by Rachel Grant
The fact that Ian suspected Zack didn’t change the game. It just upped the stakes.
“Why aren’t we chasing them?” Todd Ganem asked from the passenger seat of the old British Land Rover. “You’re letting Cressida get away.”
Zack sighed. He was tired of dealing with Ganem’s inflated ego and foolish questions. The archaeologist’s loyalty remained unclear, but he’d been useful in drawing Cressida out of the hotel with a text message. That Hejan had given Todd’s cell phone number to Cressida and told her it belonged to her supposed guide had come as a surprise. Hejan had believed to his dying breath that Ganem was his ally. A fact Zack would do well to remember.
“You can’t chase in a Rover. But don’t worry, they’re going right where we want them. And by the time they get there, Ian Boyd will be the most wanted man in Turkey.” Zack put the Rover in gear and pulled onto the road. They’d follow at a distance. There’d be plenty of time to catch up when they reached the checkpoint. “It’s time for the Company’s favorite bastard to get burned.”
Not surprisingly, the checkpoint was quiet at two in the morning. The sleepy military guard requested their IDs with rote attention. Ian launched into his story of being mugged on their honeymoon in a mix of broken Turkish and English.
The Turkish soldier nodded for him to pull over to the side of the road. Without papers, a perfunctory examination of the vehicle was required.
He’d told Cressida they were pretending to be newlyweds visiting his ancestral villages. She stood by him next to the car, gripping his hand and leaning her head on his shoulder like a tired, besotted bride who’d just suffered an ordeal. That she could convey it all without speaking a word of Turkish impressed him. But then, she had been through an ordeal.
He brushed his lips across hers and suffered a pang that his life could never allow for a honeymoon with a woman like Cressida. He’d never considered himself a ’til-death-do-us-part type of guy, so it was a rare moment when he entertained such regrets. He’d decided years ago to share his twisted path with no one. He certainly wouldn’t punish a woman he cared about with a life of espionage.
The soldier asked him to open the trunk. He shined his flashlight on Ian’s suitcase—the one he’d carried on the flight and which contained only the innocuous contents needed for a business trip—Cressida’s suitcase and the backpack he’d grabbed in Kurubaş were tucked in the footwell of the backseat, and not likely to be examined in this token search. As a precaution, both guns were hidden under the driver’s seat. John Baker was licensed to carry in Turkey, but their plea of no papers meant he couldn’t prove it.
The soldier said he’d need to inspect the bag before they could be on their way. Ian hesitated, then decided not to attempt a bribe. The soldier seemed honest and showed no sign of intending to halt their journey. Ian plucked the suitcase from the trunk and handed it to the soldier.
The man nodded and carried the bag toward an inspection table.
Ian draped his arm around Cressida again and pressed another kiss to her temple. “We’re almost done, love.” That he whispered the endearment so only she could hear it blurred the lines between fiction and reality, but to her, he was John. Reality was far from twenty-twenty.
Several feet away, the guard unzipped the bag and began rifling through the contents. The man lifted a burner phone from the bag. “Your phone is ringing,” he said in Turkish.
Then Ian heard the ring. Old-fashioned—like a rotary dial phone from the seventies. But even creepier than hearing a phone that should be silent ring was knowing the phone should have been shut off completely.
He shouted a warning to the guard even as he tightened his arm around Cressida’s waist and pushed her toward the cover of the low ditch that lined the road. He pulled her against him and rolled to take the brunt of the impact. He finished a rotation, planting her beneath him to protect her from the coming explosion.
A massive boom rent the air.
Heat seared his exposed neck, and debris rained on his back. Sharp, hot granules moved with the speed of bullets and burned through his shirt.
Cressida groaned, a gurgle that sounded as if he’d knocked the wind out of her.
Pain sliced across his upper back as hot metal lit on his shoulder blade.
There must have been a bigger explosive in the suitcase than what would have fit inside the phone. The phone was just the trigger. But then, Zack had plenty of time to rig it while Ian enjoyed his dinner with Cressida.
He grunted and rose to his knees, dislodging the burning metal. He grabbed Cressida and dragged her to her feet as he stood. “Get in the car!” His own words were lost to the ringing in his ears.
She nodded and ran for the vehicle. He slid into the driver’s seat as she took her place on the passenger side. In seconds, they were back on the road, driving forward into the burning Eastern Anatolia night.
Chapter Fifteen
It seemed like John had been driving forever, but logic told Cressida it had been less than an hour since the explosion that must have killed the Turkish soldier. She wanted to think the explosion had nothing to do with her, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe the comforting lie.
Not anymore.
People didn’t blow up because of mistaken identity. People weren’t murdered in hotel rooms because of academic rivalry. No one could want the information she’d found on underground aqueducts that badly.
John’s theory, that the explosive was planted when the car was parked in the carport of the house near Kurubaş, made sense. It also explained the ease of their escape, even why they were smoked out to begin with.
Every time she thought about the soldier, she had trouble breathing. Was she to blame?
She couldn’t imagine why, or how, or what it had to do with her. Yet deep down she knew it was her fault. She cleared her throat and said, “The explosion—it will be all over the news. It will be labeled a terrorist attack, won’t it?”
“Yes. And that’s what it was.”
“How could it be? I’m so confused.”
“There is something you don’t know about Hejan Duhoki.”
She stiffened. He must have learned something when he called his boss at Raptor. “Something I need to know…and you’re just telling me now?”
“I didn’t say you need to know, just that you don’t know.”
“Goddammit! I have a right to know about Hejan!” She gritted her teeth. “Tell me everything you know.”
“I’m shocked you haven’t guessed.”
“Guessed what? That you’re an asshole keeping secrets?”
“Hejan Duhoki was an integral part of a terrorist network.”
“No.” Cressida’s voice was firm. She was in full denial, even after everything she’d witnessed, everything she knew to be true.
“Yes,” Ian said, sparing her no sympathy. He was too tired and in too much pain from the burns on his back to treat her with kid gloves. “He’s a known terrorist and was being watched.” Ian had to play this carefully. She still didn’t know who he was, and the Raptor cover could still hold up if he didn’t reveal too much. But how he revealed what he’d held back was going to be tricky.
A glance in her direction showed she’d fixed him with a tight-lipped stare. He faced the dark road in front of him. His shoulder burned. He’d only slept for four of the last forty-eight hours. And his assigned backup on this op was no mere traitor, he’d just deliberately killed a Turkish soldier in a way that would cast suspicion directly on Ian, while the woman at the center of it all wanted answers he couldn’t give.
He’d come to one inescapable conclusion: Zack must have monitored the checkpoint from a distance and had set off the bomb in such a way as to alert Ian—ensuring he and Cressida survived the blast. But to what end?
“What does any of this have to do with me?” Cressida said. “Hejan was a translator, not a”—her voice cut out, and she took in a breath—“terrorist. The university recommended him. He was a nice guy. He helped
me when Todd showed up.”
“Turkish authorities believe Hejan did the translation work for you because you were coming here, and he had something that needed delivering.”
“I had something? You mean, that’s why my purse was stolen? My room searched? Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”
Ian grimaced. He deserved every bit of her anger. “Because I wasn’t sure you weren’t involved. What did Hejan give you?”
“A map I paid him to translate,” she said with lessening heat. “He also recorded Kurdish and Turkish phrases for me on a digital recorder. He included specialized words and phrases an archaeologist searching for a lost aqueduct would need.”
“A digital recorder. USB?”
“Yes. It had a USB plug.”
“Those are storage drives too.”
“Sure. They’re backup drives, but I didn’t need that, because I didn’t bring my computer.”
“But that doesn’t mean Hejan didn’t save files on it.”
She leaned her head back against the seat with a wince. “I suppose. The recorder only lists audio files on the display. Because I never plugged it into a computer, I have no idea if there were non-audio files. You should have told me this when you first abducted me.”
He smiled at her accusation. “I never abducted you. I took you to a safer place.”
“A safer place—you mean the one with the smoke, or the roadside stop that blew up?”
“Touché. So…it appears one of my associates is playing for the wrong team. The house near Kurubaş was supposed to be safe.”
“The wrong team.” She paused. “You mean Keith has an operative who’s a traitor? We need to call him! I—”
Ian rolled down the window and chucked his cell phone out into the darkness before she could make a move for the phone.
“What is wrong with you? I know Keith. I know his home number—because I used to live there. If there’s anyone I know we can trust, it’s Keith Hatcher.”
Time to lay the lies on thick. He could throw a few truths in for good measure. “First, that phone was compromised. My associate has the number. I should have tossed it right after the explosion—I wasn’t thinking. Second, do you really think Keith Hatcher will listen to you when you tell him one of his employees is a traitor? You, a person who was arrested for grand larceny a few months ago? Your only proof of innocence was the fact that you have friends in high places.
“Do you really think Hatcher will listen to you above a trusted employee who has likely already informed him that you were in on the grand larceny theft with your ex-boyfriend all along? You can bet your ass that he’s already told Hatcher you met up with your supposed ex and a known terrorist in Antalya. Tell me, Cressida, how are you going to convince him when everything points to you?”
Chapter Sixteen
Cressida closed her eyes, as if that would block out John’s words. She rolled down the window and breathed the cool night air. Inky darkness shrouded the world a few feet beyond the car, hiding snow-covered peaks in the distance. She took a deep breath. The crisp, cool air indicated they’d risen in elevation since they were on the shores of Lake Van.
She glanced sideways at John. His features were no less handsome in profile as his intent gaze studied the road ahead.
Who is he?
Did it even matter? Right now, he was her only option. She might fail with him, but she’d definitely fail without him.
She cleared her throat. “I do think I can convince Keith. Trina’s a good friend. So is Mara Garrett—the attorney general’s wife—and Erica Kesling. I mean, Scott,” she corrected, not caring that John probably had no clue who she was talking about. In this moment of isolation and fear, she needed him to understand how important her friends were to her. They’d stood by her through the Todd fiasco, when her grad school friends—except Suzanne—had been ready to believe the worst.
So it stung to hear John say Keith wouldn’t believe her. Because if those friends didn’t trust her, she had no one. She shook her head against the wandering thoughts and said to the man sharing her small space in the universe, “Trina will believe me. Keith will listen to her.”
“I wish it were that simple, Cress.” John’s voice was softer, more sympathetic. “But some awful stuff has gone down, and you can bet your ass your reputation is being trashed right now. Mine too. Until we have a better grasp of what’s going on, we’re on our own.”
She hadn’t really considered what helping her had cost John. For all she knew, Keith was ready to fire him. He’d saved her life—two, three times?—in the last several hours. Her clothing was dirty and torn after the roadside explosion, but she hadn’t been injured. Or killed.
She reached up and touched John’s cheek. Middle-of-the-night shadow abraded her fingers. She’d thought him handsome on the flight and had alternated between attraction and distrust every moment since.
She traced his jaw, enjoying the feel of his skin, remembering the kiss in the elevator, and then in Kurubaş. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll tell Keith you’re one of the good guys.”
His hand dropped to her knee as he kept his gaze on the road. “Don’t worry about me. I can take it.” His fingers squeezed softly. “But right now, I’m exhausted. I have another place we can go to. No one knows about this one. It will be safe. I promise. Once we’re there, I’ll catch a few hours of rack time. Then we’ll continue to Batman.”
“Sounds good as long as there’s a bed.”
“Yes. One. It’s a studio apartment.”
Heat coiled in her belly. They’d share the bed, certainly. The only question was if they’d do anything other than sleep. It would be oh so easy to give in to the intense attraction. And after everything that had happened, making love with the man who’d saved her life repeatedly seemed more than inevitable. It might even be essential.
Dawn had broken across the steppe by the time Ian leaned against the door of the small studio apartment and let out a deep sigh of relief. Cressida dropped onto the bed, then flopped backward. She looked damn sexy splayed out like that, but that probably wasn’t her intent. Still, he could enjoy the view.
He grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge he’d stocked weeks ago and cracked it open. Chilled water had never tasted so good.
“Don’t bogart that bottle,” Cressida said. Her T-shirt rode up, exposing her flat belly. He was tempted to pour the water on her skin, then lap it from the pool.
He took a step toward her, intending to do just that. The attraction was mutual, and they’d both earned a break and physical release. Sure, he needed sleep, but it could wait. He stopped, remembering that when they’d kissed in Kurubaş, she called him John, which bothered him. She’d been kissing John while Ian kissed Cressida.
He didn’t want her as part of the job. He wanted her. And he’d be damned before he had sex with a woman he genuinely wanted while using John as an alias.
Of course, he’d never be able to tell her his real name or the real reason he’d ended up next to her on that flight. His job didn’t work that way. His life didn’t work that way, and being a covert operative was the only life for him. He wouldn’t do anything—ever—to jeopardize that. Not even fall in love.
Not that he could fall in love with Cressida—attraction, hell yeah. But love wasn’t possible. Not for him. She was part of a classified op and would never learn the truth. She’d be filed away at Langley. Another completed mission. The end.
Telling her his real name would compromise the mission, his job, his life. He couldn’t have sex with her, not unless he was John.
He handed her the bottle. She scooted up, still on her back but now leaning on a bent elbow, and took the half-full bottle. She emptied it in one long drink. “Do you have ibuprofen in that backpack?” she asked.
“Yes.” He dug into the bag and grabbed the painkiller.
She squinted at the Turkish label. “You sure this is ibuprofen?”
He nodded.
“How
good is your Turkish? You sounded convincingly bad at the checkpoint.”
“I can imitate broken Turkish with a bad accent or speak flawless Turkish when need be.”
“How? Your American accent is also perfect—generic, almost regionless. Except for one point at dinner, when you used the word ‘pop’ instead of soda.”
“My Midwest background slips through sometimes.”
“Are you from Illinois?”
“Good guess.” It was also a correct guess, but he’d have told her she was right no matter what she said.
“How does a boy from Illinois develop a flawless Turkish accent?”
“I have a good ear.”
She raised an eyebrow. “C’mon, we’re talking Turkish. Plus you speak Arabic. And Kurdish. Farsi too? They can’t be easy languages to learn, let alone master.”
It wasn’t like hiding the truth mattered. She’d never find John Baker because he didn’t exist. “I grew up in Chicago, in an area that has a large Turkish and Arab population. Most of the Arabs I knew growing up were Palestinian, but our next-door neighbors were Turkish on one side and Egyptian on the other. In the Turkish family, three generations lived in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. A boy my age was part of the third generation. He was my best friend. I practically lived in his noisy, crowded apartment.” She didn’t need to know why Altan’s apartment was preferable to his own.
“I picked up the language. When Babaanne—my friend, Altan’s, grandmother—overheard me talking with Altan in Turkish, she decided to teach me to read and write it. Later, in college, I majored in Middle Eastern studies and took classes in several other languages of the region. My Arabic is good but not flawless. My Farsi is passing.”
“And you took your language skills and Middle Eastern studies degree and got a job in private security?” Her eyes conveyed her skepticism.
Was she finally connecting those nagging dots?
“Actually, I joined the Army first. Served with Delta Force. The GI bill paid for my college education, post Army. Between my language skills, military experience, and understanding of the Middle East, private security was a logical choice.”