Backblast by Candace Irving (miss read books TXT) 📕

about this case, and what it needs. The major has something to offer in that compartment tonight. Something Durrani wants—desperately. That bastard will do just about anything to satisfy his obsession about Major Garrison's supposedly 'natural' immunity to that psycho-toxin."

As for this spook, and what he had to offer?

Try thirteen wasted days of sitting across a table and getting precisely nowhere—while actively thwarting a plan from a seasoned colleague that just might've provided results if John had been able to put that plan into motion from the start.

But they'd never know now, would they?

"Garrison's not leaving his stateroom." Riyad jerked his chin toward the rugged case on the counter in front of him. "Not after the results I just got from that."

The filthy scowl had returned and, this time, it was carved into place.

The man simply refused to see past those bizarre blinders of his. Especially when it concerned John.

Well, she could be just as stubborn. Especially with a case at stake.

Those names.

Riyad might not be willing to let John out of his stateroom, but she had no intention of letting Riyad into that cell with Durrani. Not if the doc was even thinking about giving up the identity of the seventh victim from the floor of that cave.

Regan reached into her breast pocket and retrieved the message traffic that Yrle had brought topside with her earlier.

"You didn't stick around on the flight deck. It's going to be a long night. A longer chat." She passed the message over and waited for the spook to unfold it and read the tasking within. "I've been cleared to make the deal, Agent Riyad. My health records for that woman's name." And once Durrani gave up that first name—if she was patient enough, worked hard enough—she just might be able to crack through the bastard's resistance long enough to glean a second: Hachemi's murderer. And then maybe, just maybe, she could leverage those names for the third: that unknown traitor.

But it was going to take time. A lot of it.

No matter how desperate Durrani was, no matter how deep his obsession, tonight's showdown was going to be one for the record books. Because she was not leaving that brig until she had an honest-to-God lead to go on.

Then again, in light of those missing squares of fabric…if she did leave Riyad to his own devices tonight, what would he be doing while she was down in the brig?

And who would he be doing it for? USSOCOM and Admiral Kettering?

Or himself?

The spook refolded the paper and passed it back. "I can handle the wait."

But could she handle the fallout if the growing suspicion in her gut was correct? Could her case? Could her country?

Every single second she'd spent with the man bucked up against her sudden, unexpectedly profound need to keep him close.

"Fine. You can be in the brig, in listen-mode only. You will remain outside the doctor's cell at all times—and completely beyond his peripheral view. No exceptions. That bastard sees one hair on your Saudi-born head and I'll have Vetter toss your ass into the next cell until I'm finished. You can listen from there—with the door locked."

Those features were no longer smooth and pretty. Every one of them had turned clipped, cold and very ugly. "I'll meet you there."

Her answering nod was just as clipped, and even more determined.

Riyad might not be able to see Durrani tonight, but she would be watching him, from now until the moment her so-called partner left this ship.

Yes, like her, the NCIS agent had been flown to the Griffith to get that traitor's name out of Hachemi. But given everything she'd learned about the spook today—and, more importantly, everything she hadn't—she was now all but certain that Riyad had also been tasked with a second, even more critical mission.

Either that, or he was the traitor.

14

Eighty-seven minutes later, Regan opened the watertight door to the Griffith's brig. Both Nabil Durrani and Special Agent Riyad were waiting for her as she stepped inside. The former sat shackled to the table inside his cell as per her instructions, his dark blue, coverall-clad back infused with a palpable air of serenity. The latter was pacing the far end of the brig's outer compartment and, based on the strength of that perpetual scowl, decidedly less at peace with himself, not to mention her.

But the spook was adhering to her orders. He was firmly out of the doc's line of sight.

Even better, once she entered the cell and walked around the table to commandeer the empty seat across from Durrani, Riyad would still be in hers.

"Evening, ma'am."

Regan nodded to the Marine as he stood. "Corporal Vetter."

Upon her arrival, the corporal had been seated at the duty desk. His posture had been—and still was—considerably more relaxed than even Durrani's. Given the possibility that the dregs from that cup of coffee might indeed contain traces of strychnine, she found that particularly telling. If Vetter had orchestrated the translator's poisoning, the corporal appeared to be neither afflicted with guilt, nor worried that he'd be caught.

She filed the information away as she turned to close the watertight door. Skirting the metal ladder that led up to the hatch in the overhead of the compartment, she approached the desk to hand the Marine the gift she'd brought.

"Why, thank you, ma'am." Vetter's cheeks turned ruddy as he accepted the coffee, matching the tint to the island of Marine Corps stubble topping his head.

He centered the melamine mug on the duty desk. Since the course change from earlier had ceased dampening the severity of the ship's rolls halfway through the midnight meal and copious supply of caffeine that she'd shared with Chief Yrle, she wasn't sure the placement was wise. But the cup, and its sloshing contents, held.

Riyad's temper, not so much.

The spook fairly seethed with annoyance. Unfortunately for him, the listen-only mode she'd stressed in the master-at-arms shack earlier involved his ears alone…not that fixed jaw and tightly compressed mouth.

She ignored both as she turned right