Page 34 of The Only Reason (The Trident Trilogy 2)

“Respect works both ways, Director Ward.”

He glares at me. I return it right back to him. No one says anything for an uncomfortably long time.

“This doesn’t leave this room,” he commands. “If you tell anyone—including your little bodyguard out in the lobby—I will lock you up and leave you there. Do you understand?”

I nod. He takes a deep breath and stares at me for another few seconds before he starts in.

“As you might know from your pursuit of him, Yusef Hadzic had ties to Al Qaeda. He wanted to merge your uncle’s network with them. Your uncle Sayid apparently didn’t want that. He had no problem working with them, but he wanted to retain his autonomy. Sayid and Yusef had a power struggle for years. Yusef had a slight advantage with his Al Qaeda alliance. When we took out UBL, Yusef’s advantage disappeared immediately. We didn’t know any of this until after they died. Sayid kept extensive journals. The operators recovered them on the day they rescued you.”

He pauses to pour himself a cup of coffee. He motions to the cup in front of me. I shake my head. The last thing I need right now is more stimulation. My head is already buzzing. He takes a long sip of coffee and continues.

“Azayiz’s son, Fareed, was part of the network, too. He was a strong supporter of Sayid, but didn’t have much love for Yusef. He was passing information to his mother about the network. Most of it seemed targeted at taking Yusef out of the equation, although we didn’t fully understand that until recently. I believe George told you Azayiz was instrumental in the tip that led us to find bin Laden’s courier. That information came from Fareed. We now think Sayid wanted that information passed to us. When UBL died, it stripped Yusef of all his power. Yusef was pissed as you can imagine. He couldn’t touch Fareed without dying himself, so he set his sights on Azayiz. Fareed found out and told her. That’s when we rushed her into hiding. The amount of information that woman knows is staggering. If our enemies get her, it would be devastating to our operations in that region. Frankly, right now, the best-case scenario is that they find her and kill her immediately.”

“Okay. So I understand why she’s so valuable, but what does this have to do with my dad?” I say. “He’s the only reason I’m here.”

“I was in charge of Middle Eastern operations in 2011 when this all went down. Azayiz was my responsibility. That day—when George called me and told me what your dad said—I saw my entire operation falling apart. One of our special forces guys had a daughter whose uncle was Sayid Custovic. It doesn’t get any worse than that. And then factor in that your dad was one of the operators on the bin Laden mission, and he knows we have Azayiz in hiding, and he’s threatening to expose all of that if we don’t help him go into hiding. It was the worst-case scenario. No offense, but my life would have been a whole lot easier if you had never been born.”

“No offense taken. I could probably say the same about you.”

“Bottom line, I told Azayiz about your dad’s request to go into hiding. She told me she had initiated it. Frankly, I wanted to kill both of them. All of this to protect one girl. It pissed me off. But unfortunately, I couldn’t kill anyone, so I made a deal with them. We would help your dad fake his death, but then we were out. He only had to agree to never surface again. And to never enter back into this country. I worked out the deal with the agency and the navy. We eliminated him from naval records and took away his passport. As far as we were concerned, he was dead.”

“But was he? George said there was a tunnel underneath the house that blew up. Do we even know he made it into the tunnel?”

“Yeah. He made it in. We had agents waiting for him. When they had him in the tunnel, they detonated the explosives that blew the house. We took him to Baghdad, and that was it.”

“You just left him in Baghdad? I don’t think I believe that.”

“Azayiz had someone meet our agents there. They took him. I don’t know who they were. I didn’t want to know. Like I said, after the house blew, he was dead to us.”

“So you handed him over to some guys who could have very well killed him that day?”

“We handed him off to who Azayiz instructed us to hand him off to. We didn’t do this for your dad. We’re not in the business of making members of our military disappear. I wouldn’t have even considered it if he didn’t play the Azayiz card. Bluntly, she was—and still is—much more important to us than your dad. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings.”

“It doesn’t hurt my feelings. I used the agency as a way to find out who my mom was. It’s why I joined, and it’s why I quit after I accomplished that. I have no interest in this agency beyond that.”

“So I’m guessing you’re not going to help us find Azayiz then?”

“I didn’t say that. She was the one who told my dad to rescue me as a baby. I don’t know what she’s become now, but I owe her my life for that. And if you’re telling the truth—which I think you are—then she’s the only one who would know what happened to Dad after the tunnel. I have to at least try to find out. I’ll go to Pakistan on one condition.”

“I think this entire conversation has been enough of a condition. You don’t have any more favors stored up.”

“Maybe not, but I’m going to ask anyway. My bodyguard—as you call him—was my dad’s team leader.”

“I know who he is.”

“When I leave for Pakistan, I want the agency to arrange for him to go back to Iraq and try to retrace my dad’s steps from that side. And I want you to send Raine Laghari with him.”

“The agent assigned to the teams in Virginia Beach? Why her?”

“Because she’s the only person I trust in the agency.”

“You don’t trust George?”

“Not at all. And I definitely don’t trust you.”

He smiles. “I’m okay with sending them over there, but Millie, best-case scenario that your dad is alive, he agreed to never surface and never come back to this country. If you find him, what then?”

“One step at a time,” I say, standing up. “I don’t get on a plane until Raine and Chase tell me they’re on their way to Iraq.”

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