Page 71 of Broken Love

“And you think she’s here?”

I shake my head. “Not her but they are. I saw them on the local surveillance footage from Kabul.”

He raises a brow. “And how did you get a hold of that?”

“It wasn’t difficult. Isn’t it my job to keep an eye on things around here anyway?”

“We’re a little far from Kabul, kid.”

My head drops. “You can press charges against me later but — please — we’ve already wasted enough time. They could be gone by now.”

Rhys pauses as his eyes scan the others behind me. “Fawn,” he mutters, “you vouch for this?”

“I wouldn’t have brought it to you if I didn’t, sir,” she answers.

I fight the urge to turn around and look at her, no matter how comforting the act might be right now.

Rhys narrows his eyes in thought. “And you have no idea what they wanted those files for?” he asks me.

“No, sir,” I say. “They could be for some kind of recruitment, but I can’t be sure. It’s what I’ve been trying to find out since I got here.” He goes silent again and scratches at his fuzzy face. “I’m telling you the truth. I have no reason to make this up and you know it.”

“Oh, I have no doubts you’re telling the truth, kid,” he says. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”

I furrow my brow as Rhys stands up and rounds the table.

“I’ve suspected for a while now that someone over our heads was… a little less than truthful,” he says. He waves me over as he rolls out a map of Afghanistan across the table. “The warehouse you found is here,” he points at the map. “Now, a few weeks before we picked you up, we tailed another convoy to a compound about fifteen miles south of camp. We called it in and command told us to forget about it.”

“Just like they said to forget about this one?”

He nods. “This has happened about a half-dozen times in the last year. Same story, different location. We track them down, command tells us to back off for no apparent reason.”

“You think someone up top knows who they are and what they’re doing?”

“I wasn’t sure until just now.”

“So, what do we do about it?” Fox asks.

I look over my shoulder, drawn by his steady voice. He stands behind me, tall and confident. I’m thankful to see trust in his eyes, the same trust I see in Caleb. Since the moment I arrived here, Fox has had my back more than anyone.

I won’t forget that.

“Well…” Rhys stands up tall. “We can call it in and wait for them to shoot us down again or we can just say fuck it and deal with the slap on the wrist later.”

A flowery scent teases my nose and I know that the new boots behind me are Caleb’s. I glance behind me to see that Rogers and West aren’t sitting anymore either.

“I don’t want anyone getting slapped for this but me,” I say.

Rhys chuckles. “Where’s the fun in that, kid? Everybody suit up. Let’s find out what these bastards are up to.”

I sigh as the four of them spin around and march out of the command tent one-by-one. Caleb lingers behind with me.

When I finally glance up, she’s smiling.

“What?” I ask, my stomach growling with dread.

“You look about ready to hurl,” she says.

“I might.”

---