Page 11 of Smoke and Shadows

“I shot his wife in the head,” Viktor stated flatly.

“Jesus Christ, Viktor,” Manning whispered.

Derek cursed and rubbed his forehead. Jack continued to stare at him with no expression whatsoever.

“I turned the gun on his son,” Viktor continued. “He gave up the target and we saved hundreds.”

There was an unspoken question in everyone’s eyes.

“I don’t know if I would’ve taken out his son as well,” he admitted. “But the point to all this is we may have found a link.”

“But Maia was not on that mission,” Nathan said.

“Whoever’s behind this doesn’t want to kill me, Stark,” Viktor said. “What would be the pain in that? Didn’t it ever occur to you how easy it was to take out the six gunmen? TheRPG could’ve easily destroyed the limo. No. They wanted me to watch someone I care about, die. There were two shots. I’ve studied the tapes. It was meant to be a head shot, but Maia bent to take off the mask of one of their attackers. And when she straightened up, the other bullet struck her in the gut.”

Jack sprang out of his chair and started pacing and cursing. “Fuck you, Viktor.”

“Yes, fuck me,” Viktor shot back. “You don’t get to make the difficult decisions, McCord, so shut the fuck up.”

“Yes!” Jack roared and stabbed his finger at Viktor. “FUCK YOU! That bullet could have hit Maia in the head. She’d be dead now. So, yes, FUCK YOU!”

Jack turned and slammed out of the war room. Everyone was deathly quiet.

Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Get him back here, Lockwood. We’re not done.”

Derek sighed heavily, pushed back from his chair, and went after Jack.

“Tim, can you tell us about the six gunmen, plus the RPG handler?” Viktor invited.

“They were all French citizens with ties to families in Syria,” Tim said. “We believe their families were the ones who received the payoffs.”

“We’re trying to figure out the source of the payoff,” Marissa spoke up for the first time. “It’s not going to be easy, because, for starters, the families are in Syria. Our closest station is in Lebanon. The payouts were most likely made in cash. We need boots on the ground to follow this lead.”

“And do you?” Edmunds asked. “Have boots on the ground?”

Marissa smiled mysteriously.

The door opened. Derek walked in followed by Jack, who sank into his chair but had his eyes averted, obviously still seething from their blowup earlier.

“Jack, I want you to take a look at the picture of RafiqShadid. He’s Mustafa’s son,” Viktor said. “He’s the only one I could see needing revenge for what happened to his parents. Mustafa died a few years ago.”

Viktor did not want to add that the man died while in CIA custody, the circumstances he never wanted to know.

Still not looking at Viktor, Jack opened the folder that was pushed in front of him. At first he looked disinterested, but an expression of recognition dawned on his face before turning into disgust.

“I know those eyes,” Jack said grimly. “Well, congrats, Viktor, you’ve manage to turn a—” McCord paused to look down on the information on Rafiq Shadid and added sarcastically, “—seventeen-year old boy into a twenty-five year old torturing prick. I hope you can live with your shit.”

Jack stood up and glared at Viktor. “I’m done here. I’ve a wife who’s coming out of a coma, no thanks to this bastard.”

After McCord left for the second time, Derek spoke up, “Give him time, Viktor. He’ll come around.”

Viktor nodded. “I’ve been branded worse than a bastard, Lockwood. I don’t give a fuck if he holds me responsible for the rest of my life. He keeps on forgetting what he signed up for when he married Maia.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Viktor,” Manning muttered. “The man just withstood three weeks of torture, all the while thinking his wife was dead. Could you show some humanity here?”

“Agreed.” Viktor clipped. There was no use defending his words or actions. He’d always accepted that he operated on a different level of empathy than most people. Turning his attention to Tim. “I want you to check the encryptions on all our databases. Our NOC database should receive top priority. If it falls into the wrong hands, every agent we have out there, active and retired, could become a target. Let’s not have that happen. We protect it with everything we’ve got. Understood?”

“Roger that, Viktor,” Tim said.

---