by Kaylea Cross
Zaid looked at Prentiss. At least Maka’s prank seemed to have lessened some of his teammate’s tension. “So, how’d it go? You get it set up?”
“Dunno. Have to wait to hear back from the ex. I tried texting her and she won’t respond.” His expression was as sour as his tone, but the sharp frustration was gone.
Zaid checked his watch. They still had over an hour until the team briefing. He was looking forward to it and bet the others were too. It would give them something to do, and it would also give him a chance to see Jaliya again. She’d been as frustrated and annoyed as the rest of them about the lack of results from the past two ops. She and her team were working overtime to uncover new leads and find them another target to check out.
He had seventy minutes to kill before he got to look at that pretty face and tried not to let his mind wander off into imagining her naked. Or naked and under him. It was damn hard not to fantasize about it, even if he knew it would never happen.
Zaid glanced around the team room, now empty except for him and Prentiss. One of the guys had pilfered an X-Box system and set it up in the far corner. He raised an eyebrow at Prentiss. “Call of Duty until the briefing?”
This time Prentiss’s smile was genuine, and full of appreciation. “Yeah, why not.”
****
Even without seeing him, Jaliya knew the moment Agent Khan stepped into the downtown Kabul office the next day.
She’d been expecting him, yet something tingled low in her belly and a subtle tension took hold of her muscles, making her heart rate kick up a notch. She braced herself before turning, but it wasn’t enough. His hazel gaze collided with hers from across the conference room, and the slight smile he gave her was so damn sexy her heart lurched.
Nuh-uh. You’re working. And he’s off limits. “Hello,” she murmured, striving to be courteous and nothing more.
“Hi.” Today he had on a tan tactical shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and chest, the short sleeves hugging the defined curves of his chest and biceps.
Yum.
“The others will be here in another minute,” he added.
She nodded and put on a polite, professional smile, hoping he couldn’t tell the effect he had on her. While she wasn’t terribly experienced with men, she could tell Khan was interested.
He was subtle about it, though, respectful, and that made it twice as hard to ignore her own attraction to him. She was dying to know whether he was the same Zaid from the dating site. Online Zaid had been thirty-three, and this Zaid was around that age.
Not that she was going to pursue anything with him, because the whole idea was stupid. Getting involved with him would make her look completely unprofessional should anyone find out, not to mention that a potential relationship with him was an automatic dead end because she was based out of Kabul for the foreseeable future and he was only here for another three months.
“You been making any headway with finding your young informant?” he asked, folding his tall body into a chair on the opposite side of the table. The man had an air of authority and a natural magnetism that were impossible to ignore. Calm, self-assured, and she was pretty sure those hazel eyes missed nothing when he looked at her.
It made her feel naked, especially when they were alone like this, catching her off guard and rattling her a little. “Not yet.” She set out the last of the folders and straightened, pulling her professional armor around her like a shield. “But we’re following up a few leads.”
“You think he was lying to us?”
“There’s a good chance, yes.” She’d known that going in, of course, and would weigh his intel carefully.
Agent Hamilton, FAST Bravo’s team leader walked in, and gave her a friendly nod that she returned. “Sorry we had to push this back so late. Commander Taggart had Khan and me in another meeting.”
“No, don’t apologize. I’m glad you were both able to be here for this.”
Agent Khan was here to help with translation during the presentation. And they would all be spending more time together in future because of the ongoing investigation with their informant, Barakat, who had seemed to miraculously vanish after their meeting.
Because the little tosser was most likely playing both sides against the other.
Jaliya still didn’t know whether he’d fed them straight bullshit, or whether The Jackal had somehow been tipped off about the other night’s op. Either way, their high value target hadn’t been in the village when FAST Bravo and the NIU went in. It made her team —and by association, her—look inept. She wouldn’t stand for it.
Commander Taggart and the rest of the taskforce arrived, including members of the NIU and two military officers, Colonel Shah and General Nasar. Four more Afghan military officials took their seats next to the chief of special police in Kabul. With two members of her team beside her fielding questions and Zaid helping translate for the two Afghan officials who didn’t speak English, she felt more at ease delivering the information she had to share.
“By this point we’re all aware that recent operations to seize shipments and find The Jackal have been unsuccessful. The missing shipments we were assured were there, and the empty caches our teams have found are reason enough to suspect a problem within our intel network.”
The whole time she spoke, she was acutely aware of everyone’s eyes on her, but especially Taggart’s and Khan’s. Both secretly made her nervous, although for very different reasons. One seemed to scrutinize her capability as an intel specialist. The other made her feel intensely female. Desirable.
She cleared her throat and continued. “But based on recent information we have received, I’m comfortable in saying that we have a leak somewhere in our chain of informants. Or worse, within our own intelligence community. Whatever the case may be, we’re certain that The Jackal is behind it.” Her team was currently analyzing all the potential players involved, which more than doubled their workload.
With that she motioned for everyone to open their folders, and took them through all the intel she and her team had compiled, a page at a time. Efforts to find likely targets containing caches of drugs and weapons stemming from The Jackal were frustrated by teams coming up blank whenever they went out to search.
She was starting to wonder if the leak stemmed from someone in this very room.
As head of her division on the taskforce, it was her reputation at stake when the search teams came up empty in the field. She was the intelligence specialist assigned to FAST Bravo, and recent events had begun to make her look incompetent. That was totally unacceptable, and she would be damned if she’d let it continue.
No. When she found Barakat she would lean on him until he spilled everything in his devious little heart.
When she was finished with her presentation, Jaliya fielded a few questions from the taskforce representatives before giving her closing remarks. “Rest assured that my team and I are working around the clock to get to the bottom of this and find the source of the leak. I’ll personally update the heads of the departments when I have any pertinent intel to pass on.”
She and her team had already started combing through the movements of the taskforce personnel, just to make sure one of them wasn’t involved in the leak. As far as she and her team could discern, the FAST and NIU members were all innocent. After all, they were the ones sent out to perform the ops. Their leaders appeared clean as well, or they wouldn’t have been included in this meeting.
As soon as her team exposed the leak, they’d be one step closer to bringing The Jackal down once and for all.
“Any further questions?” she finished.
“You’ll let the agency know if you need any more resources or assets to assist with the investigation?” Taggart’s tone made it clear he wasn’t asking. Rather, he’d just given her a politely-phrased command to bring more people on board.
She wasn’t about to argue with him. They had more work than they could handle and her investigation had proven that Taggart was clean.
“Of course.”
Relieved the meeting was over, she gathered her files and tucked them into her backpack. When she straightened, her stomach did a little flip to see Khan standing next to the door, waiting for her.
She arched an eyebrow at him. Usually men only singled her out if they were going to hit on her, and she was quick to put them in their place if they tried. She kept waiting for Khan to cross that line, but he hadn’t yet. It made her wary. What did he want from her?
“Did you need something, Agent Khan?” she asked.
His gaze wandered over her face a moment before he replied. “No. And call me Zaid.”
Okay, he was definitely attracted, but not being overt about it. Duly noted. She could play along for now.
She started toward him, her professional defenses firmly in place, ready to deflect the slightest hint of flirtation from him. “All right. Zaid.” When she stepped through the open doorway, the others were already at the far end of the hall, giving them some privacy. “So, you’re headed back to Bagram now?”
“That’s the plan.”
She could be friendly without encouraging him. She’d become good at that since joining the DEA. “How is your team doing? It’s always hard to be so far away from family during a big holiday.”
“They’re okay. I think a few are a little homesick, especially one guy who has a young daughter back home. How are you doing?” he asked as he kept pace beside her.
She blinked at him. “Me?” No one ever asked her that around here. “I’m fine.” She didn’t celebrate Christmas, but the season still made the distance from her family seem sharper. They might not agree on a lot of matters, but they still loved one another and she missed them. It was lonely over here.
He gave a slow nod, his intent inspection of her face more intimate than she was comfortable with. “You do long deployments over here. How long this time?”
“Just under eleven months now, not including that whirlwind trip to D.C. in April.” Where she’d first met him and his team at FAST headquarters in Arlington. The same night she’d canceled the date with online Zaid.
She was dying to know if it was him, but thought it best not to dredge it up in case it was. Talk about awkward. Hey, um, sorry for canceling last minute like that, but I thought you were an asshole.
“That’s a long time. I remember how it felt doing long stints like that back when I was in the army. Ever get homesick?” He reached past her to get the glass door that opened up into another hallway. He had nice manners. She was all for opening her own doors in life, but she liked it when men showed that kind of courtesy that seemed to be dying out in today’s society.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and walked through. “Sometimes. My family’s good about regularly sending me messages and emails, though, and I try to call home at least once a week. More if I can. You?”
“Same. Actually, my mom just sent me a container of my favorite homemade cookies.”
Jaliya smiled. “That’s sweet.” Her family had just sent her a card and a framed picture of all of them taken when she’d been home last. It was on the bedside table in her hotel room.
Zaid shrugged, a slight grin tugging at his mouth. “She spoils me.”
“And you love every second of it.”
“Yeah, I really do.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Why does that not surprise me?’
“Why should it? Everyone loves to be spoiled now and then. You saying you never get spoiled?”
“Sometimes by my mom. My father is…” What was the right word for him? “He’s complicated. We tend to butt heads a lot.” About pretty much everything except for the importance of education, hard work and family.
“And who usually wins?”
“Neither of us. I just carry on and do my own thing in spite of his disapproval.” She’d gotten used to it over the years.
“Ah. Does he disapprove of a lot?”
“You could say I’m the black sheep of the family.”
He frowned, eyeing her in surprise, as though he couldn’t quite believe it. “Really?”
She nodded. “I know he loves me. Mostly he dislikes my choice of vocation, and my lack of conformity to his expectations about how I should practice my faith. I’m way too liberal and secular for his liking, not to mention stubborn. Although I get that part from him.” She shrugged as if it didn’t bother her, but a part of her would always hate feeling at odds with her father.
“Well, I know how that goes. My parents wish I was more conservative and traditional when it comes to religion too.” He shot her a grin. “Although at this point, they’ve given up on trying to make me conform. I won.”
She returned the grin as they continued down the hallway. It was easier for him to buck tradition because he was a guy. “That must be nice.”
“Do you observe Ramadan?”
“I observe the fasting and charity, but the rest I’m not so strict about. You?”
“Same. Although when I’m deployed I can’t always follow the rules. I need to eat and drink when I can so I’m mission ready.”
That made perfect sense. “This year’s going to be a bugger.”
He rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it. Late May to the end of June? Worst time of the year for it to fall on. I’m dreading it.”
“It’s gonna be torture.” A month of no food or drink—not even water—from sunup ‘til sundown every day during the longest period of daylight in the entire calendar year was no joke.
“You can email me to whine if you want. Misery loves company.”
She shot him a grin. Religion was such a controversial, intensely personal thing, and she didn’t like having other people’s interpretations of it shoved down her throat. So maybe she and Zaid had more in common than she’d realized. She and online Zaid shared that too.
They reached the end of the hall and Zaid opened the door to the building’s underground car park. “You doing anything tonight?” he asked.
She glanced at him in surprise. He’d been careful not to stray into flirting territory thus far, but this was dangling right on the edge of it. “Working, trying to track down Barakat so I can drag him back here and get some real answers out of him.”
“You gonna waterboard him?”
She gave a soft laugh. “I may have fantasized about it.”
His eyebrows rose. “Wow. Hardcore.”
Her lips quirked in a small smile. “Well, he’s pissed me off. Lied straight to my face, the little wanker, and ran off with our money.”
“Wow, wanker, huh? Is that like, a serious slur in England?”
“Deadly serious.”
“Okay, but after you waterboard him. You’re free then, right?”
She shrugged. “Who knows how long it’ll take? I’ve never tortured anyone before.”
“Still. You can’t work all night.”
“Sure I can.” She’d pulled all-nighters quite a few times when an investigation became intense. Whatever it took to get the job done.
He gave her an exasperated look. “You must take breaks.”
She thought about it for a second. “When I’m working on something important? Not really. Why, what are you getting at?”
“We’re planning a get together tonight after dinner. Hamilton and I thought it would be a good idea to take everyone’s mind off being away from home at Christmas. We’re gonna break out a board game or two, have some pumpkin pie. You interested?”
She stopped walking. It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say, and it sure didn’t sound flirtatious. He hadn’t asked her to go somewhere alone, just the two of them. “Really? You want me to come?”
“Yeah, I do. It’ll be fun, and you deserve some downtime after the way this week’s gone. Even if it’s only an hour or two.”
Huh. Sounded casual and innocent enough. She’d made up her mind not to fraternize with any of them, but she’d been working nonstop for so long and a tiny break like that sounded fun. And when was the last tim
e she had any of that? “I do like pumpkin pie.”
“Do you like it with whipped cream, or plain?”
“Whipped cream, spread over the top in a layer at least an inch thick. I can’t stand it when people skimp on the whipped cream. I mean, why bother eating it then?”
“Okay, then I’ll make sure we have plenty of whipped cream, and…” He narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. “Chocolate?”
Oh, she loved that even more than pumpkin pie. “Maybe I will come,” she said, and resumed walking. “Where and when?”
“Seven, in the rec room at our barracks.”
“Your barracks?” She raised her eyebrows at him and he laughed.
“Don’t look at me like that. Bring someone from your team with you if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
It would. She’d have to find someone to go with her. “And the others won’t have a problem with me being there?”
“No, not at all. The more, the merrier.”
“Okay. I’ll see how things go with the case tonight. I’ve got someone out looking for Barakat now, trying to find whatever hole he slunk back into.”
“Poor bastard. I kinda feel bad for him. Waterboarding by an amateur is almost worse than when it’s done by an expert.” Zaid looked around the rows of parked cars. The air temperature down here was warmer than outside. “Which one are you?”
“Over there.” She pointed to where two members of her team were waiting with a driver next to a silver SUV. He walked her over to it. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him it wasn’t necessary for him to escort her, but she held back. His intentions seemed courteous and protective, not overbearing.
Her team members got into the back of the vehicle, still talking amongst themselves. Zaid opened the front passenger door for her and stepped out of the way to let her in. Her cheeks flushed even as she wondered why he was being so courteous. Because he was trying to win her over? Because he was being protective? She couldn’t figure him out, and the devilish glint in his eyes told her he enjoyed whatever game he was playing.