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

the beginning. The spook was attempting to read her too; he had been since the moment she'd arrived aboard this ship. He just hadn't been as successful. It wasn't his fault. After all, she had her father's corrupt DNA, as well as the bastard's ability to lie convincingly, on her side. But the curiosity burning in that murky stare didn't concern her. It stemmed from the connection she'd made.

Why not? It wouldn't hurt to voice it.

It might even help.

"You miscalculated." Especially with the Arabic. Durrani got off on power. Everything she'd learned about the doc—from his official records, as well as their conversations when he'd had her isolated in the bathroom of that terror house—supported the assessment. The moment Durrani had heard what was clearly the real Royal Saudi deal from Riyad's lips, the Afghan son of a goatherd turned medical scholarship winner's own lips had been sealed. "Durrani will never open up to you. You won't even get him to speak if you're tucked silently in the corner of the same room."

The bastard would be too worried about being found out. Labeled as the lowborn that, deep down, Durrani feared he still was.

"You can't know that."

Oh, she could and she did. "I may look young, Agent Riyad, but I've been at this game a long time. Granted, I might not have a degree in psychology or whatever's stamped on that piece of sheepskin you've got hanging in your office. I don't need it." Not to become an Army warrant, and she sure as hell didn't need a four-year degree to grill the scum of the earth for a living. "Interrogations are in my blood."

Whether she wanted them to be or not. Her own father had lied to the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department for five years, and no one had figured it out. Not until it was too late.

From the fresh glint off that rapidly refreezing ice, this man knew the entire tawdry story too.

Then again, Riyad was a spook. She could only pray his loyalties weren't as divided as her dear ol' dad's had been.

Regan re-zeroed her attention, returning it to the opening comments Riyad had offered up in her stateroom. "Major Garrison was supposed to accompany you on that chopper flight you missed, correct?"

"Yes."

"Where were you headed, and why?" She didn't bother reminding him of the captain's directive in the passageway. According to Armstrong, the Pentagon had blessed her handling of the murder, meaning nothing related to this case was off limits—classified or not.

If Riyad's current frown was any judge, he was still ticked with the decision, too. But he complied.

"We'd decided to rendezvous at Bagram Airbase with a soldier detailed to one of Major Garrison's A-Teams, a Staff Sergeant Tulle. The three of us planned on dropping in on Hachemi's maternal uncle, the one who runs goats on the Afghan side of the mountain, near the cave where those women were murdered. No one outside the investigation knew for certain Dr. Durrani and Hachemi were arrested because we never released the information. Major Garrison felt he'd be able to abuse that fact. He and Staff Sergeant Tulle were to knock on the uncle's door under the guise that Hachemi went MIA during a military mission and that we feared he'd been kidnapped. We'd hoped to parlay that meeting into an introduction with another uncle who runs goats on the Pakistani side of the border—the one who actually owns that cave."

A solid plan. It might've worked, too. But only if the Afghan uncle wasn't in on the cave slaughter with the Pakistani one. Hell, the Afghan uncle might've clammed up even if he was innocent. He wouldn't even have to share Durrani's deep-seated inferiority complex. More than a few Afghans still despised Saudis for their crucial role in creating and funding the Taliban regime for so many years.

Regan turned away from Riyad to set her crime kit down beside the conference room's door, automatically glancing at the numbers on the lock. Her old mentor Art Valens had once confessed that he reset his tumble to one of several combinations every time he closed his kit, so he'd know if it'd been tampered with. With her thing for digits, she'd gone a step further, landing on a new random sequence each time she wrapped up a session.

Confident that no one had screwed with her kit while it had been stowed aboard the various aircraft she'd been in and out of that day—some of which she'd slept on—Regan opened the kit to withdraw two sets of paper booties and latex gloves, as well as a stack of numbered evidence markers. She hooked the stack of tented plastic in her right cargo pocket and handed a set of gloves and booties to Riyad as she stood.

Surprise lit his gaze, forcing a momentary thaw.

He'd obviously expected her to pull a tasking from his operational plan and relegate him to guarding this side of the door. He couldn't have been further from the truth. She might not respect, much less like the asshole, but she wanted him with her every step of the way on this investigation, two inches from her backside—or closer.

Who better to prove that she was, as Captain Armstrong had asserted, Impartiality Incarnate?

It was the only chance John had. All she could do was pray it was enough.

Regan slipped her booties over the soles of her tan combat boots and donned her gloves before retrieving her digital camera and a fresh memory card. Riyad studied her intently as she snapped several overviews of the room.

She finally paused to sigh. "What?"

"I've got a question."

She turned away to snap a photo of the conference room door. It was still closed. "Fire away."

"Why did you order Chief Yrle to keep Major Garrison in the dark?"

She whirled back to Riyad, widening her stance to compensate for the sudden surging of the ship as well as the renewed sloshing in her belly.

Was it her imagination, or had the Griffith changed course?

"Because the CO was