by Geri Krotow
“You settling in okay where you are, Farid?” He threw a quick glance at his passenger as he passed the truck on the right side.
Eleven more minutes.
The Afghan smiled, the first real sign of anything other than grim determination that he’d seen in the man, except for when he’d been pronounced “not guilty.”
“At first it was very hard to be away from my family and to be dropped into the middle of American life. But now it’s not so bad. And my name is Ricardo and I have a job at a big grocery store. I let my neighbors assume I’m Latino. Although I suppose that will have to change. I’ll probably have to move again, won’t I?”
Brad grunted. “Yeah, you’ve pretty much outed yourself by coming here, man.”
“It’s worth it if I’ve saved your life, and now Commander Alexander’s. I had no idea she was involved as much as she is.”
“She wasn’t. She’s just a bystander, really.” She wouldn’t have been involved if he hadn’t dragged her into it.
He needed her.
Nine more minutes and he’d see Joy.
Had he just called the woman who’d turned his world inside out a bystander?
Sure. An innocent bystander he’d dragged into his case. An innocent bystander now in a terrorist’s sights?
Who was he kidding? He couldn’t ask Joy to join him in his crazy lifestyle. It wasn’t something he could give up, not completely. Once he knew she was safe, and their suspect was in custody, he’d have to make the break. Because unless Hasan was immobilized, taken out, he would continue to send in representatives of one type or another. Brad would always be hunted, as would anyone close to him.
That was what he’d learned true love was—sacrifice, regardless of the personal cost.
His phone rang and he grabbed it. “Iverson.”
“Brad, it’s Mike. Where are you?”
Mike’s voice sounded too much like his had when he’d spoken to Joy an hour or so earlier.
“Getting ready to pull onto my street.”
“Stop. Wait until backup gets there.”
“What?” he asked incredulously. “Why?”
“I figured out what the suspect got off Joy’s notepad. Your address, and where your key’s hidden. You must’ve told her and she wrote it down. The imprint is still on some of the pages that were torn off.
“You’re saying—”
“We think the suspect is at your place. Joy’s already there. She’s not answering her phone, Brad. We’ve located her at your place via her cell phone. I’ve got agents and Seattle PD on the way. Let them handle it. No cowboys.”
Brad disconnected. Mike wouldn’t get blamed for anything he didn’t say to Brad.
Not handle it?
If he found one hair out of place on Joy’s head, he was going to make their suspect wish he’d picked a different victim. A different person to take out his sick, misguided anger on.
* * *
JOY PARKED HER car in Brad’s driveway and decided to come back later for her overnight bag. She didn’t know how much time she had before he showed up, and she wanted to have a hot pot of coffee waiting for him.
She also wanted to freshen up, if possible.
She didn’t notice any overt security agents but trusted they were in place.
Swinging her purse strap over her shoulder, she walked around the side of the clapboard house, straight back to the red cedar gate. She unlatched it with one tug and stepped onto the soft grass of Brad’s yard. They hadn’t gotten this far when he’d given her the house tour, but she easily located the broken piece of pottery where he’d hidden the key. He’d told her it was under the garden bench in the far corner of the yard.
As she bent to turn over the homemade hide-a-key, she breathed in the scent of roses and made a mental note to see where they were planted.
There wasn’t a key under the pot, though, just moist earth. She got down on her knees and felt through the dirt and grass.
The sound of footsteps reached her ears at the same moment she felt a cold object against her throat, and she was hauled to her feet by her jacket collar. A strong arm was wrapped around her shoulders but she couldn’t think past the metal pressed against her skin.
A knife. Someone had a knife to her throat.
“Looking for this?”
The female voice rasped in her ear as she held Brad’s house key in front of Joy’s eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE WOMAN SHOVED her into Brad’s kitchen and sat her on one of the island bar stools. Shorter than Joy, the woman was dressed in black and wore a black ski mask. Her eyes were dark holes devoid of any emotion.
Emotion could be manipulated. What Joy saw struck the freezing knife of fear into her heart. This woman was intent on one thing.
Revenge.
She thought she might have an escape when the woman pocketed the knife, but she pulled out a .45 mm pistol and aimed it at her.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to blow your brains out yet. Not until your lover shows up.” The woman spoke with no discernible accent.
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“Shut up or I shoot.”
“Go ahead, but it won’t make a difference. You’re going to prison for the rest of your life.” This had to be the missing suspect. The one person with ties to the overseas terrorists.
The most dangerous one.
“Nobody has anything on me. They don’t suspect a woman. It’s Sameen, by the way.”
There was no doubt she intended to kill her or she’d have never given Joy her name.
Sameen. Joy didn’t recognize it from any of the case testimony.
Joy felt numb inside and she shivered, yet sweat dripped down her back and down her neck, between her breasts.
It was because of the adrenaline. Brad had told her that managing adrenaline was a big part of doing military spec ops and undercover ops for the Bureau. So she had to try to manage her adrenaline and not go into shock.
Keep her wits about her. Try to reason with this woman.
“I know why you hate Americans, Sameen.” she began. “Why you want me and Brad dead. Why you went after Grimes. It was you, wasn’t it? I’d hate anyone I thought had hurt my family, too.”
Sameen’s grip on her pistol faltered, and for a second Joy saw a light in her eyes that confirmed she’d hit the source of her hatred. Her anguish.
Anger quickly replaced it, and her sinister bearing was back in place.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I know that your village, your family, maybe even you, were attacked and the women raped. I know they told you it was the Americans. But it wasn’t. It was the Taliban the Americans had defeated that day. The few of them who remained, it was their warning—owwww!”
She gasped as the barrel of the weapon slammed against her temple. Stars flashed in her eyes, and a sudden wave of intense nausea swamped her.
You never told Brad you love him.
“Shut your trap, bitch.” Sameen’s breath was hot on Joy’s face, and her eyes almost reptilian in their lack of empathy. She radiated anger but with a calmness that was more shocking than the knife that had been at her throat or the gun now aimed between her eyes.
“It wasn’t me or my sisters. It was the boy I was supposed to marry. He was killed defending our village from the Americans. Then I was forced to come here. I was only seventeen.”
She lowered the pistol to the kitchen island, but still clutched the handle. Ready to fire.
As she fought against throwing up, Joy did a mental check of her status. Still breathing. Dry jeans—she hadn’t wet her pants, but she wouldn’t feel bad about it if she did. This was definitely a wet-your-pants situation. The grimmest she’d ever been in. It’d be easy to think there was no hope. That she was going to die.
Except Brad. The thought of being able to tell him how she felt lit a spark of warmth deep in her cold, shivering body.
“I can see why you might believ
e it was our fault, especially since that’s what you were told. But the Americans didn’t raid your village to hurt civilians. They saved hundreds of lives that day. It was war—and if your friend was fighting for the Taliban, he knew the risks.”
“Shut up! You know nothing of my people. Of what we’ve sacrificed.”
“You’re an intelligent woman, Sameen. You understand that killing me or another innocent civilian won’t bring anyone back to life. It won’t solve anything.”
“Don’t give me your American propaganda.” Her mouth barely moved, and she spoke as if in a trance. Joy had dealt with a few psychiatrically challenged clients in her JAG career, but none had seemed so...unreachable. As if she’d been programmed to carry out this plan of revenge and would stop at nothing to achieve her desired goal.
Had killing Brad, Farid, General Grimes, been her goal all this time? If she’d believed the Taliban’s lies, yes.
Joy had to stay alive long enough to warn Brad. If this terrorist killed her first, Brad would be a sitting duck when he came home.
“Tell me about your family.”
Sameen blinked. “I have no family. They were either killed in the war or decided to stay there. They wouldn’t come with my aunt and me when we were offered refugee status here. My aunt died two years ago.”
Joy stayed silent.
“I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t take the chance to live among you so we could get our justice one day,” the woman said. “I took my opportunity. I even went to university. I lost my accent by the time I was done with freshman year.”
A ghost of the young girl she must’ve been floated across her eyes. Joy looked at her hand. Still on the pistol. At least the weapon was on the island and not pointed directly at her. But a flick of her wrist, a tug on the trigger...
No. You’re going to live so you can tell Brad you love him.
“I met another boy, though, at university. He hated your government as much as I did.”
“And you recruited him on to your team.”
“Him and two others, yes. And your Brad never knew I was behind the whole thing. That I’d followed him after he left the Navy. After Farid had betrayed all of us by going to your government’s officials. He made me leave my country.”
* * *
“STAY HERE WITH the doors locked. Do not get out of this car until I come back for you.” Brad parked in an empty spot six houses down from his, out of view of his place. If someone was in there with Joy, that person would be on the lookout for Brad or other Bureau folks to show up.
Whoever it was would want to make a big production of harming her.
A vise seemed to tighten around his lungs, and his stomach threatened to heave. Of all the situations he’d been in worldwide, this one was the worst. He’d never reacted this intensely before. Never cared this much.
He silently willed his training to kick in, giving him the blessed detachment he needed to save Joy.
A hand on his forearm. He shook it off.
“I think Miss Joy’s in trouble. Let me help you.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you, Farid. One of Hasan’s bastards might have her at my place, and we can’t wait for the backup team. I’m going in now.”
“But I heard Mr. Mike tell you not to go in on your own.”
“I can’t lose her.”
He took his revolver out of his glove compartment, holstered it and got out of the car. He was running along the hard concrete sidewalk before he heard the Jeep locks click shut.
Farid was a big boy who’d have to take care of himself while Brad was away. At this point all he saw in his mind’s eye was Joy.
* * *
“THAT MUST HAVE been horrible for you.” If she kept the woman talking, built empathy, she’d stand a chance.
“Horrible? For me?” The woman looked over Joy’s shoulder as if she was watching a movie. Seeing pictures of her life through the distorted lens of the pain she’d suffered.
“How about the horror for my family? For my villagers, my country?” she asked.
“There are better ways to mete out justice. First, you have to know that the Taliban lied to you.” It took all her strength to stay calm and not try to run. Escaping a bullet wasn’t one of her talents.
“You think you’re the truth teller, don’t you?”
“No, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get real justice.”
She waved the pistol wildly, and Joy wondered what the odds were of being hit if she inadvertently pulled the trigger while her arm was flailing.
“You and Iverson—he’s not a good FBI agent. He couldn’t even handle an undercover mission in his own country.”
Spittle flew out of her mouth, and Joy sat still as the drops landed on her cheeks. Fear of being shot kept her from wiping the disgusting specks off her face.
“Agent Iverson is an American,” Joy said. “Yet he risked his life to protect Americans and Afghans alike—from the Taliban and al Qaeda. He went in and arrested the men who’d hurt your family.”
Those dark eyes were on her. A flicker of hope, belief perhaps?
Sameen shook her head.
“No. You’d like to think that, I’m sure. Helps you sleep at night. But that scum Farid you set free from prison had your lover boy under his spell the whole time. They were in it together!”
“Farid never wanted anyone in his village to suffer. That’s why he was on the right side. And they didn’t know one another before the Special Forces went in to get the Taliban out of your village.”
“You lie! Farid was a traitor to our people!” Her captor’s eyes were bouncing all over the place, her body rigid with determination. “Our fight started long before America was even its own country. You have no way of understanding.”
Please keep talking.
Joy snuck a glance at the microwave clock to her right. How much longer until Brad got here?
What if he stopped at his office first?
“Please explain it to me. What do you expect to gain by this?”
“I will gain justice for what happened to me and my family. I went through what no girl should ever have to! And I will do what Hasan needs done here.”
She gave Joy a hard shove as she let go of her neck, tipping her over the stool and onto the kitchen floor. A dull crack, followed by a sharp pain told Joy she had at least one fractured rib.
Darkness edged around her vision, and she forced herself to breathe, despite the pain. She had to stay present. Ready to help Brad.
“Get up!” The woman kicked her in the back, and an entire galaxy of stars danced across Joy’s line of sight. Getting on her knees took all the stamina she had left, but she managed. Once on all fours, she actually felt the searing pain lessen a bit.
The woman’s booted feet were next to her thighs, and Joy knew that if she didn’t keep moving as Sameen had ordered, she’d get kicked in the kidneys again. “I said get up.”
Joy looked over her right shoulder and saw the gun in Sameen’s hand as she leaned against the stove. Sameen raised her left leg to kick again, and this time Joy went for broke.
Using an old fitness class move known as the “fire hydrant,” she kicked at Sameen’s left knee with her right leg using all the power she could muster. A split second later she heard the crunch of bones as Sameen cried out in pain. A surge of satisfaction rose in Joy.
Until she heard the ring of a gunshot and felt a crushing weight.
She couldn’t breathe.
* * *
BRAD SAW THEM through the blinds he’d installed on his back kitchen door. He couldn’t see much of the suspect, only her black pants and jacket—and flashes of light reflecting from the barrel of her revolver. She was built like a woman but he hadn’t known for sure until he’d heard her voice through the door.
His primal inclinations fought a full-on battle with his training, and Mike’s admonition not to go cowboy. While he didn’t plan to wait for the team to show up if he didn’t have to, he couldn�
�t go charging or even sneaking in there. Not when a terrorist had a loaded gun pointed at Joy.
The suspect was a trained killer.
Joy was watching the suspect with her lawyerly expression, lips moving. Her voice was a soft murmur; he couldn’t make out any words. He knew she was taking in every detail of the criminal’s actions. An immediate image of her head blown open by a bullet almost had him losing it, and he had to forcibly keep his hands on the door frame.
The scene playing out in front of him changed in an instant as he saw the suspect lean over, obscuring his view of Joy. The next instant, the woman was on the other side of the island, out of his sight. Joy was gone.
“Get up!”
At the woman’s harsh yell, he quietly turned the handle on the door and prayed it had been left unlocked.
It didn’t budge.
He couldn’t do this quietly, after all. He could take the time to put his key in the lock, or he could take the quickest action.
Please, Joy, get up. Hold on, sweetheart.
“Get up!”
On the second command, he braced himself and lunged at the door, just as a gunshot rang through the kitchen.
* * *
HE ENTERED A scene of utter chaos. The woman, a figure dressed all in black, was splayed across Joy, her breath coming in short gasps of obvious pain. Across the kitchen in the entry hall stood Farid, holding his upper arm. Blood stained his white shirt, the mark expanding.
“Get off her!” Brad dove toward the suspect.
“Brad, wait! She has a knife,” Farid yelled.
Only as Brad landed near the two women, ready to grab the suspect and drag her off Joy, did he see the steel tip that she held against Joy’s neck. Joy was facedown, unconscious. Not dead, he hoped.
He prayed.
He couldn’t lose her. He loved her.
“FBI. Get the hell off her, now!”
“Back off or I’ll slit her throat. I should’ve done it sooner.” The terrorist panted out the words. The gun was out of sight. She must have dropped it on the way down. It had obviously misfired, and then she’d drawn her knife.
Brad hated knives. With a bullet there was always a chance of its missing the mark or being stopped by Kevlar.
