Backblast, Candace Irving [i love reading books .TXT] 📗

the table. The woman's fingertips shook as she traced them over the final item in the Chaudhrys' stack.

It was one of the eight-by-ten-inch glossy photos Regan had printed in the office Corporal Swan had escorted them to half an hour earlier.

"That's the child who survived, Begum Chaudhry. Her doctors believe that the shawl that was meant to railroad her father into murder actually saved her life, as it allowed the infant to hold onto what little body heat she had until Major Garrison and his men arrived to rescue her. Begum Khan's husband does not know who fathered the child, but he has rejected it regardless, on the grounds that she's a girl and not worth the expense. As a result, Captain McCord applied for custody and has named his daughter Jameelah after her mother. At the moment, the captain is with his daughter in Germany, in Landstuhl's neonatal intensive care. Jameelah has been growing stronger every day and is expected to be released from the hospital soon."

A fresh batch of tears welled up in Mrs. Chaudhry's eyes. Regan's began to burn too as the woman continued to trace her fingers over the photo of the thriving infant, swaddled in pink and lying in her plexiglass bassinet.

That slow, loving trace revealed so much.

Sitara Chaudhry was more than a grieving mother right now. She was also a not-quite-grandmother grieving what might have been.

But the child beneath her fingertips was also proof that Americans and Pakistanis could come together. Regan could see that in those tears and quivering lips as well.

For the first time in days, hope began to bud within her.

Until the prime minister coughed. Snorted really. "Agent Chase, you say a respected Afghan doctor killed these women. But there is no proof in the pages you provided. Just some American who claims the doctor purchased a machine to do this…washing of blood. Why would an honorable Muslim do this? Kill innocent Muslim mothers? Kill the precious flower of our chief justice?"

Regan pushed her temper down as she offered a respectful smile to the doubting ass who hadn't bothered to even glance through his own stack of papers, let alone study the highlighted sections that proved her case.

Fortunately, the chief justice and his wife had not only followed along with her commentary, they'd gone back to the beginning of their packet. Even now, both were carefully reading through each page before the chief justice turned to the next.

She left them to their personal horror and addressed Bukhari. "Yes, Prime Minister, Nabil Durrani was a doctor." Diplomatic meeting or not, she just couldn't refer to the bastard as respected or honorable. "But Durrani was obsessed with Chief Justice and Begum Chaudhry's daughter. Durrani would not take no for an answer, much less leave her alone. During my discussions with the man, I came to believe Durrani even harassed the young woman to the point of her leaving her job."

Sitara Chaudhry perked up at that, shifting her focus across the table. Her husband might still be reading, but his wife wasn't.

Regan had the woman's complete attention.

And more.

She also had the blaring suspicion that Mrs. Chaudhry knew something. Quite possibly something she'd been told by her daughter. But Asma hadn't confided in her father, because Harun Chaudhry's expression hadn't changed.

He was also still reading.

Regan continued with what she did know, and suspected, hoping her facts and supposition would intersect with whatever secrets the mother had been privy to. "I think they worked together, but I'm not sure where. I know Durrani got his medical degree in the United States, at Harvard in Boston, Massachusetts. I also know that shortly before the murders, Durrani culled his remaining victims from the Malalie Maternity Hospital in Kabul, where he was volunteering and had recently been offered a full-time position. Before that, Durrani worked with a local Islamic charity that assisted in vaccinating women against polio and tetanus in your country's own Federally Administered Tribal Areas—"

Regan paused as the older woman sucked in her breath, then turned to her husband to speak softly, urgently, in Urdu.

Regan risked a glance at John.

He nodded.

Something she'd said had clicked with the mother.

She turned back to the prime minister, since technically she'd been addressing his concerns, but Bukhari was now ignoring her. He, too, was focused on the equally urgent comments that Harun Chaudhry was now offering his wife.

By the time both Chaudhrys had refocused on her, Regan knew she'd hit on the nexus between those two lives: Durrani's and Asma's.

She risked confirming it. "It's true, isn't it? Your daughter knew Dr. Durrani. He gave her reason to fear him…somehow."

The mother's eyes filled with fresh tears.

But it was the father who had the strength to nod. Speak. "Yes. She confided this, and more, to my wife. You are right. This man was unnaturally obsessed with her. She thought by leaving her job six months ago, and taking another, she would be safe. But she also believed in our tribal regions and its people. She suffered much pain and grief when she lost her beloved husband and her own unborn child. She wanted to remain there, working to improve their conditions. This is how he found her, yes?"

"I believe so." In an effort to give the father a moment to deal with the tears that had begun to tinge his eyes, turning them luminous and black, she busied herself with the papers that were now littering the table in front of her.

She gathered them together. After two failed attempts to reattach the binder clip, she gave up and set the papers down, laying the clip on top.

"Your hand. It shakes." The chief justice flipped through his stack once more until he'd located the medical assessment she'd included. The one that described her neurological fallout from that psycho-toxin, along with Sergeant Welch's and Staff Sergeant Hudson's. "It is a result of the chimera Dr. Durrani infected you with?"

"Yes."

"This damage may be permanent?"

The chief justice was asking for information she'd have forced Durrani to barter