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

his very life for. She gave it freely to this grieving father and his wife.

Nor did she mask her own pain. "Yes."

The admission caused her hand to shake harder. To her horror, the quivering hijacked her entire arm, as it had following Durrani's suicide.

She was mortified when the fingers of John's left hand came up to cover hers. To lightly stroke and soothe. Not because he'd done it.

Because it worked. In front of others.

But the Chaudhrys weren't staring at her hand; they were looking at John's. At the ring he, too, hadn't removed since the Serena. Both Chaudhrys' gazes shifted, almost in tandem, to her left hand. To the matching rings that were still there as well.

And then, something seemed to click in both husband and wife.

Again, it was Harun Chaudhry who acted on it. He stood. Bowed. "I thank you for the time you have taken to speak to my wife and myself." His attention shifted to John. "Major Garrison, I also sincerely thank you for your efforts, and those of your men, to save those precious lives. Asma's, as well as the others. I believe you both."

Regan was still stunned, attempting to put her gratitude in this man's trust into words, when the chief justice turned to the ambassador.

"Ambassador Linnet, I must do what I can to quell the unwarranted anger outside your gates. Perhaps a speech? Tonight. Before things grow worse. Televised, so that my fellow citizens can wake to the truth and not to lies. My wife will, of course, be at my side."

Bukhari stood then too. "As will I." The prime minister turned to stare down at Jeffers and the ambassador. "I will assist in the preparations."

Wow, that was quick.

And apparently definitive, because everyone else on the opposite side of the table had come to their feet and were now nodding their approval.

Regan came to her feet as well. She bowed her head to both Chaudhrys in turn. "Chief Justice, Begum Chaudhry, if you don't mind, I have one more thing. I would like to formally apologize for the leaking of the photo of your daughter. I cannot imagine your shared pain at losing a grown child, and I am truly sorry you both discovered it the way that you did. I don't yet know how the photo got out, but I will not rest until I find the leak. I promise you." And if it hadn't been Crier, she would plug it.

Permanently.

Regan bowed to the Chaudhrys again, then gathered up her papers and turned to head down the table for her laptop, leaving John behind.

As with Riyad, John's skills would be crucial to the security for the coming televised conference that Jeffers and the prime minister were already outlining.

One crisis had been successfully averted.

But there was another, potentially larger one looming on the horizon. From the comments she'd overheard, the prime minister was insisting—quite vocally—that the chief justice's speech take place outside the gates, off sovereign, American soil.

In front of that mob.

Harun Chaudhry appeared to believe that he could quell the anger of his fellow citizens before he even walked through the gates, by making a brief announcement via the embassy's loudspeaker. But even if that worked, it might not be enough.

Because that crowd wasn't their only concern.

According to Riyad's tip, Zakaria Webber had been in Islamabad for at least eight hours now. Given everything that had gone down around town tonight—events Webber himself had very likely set into motion—what were the odds that the rogue SEAL wouldn't be out there in that angry, overflowing crowd…waiting for Chaudhry?

And there was Bukhari's half-assed rebuttal to her evidence, not to mention the man's strangely swift capitulation to this entire, precarious scenario.

Why did she have the feeling this impromptu conference was playing into the prime minister's hands?

Unintentionally or not, had she just tagged Harun Chaudhry for death?

24

Harun Chaudhry had managed to calm the crowd, and he'd yet to make his appearance. At least in person.

Regan had to hand it to the spook; Riyad's assessment of Pakistan's love for their current Supreme Court chief justice was genuine and profound. All Chaudhry had needed to do was fire up the embassy's loudspeaker and begin speaking. The chief justice told his fellow citizens that he'd personally reviewed the evidence from the cave massacre, and that he had a statement to make. But he had his grieving wife with him. If the crowd did not quiet down and become orderly—and stay that way—he would not be bringing her out, nor would he be speaking himself and sharing what he knew.

In less than a minute, the unruly mob had shifted into a quietly grumbling press of people, almost polite in their eagerness to hear "the truth" firsthand.

But how long would the mood hold?

And why couldn't she seem to shake this sense of foreboding? The one that was buried deep in her gut?

Regan stared at the portrait of the commander-in-chief hanging in the RSO's office as she contemplated just how many ways the next hour could blow up in their faces—literally. And that didn't account for Webber's suspected attendance.

Already, there were signs that those gathered were growing restless. Worse, the numbers outside the front gate had begun to take on biblical proportions once the media had been informed that their presence had been requested en masse.

Fortunately, everything appeared to be a go. Like everyone else involved, she wanted this over with, and quickly.

"I heard you were in here."

John.

She turned around to find the dark gray suit he'd donned aboard the Griffith twenty hours earlier dominating the frame of the doorway. A moment later, he stepped all the way into the RSO's office, dominating the room.

Her nerves.

Once Pakistan's president arrived to complete the "united front" image, John would be walking out through the gates with the Pakistani and American contingents. Agent Riyad and Staff Sergeant Tulle would be in the crowd. She would be with Scott, already up on the hastily constructed, temporary platform designed to allow the crowd to see Harun and