Backblast by Candace Irving (miss read books TXT) 📕

hospital. "I'm with Scott at Shifa International. Twenty, twenty-five minutes away. He can drop me."

"Good. You're Mrs. Goethe. I'll be waiting."

John severed the call.

As she headed back inside the crowded waiting room to inform Scott of the change in plans, she realized John hadn't given her a first name.

Then again, this was Pakistan. She didn't need one.

As far as any local at the hotel was concerned, she was simply Karl Goethe's woman, an extension of the German businessman.

Scott took one look at her as she reached his side and sighed. "I've lost my dinner date, haven't I?"

"Sorry."

He shrugged and led the way out of the hospital.

Back at the car, Regan opted for the rear seat cater-cornered to the driver's in the front so she could still converse with Scott during the trip, yet appear to be the well-to-do, but modest expat upon her arrival at the hotel's manned entrance. Due to the influx of traffic on the roads, the drive took thirty minutes, during which Scott regaled her with his gustatory adventures around the city since he'd arrived. She tried to focus on their conversation, but dread had long since dripped through her relief at that call, coldly supplanting it. John had wanted to meet well away from the embassy.

Why?

She'd find out soon enough. Scott was already guiding the Volvo through the sculpted grounds of another dichotomous locale. Though the Serena appeared even sleeker and more impressive than the hospital they'd left, there was the whole veiled, two-steps-behind aspect of it all. Even here beneath the stone-covered entrance.

As promised, John was waiting beside the doorman as Scott pulled up.

He was wearing his dark gray suit from earlier in the day, though it was slightly wrinkled now. His leather suit bag was nowhere to be seen. With his Mrs. Goethe comment, she'd assumed they'd be having a secluded meal over china and crystal in a corner of the dining room. Had he checked them in instead?

What the hell had he learned?

He couldn't have gotten a name, could he?

Adrenaline and hope burned through the remaining dread so quickly, her nerves tightened. So much so, her fingers had taken up that irritating tremor before John had even stepped up to the rear passenger door to open it for her. His right hand engulfed the fingers of her still steady one as he assisted her in exiting the car…or not.

To the doorman, a passing local gentleman and probably even Scott, John appeared to be helping. What he'd really done was tuck something into her palm.

Two somethings.

Rings.

Regan turned into the side of the car for cover and donned the solitary diamond and accompanying gold band. Score one for Tulle. The staff sergeant must've been sent to purchase the rings while John had been in his meeting. Though slightly loose, both were an impressively decent fit for impromptu guesswork.

By the time John had retrieved her suitcase and gear, she'd gotten her confirmation. He had checked them in as man and wife.

She nodded her thanks to Scott before following meekly behind as John led the way into the hotel and across the echoing marble foyer. He stopped in front of a pair of stainless-steel elevator doors and pressed the up button. Unfortunately, by the time the set of doors on their right opened, she and John weren't the only ones to enter.

Conversation would have to wait until they'd reached their room.

Especially since the dark-suited Pakistani and the slight, equally somberly veiled companion standing behind him got off on their floor.

Though it grated, she followed well behind John again. But as he stopped in front of the door to the executive suite he'd apparently secured, another formal suit opened the door from within and motioned them inside. The man wearing this suit was as short, slender and ebony as Staff Sergeant Tulle's dominating Nordic bulk was not.

The unknown suit nodded as he hefted a nondescript stainless-steel case slightly larger than the one John had carried in for her. "All clear, man." The innate humor behind that follow-up grin was infectious. "Well…it is now."

Bugs.

Evidently John had called in a colleague to have the room swept for listening devices. And he'd found something. Not surprising. Executive suites tended to be occupied by executives. Industrial espionage was as big a racket as the one in which she suspected John's colleague chose to partake. Not to mention clearing this room would be easier, and certainly less suspicious, than ordering a sweep of their own embassy.

"Thanks, Ty."

Ty?

Ty turned to her and nodded at the question evident in her raised brow. "Tyrell Bennet. I'm the Company man who's been dealing with the shadow requests you made via General Palisade this morning. Need any changes to the line up?"

She nodded. "Stay on Maddoc, Crier and Sadat. Contact Major Garrison or myself if anything seems off—and add Inaya Sadat to the list…along with Jeffers."

The man blinked at the final name, then inclined his head. "You got it."

"Thank you."

She headed deeper into the room to give John a few moments with Ty, since the man was primarily John's connection and not hers. The obvious rapport between them also suggested that John and Ty were friends, as well as occasional colleagues.

Since John had her suitcase and gear at his side, she settled for taking in her surroundings as she attempted to massage the tremors from her hand. The room was huge, with a king-sized bed anchoring the far end. A generous sitting area complete with a plush, maroon couch, two matching chairs and a gleaming coffee table anchored the opposite end of the room. A glass slider beyond led to a small balcony where a wicker table and two seats overlooked a bejeweled view of Islamabad at night. Back inside the room, at the middle, sat a decent-sized desk on one wall, with a mirror and dresser flanking the other, all carved from the same heavy expresso wood of the coffee table and that king-sized headboard.

Unable to massage the tremors into submission, Regan removed the scarf from her