushing despondency, kept his eyes on Emilio. “Yeah, I have a whole line-up of appointments all over Srajna.”
Emilio raised one thick, straight eyebrow. “People actually asked you to go to them?”
Say something cool and diplomatic. “I’m a popular man nowadays, am I not, Fernandez? Everyone wants a piece of me.” OK, not so cool or diplomatic. “Most did try to save me the trouble, but twelve days in one place, one room, is my limit. So, what can I do for you? I really have to run.”
Emilio’s brown eyes told him he could drop dead. At six feet five it was unusual for Dante to meet men’s eyes on the same level. He did Emilio’s. A mane of black curls even gave the good-looking man an extra inch over him. As tall and as broad and as dark. Emilio could have been his brother. And he hated Dante’s guts.
It figured. Men who were interested in Gulnar would probably shred each other with bare teeth and talons over her. And Emilio’s interest was unmistakable. Was Dante’s?
What kind of a stupid question was that? All the sexual energy he’d thought he’d never had or had lost had only been accumulating undiscovered, had only taken the sight of her, her touch to be unearthed, unleashed.
But once he was out of her orbit, he’d revert to his usual numbness. He’d throw himself into the sanctuary of emotional vacuum again. He couldn’t wait.
Emilio’s lips stretched on a pseudo-smile, revealing white, clenched teeth. Only fair. Emilio set Dante’s teeth on edge, too. “Nothing you can do for me, that’s for sure.”
A subtle communication passed between Gulnar and Emilio. Reproach on her side, he-had-it-coming sullen protest on his. Dante felt more lost and alone watching their unspoken argument, the ache of alienation spreading, worse than all his years of estrangement put together. That was an exchange born of entrenched familiarity. And intimacy?