Backblast

by Candace Irving

  Reality and regret weighed heavy on her shoulders and in her heart as she retrieved the interview folder she'd prepared from Agent Riyad before crossing the tiny space. She laid the folder on the table and removed the digital camera and voice recorder she'd tucked into her cargo pocket before claiming the chair John had indicated, leaving a now empty-handed Riyad to mark time behind her.

  She'd lost her view of the spook's face, but she had a close-up of John's, and what she saw gave her pause.

  The men were at odds. From the set of John's jaw as his stare flicked past her right shoulder, she'd wager they had been since before Hachemi's death.

  But for how long…and why?

  The question would have to wait, because another one had just been answered. She'd found the missing coffee from that upended cup. It was splashed across the front of John's ACUs, the majority of the dried splotches nearly blending in with the muted tans and greens of the digital camouflaged pattern. And there was more.

  Blood.

  The high-velocity splatter she'd been seeking marred the right side of John's face, specifically the upper half of his neck and the collar of his ACU blouse and tan T-shirt. Several dried rust-colored drops also stained the inner contours of his left index finger, thumb and wrist. That he hadn't attempted to compromise the DNA evidence via the stateroom's sink after Chief Yrle had unwittingly left him to his own devices both relieved and terrified Regan.

  Years of experience forced her to add the stains to the evidence she'd collected in the conference room as she waved Riyad up to one of the remaining chairs. "Join us."

  "I'm fine."

  But she wasn't. Not with that distant tone in the spook's voice. And something else. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

  "I insist."

  Given the ominous vibes thrumming beneath the ever-present creaking of the metal pipes and venting running through the overheard, she wanted both men within visual range. It would help fine-tune her instincts. She swore Riyad knew it, too.

  She turned back to John as Riyad finally shrugged and ambled forward. He ignored the empty chair on her right, posting his brooding form against the wall unit. Regan clicked on the voice recorder, running though the who, what, when, why and where, as well as the standard recitation of detainee rights, as she set the recorder on the table. She ended her spiel with an offer to delay the interview if John wanted legal counsel in attendance.

  Professionally, she willed him to say no. Personally, she prayed he'd say yes.

  He shook his head. "No, no lawyer."

  From the corner of her eye, she watched Riyad stiffen, clearly taken aback by the decision.

  She wasn't.

  She prompted John regardless. "Are you certain?"

  For a moment, the steel in those dark gray eyes softened. Remorse brimmed within. And then it was gone as he nodded firmly. "I want this done."

  And he wanted her to do it.

  He didn't say it. He didn't have to. And, damn it, she didn't want to feel it—and she sure as hell didn't want to feel like this while she was doing it.

  But, like him, she had no choice.

  She stitched her emotions together, zealously holding to career-honed habits as she opened the folder to withdraw the eight-by-ten inch glossy she'd printed in the Griffith's admin office minutes earlier. She laid the photo on the table between them. Professional mixed with personal once more as she studied the trio of scars where shrapnel had torn through the left side of John's neck and jaw during his first foray into Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains when he was still an enlisted combat engineer over a decade earlier.

  The pulse point within jumped as John studied the close-up of Hachemi's shattered face. The oxygen balloon and tubing had been removed prior to the shot, allowing the full brunt of the damage and blood to shine though.

  Damage John had inflicted.

  Even without Corporal Vetter's statement, there'd have been no doubt in her mind. That flagging pulse removed it. Nor did she need to draw John's attention to the splatter of blood staining his left hand.

  He'd beaten her to it, shifting his stare to the rusted spots. The trio of shrapnel scars tightened as his pulse continued to flag damningly from within. A good half a minute passed before he tore his attention from the blood to focus on her.

  His voice, when it came, was hoarse and broken. Guilty. "Where should I start?"

  Regan clamped down on the compassion—and more—churning through her, lest it leak into her own voice and reach the still looming, still coldly distant NCIS agent leaning against that wall unit. "At the beginning."

  John nodded and cleared his throat. "The call I took after you woke in the ICU came from General Palisade. His brief consisted of the basics: Hachemi had reneged on the deal he'd made after you and Agent Castile formally arrested him in that terror safe house in Afghanistan. They'd brought Hachemi here aboard the Griffith for questioning. I was ordered to fly out ASAP to assist. It was hoped that, since Hachemi and I worked half a dozen ops together over the past few years, he might open up with me sitting across the table instead of a tag team of grunts and spooks he didn't know."

  "Did he?"

  "No. I wasn't surprised."

  "Why not?"

  John snapped his ire toward the wall unit. "Because that asshole insisted on fusing himself to my hide."

  The asshole in question scowled.

  John matched Riyad's grimace and turned back to her. "He's Saudi."

  "I know."

  "Then you've figured out the rest."

  She had. She suspected Riyad had too, even before she'd thrown Saudi/Afghan history in his face in that conference room. The spook was just arrogant enough to believe he could cut through decades of well-earned religious and political prejudice. That prejudice, and especially the man's arrogance, also explained why Riyad had shown up in her stateroom hours earlier only to haul the master-at-arms chief out into the passageway for a dressing down without so much as a nod back at her.

  "You convinced Chief Yrle to give you a shot at questioning Hachemi alone."

  "I did. We had a good hour before the chopper was scheduled to touch down. Riyad was up to his holier-than-thou attitude in a ship-to-shore call with someone from the State Department. I figured, what the hell? Might as well give it one last go."

  From the greeting Riyad had given Chief Yrle, by the time the NCIS agent had discovered John's rogue interrogation, it had been too late. The session had already begun. No wonder Riyad had been pissed. Much as Regan was loath to admit it, she'd have been livid too if someone—even John—had openly violated her case authority.

  Then again, "Did you get anywhere?"

  Despite Corporal Vetter's damning statement, or rather because if it, she was more than interested in John's take on the course and content of his final conversation with the translator.

  John glanced down at the grisly crime scene photo before shaking his head. "Not at first. Hachemi was whining about his stomach being upset. That, and he kept rubbing at his neck. But as we talked, it hit me. Hachemi could give a rip about the Qur'an. He only has one to keep up appearances. And there was no way he was going to fall for the patriotic angle, timely naturalization to US citizen notwithstanding. So I changed tactics. I started in on that female doc at Bagram—you remember the one?"

  "Yes." Soraya Medhi. Like Hachemi, Soraya's mother was of Afghan descent. Her father was Iranian. Unlike Hachemi, Soraya was born following her parents' emigration to the States. Twenty-six years later, she'd graduated from medical school and joined the US Army. Hachemi had run into her at Bagram's hospital five months ago and fallen for the woman—hard. Unfortunately for the translator, despite Soraya's recent breakup, she was still hung up on Captain McCord…the same Special Forces captain who'd been framed for the cave murders.

  Regan reached for the voice recorder as the ship surged more forcefully than it had since the Griffith had completed her underway refueling, only to come in second to John's reflexes as he caugh
t the recorder before it slid off the table.

  He held it out, the disconcerting heat in his fingers warming hers as she accepted it.

  Like her, John must have felt Riyad's interest sharpen as she set the recorder on the table. And, like her, John ignored that interest as he leaned back in his chair and resumed speaking.

  "During his arrest, Hachemi had all but admitted he'd set McCord up to get him out of the way. Jihad was never part of the plan—not on his part. Hachemi figured that with Mac in prison for murder, Soraya would turn to him for comfort."

  Regan leaned into the table as John's strategy became clear. "You lied to him."

  "Flat out. I told him Mac and Soraya had reconciled. He didn't believe me at first, so I pulled a page from your book and improvised. I reminded him that Mac's kid was the only baby to survive that slaughter. With the biological mother dead and Mac no longer framed for murder and in danger of spending his remaining days on death row, he needed someone to care for his daughter. Especially since Mac had ten years to go 'til retirement. I said Soraya had volunteered for the job—that the wedding was in three weeks. Hachemi knew the woman was solidly US Army first; her ethnicity was a distant second. I told Hachemi that if he really loved Soraya, he'd give her a gift she'd actually appreciate: the name of the traitor he was withholding. For a good ten seconds, he waffled."

  Regan couldn't help it. She smiled. As interrogation fiction went, it was good. From the way Riyad had straightened off the wall unit, even he was impressed.

  For some reason, Corporal Vetter had left that part of the exchange out of his version of events, a version she'd elicited personally following her canvas of the crime scene. Perhaps the Marine didn't understand the significance of what John had managed to do. Because it was significant.

  John had made it personal. At least for the translator. During an interrogation, that was everything.

  The curve of the table cut into Regan's torso as she leaned even closer. "What happened?"

  "He bit, just not the way I expected. Not only did he finally admit his involvement in the cave slaughter, he bragged about it. Claimed that while Durrani had sliced the women's throats, he was the one who'd cut the kids from their wombs. So I swallowed my disgust and shifted tactics again. This time, I nailed him on his incompetence. In light of his earlier waffling, I told him if he'd done his part right, Mac's kid would've died with the others. And once Mac discovered that Jameelah and his child were among the dead, Mac would've been so rattled, he might not have fought the charges against him—and you might not have realized it was all a set up. Not only would he and Durrani have escaped capture, Soraya would've been his for the taking."

  "But?" Because there was one. Even if she hadn't shared a past with John, she'd have been able to hear it.

  He shoved his hands through his hair before clapping them onto the table. "I miscalculated. I'm still not sure how. All I know is the man did another one-eighty. He admitted he'd lied after getting to the ship. He doubled down on his original story. He swore there was another traitor in our midst, but he still refused to ID him. So I played my last card. I told him that was our final meet. That I was leaving the ship when we were done. And then I told him he was leaving the ship too—for Pakistan. I said our side had agreed to turn him over, so their intel specialists could…question him. That's when he lost it. He tossed his coffee at me, then shot to his feet and got down in my face. He started yammering about that chimeral virus, claiming that, though Durrani had been the one to infect Mendoza's team, he was the one who'd targeted my men in the first place. The bastard wouldn't let up. He started chortling over my men's deaths like a hyena in heat. And then he started bragging that it was his idea to inject the contents of the last vial of that goddamned psycho-toxin into you so that Durrani would have it for the trip to Iran. That's when I just—"

  Regan kept her torso fused to the curve of the table as John broke off. The trio of scars on his neck tightened as he swallowed hard. His account had converged back into the statement she'd taken from Corporal Vetter, right down to the maniacal laugher that had spewed from the translator's lips. She knew what was next.

  She waited for John to finish it.

  But he didn't. Couldn't.

  That, too, was obvious. Even Riyad knew why, because though the spook had settled back against the wall unit, his entire body was on alert, waiting for the rest.

  It didn't come.

  John dropped his gaze. It landed on the photo lying on the table between them. His stare drifted from Hachemi's shattered features to the blood staining his hand. Lingered. She swore she could feel the remorse warring with the fury still consuming John's soul. Even Riyad must've felt it. Believed it.

  Because the agent had pulled away from the wall unit once again, this time to quietly prompt John before she could. "Major?"

  The ever-present creaking of metal filled the stateroom.

  Regan ignored the fisting in her gut and offered her own prompt. "He bragged that it was his idea to infect me with the chimeral virus, and you just…?"

  John's stare was colder than Riyad's had ever been when it finally sliced up, and it was beyond empty. "I saw red. To tell the truth, Rae, I still don't remember coming to my feet, nor do I remember taking that final step toward him. All I know is I reached through the rage to grab the back of his head and slam that laughing face into the bulkhead. Just once. At least, I think it was just once. I can't be sure. I just know if those Marines hadn't pulled me off him, I'd have bashed that son-of-a-bitch to a pulp."

  John's scarred right hand came up to cover the crime scene photo and remained there as he sighed. "Hell, it looks like that's exactly what I did."

  The hush returned. Terse breathing accompanied the creaks of the piping and vents, merging with the ever-present, distant drone of machinery. Even Riyad appeared loath to break the spell.

  The satellite phone in his cargo pocket had no such reservations.

  The phone shrilled a second time as Riyad retrieved it. "I need to take this."

  She nodded briefly, then wondered why she'd bothered. The spook had already stepped out into the passageway and closed the door behind him, shutting her in with John.

  Alone.

  For a solid minute, neither of them moved, much less spoke. Every single, stark second was absolute torture. Through them all, John stared at the bloodstained hand still lying on the table beside the crime scene photo.

  Suddenly, she couldn't handle it. Before she could stop herself, she broke protocol and reached out, ignoring the fresh tremor in her own hand as she sealed it to the crisscross of keloid ridges and valleys that covered the back of his.

  His entire body flinched.

  "John?"

  He dragged his attention from the photo. But instead of focusing it on her, he stared at the voice recorder.

  It was still on.

  She hadn't forgotten. She simply didn't care. Or perhaps she cared too much. If she got pulled from this case, so what? The alternative was killing her. Just as John's grief over that single, instinctive blow was slowly killing him.

  But he was right.

  She reached out again, this time switching the recorder off before returning her hand to where it belonged. She threaded her fingers into his and squeezed firmly, attempting to impart the final vestiges of her hope before it evaporated. "John, I know you. Whatever happens during this investigation, whatever else we learn, I know you didn't mean to kill him. I plan on doing everything in my power to prove it."

  There was no way—absolutely none—that she'd allow this man who'd sacrificed so much for his country to end his life where that so-called Army translator should be—on death row, waiting for someone to push a lethal injection into his veins.

  To her dismay, John withdrew his hand from beneath hers and reached for the recorder she'd killed. He switched it back on.

  His hand dropped into his lap, the stark truth of what had happened that morning locked in those dark gray eyes as he faced her full
on.

  For once she'd have given anything for John—a soldier of absolute, unshakable honor—to lie through his teeth.

  But he didn't.

  And she damned near died as John all but shoved that needle into his own arm as he took in her silent plea and slowly shook his head. "Agent Chase, I know you mean well. I appreciate it. But let me make one thing clear: I'm guilty. Not only did I kill Tamir Hachemi—in that moment, I wanted to."

  7

  Regan tracked the arc of her pen as it rolled back and forth across the metal flap she'd lowered from the wall unit to create the desk in her temporary quarters. While the waves hitting the Griffith were mild compared to those she'd experienced upon boarding, it didn't seem to matter. Her stomach had resumed its nauseating lurch—and it had nothing to do with the motion of her pen or the ship.

  It had to do with John. His confession.

  Those three damning words that had rasped past his lips. Agent Riyad might not understand their significance, but she did.

  I saw red.

  While they'd lain in bed together in Germany sixteen months ago, John had opened up a bit more about his childhood. That same, seemingly simple euphemism had served as the oft-repeated excuse from his father the morning after the bastard had gotten drunk and taken a belt, a branch, his fist or worse to John while he was growing up. He'd taken the beatings for twelve years, until the night his father had grabbed one bottle too many, only to have it jerked from his grip and smashed into the wall instead—by John. Fed up, and now tall enough to take on his father, he'd given the brute a choice. Hit him again, and the next time, John would hit back.

  Hard.

  The physical abuse had ended that night.

  But the emotional?

  For the next two decades John had lived with the deep-seated, insidious fear that his mother's prediction—and excuse—for taking his baby sister and leaving her five-year-old son to endure his father's vitriol and beatings alone would come to pass. That one day, some unknown and inescapable trigger would click deep within, and John too would see red and snap.