Aimpoint

by Candace Irvin

  The condemnation and worse. The anger and suspicion she could've handled. Even that palpable regret. But the betrayal and the hurt?

  Those cut straight through her.

  John was wrong. He hadn't had sex with some faux cover identity. He'd had it with her. But she didn't have a cherub's chance in hell of convincing him of that now. Not with Hernandez three feet away, picking up on all those simmering vibes. Not to mention the digital voice recorder on the table. The one that was still actively listening in, sucking up for posterity every single word that'd been said in here before she'd arrived—and was yet to be said.

  Once they were alone.

  She left the door open, nodding to the MP as she stepped all the way into the room. "I've got this, Sergeant."

  Curiosity warred with duty.

  Fortunately, duty conquered quickly, and with a brisk nod. "Of course, Chief. For what it's worth, we'd barely gotten started. Captain Garrison came in on his own to make an unsolicited statement regarding Sergeant LaCroix. He had some concerns about the man, but hasn't had a chance to relay the specifics. I did inform him the sergeant was recently arrested while trying to place a bomb outside a civilian house in Vilseck. The captain knows the intended victims."

  John had come in on his own? What on earth had he learned about LaCroix in the last hour? It must have been significant to force a one-eighty shift regarding his views on reporting the man.

  She offered the MP an equally brisk nod. "Thank you, Sergeant. Please let Special Agent Ellis know I've arrived and that I'll speak with her and the general soon."

  "Yes, Chief." The MP took a moment to face the voice recorder, verbally turning over the interview to her before he stepped away to depart the room.

  Regan waited for the door to close before she risked approaching the abandoned chair. Unfortunately, John still loomed over the opposing side of the table, stiff and silent as he watched her unhook her shield from her waist. She set it down next to the recorder, along with the evidence bags containing the sticky note and florist receipt.

  She could feel John studying her every motion, waiting for her to finish, to look up. Daring her.

  She did.

  "CID." Soft, damning. The rest was in his eyes. Why?

  How?

  She forced a shrug as she commandeered the MP's chair. "People see what they want to see. What they expect." Given where they were—and that dutifully vigilant recorder—it was all she could offer. She could only pray he'd be willing to listen to the rest once this was done.

  Though, given the thunderous pace of that telltale pulse, she doubted it.

  She tipped her head toward the empty chair beside him.

  John ignored it for several long moments, then finally gathered his lingering anger and resentment and pulled them in deep. Cold acceptance slid into place as he nodded curtly and sat. "I guess they do."

  Regan entered her true name, rank and the relative case stats into the recorder, only to find that frosted stare still locked on her as she finished. All morning, she'd wondered what it would cost her to return to John's home. What it would cost him. And would he ever be able to forgive her when it was over?

  She had her answer.

  So be it.

  She dove in. "So, Captain, you're here on your own. I confess, I'm surprised. When we spoke earlier this evening, you mentioned your worries regarding Sergeant First Class Evan LaCroix and his outrage with Brigadier General Ertonç, as well as your fears that the sergeant might be in danger of spiraling out of control. But you didn't have proof that LaCroix had anything specific planned, much less that he was about to follow through. I assume something changed?"

  That pulse picked up. But he nodded calmly. Too calmly, given everything that was still unsaid. "Correct. As I also mentioned earlier, I asked a fellow officer to watch out for the sergeant tonight. After you…left…I received a call from Captain Trussell. LaCroix had given him the slip a couple hours earlier."

  No surprise there. Not after the sergeant's parting shot following his arrest. Still, "Hours? And Trussell was just calling?"

  Fire raged beneath the ice. It was quickly controlled and re-banked. "No. That was his fourth call. I'd left my phone in another room while I…slept. Given my concern for the sergeant, Truss was about to head over to see if something had happened, but he'd decided to try once more."

  "I see. And then?"

  "I hung up. I was worried about another…friend. So, I texted her—"

  Shit.

  "—and that's when I noticed a text I'd missed. It was from Evan. I thought—" He broke off, shook his head as if still unnerved by the text's contents. "I thought it was a suicide note."

  Christ. "May I see it?"

  The molten gray churned anew, but he nodded. John retrieved his phone from his back pocket and opened his text app, then slid it across the table.

  You're right, man—I am fucked up. I made my decision. Thanks for hanging in as long as you did. Don't blame yourself.

  It did sound as though LaCroix had planned on ending things. And he had—just not his own life. At least, not until he'd taken Saniye's.

  She took a screen shot of the text and forwarded it to her own phone, then opened John's conversation stream with her to ensure it had sent.

  In retrospect, it might not have been the best decision.

  She'd have gotten a copy of the same information by accessing LaCroix's cellular account once the warrants came through. And she wouldn't have sent John's phone scooting back across the table with his last text to her now open on the screen.

  everything ok?

  Not by a long shot. And it was getting longer.

  She could feel John recalling every moment they'd spent together as he looked up from that text, replaying every confidence and confession he'd offered her in light of what he now knew about her. And every confidence and confession she'd supposedly gifted him. She wasn't coming off well. Worse, she deserved it.

  She'd become her dad after all.

  At least in this man's eyes.

  The case, damn it. Focus on the case. "The sergeant mentions a decision. To what was he referring?"

  "We had an argument. The night you came over for dinner. After you left, I told him what I thought was the truth." John's inflection on that last left no doubt he now knew otherwise. Unfortunately, inflection wouldn't stand up in court.

  "The truth?"

  "That some SF sergeant said you were a ringer for Carys. I told him I realized that's why his mood had gone to hell, but—painful reminder or not—like his former housemate, I'd had it with his attitude and his digs. I assured him the rest of the Army wouldn't be far behind. I told him he had two choices: get his shit together, or get the fuck out. And I didn't just mean my house. I figured he'd sent that text to let me know he'd chosen the latter, just not the way I'd assumed. But as I said, I didn't know that when I first saw his text."

  "How did you discover his plans?" Because he must have. Why else had John shown up here?

  "I'd called him back, but it went to voicemail. So, I sent a text. Hell, I probably sent a dozen in half as many minutes—all unanswered. So, I went to his room." He shrugged as though he was still embarrassed he'd invaded the man's privacy. "I was desperate. I found his computer, got lucky when I typed in Carys' name at the password prompt. But then I became even more worried when I realized he'd cleaned everything out. Emails, texts, browser history, bookmarks—they were all missing. I'm not even sure why I checked his maps app. Part of me hoped I might be able to figure out where he'd gone to off himself. Anyway, that's when I spotted it. And then I knew."

  "It?" She knew too, but she needed it spelled out for the recorder.

  "The Karmandi address."

  "He wasn't supposed to have it, was he?"

  "No one was. Not even the general. And that was Ertonç's decision, not mine."

  "I don't understand."

  John sighed. "You'd have to go back a few years, and over a subcontinent if you want to do
that."

  "You're referring to what you did for then-Colonel Ertonç in Kabul."

  He captured her stare for a moment and held it. Nodded. "I guess you figured that out too."

  "I think so. I know about Dr. Karmandi's cousin Royar and Royar's connection to the PKK and the car bombing that killed the general's sons in Inçirlik last year. Learning of Ertonç's extremely personal hatred for Kurds years before the bombing, along with a few other facts, allowed me to extrapolate the rest—eventually. I assume Saniye and Dr. Karmandi met while she was still in England, since that's where she supposedly died."

  John nodded. "Saniye was a student; Olan was already a physician. Both were volunteering at a clinic for immigrants. I happened to be with her father when he found out she was dating a Kurd. And, yes, that's when and why his hatred turned personal—but it grew worse. Ertonç tracked me down the following week. Saniye had called to tell him she and Olan were marrying and moving to Germany, with or without his blessing. He was enraged. But he was also terrified she'd be killed as a message to him, either by someone in the PKK or another Turk who wanted to make an example of her. I offered to contact a buddy with the CIA to make her disappear safely. Ertonç wanted me to go further. He wanted her dead to the world—and he didn't want the CIA involved. He didn't trust them. Only a select few, very hefty links up my chain of command were allowed to know, and even they weren't to be privy to her new identity. The links agreed, so I got to work."

  "You faked her drowning."

  He shrugged. "It seemed the easiest option. Everyone knew she had asthma and there was no need to produce a body since it had supposedly been swept out to sea. Everything was fine until her brothers were murdered in retaliation for Ertonç's role in Operation Peace Spring. Saniye was devastated—but Olan was enraged. With Royar. He called Ertonç to apologize on behalf of all Kurds. Ertonç hung up on him. But as the general's grief began to ease, he realized he had only one male blood relative left in the world. His grandson. The boy was half-Kurdish. But if his son-in-law could humble himself when he'd known he'd be cut off, maybe some Kurds were different. And Ertonç began to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was up to him to help his people accept that. So Ertonç contacted me and asked me to broker a meeting. As I'm sure you figured out, I bought that burner to keep their conversations off the Turkish government's radar. When I delivered it, Olan was wary, but ultimately willing; Saniye wasn't. She wouldn't speak to him, even after he showed up here following her emergency delivery."

  "That was what that phone exchange I noted during the general's interview was about, wasn't it?"

  "Yes."

  No wonder Ertonç had been unnerved. He'd been soundly rejected by his sole surviving child. "And when I saw you and Dr. Karmandi at the hospital arguing, that was you trying to convince him to persuade his wife to reconsider."

  John nodded. "I suggested a formal visit to his hospital. To the public and press—since Germany has a substantial Kurdish population—it would look like a Turkish general making nice with a few Kurdish doctors and patients, including Saniye's husband. While Saniye would see her father breaking through his bigotry and publicly accepting her husband and the father of her children. Olan agreed that if Ertonç was genuinely respectful to everyone during the visit, he'd convince her to meet with her father. Guess we won't need to resort to that now. Not after everything that's happened tonight."

  It was true. Father and daughter would now meet. At the sergeant's court-martial if not elsewhere.

  The irony of it. LaCroix would be pissed to discover he was the instrument which had brought it about. If Saniye and her father did manage to heal the familial breach, it would be because of him.

  As for the breach that had formed between herself and the man sitting across the table from her, that one was growing wider by the second. With each new revelation—hers and his—John's body language grew colder, more remote. Even now, she could feel him pulling away from her emotionally as well.

  She deserved it.

  But it still hurt.

  He jerked his chin toward the evidence bags she'd laid on the table. The one with the yellow sticky was on top. He knew as well as she did whose handwriting was on it. "How'd you get that?"

  "I found it in your kitchen, hung up on the outside of your trash."

  His stare found hers once more. The molten gray within had coalesced and forged into an unforgiving iron. "Tonight?"

  "Yes."

  "So, I did hear you sneaking out the back door."

  She was fairly certain he noticed the flush staining the base of her neck as she nodded—because she could definitely feel it.

  She shifted her gaze until it settled pointedly on the recorder, painfully aware it was still soaking up every sound in the room. Hell, both he and that microphone had to be hearing the pounding in her chest. Lord knew she could.

  To her relief, John took the hint and sighed. "Like I said, Evan wasn't supposed to have that address. Not only was it classified, it was stored in just two places. The first was my head. The second was in a file on an encrypted hard drive, to be accessed if need be and only if something had happened to me. That encrypted drive is currently plugged into my computer…at work."

  Meaning John wasn't the only one who'd accessed a laptop that wasn't his. But he'd been motivated by the life of a fellow soldier.

  LaCroix had not.

  Worse, the sergeant had done more than violate a friend's trust. He'd violated the US Army's. The former was inexcusable. The latter, a crime punishable by the UCMJ. It was also enough to send LaCroix to a cell at Fort Leavenworth, even without tonight's events in Vilseck added on.

  "And then you headed here."

  "Correct. Since it contained proof, I brought his laptop with me. Your sergeant signed it into evidence before we came in here. I was worried for an entirely new reason. I knew if Evan was willing to break into my classified files, he was willing to go all the way. And I knew where he was eventually headed." He flicked his stare toward the sticky. "Apparently, you'd figured it out first. But how the hell did you know he was going to act tonight?"

  She reached out to lift the uppermost evidence bag from the table, revealing the one beneath. "It's a receipt from a German florist. According to the timestamp, LaCroix purchased an oversized teddy bear, wrapping paper and a trio of pink latex balloons while you and I were at the hospital yesterday morning. The latter were filled with helium while he waited."

  "So, the countdown had begun, and you knew it."

  She nodded.

  "And that receipt. Was it also in my trash?"

  Regan thought about clarifying its precise location, but she didn't. She knew full well that if the receipt had been buried deep inside the can instead of wadded up on the floor—and she'd known—she'd have dug through to retrieve it and anything else that had the potential to help her solve her case. Because lives had been at stake.

  The Karmandis were worth it. Sener and his newborn sister were worth it.

  But where had their need for safety left her?

  "Guess Ev cleaned out more than his laptop history today. Quite the houseguest."

  That he was. Somehow, John's guest had managed to clean them out too.

  Wrong. She'd accomplished that all by herself, hadn't she?

  The thick, roping scar feeding up from John's wrist all the way into his biceps turned stark white as he folded his arms. He leaned back in his chair to study her. "There was no article on Ertonç, was there?"

  "No." It wasn't as though she could splice Rachel Pace into a byline, let alone Regan Chase. "But I did give Terry the notes I took during the interview you arranged. He's hoping to use them himself. When this is over."

  "Terry." It was statement, not a question. And not about the man, but his rank. Though Terry was also a captain, she hadn't addressed him as such—as she'd done with John. Right up to that kiss in his driveway. "So, you and Terry—"

  "He's a friend."

  "One you've used to cover y
our lies before? In your…work."

  "I'm sorry, I can't—"

  "Right."

  Irony bit in again as those shadows returned. Swimming among them were all the questions John now had for her, but that she wasn't at liberty to answer. The turnabout might've been amusing. Except it was anything but.

  As was this rapidly deteriorating interview.

  John jerked his chin toward the blond strands that had escaped her makeshift bun. "You dyed your hair to play Rachel, didn't you?"

  Oh, boy. There was only one place this was headed.

  Still, she nodded.

  What other option did she have? The chances of his forgiving her were already slim to none. If she lied to him now, there was no chance.

  "So, you were in that bar, looking like you did, to meet him."

  She managed another nod.

  As did he. "But you got me. And since Evan had refused to bite, you were stuck with me—because he was in my house."

  "Yes."

  LaCroix, bastard that he was, was right. John would never forgive her. How could he? She wasn't sure she could get there herself.

  "Just to clarify, if Evan had been interested, you'd have left with him that night instead of me."

  "John—"

  "Answer the question, Chief."

  Chief. Not Regan, not Agent Chase. Hell, not even Rachel.

  "Yes."

  The fury had returned, and it was everywhere now. In that scorching stare and in that clipped jaw. In those rigid shoulders and those tightly bunched muscles. And in that telltale pulse. For the first time since they'd met, the latter's thunderous pace revealed more than she wanted to know. John was beyond livid. With her. "There's no article, then. But you have been writing up every moment you've spent with me, haven't you? Everything we've said. Everything we've done."

  Not everything.

  But would he believe her?

  She opened her mouth to tell him, despite the recorder, only to snap it shut as the door to the interview room blew inward. A split second later, Jelly's jubilant, freckled grin barreled inside.

  "Holy crap, Prez—you did it! The boss was right; you are the master of undercover. You can get to anyone. LaCroix's spilling as we speak, including how, where and why he built that bomb. He's—" The rest died in his throat, drowned by the flash flood of scarlet that rivaled the man's hair as Jelly finally realized who was seated across the table from her.