Backblast by Candace Irving (brene brown rising strong .TXT) 📗

then headed into the hall. She found Scott, waiting as expected.

He held out a spare earpiece. "You ready to get this thing done?"

More than he'd ever know.

"Absolutely." She accepted the earpiece, donned it and gave it a quick test, then adjusted the dupatta to conceal its presence. "Let's go."

Fifteen minutes later, they were standing on the instant platform that several DSS agents had set up within yards of the floodlit embassy gates.

Regan continued to stare out at the crowd, constantly scanning the sector she'd been assigned. Considering. Rejecting. Moving on slightly to start over.

Again and again.

But for the additional floodlights that had been rigged, she wouldn't have had enough light to pick out a stray tank, let alone a sniper or a suicide bomber amid the thousands of faces that had gathered in the distant dark. Unfortunately, the chief justice was right. He might've managed to quell this mob, but the other demonstrations that had cropped up around the country had begun to strengthen. Closing in on five a.m. local time or not, they needed to get this done and on the news to combat what was already out there.

Moments later, the gates opened again. United front intact, the diplomatic contingent quickly streamed out and stepped up onto the platform.

The chief justice and his demurely veiled wife led the procession, along with John and a slightly less beefy DSS agent she didn't know. They came to a halt several feet down from her right, peripheral view. Following the couple and their walking American body armor were President Niazi, Ambassador Linnet, and Prime Minister Bukhari and their DSS agents, since they too had declined the wearable variety.

Warren Jeffers and his protection brought up the rear, in somewhat subdued diplomatic mode as the DCM bowed and scraped to a halt beside the others.

Clearly eager to get this finished so he could escort his wife off the stage and back home where she could grieve in private, Harun Chaudhry stepped up to the microphone and began to speak, first in Urdu, then in English.

Regan gritted her teeth at the succession of flashes that popped out among the crowd, intermittently interfering with and outright obscuring her view. Then again, the photos and instant phone videos would further their cause. Even better, she could see the sporadic nods in the crowd multiplying, feel the wave of compassion and support for both Chaudhrys as the chief justice offered a truncated, toned-down description of events, similar to the one she'd warned John against giving to him.

In short, his beloved daughter Asma had indeed been murdered in that cave along with six pregnant women—but the women were not killed by an American soldier. They were slaughtered by an Afghan doctor who passed himself off as a devout Muslim. But no true Muslim would kill innocent women and unborn children. And as chief justice, he could not allow the falsehood to stand. In fact, another team of American soldiers entered the cave after the murders and tried to save the lives of those who were dying within. For almost all the souls in that cave, it was too late.

But one survived—because of the Americans.

As the chief justice moved on to his praise for President Niazi and the Pakistani president's patience in not jumping to conclusions as the investigation unfolded during the previous weeks, Regan shifted her focus to the far right of her zone in the crowd, once more considering. But, this time, there was no rejection.

Every other face was turned toward the chief justice, carrying varying degrees of horror, outrage and sympathy over the details that had been offered.

This man’s face was anything but. His deep smile was almost rapturous…as if he'd made his peace with this world and was ready to meet his maker.

His focus? The ambassador.

Regan activated her mic as discreetly as she could.

"To the left of the justice, fifteen, twenty feet out and steadily moving up on Linnet. Male, local. Early twenties, bearded. On the tall side. Two, three inches over his surrounding companions. White, coarser traditional dress with matching topi, looks to be contrasting embroidering around the base of the hat."

What color, she couldn't be sure.

He was too far away and, even with the additional floods, too shadowed.

"Got him. Moving in." Riyad.

She caught sight of the NCIS agent moving rapidly within her forward vision, even as she spotted John and Scott moving closer to Harun Chaudhry in her peripheral view. The remaining DSS agents tightened in on their principals as well.

"Eight feet away, coming up on his rear." Riyad.

"I see you. That's him."

The spook was five feet and closing when she heard the RSO chime in. Maddoc's voice was immediately drowned out by a low, almost anti-climactic pop.

The target crumpled, disappearing into the crowd.

A second later, Riyad was on top of the spot, murmuring into his mic. "Suicide vest. Appears to have misfired—"

A man next to Riyad must've heard the spook, because he shouted something in Urdu. She lost the rest of Riyad's assessment as half the crowd bunched up, screaming and yelling as they moved as a solid wave of human flesh toward the platform. The rest of the crowd swept backward. Instinct had her shifting her vision to check the left side of her assigned sector. It, too, was moving en masse, the people within, pushing, pulling.

She caught the flash of a flailing reporter's light as it spun out of its owner's hand, glinting off the dusky face of another man in local garb before the light source arced toward the ground. Tinted wraparound sunglasses?

In the dark?

She dropped her gaze and caught a glimpse of the blackened barrel as it came up. No time for the mic, she shouted a warning as she automatically shoved her hand into her suit and drew her weapon. Gun!"

Worse, she'd swear his was a SIG Sauer P226, too. And it was sighting in on her right. Harun Chaudhry.

Her P228's forward sights were still an inch from her target—the shooter's head—when her hand and entire arm jolted,