Inside Outt

way it feels.”
    “You’ve never been with a black woman before, have you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re not supposed to touch a black woman’s hair.”
    He thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it… I did get that vibe a few times here and there.”
    “They were straightened, right?”
    “Yeah. You know, not like yours.”
    “You can touch it if it’s natural. It’s the straightened and hair extensions and wigs that can get you in trouble.”
    He eased his hand around to the back of her head. “I like yours better.”
    “You wouldn’t believe what it takes to make black hair straight. I don’t have time for it. Besides, I’d rather just be myself.”
    They were quiet for a moment. He said, “So… I guess we can sleep in the same bed tonight?”
    She laughed again. “I guess so.”
    “Good. Because I’m so tired, I’m going to pass out.”
    “That sounds good.”
    “Tell me something first.”
    “What?”
    “Why wouldn’t you kiss me?”
    There was a pause. She said, “It was too intimate. I wanted you to fuck me, not make love to me.”
    He’d never thought of it that way. “Does that mean you won’t kiss me now?”
    “It’s a bad idea.”
    “You’ve got some pretty finely parsed notions about what separates a good idea from a bad one.”
    There was another pause. She touched his cheek with a hand and kissed him, long and tenderly. His lips hurt but it was delicious anyway.
    She broke the kiss and looked at him. He said, “Was that so bad?”
    She shook her head. “It was okay. But it was the first part I really wanted.”

CHAPTER 31
Squeaky Clean
    U lrich checked his watch for probably the tenth time in an hour. Almost ten o’clock. He needed to go home and get some sleep. But he’d become so afraid of being away from the secure phone that he was hurrying back to his desk even from bathroom breaks. Anyway, it wasn’t like he was going to sleep even if he left. All he could do these days was toss and turn until the sun rose and he could get up and come into the office without it being so early he would seem deranged or obsessed.
    The secure line buzzed. He jumped and then snatched up the receiver.
    “Ulrich.”
    “Clements. Okay to talk?”
    “I’ll tell you if it isn’t, okay? What is it?”
    “We have a problem.”
    Ulrich flinched. If Clements had been a doctor, “problem” would doubtless be his favorite way of informing patients they had inoperable brain cancer.
    He closed his eyes. “Tell me.”
    “We lost everybody. Twelve Blackwater contractors, two Ground Branch operators. They’re all dead.”
    Ulrich shook his head. It was unbelievable. This was just… this couldn’t be happening to him.
    “What about Larison?”
    “We’re pretty sure he’s not among the dead.”
    “Why just ‘pretty sure’?”
    “Because there are no survivors. There’s no one to report in. So all I can tell you right now is the math. We sent twelve contractors and two operators. Costa Rican media is reporting fourteen dead. Yeah, it’s possible one of the dead is Larison or one of them is Treven, but if that were the case, it would mean at least one of our guys was still alive. And if one of our guys were alive, he would have reported in by now. So I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that Larison killed all of them, or that he killed the Blackwater snatch teams and Treven killed the two Ground Branch.”
    Ulrich dropped his glasses on the desk and scrubbed a hand across his face. “What about the tapes?”
    “No sign of release. Yet.”
    “What’s our next move?”
    “We don’t have one. The op has been turned over to JSOC.”
    Ulrich didn’t respond. It was really almost funny. How just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, they always found a way.
    “You there?” Clements said.
    “How did this happen?”
    “The national security adviser was furious when I told him the snatch teams were Blackwater. ‘You deceived me, you told me they were Ground Branch, blah, blah, blah.’ I told him it didn’t matter, that the Blackwater guys were all former government, anyway. I mean, he was only pissed because the op failed. If it had worked, he wouldn’t have cared if we’d hired goddamn al Qaeda to do it. And I told him so.”
    It was actually amusing, imagining Clements growing some balls that way. “Very diplomatic of you.”
    “It didn’t matter what I said. His mind was already made up. At which point, Horton made his move.