Burned (6 page)

That soft, sleepy tone was just as intimate as their position. For just a moment Zahra closed her eyes and allowed herself to soak in the feel of him so warm and solid and hungry against her. Her breasts tightened against the fabric of her tank top and a slow pulse throbbed between her legs. If she arched a bit she could rub the lower curve of her breast against the top of that muscled forearm. She wanted him to slide his hand beneath her top so she could feel it against her bare skin, have him glide it upward until he cupped her breast and brushed his thumb over the aching peak. The dampening flesh between her thighs felt swollen, that unfulfilled ache impossible to ignore. She moved slightly and pressed her legs together to ease the sensation but it didn’t help.

He squeezed her once then let go. “It’s almost eight. We’d better get ready and head into work.”

Right.
Fantasy shattered, Zahra pushed up into a sitting position and stood, avoiding his gaze as she wrapped her arms around herself and headed for the hallway. With her hair down and the tank top covering most of her back, she doubted he could see her scars and it had been so dark last night there was no way he could’ve noticed them. She wasn’t ashamed of them, but she wasn’t ready for the questions they’d inevitably cause.

“Coffee’s already made if you want some,” she said over her shoulder, glad she’d remembered to program the coffee maker the night she’d moved in. “Grab a shower in the guest bath if you want one.”

She fled up the stairs, her body reminding her with every step how unhappy it was for denying it the opportunity to explore the unprecedented arousal flooding her. With the act of simply waking up to find herself held so securely against his muscular body, Sean had managed to get her hotter than any of the guys she’d actually slept with.

After showering and dressing in a charcoal gray pencil skirt and fitted pale pink long sleeved top, she blow dried her hair and twisted it up into a knot at the back of her head so it wouldn’t get in her way. She brushed her teeth, put on a little eye makeup and hurried back down to the kitchen. Sean stood leaning against the counter, his hair damp from a recent shower, those muscles filling out his T-shirt every bit as well as she remembered.

“Did you leave any for me?” she asked because she couldn’t think of anything better to say.

“One cup, black, two sugars,” he responded, sliding a steaming mug toward her.

She shook her head at him, smiling as she took it. “You remembered.”

“I’m good with details,” he answered, eyes sparkling with innuendo.

Still remembering the feel of him imprinted against her body, she forced her gaze away from those dark, hypnotic eyes and headed for the garage. “Shall we?”

The commute was comfortable though Zahra couldn’t help stealing glances at him as she drove. Another lifetime ago she’d have been all over the chance to have sex with him. She wasn’t the same person she’d been back in college though. Hookups hadn’t been all that satisfying to begin with and without some sort of reciprocated emotional component she wasn’t interested in sleeping with anyone, not even Sean. Though thinking of how he’d held her all night made her feel all fluttery inside. If he met her even partway, she could see herself falling for him, hard. Then she’d just have to hope she wasn’t merely a conquest for him to make.

They rode the elevator up and exited at the hallway leading to Alex’s office. Ruth was at her desk typing away and smiled when she saw them.

“Is he in a meeting?” Zahra asked her.

Ruth’s expression became pinched and she looked away before answering. “He’s doing more interviews this morning. He and Evers have been taking turns with the questioning.”

To find the mole within the NSA, she meant, with Jake Evers, the FBI agent assisting Alex. The NSA had teamed up with the FBI to work behind the scenes going over phone call transcripts, computer searches and whatnot, making certain that all the employees checked out clean for involvement with a terror cell.

“Two more to go, then it’s my turn in the hot seat,” Ruth finished, rubbing her hands against her skirt.

Zahra smiled in encouragement. “It’s just standard procedure. We’ve all been grilled already. You’ll do fine. Don’t let him bully you though,” she added with a wink.

“Got any more of those brownies?” Sean asked hopefully beside her, scanning the desk, his face falling a little when he didn’t see a plate among the pictures of Ruth’s son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.

“Sorry, got home too late last night to make a new batch. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Only if you have time,” Sean said with a dismissive wave.

“Well, better you guys eat them than me. Another few weeks of this stress and I won’t fit into any of my clothes.”

“You look great,” Zahra told her, and grabbed Sean’s arm to tow him away. “See you after your interview.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve got a sweet tooth, huh?” Zahra noted as they headed down the carpeted hallway to the conference room.

“Not just one,” he argued. “Can’t help it though. I love sweet things.”

At the sensual tone she stopped to look over her shoulder at him and was unsurprised to see the hunger burning there. Her pulse tripped and her mouth went dry before she shook herself and faced forward once more. “Don’t distract me while I’m working, Dunphy.”

“Sorry, can’t promise you that,
Gill
.”

The man was such trouble. She got a kick out of his playfulness. Hiding a smile, she entered the conference room to find Hunter and Ellis already at work on some new files. “Morning. Got anything new for me to work on?”

Hunter straightened. “Yeah, a couple. Alex is gonna be busy for another few hours yet, so he told us to go out and do some more surveillance. You up for it?”

Her? Surveillance? “Sure, but I’ve never—”

“Dunphy’ll show you what to do. Mostly you’re just there to provide an extra set of eyes. You know how to use a camera, right?”

Well the sarcasm was a little uncalled for. “Of course I can.”

“Then you’re good to go.” Hunter held up a set of keys. “Here,” he said, tossing them to Sean, who caught them in one hand.

She looked up at Sean questioningly, caught the twinkle in his eyes and hoped it was because he was happy about spending more time alone with her, even if it was for work. “Well, guess it’s back down to the parking lot for us, then you can show me the ropes.”

His eyes darkened, heated. “Looking forward to it, sweetness.”

And with that loaded answer he went and pulled the door open for her, leaving her off-kilter and a little breathless.

Chapter Five

Learning the ropes, as it turned out, wasn’t as daunting or exciting as she’d first imagined. And the flirting she’d been enjoying so much with him was gone now that Sean was in full recon mode.

Zahra stayed down low in the passenger seat as Sean checked the text message one of the other guys had just sent him. She cradled the high-powered camera in her lap, index finger waiting on top of the shutter button in case the suspect ever came out of his freaking building for her to get a shot of him. So far only a mother and toddler and an old man in one of those motorized chairs had come out.

“How long have we been sitting here?” she asked irritably.

“Not quite ninety minutes. Why, you getting bored or something?” he asked dryly.

Bored was an understatement, even for her, who thought staying in and watching movies alone on a Friday night was a good time. “This guy might not even be home, for all we know. Shouldn’t we be doing something else? Helping the others follow their suspect maybe?” It seemed like such a gigantic waste of time for them to be sitting out here like this, doing nothing. She would’ve been far more productive back at the office working on translations or breaking encryptions for Alex.

She heard the smile in his voice when he answered. “Nope. Learning to be patient is the hardest part about surveillance work but it’s also the most important. Just be glad you’re all snug and cozy in this vehicle instead of out in the mountains lying in the snow right now with a pair of binoculars and a minus twenty wind chill.”

She glanced over at him, curious. “Did you have to do that often?”

As he hadn’t shaved in a few days his face was covered in dark stubble that made him appear rugged and dangerous. On him that look was sexy as hell. “Often enough.”

“How long did you have to wait out there?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes for days.”

Good God, she couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to do that for a living. Suppressing a shudder, she kept her eyes trained on the front entry of the apartment building across the street from where they were parked. “You guys are insane.”

“Damn straight,” he said with such obvious pride that she couldn’t help but smile.

In the lull that followed she mentally reviewed everything that had happened in the past week, and all the things left unresolved. “Think they’re going to be able to find the mole?” she asked finally. It weighed heavy on her mind to think that someone within the agency—maybe even someone she knew—was handing information about them to the TTP and the domestic sleeper cell here in Baltimore.

“Sooner or later, yeah. I’m hoping for sooner though. That bomb almost killed Gage, and it could’ve been any, or all of us.”

She’d seen at the time that Gage being injured had affected him, she just hadn’t realized how much until he’d told her last night about the friends he’d lost in the line of duty. When he’d walked into the office to tell her about Gage, he’d been so upset she’d instantly been compelled to get up and hug him, letting her guard down in that moment to comfort him. That first taste of being held in his strong arms had haunted her ever since. It was addictive and she wanted more, wanted to be the center of his focus as he touched her and studied her reaction to every stroke of his fingers, every caress of his tongue on her body.

His gaze shifted back to the building and he tensed slightly. “Someone’s coming out. Keep your head down.”

Zahra swiveled, aimed the camera toward the front door and waited, making sure her face was hidden and the lens didn’t show, as Sean had taught her. Through the telephoto lens she had a clear view of the building’s front entry. A man appeared in the foyer. Around her age, mid twenties or so, dark hair and golden skin.

“He’s got a full beard, well groomed,” she reported. The shots she’d seen of him previously all showed him with a very short goatee.

“Could still be him. Take some shots so we can compare them later with the facial recognition software.”

The man pushed the door open and emerged into the bright afternoon sunlight wearing shades. Zahra took several frames in quick succession, the shutter making a quiet little click with each shot. “Is it him?” she asked. Bahir Sahota had been flagged by the CIA as possibly linked to the terror network her NSA team was trying to nail.

“Think so. Make sure you get his profile as well.”

She waited for him to walk down to the sidewalk and turn up the street before taking more of him from the side. As he walked away from her and got into a silver compact car, she sat forward to zoom in on the license plate and snapped a few pictures of it. Sean waited until the silver vehicle was halfway up the street before he started up the SUV and followed.

Zahra stayed quiet while they tailed him out of the urban neighborhood and headed west toward the city center. Sean didn’t talk as he drove, focused on staying close enough to the vehicle to follow, but far enough away to maintain their cover. The driver exited off the highway and took the turnoff to the city center. Staying on him now was harder and she marveled at the skill Sean showed in maneuvering through heavy traffic while keeping the target vehicle in sight.

They lost the silver car at a red light. Calm and decisive, Sean wound his way through two lanes of traffic and cut over the next block in time to catch up with it.

 “You’re good,” she told him. “I don’t think he has any clue he’s being tailed.”

“He won’t if I do my job right,” he answered, switching lanes again. “And you didn’t.”

She blinked. “I didn’t what?”

“Know you were being tailed.”

“You tailed me? When?” Other than last night.

“Last week when you met Claire and her friend for dinner. Gage sent me to keep any eye on you guys. I sat in the parking lot the whole time, waited while you talked out on the sidewalk, then followed Claire home to make sure no one else did.”

Since she had no idea what she was supposed to say to that she didn’t respond and made a mental note to be more vigilant about what was going on around her from now on. What else hadn’t she noticed? After the attack she’d been paranoid about people even looking at her but it had faded after a while because she’d started to feel safe again. Apparently over time she’d gotten too complacent and let her guard down too far. Sean had just given her a very pointed reminder about how vulnerable she was.

“Well, this is interesting,” Sean commented a minute later when the silver car turned onto a road lined with apartment buildings.

“Why, what’s going on?” she asked, watching as the car parallel parked at the curb and the driver climbed out.

“Hang on a sec,” Sean said, then got on the radio to Hunter. “I’m sitting in front of the building you guys were watching yesterday,” he told him. “We’ve followed a guy here—we’re ninety-five percent sure it’s Bahir—and he’s up at the front door right now. Zahra, he’s got something in his hand. See if you can get a shot of it.”

How could he see that from here? She scrambled to get the camera up in position, managed to snap a few frames as Bahir stood at the front door. “It looks like an envelope,” she said. “Too thin to have a stack of money in it. Whatever it is, it’s thin.”  

“He’s alone?” Hunter asked, a note of urgency in his voice.

“That’s affirm. Whoever he’s looking for isn’t home. He tried the buzzer but no one’s answered,” Sean said.

“The suspect we were tracking yesterday,” Hunter answered. “Has to be. They attended the same mosque.”

Zahra’s muscles tightened as the connection hit home. She kept her finger on the shutter button, her heart pounding. “Which mosque?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.

When Hunter said the name her fingers froze around the camera, her blood turning ice cold. She must have made a sound because Sean set a hand on her forearm. “Hey, what is it?”

She swallowed and shook her head, fighting the nausea twisting in her gut. “I used to go to that mosque.” And so had the man who had taken everything from her.

Sean cursed and keyed the radio again. “Hunt, someone just let him in. A woman, standing in the foyer. Stand by.”

Surfacing from the dark wave of fear tugging at her, Zahra blinked and refocused on the building’s entrance. Bahir was gone but reappeared a moment later without the envelope and walked back to his car.

“He’s heading back to his vehicle,” Sean reported to Hunter, “but the envelope’s gone. He must’ve dropped it in someone’s mailbox.”

“Amir,” Hunter confirmed, voice hard.

“Want me to follow this guy now? See where he goes from here?”

“Negative, I’ll bet my left nut he’s just a delivery boy. Get back to the office and make sure you run the photos Zahra took. We’ll meet you there, and once we know for sure you saw Bahir, we have to find this Amir asshole and figure out what he’s up to.”

“Roger that.” Setting the radio down, he turned to her and reached for her hand. “Jesus, you’re freezing. What the hell’s wrong, Zahra?” When she shook her head he caught her chin in one hand and tilted her face up, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Talk to me.” He brushed his thumb gently across the line of her jaw. His gaze was so sincere, so concerned.

Though she wanted to lean into his hand and blurt out everything, she just couldn’t. The memories were too raw, too shameful.

Instead she laced her cold fingers through his and squeezed, grateful for his warmth and that he seemed to genuinely care about her. “Just get me back so we can work on the pictures,” she told him. “I need to talk to Alex.” He was the only one who would understand.

Eyes burning with frustration and disappointment, Sean gave a grudging nod and kept hold of her hand as he started the ignition.

****

Amir spread his feet and arms apart for the guard to pat him down and turned when he was told to so the officer could check the back of him. The air in here was still and smelled of stale sweat. The weak fluorescent lights overhead bathed the room in a sickly, depressing wash of bluish light. His pulse beat an erratic rhythm just from being inside these walls, his mind whispering he’d wind up in an even darker place than this if he wasn’t extremely careful.

The fake passport and Social Security number he carried named him as an approved visitor from the mosque that matched the list the prison had on file. Even though his beard was bushy enough to conceal most of his lower face and he planned to shave it off tomorrow to help disguise his appearance again, he knew he was being monitored on camera right now and that his sudden appearance might raise red flags.

“All right, go ahead,” the guard ordered gruffly and waved him through the electronically locking door into the next room. Dozens of other visitors sat at tables waiting for an inmate to be escorted from the cell block. Young women with children—who the hell would bring children in here?—other family members and friends of the incarcerated, some church group volunteers.

Making his way to the front of the room where the inmates were separated from the outside world by thick sheets of Plexiglas, he told the guard who he was here to see and chose a seat at the window. He sank into the hard orange plastic chair attached to the wall by a thick steel pipe and rubbed his damp palms over his jeans. People behind and beside him spoke in hushed tones, the gray and sterile atmosphere pressing in on him.

A few minutes passed before a guard appeared with a new prisoner. Amir’s heart rate quickened when the inmate came into view wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and a white
topi
prayer cap. The man’s gaze traveled along the line of windows, stopping when it landed on Amir. A flare of recognition lit those dark eyes, the only sign that he recognized Amir.

He watched the man approach the seat on the opposite side of the glass, his ankles shackled and his hands bound before him with chains, shoulders drooped. He lowered himself slowly into the chair and Amir was shocked at the change in the man’s appearance. It was as though he’d aged a decade in just two years. The thick head of dark hair and beard he remembered were heavily streaked with gray. His face held a sickly pallor, the skin sagging on the bones from all the weight he’d lost since his incarceration.