Because doing something would expose him. At least doing something to Gabe. But Abigail? His lip curled. She was theoretically dead. No one would miss her. Except for her brother and her ex-boyfriend—if they were alive. He had to assume they were. And Marti Raymond? She’d perish simply by being with Abigail.
He dialed a number that rang through to his brother in Texas. “Enrique, we have a problem. Abigail Ward survived.”
Enrique began spluttering. “How could she? The whole house collapsed!”
“I don’t know. But she’ll be in Raleigh at the Ball and Dart tomorrow at six in the evening. Have someone take her down. Failing that, take her out at her house.”
He rattled off the address.
Satisfied that the problem was well in hand, he tiptoed upstairs.
When he crept into bed, Rita turned over and sighed as she wrapped her arm around his middle. She slept the sleep of angels. And him?
The devil was in the details, and that was what kept him awake.
21
Friday, April 21, 2017, 0600 hours MDT, outside Burning Tree, UT
Something rustled. Jonathan’s eyes snapped open. He lay on his side, facing the wall. The noise came from behind him. He rolled over.
Abigail, now dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with a fleece over it, zipped her suitcase closed and carefully set it on the floor.
He pushed himself onto one elbow. “If you’re worried about waking me up, don’t.”
She jumped.
Somehow, he made it upright so he slouched on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing? Trying to sneak out on us?”
“Or you.” She hefted her backpack onto her mattress with her left arm and jerked her head toward David’s bed. “He never came back last night.”
He needed to get the cobwebs out of his head—fast. Scrubbing his hands across his face helped. “He was here when I got up in the middle of the night.”
She shrugged. “I’m headed out.”
“What?”
“I’m headed to Raleigh to meet Marti.”
“What’s in Raleigh?”
“Or who. Tina Delaney. She’s meeting us tonight.”
Her remark jogged his memory. “There’s also a what in Raleigh.”
She frowned. “I’m not following.”
He peered at the door, envisioning a time he and Judge Mackenzie had shared breakfast together. “I mentioned this to David Monday night but then totally forgot about telling you. Do you remember after Mom and Dad died? The way I was having those nightmares three and sometimes four times a week?”
She glanced at her watch impatiently.
He bit back his annoyance. “I talked with Judge Mackenzie about it one time over breakfast and told him about the way they plagued me. He suggested that I write everything down longhand, and maybe they would go away. So I did.”
Suddenly, it was as if things clicked in his sister’s brain. “You wrote down your memories of The Incident?”
He wouldn’t go there. Not today. “I did. Everything that happened that day, right up to finding out that DIA had spirited Nabeelah away.”
“When did this take place?”
“That summer you were home. You were over at Karen’s that night.”
She rubbed her chin. “Jonathan, this is golden. I know memories can get fuzzy, but this is really good.” She cut her eyes toward him. “Have you looked at it since then?”
He shook his head. “No. It was like...” How could he describe it? “Like it freed me from having to think about it too much. I have no desire to look at those pages again.”
“What did you do with them?”
“They’re in the safe. When I finally got my stuff back from RPD after they drilled the old safe last year, I put it in the new one. They’re in the folder at the bottom of the stack. The combo is the same as the old one.”
“Wow.” Her features softened. “Thank you for having the courage to write it out.” Then she seemed to shake herself. “I need to get going. Nabeelah’s tasked a jet to get me there and will have a car waiting for me.”
Memories of his conversation with Nabeelah the afternoon before returned. “She’s using you. Using us.”
She stilled. “What is it with you and David?”
“She’s using us because her mission, which is looking more and more like a suicide mission, is now on life support.”
She snorted as she slid her laptop inside the nylon and zipped it up. “I have a hard time believing that.”
“She’s snowed you because she needs you.” Jonathan pulled on a sweatshirt over his T-shirt, then added his socks and hiking boots. “How about we care about you? Is that too foreign for you to admit?”
That seemed to stop her. She gazed at him for a long moment, then straightened, shrugged into her leather jacket, and tossed her backpack over her left shoulder. Her lips pressed together.
“At least let me help you by getting your suitcase since your arm’s still not a hundred percent.” He snagged it before she could object and followed her into the chilly morning. “We’re pretty sure Sal’s involved in this, right? He’s dangerous. And he knows you very well. That’s a deadly combination in my book.”
“I can handle him.”
Oh, she had her stubborn pants on today. When she was in that kind of mood, no one could stop her. Though every fiber in his body screamed against it, he had to let her go. They arrived at the Gulfstream, where the pilot was wrapping up his preflight checks. Jonathan handed the suitcase to him before turning to his sister. “Promise me one thing, then.”
She set her backpack on the narrow steps. “What?”
“You and Marti watch each other’s backs, okay?”
“We will.”
If things went sideways, this could quite possibly be the last time he saw his sister alive. A lump filled his throat. “Seriously, if Sal sees another opportunity to take you out, he’ll use it. I saw that in Shamal Khan, and I see it in him. He’ll do anything to reopen that pipeline with Shamal, from eliminating Jedidiah Stone to taking out those who threaten his career and freedom. Think about it.”
For a moment, she stared at the distant mesas. Her brow pinched. She closed her eyes, either considering his wisdom or praying, he didn’t know.
The pilot grabbed her backpack. “Ma’am, we’re ready to go.”
Suddenly, she threw herself into Jonathan’s arms and held onto him like she had when she was little and scared. “I love you, sweet brother.”
“I love you too.” He pulled back and kissed her on the forehead. “God will go with you.”
She pecked him on the cheek, then climbed the steps.
The pilot pulled the door shut. A moment later, the two engines on the tail began spinning up. With a small groan as the brakes released, the plane eased forward. Abigail’s face appeared in one of the windows. She kept her gaze on him until the plane turned and rumbled toward the runway.
Sadness seared Jonathan. Lord, she’s in Your hands now. Please let me see her again. Please!
The plane paused at the end of the concrete. It charged forward and swooped into the sky. He kept his eyes on it until it faded completely from sight. Silence returned. Then the wind moaned along the desert floor. Something panged in his soul. Loss. It had to be. He stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and hung his head.
“She’s tough, Jonathan. She’ll make it.”
He turned.
With a travel mug in his hands, Frisco leaned against the corrugated metal wall of the hangar. He must have witnessed the whole thing.
Jonathan’s throat tightened as he stalked down the street.
Frisco matched him stride for stride. “I’m glad you love your sister like that.”
He didn’t slow his steps. “I don’t see why Nabeelah has to use us for her dirty work.”
“It’s complicated.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
“Nabeelah’s a complex woman.” Frisco slowed at th
e mess hall. “You hungry?”
His stomach rumbled loudly. “Sure. What’s cooking?”
“Eggs and bacon. Breakfast of champions.”
Jonathan held his peace as they went through the line. Once settled at a table by the window, he tucked into his pile of scrambled eggs and bacon. Best to eat when he could because he didn’t know when he’d eat again, something he’d learned long ago when he’d served with Special Forces. “Tell me something.”
Frisco paused with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. “What’s that?”
“What’s with you and Nabeelah? I overheard a pretty intense conversation between you two.”
Frisco shrugged, but the red creeping above the collar of his shirt betrayed him. “I trained her.”
“What? You?” Jonathan stared. “When?”
“From 2009 to 2011, which is when I went undercover for DIA with Nicole and her gang.”
“This keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
“Things happen.” Frisco shoveled down some eggs before continuing. “I got my orders in April 2009. By May, she was my student, my one student, and they told me I had a year and a half to teach her everything I knew. Man, when I saw her that first time, I thought it was hopeless. She wasn’t thin. She was skinny. Emotionally a mess. Her English was barely there.”
“She’s smart.”
“Very much so. Within a month, her English had improved to almost fluent. Within six months, she could beat me in krav maga and run a marathon in three hours. Within a year?” He shook his head. “Let’s don’t go there. After eighteen months, the fall of 2011, she left. Not a word. Not anything until she came back online as a team lead in 2012. Suddenly, I was the one taking orders from her since I was undercover by that point.”
As he sipped his coffee, Jonathan felt his mind coming alive. Suddenly, it clicked. “You care about her.”
Frisco’s eyes widened. That red began creeping upward. “Huh?”
Jonathan grinned. “You care about her. You’ve stuck with her. I saw that in your conversation.”
Frisco set down his fork. “Boy, you’re good.”
“No, Abigail would say I’m mostly clueless. You’re the one who gave it away.”
Frisco stared at his coffee mug, then lifted it to his lips. The liquid trembled. “I do.” He set it down with a thunk. “I know it seems strange. She’s a very, very complex woman. I guess being with her day in and day out, I found out a lot about her. And despite her faults, I fell for her. If only she’d see it.”
“She’s the clueless one?”
“I think she’s so focused on taking down her uncle that she refuses to acknowledge it.”
Sounded like someone else Jonathan knew.
Frisco shoved aside his tray and leaned on his elbows with his travel mug in his hands. “And part of that is defanging her Uncle Shamal’s client.”
“Jedidiah Stone.”
“And Sal Torres. She has your sister taking care of him.” Frisco shifted in his chair. “We’re doing Jedidiah.”
“We?” Jonathan cocked his head. “What do you mean, we? David and I are supposed to play dead, right? And Randleman saw me.”
“Thanks to that drug cocktail he got, he won’t remember you. You guys are coming with me. We’ve tracked Randleman to the Outer Banks. Jedidiah seems to be holed up there in a beach house. Our job is to go and bring him in for questioning.”
“With what plane? Our ride just left with Abigail onboard.”
“Nabeelah’s worked her magic somehow, so another’s on the way.” When Jonathan opened his mouth to object, he added, “Don’t ask.”
“Does David know this?”
“He will. Nabeelah’s gone to talk with him in person about it.” Frisco pulled his tray to himself. “So eat up, ’cause I’m not sure when we’ll eat again.”
Friday, April 21, 2017, 0615 hours MDT, outside Burning Tree, UT
The wind whipped along the top of the mesas. Dawn had barely begun lighting the area with an anemic glow David had used to make his way to the burning tree. It hadn’t taken much for him to borrow a jeep and sweet-talk his way off the airfield where the Delta team holed up, just some commiserating with the guard on duty and a promise to return. He made the trip in the dark. He knew each road, no matter how faded, which streambeds were dangerous during storms, and every nook and cranny in the area. And thanks to his native knowledge, he knew exactly where Nabeelah’s team had made their home.
Now, he stood in front of the burning tree on a far corner of his parents’ ranch property. It had withstood so many years—over a hundred—until the day of The Incident and his brother-in-law’s death in a mountain climbing accident. Dad had gone there that afternoon to weep. He reported the tree had died that day. Before his eyes, those needles had drifted to the ground until all that remained was blackened bark, a remnant of a lightning strike so many years before.
David gazed at it. It still stood tall, like a sentry standing guard over his grief. “Lord, I feel so broken, so empty.”
His soul yearned for restoration with Abigail, but no hope of reconciliation remained. It’d take a miracle. Slowly, he approached the tree and laid his hand against the charred wood. “I’ve come here before to pray about big stuff. I know what You desire.”
Oh, did he ever. Stay single. Wait for Abigail. That much he’d felt from the Holy Spirit as he’d lain on his rack the night before and stared at the ceiling. Boy, he’d almost messed that one up with Monica. “No matter what, Abigail’s the only woman for me.”
If only she could see that.
Hah. Fat chance. “Looks like I stand a pretty good chance of dying a bachelor.”
He took a knee as he thought about the source of all of their fights. Divided loyalties. Serving two masters. It’d been easy to lay the blame at her feet, to state that she loved her career more than him. True, but if he looked at it closely enough, he’d also sacrificed their future on the altar of his mistrust. He needed to destroy that altar.
“I messed this one up too. I know that now. I haven’t trusted You with my future. When things started looking dicey, I ran away, back to security. But that’s not where You want me.”
For a few moments, the wind whistled over the desert. He straightened and shivered despite the parka he wore. Deep in his heart, he knew what he had to do. “I see it now, Lord. You want me to return to SecureLink. To trust You. And to lean on the helpers You’ve provided.”
Peace filled him, at least until he thought about Abigail again. “I know You have some work to do on Abigail. Bless her work. Keep her safe. Keep her alert to danger. Have her back on this. Show me what to do about us.”
Then came complete peace. Despite everything, he knew where he was—firmly in God’s will. He needed to get back. Jonathan was probably worried about him. Maybe Abigail as well.
He turned—and jumped.
Not twenty feet away, cloaked in ACU pants, her puffy jacket, and a knit cap, Nabeelah gazed at him. Her hair hung in two braids over her shoulders. A smile flitted about the corners of her lips as if she’d witnessed his entire time wrestling with God.
Annoyance warmed him as he stalked to his thermos of coffee. “What do you want?”
“What happened to good morning?”
He didn’t answer as he unscrewed the lid and took a swig. Still hot, thank goodness. “How did you find me?”
“I am just as familiar with this area as you are, Sergeant David. My team and I have spent quite a bit of time here.” She stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. “You should not have left base.”
“We’re not prisoners.”
She didn’t answer.
What a piece of work! Setting the thermos down, he approached her. “What happened to you, Little Sister?” Maybe using her nickname would jar something humane inside of her. “When I knew you nine years ago, you had a sweetness about you. You cared for family, even for the animals in your village. And now?”
She kicked the groun
d at her feet. “Times change.”
“Do they?”
“What did you expect?” She refocused on him. Her eyes watered, but from anger or the wind, he didn’t know. “When the Taliban struck, they took everything from me. Everything! In the span of a half hour, I lost my brother, my parents, my village. My way of life! And then they took me away from you and Sergeant Jonathan. At least you could go home.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Little Sister. I wish things had turned out differently.”
“Well, they did not.” She nearly hissed those words. “I have one mission. I aim to destroy Shamal Khan for what he did to me. And those who work with him.” She yanked loose.
David grabbed her arm. “Leave Abigail out of this.”
“She knows exactly what she is doing.”
He closed the gap. “You’re playing her. You handed her that line about certain promotion, didn’t you?”
She shoved him away. “No, I merely suggested. She drew her conclusions due to her greed.”
He grabbed her arm again. “Why, you...”
David may have had a good foot and a hundred pounds over her, but she had agility—and that wild Afghani spirit he’d begun honing into a fighting machine all those years before. She swept his feet from under him.
They tumbled to the ground.
Her palm flashed outward and cuffed him on the ear.
He jerked back with a yelp.
With a foot against his chest, she shoved him off.
He stumbled backward and landed on his rump. He pushed himself onto his elbows.
Nabeelah pounced and drove a knee into his chest.
He grunted in pain and stared as she brought a hunting knife to his throat.
“I suggest you go no further, Sergeant David.”
“Get... off... me.” He tried to rise.
The blade bit into his skin.
She’d kill him in a heartbeat. Da—What had happened to the woman?
She kept the knife where it was—against his throat. “I know how to use this blade very efficiently, so I would suggest you not move. And you will listen to me. Understand?”
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