Unruffled, Sloan said, “Tell me more? Who’s the perp?”
“An Al-Qaeda soldier known as Fahd Ansari.” Wyatt took a photo and put it up on the screen at the end of the room. “He’s Pakistani, thirty-five, five feet nine inches tall, and roughly a hundred and forty-five pounds. Brown hair, brown eyes. He works for Sharan. The NSA and CIA have picked up cell phone traffic between Sharan and Ansari. He’s been hired to disrupt the air supply routes from Port Sudan to all of the other Delos charities that are located in that country. Ansari is an explosives expert—and he’s good at what he does. He’s the one who helped devise a bomb in a printer that was on board a UPS cargo jet years ago.”
Already, Sloan didn’t like the enemy. He was wiry as a whippet, a lean jaw, and a long face with high cheekbones. “He’ll get access to Sudan with a fake passport and visa, plus a fake name?”
“Correct. That’s why you need to recognize this coyote on sight,” Wyatt said. “He’s familiar with aircraft. He was a mechanic in the Pakistan Air Force, worked on their helicopters—all Russian models. The gist is he knows his birds and if circumstances were right, could place a timer and explosives in our Delos CH-47 Chinook that Dan flies.” He threw another photo up on the screen, showing the desert tan CH-47 with a red and yellow fuselage stripe running from nose to tail on it. “Here’s the hangar where it’s based.”
Sloan looked at the two-story corrugated aluminum hangar. As far as hangars went, it was poorly constructed. “And the Delos helo stays there unless used?”
“Yes.” Wyatt put up another photo showing the inner area of the hangar. “On the left side of the hangar is Dan’s office. He has an office assistant, a Sudanese woman named Samiah, who has been working with him for the last year. She takes care of scheduling the medical groups that come over to volunteer their time to these Delos charities.”
Nodding, Sloan noticed the hangar floor was neat and clean. She expected that from Dan. He was a stickler for perfection when it came to flying. He had close ties with his mechanics at Bagram and had an eye for any issues on his MH-47. Dan had never been what she would term a lazy or sloppy pilot. No pilot got into the vaunted, world-famous Night Stalker squadron if they weren’t the cream of the Army aviation crop.
“Security?”
Snorting, Wyatt gave her a grim look. “There is very little. It’s a poor country where a security guard can be paid off in the blink of an eye.
“So? How is Dan to keep his bird safe from Ansari?”
“You need to discuss that issue with him. We’ll provide money for security, but it’s up to you and Dan to decide what that will be.”
“What’s my job then?”
“You’re his shadow. He’s technically a PSD to you. You’re his private security detail.”
“He won’t like having a bodyguard.”
“No, but he’ll like it even less if Ansari gets lucky and plants a bomb on board his bird.”
Sloan didn’t want to go there. She couldn’t conceive Dan Malloy dead. Except for the crash that one night, he’d had an unblemished flight record. “What’s his flight record after that crash?”
Wyatt quickly went through his Army personnel file. “Clean.”
“Dan and I split up before the investigation was complete. He blamed himself for the crash.”
“The Army said weather conditions were responsible.”
“There was a thunderstorm in progress when Dan came in to land. My captain tried to waive him off, saying conditions were not safe, but he came in anyway because a much larger group of Taliban was following us. He was trying to rescue us.” She grimaced.
Wyatt studied the official entry for the crash. “It was a judgment call on Dan’s part, but the Army isn’t pointing their finger at him saying it was pilot error.”
“I knew how worried he was about that investigation.”
“Why do you think Dan walked away from you?” Wyatt asked, his question posed gently.
A wall of pain settled within her heart and Sloan felt close to tears. “I honestly don’t know. He was in bad shape emotionally after the crash. He cried. I’d never seen Dan cry before. But he didn’t cry for himself. He felt guilt-ridden about losing his copilot, Andy. That weighed on him the most. He was the godfather to Andy’s kids. Dan knew the family well.”
Tal sat up. “Do you think he walked out on you because of the pain he was carrying?”
Sloan traded a frustrated look with her friend. “I think it could have been part of it. We got along well. We always had. But the three months after the crash, we fought a lot. He wasn’t himself. I gave him a lot of room, but it wasn’t enough. I was trying to help him up over the shock of the crash.”
“Maybe you’ll get a chance to find out more?” Wyatt wondered. “Might be in the cards for you two to get back together again if you can figure out why he did what he did.”
Shaking her head, Sloan whispered, “No, Wyatt, that’s not going to happen. Dan could have found me after we split up. He had my number. He could have texted me any time. I’m not willing to lay my heart out to him again and then have the same thing happen. Once learned, Cowboy.”
Wyatt perked up a little when she called him by his well-known nickname. It fit. He was born and raised in Texas. “You’re both older now. Mature. Maybe this mission will give you both a chance to bury the hatchet.”
“I can’t take that kind of pain again,” Sloan told them, her voice low. “But I will always try to be there for Dan. He’s not a bad person, just somehow…messed up inside. And whatever it is, I can’t fix him. I’ll be his shield, his eyes, and I’ll protect him. That’s the best I can do.”
CHAPTER 3
Sloan stood near the gangplank, trying to tamp down her expectations as the blue and white luxury scuba boat anchored into the slip at Port Sudan. She had flown into Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and took a quick jet from there to Jeddah to catch a ride on the vessel. There were fifteen other tourists, mostly from Europe, on board with her. They would stay in the area and take the boat out to scuba dive in the nearby reefs. The morning was clear, the air smelling of brine from the Red Sea. The water was a translucent green and turquoise and made her think she was gazing at a jewel of nature.
In a bow to local customs, Sloan was dressed modestly in her olive-green cargo pants, Birkenstock sandals, and a lightweight, long-sleeved white blouse. She adjusted her black baseball cap and sunglasses; her hair pulled back in a ponytail. None of the crew on board gave a second look at what she was wearing, and the other tourists were dressed similarly.
Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Picking it up, she saw that Dan Malloy had sent her a text message: I’m at slip four. Will be waiting at the end of the gangplank. Quickly she texted back: Ten minutes. Sloan.
Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. She was unhappy with her body’s eager response to meet him once more. In her dreams, she was making love with Dan. He was the most skilled lover she’d ever had, and she missed him in every possible way.