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

head and slammed his face into the bulkhead. Vetter and I shot to our feet and rounded the table to pull him off, but it was too late. One lousy crack, and it was over. Blood was pouring out of the bastard's face. By the time we got him laid out on the deck, he was shaking like he was having a seizure, and then his heart stopped. I'd barely bellowed for help when Chief Yrle vaulted into the compartment. She called the bridge and told them to pass the word for the ship's doc, then took custody of the major and escorted him out of the conference room while Vetter and I did CPR. You know the rest."

She did. She'd seen it for herself.

The Marine's fury might've ebbed as he finished his account, but his hate hadn't. A fresh wave consumed the blue as he captured her stare. "I swear to God, that fucker was begging for it. If I'd been in the major's boots, I'd have lost it a helluva lot sooner."

She believed him. Unfortunately, as extenuating circumstances went, belligerence and taunting didn't qualify, no matter how obscene. Not even in light of John's murdered men or those mutilated Pakistani women and children. Not even in light of her. Even without the confession she'd recorded, John would be found guilty.

There wasn't a blessed thing she could do about it.

"Agent Chase?"

Regan flinched as the Marine's fingers wrapped around her arm to squeeze gently. Until that moment, she hadn't realized she'd dragged the uppermost folder from the stack on her makeshift desk forward. She'd even opened it.

A color copy of John's current, official photo had spilled out with the motion of the ship, causing John to stare back.

The sounds of the Griffith filtered in. The creaking of the pipes and cables running along the overhead. The sudden heaviness in the lack of conversation between herself and the Marine to whom she should've been paying attention—but hadn't been.

She shoved the photo into the manila folder and faced the staff sergeant.

Blue eyes replaced gray. Compassion filled them. Pity.

Christ. Brandt knew about her past with John.

Even if Hachemi's whore comment had been a blanket insult toward all women, she should've expected it. After all, Brandt had been entrusted with guarding two of the nation's deadliest terrorists. Not an easy gig to land. Not to mention, Marines took a lot of crap for supposedly carrying little more than rocks upstairs in lieu of smarts.

It wasn't true. But the majority of Marines she knew also tended to conceal just how clever they really were—especially from their enemies. Which in and of itself was brilliant. Because the subterfuge usually provided an immediate advantage.

Like the rest of the Corps, the staff sergeant seated two feet away was savvy enough to follow the news on a regular basis and smart enough to remember her face from when all hell had broken loose via an arrestee's lawyer and an international reporter, following her final undercover assignment for CID back in Germany.

Brandt didn't say a word about that assignment or John's role in it, much less the painfully personal fallout she and John had shared afterward. He didn't have to.

Somehow, that silent sympathy made it worse.

She swallowed hard and nodded.

He dropped his hand.

She purged her breath, the ache. Tried to, anyway. "Thank you for your time, Staff Sergeant. Your statement will be transcribed shortly. You'll need to stop by admin afterward to sign it. Meanwhile, get some rest."

From the lines etched in at the outer corners of his eyes, the Marine had been logging as few hours as she'd been lately.

And now this.

He reached out and closed the tin that had doubled as his ashtray, then leaned back to massage the cleft in his chin. "Will do—and thanks. It's been the longest damned month of my life."

Regan stiffened.

Month?

Just like that, the pinging and creaking of the surrounding metal magnified. The distant whir of machinery joined in, growing so loud that the added rhythm pounded through her ears, right along with the numbers. The numbers that, when compared, revealed a glaring inconsistency in her case's collective timelines.

Especially Brandt's.

John had been aboard the Griffith for eight days; Durrani and Hachemi had been on board for thirteen. And, yet, the Marine had been stressed for roughly thirty?

Was Brandt prone to hyperbole?

She suspected not. Not after the statement he'd shared. "Staff Sergeant…when did you and Corporal Vetter arrive aboard the Griffith—exactly?"

"December fifteenth."

Son of a bitch. He had been here for nearly a month.

And only a month.

She dropped her stare to that makeshift ashtray. The one that contained the remains of his cigarette. A Pakistani cigarette.

Bastard that he was, Riyad might be right about one thing. Perhaps she shouldn't be on this case. She'd been so rattled by what John had instinctively done to Hachemi in the midst of his overwhelming rage that she'd missed the clue that cigarette had offered, along with another.

What had Brandt said upon his arrival in this very compartment half an hour earlier? I've been stuck on this boat since they brought the two of them here.

Stuck.

As in, others had left. But Brandt—and Corporal Vetter—had not. Could not. Because they were still needed.

The Marine's hand found her arm again. "Agent Chase, are you okay?"

"Yes." But she wasn't. If what she suspected was true, Agent Riyad wouldn't be either. Not after she got ahold of him.

John's presence aboard this vessel wasn't the only secret the shifty spook had been clinging to since her arrival. And after she added all the evidence together, the sole explanation she could come up with for this latest lie of omission had the acid in her gut churning up so hard, she was in danger of losing the coffee she'd downed.

According to the crew chief on that Super Stallion she'd flown in on, the Griffith was an amphibious dock landing ship. As such, the ship should have a permanent Marine contingent stationed onboard. Which, also according to the crew chief, it did. Just not this Marine.

Regan