It was a dry heat that was almost stifling as Natalie Brenner dropped off her bags. The flight to Kabul had been riddled with problems and the fact that she was one of the top foreign correspondents with the BBC didn't help.
She held dual citizenship with the United States and Italy on her father's side and the higher ups had agreed she should travel on the Italian one.
The city was in shambles with the infrastructure in desperate need of repair and money.
She needn't get too comfortable anywhere because she was headed to Iraq at the end of the week.
She was 33 years old with no children and a marriage that had ended years ago.
She was a lovely woman with soft brown hair and blue eyes and she had been told numerous times that she should have gone into broadcast instead of print journalism.
Her retort was a quick, "I'm not a talking head. I actually work."
Natalie followed the bell hop upstairs and changed into looser fitting clothes.
She emerged a half hour later and went into the bar inside the Hotel Kabul Intercontinental. It was the largest hotel in town where dignitaries and journalists stayed.
She walked into the bar and smiled. The gang was all there.
The world of the foreign correspondents was small and getting smaller.
Bob Lacosta was an award winning journalist with the New York Times and looked every inch the part.
He was bald with a large paunch, glasses and suspenders. He was a hard nosed journalist but engaging and kind. She guesses he was in his late 50s.
"There she is," Bob called out to her. "How the hell are you kid? Haven't seen you since-"
"Rwanda." Supplied Clifton Brown.
Clifton raised his brown eyes to met Natalie's and held them briefly before rudely surveying her body.
Clifton was an attractive man a little older than Natalie who worked with the Washington Post. He was tall and lean with ruffled brown hair to match his eyes. He was arrogant and irritating and Natalie surmised the reason he hated her most of all was that she had never slept with him.
Gideon Tamarelli approached her and caught her up in a hug which she graciously returned.
At 30, he was a gifted writer with premature balding and light blue eyes. He was sweet and she had always enjoyed his company. He was a writer with the Christian Science Monitor.
"We were wondering where the fourth wheel was," Gideon told her.
Clifton made a rude sound and she said, "Try to be decent, Cliff. Try."
She seated herself in between Gideon and Bob and asked lightly, "Where are the photogs?"
"Probably out drinking and smoking," laughed Gideon.
"Some things never change," she laughed.
"Yeah, and besides our regulars, Cliff has a new one," Gideon told her.
"Oh god! Are you breaking in someone?" Natalie asked.
There was nothing worse than someone new when out in the war zone. It rarely happened, but when it did, it caused a heightened tension for the reporter.
"Hell no! He's only new to us. He's on loan from the AFP. Walter came down with a stomach flu at the last minute," Cliff said.
"AFP? Well la-de-dah," Natalie said as she downed her Turkish coffee gritting her teeth as she did.
"And he's an asset because he speaks Farsi and Arabic," Cliff added.
"Wow. That is impressive. Hey Bob, is Quinn here?" She asked.
"Of course. I don't think they would let me come if she wasn't around."
"Great. I'll be back."
Quinn Stratford was the New York Times photographer and Bob's sidekick.
Gideon had a flamboyant black man named T.J. Hall who worked at the monitor while Cliff usually worked with Walter.
Natalie's own photographer was a quiet man named Graham Snowden who kept to himself but was very gifted.
Together the eight journalists had traveled the world in search of the next great story.
"God it's great to see you!" Natalie hugged Quinn.
Quinn with her spiky black hair and pierced eyebrows asked, "Hey have you met the new photog?"
"Walter's replacement? No."
"He's yummy in a moody sort of way. All dark eyes and looks."
"You're hopeless." Natalie smiled as she headed up to her room.
****
Dark eyes and looks. Moody. God, that reminded her of him, Natalie thought.
Natalie's first job as a reporter had been a crappy little community paper where the managing editor had only worked at the paper and McDonald's.
The pay was crap and the city editor didn't know shit and she worked there a year to gain experience before moving on to a better and bigger paper.
The other reporters had been fun and she had liked being with them -- but she had fallen for Reece Shah.
He was Middle Eastern with dark looks and moody ways and they had fought constantly. Any cliché that came to mind fit Reece and Natalie -oil and water, fighting like cats and dogs, the North and the South. There wasn't anything they agreed on from politics to religion to women's rights.
Everyone in the newsroom knew the newbie reporter and the photog hated each other but the stories still had to be written and put in the can.
Natalie had been working at the small paper for a month when they started working together on Sundays.
Sunday was a skeleton crew with only Natalie and Reece together until the copy desk came in during the afternoon.
"Come on," Natalie called over her shoulder as she headed out to his car with all his photography gear in it.
"What's up duchess?" Reece called after her.
"Breaking news. Hello? Your reason for living."
He followed her out lighting a cigarette.
"Do you mind?" She asked annoyed at his habit.
"Hey. When we're inside the car I won't light it. Last time I checked - you don't own the public street," he said.
She rolled her eyes and waited for him to finish his smoke tapping her small little foot as she sighed deeply.
They traveled to a hilly area to cover the small brush fire when she dropped her pen down his side of the sea.
"Oh damn. Sorry."
She brushed against his arm with her breasts as she reached for the pen.
