Chapter 18 #2
"A gun," she reminded him. "You pushed me out of the way. We ran to your Jeep. A guy followed us for a while, but I lost him. Eventually, we came here. I have some snacks in the kitchen if you're hungry."
"Maybe in a minute. Do you know who shot at us?"
"No. But I know they weren't shooting at anyone else. We were the target. Someone wanted to kill us, and I can only think of a couple of people who knew where we were."
He met her gaze, following her thought. "Dominic. But he wouldn't have me killed."
"Maybe it was Caroline Rowe or one of Dominic's mysterious visitors. Maybe it was someone on his security team."
"Or someone on your team. You texted them. You said we were going to meet Dominic near his executive retreat."
She frowned at the reminder. "I didn't give the details, but you're right, I said something." She paused. "But that's not what I want to talk about now."
There was something about her tone that made him nervous. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Who's Nicole?"
Her question stole his breath away. "What?" he asked, stalling for time.
"Nicole. You talked about her. You apologized to her. You said it should have been you. And you said her name with Qadir's name about a hundred times. So, who was she?"
"She was another agent, and she was also my friend."
"She sounded like more than a friend. Like someone you were in love with."
He shook his head. "No, it wasn't like that.
We had something a long time ago, right after we both joined the agency.
But it didn't last. And then she got together with another agent a couple of years later.
The three of us were close, and I cared a great deal about both of them.
But Nicole and Brian were in love with each other, and they would have been together forever if I hadn't made mistakes. "
She licked her lips. "Did Qadir kill Nicole?"
He slowly nodded, that truth always bringing him a great deal of pain.
"He killed both of them. First, Brian, then Nicole.
She had to watch her love die right in front of her.
And I had to watch…" His voice trailed away.
"Qadir is evil, twisted. He has no conscience.
He can't be turned. He can't be changed.
He's a monster. And the CIA never should have put him back out in the world. "
"How could they do that if he killed two of their agents?"
"Because they didn't believe he'd done it. But I knew he had."
"Why didn't they believe it? Why didn't they trust your judgement?"
He really didn't want to talk about it all, but what choice did he have?
Kara had saved his life, and she wanted answers.
He owed her that much. "Qadir drugged me for days.
I was hallucinating for much of the time.
But before I was really out of my mind, I was able to send our location out to the team.
Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, I was delirious, and drug testing showed hallucinogenic drugs in my system.
They put me into an immediate rehab center, and while I was recovering, Qadir told them a different story. "
"What was the story?"
"That he'd come across the terrorists holding Nicole, Brian, and me, that he'd killed two of those men to save my life.
Which wasn't true. He'd killed them to provide cover for his story, to make him look like someone who had decided he was tired of the bloodshed, that he wanted to change his life, be a better person. "
"I still don't see how they could believe that?"
"It was beyond me. But Qadir was a con man, and they were blinded by the opportunity to get someone like him acting as an asset."
"And now he's back out in the world, doing terrible things."
"Yes, with more power than he had before."
"Why didn't he kill you, Max?"
"He had a plan to use me for leverage. Fortunately, the team got there in time to capture Qadir and save me, just not the others."
"I'm sorry about that. Was the team from your agency, or was it a team from Delta?"
"It was a mix," he said, meeting her gaze.
"Tyler Brennan was part of it, although he wasn't at the rescue.
He was someone I'd seen earlier that week, before it all went to hell.
There was a break in the intelligence chain.
That's how Qadir got to the three of us in the beginning.
I don't know that Brennan had anything to do with it. But I also don't know that he didn't."
"Why would Tyler suspect you of being a traitor if you were the one who was responsible for sending Qadir's location?"
"Because I was the sole survivor. Brennan wasn't the only one to question why I was still alive."
She drew a breath and let it out, her eyes filled with confusion. "It sounds like a nightmare."
"It feels that way to me."
"Is it possible you don't really know what happened, Max? If you were hallucinating, how can you be sure of your memories?"
He thought about her question. "I'm sure of some things.
I'm sure that our mission was to find Qadir's hideout and call for a drone strike.
I'm sure that Nicole and Brian are dead.
And I'm absolutely sure that Qadir has never been an asset.
Do I know all the details? I don't. But in my gut, in my heart, and in my head, I am certain that Ali Qadir is responsible for the death of my friends and for the deaths of many other people.
You can believe me or not. You wouldn't be the only one to doubt my story. "
"I believe you," she said, easing his heart. But the puzzlement in her gaze didn't completely reassure him.
"But?" he challenged.
"You were saying a lot of things last night, and one of them was about killing Qadir. You quit the agency, but you still want to take down Qadir, don't you?"
"Yes."
She sucked in a breath of surprise. "I didn't think you were going to admit it."
"The agency was going to send me to Latin America.
They didn't want me anywhere near Qadir's territory, so I quit.
I hunted him on my own for six months, but I ran out of money and resources.
I went back to the UK to visit my father, to take a moment to regroup and consider my options.
That's when I ran into Dominic. We had dinner.
Dominic told me it was fortuitous that he'd run into me, that he needed a security consultant for his upcoming trips and projects in dangerous areas in the Middle East. It was perfect.
I could take the job, make a lot of cash, and have an opportunity to go back into an area where I thought Qadir might be hiding, and I would be under the cover of private security. "
Kara sat up in bed, pushing her hair behind her ears. "So, taking the job with Dominic was just a way for you to get back to your mission? Or should I call it an obsession?"
"Call it whatever you want," he returned, seeing the sharp gleam in her eyes.
"You want revenge. You don't want to capture him; you want to kill him."
"I tried to bring him in before. I tried to do it the right way, Kara."
"Revenge isn't justice."
"It's the next best thing," he said, seeing disappointment run through her eyes. He wasn't surprised. She wasn't a person who would seek vengeance over justice. She still had ideals. "I'm sure you don't agree."
"I don't. I believe in justice, in punishment, in putting people away, not killing them."
"Sometimes, that's the only choice that allows good to triumph over evil. If there was another way, I would take it."
"There is another way. Your agency knows he can't be trusted now. If he's captured again, he won't be turned into an asset. He'll go to prison. He'll pay for his crimes, for what he did to you, to your friends, to everyone."
"I'm not sure anyone will ever catch him, and if they do, I don't believe he'd allow himself to be taken alive."
"Well, that would be his choice, not yours."
As their gazes clung together, he saw a myriad of emotions run through her beautiful brown eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?"
"Not being who you want me to be."
Her breath caught in her throat. "I don't know who I want you to be."
"Yes, you do. And I don't blame you. I was once like you. I believed in my power to change the world in a way that was honorable."
"I don't blame you for wanting Qadir dead. But there's time to make a different choice, Max. You just have to want to make that choice."
"Well, I may never get close enough to him to capture him or kill him. He's been very elusive so far."
Her expression suddenly shifted. "When you told me about Caleb being Malik Azrani's brother, and Malik being one of Qadir's top guys, you didn't tie that all together for me. You didn't say Qadir was the terrorist turned asset. Why not?"
He shrugged. "I was still trying to figure it out. My contact said the Azrani brothers have been estranged for years. Malik was raised by his father in the Middle East. Caleb was raised by his mother in the US. It's possible Caleb is not tied to Qadir."
"It's possible he is," she argued.
"I was going to talk to you about it yesterday, but then everything went to hell."
"You got a strange look on your face when we were talking to Dominic about the tower fire and the revenge plot, and he said he couldn't believe the bombs were about that. You were thinking the explosions are about Qadir."
"Qadir has power in Tajikistan. He's a threat to Dominic's project and to Dominic's safety. Malik Azrani works closely with him, and if Caleb is tied to the explosions here, then it all seems to connect," he admitted. "But it also doesn't."
Kara thought for a moment. "You're right. It's confusing because it doesn't add up, not the victims, not the methods…nothing except that we have two Azrani brothers and a tie to Qadir and an established terrorist network."
"Caleb may have his own game going here in the US, and someone reached out to him to buy bombs and revenge that had nothing to do with Tajikistan.
And the link to Qadir could be a stretch.
" He paused and then painfully shifted into a sitting position, his head spinning a little with the movement.
"We should get out of here. There's too much to do.
We can't hide out. We have to get in the fight. "
"I'm not sure you're ready for that fight."
"I will be. I feel better now. And you said I have antibiotics and pain pills, so I'm good to go." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and then slowly stood up. "What happened to my shirt? My jacket?"
"Your shirt was cut to shreds and covered in blood. Your jacket is also pretty bloody and has a hole in it."
"It will do." He picked up his jacket from the bed where she'd put it. "The blood is dry," he added as he eased the jacket over his painful shoulder. "Where's my phone?"
She got out of bed, walked to the dresser, and got his phone. He turned it on to check his messages and was shocked to see a photo from Reza sent sometime last night. As he studied the image, he felt his world spin once more, but this time it wasn't from a loss of blood.
"What's wrong?" Kara asked, moving toward him.
"Qadir is in New York." He turned the phone around so she could see the photo.
"Oh my God! This is time-stamped yesterday."
"This is about him," he said, meeting her gaze. "We need to get back to the city, and then you need to get as far away from me as you can. This isn't just about Dominic or any of the others anymore. It's also about me"
"How does that make sense?" she asked in confusion.
"Qadir is a complex thinker. It's one of his gifts.
Others go linear. He never sees opportunities in a straight line.
Maybe this didn't start out to be about me or about New York.
But whatever is happening has drawn his interest, and if there's one thing I can guarantee, however big and bad we think it's going to be, it will be worse. "