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  The conversation she and Durrani had shared then confirmed her instincts now. Palisade's too. There was more to that anomalous non-mother's presence in the cave than the need for numerical symmetry, mystically generated or otherwise.

  Was she one hundred percent certain?

  No.

  But if there was a chance, however remote, that such a connection existed, she would be pursuing it. Especially if that chance afforded her another crack at the man responsible for injecting the psycho-toxin into not only herself, but an entire twelve-man SF team. More importantly, Durrani's coming interrogation with her could well lead to the identity of the final victim—and their unknown traitor. Because if Tamir Hachemi knew the traitor's identity, so did Durrani.

  And, soon, so would she.

  Her determination must have shown, because Palisade scooped up the classified papers. He returned them to the accordion folder, crossed the office and tucked it in her hands. "You'll need this. The latter half contains copies of the reports and forensic paperwork that came in after you were medevacked here. I'll have the remaining information forwarded to your email."

  "When do I leave?" There was no way the Army would be packing up Durrani and shipping him to Fort Campbell, even if she was now key to this.

  "Your C-141 takes off in less than an hour."

  Barely enough time to head home and grab her duffel bag, much less phone Gil and reassure him. To scratch out a message to prop up on the counter in case John returned to Fort Campbell and stopped by her duplex before she did. "I should go."

  Palisade nodded crisply.

  To Regan's surprise, he followed her to the couch, reaching for the now cold coffee he'd provided and dumping it in the lined trash bin as she donned her camouflaged jacket.

  Just as well. She no longer needed caffeine. She had something far stronger coursing through her veins, snapping every cell in her body to life for the first time in over a week. Adrenaline.

  She was collecting her beret when Palisade cleared his throat. Spoke. Softly, hoarsely. "He's fine."

  She froze. There was no doubt who he was.

  John.

  A hundred desperate questions burned through the adrenaline, each clamoring to commandeer her voice box first.

  She slapped every one of them back, offering two quiet but heartfelt words in their stead. "Thank you."

  Palisade nodded.

  Even if the general had wanted to share the details of John's current, classified mission, he couldn't. Frankly, it was astounding that he'd offered as much as he had. And she refused to insult the both of them—and John—by pressing for more.

  A phone rang. The general's.

  He retrieved the phone from his pocket and glanced at the number on the screen. The area code was 202. Washington, DC. "Sorry, Chief. I need to take this—"

  "Understood."

  "—and you need to take these. Stuff 'em in your duffel. They might come in handy." His phone rang a second time as she stared at the slender, palm-sized box he'd tucked in her hand, bemused.

  Dramamine?

  Granted, she had a long flight ahead, perhaps two or three. But she didn't get airsick, and since they'd flown together before, Palisade knew that.

  Just where the devil was Durrani being held anyway?

  Unfortunately, it was too late to ask. The general had already pressed his phone to his ear and turned away.

  She'd been dismissed.

  3

  She should've swallowed one of those pills.

  Regan stared across the CH-53E's cavernous belly, zeroing in on the rectangular window opposite her flip-down seat. She searched in vain for a glimpse of land amid the distant, hazy horizon as each pulse of the helicopter's yawning seventy-nine-foot main rotor reverberated through her body. For the moment, her stomach was holding its own against the thunderous rhythm, despite the coffee and oversized chocolate muffin she'd consumed prior to liftoff.

  But for how long would it last?

  Though the muffin had served as her first meal since she'd left the States, consuming anything at all might have been a mistake—along with her decision to not interrupt General Palisade's phone call long enough to ascertain her present location.

  The Arabian Sea.

  Given the view through every one of the Super Stallion's windows, it contained a hell of a lot more water than she'd imagined. And for some sadistic reason, the pilot had been all but skimming the surface of said water for over an hour.

  Shouldn't they have arrived by now?

  Regan peeled back the grosgrain cover of her combat watch and noted the time. 0734. Seventeen hours in the air and a nine-hour time-zone change had added an entire day to her life. Gil would be thrilled. If only because during the initial leg of her flight, the C-141's droning engines had piggybacked onto the knowledge that she now had a case she needed to be rested for. The combination had finally seduced her into nodding off somewhere over the Atlantic. By the time she'd woken, they'd landed in Ramstein, Germany.

  To her surprise, she'd logged another marathon, near-dreamless nap during the next leg to Al Dhafra Airbase in the United Arab Emirates.

  There'd been no sleep on this final bird, however, dreamless or otherwise. Worse, the tang of the sea air laden with the stench of jet fuel had finally gotten to her. The meager contents of her belly had begun to slosh.

  Regan turned toward the Super Stallion's cockpit and caught the crew chief's knowing grin. He tapped the dive watch strapped to his wrist and flashed a trio of fingers.

  Three more minutes.

  Hallelujah.

  God willing, the churning in her belly would ease upon landing—though not likely. According to the classified orders she'd been handed after touching down in Al Dhafra, as well as the fascinating footnote from the crew chief still beaming at her, she was headed not for dry land, but the constant pitching and rolling of roughly twenty thousand tons of Navy steel.

  The USS Griffith.

  She'd worked with the Fleet before, had even been aboard a warship for almost a week to pursue a joint Army/Navy lead in an investigation a few years back, but this would be her first case aboard a ship currently at sea.

  Curiosity clamored in from several fronts, the most pressing of which concerned Nabil Durrani and his hidden agenda. Because he did possess one. Even if she hadn't spent the better part of a night ferreting out the details of the twisted doctor's life, she'd know there was more to their pending confrontation than a congenial chat with his final, intended victim.

  If she still even held that dubious honor.

  After her conversation with General Palisade concerning Durrani's cohort, Tamir Hachemi, Regan was beginning to doubt her exalted status.

  Why else involve the anomalous, murdered mystery woman?

  Religious significance her ass. Durrani hadn't entered the terror game because of Allah. Allah was simply his excuse.

  The proof was in the man himself.

  Every action Dr. Durrani had taken over the past few months had been meticulously scripted, right down to the bloodstained shawl he'd used to cover Jameelah Khan's—and only Jameelah Khan's—face and torso. It was that act that had caused Regan to initially suspect that Captain McCord had simply murdered the other six women in the cave to throw investigators off track, only to display remorse—albeit unconsciously—at the last moment. Instead, it turned out Durrani had planted the shawl in an admittedly ingenious attempt to effect the ultimate misdirection.

  A man that clever didn't toss in an extra victim to equate for the inclusion of twins, no matter when he'd learned of those twins' existence. No, Durrani had sought out and selected a woman carrying twins to mask the significance of an otherwise anomalous woman's identity for as long as possible.

  But why?

  And what, if any, connection did the mystery victim's identity have to their remaining traitor?

  Regan was still pondering both questions when the crew chief caught her gaze. He flashed a thumbs up before directing her attenti
on to the section of chopper window visible between the pilot and copilot as the men began flipping a series of switches in the cockpit's overhead. There—the Griffith.

  The crew chief hadn't been exaggerating. The amphibious dock landing ship was massive. Even so, the Griffith's flat-gray silhouette nearly blended in with the atmospheric haze and the increasingly angry waters of the Arabian Sea. The warship's jutting superstructure loomed impressively as they flew down the port side.

  Her flight deck did not. Nor did that deck appear particularly stable as the helicopter swung a hundred eighty degrees around.

  At least to this Army ground pounder.

  Chopper pilots in general tended to impress the hell out of her. She'd seen them perform some amazing maneuvers at times, including an honest-to-God barrel roll. But to land a solid chunk of metal on the equally unforgiving deck of a ship violently riding the waves as the Griffith was currently doing?

  Her stomach lurched at the thought. It lurched again as the flight deck disappeared beneath the belly of the bird.

  Regan sucked in her breath as the Super Stallion's wheels rudely kissed those twenty thousand tons of Navy steel the crew chief had touted, releasing the air from her lungs only when she was certain the mechanical embrace had held. The pilot powered down the blades as several members of the Griffith's crew converged on the chopper to lash it to the deck. The side door slid open and the crew chief bailed out, motioning for Regan to follow. She removed her ear protection and life vest and left both on the canvas seat before vaulting out onto the non-skid surface of the flight deck.

  Another mistake.

  The void deep in her inner ears instantly registered the brunt of the ship's motion as the Griffith rode out the waves beneath her combat boots, whipping the paltry contents of her belly into a full-blown roil.

  "Agent Chase?"

  She spun around. Yet another mistake. Regan fought to regain her equilibrium as an approaching naval officer tugged a pair of rabbit ears down around her neck.

  No, not an officer, or even a chief warrant officer like herself—but an enlisted sailor. The center placket of the shorter woman's camouflaged working uniform sported an embroidered anchor, pegging the woman's rank equivalent to that of an Army sergeant first class. Confusing to some outside the military, since she and this Navy non-commissioned officer that she outranked were addressed by the same title: Chief.

  The woman popped a salute, then stuck out her hand to offer a firm shake. "Master-at-Arms Chief Michelle Yrle. Welcome aboard. I'll be serving as your escort and right hand for the duration of your stay."

  That wide smile would've been infectious if Regan's stomach hadn't chosen that moment to crank up the churn to a near-humiliating level. She forced a weak curve to her lips. "Glad to be here. Just need my gear, and I'm ready to get to work."

  A glass of water wouldn't hurt either…so she could swallow the entire box of pills she'd stashed in her bag.

  "Here you go, ma'am." The Super Stallion's crew chief held her tan duffel in one hand, her stainless-steel crime scene kit and black, nylon laptop bag in the other as she turned back to the bird—carefully.

  "Thanks." Regan retrieved her crime scene gear and laptop, but her new right hand beat her to the tan duffel and pills.

  Yrle tipped her cap of sleek raven curls toward the ship's lurching superstructure. "This way. I'll show you to your stateroom. It's got a small bath ensemble, so you can freshen up before we feed you to the head shark—er, captain."

  "Wonderful." Forget the pills. Three steps across the rising, then dipping deck, and she'd decided on an immediate visit to the latrine.

  "Dying to check out one of our heads, eh?"

  Regan offered a limp smile as they moved up the port side of the ship. "That obvious?"

  "You've got the proverbial green about your gills. Don't worry; it'll pass—one way or the other. For what it's worth, I prefer the 'other'. Once the genuflecting's over, I feel great. Until then, I do my best to keep my gaze fixed on the horizon." Yrle shrugged. "Either way, hang in there. We'll be riding smoother in about an hour—midway through our rendezvous and pending underway replenishment with the Tippecanoe. We're low on fuel and, hence, riding high. The current sea state's not helping either." A soft laugh floated between them as Yrle stopped beside an oval watertight door with a black 'Z' painted in the middle, inside a larger 'D'. "Welcome to the Arabian Sea in January, Soldier. The Navy part."

  Another intimidating wave struck the bow of the Griffith and Regan wished herself anchored firmly on the Army portion as the ship rocked it out.

  Her hundredth slow breath of the morning helped—until Chief Yrle swung the door open and waved her over the metal lip protruding up from the deck. The sloshing in her belly returned full force as she passed through the skin of the ship, intensifying as the chief led her down a claustrophobic corridor and up a skeletal ladder. As with the ship's exterior, everything inside was gray, albeit several shades lighter: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling—or bulkhead, deck and overhead, if she remembered correctly.

  By the time they'd reached a succession of slim, darker gray doors that were lined up along both sides of the passageway like soldiers awaiting inspection, the acid in her stomach had breached the base of her throat.

  Shit. "I gotta—"

  "Step aside."

  The chief had the door at the end unlocked and open in three seconds flat. Regan shot through the second, slimmer door just inside the stateroom and slammed it shut, her knees hitting the steel deck of the tiny bathroom in the nick of time. A solid minute of heaving commenced, ending only when the makeshift breakfast she'd consumed had completely reversed course along with a belly full of froth.

  Eventually, she was down to dry heaves and then…nothing.

  The chief was right. She felt fine now.

  Better than she had in days, in fact.

  She wasn't sure what she expected as she abandoned the bathroom, but it wasn't a pissed-off male in civilian clothes.

  Except…that wasn't a civilian. Not with a twelve-round, .40 caliber SIG Sauer 229 holstered at the right hip of those black cargo pants and matching, long-sleeved polo. The six-foot, dark-haired and neatly bearded Arab wearing both was halfway into the narrow stateroom when Chief Yrle spotted him—and blanched.

  "Agent Riyad. I thought you'd left along—"

  "Obviously not." The frown leveled on Yrle could've been chiseled from a block of Arctic ice. "If you'd performed your duties correctly this morning, Chief, I'd have been able to depart. But then, you know that, don't you?"

  Yrle opened her mouth—and that was as far as she got. Riyad's right hand lashed out, connecting with the chief's left elbow and visibly clamping down as he propelled the woman out into the passageway. The stateroom door closed so quickly and firmly, there was no doubt in Regan's mind the barrier was meant for her, along with the mystery agent's unspoken order: Stay put.

  She would.

  For now.

  She had no clue as to her counterpart's beef with the master-at-arms chief, let alone which combination of letters from the government's vast bowl of alphabet soup were attached to his name, nor did she care. She was here to see Durrani, and she had no intention of greeting that particular ass with the vestiges of her previous meal saturating her breath.

  Regan turned away from the stateroom's door and its flanking drab, modular steel wall unit. Two steps away, a set of bunk beds abutted the opposite bulkhead. Like almost everything else she'd seen of the ship, their frames were painted a flat, haze gray.

  Retrieving her shaving kit from the duffel Chief Yrle had dumped on the bottom bunk, she carted her toothbrush and paste to the tiny sink outside the shower and toilet area. Her teeth cleaned, she took the time to splash water over her face, then smooth several errant wisps of hair into the French braid she'd crafted and tucked under twenty-four hours earlier. The navy-blue suit she'd packed was bound to be wrinkled, so yesterday's camouflaged uniform would have to suffice.

&
nbsp; Then again, it wouldn't hurt that ACUs were the last thing Durrani had seen her in…just before she'd taken the bastard down.

  By the time Super Pissed-Off Agent shoved the stateroom's outer door inward again, she was more than ready to face the doctor.

  But first, a few ground rules given this man's boorish behavior with the chief. She didn't care if he was the Islamist expert to whom General Palisade had referred. "They don't knock aboard ships?"

  Riyad had the grace to flush. Barely. The slight tinge might've served to humanize the man, had his dark stare not settled on her smoothed braid and damp, unmade face—insolently. "Didn't realize you wanted to primp for the terrorist."

  Touché.

  Still, what was his problem? Yes, he'd probably heard the tail end of her heave session. So what? As if that hadn't happened on a ship before. Or did he have issues with breasts in general—or simply hers and Chief Yrle's in particular?

  Don't. She was here to grill Durrani. Given this was a warship, the doc was probably housed somewhere down below in the bowels of the ship, most likely in the brig.

  She tamped out a smile polite enough to get this jerk to take her there. "I take it I lost my escort?"

  "Correct."

  "Care to explain that moment you two shared?"

  "Nope."

  The hell with him. "Aren't you the welcoming committee?" And so chatty, too. Must be the salt air.

  The man shrugged. "Don't believe you belong here."

  She could respect that, albeit grudgingly. If he was here, he had to have read the entire case file—including her shift in roles from investigator to intended victim near the end. On the other hand, "Yet here I am. Perhaps you should take a moment to bring me up to date, Agent Riyad. Or should I head up to the bridge and see if I can't get the guy driving this boat to place a ship-to-shore call to USASOC? General Palisade appears to have left a few facts out of our briefing. For one, your rather uncooperative take on my presence."

  That sparked a reaction. One moment those glowering eyes were murky brown and the next they were black. The Arctic ice had returned as well and, with Chief Yrle missing, it was directed solely at her.