Backblast

by Candace Irving

  Regan didn't bother attempting a thaw. Instead, she leaned into the metal stanchion supporting the upper bunk—to preserve her tenuous balance against the constant rocking of the ship if nothing else—and offered up her own insolent shrug.

  Riyad stared her down.

  For a good half-minute, the only sounds in the stateroom were their slow, steady breaths, along with the soft, rhythmic creaking of the shifting metal of the insulated pipes and exposed venting running through the overhead and along the bulkheads. The man was going to call her bluff. She was ninety-nine percent certain.

  And then, "What do you want to know?"

  Everything. Beginning with why he was still so pissed. But something told her the source of his mood was not on the table.

  Table, hell. Before she fired her opening salvo, she had to deal with this constantly shifting deck. Her inner ears might've made the transition to shipboard life, but her sea legs had yet to make an appearance. She was in danger of falling flat on her face while simply standing.

  Regan pulled away from the bunk beds, deliberately widening and squaring off her stance until her combat boots were planted well apart, as Riyad's were positioned. It worked. She had solid control over her balance, even as the deck continued to roll beneath her feet. It was time to extend that control to her case.

  "Why is Dr. Durrani here, aboard a warship?"

  Why put him in Navy custody at all?

  Given the almost fanatical drawdown on current Gitmo detainees, she wouldn't have thought he'd end up there. But why not a black site prison in another country? A country that would look the other way during questioning…and provide local agents to direct any harsher verbal or physical Q&A sessions on US behalf.

  Though that wasn't the way she operated, it had been known to happen.

  Another one of Riyad's insolent shrugs greeted her query. "This is as good a place as any. In many ways, better."

  Much as she hated to admit it, his half-assed response rang true. As interrogation venues went, this one was moveable, easily concealable, away from the preying vultures of the world's press and—as an absolute caveat—Durrani was separated from other terror detainees. Hell, if they wanted, they could weigh the bastard down when they were done and dump him overboard in the dead of night and no one would be the wiser—most significantly, the unnamed traitor she was now seeking.

  Or was there more to it?

  Was it possible that physical Q&A sessions involving Durrani were occurring even now—aboard United States sovereign property?

  That, she found difficult to believe, much less stomach. "Exactly which agency are you with?"

  "NCIS."

  Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Army CID's Fleet counterpart. For the most part, the revelation tracked. This was a warship. But something had flickered in that murky stare when she'd pressed. Something that suggested there was more to this particular agent's presence aboard this unruly piece of iron than simple jurisdiction.

  Please, God, don't let it involve the physical.

  Before she could press the matter, the impression vanished. Riyad's foul mood had not.

  She went with her gut. It had rarely steered her wrong. Even when she'd wanted it to. "What happened this morning?"

  To her surprise, Riyad blinked.

  Odd. She wouldn't have thought she'd be able to surprise him that easily. "The cause of your delay? The delay to which Chief Yrle supposedly contributed? It has you pissed. Even now, with me."

  "I'm not—"

  "You are."

  The silence returned. The overhead pipes and vents continued to creak, not quite filling it. "Doesn't matter."

  But it did. She'd stake her next meal and a Gil-sized thermos of steaming black coffee on it. "Look, Agent Riyad, if we're going to work together—"

  "We're not."

  This time, the surprise was hers. "I beg your pardon?" They were both investigators. She had no idea whose authority had sent the NCIS agent here, but she'd been assigned to this ship and her old case via the very general in charge of the Army's Special Operations Command. She was not getting edged out without a fight.

  And then she remembered. Of course. "You're leaving."

  He'd said so himself.

  Riyad surprised her again by shaking his head. "Was. As in, I am now remaining aboard the Griffith for the duration of this case. You, Agent Chase, are not."

  She clamped down on her ire. "If this is some asinine version of an inter-service pissing contest—"

  "It's not."

  "Good. Because I'm not leaving." And not because it had taken her an entire day to get here. "I was told Durrani specifically request—"

  "I don't care what you were told. And I could give a royal shit what Durrani wants. You, Agent Chase, are aboard this vessel for the sole purpose of getting that asshole to speak. That's it. Once Durrani opens his mouth, I step in—and you step out. Permanently. Have I made myself clear?"

  It was her turn to blink. The hell with Durrani, what was this asshole's problem?

  Before she could demand an explanation, the ship-wide, 1MC loudspeaker hanging in the overhead at the far end of her stateroom sparked to life.

  "Doctor Mantia, Special Agent Riyad, lay to the main deck conference room. I say again, Dr—"

  The remainder was lost amid the combined thunder of their boots as Riyad yanked the stateroom door open and vaulted out into the passageway with Regan all but welded to his heels. He shot her a tight glare as they reached the head of an angled ladder near the one she and Yrle had used earlier.

  Regan ignored the glare, focusing instead on the stiff set of the NCIS agent's shoulders and the relentless pace of his boots as Riyad gave up trying to shake her off, double-timing down the metal steps and along the passageway with her still in dogged pursuit.

  If something was happening that required this man's zealous attention, she would be tagging along to bear witness.

  They were both thinking it. Durrani. What had happened to require the urgent need for a doctor?

  God help her, she was beginning to reconsider the possibility of a Navy-sanctioned physical interrogation session.

  She followed Riyad into a sparsely furnished conference room. One glance at the body lying on the blue speckled, linoleum-covered deck at the far end, and it appeared her worst fear had been spot on. There was a twelve-inch slick of scarlet blood beneath a man's dark hair, and the slick was spreading out, due at least in part to the life-saving actions of the Marines in the compartment. There were two—a corporal and a staff sergeant—both in camouflaged utilities.

  Had one of them caused the injuries?

  There was no way to tell from here.

  She did know the Marines were doing everything in their current power to reverse their patient's condition. The staff sergeant had taken command of the torso, the heels of his palms braced together over the prone man's chest, steadily working to kick-start his heart. The corporal knelt on the linoleum beside the patient's head, attempting in vain to staunch the copious flow of blood frothing forth from a shattered nasal cavity in between three-round bursts of his own breath.

  Both Marines had to be cognizant of the inherent biohazard in all that blood. Yet they'd refused to wait for protection.

  That didn't surprise her. What did—what stunned her as she caught her first clear view of the patient's face—was his identity.

  That wasn't Nabil Durrani lying on the deck, clinging to life.

  It was his cohort, Tamir Hachemi.

  4

  Regan stared at the body of the Afghan translator who'd murdered her CID partner in a terror safe house in Charikar thirteen days earlier. Why was Tamir Hachemi even on the ship? Shouldn't he be stateside, well on his way to Leavenworth by now?

  "Gangway!"

  The owner of the deep, disembodied voice behind Regan didn't bother waiting for her to move. Instead, a pair of oversized paws clamped about her upper arms, physically hefting her up and carrying her three steps into the compart
ment before dropping her back down on her boots. Based on the camouflaged uniform and stethoscope hooked around the petty officer's neck as he passed, she assumed he was a corpsman. A shorter, wirier Navy lieutenant with matching camouflage and stethoscope—plus a bulging, stereotypical black bag—was a step behind.

  To Regan's shock, Agent Riyad was not. The NCIS agent had spun around and was headed in the opposite direction—out of the space.

  By the time Regan had refocused her attention on the crisis at hand, the ship's doc and hulking corpsman had converged on the translator's body, nudging the equally beefy pair of Marines out of the way as they took over CPR. The corpsman was at the translator's chest now, the doc at his head. Regan had learned enough from Gil to know the clear tubing Dr. Mantia retrieved from his bag would be used to intubate Hachemi. Once the doc had the translator's airway reestablished, the corpsman took over, working the attached airbag, steadily squeezing oxygen into Hachemi's lungs as the doc moved down to their remaining priority—Hachemi's heart.

  From the frown darkening Mantia's face, it still wasn't beating.

  Fortunately, another corpsman—this one a petite Filipina petty officer—chose that moment to barrel into the conference room and across the linoleum with a portable, suitcase-sized crash cart in tow.

  Within moments, the doc had the defibrillator rigged and charged as the male corpsman parted the front of Hachemi's navy blue overalls in a single rip, exposing the translator's hairless chest. The doc brandished the paddles and, "Clear!"

  A dull thud resounded through the compartment, followed by silence.

  A good fifteen minutes and a steady slew of shocks followed with nothing in between but the ever-present creaking of metal and the near non-stop medical lingo that passed between Mantia and his assistants as the doc ordered a pharmacy of medication into the translator's veins. The doc finally reached out, staying the hand of the corpsman still steadily working the balloon. Mantia shook his head and sat back on his haunches, glancing past Regan's shoulder to meet Riyad's stare.

  Until that moment, she hadn't realized the NCIS agent had rejoined them.

  Resignation and defeat scored the doc's frown. "Time of death, zero seven fifty-eight. He's your responsibility now. Sorry."

  The corpsman reached out to gather up the gear they'd used to try to resuscitate the translator.

  "Stop." Regan jerked her chin toward the array of vials and expended syringes now littering the deck. "Leave everything exactly where it is."

  At least until she'd photographed it.

  She'd get started just as soon as everyone else cleared the room.

  The doc nodded and stood. He glanced at his bag. "May I—"

  "Yes." She pointed toward the defibrillator. "You can have that back, once I've arranged for disposition of the body."

  Another nod. "I've got a ship-to-shore call to make. I'll return with a body bag."

  Regan waited for the doc to clear the space. Both corpsmen filed out behind him, dejection in their every step. Hachemi might have been a traitor—and these sailors had undoubtedly known that—but it was always rough for medical personnel to lose the fight, no matter the patient. Especially when they'd invested so much of themselves in the effort.

  Regan bristled as Riyad drew the Marine corporal aside. It was clear from his body language that Riyad intended for her to remain ignorant of the contents of their chat. Before she could cross the compartment, the NCIS agent ordered the corporal to the captain's cabin to brief the man.

  Regan held her tongue as the kid complied. The corporal would return soon enough, and she could take his statement then.

  She was itching to take Riyad's too. Where the heck had he disappeared to while the crisis was in full swing? More importantly, why?

  Unwilling to grill him in front of the remaining Marine, Regan turned to study the compartment. As conference rooms went, it was unimpressive. Though there was plenty of room for the oversized U-shaped briefing table, most of the chairs were missing. The four that remained were skeletal metal numbers with unforgiving seats. The chairs were positioned in two separate groupings, with the first two facing her from the far side of the U at the head of the conference room. Both chairs appeared to have been thrown back from the table, as if their occupants had moved in haste.

  The second two chairs were still mostly facing each other along the starboard bulkhead at one end of the U. Like the first pair, these chairs also appeared to have been thrown back from the opposite sides of the table. Despite the constant motion of the ship, two Styrofoam cups—one half full of black coffee, the other empty—sat on the table between the facing chairs.

  Good Cop/Bad Cop?

  If so, from the still glistening splatter of lightened coffee across the side of the table, as well as the upper right corner of the back of one of the chairs and a two-foot swath of deck nearest her boots, the time-honored interrogation technique had failed.

  The evidence might mesh with Riyad's personality—especially bad cop—but he'd been below in the stateroom with her.

  Chief Yrle was a possibility. The woman did carry a master-at-arms rating. She was, in effect, the warship's sheriff. But if Yrle had screwed up that morning as Riyad had so rudely asserted, would he have let the chief near one of the US government's most prized terror detainees?

  Not likely.

  That left the Marines as the most obvious choice.

  Unfortunately, Riyad had sent the corporal on an errand. She hadn't gotten close enough to the kid before he'd left to note the possible splatter of coffee mixed in with any blood that could admittedly have also been transferred to the camouflaged fabric of his uniform as he'd performed CPR. It was the potential presence of high-velocity blood droplets on that same uniform—droplets that by their nature could only have been splattered during the translator's actual beating—that would seal the man's guilt.

  Regan was about to turn to the Marine staff sergeant still awaiting orders beside the door to study his uniform when Riyad crossed the deck and crouched down beside the body. His left hand stretched out.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  His fingers paused as that frozen, murky stare settled on hers. "I was about to—"

  "Touch the body before I've had a chance to photograph it? And without gloves?" Not on her watch. Jurisdiction be damned. "Agent Riyad, this compartment is now an active crime scene and that—" She pointed to the airbag. "—is evidence. It and everything else in this room must be handled and cataloged as such."

  Ire torched the man's stare, cooking off the ice.

  Regan ignored it—along with the grim satisfaction she caught pressing into the remaining Marine's lips. She had the distinct impression that, like Chief Yrle, the staff sergeant had recently tussled with Agent Riyad about something…and lost.

  She let the insubordination go.

  Unlike the man now rising to his feet, she was a steadfast student of the school of Praise in Public, Pummel in Private—unless it involved the prevention of evidence tampering. Speaking of which…unless they took serious steps and soon, that tampering was about to commence from an entirely new quarter.

  Regan turned toward the frantic shuffle of boots outside the compartment. As she feared, a deep bellow followed.

  "Captain's on Deck!"

  The Head Rubbernecker had arrived. Right on time, too.

  Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman or civilian, it never failed. Death fascinated them all. Whoever sat at the top of the food chain always wanted his own, unobstructed view of the kill, too, no matter how grisly. From the set of Riyad's jaw, even he knew the consequences of extraneous boots mucking up the scene.

  "I'll go." She was Army. Nothing to lose.

  Not in the long run.

  Though to be honest, an Infantry or Artillery bird preening on the opposite side of that door wouldn't have changed her mind, let alone tempered her coming instructions.

  Yet another reason why she'd turned down the Army's offer of a commission
as a Military Police lieutenant following her coma. As a warrant, she could get away with her own particular brand of verbal murder during the course of an investigation. It was a perk she'd enjoyed to no end on occasion—and would again.

  Not to mention, her strength lay in working investigations day in and day out, from the ground up, not overseeing them. The latter of which, as a Military Police officer, would become her lot in life.

  To Regan's surprise, Riyad followed her out into the passageway, swiftly overtaking her to reach the captain first.

  Evidently, Super Sleuth still didn't trust her.

  "Sir, the translator's dead. Under the circumstances, I recommend Agent Chase be escorted to her quarters and removed from the ship—immediately."

  Wow. She'd anticipated a bayonet to the back at some point today. But an open and preemptive slash right across the jugular? And in front of witnesses?

  That took serious balls.

  Riyad's appeared to be forged from the same steel that made up this rhythmically rocking ship.

  Fortunately for her, the captain seemed to possess an iron set of his own. He extended a hand toward her as he pointedly ignored Riyad's comment. The man's grip was warm, firm and—in light of the situation—surprisingly friendly. "Brad Armstrong. Welcome aboard the Griffith, Agent Chase. I've been hearing your name quite a bit these past weeks. Been wanting to meet the woman who took down the terror cell." The CO's stare shifted to the now closed conference room door just past her left shoulder, then came back. "Just wish it could've been under better circumstances."

  "Thank you, sir."

  He made no move toward the door. "What do you need?"

  It seemed she'd misjudged the man. She couldn't be happier.

  Riyad was not. "Sir, I—"

  "Don't possess the experience to oversee a murder investigation." Armstrong turned to the NCIS agent, softening what amounted to Riyad's own public rebuke with what appeared to be a genuinely sympathetic shrug. "Sam, I know you're motivated. And I know this is serious. But you're FCI, not a detective. Agent Chase has worked countless death investigations. We both know we'll need her skills, especially now. Nor can we afford to let the scene deteriorate—especially with all this rocking and rolling—while we wait another day for someone else to get here."