Heatseeker (Atrati) (30 page)

Rachel just stared at the other woman, not sure what to say.

“You believe in the right and the good. I noticed that when we chatted over coffee every day.”

“I . . .” Did she? Still? After everything?

“You did the right thing. I do not know how you knew what was happening to me, but you came in and stopped it.” Jamila’s eyes took on a glazed quality. “You shot them, as if you had all the power.”

“You had power, too. You could have lost it when I told you we had to go, but you didn’t. You ran with me, made it possible for me to protect you.”

“It’s not enough.” Jamila held Rachel’s gaze. “Who
are
you?”

Chapter Twenty

“
R
achel Gannon. I’m an agent of the United States government.”

“CIA?”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not something I can divulge.”

“So, tell me what you can . . . Rachel.”

Rachel did, asking questions of her own now that Jamila was aware her father was involved in criminal activity.

Jamila spoke a name.

“What?” Rachel asked. “What does he have to do with this?”

“I do not know, but he is the one man who makes my father turn pale and sweat when he calls.”

The idea was a startling one. “But he’s a politician.”

Not a small-time politician like Dr. Massri, but a man high in Egypt’s new government who had made the impossible transfer from the old one. A big man. Constantly in the public eye.

Not the right profile for someone involved in this organization, much less higher still in the food chain.

“It’s not his political leanings that make my father so keen to please him.” Jamila tugged the suit jacket she wore tighter around her. “You wait and see, when you start going through my father’s files, you’ll find a connection to this man.”

“Your father will go to prison—you understand that, right?”

“Not if the people he works for find out he’s been exposed as a liability.” Jamila’s absolute certainty that Dr. Massri worked for others blew their theory that he, or even Lavigne, was the man in charge.

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

“I watch shows, online. . . . I’m not supposed to. Especially American and British programming, but I do. I know how these things work. The people above my father aren’t going to let him turn state’s evidence.”

Jamila claimed to have gotten her information from watching television, but Rachel wondered if there wasn’t more to it. She didn’t have a simplified view of crime and punishment, as so many people did.

“Do they have that kind of system in Egypt?” Rachel asked, rather than digging deeper right then.

“He won’t be taken to the United States?”

Rachel shook her head. “That’s not the way my agency works. It’s more expedient if he’s tried in his own country.”

“You assume he’s breaking Egyptian law.”

“An organization like the one he’s part of doesn’t make distinctions on where they get the intelligence and technology they sell.”

Jamila nodded. “My father wouldn’t care, either. He spouts all that political patriotism, but he didn’t care who won in the latest conflict. He would have worked with either side. He only cares about his own power, but mostly about money. My father loves being rich and derives great satisfaction from flaunting his wealth.

“He claims that is how he courted my mother, showering her with gifts. He convinced her to leave England and return to her family’s ancestral homeland as his wife. That did not work out so well for her. My father does not take care of anyone. He puts more value on his possessions than people. He would never dream of breaking one of his objets d’art the way he broke my mother.”

“Your home is filled with nice things?” Rachel probed, remembering comments Jamila had made that had alluded to such.

“Nicer things than even a doctor can afford in our country.”

Finally, Rachel understood how Jamila had so quickly accepted that Abasi Chuma had been a criminal and why her mind had automatically processed that her father was one, as well. “You already suspected he wasn’t only a doctor.”

“Why would a man like him get involved in politics? He does not wish to become a servant of the people. He enjoys the accolades he receives for what he does, but they are not enough. It’s all about money for him. He has probably taken some bribes in his day. I never understood why he did not seek office. Surely the bribes would have been lucrative were he to wield more power, but now I . . . think I understand.”

“He is involved in something that makes him a lot more money than political bribery.”

“You wondered why my father arranged the marriage to Abasi.”

Rachel nodded.

“I wondered, too, believing that Abasi and perhaps my father loved me after all. Now, I think Abasi must have offered something my father valued more than he did me.”

Rachel had no answer for that. Both men were monsters.

“The people who are supposed to value you, they don’t always,” Kadin said into the silence of the car. “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be.”

“You do not think so?” Jamila asked.

“I know it. You are so important, Miss Massri, that Rachel risked her life and her career to get you out tonight.”

“Is this true?” Jamila asked.

Rachel could only nod. She didn’t want Jamila feeling bad, but she understood why Kadin had said what he did. He cared, like Rachel did, how Jamila saw herself. Kadin wanted the young Egyptian woman to know she was worth someone else taking a risk on her behalf.

“But why? You barely know me.”

“I know you deserve a better future than a man like Abasi Chuma would give you. You are a lovely, kind person, Jamila. You deserve so much better than what happened tonight, than the way your father has treated you your whole life, it sounds like.”

Jamila just stared, and then finally she said, “I think, someday, I would like to be what you are.”

“You’re smart enough and strong enough to be the best.” Rachel made no attempt to dissuade her.

“I graduate from university in only two years. Perhaps I could finish those years elsewhere. I have money, left me by my mother. And dual citizenship from her legacy, as well. She never renounced her citizenship in the United Kingdom, so I was born both an Egyptian and British citizen. I do not have to stay in Egypt.”

This time, Rachel let the relief flow through her. She hadn’t known what to do about Jamila’s future, but, unlike Linny, the young Egyptian woman had a plan. And the means to make it happen.

Jamila had been assaulted not an hour ago, and here she was, making a plan . . . to take back her power.

“You are amazing,” Rachel said with feeling.

“I believe you are, as well, Agent Rachel Gannon, but I think I would like to see your true eye color.”

Rachel laughed as this incredible young woman had meant her to, her smile lingering as Kadin pulled the Land Rover to a stop in the alley behind the safe house.

Mrs. Abdul ushered Jamila toward the back of the house, speaking in low tones to her. The Egyptian woman waved off Rachel’s offer to go with her.

Something about the Moroccan woman inspired confidence and security in Jamila. Rachel wasn’t about to insist.

Kadin took her to their room and pulled her into his arms, just holding her in a fierce embrace for several minutes. “Tell me what happened.”

She told him, feeling safe in his strong arms. When she was done, he pulled away and looked down at her. “She’s not dead.”

“Not like Linny.”

“She’s going to survive all this and come out stronger on the other side.”

“She’s strong already.” A lot stronger than Rachel had even begun to realize.

“Yes.”

Neil and Wyatt hadn’t arrived yet, and she asked Kadin about it.

“They’re transporting Ralph Giroux and Terne Lavigne. It was decided Giroux should not be brought here to the safe house.”

“Lavigne?”

“He’s alive, and Jayne wanted him brought in for questioning. But he needed medical care, so my team is taking him to a secure facility.”

“Where are they taking Mr. Giroux?”

“To the airport. The sooner he is returned to a familiar environment, the better for him.”

Rachel nodded. “Neil and Wyatt will be escorting him?” she asked, feeling abandoned, though she knew her emotions were not rational.

Maybe there was more trauma left over from her time in the mountains than she wanted to admit, because the thought of the Atrati men leaving filled her with a panic she could barely hide.

“No.” Kadin reached out and placed a calming hand on her cheek, showing he saw even what she tried to cover up. “Ethan and Beth are meeting them at the airport and will stay with Ralph Giroux until his caregiver arrives. Spazz and Cowboy will be back in plenty of time to go with us to Egypt.”

“Whit isn’t going to approve that.”

“Of course he is. The case is blown right open. He needs agents in there gathering evidence before Dr. Massri has a chance to destroy it.”

“But—”

“Shh, angel. Just go with it. Okay?”

She nodded, but inside she was filled with confusion. She felt prick after prick against the bubble of numbness until her emotions threatened to spill out and take her over.

Jayne found Rachel on the rooftop, where Kadin had left her to get her some fruit juice and make a phone call to his chief.

The other TGP agent was surprisingly placid about Rachel stealing her gun, but she was livid about the possible compromise to her investigation.

She ended her rant with,
“What were you thinking?”

That, at least, Rachel had an answer for. “I was thinking Jamila Massri wasn’t going to be collateral damage.”

“Chuma hadn’t targeted her because of you. She was in his sights all along. That doesn’t make her collateral damage,” Jayne said in a flat tone.

“He still hurt her.”

“But not because of you.”

“Does it matter?” Rachel demanded.

“Not to me, no.” Jayne fixed her with a pointed stare. “But I think it does to you.”

“We’re going to Egypt.”

“It’s not your case any longer.” But there was no heat in Jayne’s words.

“Jamila’s my asset. She knows where her father keeps his secret files.”

“And she’s not about to share that information with me,” Jayne said before Rachel had to. “Naturally.
I
didn’t save her from a man attacking her.”

“I didn’t go in after Jamila to flip her.”

“No. You didn’t, but that’s not what my report is going to say.”

“You want to save my career.” For so long Rachel had thought she was alone, and now, suddenly, she was surrounded by people intent on helping and protecting her.

It was overwhelming.

“You’re a damn fine agent, even if you are more emotional than is prudent.”

Coming from this woman, that meant a lot, even with the caveat. “Thank you. I think.”

“Whit and Beth think a lot of you.” Jayne’s tone said that meant something to her. “Both of them quite firmly asked me to watch out for you. They said they’d have my head if I didn’t.”

“They did?” Again, Rachel was surprised.

She’d tried to keep her boss’s daughter at a distance since joining TGP. But Beth never recognized boundaries, even when Rachel was constantly setting them.

Now she couldn’t help wondering if maybe she shouldn’t be so careful to keep people out.

It was a startling concept for her.

“Yes. The Old Man himself is worried about how the torture you endured might affect you.”

Rachel shrugged. “There are worse things in life than physical pain.”

“Yes,” Jayne agreed. “But that doesn’t mean that going through the pain, and the realization that death is probably your only way out, doesn’t have a profound effect on you. It does.”

“You sound like you’ve been there.”

“I have.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Most people don’t. Just like most people in Jamila Massri’s life from this point forward will never hear about what happened to her before you got to that room, but it will be with her all the same.”

“How do you know . . .”

“I’ve seen that look in a woman’s eyes . . . more than once. Cover like mine has a dark side few women want to talk about.”

“You?”

“Would kill a man who tried.”

Rachel believed it. “Jamila wants to be like me.”

“She could do worse for a role model.”

“Danger is inherent in our lives.”

“But we’re prepared to deal with it.”

“Even torture.”

“Even that.”

Rachel nodded. “Kadin has Roman Chernichenko working on transport to Egypt.”

“I’ll fly with you. I assume the others will be coming, as well.”

“Yes.”

“Jamila can stay with Beth and Ethan.”

“Jamila wants to be the one to get the files from her father’s house.”

Jayne didn’t look surprised, or even resigned. If anything, her expression was approving. “She needs to take back the power.”

“Yes.”

Jayne nodded her assent. “Keep an eye on her.”

“Better than I have so far.”

“Bullshit,” Jayne said succinctly. “The woman’s alive and a lot less damaged than she could be.”

“If I’d gone in sooner—”

“Chuma wouldn’t have been otherwise occupied when you shot Lavigne. He’d have gotten to the Viper in the drawer that much faster. Both you and Jamila might well be dead right now.”

“You were listening in when I told Kadin what happened.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Well enough that I didn’t even realize you were there.”

“You were talking with the door open.”

Rachel laughed a little.

“What?”

“I thought Neil and Wyatt were being sloppy, talking about the case with the door open. Even in a safe house.”

“And then you did it. Says something for how secure you feel around these Atratis,” Jayne opined.

“They stayed to help me.”

“Different teams of the Atrati have different reputations.”

“Oh?”

“Kadin’s team used to be led by Roman Chernichenko. They had a reputation for doing what they wanted but always getting the job done. They still do.”