Hard to Trust (14 page)

Amir was twitching, for the most part keeping his fidgety hands in his lap, his eyes cast downward at her feet, like she would have expected given the cultural nuances. In some ways she liked the ballsy ones better—the ones that would brag about all the information they had to share for the right price. They were much easier to decipher.

She had to wonder what that said about her. Either she liked the idea of a challenge or was used to the failure rate. She shook her head and pushed the thought away. She needed to concentrate.

"Who came up with the lead?" Jake asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Alex. He seemed to be able to tap into resources like no one else."

"But he was the only one they took. Don't you think that's odd?"

She bristled at his unspoken implication. "Not odd at all. More than likely they wanted to get information from him to see how many people he'd recruited."

"Amir, I can help you if you cooperate. We need to know more about the strike—when, where, and how. If we get that information, my bosses will be very happy. That means you and your family will have a very happy life."

Okay, maybe she was stretching the truth. She couldn't imagine anyone having a happy life in this godforsaken country with rampant poverty and multiple deaths an everyday occurrence, but she needed this guy to talk. The powers that be sent her in when they wanted the softer touch. She didn't even want to think about what might happen if it were Eli doing the interrogation. The poor guy was scared enough as it was.

He shook his head and shrugged. She ground her teeth together. Alex swore the guy had approached him wanting to spill information. It appeared that right now he had no intention of sharing anything besides his bad breath.

"Would you like some bottled water?" If it were up to her, she'd douse herself in a vat of it. She'd always thought summers in DC were brutal, but wading through summer into fall in Afghanistan had it beat by a mile.

She forced herself to focus while sweat beaded under her hijab. If not for the fact she'd scare the crap out of him, she'd take off the hijab and pull off the tunic covering her tank top.

Amir's eyes flicked past hers but didn't connect. Then again, she didn't expect him to, based on culture. He glanced over his shoulder. First one then the other, as if expecting someone.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention while dust swirled around the perimeter of the tent. Having a hint of a breeze might stave off the stream of water coursing down various parts of her body.

She was sweating her ass off because Alex thought she could get Amir to relax and tell her some juicy tidbits, but the guy hadn't made so much as a sound. She had to wonder if he could even talk.

"Hey, don't get mad at me. I'm asking the question as an impartial observer. I wasn't there. And I didn't know this Alex guy."

She bit back the whip of anger as once again he pulled her out of her memories. Having Jake a part of her life for the time being was a necessary evil. Sooner or later the time would come where she could see whatever this was to its logical conclusion. Trusting somebody she'd known barely forty-eight hours was not something she planned to do. Partial truths would be the only way to play this.

"I was getting nowhere with Amir, despite using my feminine wiles."

He smiled. "You have some of those? Maybe you could use them on me some time."

"Not a chance." She returned the smile. As far as people messing with her life were concerned, Jake was all right. "As I was saying. Amir wasn't talking, and then I noticed he started to get a little twitchy. The camels outside started to make some noises."

She moved her hand from the table to the gun she kept strapped to her leg. A tingle settled in the curve of her spine, setting off a series of pinpricks up her skull as she removed her gun from its hiding spot as discreetly as possible.

The winds once again whirled, making the sides of the tent reverberate, like the prop department had suddenly turned back on the industrial-sized fan. Sand blew into the tent, swirling about in the confines. Maybe there was an uptick in Amir's skittishness. Because despite the mundaneness of the moment, something set off her radar, and she launched herself over the table, bringing Amir to the ground with her. Seconds later a bullet tore through the side of the tent while she and Amir wrestled for control along the sand-covered floor.

She fought for control of her emotions before she continued with her story. "Next thing I know, I'm wrestling with Amir for my gun. A guy rolls inside the tent, barking off orders in Farsi. That's when the shit hit the fan."

"Was he there gunning for Amir, or wrong place wrong time?"

She tried to temper her racing heart as she held the gun to Amir's head, still knowing the threat was futile. He'd happily die for his cause if necessary. Martyrdom seemed to be the soup du jour around these parts.

"Amir." The man's commanding voice made Amir visibly shiver.

Heck, it made her shiver too. She stilled her racing pulse through sheer willpower. Jittery hands and guns did not mix. Choosing to take a stand before the inevitable happened, she came out of her crouch to a standing position, holding Amir's bicep in a grasp so tight it threatened to cut off the circulation in the tips of her fingers.
Where the hell was the cavalry? Why weren't they rushing to her rescue?

She cleared her throat. "I assumed he was there to bring us down. There were five of us there
Colton, Eli, Nick, Alex, and me. Since nobody came to my rescue despite the gunfire, I figured…well…I thought everyone else must have…"

The words didn't want to come. Saying them out loud was a line she hated to cross. To his credit, Jake seemed to sense her discomfort and raised his hand in a halting motion.

"That had to suck. When did you get shot? Did you make a run for it? I sure as hell would have."

The man bit off a sinister laugh. That kind of laugh crossed all sorts of cultural lines. There was no mistaking the vehemence behind it. Yep, it sure sucked to be her right now.

She steeled her spine, pulled up her big-girl panties, and made peace with the fact she was on her own. This guy had probably trained since he was a mere babe. But her stubborn streak chose that moment to pop to the surface. She wasn't about to go down easily despite the fact she had less than ten rounds in her gun, her knife was a distant memory, and she was outnumbered.

"The guy—I think it was Behrang—shot Amir between the eyes right next to me."

"Intimidation, pure and simple. He wanted you to know he meant business." Jake shook his head. "More than likely he didn't figure out you were a badass."

"That's when he shot me in the shoulder. Luckily he guessed wrong and shot my right shoulder, not knowing I'm left-handed." She drew in a shaky breath. "I squeezed off two shots, grazing him enough to distract him, and booked it out of there."

"Holy hell. How did you get away from him?"

"I was already feeling a little woozy and fell about fifty feet away from the tent. He grabbed my ankle and started to pull me toward him. I kicked at him with my survival boots and then grasped one of the tent posts."

His smarmy smile and hideous laugh brought the hairs on her arms to full attention. Sweat unlike any she'd ever known made the sand stick to hair, face, and arms, the blood congealing on her clothes.

He was playing with her for his own amusement. Revulsion clogged her throat. Now was not the time to think about that.

Survival. That was the only thing she thought about.

"Somehow I don't think that would have deterred him."

She heard the gun cock even as she scrambled and waited for the kill shot. Thoughts of her dismal life played in her mind like a tribute film at her funeral. No family. No real close friends. A home that never felt like a home.

Click
.

Nothing.

How could she tell him she agreed with his assessment? If not for the missing piece, she'd have the answer herself. "He aimed his gun at me, but it jammed. My shoulder was pumping out blood, and I felt dizzier than hell, but somehow I ran. I had to find help."

It surprised her when she had to sniff to keep the tears at bay. "I spotted Alex getting dragged away by a group of men. Then I saw Colton with his throat slashed and Eli shot in the head. I couldn't find Nick. And then I passed out."

What she saw next she didn't share. Because it couldn't have been true. It had to have been a figment of the delirium.

*  *  *

"Holy shit. It sounds like a complete cluster-f—CF." She was holding back, but Jake wasn't sure what that was all about. Yeah, he didn't know her well, but he still itched to know the pieces she left out.

She shook her head. "It's all fuzzy. I'm not sure what I dreamt and what really happened. A couple days later, they showed film of Alex's execution." Her eyes misted over again.

"Did you and Alex have a thing?" Call him a jerk, but he needed to know. Maybe it fit in somehow—if Alex had a new woman in his life and she was jealous—or maybe it was morbid curiosity on his part.

She smiled, even with the hint of teardrops hanging from her eyelashes. "Alex, Nick, and I bonded going through"—she did air quotes—"Farm training. It was hellacious, intense, and all those things you've heard about it. They tried to confuse us. Analyze us. Pit us against each other. And everything in between. Somehow we all survived. We were tight, even though we were shipped to various parts of the world on any given day. It was weird the three of us were sent into Afghanistan together on this last mission. That had never happened before."

"What are you saying?"

She shrugged. "I'm not saying anything, but I do have to wonder in retrospect why they put us together like they did. People who knew each other normally weren't assigned together in the field. Sometimes it happens, but for the most part, we operate separately."

"You're avoiding the question, but that's okay."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure why you need to have that information, but Alex and I were only friends. As for Nick, okay, that would be too weird, like some kind of kinky ménage à trois. Is that all you men think about?" She shot him a look. "Yeah, that would be a hell to the no. Beyond gross." She shuddered.

"I didn't even think of a ménage à trois, so you're the one with the dirty mind, not me." He smiled before adding, "For a change."

"Okay, guilty as charged. But I still don't get your comment."

"It seemed like Nick's death didn't hit you as hard as Alex's, that's all. I saw something in your eyes when you mentioned Alex's name."

She smiled. "Everyone loved Alex. He was off-the-charts bright, spoke more languages than I could even think about, and had a way about him that was endearing. He was kind of like a big brother and a best friend rolled into one. We spoke often on the phone, texted or emailed each other every day, where Nick and I kind of drifted apart. Not that we weren't still friends and it didn't hit me to see him dead, but in some ways I kind of expected it."

"Expected? Why?"

"He'd been acting like a tool for a couple of years. Always starting fights with people. Some speculated he'd gotten hooked on drugs. I'm not sure what it was, but he wasn't fun to be around. That's for sure. I tried to get Alex to talk about what was going on with Nick while we were together in Afghanistan, but I came up with
nada
. He kept saying that Nick was going through some issues but didn't elaborate. There was some talk that he got so bad he was released from the agency after the whole thing in Afghanistan. But nothing that I could confirm. As far as I know, he was still on leave when he died."

Jake tumbled the whole thing through his mind and thought about the possibility he was barking up the wrong tree. "I know this sounds crazy, but are we looking at the right thing? Is it possible that all of this happened because of your initial training or one of your other missions? Did something else happen that prompted this whole fiasco we're in the middle of now?" If he was supposed to ferret out the truth, he had to look beyond the superficial that was presented to him. Digging deeper would be the way to go about that. That would be assuming she'd be forthcoming.

"That was eight years ago. I barely remember last week." She flipped her braid onto her shoulder.

"Think. Maybe there's something you can connect. Okay, if not all the way back to The Farm, what were your last couple of assignments? Anything unusual happen? What was your assignment before Kabul?" He needed some kind of thread that made sense in order to justify the fact she was the only one of the three of them alive.