Authors: Kaylea Cross
“Then why run, Sam? Why would you run if you're innocent?”
The reason for his chilly demeanor was suddenly all too clear. “Because they were after me! Someone, I don't know who, maybe even Tehrazzi, had sent me that package of photos,” she said, gesturing to the envelope sticking out of her bag, “along with the note saying, ‘We know what you've done.'”
“And what was it you did?”
“That's just it, Ben, I hadn't done
anything
!” The pain of it all crashed down on her. To think of all the terror she'd endured, the narrow escape she'd had at that checkpoint and the abduction today. She was exhausted and scared, sick that Neveah was in danger. Sam didn't need this from the one person she wanted to help her. “Can't you see someone was setting me up?”
Ben's expression didn't give anything away. He was about as warm as an iceberg in the middle of the room. “And what about that text message? A little coincidental I got a text saying the intel was leaked about an hour
after
the team had already gone out, wouldn't you say?”
God, what a tangled mess she was in. Sam put her hands in her hair, growled in frustration. “I was running for my life, Ben! They dragged me out of that cab and took my laptop, and would have taken me and killed me someplace if the firefight hadn't started and I ran my ass off to get away. I didn't know who was after me then, it could have been anyone! Luke, some other CIA team, terrorists, all of those. As soon as I felt safe enough I found a place to hide I checked my phone and got the e-mail from Luke about the op. I sent you the text immediately because they had my laptop, and I was worried they might find something about the op. I wish I could have sent it sooner, but at least I
sent
it. If I was guilty, why would I have sent it at all?”
“Oh, I dunno... Maybe to wait until it was too late to abort the mission, with the added bonus it might make you look innocent?”
She stared at him as a hole opened up in her chest. My God, he still didn't believe her. This was awful. She couldn't think of a single thing to add that would take that frigid accusation from his eyes.
Shaking her head, Sam lifted a hand in a helpless gesture, then let it fall against her leg. Despite her vow not to cry, tears stung her eyes. “I— I don't know what else to tell you... ”
When Ben didn't move or say anything, she dropped into the chair he'd been in and put her head in her hands. What was she going to do? If he walked out of here without helping her, Nev would die, and most likely she would, too. She'd die, and without being able to clear her name, everyone would think she'd gone rogue.
“The transmitter in your phone. You left in on purposely so we could track you today, but the rest of the time you had it turned off. Why?”
“So the bad guys couldn't trace the signal via the cell towers.” In light of the magnitude of his distrust, that sounded stupid even to her, so she could imagine what he must have thought of her answer. This was a no-win situation; anything she said was just making it worse.
“And how about today when they grabbed you off the street and took you to that house?”
Her head jerked up. “How did you know that?”
His expression was cynical. “I saw you. Rhys traced the signal from your phone and I was about a half-block away when it happened.”
The implication numbed her out. “You saw them take me and you didn't even try and
help
me?” A lump wedged in her throat. Did he not care about her at all? Even just as a co-worker or a fellow human being?
“They let you go without a mark on you.”
“No thanks to you.”
He ignored the jab. “Why is that, I wonder?”
No doubt he assumed she was in on some sort of deal with them. “You think we set that up? That I somehow knew you'd be a half-block away when they caught me and dragged me into that car? You probably think I was screaming and fighting to put on a show for you, too, right?” His expression didn't change, and the rage ate through the ice in her heart. “Jesus, Ben, you have no idea how scared I was! I thought they were going to kill me!”
“But they didn't. So convince me, Sam. I'm all ears. Tell me what they wanted.”
She laughed bitterly. Even the truth made her seem like a liar. “The guy at the house said he'd been paid to bring me there and give me a message.”
“Uh-huh.”
The bored tone grated on her raw nerves.
“So? What was the message?”
She hesitated. The man had specifically warned her not to tell anyone, but how else was she going to get Ben to trust her? “That I was wanted in Kabul.”
He angled his head. “That's it?”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe they hauled you away in that car in broad daylight to take you there and say, ‘You're wanted in Kabul'?”
Sam didn't know if she wanted to cry, scream, or hit him. “I thought they were going to kill me,” she repeated in a pained whisper.
A long silence filled the room. She blinked fast, tried to keep her breathing steady though her throat was clogged with tears. Crying in front of him right now would just make her look more pathetic. She needed every ounce of strength left to hold it all together. This wasn't the Ben she knew. This remote stranger would sense any weakness and take advantage of it without hesitation. She'd be damned if she'd let him best her.
After a while, Ben finally broke eye contact and sighed, rubbing a hand over his face as though he was very tired. “Davis was the one following you.”
Her head came up. She sniffed. “What?”
Ben walked to the bed, sat down on it facing her. “He was the one who took the pictures of you and Fahdi and Hala. He was following orders to track Fahdi, and you were the means to the end. Luke had been suspicious about him for some time before you came to him.”
She didn't understand. Why threaten her, then? “So
he
wrote the note?”
“No, Tehrazzi. Or someone linked to him.”
Oh, God. “But then... If you know that, why don't you believe me?”
His eyes held hers. “Because even good people are capable of bad things when their life or the life of someone they care about is at stake.”
Sam shook her head in adamant denial. “I admit I'd do whatever I could to save Neveah, but dealing with Tehrazzi?” It was unbelievable. “I worked with Ali for more than five months, and I loved him to bits. Do you really think I would do anything to hurt him, let alone kill him?”
“I don't know you well enough to answer that.”
That hurt. “Fine, you don't really know me, so I guess I can understand how suspicious all of this seemed, but Rhys,
he
knows me.” Well, sort of. “He's known me longer than Luke has. Didn't he at least stick up for me?”
“Yeah, but he also knows exactly how much Neveah means to you.”
Sam let out a weary sigh. This was all too much. She couldn't think straight anymore. “Take my phone. Analyze it. Go through my e-mails, my account history. Christ, polygraph me if you want.” Abandoning any pretense of pride, she let her desperation show on her face and reduced herself to begging. “Please, Ben, even if you don't trust me, please help me get my cousin out. She hasn't done anything wrong.”
He didn't say anything for a few moments, just studied her with those incandescent eyes until she felt like a specimen under a microscope. “You realize that if you're telling the truth it means Tehrazzi's after you.”
“Yes.” The implications chilled her.
“He's targeted
you
, not just your cousin. He specifically chose to get to you by using her.” Ben tilted his head. “Why is that, do you think?”
Her anxiety drained away, replaced by a swift anger. “I have done nothing—
nothing—
to aid Tehrazzi, if that's what you're implying. The only reason I can come up with is that he wants Luke. That's got to be the point of it all. I'm a way to get to him, or at least information about him.”
More silence. Then Ben took out his phone and punched in a couple numbers, put it to his ear. “Hey, it's me.” He held her gaze the whole time he listened to whoever was on the other end. Luke? Rhys? “Yeah, that's affirm. Sam's going to need a secure location to spend the night.”
A trickle of hope seeped into her heart. So he finally believed her? Had she proven her innocence?
Whatever was said on the other end brought a rueful smile to Ben's lips. “Roger that. See you in a few.”
Sam licked her dry lips. What now? What was he going to do with her?
“You took a picture of you and Neveah from your fridge. Still got it?”
He wanted the picture? She wanted to ask him what for, but thought better of it. Right now she wasn't exactly in the position to argue. “Yes, in my book.”
He sorted through the contents of her bag, opened the paperback and pulled it out, along with the envelope that had started her hellish journey. “I'll give these back once we've analyzed them.”
“What do you want with— ”
“Verdict's in about your sleeping arrangements, by the way.” His eyes were cold enough to make her shiver. “You get to spend the night in the cell next to Fahdi's.”
Ben shoved the door to his hotel suite open with his forearm and aimed a dark look at the three men gathered around the rectangular table set next to the TV. Rhys, Luke and Davis glanced up from the papers they were studying, their closed expressions so alike it set his teeth on edge. He was already in a piss poor mood from leaving Sam locked up like an animal in that shit hole of a prison, and his conscience was eating at him like sulphuric acid. He kicked the door shut behind him, locked it and stalked over to join them.
“Things went well, I see,” Rhys observed.
Ben sent him a don't-fuck-with-me-right-now glare and planted his ass in the empty chair, ready to face off. Forcing down his temper, he slapped Sam's BlackBerry onto the table's pale wooden surface, then the envelope and photo of her and Neveah next to it. He met his brother's level gaze. “Happy now?”
“Ecstatic.” Rhys passed the phone to Davis, and set the picture between him and Luke. “She had this on her fridge, and the gesture this guy in the background is making caught my eye,” he said, tapping on a slightly fuzzy image of a man standing behind them. “I thought he looked a bit like— ”
“Shit,” Luke breathed, snatching it up and staring at the thing.
Ben lost some of his aggression and leaned forward in his chair with a sense of urgency. “What?”
Luke shook his head in disbelief. “Son of a
bitch.
” He turned to Rhys. “She tell you when this was taken?”
“Cairo, last year. You know him?”
“Yeah. Here,” he said, setting it back down for the rest of them to see, “take another look. Picture him with a scar in the middle of his chin.”
Because the guy was upside down, Ben couldn't tell anything. But Rhys and Davis must have recognized him, because they made identical incredulous sounds. “Christ,” Davis said. “Mohammed Assoud.”
Ben jerked. Tehrazzi's bodyguard? He snatched the picture from his twin's hand and squinted at it. His stomach dropped. Oh yeah, it was him all right. Assoud was standing in the background behind Sam's left shoulder with one arm crossed over his chest, and— was his finger drawing across his throat in a slitting motion? Everyone knew the fucker's penchant for knives. “Guess it's too much to hope it's a coincidence he's looking straight at the camera with an evil smirk on his face, right?”
The monster was infamous for the hideous things he did to his prisoners and people who crossed his boss. He was one of the men responsible for the bombing at the US embassy in Beirut that had wounded Bryn and her father. Then the bastard had dragged them miles into the Syrian desert and left them all but buried alive in a suffocating cellar to die without any food or water. If Dec and his SEALs hadn't gotten her out, Bryn would have died along with her father.
Luke pressed Rhys. “Anything else?”
“We worked together the last half of March and first week of April. I knew they were going to Egypt after Sam finished the job in Paris, so I'm going to assume it was mid or late April.”
“It fits,” Luke mused. “I hired her while she was still in Paris.”
Ben didn't like where this was leading. “You're saying Tehrazzi knew about Sam way back when you hired her, and had his bodyguard follow them in Cairo?”
“It's possible. One of Tehrazzi's major financiers is an Egyptian living there. We know Tehrazzi was there sometime in late spring for meetings. It all fits.”
“So how the hell would he have found out about Sam, and why would it interest him?” Ben demanded.
Luke's dark eyes gleamed with anger. “That's something we need to find out ASAP.”
Okay, the fact that his god-like boss didn't know already was disconcerting in itself. “You think he might have gotten to her way back then? Used her as a plant?”
“It's a stretch, but yeah, it's a possibility.”
Ben sat back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes. They were burning because he was so tired, and this new angle wasn't helping his stomach any. He wasn't going to pop any Tums in front of present company, though. No sense letting them know how keyed up he was over Sam.
“What'd you find out from her?” Davis asked.
Ben sighed. God, where to start? “She claims she's innocent, that she's been set up this whole time. I gotta tell you, she seemed desperate for me to believe her, so if she's lying, she's one hell of an actress.” The others stared at him dispassionately. “Look, the facts are she knew she was being followed, knew someone had bugged her apartment and broken in to go through her computer. A letter from her cousin was missing, and trust me, it's not because she lost it. That woman's an organizational freak, so it's no wonder she knew right away it was gone.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “She suspected Fahdi was up to no good, told Luke and then planted a tracking device on the guy. Went out to an internet cafe on her way home, and found an envelope with the pictures you'd taken,” he said to Davis. “Plus a note saying they knew what she'd done, and that she'd be contacted for the time and place of a meeting. She freaks, packs a bag and takes off, hasn't even made it to the street when Ali goes up in smoke, and then she's hauled out at a fake checkpoint.”