Backblast

by Candace Irving

  According to a subsequent call from an almost apologetic Jeffers, both the embassy's senior political officer and the Pakistani Foreign Service National who'd accompanied the other staffers to the Griffith to transcribe the minutes and assist with translation were out for the remainder of the day. The political officer, Tom Crier, was in a meeting across the city, while Aamer Sadat had left the compound before Regan's C-130 had even touched down at Islamabad International.

  Evidently Sadat's wife had phoned before lunch. The Sadats' three-month-old son had diabetes and had suffered an insulin reaction. Mrs. Sadat had taken the baby to hospital. The boy was still there, now in intensive care, along with his terrified parents. As excuses went, it was one Regan couldn't argue with.

  Who'd want to?

  Regan sighed as she closed her notes file on her computer. The lid of the laptop followed with a stronger snap. 1800 local time had just come and gone. Whether she liked it or not, it appeared she'd be meeting with Crier, Sadat and the embassy's loose-lipped ambassador in the morning.

  Hope surged as her phone vibrated, only to sink as she caught the name in her caller ID. It wasn't Colonel Tarrington, or even John with news about whatever he and Tulle were up to. It was Gil.

  "What's up, Doc?"

  Despite the ten-hour time deficit on Gil's end, he laughed. Then again, it was 0800 back at Campbell. Gil was heavily and contentedly caffeinated by now. Unlike her. The first name on Palisade's list had arrived before she'd had a chance to locate the closest coffee pot. The caffeine-driven throb from this morning had returned.

  "From what I hear, not you."

  Whoa. What exactly had Gil heard? And from whom?

  The possibilities sliced in. And all wielded the same double-edged sword: her hand. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Garrison called."

  Shit.

  Stick to the case. And pray. "Did you give him the official assessment on Brandt? It's the chimera, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, it is. And I told him. But that's not the only reason he phoned."

  She wasn't sure what piqued her more. That John had spoken about her with Gil. Or that he hadn't bothered to let her know he'd planned on ratting her out.

  Except her ire was already cooling, and rapidly…because she also realized what it would've cost John to reach out to Gil. To a man who less than three weeks earlier, John had believed she was not only involved with, but pregnant by. It didn't matter that he now knew differently. When John cared, he leaned toward jealousy—sharply. She'd known that from almost the moment they'd met. She'd even abused the knowledge out in that bar's parking lot to reel him in faster and tighter so she could get him to open up about his houseguest. She wasn't proud of her actions then, but she was of John's now.

  John had known she needed to hear from Gil, so he'd arranged it. At his own emotional expense, and pride.

  Her remaining ire eased out along with her breath. "What did you tell him?"

  "The truth. That you're back at it too soon. That you need to get your butt home and get some serious rest." Gil's sigh mirrored hers. "But we both know that's not possible right now. So listen closely: you need to take your downtime whenever and wherever you can. And take it seriously. This stress? It's not helping. Neither did the stunt that bastard pulled on you last night. Garrison told me what Durrani said, what he did. I know you're rattled. Hell, anyone would be, and they don't share your past. But you'll get through this. Durrani won't. It's over for him. Don't let that bastard win. I meant it, Rae. The way your arm reacted? If you don't take it easy, you'll be risking a significant setback. Possibly one that's irreversible. And then where will you be?"

  Lord, she hated when Gil was right. "I know."

  Nor was she mad at him either. The contents of a soldier's medical record weren't sacrosanct like a civilian's were. The needs of the nation and the mission came first. Always. It was right there when you signed on the dotted line. Gil would've been obligated to talk no matter who'd called him from her chain of command with respect to her current mission. Frankly, they were both lucky it had been John.

  Still, another sigh filled the line, overridden at the end as its owner's name was paged over the hospital's PA system. "Rae, I—"

  "Gotta go."

  "Yeah. Hang in there."

  Before she could agree, he'd hung up.

  She was left staring at those barren, windowless walls. They were driving her nuts. Her makeshift office was rapidly becoming her makeshift cell, trapping her with the other bombshell that Jeffers had lobbed her way earlier.

  John had an open offer with Homeland Security. And he hadn't told her.

  It hurt. More than she wanted to admit. Though, really, what had she expected? That he'd stick around for the long haul? John might've intimated as much when she'd woken from her coma. And he might've reiterated it silently last night aboard the Griffith when he'd held her in her rack. Hell, he'd even all but roared it in the wardroom this morning while he'd been staring down Riyad.

  So why hadn't he told her about the offer?

  They hadn't had a lot of time for privacy, but they'd found some.

  Did he want the slot? More than he wanted her?

  She could hear Durrani and his acidic filth filling her ear, eating away at her confidence. Damned if the man's voice didn't sound a lot like her final foster mother's at the moment. As much as she hated to admit it, both were right. She was damaged goods. Between her dad, her mom, her grandfather, fifteen different foster homes and her final, not-so-loving group facility, how could she be anything else?

  Hell, even Mira, Jelly and Gil all added together had never been able to fill the gaping hole inside her. Worse, she'd donned a different mask with so many people for so many years, she wasn't sure who was really beneath it anymore.

  How could John figure it out? Much less love who he found enough to want to stick around for the long haul? No one else had. Ever. She'd been told eighteen times that she wasn't worth it. Even the world's biggest moron would get that message. She didn't need Durrani or anyone else telling her that, eventually, John would do the same.

  And then he'd leave. It was probably best that he do it now. While she still had the strength to let him go.

  Screw this. Gil was right. She could not let that bastard get to her. Not even if John left the Army—and her—for good.

  She retrieved her phone and called Scott. DSS agents were qualified to investigate embassy personnel overseas; he might as well assist. Even if he wouldn't know what he was really assisting with.

  Not only had Scott pushed through his own work on the human trafficking sting, he'd already retrieved the keys to Staff Sergeant Brandt's quarters from the RSO's office and had been about to pick up the phone himself to call her.

  "Grab your gear, Prez. I'll be there in five minutes to show you the way to the Marine House."

  He made it in three.

  Regan waited until she and Scott had entered the two-story barracks building and climbed the stairs to reach Brandt's room. "Do you know a Sam Riyad? He's NCIS."

  Scott's snort was as sharp as the pocket knife he'd brandished to cut the seal on Brandt's door. "The Holy One?" He paused. Flushed. "Sorry. That's not Riyad's attitude, it's—"

  "Jeffers'."

  "Yep."

  Curious and curiouser. "Why? What's Riyad done for the guy?" Or possibly the ambassador?

  "He exists." Scott used the tip of his knife to sever the warning sticker that had been signed and adhered to the door's seam, then unlocked it. He pushed the door open and reached inside to flip on the light switch. "After you."

  Regan preceded him into the room.

  She set her laptop bag and crime scene kit on the staff sergeant's desk, then opened the lock on her kit. Retrieving two pairs of latex gloves from within, she passed the first to Scott and donned the second as she scanned the staff sergeant's quarters. They resembled nearly every barracks room she'd occupied while enlisted, along with those she'd tossed as an MP and more recently as CID.
The layout consisted of a twin bed, a desk, a TV and a large, lockable wardrobe.

  The latter intrigued her most, so she began there, severing Brandt's combination lock with the small bolt cutters in her kit as she nudged Scott for more on the spook. "Riyad exists? Surely there's more to it?"

  "You do know the guy's a former SEAL, right?"

  Oh, she did now. "Yeah, I heard that. So?"

  "So, Jeffers is a wannabe." Scott shook his head as he snapped his second glove into place. He accepted the broken lock as she turned back to work her way through the staff sergeant's uniforms and personal items. "Nah, make that a woulda, shoulda, coulda been."

  "What happened? Did Jeffers get accepted and blow out a shoulder halfway through the third month of Buds?"

  "More like washed out. And it was nowhere near halfway. I heard the guy rang the bell by the end of the first day."

  Yikes.

  Granted, she doubted she'd have made it through an hour at Buds. She knew her strengths, just as she knew her limitations. But she'd never wanted to be a SEAL. Jeffers had. And he'd been forced to accept that he couldn't make the grade up close and personal. Despite that asshole behavior of his, she felt for the guy.

  It also explained his hero worship. But there were operational drawbacks to willful blindness, whether Jeffers was willing to cop to it or not, especially with regard to Riyad. The DCM's judgment was clouded.

  And that was never a good thing.

  Not that she'd have shared the realization with Scott. Though from that glint she'd noted in his eye in her temporary office earlier, she was fairly certain she didn't need to.

  Regan fell silent as she worked her way through the remainder of the wardrobe unit. There was nothing out of place. She closed the unit and crossed the room to toss the bed. Again, nothing. She hit the drawers in the desk next and came up empty once more. If the staff sergeant had been hiding something big enough to serve as blackmail leverage, there was no trace of it in his room. Except—

  "Is that a picture frame?"

  Blinds shifted and rattled softly against the window as Scott straightened up from the sill. "Where?"

  She pointed to where he'd been standing beside the bed. Whatever that was, it was lying flat on the floor and tucked up underneath the bottom of the bed, near the head. As if Brandt had been staring at it while lying down, then slipped it beneath to keep it safe as he'd nodded off. She stepped forward and leaned down to retrieve it.

  It was a frame. An electronic one.

  Why wasn't it displayed on the desk?

  Had Brandt been torturing himself with pictures of an ex?

  She switched the frame on and clicked through the succession of photos that were stored within. There were nineteen—and all contained groupings of the same three people, with the occasional addition or substitution of Brandt.

  She tapped the other male face she recognized. "That's Aamer Sadat, isn't it?" The Pakistani Foreign Service National who'd missed his interview with her an hour ago. "And I'm guessing this woman is Sadat's wife?"

  Scott nodded. "Yeah, and that's a photo of their new kid." He shook his head as she cycled through the stored pictures once more. "A lot of photos of their kid."

  Agreed. In fact, either the baby or the mother was in every single one. Usually both. Out of nineteen photos, Aamer Sadat was in nine shots, total. Regan stopped on one of the nine. Brandt was holding the infant. Mrs. Sadat was standing on Brandt's right with Mr. Sadat standing to his wife's right. Except Mrs. Sadat wasn't looking at her husband, but at Brandt. Brandt was also looking at her—and the glow that bathed the staff sergeant's face was more than friendly. It was reverent.

  Blackmailable, even.

  Along with the rest. Namely, the baby's chin. It was dimpled…like Brandt's. Aamer Sadat's chin was smooth, along with his wife's. But there was more. There were hints of Caucasian blood in the baby's features, too. Hints that Regan suspected would become more defined as the boy grew up. She was almost certain Aamer Sadat was not the baby's father.

  And there was an excellent chance Brandt was.

  19

  It took every gene Regan had inherited from her own father to clamp down on the rush of adrenaline hitting her veins before it reached her face. The more she studied that photo, the more certain she became. The adrenaline had a right to be there. Those Caucasian hints in the baby's features were one thing. But that cleft in his chin? That was the clincher.

  They usually were.

  Dimples, in a cheek or the chin, were a dominant genetic trait.

  She'd never ask—because John would detest admitting it—but there was an excellent chance his father had sported the same distracting dent that John did. Though for John's sake, she hoped not. As for Mrs. Sadat, with Brandt deceased, Regan suspected the woman would treasure that dimpled chin, along with the other features the boy had inherited from his father. But there was another crucial question burning through her brain regarding the baby and his mother.

  Did Mrs. Sadat know her son was a cause of blackmail?

  Because if Regan was right, someone had used this boy's true parentage to blackmail the staff sergeant into feeding Tamir Hachemi strychnine.

  It was time to draft a second list. On this one? The names of those who might have known that Brandt was a father. Once she cross-referenced that list against the staffers who'd read her BI…she just might have their traitor.

  The first of those names? DSS Senior Special Agent in Charge Charles Maddoc. There was simply no way a regional security officer could've missed a clue this huge. Not an RSO tapped to head up the protection of one of the nation's most vital diplomatic missions. Palisade's prudence regarding silence with diplomatic security had paid off.

  And there was Warren Jeffers. While Marine guards at an embassy did answer to the DSS agent in charge of regional security, that DSS agent—and everyone beneath him or her—answered the deputy chief of mission. Hence, Jeffers, too, should have known. So why hadn't Jeffers said anything to her in her temporary office earlier? Especially once he'd supposedly come around regarding her true mission and the location of the traitor.

  The obvious possibility chilled her to the bone.

  Her instincts might've cleared Jeffers earlier, even while he'd been spewing his filth at her…but her instincts were not infallible. And neither was she.

  She'd learned that the hard way.

  "Holy shit."

  Regan glanced up as Scott reached out to tap the photo queued up in the frame.

  "That's Brandt's kid. It's gotta be."

  "I'd say there's an excellent chance. Were there rumors?"

  Scott shook his head. "None that I heard. But I answer to the RSO at the moment. I may be temporarily assigned, but I'd have had to inform Maddoc—and that would've killed Brandt's career. Could also be why she's been avoiding everyone."

  "Mrs. Sadat?"

  Scott nodded as Regan switched off the electronic frame and bagged it for evidence. "From what I heard, she visited the compound quite a bit while she was pregnant. But once she had the kid—pffft. A couple folks have remarked on it. Guess we now know why the visits dried up. I also heard Brandt had less than a month left on his tour. Could be that she was lying low. Maybe they figured once he left, no one would remember his face well enough to suspect the rest."

  The rationale was sound. And Scott was right. If this had gotten out, it would've been a career ender for the staff sergeant, with potential Uniformed Code of Military Justice charges and stockade time on top.

  If Charles Maddoc wasn't their traitor, could that have been a factor in the RSO keeping his mouth shut? If Maddoc had said something, he'd also have had to pull Brandt from his position as an active embassy guard, and charge him with adultery and conduct unbecoming, at the very least.

  Only the RSO hadn't had direct access to her BI. He'd also remained behind here at the embassy compound to continue overseeing its security due to the potential flammable fallout from those diplomatic ass-covering sessions ab
oard the Griffith.

  Jeffers claimed he'd revealed her true mission to Maddoc, but not the info in her BI. And that revelation regarding her mission had to have occurred today. There would have been no time for Maddoc to pull in favors to get a peek at her BI off the books and still share its contents with Durrani because Durrani was already dead.

  Had Maddoc figured out the baby's potential parentage after Brandt had been sent to the Griffith? Was that why Maddoc was maintaining his silence? Because there was already enough crap being flung around the ship's conference room?

  Maddoc would've known that Brandt had less than thirty days left on station. Had the RSO also hoped that with Brandt leaving, the potential shitstorm would be leaving with him?

  Or was Maddoc simply ignorant of that dimple and its genetic implications?

  Possibly. But someone else should have suspected something. Someone who had had access to her BI nearly three weeks ago.

  Aamer Sadat.

  Surely Mr. Sadat had noticed that cleft in his own son's chin? With how close they all appeared in those photos, he must have suspected a lot more. Had Sadat spotted an attraction between Brandt and his wife early on, even encouraged an affair as a way to get leverage over the Marine? There was only one way to find out.

  And, at the moment, only one place.

  Regan tucked the evidence bag with the electronic frame inside her kit and secured it. She had a feeling she'd be needing the photos for her coming chat.

  "You done here?"

  She slung her laptop over her shoulder and hefted her kit. "Yup."

  "Great. I found this fantastic place my first week. It overlooks the entire—"

  She shook her head. Dinner would have to wait. Along with her drumming need for caffeine. A need that was threatening to morph into pounding any minute now. "But I could use a lift—to whichever hospital admitted Baby Sadat this afternoon."

  With his "son" in intensive care, even a traitor would want to keep up appearances.