Derek dragged his attention back to Elizabeth’s boss.
“It’s part of an ongoing investigation and must not leave this room.”
“These men are familiar with the concept of a classified briefing,” Hallenback said. “You can speak freely.”
“Fine.” Moore’s attention locked on Derek. “Lieutenant Vaughn, I understand you offered to guard a prisoner directly following the rescue operation in Asadabad.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I understand you know Pashto?”
Derek glanced at Hallenback. “I get by.”
Moore looked at Luke. “Your CO tells me you’re fluent?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Luke had picked up the language while working alongside Afghan medical personnel. And now Derek understood where this conversation was going.
“So, you spoke to the prisoner.” Moore’s statement was directed at Derek.
“We had a few words.”
“Why?” This from the suit beside Elizabeth. Potter. His introduction had included something about the CIA. “We had a trained interrogator en route to your location.”
“Thought it wouldn’t hurt to debrief him a little,” Derek said. “Way things have been going with the CIA lately, you never know.”
“You have a problem with our people, Lieutenant?” Potter leaned forward on his elbows, clearly affronted.
Derek glanced at Hallenback, whose expression told him he was clear to give his opinion. Not that Derek minded offending a few pencil pushers, but he didn’t want to cause his CO any headaches.
“Not your people, your policies,” Derek told him. “It’s catch and release over there. We risk our necks taking down some Taliban stronghold, bag up a bunch of tangos, and two weeks later they’re back in business making suicide vests and planting IEDs.”
Derek glanced at Luke, whose teeth were clenched, probably as he remembered the raid. Sean had discovered a shit ton of intel and spent the last minutes of his life collecting it before taking a bullet. As soon as they’d touched down at base, the team had put him on a medevac plane to Germany, but he never made it.
“The A-bad raid netted a huge volume of information,” Derek said now. “Plus a high-value prisoner. And yes, we were more than happy to guard him, case he had anything to say before the CIA showed up.”
“Then I assume you noticed the maps,” Moore said.
Derek had grown up in Texas, which this guy probably knew. Of course he’d noticed the maps. “They caught my eye, yeah.”
“Did he say anything about the tactical objectives involved?”
“Well, as Agent Potter here pointed out, I’m not a trained interrogator. I knew that was a sensitive topic, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “?’Scuse my language, ma’am.”
Her expression didn’t change, but Derek knew he’d annoyed her. She didn’t like to be singled out for special treatment.
“So what did you talk to him about?” Potter asked.
“The houses, mostly. Who lived there. Who was in and out. We tried to get names.”
“These guys operate in a network,” Luke said. “We’re always looking for the missing links. We needed names to plug into what we already had on the area.”
“Did you get any?” Moore asked.
“He was pretty tight-lipped,” Derek said. “Gave us a few names, but we were fairly sure they were bogus. And they never lined up with any preexisting info on our end. It’s in the report, though, so the intel guys can follow up.”
“How’d they do, anyway?” Luke asked. “Did the CIA drag anything out of him?”
Moore glanced at Hallenback. “The prisoner’s no longer talking.”
Derek shook his head, disgusted.
“We did, however, manage to develop some background on him,” Potter said. “The Afghan police ID’d him as Khalid Rana. He’s a known associate of Al Qaeda’s chief recruiter in the area. Now that the war’s winding down, they’ve been operating without much pushback.”
Derek gritted his teeth. Did he think they didn’t know this? With the troops leaving, the place was becoming a free-for-all, with native Taliban forces, foreign Al Qaeda fighters, and local militia groups coming out of their hidey holes and vying for power.
“In addition to that, he’s obviously closely linked to the kidnappers, including Omar Rasheed, who masterminded the attack on the MedAssist convoy. Rasheed’s been rising through the ranks of Al Qaeda for years, and this recent operation bumped up his status.”
“What about the maps?” Luke asked. “Looked like they could be planning an attack on one of our cities.”
“We’re processing everything now,” Moore said. “We’ve got our best people working on it.”
Elizabeth looked at Moore, and something in her expression made Derek uneasy. Was it admiration? Respect?
Or something else?
Or maybe he was just wishing she’d look at him that way. She’d been across from him now for ten minutes, steadfastly ignoring him, as if just being in a room with him made her uncomfortable.
How many times had he thought about seeing her again? Countless. Only they hadn’t been in a SCIF room, and they sure as hell hadn’t been surrounded by other people. After all that dreaming, he couldn’t believe she was here, in the flesh. And now he couldn’t stop thinking about how he was going to get her alone.
She glanced at him for barely a second, but something sparked in her eyes, and he knew she’d read his mind.
“We received intel from Great Britain,” Moore said. “They have word that Rasheed was in Bahrain last week meeting with a known Al Qaeda supporter.”
“Supporter?” Derek asked.
“A financial backer. So we know he’s on the move, and in the light of the maps your team recovered, that’s an alarming piece of intelligence.”
Alarming was an understatement.
“Are they sure they can’t get Khalid to talk?” Luke asked. “Maybe they need a new team in there. Sounds like a little arm twisting’s in order.”
Potter scoffed. “Is that why he shut down on us? You tried a little SEAL arm twisting on a frightened kid?”
“Hey, we didn’t touch him,” Derek said.
“Don’t let his age fool you,” Luke added bitterly. “He’s plenty old enough to hold an AK or plant an IED or rape a hostage.”
Potter gave him a cool look that confirmed all Derek’s suspicions. No way this guy had ever been in the field. He had analyst written all over him.
Moore stood up then, and that was it, meeting over. The feds packed up their legal pads, clearly disappointed with the outcome of their fact-finding mission. Yes, a couple of big bad SEALs had talked to the prisoner. No, they hadn’t gleaned anything useful. And now the little shit had clammed up, leaving the CIA, the FBI, and about every other alphabet agency in Homeland Security standing around more worried about safeguarding a terrorist’s civil rights than safeguarding an American city.
The suits filed out, and Derek watched Elizabeth, trying to catch her eye, but she managed to avoid him. Perfect. He had a few opinions for the investigators involved in this case. But something told him she didn’t want to hear them.
Chapter Three
Elizabeth splashed water on her face and checked her reflection. She looked even worse than she felt.
Seeing him had been harder than she’d expected. People always said absence made the heart grow fonder, but she’d had a different experience. Derek’s absence had made her heart grow smarter, and she’d thoroughly convinced herself that staying away from him was a wise decision.
Seeing him, though—even for a few minutes—had turned all of that logic on its head.
Nearly a year had gone by, and still the mere sight of him made her skin tingle. He had the power to make her forget every other thought in her head with just a look. She’d been surrounded by colleagues and matters of great importance, and still that warm, steady gaze of his had managed to completely distract her.