Aimpoint

by Candace Irvin

  "Is everything okay?"

  "Hmm? Sorry." He clicked out of the screen and turned to her before she could get a look at whatever had caused that stare of his to blacken. "It's work. I need to head in. I'll drop you off at the Lodge and call you tomorrow with the details for dinner. What's your number?"

  He tapped her digits into his phone as she rattled them off, then appeared to add something else before he switched off his phone and slotted it into the storage well behind the Wrangler's gear stick. Her phone pinged before they cleared the lot.

  this is John

  looking forward to tomorrow—and you

  Ditto on her end. But for an entirely different reason. One she was continuing to hash through in the privacy of her own thoughts as he steered the Wrangler toward Hohenfels. Whatever had come up at his work had caused the captain to be as preoccupied as she was, because he didn't say a word during the drive.

  He seemed surprised when they reached the Lodge without speaking.

  "Thanks. I appreciate the lift." Regan grabbed the handle to the passenger door and opened it before he could climb out and do that for her too.

  She wasn't quick enough. His right hand found her left before she could clear the seat. He squeezed her fingers. "Hey, sorry if I was distracted. It's just—"

  "—your head's already in the game."

  "Yeah." That dimpled fold made a brief appearance. Sheepish suited the man—and her—a lot more than arrogance. "So…I'll see you tomorrow?" As did actually asking.

  "Yes."

  The moment he released her hand, Regan bailed out and closed the door.

  Garrison wasn't the only one headed to work. So was she.

  Hopefully, Mira was already there, because they had some serious digging to do into an NGO's death from the previous year.

  If her suspicions panned out, she'd not only zeroed in on LaCroix's motive, she'd identified the sergeant's true target. If so, six million visitors to Oktoberfest would be safe after all—at least from LaCroix.

  But the current, precarious configuration of NATO was not.

  3

  Regan made it to CID in record time. She parked her Explorer and pushed through the main doors, heading straight for her office. To her relief, Mira was already inside, absorbed in a file on the laptop she'd brought from the States.

  The adrenaline still coursing through Regan's veins caused her to close the door behind her with more force than she'd intended.

  Mira looked up. "Well, that was quick. Bad kisser?"

  "Funny." She stepped up to her desk and hooked her hip onto the corner beside her friend's laptop. "What's the name of that Turkish general you're about to babysit?"

  The smirk evaporated. Suspicion rooted into its place. "Why?"

  "Because I think we have a motive—and a target. And it's not Oktoberfest."

  "Holy crap. That was quick. How the hell did you discover that?"

  Regan crossed her arms. "The name? And his branch too, please." She'd need that and a bit more before she'd risk saying the rest out loud—and jinxing it.

  Mira knew it too, because she cursed beneath her breath as she dutifully swung her attention to the screen to click out of the file she'd been reading before opening another. "Principle's name: Aytaç Ertonç. General, Turkish Army."

  "Infantry? Armor? Artillery?"

  Please say Artillery.

  "Hang on…." Mira scrolled down into the document. "Hmm. Don't see his branch. It might not even say." But she kept scrolling and scanning. "Aren't most Infantry, anyway? Or—wait; here it is." She glanced up, beaming. "Artillery."

  "Yes."

  "And, why are we so excited by Artillery?"

  Regan shook her head. Definitely not willing to jinx it. Not with six million lives potentially on the line. "I need coffee. While I'm gone, do me a favor? Pull up what we've got on known victims of Turkish Army artillery fire following our pullout of Syria last year. Specifically, female NGO medical personnel. I promise to reward you when I return." Meanwhile, she needed to get the taste of club soda out of her mouth and a ready hit of caffeine in.

  "Fine—but pour two cups."

  "You got it."

  Mira was already minimizing the general's file as Regan turned to leave. She made a beeline for CID's coffee station and poured out the requisite cups, pausing just long enough to pollute Mira's with cream and sugar before she headed back.

  The NCIS agent's Cheshire cat grin was setting in as Regan reentered her office to slide the contaminated coffee over. "What'd you find?"

  "Five victims so far. Need names?"

  "No." Garrison hadn't provided one. "Any of them between the ages of twenty and, say…forty?"

  "Sure. Here's the first." She slid the laptop around so Regan could see the report. It contained a photo of a pretty black woman…but she'd been a doctor, not a nurse.

  "Nope. Next."

  Mira leaned closer and clicked the tab at the top of the screen. As she scrolled down the page, another photo popped into view.

  They stiffened in unison.

  "Damn. She's looks just like you, Rae. Well, how you look tonight."

  "Yeah." Hand one to Ava Jelling. Her gossip regarding LaCroix's rutting preferences was spot on. Nor was Mira exaggerating. With her hair lightened and the tinted contacts she'd chosen, she and the woman on the screen could've been sisters. At the very least, cousins.

  Regan scanned the photo's caption. "Carys Kaide. Scottish." Nurse. "She died as a result of Turkish artillery fire while they were pounding out Operation Peace Spring to create their 'safe' zone."

  Irony didn't even begin to cover that one, did it?

  "Hang on—" Mira swung the laptop her way and switched files. "I saw something while I was skimming…Yup, right here. General Ertonç—then Colonel Ertonç—headed up that Syrian bombing campaign. In fact—"

  "—he made general off it." Off Carys Kaide's death. "Sorry. I know you hate when I finish your sentences."

  "No. I only hate it 'cause you're always right. And, yes, Ertonç's career got a critical bump because of his actions in the same campaign that killed Carys. But I bet you didn't see this one coming…" Mira swung the screen out again. "According to this tidbit—and the call I took earlier in this office—the Ertonç security detail was originally scheduled to muster up a good five weeks from now, which is why I was co-opted. A number of the intended assets are still on other assignments. But the general arrived tonight—out of the blue and on his own dime. Not his government's, and not ours. Why? And why show so early? Even your boss doesn't have an explanation."

  She didn't have an explanation either. Yet. But she'd stake her badge on the fact that LaCroix had been tipped off about the change in plans. "According to Captain Garrison, LaCroix and the nurse were serious. That mood deterioration your SEAL noticed? Garrison pinged on it too. It began with Carys Kaide's death. That text LaCroix blew up over tonight? It came in right around the time you were here, getting your orders to report for the Ertonç detail. Someone must've let the sergeant know his nemesis had arrived early."

  LaCroix had been livid because the bastard who'd murdered the woman he loved was not only alive and thriving—but now less than ten miles away.

  "You're right." Mira nodded. "Motive and target; we've got 'em both. I knew I was smart to bring this to you."

  Yeah, well. Motive and target were all they had. And both were as circumstantial as the rest. Nor had LaCroix actually done anything wrong—that they could prove. If they brought him in for questioning and he clammed up like Platt, they'd lose any chance of figuring this out before it was too late.

  And if Garrison was involved?

  Damn it. She hated it when Brooks was right.

  Regan purged her excess frustration with a sigh. "It's not enough." But she knew when and where she had a shot at gaining access to more. "I'm having dinner with the captain tomorrow at his place—and, apparently, it's LaCroix's too. I'm not sure when the sergeant moved in, but it seems he and Garrison ar
en't just friends. They're housemates." All the better for their investigation. Because if there was a way to finagle a look inside the sergeant's room and his private life, she'd find it. "I need to take another look at Garrison's file, LaCroix's too. Where's Jelly?" She hadn't spotted her colleague's freckled face and unruly strawberry mop on the way in.

  "His wife called. Their two-month old spiked a fever. He left to meet them at the ER. Should I pull him back?"

  "No. He'll have left me a printout of his notes in his drawer. I'll find them before I leave."

  Dinner. Garrison. Reality bit in.

  Hard.

  Damn it, it was just a meal. She'd get in and out, unscathed. She had before. Many times.

  She caught Mira's sigh. "Okay, spill it."

  "Spill what?"

  "Whatever's bugging you. You've got that look; you've had it since you marched in here."

  She had a look?

  Crap. She must. Because something was bugging her. He was bugging her. And not in a good way. Garrison hadn't noticed, had he?

  "Well?"

  "He's…handsy."

  "Jesus. He didn't—"

  "No." She'd have halted that instantly—and painfully. On his end. "The guy's just—" How could she put this? "He keeps touching me. It's…"

  "Irritating?"

  "Suffocating." All those…little touches. They made her feel trapped. As though she was a kid again with no say over her own body. No right to her own private space. Hell, no one made it through as many foster homes as she had without confronting it.

  Though she'd been lucky. Because there was touching and there was touching. And foster kids—girls, though yeah, some boys too—often got the twisted and very ugly end of the latter.

  Regardless, this was going to be a rough one. Made rougher by an anniversary she'd been trying to ignore all week. Hell, all month. Unsuccessfully.

  "You want to talk about it?"

  "I'm fine."

  "Bullshit. I'm sitting right here. I can see your face. And I can read a calendar. Tomorrow's bound to be a lousy day."

  "I said, I'm good." To prove it, she stood. Or maybe it was just to escape that stifling sympathy. It was almost as claustrophobic as the captain's grabby grip. "I need to get those notes from Jelling's desk. Need a refill?"

  Mira recognized the feigned urgency for what it was, but she shook her head—and let it go.

  Regan took advantage of the reprieve before her friend could change her mind, departing to track down her fellow CID agent's notes. She found them right where Jelly usually left them. She retrieved the ever-thickening folder, which had her real name scrawled on a yellow sticky attached to the front, and returned to her office.

  By the time she arrived, Mira's attention was fused to her glowing screen. Thank God. Regan had enough to deal with without churning up the rest.

  She sank into the armchair beside her desk and hooked the heels of her leather boots over the edge as she cracked open Jelly's notes.

  Two paragraphs in, it hit her. "Why are you here?"

  Mira glanced up from her screen. "Uh, I believe you asked me to come."

  "I mean still. Don't you have a security briefing to attend?"

  "Nope." She tapped the top of the laptop's screen. "Got it all right here; it's a plug and play. I'm reviewing it now. Basically, I'm just precautionary backup to the backup, at least for tomorrow. My duties'll be reassessed after. No doubt once the Protective Service Unit's had a chance to see who they can grab to work the remainder of the job."

  Regan closed the folder and dumped it on the corner of her desk. "Are you saying PSU's opening security posture is canned?"

  Mira nodded. "At least the first gig. I'm to show up at an auditorium across post tomorrow at fourteen hundred for a kickoff speech by the general, followed by some special, invite-only meet-and-greet with the…" She glanced at her screen. "Wolverines."

  Regan thumped her boots to the floor. "Wolverines? As in Special Forces? As in the training team to which LaCroix and Garrison are currently attached?"

  Both men would be there. At that speech and most likely at the private meet-and-greet.

  Worse, if PSU was using a canned protection scenario, there was an outstanding chance that same scenario was one LaCroix and/or Garrison had red-teamed and vetted—personally. In other words, they'd already know every possible weakness—and how to exploit it. Because they'd already done so.

  "Shit."

  Regan nodded. "Yup." The hell with waiting for tomorrow. The time to reassess her NCIS colleague's role was now. "I'll call Captain Brooks and clear it with him, but I want you on that detail twenty-four seven, starting tonight. Get as close as you can to Ertonç and stay there. At least until we're certain he's not the target."

  And if her gut was right, and he was?

  Hell, even if LaCroix hadn't vetted the security procedures they'd be using, Mira and that team had their work cut out for them. From the look in her friend's eyes, Mira knew it, too. Along with the rest. The sergeant's attitude might've taken a downturn lately, but his skills had not. If LaCroix wanted Ertonç dead, there was an excellent chance the general would be six feet under, and soon.

  And the fallout?

  Turkey's relationship with NATO—and especially the US—had been hanging by a thread for some time now. Discovering that an American soldier had coldly assassinated their newest war hero-turned-general just might snap it.

  Permanently.

  * * *

  Mira Ellis was missing in action—again.

  Regan scanned the ocean of US Army and multinational camouflage as she neared the array of double-doored entrances to the auditorium. So far, there was nary a sign of her NCIS colleague.

  Wait. There. Beside the doors to her right.

  Regan focused on her friend's sleek blond updo and navy-blue suit as she slipped between a pair of British officers. "Pardon me. Just passing through."

  She spared a smile for the shorter lieutenant's stumbling apology and kept advancing, repeating her excuse thrice more as she breached camouflaged cluster after cluster. Finally, she was firmly entrenched within the line leading up to the entrance doors beside which Mira was dutifully stationed.

  The thickly lashed dart of blue sent her way assured Regan that Mira had spotted her as well, despite her own neatly secured French braid and Army Camouflaged Uniform with the corresponding second lieutenant insignia she'd donned that morning. But there'd been something else in that dart of blue, too. Her colleague had something to relay.

  Something big.

  Regan produced Rachel Pace's freshly minted ID as she reached the doors.

  Mira glanced at the ID and motioned her through, leaning in to murmur in her right ear as she passed. "Your date's a CPF—and E's US man Friday."

  Garrison? A Close Personal Friend? Of the general?

  Regan forced herself to focus on the set of ACU-clad shoulders less than a foot from her face, following the camouflaged fabric into the rapidly filling auditorium as she processed her shock. She'd assumed the captain would be here this morning, yes, but as a faceless uniform among many. After all, he'd received his own text last night. The one that had him forgoing whatever moves he'd been intending to attempt with her and heading back to his office. That text had to have concerned the general's early arrival and the speech she was about to hear, along with the Wolverine meet-and-greet to follow. But Garrison was intimately acquainted with the general?

  How intimately?

  More importantly, was that cozy relationship behind the rest of Mira's man Friday message? Namely, Garrison's apparent selection as the general's Hohenfels US Army liaison. Or was there another darker, possibly more nefarious, reason?

  Christ. She was getting whiplash.

  By the time she'd finished studying the captain's file last night, she'd come to the conclusion that those shadows she'd spotted in his eyes at the bar had been born of nothing more than constant stress and lingering exhaustion. There was nothing in the captain's
recorded past to suggest that, like LaCroix, he too had suffered a debilitating sucker punch to his innate sense of duty, honor and country. Let alone a concrete connection between John Garrison and Scott Platt.

  "Damn it, I said I'd deal with it."

  By the time she'd finished plowing through the captain's stellar performance evaluations and award write-ups, she'd convinced herself the comment referred to anything from a normal, work-related dispute down to and including quieting the volume on the TV at night.

  Was she wrong? Had she missed something? Something that wasn't hinted at in the file, or simply hadn't yet had time to appear?

  Had Garrison lobbied for the collateral duty because of his own souring take on the US Army in general and the SF mission in particular?

  He had been in that bar with LaCroix. The US/Syrian-Kurd reversal in support and subsequent pullout had rattled a lot of SF cages. Did those shadows she'd seen point not to stress, but a growing, fundamental burnout?

  She could've sworn he'd been talking LaCroix down following that explosion-inducing text. What if he hadn't been? What if Garrison been urging patience?

  Her gut still leaned no. But what if her gut was off?

  Could she afford to take the chance?

  The answer—an absolute no—had Regan altering her path. Instead of taking a seat near the front of the auditorium, she opted for a spot near the center of the rapidly coalescing mass of bodies. She slipped in behind a pair of broad, beefy shoulders and immediately spotted two of her three current targets: a crisply ACU-clad John Garrison and this morning's surprisingly not quite larger than life guest of honor—a stocky, silver-haired, thickly mustached and somewhat wan-looking General Aytaç Ertonç. The men were marking time mid-stage right, near a trio of senior male US Army officers. Even from forty feet away, it was clear Mira was correct. Garrison and the general weren't simply friendly; the men were practically bosom buddies.

  When had that happened? Where?

  Why?

  The answers would explain a lot. Potentially even exculpate the captain once and for all—or condemn him.

  As she studied the curiously covert body language between the men, Regan compared and contrasted the facts she'd spent half the night gleaning. Though an officer now, Garrison had six years' time in service on his contemporary captains—because he'd begun his career as an enlisted combat engineer. Like LaCroix, Garrison had been the go-to expert at rigging explosives at his first command, and an even better leader. So much so, Garrison had been tapped for Officer Candidate School, then Special Forces.