Backblast by Candace Irving (miss read books TXT) 📕

hair and dumped it on the desk. She headed for the connecting bath to splash water on her face, only to stop short as she heard the main door close. John had already set her suitcase and gear down beside the desk before she finished swinging back around.

He was staring down at her. Intently.

But not as he'd done on the tarmac before they'd parted that afternoon.

Worse, the longer this stare lasted, the more those three shrapnel scars that cut through the cultivated thicket on his jaw and down into the side of his neck tightened. The pulse point within was barely visible from this angle, but it was throbbing.

Shit.

"You have something." And it was bigger than big.

She stepped closer, meeting up with him in front of the desk.

John nodded. "Confirmation."

"Regarding your suspicion that Riyad's a former SEAL?"

His brow kicked up over that.

She wasn't insulted.

Mostly because the gleam that joined in let her know he was also impressed. He knew she hadn't had an inkling as to Riyad's credentials when they'd parted at the airport. Though she would've deserved that flare of respect more if she hadn't stumbled into the information while Jeffers had been spewing garlic and disgust in her face.

Silence crowded in, thickening the air between them.

When John didn't push through it, she knew this was worse than she'd feared. It was also clear from the regret that gradually replaced the respect that he was loath to pin whatever he'd discovered on a former fellow operator. Even a bastard like Riyad.

So she did it for him.

Equipment. "What went missing?"

John's sigh was heavy. Harsh. "An SDV."

"A SEAL delivery vehicle?" As in, one of the multimillion-dollar, covert submersibles that the teams use to infiltrate enemy ports and beaches?

"Yes." John turned to lean back into the desk, hooking the heels of his palms over the edge as he shook his head. "I don't have all the details. I put in the call to Palisade shortly before you arrived. I haven't heard back yet."

"What do you know?"

"It was a working prototype. It had new capabilities that the government does not want out there. I also know Riyad was on the mission when it disappeared. The SDV carries six men. Four are dead. Their bodies washed up. I'm not at liberty to pass on where."

That wasn't what bothered her. "With Riyad, that only accounts for five."

This nod was stunted. Beyond reluctant.

"Who's the missing man?"

"Senior Chief Zakaria Webber. His body never turned up—with the others…or elsewhere."

That, in and of itself, was not unusual. An SDV could be air dropped into open ocean or launched from a submarine or an amphibious warship. But without knowing where and from which platform this one had been launched, she had no idea how likely or unlikely it should've been for Webber's body to have washed up with the others.

But John knew. And the slight flattening in his lips, not to mention that jarring pulse point, told her the rest.

"You think he survived, don't you? Along with the SDV." And then Webber and that classified, multimillion-dollar prototype had gone off the grid.

Deliberately.

John's shrug was slight. The implications were not.

They were devastating.

They had a dirty SEAL out there. And there was the rather distinctive pronunciation that John had given to the man's name: Zakaria. It was either Arabic or Persian. No wonder John hadn't wanted to speculate until he'd found out more.

And, somehow, Sam Riyad was tied up in all this. "You know Webber, don't you?" Or rather, John had known him. And well.

With Riyad's almost fanatical zeal in trying to railroad John into murder charges over Hachemi, at the very least John had worked with Webber somewhere along the way. Had possibly been friends with the guy.

"Yeah, I know him—and, no, Webber and I are not friends."

She kept her brow from hiking in the nick of time. How had he figured out what she was thinking? She hadn't been deliberately altering or concealing her expressions; she hadn't needed to. Her speculation had been that deep. That private.

"I didn't add the rest—"

"Didn't have to. It's taken me a while, but I'm getting to where I can read you too." He reached out, traced the tip of one of those callused fingers along her brow, then tapped her nose as that crease cut in beside his smile, along with a healthy dose of the man's congenital arrogance. "I told you the truth when we met in that bar. I'm persistent. And when it comes to you, I am seriously motivated. Getting more so by the day."

She had no idea how to respond to that. Personally or professionally.

So she ignored it.

"The SDV? Do you think Webber sold it to the highest bidder?" Or was it stolen with a specific new owner in mind? Russia? China? Turkey?

Iran?

There was the inherent ethnicity in that first name. …Or did Webber already have plans to use it himself?

John shook his head, his frustration finally spiking. "I don't know. Nor does my source."

His source. With what John had just brought to the table, that source was another SEAL. A SEAL who respected Riyad about as much as Riyad respected John.

A SEAL who had enough on Riyad that he was worried—or he wouldn't have confided in John.

She pulled her breath in deep and just said it. "And this source of yours…does he think Riyad is dirty, too?"

"Yes."

20

Regan tried to contain her shock as she stared at John.

It was impossible.

This was bigger than either of them had feared, and getting more complicated with each moment. One dirty SEAL was bad enough. But two, possibly working in tandem? One of whom—if Riyad was dirty—was now not only firmly embedded inside NCIS's foreign counter-intel division, but also had Admiral Kettering's ear?

Except… "What do you think?"

This shrug was as slight as John's earlier one; the implications it supported, just as heavy. "Jury's still out."

Yeah, with her too. Everything John had revealed actually pointed toward the spook not being dirty. But Riyad was still hiding something.

Damned if she could figure out what it