A Christmas Together (12 page)

She sniffled. “It’s obvious.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake. I married you.”

“So?”

He circled his arm around her shoulder. “So it means big damned deal, and I’ll prove it to you as soon as this shit storm clears. Until then, I refuse to watch you mope.”

Her jaw dropped. “I don’t mope.”

“You could have fooled me.”

She tried to shrug off his hold. When he refused to allow it, she collapsed against his shoulder. Good. They were making progress. “Nothing will make me move to D.C. with you.”

“I don’t remember asking.”

“Then what—”

Tipping her chin up, he trailed the tip of his nose down the bridge of hers. “Have a little faith. I’m not in the habit of repeating mistakes.”

“Umm…”

He winced at the poor choice of words. “Once I know they’re mistakes, I mean.”

“I don’t see…”

He kissed her cheek. “Trust me. You did, once.”

“And it bit me in the ass.”

Tightening his hold, he made a promise to them both. “It won’t this time.”

As his lips brushed hers, the mobile phone on her nightstand lit up.

* * * *

Brennan’s hand shook as she started the video and looked away. This viewing was for Jason and Dan’s benefit. She didn’t know how many times she’d watched the clip since 6:00 a.m. The file had been sent to her phone from Zahra’s. Each time she saw the image of her friend blindfolded, gagged, and tied to a chair, part of her remained convinced it was all a bad dream.

Dan had done his job too well. Riad al Hussein’s men couldn’t get near her, so they found a way to make her go to them. A masked man held a pistol to Zahra’s head. The room was silent but for the recorded voiceover.

Though both her partners stood still as statues in the kitchen, the person she turned to was Karl. “What happens now?”

His face an emotionless mask, his dark eyes cold and distant, he looked away. The man she knew was gone. A stranger she didn’t like stood in his place. And though his calculating expression gave her goose bumps, she wouldn’t hesitate to place her life in his hands.

Ignoring her, he addressed the other two men in the room. “Did you understand their demands?”

Both had a good working knowledge of Arabic. Dan seemed frozen in place, his hands clenched at his sides.

Jason responded. “There’s no guarantee they’ll let her go, even if we do as they say.”

The statement didn’t seem to faze her husband. “Her father is a sheikh. If they kill her, they’ll never set foot in any of the Gulf states again. There are certain lines even Riad would rather not cross.”

Dan’s voice shook. “Are you suggesting we do nothing?”

“You two wouldn’t be here if that’s what I’d decided. They’ll carry out the threat if we don’t play ball, but there’s a great deal of incentive to let her go. The terms reflect that.”

Since her knees weren’t steady, she sidled onto a barstool. She doubted anything she said would be acknowledged. Judging from Karl’s recent behavior, she’d ceased to exist as soon as her phone lit up this morning.

Her husband flipped open the laptop he’d placed on her kitchen counter. The machine was thick, heavy, and looked like it could survive a drop off a ten-story building. The desktop background was the Great Eagle Seal. “Official Use Only” appeared in bold red letters on all four sides. With a few keystrokes, a satellite image appeared.

“I called in a favor and had a contact check the GPS coordinates they sent. The drop-off is on an abandoned manmade islet off the coast of Dubai.” He zoomed in on the far corner of what looked like the World Islands. Though pixelated, she could make out what appeared to be a villa. A huge yellow “H” marked a helipad situated on the left side of the building.

He pointed at the narrow stretch of brown leading to the water. “This is the dock where we’re supposed to make the exchange.”

Dan and Jason crowded around the computer. Though Dan’s expression didn’t match her husband’s stoicism, his voice and hands had steadied. “They probably have eyes on all corners. Any boat or aircraft would be spotted a mile away. If we alert the UAE authorities or tell Zahra’s family, they’ll go in guns blazing. She won’t make it back.”

Jason drew an L between the helipad and the dock with his finger. “If we adhere to their demands, they can have you two on a helicopter in under ten minutes. Iranian airspace is less than an hour away. By the time Zahra gets close enough to shore for cell service, they’ll be in the wind.”

“The only way to get the hostage out is to go through with the exchange. All we need are bodies on the ground to nullify the threat, after she leaves but before the helicopter takes off.” Karl’s monotone reflected a marked detachment, as if neither he nor she would play a role.

He also seemed to be ignoring the possibility these men might shoot him on sight. He could ignore her all he wanted. She refused to go along with any plan in which he had no hope of survival. “What’s to say they won’t put a bullet through your head the moment you step on the dock?”

He spared her a fleeting glance. “Thus far, Riad has gone out of his way to make this vendetta public and ostentatious. The first attack was a bomb. The second was an attempted kidnapping in full view of security cameras. He wants to send a message. A quick and painless kill isn’t what he’s after. Once Zahra leaves the island, he has less than fifteen minutes to high tail it out of there. The window isn’t long enough for him to have the type of execution he craves.”

She shook her head. “You’re playing a hunch.”

He looked straight at her. “No, I’m predicting the man. I know his profile well enough to make the call.”

Dan knocked his knuckles on the counter in a demand for attention. “We’re told to show up at nine. They’ll have full visibility, and Safe Harbor doesn’t own a submarine. Even if we could send a team there undetected, we don’t have time to assemble one. To reach the rendezvous in time, we need to leave for the marina in two hours.”

Karl rubbed his jaw. He had a habit of doing that when he was about to say something she wouldn’t like. “I suggest we swim.”

It was an insane proposal. Dan shared her opinion. “For them to not spot us diving in, we’d need to be dropped off over an hour offshore. Don’t let the desert sun fool you. The water in the Arabian Sea is freezing.”

Karl shrugged. “It’s why they invented wet suits.”

To her surprise, Jason seemed to be considering the option. “Do you have the training to pull it off?”

“It won’t be a problem. What about you?”

Her friend’s lips quirked up. “It’s been a while, but I’ve stayed in shape.”

“Whether or not you two are half-mermen doesn’t matter.” Dan snapped. “Karl needs to be on the dock. I was a spy, not a SEAL. I sure as hell can’t make the swim, and Jason isn’t going to neutralize a small army of criminals alone.”

A glimmer of satisfaction lit Karl’s face. “Has it occurred to you we share a number of physical attributes?”

“We look nothing alike.”

“Other than height, build, and skin color. If they’ve been tailing me from afar, they won’t notice the difference. In any event, the characteristic most people fixate on is hairstyle.” Karl’s expression turned gleeful. “Since they’re not expecting a switch, chances are high you’ll pass scrutiny.”

Dan winced and patted his collar-length locks. “Damn it. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to kill you.”

Wondering if she had somehow misheard the entire exchange, she cleared her throat. “I hate to interrupt, but I wanted to make sure I understood you correctly.” She hoped her next statement didn’t come out as sarcastic as it sounded in her head. “You and Jason are going to swim to the island. Dan, pretending to be you, will accompany me. We’ll exchange ourselves for Zahra, after which you two will attempt to kill everyone else in under fifteen minutes.
That
is your brilliant plan?”

To her relief, Karl shook his head. “You’ve got one thing wrong.”

“You had me going there—”

“You’re not coming with Dan on the boat.”

Even though she wasn’t quite sold on everything else, this seemed too dumb not to address. “I thought they specifically stated the deal is off unless I’m there. I don’t think you’re going to find another green-eyed blonde on such short notice.”

Karl directed his gaze at Jason. “I can’t focus on what I need to do if I’m worried about her safety. We need to take the chance they won’t carry out the threat.”

“Absolutely not.” She and Dan protested in unison.

Since her opinion didn’t seem to have much weight, she let Dan present his case. “I’m not risking Zahra’s life. They’ll kill her if Brennan isn’t there. I’m sorry, but it makes no sense for her not to go. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

Jason looked at Dan, and then back at Karl. “He’s right. Your plan is the best one we have. But it won’t work unless she makes the trip. You know it. I know it. Even she knows it.”

Brennan shivered even though she wore a hooded fleece, jeans, and sneakers. Cold sweat covered her from head to toe. Her teeth chattered. As the island came into view, it became impossible to keep her nerves under control. Karl was in the water somewhere offshore. They’d dropped him and Jason off an hour ago before circling around to approach from the opposite direction. Mentally calculating the distance he and Jason needed to swim hadn’t been the wisest decision.

Back at the marina, the men had appeared so confident she’d forgotten to feel afraid. Having steered the speedboat for close to an hour, she had plenty of time to list all the possible outcomes of this endeavor. Most of the permutations involved at least one of them getting killed.

“It’s remarkable how good he is at switching off.” Dan hadn’t been in a talkative mood until this moment. She suspected he’d noticed how close she was to a panic attack and was attempting distraction. With his hair cut short, he could pass as her husband’s sibling. For good measure, he’d donned the same T-shirt and dark denim Karl had worn to brunch. When he’d arrived at the marina with his curly locks shorn off, she’d understood why the men had been certain the guise was adequate.

She tried to decipher Dan’s vague statement. “Are you talking about Karl?”

He nodded. “The military trains their operatives to shut out all distraction. When you have an objective, everything else fades into the background. Soldiers have to focus on their orders—on the immediate next steps. Thinking about anything but the present is a sure way to get killed.”

She remembered how shaken Dan had been after watching the video. “You didn’t receive the same training, I take it?”

“My job at the Agency required a whole different set of skills. Emotion and instinct are assets. Not trusting them is what gets spies in hot water. I’m taught to use every part of my brain at all times.” He paused, his brows furrowing. “Jason had military training, but he’s not quite as good at mental isolation. Your husband’s the closest you can get to an android. It’s probably why they’d kept him in the field for so long.”

Karl hadn’t spoken a word to her between the time they’d finalized their plan and the moment he’d jumped into the water. It was as if he’d erected a glass wall to keep the world out, and he hadn’t wanted her anywhere near it. “I’ve read about the psychological trick, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in action. It explains a few things about our marriage.”

“I was surprised he suggested you stay behind. It made no strategic sense, but he argued for it anyway. He does a piss-poor job showing it, but he cares about you a great deal. If we make it through this, you might want give the guy another shot.”

They’d gotten close enough she could see the dock. Turning the wheel, she headed straight for it. “Chances are, he’ll sign on for another assignment and fly out as soon as this is over.” It was a notion she couldn’t shake, the fear too ingrained for a few days together to overcome.

Dan placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Two years apart gives a man perspective. I don’t think he wants to lose you a second time.”

As they approached, she spotted three shadows on the wooden platform. Petite and garbed head-to-toe in black, Zahra was easy to identify. She wasn’t restrained, but one of the two men had a gun to her temple.

About ten feet in front of her stood the second Syrian. He had an AK-47 hanging from a strap slung across his shoulder, its barrel pointed straight at the boat.

Dan pulled out his pistol as she cut off the engine. The man holding Zahra yelled something in Arabic while the other member of their welcoming committee let go of his automatic rifle to toss over a rope. With shaking fingers, she tied the speedboat in place before stepping across the gap to the dock.

Humidity thickened the air, the oppressive desert sun beating down on them. The man holding the AK pointed at her and shouted. She held her hands up in the universal gesture of surrender.

Dan remained in the boat. “He wants you to walk to him slowly,” he translated. “When he has you, his friend will let Zahra go.”

Instinct screamed she run in the opposite direction, but she continued to step forward on the wooden planks. The man she was approaching didn’t pay much attention to her progress. He unclipped a handheld radio from his belt and muttered a string of unintelligible words. The ensuing incomprehensible exchange ended with him pressing the barrel of his rifle to the center of her forehead.

A roar deafened her ears. Her vision hazed. With slow breaths, she focused on anchoring herself. She couldn’t afford to freak out. After a few interminable seconds, they released Zahra.

Her friend’s captor trained his pistol at her back as she ran. Brennan couldn’t see what was happening behind her, but she heard heavy footsteps coming from behind. She guessed Dan’s presence on the dock had been a requirement.

Zahra paused at her side.

“Get on the damn boat.” Dan’s command was a low growl. After a moment of hesitation, Zahra moved out of Brennan’s line of vision.

Her two friends argued in a language she couldn’t understand. She guessed Italian, but it could as easily have been Spanish or French. Dan’s voice got louder and Zahra’s shriller, but after what felt like eons, a pitter-patter of footsteps suggested Zahra’s departure.