Night Hush

by Leslie Jones

  Jace set the tray and coffee cups down and handed a sandwich to Hugo Bisantz, who accepted it with a surprised look. “Thank you for thinking of us, sir.”

  Heather sat beside Na’il, speaking to him in a quiet voice, her body language open and encouraging. Jace took a few moments simply to look at her. Long auburn hair hung down her back, with enough wave to make his hands itch to run his fingers through it. Her amazing blue eyes were serious as she listened to the injured man. Her oval face was classically beautiful, her nose adorable. Casual jeans and a stretchy top accentuated her long waist and those long, long legs he wanted wrapped around him. And just like that, he was hard again.

  Trevor finally came back inside. He spoke quietly to Gunnery Sergeant Bisantz just before the Marine guard disappeared out the door. “The sergeant is finding us a room where we can talk.” He thrust out a hand. “Trevor Carswell. I’m with the 22nd Special Air Ser­vice. Don’t know if you remember me from Shelby’s briefing last week.”

  “Jace Reed. First Special Forces Operational Detachment-­Delta.”

  “That’s what I thought. What’s your connection here?” Trevor’s gaze followed Jace’s to land on Heather. “Ah.”

  “I’m escorting Lieutenant Langstrom, that’s all.” But he looked hard at the other man.

  The Marine came back into the room. “Ladies and gentlemen. If you’ll follow me, please.” The three of them, followed by Christina, trooped out of the critical care area and into an unoccupied private room. “The prisoner will stay in my custody until I’m instructed otherwise,” Sergeant Bisantz said. “From this point forward, only authorized personnel will be permitted into his room. This space is for your use indefinitely.” He left.

  “Well,” said Heather. “Na’il is definitely hiding something. He won’t answer any questions about the case with the vials. He insists he didn’t open the courier’s case. He is distant and hostile.” She looked at Trevor and Christina. “Where do you fit in?”

  Trevor introduced himself again. “Biochemical weapons. I’m taking the vials to the lab in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The helicopter will be here in thirteen minutes.”

  Christina stepped forward and offered her hand. “Christina Madison. CIA, but currently on assignment with the British Education Foundation, so if you could avoid mentioning me at all, that would be good.”

  Heather shook it and turned to Jace. “He’s in bad shape. The doctor isn’t certain he’ll survive the night. Whatever information we get from him, we’ll have to do it fast. So far, he’s not cooperating.”

  Jace thought for a moment. “Who does he know at the embassy that we can talk to? Can we compile a list of friends and associates? Talk to his family?”

  Trevor cleared his throat. “Shelby can probably help us with that. She’s one of the deputy political counselors. She should still be in the hospital.”

  Jace doubted that. More likely, Shelby had made a beeline out of there after she ended her argument with Trevor. He slid an assessing glance over Christina. Yep, those were definitely men’s clothes. Amusement glittered in his eyes as he considered various scenarios that could have landed Trevor in his current predicament.

  Christina intercepted his look and grimaced. “For the past two weeks, I’ve been a guest of the conservative Ma’ar ye zhad secret police. Keepers of the old ways, which is another way of saying repressive, oppressive, misogynistic control freaks.”

  Heather blanched.

  Jace was instantly at her side, gripping her arm lightly. “You okay? You need to sit down?”

  Heather shook her head and pulled away from him. “No, I’m . . . I’m fine.”

  Christina cocked her head, puzzlement flitting across her face. It cleared quickly. “Hey, I recognize you now. You . . .” She stopped, clearly ill at ease.

  Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Heather forced a laugh. “Was also a guest, of sorts. Two weeks? I was only a prisoner for four days, and it seemed like a lifetime.”

  Christina whistled between her teeth. “Hey, they just detained me. I was never charged. Someone didn’t like who I was talking to. That’s not the same as being a POW. I listened to the interview you did for NPR. It was . . . well.” She blew out a hard breath. “I at least got three squares and a reasonably comfortable cot.”

  Heather’s face lost even more color, and she swayed. Ignoring the others in the room, Jace pulled her into his arms and held her. Something Christina had said made her react—­the cot? Was that it? The implication had Jace gritting his teeth, the urge to hunt down and kill every man who had touched Heather strong enough to make him tremble with the force of it. She’d insisted that she hadn’t been raped, but he still didn’t know exactly what had happened while she’d been held captive. He swallowed hard.

  Christina said something about not being allowed to use the telephone until someone decided to wake her in the middle of the night and return her cell phone to her. “I need to maintain my cover as a British aid worker, but I can’t involve the Foundation in any way. Their reputation here has to be spotless, or they won’t be invited back in. That was the deal . . . if I ran into any trouble, I was on my own. You know—­‘the secretary will disavow any knowledge . . . ?’ ” She raked long fingernails through her curls, fluffing her hair. When she was done, it looked exactly the same to Jace. “So I called my old buddy Trevor for a local contact. I couldn’t believe it when he said he was here. My lucky day!” She beamed at Trevor, who smiled back at her with affection.

  Jace realized he was staring down at Heather’s mouth, moving closer. She stopped him with a slight headshake and gently pulled out of his arms. He immediately missed her warmth.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered to him.

  Fine? No, she wasn’t. But he couldn’t take the time to probe for more information. They had a puzzle to solve.

  Trevor picked up the mysterious case. “Time for me to head for the roof. Let’s get some answers.” He started to leave, then stopped short, a strange look crossing his face as he looked at Christina. “Uh . . . where do you need to be, princess? Back at your hotel?”

  She looked surprised. “Oh. Yes, eventually. But if it’s all right . . . that is, if either of you are going anywhere near the embassy, I sure would be grateful for a ride.” She divided a hopeful glance between Heather and Jace. “I should check in with Jay.”

  Jay Spicer, the CIA station chief. Jace remembered him from the Secret Ser­vice briefing. “We have a car. The driver can drop you there,” he said. “We might be here awhile.”

  Christina exited with Trevor. It was quiet in the room after they left. Jace kept an eye on Heather. “Are you all right?”

  She rotated her neck, trying to work the kinks out. “I wish ­people would stop asking me that.”

  He grasped her shoulders and turned her. When he settled his hands on her shoulders, she tensed, then calmed. He kneaded her trapezius, pressing the muscles to loosen them. It took several minutes, but she finally relaxed, allowing him to massage her neck and the base of her skull. A tiny moan slipped out, and his heart leapt in triumph as she melted against him.

  “You have magic hands.”

  “And don’t you forget it.” He kept his tone light, teasing, knowing she remained one touch away from bolting. It was too soon after her desert experiences. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from stroking his fingers through her hair. It felt amazing, soft and supple and almost alive. He dropped his nose to her neck to inhale. She smelled like cherry blossoms. His mouth watered.

  Her head tilted forward, giving him better access. “I should get back to Na’il,” she whispered.

  “In a minute,” he murmured. “Let me hold you.” He slid his arms around her waist and spooned her, surrounding her as much as he was able with his strength, his warmth. He rested his chin on her shoulder.

  She turned in his arms, surprising him. For long moments, they simply stared
at one another, awareness sizzling between them. She cupped his cheeks with her palms, but made no other move. He covered one of her hands with his own, bringing it down to rest over his heart.

  “Heather . . .”

  “Shhh.”

  Her other thumb stroked against his bottom lip. He turned his head, capturing it and drawing it into his mouth. He sucked gently, scraping his teeth across the sensitive pad. She shivered. The naked longing in her eyes nearly undid him.

  It took every ounce of self-­control he possessed to let her go when she stepped back. She looked down, her cheeks reddening. “You should go back to base.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  When she met his gaze again, the soldier was firmly in place, the warm, desirous woman nowhere to be found. “You’re a distraction I don’t need, and even if you have nothing better to do at the moment, I have a job to do.”

  Stung, he slouched back, lips tightening. He jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, then immediately yanked them out again. “I’m also doing a job, Lieutenant,” he bit out. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, that man in there”—­he jabbed a finger in the general direction of Na’il’s room—­“might be planning an attack against the President of the United States. And my unit is supporting the Secret Ser­vice for the duration of his visit. I’m here as their representative.”

  He pushed past her and started out the door, smarting from her sudden turnabout. “Let me know if you learn something.”

  Chapter Twenty-­Three

  September 6. 9:00 A.M.

  US Embassy, Ma’ar ye zhad, Azakistan

  HEATHER’S GUIDE BROUGHT her to Na’il Fakhoury’s cubicle and left her there with a cheerful farewell. She probably shouldn’t have presumed to come to the embassy to investigate Na’il’s belongings. Her contribution to this mission lay in her Turkish language skills, nothing more. But she’d had nothing else to do with her time, and no way back to al-­Zadr without Jace.

  She frowned. He’d disappeared after Na’il died this morning. They had barely spoken during the hours she’d sat at the courier’s bedside. At one point he’d brought her food; another, insisted she shower and change into fresh clothes. She wished now she hadn’t shut him down so hard yesterday. He’d done nothing wrong; her own fear had caused her retreat. Fear of liking him too much. Fear of getting involved with another soldier. It never ended well.

  Heather sifted through the contents of Na’il Fakhoury’s cubicle. Like the dozen others on the first floor of the embassy, the six-­by-­six space was walled on two sides, with a half partition on the third. It boasted a computer on an L-­shaped desk, a wall shelf, a small filing cabinet tucked underneath, and nothing else. No posters. No plants. The boy had been obsessively neat. A few personal pictures—­a group shot, and two of a girl who was most likely his sister, based on their strong resemblance—­and a calendar, detailing his work schedule. Nothing in the filing cabinet except napkins and ketchup packets.

  There wasn’t a shred of anything useful to be found. Hopefully, there would be something in the computer itself. She logged in using the administrator password she had been given.

  Again, there was very little on the computer. No personal files, no documents conveniently entitled, “Plans to blow up the president.” His email was, likewise, virtually empty. Most of the missives tended to be general embassy notifications.

  His browser’s home page was set to Yahoo mail. On a hunch, she called up to IT security.

  “Fellars, here.”

  Heather identified herself. “Can you crack the username and password on a Yahoo mail account?”

  “No, ma’am. We don’t usually run a keystroke logger. At least not on every machine. But . . . where did you say you were?”

  She told him.

  “We’ve monitored that system for two months, maybe three,” Fellars told her. “For contract fraud. Money being funneled out under pretense . . . Let me check. Yes, among other things, we installed a keystroke logger. Give me a second to search through . . . here we go.” He read off a user name and password combination. “It repeats a number of times. Is that it?”

  Heather typed it in. Don’t get too excited, girl, she told herself. Someone as careful as Na’il probably wouldn’t leave anything incriminating. An inbox icon appeared. “Yes. That’s it. Thank you.”

  She disconnected and scrolled through a number of emails in the inbox. Direct-­mail medications, low mortgage rates, Viagra. Natural male enhancement. Sexy, hot girls looking for a good time. How did this junk get through the spam filters?

  On a hunch, she clicked over to the Drafts folder. And struck gold.

  There were four messages.

  One immediately caught her eye. It was addressed to Na’il. The Sent From field was blank. She clicked on it.

  “Delivery to Zaahir al-­Farouk on 5 September at 0600, at the Starbucks at Kahraba Almarkiz.” That was it. A lowercase letter N had been typed in below the message.

  It was an old trick.

  Christina joined her at the desk. “Found anything?”

  “Oh, hey,” said Heather. “Where did you come from?”

  Christina settled a hip on the desk. “Looks like we had the same idea. I’m here to talk to Jay Spicer about the SCUD’s warhead your rescue team decommissioned. He can’t see me for a bit, so I thought I’d take a chance and see what I could ferret out here. How’s Na’il?”

  Heather just shook her head. “He died two hours ago.”

  “Damn it! Did he say anything?”

  Heather blew out a breath. “Nothing except terrorist rhetoric.” A heavy weight settled onto her shoulders. “A confession would have been too easy, I guess. On the good-­news end, I found something interesting on his computer. A free mail account with draft messages. Four of them.”

  Lines appeared between Christina’s brows. “Huh? Drafts?”

  Heather pulled the other woman over and showed her the screen. “Since rumors of Echelon, it’s become a trick terrorists use to communicate securely with one another. Terrorist Cell A sets up a free email account. Rather than use it to send messages back and forth, however, every member of the cell has the same user name and password. Since sent email is subject to interception, no mail is ever sent. Instead, Cell A leader types up messages for each member and saves them as drafts. Each member of the cell logs in, reads his or her own instructions, and puts an initial or a word or whatever at the bottom, or in the subject line, to tell the cell leader he’s read and understands his instructions.” Heather grinned. “And I just found four of them.”

  Christina’s eyes lit up. “Do they give us a plan?”

  “One is for Na’il. A date and time for a meet-­up. He missed it.”

  Christina pointed to the red light blinking on the telephone, indicating new voice mail. “We’ll have to check that out, too.”

  “Good call. I didn’t see that.” Heather called back the security guy. “Can you send someone up who can retrieve a voice mail?”

  “Sure.”

  While they waited, Heather opened the other three messages. All of them listed dates, times, and a contact name. All but one had an initial typed in at the bottom. The dates ranged from three weeks prior all the way to Na’il’s meeting yesterday morning. The presumably unread message’s date was for five days hence, the day of the president’s visit: Pick up transportation vehicle on September 11 at 9:00 A.M. Link up with me by 11:00 A.M., the Arabic symbols read.

  Heather’s eyes widened. “That’s proof! They were planning an attack on the president!”

  Christina fluffed her hair with her nails. “We’ll need to get this to the Secret Ser­vice ASAP. What vehicle, and where is he picking it up from? And linking up where? The base?”

  “It has to be. They must have found a way to get onto al-­Zadr.” The possibility the vehicle might contain th
e warhead for the SCUD intrigued Heather, but she discarded the idea after a moment of thought. “When was this email written? Maybe they don’t know the SCUD is out of commission.”

  The communications tech arrived. He lifted the telephone receiver, punched in a long stream of numbers, listened for a moment, then handed the receiver to Heather.

  A male voice snarled into the phone in Arabic. Heather pressed the speakerphone button, and the harsh voice resounded through the tiny cubicle. She blanched and gripped the edge of the desk with both hands.

  “That’s him. The man from the Kongra-­Gel training camp.” She took in a lot of air and exhaled hard. “Run it back.”

  Christina restarted the message.

  “Where the hell are you?” Heather translated. “You missed your delivery. You better meet me tomorrow, same time, or you will meet Allah earlier than we planned.” The sound of a receiver being slammed back into its cradle, then silence.

  The two women stared at one another.

  “Well,” Christina finally said. “How about that.”

  Heather shivered with excitement. She had a chance to catch the cell leader! Then she sobered. The odds of her being allowed anywhere near this were slim. Technically, she should be at home resting. Still, she was involved now. She could still be of use.

  Heather realized Christina was speaking, and forced herself to listen. “ . . . where they’re supposed to meet. If we can get local police there, surround the place . . .”

  “We don’t know where the meet-­up was supposed to be,” Heather interrupted. “And even if we did, that won’t help us. We lose control immediately. The Azakistani police would want to question him themselves, and we’d be shut out.”

  Christina sighed. “I have to brief my boss anyway. Let’s bite the bullet and see what he says.”

  JAY SPICER SIMPLY looked at them.

  “Sir,” Christina Madison tried again, “the SCUD, the vials the courier carried, and now these messages. I think we have to acknowledge the Kongra-­Gel terrorists might have a Plan B. It merits an investigation, surely.”