by Lisa Hughey
He’d been keeping tabs on Afghanistan ever since he found out she was going, surreptitiously reading the hourly updates his office received from the government’s shared intelligence network, Intelink.
He’d seen the carefully worded communiqué, a capture report that detailed the woman, her general description, the request for ransom from the Afghan warlords who oversaw the prison, and the known methods of torture they employed. And he feared it was Staci. He'd tried multiple times to contact her by email without success.
When he couldn't get hold of her, he was certain she was the woman in the report. He’d wanted to grab the first transport to Kabul armed with his Remington M24SWS sniper rifle and the intelligence to get her out.
Instead, he had assumed she would be quietly liberated and returned to the U.S. by the CIA. Because that's what the CIA did, they protected their own.
Dammit, he should have done more. But Jordan no longer did hostage rescue for the FBI. He didn't have the clearance or the manpower to get her out of that prison anymore.
Now he worked the other side, for the Franklin Group, a highly distinguished, well-connected think tank. Trying to anticipate problems before they happened. Analyzing data and generating reports to prevent this kind of incident from occurring. Advising the military, the government, anyone who would listen about the motives and operations of their enemies or even allies, and the possible repercussions of any U.S. actions.
He’d retired his ghillie suit and rifle in favor of thousand-dollar Hugo Boss and the weapon of knowledge. Now he was trying to protect and prevent, rather than react to, threats.
Most days, it worked for him.
But not today. Dios, not today.
Right now, his inability to act chafed. The need to be there, to be able to bring her body, Jesus, her body, home, was like acid burning in his gut. The carvings cut into the skin on his palm as he clenched her amulet too tightly.
Jordan couldn’t claim her even in death.
Initially they’d kept their relationship private. He’d almost gotten to the point where he thought maybe she was ashamed of him, of their relationship. Of course when he’d discovered she was CIA, her refusal made a lot more sense. And he couldn't jeopardize her memory or her standing at the CIA by acknowledging their relationship now.
It was a forbidden, opposite attraction because while their views on just about everything matched, their methods of solving problems contradicted on many levels. Yet, their passion for each other had overruled and overcome all the reasons why they shouldn’t be together.
She couldn’t be dead.
How would he live without her?
He forced his throat muscles to relax before he spoke again. “Are they sure it’s her?”
Frank shrugged. “Positive I.D.”
Frank didn’t care, didn’t know, that Jordan’s world had just imploded.
"The prison riot is being heavily covered by the press. It's only a matter of time before they figure out one of the dead prisoners is American. The guys on the Hill are freaking out."
“What kind of response do the politicians want?”
“They want a solid position on why this isn’t our government’s fault.” Frank ambled toward the coffee pot on the granite counter. “Senator Jordan of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence sent out the high-level transmission request. They’d like to keep it quiet as long as they can and get their ducks in a row.”
Senator Jordan and his committee. Wasn’t that just the fucking icing on his personal hell cupcake?
“Of course they want to deny any sort of responsibility.” Even as he spoke, he knew that wasn't fair. Jordan resisted the urge to smash the flat of his hand up into Frank's nose and break something. It wasn’t Frank’s fault politicians worried more about covering their asses and did whatever was politically expedient rather than acknowledging that someone had made a mistake.
“Well it doesn't look good to have American civilians and registered voters worried about traveling.” Frank grimaced, but then he forced a smile. “Even if the Travel Warning from the State Department has recommended avoiding Afghanistan for years.”
He knew that. He'd begged Staci not to go.
“Although...that region should be safe.” Frank stirred sweetener into his coffee.
Jordan watched the spoon go round and round, the clink of metal against ceramic tink-tink-tinking to the rapid beat of his heart. He wanted to wrap his hands around Frank’s throat and shake him until he spit out whatever he wanted to impart.
Frank did that--paused for dramatic effect--as if he could make people hang on his words. Most of the time Jordan ignored the tactic. But today, Jordan needed the information Frank had and if he didn’t get it soon, Jordan would be forced to ask again. He couldn't show undue interest, but he needed any information he could get on Staci's death.
“This particular area is basically controlled by our military. They are part of Operation: Rebuild. After the fiasco of just plowing under their fields, now we pay the warlord villages not to grow opium and we give them supplies.” Frank sipped at the coffee, then lectured, “Then we foot the bill to replant the fields with orchards, whatever, so they still have a way to make a living. The Franklin Group suggested the program.”
Jordan's stomach clenched. “So if that's true, why did they imprison her?" Jordan tried to make his voice sound interested in an offhand manner.
Just me wondering about this ‘obscure and tragic but unimportant in my world’ situation. Instead of the truly cataclysmic event it was. Staci had been in the wrong place at the right time and that had cost her everything. And him too. He couldn’t even mourn in public. Because she'd kept their relationship a secret, he couldn't chance that somehow he could damage her reputation posthumously.
“Our intelligence indicates she was turned in by a local warlord for inappropriate dress. Usually they’re a little more lax about the dress code but with the recent resurgence of Taliban in that area, some of the natives have reverted back to the customs of keeping the women robed."
“Why the hell wasn’t she wearing her burkha?” Jordan bit out. She knew better. They’d discussed it loudly. He’d seen her pack the damn thing himself.
"There's no hard intelligence on the exact circumstances of her capture. And her murder is being blamed on the prisoners during the riot." Frank said, "The situation feels a little funny, but I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong.”
As annoying as Frank was, his analysis was usually dead on.
“Want me to take a closer look at it?” Jordan offered casually and prayed Frank agreed. Otherwise he would have to make a copy of the report when the office cleared out.
“You wanna write the position paper, go for it. You've got more background experience with the country anyway.” Frank shrugged and took a gulp of coffee. “We’ve been told there’s no official analysis needed on her death, but it wouldn’t hurt to work up a short post-mortem. Especially since we advised on this region. If the politicians change their minds, we’ll be on top of it.”
“Sure.” Jordan curled his fingers around the sheath of papers. If there was anything unusual in her capture or death, he’d find it.
He might not be able to claim Staci, but at least he’d be able to avenge her.
“One thing doesn’t make sense.” Jordan mentally scrolled through all of the information he’d read on Afghanistan since she’d left. “Why would the escaping prisoners take the time to kill her and chop off her head? I would think escaping was more important."
“Yeah. But the warlords had no reason to kill her. They wanted the ransom.” Frank steepled his hands together and pressed them against his lips. “Why kill her and risk retaliation from the government, both theirs and ours?”
It didn’t make sense.
Jordan smoothed a hand down his shirt, his fingers dipping past his ribcage to the concave hollow of his stomach. He’d lost weight since Staci left.
He’d been working like a demon, trying
to lose himself in something other than worry and fear for Staci’s safety. Turned out the worry and fear had been justified.
His mind raced. She had told him that her trip was humanitarian and had nothing to do with the CIA. But what if her capture had nothing to do with how she dressed and everything to do with her work for the CIA? If the prisoners really had killed her, perhaps they had discovered she was CIA.
Did the CIA know more about her death? Did the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence know that Staci was CIA?
He couldn’t tell Frank that Staci was CIA. Jordan shouldn’t have that intel.
“There’s a visual in the file. It may give you some clues,” Frank commented as he stood. “It isn’t pretty, but nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Frank was wrong. He’d seen Staci many ways: happy, angry, flush with desire, sparkling with vitality and good humor, even mischievous.
But he’d never seen her tortured, decapitated.
His stomach lurched at the thought of looking at the pictures. He needed to honor her memory, but he couldn’t sit here calmly and look at photographs of her dead body with Frank McClellan sitting across the break room table from him.
He couldn’t.
“You okay? You look a little green.”
“Bad sushi.” Jordan deliberately set the file on the table.
“Never touch that stuff.” Frank paused in the doorway. “Back to the grind. Let me know if you come with any ideas.”
Jordan went back to his office and closed the door carefully. He reached for the file, and observed with detachment that his fingers trembled.
It was too late to save her.
But he could find out why her life had been sacrificed. It would be his final tribute to the woman who’d invaded every part of his life. He touched the thick paper and flipped the page to look at the visual confirmation of his lover’s dead body. Forcing the bile back down his throat, he meticulously catalogued every detail of the torture.
The burn marks on her skin, the scrapes and signs of abuse clearly visible in the stark, graphic photos. There were four close-up shots of her naked corpse.
With his finger, he traced the lines of her body as if he could caress her one last time.
Her feet were battered and scraped. There were abrasions along the bones in her shins. Bruises, fist marks on her back and stomach.
He looked at the bones in her shoulders, noted where the mole had been burned off. Sickness rose in his throat again at the clear evidence of physical abuse and torture.
His hand shook at the violence. Her skin in the photo was so white, her body looked much lighter than her mixed heritage, and very pale against his darker hand.
The angle of the shots showed her breasts, flaccid in death. He paused, rubbed back and forth at the underside of her right breast, as if he could feel the raised scar tissue from the procedure she’d had to remove a cyst as a teenager.
The scar wasn’t there.
He pulled a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer, slowly, purposefully, afraid to let elation build as he examined the stark picture.
The scar wasn’t there.
Relief gushed through him, and he could barely contain his joy. He wanted to whoop with glee, he wanted to scream from the top of his lungs.
The woman in the picture wasn’t Staci.
Did the CIA know? Had they already sent a team in to extract her? Except if they had, wouldn't Intelink have some chatter about the extraction?
But what if they didn't know Staci wasn't dead? She'd been keeping their relationship a secret from the agency. He couldn't do anything that would jeopardize her cover. So how did he let them know without a whole lot of questions that could get her in a whole lot of trouble?
He sobered as a final thought struck.
If she wasn’t dead...where was she?
FIVE
Jordan sat at his desk and remembered the exact moment three and a half weeks ago, when his life changed. When Staci had ripped his world apart. They'd been at her house and she'd been packing for her trip.
“Afghanistan?” he said the word calmly, as if he didn’t want to run over and pull the clothes out of her duffel bag.
As if she hadn’t just gutted him with a serrated edge, Ka-Bar combat knife and left him to bleed out on the floor in front of her.
Fuck.
He waited, needing a moment, as she carefully rolled a satellite phone into a heavy, hooded sweatshirt and tried not to let the steam building burst through the top of his head.
Frustration beat through his body.
She tossed bundles of pencils for the kids into her pack as more than food, candy, or even basic necessities, the kids would want writing supplies.
“I wish I could bring some books,” she muttered, apparently oblivious to the absolute fury swirling within him.
“Why would you want to go to Afghanistan--right now?”
“Because it’s my job.” She calmly folded a pair of tan pants with multiple zippers and little hidey pockets for storing everything you might need to carry on your person. He tried to ignore the multi-tool Swiss Army knife she tucked into the interior pocket. It was as if she knew she’d be searched and hoped they’d miss the weapon and general emergency aid.
“I can think of ten different reports with warnings on my desk right now.” Did he freakin’ shout that or had he been calm? “Reports that strongly suggest all civilians stay the hell away from the entire country.”
“I know.”
“Is this job really worth your life?” Apparently, he’d shouted, based on her frown, but he couldn’t bring himself to tone it down.
If ever there was a time for shouting, now was it.
Staci waved away his concerns with a careless flick of her fingers. “The region I’m going to is fairly safe. The local warlords are allies and our military has a strong presence.”
“Honey, I have news for you. That kind of crap might make for good public relations in the media and photo ops for the Secretary of State, but anyone who has been there knows things are completely different.”
“I have good sources. It’s fine.”
“Sources?” He heard the derision in his voice. She was a freaking college professor. How accurate could her "sources" be? Jordan bunched his hands into fists, and his muscles tensed into classic defensive readiness.
She stopped folding her clothes and propped her hands on her hips. “How long have we been together?”
With visible effort, he relaxed. Sometimes he really, really did not understand the female brain. Even though he'd been raised solely by his mother and aunt, a woman’s intricate thought process escaped him. “What does that have to do with going to a violence-riddled country?”
“Do I ever do anything without having a plan, without a clear direction and plenty of forethought?” She held a palm up. “Really think about it before you answer.”
He had to admit that she was meticulous and thorough and one damn fine researcher. But.... “All the research and academics in the world--”
“I'm damn good at physically defending myself. We spar every night.” She talked over his objections with less heat than when they’d had a raging argument about the ramifications of foreign aid to countries who walked a fine line between ally and enemy.
“Yes. You can hold your own against an instructor or mugger, but sparring can’t protect you from the business end of a Russian-made AK 47 or an armor-piercing round from a tank.”
Not to mention fucking IED’s.
He balled his fists in a lame attempt to keep his hands to himself. Dammit. He did not want her going to Afghanistan.
“I’m more likely to be attacked on the streets of D.C. or New York,” her voice broke, “like my grandparents.”
A low blow in his opinion. Lately she'd been obsessed with the violent death of her grandparents. But Jordan let her argue, because he was too upset to speak.
“Than I am on the streets of Kabul, as long as I wear my burkha.” Sh
e folded the faded blue fabric into a neat, precise rectangle.
“But you aren’t just going to be in Kabul.”
He couldn’t stand it any longer. Jordan stopped her efficient packing with the simple pressure of his palms against her shoulders, bare except for the thin straps of a soft cotton tank top.
Savoring the warmth of her satin skin, slick with lotion and the scent of gardenias, he curled his fingers into the muscles on her arms and gently squeezed.
“Don’t go.”
“This is one of the things I do.” Although her voice was low, calm, the tension in her body transmitted to his hands as she turned around to face him. Her gaze was a mixture of apology and defiance. “This is for UNOCHA.”
“Land mines?” His voice rose.
“I don’t have anything to do with the actual de-mining or detonation of the explosives.” She skirted the subject.
“Could you pick anything more fucking dangerous?”
Her gaze slid away from his for a mere instant before returning and holding.
“What the fuck,” his voice got lower, quieter, “was that?”
He couldn’t believe her involuntary flinch from what should have been a completely rhetorical question. Not much else could be more dangerous than going to Afghanistan in the middle of a fucking civil war.
With that one telling gesture, he knew something bigger was coming. For a bare flicker of time, he wanted to cover his ears, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to hear what was coming next.
He knew her, knew by the look in her eyes he wasn’t going to like it. Strike that. He was going to hate whatever came out of her mouth next. And yet, he had to ask. "What?"
“I work for the CIA,” she announced baldly.
What?
He knew she’d been keeping secrets...but he couldn’t even be sure he’d heard correctly. “Tell me my girlfriend didn’t just tell me that she works for the CIA?”
The fucking Central Intelligence Agency?
You couldn't trust a spook. Most of the time they were lying. Either by omission or because their information was classified. With her confession, he realized the first woman he'd ever considered taking home to meet his mother and aunt, the first woman he'd opened up to, had secrets he wouldn't ever tap.
