Strangers When We Meet

“Major?”

Petrovna didn’t respond. She’d gone so pale that the puckered skin on her neck and lower jaw stood out like the shadowed craters of the moon.

“Major Petrovna? Are you okay?”

Dazed blue eyes swung toward Dodge. “Shto?”

“Are you all right?”

The blonde didn’t answer. She stared blankly at him for several seconds, then pushed past. Backtracking through security, she shoved open the door to the building’s exterior and searched the crowd now climbing into various vehicles. Whatever she saw didn’t appear to satisfy her. Spinning around, she fired off a torrent of Russian.

“Sorry,” Dodge said. “I don’t understand.”

With an obvious effort, she fought to recall her English. “Did you see him?”

“See who?”

“The one who speaks … How do you say? Like a … Like a …”

“You mean the guy who growled like a dog?”

“Yes! The one who growls like the dog. Did you see him?”

“I heard him, but I didn’t see him.”

“Do you know who he is, this one?”

Dodge didn’t have a clue, but he sure as hell intended to find out.

“From their badges,” he said slowly, “I’d guess he was part of a group of civilian contractors.”

He waited for her to explain. When she didn’t, he pressed her. “What’s with the growler? Have you crossed swords with him before or something?”

“What do you say?”

“Obviously, you recognized that guy’s voice. How do you know him?”

“I …”

Petrovna lifted a hand. The fingers she pressed against her scars were trembling, Dodge noted with a sudden kink in his gut.

“I once …”

“You once what?”

The question seemed to recall her from wherever her racing thoughts had taken her. Abruptly, she dropped her hand. Beneath the rumpled suit jacket, her shoulders stiffened.

“I think perhaps I hear a voice like this one before. I make the mistake.” Turning, she marched down the hall. “Come, we will be late for my appointment.”

“Hold on!”

Dodge caught up with her in three quick steps. When she refused to slow, he said to hell with the rules and snagged her arm.

“You looked as if you were about to pass out on me a moment ago. Why did hearing that growl almost buckle your knees?”

“I make the mistake.”

She glanced down pointedly at his hand. When she lifted her gaze again, she could have chipped granite with her flinty stare.

“We waste time. Come.”

Stiff-spined, she swept down the hall. Dodge trailed her, swallowing a few decidedly uncomplimentary remarks about Russians in general, and tight-assed Russian majors in particular.

They were ushered into the 90th Missile Wing commander’s office a few minutes later. Although the major maintained her stiff, professional manner, she unbent a little during the courtesy call. Once, she even smiled. Just a polite curve of her lips, but even so, the transformation was startling.

Well, damn! Good thing she didn’t do that more often, Dodge thought. Her snow-princess looks were enough to make a man start thinking of ways to initiate a spring melt. When she thawed even a few degrees, his thoughts took a sharp jump into long, hot summer nights.

The brief thaw probably had a lot to do with the fact that she and the colonel spoke the same missileese. Within minutes, the two astrophysicists had left Dodge behind in the technical dust.

When they were joined by the vice-commander, Dodge used the cover of polite conversation to slip into the outer office and pop a question at the colonel’s administrative assistant.

“Can I ask a favor, ma’am?”

“Sure.”

“When Major Petrovna and I entered the headquarters building a little while ago, we passed a passel of civilian contractors. Would you check and see if there was a meeting or briefing in the conference room they might have been attending? If so, I need the name and telephone number of the officer who set it up.”

“No problem.”

She punched a button on her intercom. Within moments, she’d obtained the requested information from the conference-room scheduler.

“It was a briefing on the proposed new exoatmospheric defense system,” she informed Dodge. “Lieutenant Colonel Haskell from the plans directorate conducted it.”

She scribbled his name, office symbol and phone number on a pink memo slip.

“Thanks.”

Stuffing the slip into a zippered pocket of his uniform, Dodge waited for Petrovna to make her farewells. Once they were back in the sedan and headed for the quarters set aside for the visiting team, he tried again.

“About the voice you heard in the hallway. You sure you don’t want to tell me why it spooked you?”

Petrovna’s jaw clenched, stretching her scarred skin tight over the bone. “I make the mistake. We will speak no more of it.”

Wrong. They would speak about it a whole lot more, once Dodge got a tag on Dog Voice.

“You will take me to my quarters so I may rest from the flight,” she announced coldly. “Tomorrow, you will report at oh-six-hundred. We must breakfast before the in-brief.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, with just enough of an edge to cause her to cut him a quick look.