“What gave me away?” she asked.
He shrugged and gave her a smile and a conspiratorial wink that if she were a few years younger and not on the job might have made her heart do a little stutter.
He was a nice-looking guy in that blond, blue-eyed, clean-cut Nordic fashion that encompassed about a third of the guys in here. From what she’d seen of Scandinavia so far, they were certainly a good-looking bunch. A little on the homogeneous side, but if big, blond, and Viking were your thing, this was the place to be.
She thought of another big, blond Viking and pursed her mouth. She wasn’t going to lethimrun her off. Having Brandon’s death confirmed hadn’t changed her mind. If anything, it had made her even more determined to find out the truth of what had happened. Her brother’s death wasn’t going to be swept aside for some governmental expediency. Not like her parents. She wouldn’t fail him, too.
And neither was she going to put aside the story of a lifetime without a good reason. And a vague warning that it could be dangerous wasn’t enough. She wouldn’tsay anything about survivors, but if John thought he could use her feelings—her former feelings—for him to get her to bury the story, he was even more full of himself than she thought. He probably assumed she’d been so overwhelmed by having sex with him that she’d fallen in love with him all over again.
Right. No one was that good.
Although admittedly...
She had to stop thinking about that. It wasn’t helping.
But she’d meant what she told him before she left. There weren’t going to be any more Lost Platoon stories without proof—her editor had made that clear. Which was why she was here making friends.
The documents and satellite images from her mysterious source seemed to point to a secret mission in Russia. Given the state of tension between the two countries teetering on war, it made sense that no one would be eager for the information to get out. One of the few helpful clues in the redacted deployment orders had been Vaernes Air Station. If she could prove that Brandon had been here, that would help establish the authenticity of the document, and if he was here right before the purported missile “test” in late May, that might be enough to link SEAL Team Nine to the explosion in Russia. Vaernes was an obvious launch point for an operation in Russia.
Assuming her new source hadn’t sent her on a wild-goose chase, as she was beginning to fear. She was still hoping Mac would be able to come back with something more on the license plates, but the car had been a pool car used by any number of people in the Department of Defense. If they kept a list on who took it out, it wasn’t electronic.
For now this was her best lead. But so far it wasn’t paying off. Hopefully, her luck would change tonight.
“It was your smile,” the soldier said. “Americans areso friendly and confident.” He frowned, noticing the change of her expression. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head, realizing she was still frowning from thinking of John. “No, sorry. I just thought I saw someone I knew.”
He didn’t hide his disappointment. “Then you are waiting for someone?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to take a chance that you aren’t a serial killer scouting bars for victims, but no, I’m not.”
He grinned. “Not a serial killer; we don’t get a lot of those in Norway. My name is Nils Olsen—Corporal Nils Olsen—I’m stationed at the base.” He motioned toward his group of friends, who were watching his progress. “You can ask any of them, and they’ll tell you, I’m perfectly safe.”
Her mouth quirked in a playful smile. “Brittany Blake. It’s nice to meet you, Nils. But maybe I should ask those women over at that table instead? A couple of them keep looking over here.”
He blushed. If he was indeed a budding ladies’ man, as she suspected, he hadn’t perfected the smooth-operator bit. She guessed he was a couple years younger than her—maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. Give him a few years.
Her thoughts slid to another smooth operator before she forced them back to Nils.
Not wanting to scare him away, she changed the subject. “Are you in the air force?”
“I’m with the Home Guard.”
From her research on the air station, she knew what the Home Guard was but pretended as if she didn’t and gave him a questioning look.
He explained. “It’s anInnsatsstyrke—what you would call a Rapid Reaction Force. We are trained to respond to all kinds of emergencies, from bomb threats toterrorism. We actually do an exchange with your national guard every year in Minnesota.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “I think my brother mentioned that.” At his questioning look she explained. “He was here briefly with the marines a few months ago.”
Brittany didn’t think the recent US marine presence at Vaernes was a coincidence. Earlier this year, Vaernes had welcomed three hundred marines from North Carolina. They were the first US troops to be officially stationed in Norway since World War II. Not surprisingly, Russia wasn’t too happy with the arrangement. The marines were on a six-month deployment and the second group had rotated in this summer. The US troop presence at Vaernes would make it easier to hide a team of SEALs moving through.
She let the mention of her brother go and changed the subject when her food and drink arrived. She wasn’t hungry, and she was tired of bar food, so she’d ordered a salad and fries. But her attempt at healthy had been foiled by a large glob of creamy dressing.
Oh well.
Brittany was having a surprisingly good time talking to Nils, and it was only after the waitress had cleared the table and brought them each another beer and he’d asked her how she ended up here that she returned to the subject of her brother.
“I was already planning a hiking trip over here with a girlfriend, so when my brother told me about the annual blues festival, I knew I had to check it out. My friend had to go back for work, but I decided to stay on for an extra week to go to the ‘Blues in Hell.’”
