Backblast

by Candace Irving

  "Got him. Moving in." Riyad.

  She caught sight of the NCIS agent moving rapidly within her forward vision, even as she spotted John and Scott moving closer to Harun Chaudhry in her peripheral view. The remaining DSS agents tightened in on their principals as well.

  "Eight feet away, coming up on his rear." Riyad.

  "I see you. That's him."

  The spook was five feet and closing when she heard the RSO chime in. Maddoc's voice was immediately drowned out by a low, almost anti-climactic pop.

  The target crumpled, disappearing into the crowd.

  A second later, Riyad was on top of the spot, murmuring into his mic. "Suicide vest. Appears to have misfired—"

  A man next to Riyad must've heard the spook, because he shouted something in Urdu. She lost the rest of Riyad's assessment as half the crowd bunched up, screaming and yelling as they moved as a solid wave of human flesh toward the platform. The rest of the crowd swept backward. Instinct had her shifting her vision to check the left side of her assigned sector. It, too, was moving en masse, the people within, pushing, pulling.

  She caught the flash of a flailing reporter's light as it spun out of its owner's hand, glinting off the dusky face of another man in local garb before the light source arced toward the ground. Tinted wraparound sunglasses?

  In the dark?

  She dropped her gaze and caught a glimpse of the blackened barrel as it came up. No time for the mic, she shouted a warning as she automatically shoved her hand into her suit and drew her weapon. Gun!"

  Worse, she'd swear his was a SIG Sauer P226, too. And it was sighting in on her right. Harun Chaudhry.

  Her P228's forward sights were still an inch from her target—the shooter's head—when her hand and entire arm jolted, discharging her weapon prematurely.

  A split second later, she caught another muzzle flash, this one from the shooter's 226, and its deafening retort.

  The entire crowd shifted, turned frantic and ugly as it became every man for himself. Try as she might to locate the shooter, she'd lost him. She could only hope another agent had the bastard in his sights as she spun around to check on the Chaudhrys.

  They were fine, if ignobly splayed out on the platform, the chief justice beneath Scott, his wife beneath another DSS agent.

  Moments later, the agents were standing, hauling their assigned charges to their feet as well, as they half led, half carried them down the steps of the platform and into the waiting safety of the embassy gates—leaving John behind.

  He was lying on the platform, face up, unconscious and bleeding.

  He'd been hit.

  Regan keyed her mic. "Man down; get a medic!"

  She shoved her SIG into its holster as she vaulted to John's side to assess his condition, knowing damned well that there'd be no one to back her up until all the diplomats were behind the walls and safely accounted for. "John?"

  Nothing.

  Just that gush of blood that had soaked the front of his right trouser leg and his entire groin. It was pooling out around his midsection, spreading over the platform beneath. Worse, the scarlet geyser was jetting into her hands with each beat of his heart.

  Artery.

  She hooked her fingers into the hole in his trousers and tore them wide open to find the mangled furrow of flesh slashing across his groin, compliments of that bastard's glancing round. She pushed down above the furrow, directly over his right femoral, frantically trying to press the artery into the bone.

  There was too goddamned much muscle beneath her hands. And the blood. Her hand shook as it slipped out of place.

  More of that precious, scarlet fluid gushed out.

  Unwilling to trust her right index finger, she shoved her left into the gaping furrow in his flesh and felt around. No metal, as expected—just far too much shredded muscle and all that terrifyingly hot, critically needed blood.

  There appeared to be more outside his body than in.

  Desperate, she shoved the tip of her finger deeper and up toward John's groin, relief searing in as the gush finally slowed to a trickle.

  She pushed harder, and it stopped.

  "Holy fuck, woman." Riyad.

  Of course.

  Yet, she'd never been so glad to see anyone in her life. Even this man, with that filthy scowl. "I can't move my finger. If I do—"

  "I know. Hold on." A second later, the spook was on his mic, barking out orders. Whatever the man was saying blended in with the cacophony from the still frantic crowd. She was dimly aware of Scott showing up as well, but she refused to look up to acknowledge him. She was too terrified of losing her grip. The entire horrific experience with Durrani was slamming through her brain and her heart, taunting her.

  No.

  She would not lose this man. It had taken her too damned long to find him.

  She would not.

  She focused on John's groin and her hand, leaving everything else to Riyad.

  She caught the blur of suits as more agents converged on the stage. She could even hear the Pakistani president over the loudspeaker, assuring the crowd, in Urdu and in English. Two men had attempted to silence the chief justice and the truth, but they would not let them. Pakistan would not let them. One man was already dead. The other was gone. People must calm down, because everyone was fine.

  But everyone wasn't fine.

  And then, bizarrely, the Chaudhrys were at her side, the wife kneeling down. Then again, it wasn't so odd. The woman was, after all, a surgical nurse. Sitara Chaudhry kept telling her over and over to keep her hand in place, to hold on. Assuring her that she was doing an excellent job—that the air ambulance was on its way. Everything was going to be okay, just as soon as they got her husband to the hospital.

  Regan didn't bother telling the woman that she and John weren't married.

  Not with those rings he'd given her swimming in his blood.

  And then, the paramedics were there, working around her to heft John's mammoth, blood-soaked body onto a stretcher, even as they joined in with Sitara Chaudhry's gentle orders to keep her hand exactly where it was.

  The rest was a blur.

  She wasn't sure how she even got over to the chopper, much less inside it.

  Her entire left hand and arm ached, this limb now trembling with exhaustion, too, even more than her right. Still, she pressed in.

  Before she realized what had happened, the bird had landed at a hospital in the middle of a still darkened Islamabad, backlit by a glittering rainbow of city lights. Within seconds, and against her silently screaming will, her finger was sliding out of its desperate home as a doctor physically pulled her from John's side. And then, a dozen other white coats were rolling John away, leaving her alone in the dark.

  Bereft of his warmth.

  Wondering if she'd ever see him again.

  For the second time in two days, Regan was standing in a shower, attempting to process the horror of what had happened as she stared at those surreal tendrils of red and pink slipping down her body to circle the drain before disappearing forever.

  Only this time, she wasn't in a stateroom aboard the Griffith, she was in a bathroom attached to an empty hospital room at the Shifa…and those disappearing tendrils were the vestiges of John's blood.

  Harun and Sitara Chaudhry had arrived at the hospital half an hour after the doctors had spirited John away. She'd been sitting right where John had been taken from her, still covered in his blood, in shock. But it wasn't the country's chief justice who'd taken charge, it was his soft-spoken wife. The woman had ordered her husband back to the embassy to deal with the fallout of the night's events, while she brought Regan inside the Shifa, where apparently Sitara Chaudhry wasn't simply a surgical nurse. She was the hospital's senior surgical nurse.

  Like her husband, the woman had her own professional domain.

  Regan had never been more grateful.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sitara had been briefed on John's surgery—which appeared to be going well, but for the fact
that it would take hours yet.

  But there was hopeful news already. The round that had torn through the right side of John's groin had indeed punctured his right femoral artery, though oddly, above the section of shredded muscle. Which was why she'd had such a difficult time trying to clamp off his bleeding up on that platform. If things went well, John's surgeons should be able to repair the puncture without a graft, for which Regan was profoundly relieved on John's behalf, since such a critical graft could make things difficult for his chosen career in Special Forces.

  Personally, she didn't care if John sat behind a desk for the rest of his years, so long as he had those years. But she suspected he'd feel differently.

  Once the woman's medical update had been delivered, Sitara—who had also firmly insisted that she be addressed by Regan as such—had led her to the executive patient room where John would be brought once he was out of surgery. There, Sitara had arranged for clean surgical scrubs as well as toiletries to be delivered.

  Only then had the woman left her. Evidently, her intent was to scrub in on John's surgery. She would return with a full report, once it was finished.

  Regan had the feeling that Sitara was using the situation, and her, to stave off the agony and acceptance of her daughter's loss, but she wouldn't judge her for it.

  Lord knew, she'd deliberately sought out something to mute her own aching terror, or at least something to hold it at bay until John's surgery was over.

  Her job.

  Once she'd spotted those older numbers on the barrel of her crime kit, she'd known her search for the traitor wasn't over. But with everything that had happened, she'd had no way to proceed—until Tulle had phoned. John's staff sergeant had been frantic for news on his CO, and so he'd done the only thing he could think of.

  Tulle had called her.

  She'd shared what little she knew, and when Tulle had told her that he was on his way to the Shifa to wait with her, she'd asked him to stop by the RSO's office first to retrieve her laptop and kit.

  He'd be happy to—once he phoned General Palisade, who was also champing for an update. Grateful that Tulle would take care of that, she'd readily agreed.

  With nothing else to do but stare at that tauntingly empty bed until the staff sergeant's arrival, she'd scooped up the toiletries with her good hand and escaped into the shower.

  The blood was gone now. Even her hair was clean.

  She knew she should take the rings off, so she could make sure there were no lingering traces of the most terrifying experience of her life clinging beneath the stone, but she couldn't. Not until she saw for herself that John was safe.

  She needed to touch him. Make sure he was breathing.

  In the end, she left the rings in place and settled for yet another thorough scrubbing with the soap and cloth Sitara and her fellow nurses had provided.

  Regan turned off the water and departed the shower to scoop up her clothes and gear. Cramming her bloodied suit into the garbage bin in the bathroom, she carried her holstered SIG, cuffs, CID credentials, shoes and the dupatta into the hospital room.

  She dumped the black scarf and her gear at the foot of the bed, and donned the waiting surgical scrubs and her shoes.

  Her gear was a bit tougher.

  She managed to wedge her phone, ID and cuffs into the pocket at the rear of the green medical trousers. Her shoulder holster, however, was not going to fly.

  Not out in the open in a hospital.

  She settled for removing her 9mm and tucking it out of sight at the small of her back beneath her borrowed smock. Her empty leather holster went into the drawer at the base of the small clothing cupboard to get it out of sight as well.

  As dressed as she was going to get, she turned away from those crisp, white, empty sheets and used the comb from the toiletry kit to remove the snarls from her hair. As best she could, anyway. Her left-hand coordination might leave a lot to be desired, but her right was shaking so much, it was nearly useless.

  Unwilling to offend those who were doing so much for John, she capped off her damp hair with the swath of silk he'd provided.

  With nothing left to do, she headed across the antiseptic tiles to check the contents of the small refrigerator positioned next to a dark brown, utilitarian sleeper couch and matching coffee table in front of the room's curtained windows. The fridge was probably empty, but she hadn't eaten since their stopover at Al Dhafra the day before—or ingested caffeine. At this point, if she found a leftover can of cold-brewed coffee in there, she'd be willing to mainline it.

  She was about to open the fridge when her phone rang.

  Sighing, she reached into her rear pocket and worked the phone free. She didn't recognize the number scrolling across the screen. "Agent Chase."

  "How's he doing?" Riyad.

  Guilt cut in. The spook had moved heaven and earth to save John's life back on that platform and she'd hadn't even thought about updating him following her conversation with Sitara. "He's in surgery. His femoral was punctured. No word yet." And there wouldn't be for hours. "I'm sorry; I should've called."

  Not that she'd had his number. But she could've tracked it down if she'd tried.

  "No problem. You've had a bit on your mind. So have I."

  "What happened?" Because something had. It was in his voice.

  "There's been another Webber sighting. Solid source."

  "Where?"

  "Islamabad International Airport. Military ramp."

  Well, "Shit."

  "Yeah. I'm there now. Look, I'll be following this lead to the end, so I may be out of touch. Might even have to lose my phone for a while."

  "Understood. If I have something, I'll call General Palisade." And he'd call Admiral Kettering. It was almost an amusing turnaround given that she and Riyad were the junior ones on the totem pole. Almost. "Good hunting."

  "You, too."

  He hung up.

  She was about to make a second attempt at the fridge when a low, deep rap reverberated on the opposite side of the door behind her.

  "Come on in."

  The door swung wide. Staff Sergeant Tulle's still suited, though now rumpled, Nordic bulk entered the room, her laptop's strap slung over his left shoulder, her crime kit in the same hand. And in his right?

  A gorgeous, oversized takeout cup of coffee…which he was extending to her.

  "Oh, Lord, Tulle. I could kiss you."

  The blond giant actually blushed, causing the scruff on his cheeks and jaw to appear burnished.

  She met him at the foot of the empty bed to accept the cup with her steady hand and pop the lid. Not only was the coffee within still steaming, it was blacker than a brand new Humvee's tires. Despite everything that'd happened, and everything she was terrified might happen, she smiled and promptly gave credit where it was due.

  "Outstanding instincts."

  "Yeah, not really. The major might've mentioned your addiction in passing."

  John had spoken about her?

  For some reason, her heart clenched—painfully.

  Tulle shifted her kit to his right hand. "Any news on his condition?"

  She shook her head. "Not since we last spoke." She took a sip of the coffee, savoring the anticipatory rush that hit, then nodded to the small, makeshift sitting area. "You can set my gear down over there." It was where she'd be staying—and, hence, working—until further notice. "Any news on the mob?"

  "It's over here, lined up outside the doors of the blood donation lab, down the hall and out of the hospital, wrapped halfway around the block. And it's still growing."

  "What?" He was joking, right?

  But the staff sergeant nodded, shrugging those massive shoulders that reminded her so much of John's. "We owe it all to Chaudhry, too. The chief justice stopped by the lab before he returned to the embassy. He donated a pint of his very own life's juice for the brave and honorable American major who took a bullet for him this morning—and he made sure everyone knew it. Before Chaudhry got to his car, folks were t
weeting out what he'd done and calling the local stations with the tip. Pakistanis are driving across the city to donate blood as well. Heck, I heard they're even gathering in the mosques to pray for him."

  The last warmed her more than the rest, especially since the hospital probably had plenty of blood. Naturally, Harun Chaudhry would've known that. But he'd also known that his symbolic act would speak volumes where even his voice couldn't.

  And it had.

  As for those prayers in the mosques, admittedly, she wasn't particularly religious. The raw end of her grandfather's belt had seen to that. But neither could she shake the belief that someone might be up there, looking down. And if they were, she darned sure wanted the celestial conversation bending in John's favor today of all days.

  Especially since—

  "No."

  She stiffened. "What?" She hadn't—

  "It's not your fault."

  Great. Was Tulle's Rae-dar now in full-tune mode, too?

  Or was it because of John? The terror and the guilt she couldn't quite seem to push to the back of her mind, much less off her face.

  As deeply as she wanted to accept the staff sergeant's absolution, she couldn't. She shook her head. "I took the shot, Tulle. But it was early. My hand, it jolted. And I—"

  "Saved his life." He nodded in the face of her disbelief. "I was there, Chief. I saw it go down, and clearly. I was fifteen feet behind that bastard and penned in by all those frantic, flailing bodies. I couldn't get to my mic, much less my weapons. I watched that fucker line up his shot. Your round went into his right shoulder, knocked off his aim at the last second. And this part I won't tell Chaudhry—or any of the Pakistanis, at least not today—but that bastard? He wasn't aiming for the chief justice. He had a hard on for the major. If you hadn't taken that shot—however it happened—when you did, his bullet would have punched clean through the major's skull." The staff sergeant's second, confirming nod was for her shock. "Yeah, that bastard was setting up a headshot."

  But why?

  It didn't make sense. "Why would Webber go to all that trouble to infiltrate that unruly mob to target John?"

  Tulle shrugged. "Dunno. That's for you to figure out—and I'd really like you to do that, and soon. But there's more. Like everyone else, I lost that asshole in the moments that followed. The crush of bodies knocked me back. By the time I was able to right myself, he was gone. But I kept pushing forward, hoping I'd get another glimpse of him, or at least find that bullet of yours with some blood on it. There was no sign of it, so it's still in that fucker's shoulder. But I did find his shades. At least, I think I did. They were on the ground where he set up his kill shot. Must have got knocked off by someone during the panic. They were wraparounds, yellow tint."