Night Hush

by Leslie Jones

  “I vote we add that to the can-­do list, too,” she told him. “Immediately.”

  Jace laughed, touching her hair with gentle hands, pushing it back behind her ears. “How about in, oh, say, fifteen minutes?” He ran light fingers down her back to her rear, stroking it and cupping it in one large hand. “Make that ten.”

  Heather let herself enjoy laying entwined in his arms. It was like coming home; completely natural, like she belonged there and nowhere else. Jace moved, though, getting rid of the condom and cleaning himself up. The chill penetrated her fulfillment. When he came back to the bed, her mood had darkened. Even when Jace scooped her back into his arms, even when her head was pillowed on his chest, the mood was broken.

  Yes, he had made her forget. She had known he would be able to do it. It had been incredible—­breath-­stealing—­but now the press of tears was hot behind her eyes as reality reared its ugly head.

  Heather cleared her throat, cleared it again. Realizing she was tense as a board, she tried to relax her muscles. She couldn’t stop the images swirling through her head. Jace’s chest rose and fell evenly beneath her ear. Shouldn’t she let him get some sleep? He had to be at work in a few short hours. But then he spoke.

  “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head. Well, yes, but it was not a physical cold. Was she really going to do this? She blew out a breath, hard.

  “I was held in a cell,” she started. If Jace was surprised, he gave no indication of it. He didn’t so much as twitch a muscle to let her know he listened. It was just as well. If he had said anything at all, she wouldn’t have been able to continue.

  “There was no way out. There was a guard at the door, and another one down the hall. I heard them talking all the time.” That was the easy part to say. “They tied my hands. To keep me off balance.” Literally and figuratively. That, and the blindfold, and the jeering comments the guards had thrown at her. “The man who was . . . in charge of my interrogation was . . .” A brute. Cruel. “He was in charge of the camp while Sheik al-­Hassid was gone. He liked throwing his weight around. He . . . liked throwing me around, too.” She swallowed audibly. Could she squeeze the words past the constriction in her throat?

  Jace began to stroke along her back. Up and down, lulling, soothing. His steady heartbeat under her ear gave her the courage she needed to continue.

  “He would leave for a while, and whenever he came back, he was mad. It was as though someone else wanted to know if he’d gotten the information out of me yet, and it pissed him off that he had to say no.” She tried breathing through her nose. Maybe that would be easier. “He, um, would pin me into a corner.” She started shaking, a fine tremor through her limbs she couldn’t control. Jace flipped the blankets up and over her, pulling her more firmly into his own heat.

  “He would take off the blindfold so I could see him.” But not the ropes. He knew she could fight from the ambush site when she’d broken his nose. It had been he who had knocked her out with one blow. “And he would. Um. Press up against me. Rub, you know, himself against me. He did it to intimidate me.” No, be honest. “Well, he wanted me, too. It infuriated him, wanting an infidel, so he punished me. And he . . .” Her voice broke.

  Jace worked hard to keep his voice even, but she knew him well enough to know he was feeling anything but calm. “You don’t have to.”

  But she did. “If I don’t now, I never will.” She was silent for a while. Jace just continued to hold her, pretending he couldn’t feel the dampness of her tears on his skin.

  “I slept on the floor.”

  She could sense he didn’t understand. Shifting a little, Jace brushed a kiss across her temple. “At the hospital, when Christina Madison said she’d had a cot to sleep on, you got really tense.”

  She remembered. In fact, she’d gotten so lightheaded she’d been afraid she would pass out. She cleared her throat again.

  “Yeah.” She exhaled. “Because . . . there was a cot. In my cell. Too.” She closed her eyes, but that only made it worse. Underneath her, Jace was tight as a bowstring. What was he feeling? Some minor version of the fury burning in her own heart?

  “You said . . . Jesus, Heather. Put me out of my misery, here. Did he rape you?”

  She shook her head. “Not . . . exactly.” God, did this have to be so hard to say?

  “What the fu . . . what does that mean? Not exactly?” He sounded pissed, and his breathing had grown harsh. But he tried to temper his reaction; she pulled away from him, and he immediately stilled his body. Slowed his breathing. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I just . . . It’s making me crazy, not knowing.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just hard.”

  “No. God. You . . . this is harder for you to say than it is for me to hear. And if you’ve got the grit to say it, I’d damned well better have the grit to hear it.”

  That quiet statement gave her the courage to continue. He thought she was brave—­little did he know how her insides quivered, even now.

  She cleared her throat, for what felt like the umpteenth time. Her vocal cords just didn’t want to work right.

  “The cot . . . he pushed me down onto it.” The tears slipped out faster now. Jace rubbed circles on her back, his touch neither light nor gentle. He fisted his other hand in her hair, then, seemingly through sheer force of will, relaxed his hands. “He . . . grabbed me.” Hard. Had enjoyed hurting her. Thank God Jace had never seen the bruises the man had left on her breasts. “Straddled me. Um. And, uh . . . he . . . then he . . .” She couldn’t continue. “You know.”

  “Jerked off?” His voice sounded as strangled as hers.

  Heather pulled away from him. “Yes.”

  She sniffed, trying to stem the flow of tears. Maybe he didn’t need to know the rest of it. How her revulsion infuriated him, drove him to new heights of rage. How he had screamed obscenities at her, and described in brutal detail how he planned to rape her after the sheik cast her aside. How he would tear her, how he would use her like the dog she was.

  Heather stuffed a fist into her mouth to stop the nausea from erupting. No. No more.

  Come on, Heather. Get it out there. Start to heal. That’s what the damned shrink said would happen, anyway. At the moment, it just felt as though broken glass clogged her throat.

  She forced herself to choke the words out. “He . . . he, you know . . . went in . . . in my hair.” On her face. “I tried to bite him.” Had come damned close. He had slapped her so hard she had nearly passed out. That was the night the sheik arrived in camp.

  Jace brought up an arm to cover his eyes. “God damn him,” he said, so softly she barely heard him. It was far more frightening than if he had shouted. “I will kill him.” There was absolute certainty in his voice. This was no idle threat.

  Heather dragged in a breath. “Not if I get to him first.” Interestingly enough, she did feel better. Lighter. “But I didn’t tell him anything. No matter what he did or threatened.” She could be proud of that, anyway. He had not broken her.

  Jace didn’t move. What was going on inside his head? She raised herself up on an elbow so she could look at him. He still didn’t move.

  “What, um, are you thinking?” she finally managed to say. Did he think her weak because she let it bother her?

  He lowered his arm and turned his head. There were tears in his eyes. Heather’s own eyes became huge in her face. Tears. For her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “That any of it ever happened to you. Give me a description. I’ll find him. I will kill him for you.”

  Despite everything, that dragged a smile out of her. “And beat your chest? Hoist me onto your shoulder and claim victory and vengeance?”

  Jace didn’t return the smile. In fact, he looked as grim as she’d ever seen him.

  “Rape is just a word, Heather. Just because there was no penetration doesn’t mean what he did
was in any way less of a violation.”

  Heather burst into tears.

  Chapter Thirty

  JACE GATHERED HEATHER into his arms and rocked her. What else could he do? There was no way he could quell the murderous rage inside him. That bastard had done more than question her. He had deliberately set out to degrade her.

  The man was dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “Do you really think so?” She asked the question in a small voice.

  Jesus H. Christ. Could she have the slightest doubt? And then he knew. She could and she did. “Heather. For God’s sake. He’s sick. Twisted and perverted. That wasn’t for interrogation. It was to humiliate. Power and control. You used those very words.”

  There was a nod against his bicep.

  “Want to go get drunk and get in a bar fight?” He meant it as a joke. “If I had the time and, you know, you were a guy.” He tried a weak smile.

  She nodded again. “Does that mean we’re a team?” Obviously, she remembered he said that’s how he’d handle the emotional baggage of his teammates.

  Damn straight. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight. It was ridiculous how much he wanted to beat his chest, and, yes, drag her back to his cave and make her his.

  “Yeah.” He stopped to clear his throat.

  “Then I’d rather talk about the SCUD,” Heather said.

  Huh? Really? That was so far from his own thoughts, it took him a moment to catch up.

  “Jace, what if those vials contain an agent so strong the plan was to mix it with some sort of reagent and launch it at a US target? The president’s visit has been public knowledge for a long time now. We’ve intercepted a bunch of chatter supporting killing him.” Communications intelligence, she meant. “Nothing credible. We’ve passed it all on to the Secret Ser­vice, of course. But what if we missed something?”

  Jace nodded slowly. “I’m starting to think you’re onto something. Finding the SCUD with no warhead has been bugging me.” He stopped, a comical look on his face. “The courier came from Iran, right? What if the SCUD came from there, too?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too. There’s no way to verify—­Azakistani military records are unbelievably inaccurate—­but if a SCUD was stolen from Iraq, for instance, during Gulf War One or Two, and hidden here, maybe for years, while they waited for the perfect opportunity to use it . . .”

  An opportunity like a presidential visit. Heather didn’t need to say it.

  Jace continued her train of thought. “And they found or stole or bought a SCUD transporter, an erector-­launcher. They could hit anywhere in Azakistan. But we took out the SCUD. Until and unless they replace the inertial guidance system, it’s useless.”

  “We need to find out if anyone’s found the warhead yet,” she said. “That’ll give us the rest of the terrorists.”

  Jace reached for his cell phone on the nightstand. Punching in a few numbers, he waited.

  “Yeah, Stephanie. Jace. Need your sharp eyes, Private.” He cut off her greeting. “Listen. This isn’t about tonight’s mission. That’s a go. I need to know if any intelligence agency’s found a SCUD-­b warhead. Unattached. Need that info ASAP.”

  “I’m on it.”

  He disconnected. “All right,” he said. “We’ll know soon enough. Steph’s our best researcher. If someone reported it, she’ll find it.”

  Before he could settle back onto the bed, his phone rang again. That was fast. Jace flipped it open and hit the speaker button.

  “What’d you find, Steph?”

  There was a pause, then a masculine voice spoke.

  “Jace? Trevor. We need to talk.”

  Chapter Thirty-­One

  September 6. 10:10 P.M.

  Starbucks behind Samarra Mosque, Ma’ar ye zhad

  HEATHER AND JACE met Trevor at a coffee bar near the city business college. Without preamble, he told them the hard news.

  “It’s biochemical. It’s a toxic gas called phosgene. Dichloromethanal carbonyl chloride. Dreadful news on a grand scale.”

  Jace nodded. He did not seem surprised.

  Heather, however, let out a tiny gasp. “An attack inside the embassy? I didn’t even consider that. I was so focused on the president’s visit . . .”

  “Well, don’t discount it yet,” said Trevor. “Shelby is notifying the right ­people at the embassy. She’s authorized me to keep you in the loop on this. The amount of phosgene in those five vials could have killed a lot of ­people, or at least made them very sick. It’s quite toxic. One of the things that makes phosgene so dangerous is, by the time you smell it, you’ve been exposed to four to five times the amount considered an immediate threat to life. Still . . .”

  Heather finished the thought. “We’d be naive to think we intercepted the only five vials in transit.”

  “Right.”

  “We’ve gotten indications the terrorists are looking to acquire phosgene,” Jace said. “We might know more in a few days. Hopefully. If we can get a person of interest to talk to us.”

  Heather rolled her shoulders. She hated that Jace couldn’t tell them what his mission was tonight. It would be dangerous; Delta would not be sent on a mission that anyone else could handle. A knot of worry formed in her stomach. “I don’t know anything about phosgene. Is it like anthrax?” she asked.

  Trevor sipped his coffee, grimaced, and put it down again. “Nasty stuff. No, anthrax are bacterial spores.” He pushed the cup away. “Thank the news ser­vices, I suppose, for everybody thinking all biochemical weapons are like anthrax.”

  “Phosgene is a gas,” Jace interjected. “A choking agent. Used during WWI for chemical warfare.”

  Trevor looked at him in surprise. “Very good, mate. Enough of it mixed into the warhead of the SCUD you found would cause quite a problem. Launch it onto whatever target they chose. A population center, a housing area. Anywhere there are a lot of ­people. The warhead explodes, the gas releases. By the time the victims are able to clear the area, they would have been exposed to a toxic level.” He pushed the coffee farther away and looked around. “Disgusting swill. I don’t hold out much hope for a decent cup of tea, though.”

  Heather chewed her lip, deep in thought. “Maybe a smaller attack? We don’t know who has the warhead, the Kongra-­Gel or the seller.”

  Trevor exhaled an unamused laugh. “The smell is noticeable at zero point four parts per million. That’s already four times the threshold limit value. Look, it’s toxic because it affects a person’s respiration and causes suffocation. It’s true it’s not as dangerous as other chemical weapons like sarin, but it’s much easier to produce. And we can estimate as many as a hundred thousand ­people might have died during the Great War from it. Make no mistake, the gas is dangerous.”

  “If this stuff’s so easy to transport, and if there are other foreign national couriers sympathetic to the Kongra-­Gel’s cause, there could be more vials out there,” Heather said.

  “Maybe not,” Trevor said. “It’s not like this stuff is easy to come by in any sort of quantity. Safeguards against accidental exposure are quite stringent. We should check biochemical labs to see if anyone has reported an accident or a theft.”

  “We also can’t assume it’s the Kongra-­Gel, either,” said Jace. “They might have been acting as intermediaries, or even brokers. If they have the stuff in hiding somewhere, if we’re right about it, they might just be selling it for their own profit.”

  Heather shook her head. An absolute negative. “You didn’t see the fanaticism on the faces of the men I overheard, or on the face of the man who . . . questioned me. It’s them.”

  Jace nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Then you bring it to the right ­people.”

  “The CIA is helping the Secret Ser­vice coordinate with whoever they need,” Trevor said. “I’d start with Jay Spicer, the CIA station chief.”
r />   Heather slapped her legs and stood. “Then let’s go.”

  Jace laughed. “Heather, it’s ten o’clock at night. He’s at home watching reruns of Law & Order by now. Morning will be fine.” He drained his coffee cup. “Thinking tonight’s little jaunt might be useful.”

  The lump in Heather’s gut intensified.

  September 7. 3:26 A.M.

  Tiqt, Azakistan

  THE STREETS IN this part of Tiqt were narrow and twisted. There were no less than six avenues of approach to the house in which Omran Malouf was supposedly hiding out. Jace slipped from shadow to shadow. They’d left their Humvee a few blocks away so they could approach silently.

  Mace and Ken broke away, heading separately for the rooftops they had selected for overwatch. From there, they would make sure no one snuck up on the A-­Team.

  At the next corner, Archangel and Sandman turned right, heading toward the back of the townhouse. It was the center house in a row of three. Jace, Tag, and Alex held position while their teammates worked their way into place. By the time the double clicks came over his headset, he was itching for action. Nodding to Tag and Alex, he led the way to the front door. Alex watched the street, which was deserted at this time of the night. Jace placed a hand on the knob and turned it slowly. Locked.

  Reaching into his breast pocket, he extracted the proper tools, and in a short time heard the tiny snickt as the lock tumbled under his hand.

  Jace turned the knob and pushed the door open a little at a time. The house was quiet and dark. He slid inside, with Tag and Alex shadows beside him. They met up with Archangel and Sandman at the base of the stairs. Gabe gave a slight shake of his head. No, no one was in the kitchen or living room. The five of them slipped up the stairs and positioned themselves outside the three bedrooms.

  Jace readied his flash-­bang, a grenade that emitted a deafening noise and blinding light when set off. Standing to one side of the door, he eased it open. In concert with the others, positioned at each bedroom door, he pulled the pin and tossed the grenade inside. Turning his face away, he closed his eyes against the flash, and steeled himself for the noise. For the unprepared, it was disorienting, and in this instance, it worked perfectly.