Page 17 of Stand Fast

“Your barracks?” She raised her eyebrows at him and he laughed.

“Don’t look at me like that. Bring someone from your team with you if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

It would. She’d have to find someone to go with her. “And the others won’t have a problem with me being there?”

“No, not at all. The more, the merrier.”

“Okay. I’ll see how things go with the case tonight. I’ve got someone out looking for Barakat now, trying to find whatever hole he slunk back into.”

“Poor bastard. I kinda feel bad for him. Waterboarding by an amateur is almost worse than when it’s done by an expert.” Zaid looked around the rows of parked cars. The air temperature down here was warmer than outside. “Which one are you?”

“Over there.” She pointed to where two members of her team were waiting with a driver next to a silver SUV. He walked her over to it. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him it wasn’t necessary for him to escort her, but she held back. His intentions seemed courteous and protective, not overbearing.

Her team members got into the back of the vehicle, still talking amongst themselves. Zaid opened the front passenger door for her and stepped out of the way to let her in. Her cheeks flushed even as she wondered why he was being so courteous. Because he was trying to win her over? Because he was being protective? She couldn’t figure him out, and the devilish glint in his eyes told her he enjoyed whatever game he was playing.

“Thanks,” she murmured, setting her backpack in the foot well before climbing up into the seat. The vehicle was armor plated with bullet-resistant glass. Couldn’t be too careful over here. Americans and westerners in general had a lot of enemies.

“Welcome.” Zaid waited until she put her seatbelt on and looked over at him before continuing. He was close. Close enough for her to see the flecks of gold and green in his eyes, and the thick fringe of black lashes surrounding them. “So, I’ll see you later tonight then.”

He was insistent, but she wouldn’t make any promises. “If I can make it.”

One side of his mouth tipped up in a smug grin, and it was so damn sexy it had her imagining what it would feel like to cup that rugged, dark-bearded face between her hands and kiss those smiling lips. “You’ll make it.”

She fought a smile at his confidence as he shut her door. It was impossible not to like him.

The driver started the engine and drove them out of the car park. When she glanced in the side mirror, Zaid was still standing in the same spot, and raised a hand in farewell.

For some reason the gesture tugged at a deeply buried part of her.

Purposely looking away from the mirror, she mentally sighed. He was a complication she hadn’t foreseen, and one who, under different circumstances, she might have been tempted to try on for size.

Ten minutes later her vehicle was a few blocks from the hotel she and the others were staying at when a low rumble shook the ground. The driver stopped in the middle of the street and they all looked through the windshield as a huge plume of black smoke spewed into the cold, clear air.

“That’s right near our hotel,” Jaliya said, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.

Before she could get it out, the driver’s phone rang. He answered in Dari, and she listened to his side of the conversation, gaining enough information to understand that there was a major problem. Whatever had caused the explosion, it must have been big.

With the phone to his ear, the driver glanced at her with a frown. “There’s been a suicide bombing outside your hotel. The entire area’s on lockdown.”

The blood drained from Jaliya’s face. Some of her team were there.

She looked back at the rolling cloud of black smoke billowing high into the sky above her hotel, her gut telling her two things. The location and timing were too much of a coincidence for her to believe it had been anything but a targeted attack.

And that meant her team was being hunted.

Chapter Five

Heart pumping, Zaid jumped out of the vehicle as soon as the driver pulled up to the security checkpoint, Hamilton right behind him. A scene of total chaos met their eyes.

A block beyond the barricade, the hotel Jaliya and her team were staying at continued to billow huge clouds of smoke. The entire area had been closed off while emergency crews responded to the casualties and the fire. Sirens wailed as frightened civilians were herded away from the area, choking the streets and sidewalks and making it impossible to move.

Zaid showed the security personnel guarding the checkpoint his ID and spoke to them in rapid Dari, eager to get through the barrier and find Jaliya. Through Taggart, they’d received word about the bombing just as they’d left the outskirts of Kabul.

The initial report said Jaliya and her two teammates hadn’t been at the hotel when the bombing occurred, but she hadn’t answered her phone when he’d called her, and he wanted to see her with his own eyes to make sure she was okay. Besides, if the bombing had been a targeted attack on the hotel, she might still be in danger.

After talking to his superior on the radio, one of the guards finally let Zaid and Hamilton through the barricade. Together they hurried through the crowded streets to get to the hotel, where a tighter, interior security perimeter had been set up.

“Damn,” Zaid muttered when he caught sight of the smoldering wreckage of twisted metal that marked the truck bomb. The front of the hotel was missing completely, wiped out by the blast. Paramedics and other first responders were busy dousing the flames and carrying victims out on stretchers.

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