The Protector Read Online Free PDF Page B

tinted glass window, knowing they couldn’t see her. She didn’t want to be here, looking at them in their uniforms. Murder was okay to men like them. Sometimes rape. Or, if they were just friendly peacekeepers, a couple of visits to the local young girls went unquestioned. Uniforms were like political words, used to commit crimes.
    Her eyes were drawn to the only man who was shirtless at the moment. Unlike the others, who were talking in small groups or smoking cigarettes, he was alone, hanging on the hoop of the rusty iron basketball post. His body gleamed with perspiration in the sun as he used the post, which was buried in concrete, to exercise. She had watched as he shimmied up the post and, dangling from the hoop, did pull-ups, his powerful muscles straining as he kept going.
    He was impressive to watch. He hadn’t stopped since…she’d lost count a few minutes ago as she’d stood there admiring his physique. Up and down he went, apparently unaware of how his chest expanded as he pulled up and his stomach muscles contracted as he lowered himself down. She wanted to run her hand down that hard wall of muscles to test its strength.
    He suddenly paused in mid-pull and looked in her direction, as if aware of her thoughts. Vivi blinked and almost took a step back. He couldn’t see her, but that didn’t stop her heart from beating a tad faster. She watched as he resumed his exercise, pulling up till he was chin level with the hoop, the muscles in his arms rippling in the sunlight. Strength. The kind that could hold a girl down. Damn that man. Why did she have to be responsible for his release?
    “Come in,” Vivi said, at the knock on the door. It was the comptroller. “Ready?”
    “Yes, Miss Verreau.”
    Vivi put her hand on Rose’s shoulder. The girl had beenstanding quietly beside her, looking out at the scene. At her touch, she turned her attention to Vivi.
    “He cannot see you,” Vivi assured. “Everything you have told me is the truth, right? Are you sure he never touched you anywhere?”
    Rose looked back at Jazz in the courtyard and shook her head. “No touch me,” she said softly. “He no want me.”
    Vivi looked over Rose’s head at the comptroller, who was taking notes as well as handling the tape recorder. He nodded when she arched a brow at him, answering her silent question that he was recording Rose’s words.
    “He never touched you intimately?”
    Rose nodded in agreement. “No touch me,” she repeated.
    Vivi looked at the comptroller again. “Will they okay his release after I sign the papers? I don’t want them protesting later because they didn’t have enough figures and facts.”
    “They” were the members of the United Third World Against Exploitation of Women, a group that was writing a report for the UN and that was also the watchdog for the directive. They had asked the UN for an independent contract agent to facilitate part of the operation and to authenticate the study, as well as be responsible for future references. GEM had been chosen because of one very important factor. It was an agency made up of eighty percent female operatives. Perfect for the group. They even approved the GEM candidate—a woman who came from the region, who could communicate in several languages.
    Vivi had wanted the job. It was a chance to return home. A way to personally find out what had happened…
    “They won’t like it,” the comptroller said.
    “They don’t have to like it,” she said. “The man’s innocent, and surely they don’t want the wrong people to be charged.”
    She said the last sentence with barely hidden cynicism. She had worked in projects where numbers were more important than truth, especially those that brought funding for the all-important bolstered figures. There were always radicals in every organization, even her own. The last thing she wanted was to come between a group and its cause, but—she glanced again at the object of her thoughts—if her operations