by Geri Krotow
As she continued to reread her notes, she realized that Brad, General Grimes and Mike had all replied with the same answer to any questions that concerned Farid’s village. Brad and Mike’s SEAL team had been instrumental in securing the village, but there was a lapse that evening, between the time they’d secured it and a full Marine force had come in and fortified what they’d accomplished. During those few hours, the Taliban had plundered the village.
“They told the villagers that if they were even suspected of talking to the Americans, their entire families would be tortured and killed.”—Lieutenant Michael J. Rubio, USN
“It was heartbreaking to see Farid’s entire extended family harmed in one fashion or another by the Taliban after we’d promised them they were safe.”—Senior Chief Petty Officer Bradley Iverson, USN
“It’s a peril of war. We can’t always protect those who need it most.”—Major General Jeremiah Grimes, USMC
Hands shaking, she highlighted her own written reactions. After the trial, she’d found out that the members of Farid’s family who’d survived had been given political refugee status and allowed entry to the US. Like Farid, they were offered safety under the WSP, but whether they’d accepted it or not she didn’t know.
She’d have to call Dennis and thank him profusely. He didn’t realize it, but by copying what he knew was pertinent, he’d helped her focus on an area that would’ve taken her hours to get to otherwise.
A chill of premonition raised goose bumps on her arms, despite the warmth of the car. Cracking the mystery of the international terrorist who was—presumably—behind this domestic cell wasn’t a job for sissies.
She longed for Brad to be here. She needed his expertise, wanted to bounce her thoughts off him. There was no one else she could trust to discuss this with...except for a former boss and mentor, Helen Bolling. But she hadn’t contacted Helen since she’d decided to resign her commission. Besides, this wasn’t anything she felt comfortable discussing over the phone.
“Great place for a break, isn’t it?” Paul’s voice yanked her from her disturbing thoughts, and she discovered him leaning into her open window. She smiled and tried to act nonchalant as she shoved her case notes into a plain canvas grocery tote.
“It’s fabulous. I didn’t know there was a place like this to eat lunch and work.” She jerked her thumb toward the deck as she raised her windows and opened her door.
Paul straightened as she got out of the car. “We had that put on this spring. Since so much of what we do is on laptops, I thought it’d be nice. Next year I’d like to add an awning, maybe screen it in, so we can use it when it rains, too.”
She managed a laugh.
“I’d love that at my house, too. I do have a sunroom, but I’m not planning to put screens in—too windy.”
“You’re on the shore, right?”
“Yes. I lucked out, that’s for sure. Found a smaller place that fit my budget.” Even so, it had taken most of her savings.
“It’s all in the timing.” They walked back to the building, and Joy felt like the lowest worm. Paul was the most gracious man, and he was her boss. She felt blessed. And how did she repay him?
By sneaking around and lying during her first couple of days on the job.
Back inside and sitting at her desk, she vowed to make a dent in her newly assigned caseload. Serena was still outside on the deck, and the office was blissfully quiet, unlike her mind. Joy became immersed in her civilian work, which was a welcome break after reliving the Norfolk case.
“Joy?” Serena called her from the office door, keeping her voice low.
“Hi, Serena. What’s up?”
“There are three men here to talk to you.” Serena took a half step into Joy’s office. “They’re some kind of law enforcement. FBI or maybe NCIS. They didn’t say.”
“Really? Okay.” Doing her best to look surprised, she got to her feet and smiled. “Probably about what happened offshore yesterday.”
Serena nodded. “You have a view of West Beach and the water, don’t you?”
“Yes. It’s usually a beautiful scene, but yesterday it was a little more exciting than usual.”
“They don’t seem to have learned anything new, at least according to CNN.”
“Are the agents in the conference room?”
“Yes.” Serena sat down at her desk. Joy wished she could explain it all to her; she seemed level-headed and didn’t have any of the emotional involvement that could be skewing Joy’s own judgment. She sighed. There’d be plenty of time for explanations later, after she and Brad had figured out the who and why of his predicament.
As she walked down the short hallway, she braced herself, trying to appear as noncommittal and professional as possible. There was a good chance one of the men in the conference room was Mike Rubio, whom she’d met in Norfolk, during the trial. Until she had more answers, everyone was a suspect.
She entered the firm’s meeting room. “Joy Alexander?” A tall blond man with dark eyes flashed his badge at her. Joy leaned in far enough to see that he was FBI.
“I’m Agent Barrett, and these are Agents Cruise and Gordon. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Sure. Have a seat.” She sat in one of the leather-cushioned chairs, forcing them to sit, too. Reminding them that they were on her turf. Or her boss’s, at any rate.
“What is your relationship with Bradley Iverson?”
She blinked, tilted her head. Thank God for her interest in theater. She’d started to brush up on her skills lately, hoping for a role in one of the community performances once she was more settled. Otherwise she would’ve started to sweat.
“Do you mean Chief Iverson? The SEAL?”
Agent Barrett’s eyes narrowed, and she saw his nostrils flare. Not stupid, this one. He didn’t appreciate her playing stupid, either.
“Yes.”
Hoping to score points with the other two agents, she looked at each of them and smiled. “Is he always this warm and hospitable?”
Agent Cruise didn’t flinch, but she caught the twitch at the corner of Agent Gordon’s mouth.
Score!
“Answer the question, Ms. Alexander.”
She made a point of glancing at her watch. “Drawing on my Navy experience, shouldn’t you be asking these questions on base? Wouldn’t the base or persons related to the base be the obvious targets of a terrorist act?”
Agent Barrett didn’t move, but she had the distinct impression that he wished he could reach across the table and force her to focus on his questions.
She sighed audibly. “Yes, of course I know Brad. We worked together on the Farid case almost two years ago. He was getting out, wasn’t he? Said something about wanting to start his own business.”
It was scary, how easily the lies came once she started.
“A business?”
“Yes, he talked about a used bookstore that specialized in military history and fiction.”
“When was the last time you saw him, Ms. Alexander?” Agent Cruise’s jovial tone validated her guess that he was the “good cop.”
“Let’s see, we finished the case and I left Norfolk the next day. That was last year—maybe thirteen months ago.”
“We have reason to believe Iverson was near your property within the last twenty-four hours. Have you seen him?”
Agent Garrett wasn’t screwing around.
Neither was she. Not with Brad’s life. Or this op, which had undeniably become her op, too.
“Why would I see him? We’ve had no contact since the trial.”
“Did you witness anything out of the ordinary on the beach yesterday morning?”
“Besides two Growlers, a P-8 and a P-3 overflying my house, followed shortly after by an explosion that could be terrorist related? No.”
“Did you report what you saw, Ms. Alexander?” Agent Barrett’s method was familiar to her but no less annoying. She had the distinct impression that he suspected Brad had been in her home. But he
had no evidence. The fake OHPD officers who’d shown up at her door had not seen Brad. Even a heat signature wasn’t proof that Brad had been the person staying at her place.
“Yes. I spoke to an officer from the Oak Harbor PD yesterday, right after I saw the explosion. Officer Katie Dade, if memory serves.” She looked at them as if that should end the conversation. Agent Barrett kept staring at her.
“Then I saw the media reports and realized I didn’t have anything to add to the observations—it seems we all saw the same thing.” Thank God General Grimes had flicked on his TV. She’d recognized several of her neighbors speaking to reporters.
“Did you notice anything unusual last night? Any attempt by anyone to enter your home?”
“No, except for the Oak Harbor Police Department showing up in the middle of the night, claiming they had reports of an assailant in the area. I told them I’d had no problems.”
At least that was truthful.
“OHPD?” Agent Cruise’s comment received a sharp look from Agent Barrett, while Agent Gordon’s face remained stoic.
Judging by their reactions, her assumption about the OHPD “team” who’d shown up at her door last night was correct. Moreover, they must’ve been FBI if these agents knew about it. Agencies didn’t always share information when it came to undercover ops. Hadn’t Brad said as much?
“Yes.” She kept still, playing the part of innocent bystander to the best of her ability.
Agent Barrett flipped a business card in front of her. “Call me if you remember anything else.”
“Will do.”
They all rose, and Joy smiled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful, gentlemen.”
“Are you?” Agent Barrett’s eyes missed nothing. She wondered if he saw the route she’d already worked out in her mind to reach Brad. Hopefully before these guys got to him. Her concern over their taking Brad into custody, if only to get him back to his office in Seattle, remained paramount. She was determined to help him find his answers and close out this case before he had to go back to his desk job. She wanted him to be able to close out the case properly.
With the bad guys behind bars.
“Yes, Agent Barrett, I am.”
She held his gaze until he turned and left the room. Agent Cruise followed. Agent Gordon paused at the threshold and winked at her.
“It’s been a long two days,” he said.
Joy nodded and gave him an understanding smile.
Only after she was sure they were gone did she make a beeline for her desk. Her fingers burned to call Brad.
A memory of her and Brad hunched over Farid’s printed testimony flickered in her mind, and she found herself yearning for the synchronicity they’d experienced during the case. The two of them had been a solid team, and against all evidence to the contrary, they’d freed Farid. It was a shared history that would bind them forever, regardless of what happened over the next few hours and days.
But if Grimes was correct and Farid turned out to be a double agent, they’d both been duped. And they could both be dead before they had a chance to rectify their misjudgment.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AS THE WORKDAY came to a close, lawyers and administrative staff left the building with a quick “See you in the morning!” or “Don’t work too hard!”
Joy stayed. She needed the quiet and the solitude to finish going over her notes from the Farid case. Taking them home didn’t feel right. At least here she was on neutral territory and not likely to be bothered.
And when she was done with them she could use the state-of-the-art shredder in the supply room.
She gripped the edge of the desk as she stared at her notes. She hadn’t read another word since she’d found what she’d suspected was here. Proof that Brad might have been targeted by some unknown person from Farid’s village since the very start of this horrible, horrible mess.
The office seemed to close in around her, reminding her to breathe in the confined space. How could she have missed this?
Right there, in the transcript of the testimony Farid had given them. Farid’s innocence was unmistakable; he’d done what he could to save his family’s village, to protect the only way of life he knew.
She’d forgotten how decisively Farid’s family had disowned him once he spoke to the US Marines. He’d told her that, told the court, but she’d been so focused on clearing him, on making sure his few brief conversations with one Taliban insurgent didn’t affect his status. Farid had passed the correct intelligence to Brad’s SEAL team so the Taliban could be driven from the village.
She still wanted to do some sleuthing on Grimes, just in case something had happened on his watch in Afghanistan, something that was his fault. She doubted it at this point but couldn’t afford to leave anything unexamined.
* * *
“THERE ARE THINGS—people, places, causes, forces—bigger than we are, Iverson.” General Grimes sat in one of the crude chairs that surrounded the equally primitive dining table in the center of the great room. Brad had no doubt that Grimes had built the place himself. They’d shared a simple lunch of canned tuna, mayo and white bread that reminded Brad of the meals his grandparents had served when he’d spent weekends with them. Unlike his grandparents, though, Grimes was all business, no warmth.
Brad hadn’t come here to grip and grin. “You retired to the middle of nowhere, General. Why didn’t you stay in DC as a consultant or part of a think tank?”
“You’re joking, Iverson, aren’t you?” Grimes’s mouth bent into an inverted U.
Brad shrugged. “You could be making a nice paycheck after all the years of serving Uncle Sam and risking your life.”
“I didn’t get into the Marines to make money. You obviously didn’t, either, if you traded in your uniform for a shiny badge. You could be a consultant, too.”
Brad made a point of glancing around the house. “You look like you’re living lean, General.”
“Simple’s how I like it.”
“Didn’t you ever want to have a family, kids?”
“I have a daughter.”
Brad studied the older man’s face for any sign of emotion. Just when he’d concluded that Grimes was carved from granite, the General spoke.
“I was married to a beautiful woman for the first ten years of my career. We were blessed with a lovely daughter. She’s in her twenties, an adult on her own. My wife—she died.”
“I’m sorry.”
General’s jaw muscles tightened, and his posture made him once again resemble a statue.
“She got cancer. Ovarian. By the time they caught it, there weren’t any treatments she was eligible for. Back then they didn’t have good diagnostics. From what I read, it hasn’t improved much. It was a tough time.”
His lips barely moved.
Brad cleared his throat. Words were superfluous.
Grimes toyed with the corner of the table. “I made it back from a training exercise in time to hold her hand through the last of it. She was in a coma by then, and I don’t know if she even realized I was there. I’d tried to get leave. Hell, I tried to resign my commission. Neither were approved. I shipped out to Okinawa two days after the funeral.”
“Who took care of your daughter?”
“She came with me. She was a toddler and learned Japanese fluently.”
Grimes slammed both palms on the table with an explosive force reminiscent of the split-second orders regularly issued in boot camp training. To keep the new recruits under control.
“Any more questions about my shadowed past, Agent Iverson?”
So now he’d promoted him to a field agent, at least.
“No, sir. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”
Grimes shook his head. “That was a long time ago. It’s for the best I never married again. Too much trouble to bring another woman into our family and expect her to measure up, to maintain the pace I had to keep. My daughter did fine, but she didn’t know any other life.”
He felt compa
ssion, although Grimes didn’t strike him as the type to compromise, to meet any woman halfway. Yet the most successful military members, male or female, often had strong marriages to support them. Brad hadn’t met many Navy or Marine Corps families who were screwed up and dysfunctional, the way the media often portrayed. Instead, he’d found his friends’ families to be more tight-knit from going through the deployments and duty station moves together.
“Are you originally from here, General?”
“I grew up on a potato farm in Idaho. Enlisted at the tail end of Vietnam when I was seventeen and never looked back. After a tour in California, I used the GI Bill to go to college in Texas. Figured out I liked working with ground pounders, so I stayed in infantry and went on from there.”
Grimes stood and carried his mug to the sink. He rinsed it then looked out the window.
“I met Amanda when I was in college. She was a year ahead of me but four years younger. A beautiful girl.” He shook his head as if ridding himself of a memory too painful to entertain.
Brad’s hands itched to go and pat the old dude on the back, reassure him that he’d be okay.
But he wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
This was a US Marine Corps General. Retired made no difference; he was a lifer and every inch the Marine he’d always been. He never asked anyone for help or direction. It was in his DNA to call the shots, give the orders.
Brad walked over to the sink with his mug. Grimes turned to look at him, eyes blazing with emotion and a begrudging respect.
“Don’t be as stupid as I was, Iverson. Enjoy whatever relationships you can while you can get them. ’Course, you got out. It might be easier for you now.” Grimes spat the words as if they were poison.
“Getting out isn’t a bad thing. And I’m still serving my country.”
“Looks like it’s doing you a lot of good, too.”
They both laughed. Brad felt more at ease with Grimes than he ever would, in all likelihood, feel again. His internal warning system wouldn’t stop pinging, however. The same way it did before a mission was about to go sour.