Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“There’s no easy way to put this.” CIA Director Rutherford’s face filled the screen on the wall in the conference room.
Luke, Knox, Liam, and Asher stood at attention, waiting for news they knew would come and didn’t want to hear.
“At seven p.m. in Berlin, a lone shooter took out two people and abducted a third just before plastic explosives were detonated. The BND phoned an hour ago to let us know they got a positive match on the woman taken.” There was a pause as his light-blue eyes narrowed. “Stephanie Patterson.”
“No,” Asher said between barely parted lips.
“Jessica’s alias,” Luke whispered.
The director leaned back in his desk chair.
“The Germans don’t seem to know Jessica’s true identity, and they wouldn’t divulge the name of the female victim gunned down who’d been with Jessica at the time.
I’m guessing they haven’t yet ID’d the victim, given the site of the blast was ten feet away from the body. ”
“Her phone must’ve been destroyed in the blast, which is why I couldn’t track her location,” Luke said in a low voice.
Asher glanced at Luke, the color in the man’s face deepening to a reddish hue, anger slicing through him.
“What else do we know?” Knox spoke up since it was clear Luke was in shock.
Asher couldn’t get his lips to move either, though. He turned his back to the screen and stormed over to the conference table and braced himself against it with balled hands.
His thoughts began to derail.
A loss of focus had him remembering . . .
You’d look good sprawled naked across this table. The words had accidentally slipped out a few months after Asher had first begun working with Jessica.
Her face had heated. Those walls of ice melted, but only for a moment, as her long lashes batted a few times. You promised not to even think about me naked.
In my defense, I spoke the words instead of thinking them. He winked and circumvented the table to get closer to her.
Her arms folded, which only accentuated her breasts in her silky white blouse. Defense 101.
Luke is on his way in here, she rushed out. Are you in the mood for an ass-kicking?
He won’t—
What makes you think I was talking about him? She arched a brow, and her confidence and attitude had his dick stirring in his pants. You can’t have me again, she said a moment later, but her eyes lowered to his jeans.
He didn’t think she’d even realized she’d swept her luscious red lip between her white teeth, a signal she still wanted him as much as he wanted her.
Now, she was gone.
Gone. “No,” Asher said under his breath. He whirled toward the guys as a realization slammed into him, and he regained his focus. “I think I know who the victim is,” he rushed out.
His team faced him. Eyes wide and waiting for more.
“Every time Jessica goes to Berlin, she sees Nahla Assi.” Asher’s spine straightened, and he rubbed his hands down his jaw before blowing out a breath. “Formerly known as Ara Hadeed, the niece to Yasser Hadeed. Hadeed was the former leader of the al-Nusra Front.”
The director’s eyes connected with Asher’s. When he didn’t say anything else, Rutherford looked to Luke for more information.
But Luke wouldn’t have the answers. He didn’t know the truth.
“Jessica was under strict orders to abstain from any contact with her,” Rutherford said. “What the hell aren’t you telling me?”
Liam and Knox glanced Asher’s way, concern flickering across their faces. He couldn’t get himself to find Luke’s eyes, to risk the look of betrayal he’d find there.
So he glanced skyward for a moment, trying to corral his thoughts. “The CIA may have turned its back on Ara Hadeed and those girls, but Jessica didn’t.” He couldn’t say more because they didn’t have time to waste. “We need to focus on getting her back.”
“There’s no way I’m going to sit around and let the BND or BKA handle this, not with Jessica’s life on the line,” Luke rasped.
The director shook his head. “This isn’t your fight. I’m sorry. The president is turning this over to German officials and the CIA.”
“What?” Asher stalked closer to the screen. “No damn way. She’s one of us. We can’t—”
“First of all,” he began, cutting Asher off, “you know the rules about what happens if one of you are captured.” He loosened the tie around his neck.
“And second of all, Jessica should never have been in contact with Ara Hadeed.” Air filled his cheeks for a moment.
A battle between being worried and pissed flared in his eyes. “Stand down. That’s a direct order.”
The second the line was killed, Knox asked, “We’re not backing off, are we?”
Everyone faced Luke for the directive.
“Hell, no.” Luke shook his head. “Liam, I want you on surveillance. Get me better footage from the scene in Berlin. I want access to every CCTV camera within the area.”
Owen was the next best thing to Jessica when it came to cyber skills, but Liam was a close runner-up.
Liam nodded and hurried out of the conference room, leaving Asher alone with Luke and Knox.
“With a lot of roads being closed and the airport still shut down, it’s going to take the rest of the boys longer to get here,” Knox said while glancing out the window. The snow, taunting them, had picked back up again.
“I want everything we can get on the Hadeeds.” Luke’s jaw tensed, the muscle twitching beneath his stubble as he turned to Asher. “You were on the op that took down Yasser Hadeed six years ago, I’m guessing?” he asked, a rough texture to his tone. “Jessica, too.”
Asher tried to ignore the feeling of intense pain that burrowed its way into the pit of his stomach. He had to focus. But it was damn useless.
He blinked, a slight blur to his vision as he eyed Luke.
It took him a moment to realize it was unshed tears distorting his view.
“Yeah, she was the CIA liaison.” He finally found his voice. A rawness in his throat. Lacerations to his heart at the thought of losing Jessica.
“Give us the rundown, then. We need to know what we’re dealing with so we can find out who has her,” Luke gritted out. He was burying his emotions better than Asher at the moment.
He had to remain strong for the team, though, Asher realized. It may have killed Luke to do it, but he was in command for a reason.
Asher’s hands swept to prayer position, and his fingers tapped at his mouth for a second to get a grip.
“Jessica had been tracking down the Hadeeds’ compound for months.
When she discovered where Yasser Hadeed was hiding, she provided the military with the coordinates for a drone strike against an al-Nusra Front location in Syria. ”
“I didn’t think the strike took out Yasser Hadeed,” Luke said.
Asher allowed his arms to fall to his sides. “The compound was wiped out, but Hadeed wasn’t inside. And that was when a girl showed up at the base, offering up the location of Yasser.”
“Ara,” Knox whispered.
Asher nodded. “Her mom was Yasser’s older sister.
Her parents had been killed earlier that year by the Assad regime during the war.
Ara was forced to live with her uncle, but she didn’t approve of what he did, and so she came to us with his location on a silver fucking platter.
” He took a breath. “My team was brought in to handle the mission. After we took down Yasser, Jessica wanted to provide safe passage for those who wanted out of Syria, particularly Ara.”
He didn’t usually remember every detail, but that was the op where he’d met Jessica, and every moment had somehow imprinted in his mind.
“The CIA didn’t help Ara in return, though,” Knox said, picking up on what Asher had told the director.
He took a sobering breath. “No, the brass turned down Jessica’s request.”
“Is that the real reason she wanted to leave the CIA?” Knox asked when Luke continued to remain silent, his chest simply rising and falling with slow breaths.
“Maybe in part.” Asher scratched at his jaw. “Jessica decided to help Ara and the girls, anyway. She paid for their passage to Berlin.”
“That’s why she teaches them.” Knox put the pieces together. “They’re the girls from Syria. Shit.”
“Yeah. And with Ara she was worried if anyone discovered her identity they’d come after her for betraying her uncle. So, she arranged for a new identity. She’s kept in touch with her all of these years but under her original alias Stephanie.”
“Why’d you keep this from me? Why would Jessica risk so much—” Luke cut himself off.
Asher knew Luke was discovering a side of his sister he hadn’t known—a side she kept hidden beneath boulders.
The so-called cold-hearted woman was anything but, even if she wouldn’t truly share that part of herself with anyone.
“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t even know she’d helped Ara until last summer. I stumbled upon them chatting over Skype. I tried to talk her out of staying in touch, but then I felt like a dick, so I let it go.”
Luke looked to the floor. “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t let me know you had an operational history together when you joined the team.”
Shit. He didn’t know what to say about that.
Luke’s blue eyes swerved up to Asher’s face. “Is there something else you’re not telling me?” His brow arched as he tilted his head to the side, trying to get a read on him.
Asher fought the urge to close his eyes when he released the lie, “No. Nothing else.”
“We need to be at the airport in an hour. It’s already almost nine,” Luke announced when he came into the room. “Owen’s ten minutes out. Wyatt and the rest of the guys should arrive in New York by the afternoon. Hopefully, they can dig up more intel while we’re flying.”
Asher looked at Luke, but a weighted pressure flattened him, and his lungs struggled to allow for the movement of breath as he considered the possible truth he’d never see Jessica again.
They’d been working nonstop since last night in Jessica’s lab, aka her tech room.
Thank God the airports had re-opened that morning. “How are we getting there without Rutherford or POTUS catching wind of it?”