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

"Well? Where's your evidence? I assume you have something against the major, most likely snatched up from a crime scene with yet another ungloved hand."

It worked.

The spook stepped closer, all but smoldering now. "What don't I have? Make that, who."

She kicked her own scarred brow upward. The one she'd earned back at Fort Campbell when she'd slammed through a glass slider alongside a suicidal soldier who'd murdered his wife and unborn child at the beginning of this twisted case. "Oh, do go on, Agent. Name names. Impress me with your deductive brilliance. If you can."

"Ertonç."

"The Turkish general?"

Riyad clipped a nod. "You remember him, don't you?"

Of course she did. The Ertonç case was how and when she and John had first met. Operating on a stateside interagency tip, she and a fellow CID agent had managed to save the life of General Ertonç's daughter in Hohenfels, Germany, with the critical assistance of one of her best friends, Mira Ellis—an NCIS agent she also very much admired and respected. Unlike the one in this stateroom.

The spook stepped even closer. "What do you really know about the general?"

It didn't matter what she knew about Ertonç, much less John's relationship with the man. What mattered was what Riyad believed John knew.

She held her silence. Waited for the spook to add more.

Given the mesmerizing tic that had taken up residence beneath the square of his lightly bearded jaw, he was chomping to add something.

That tic didn't disappoint. "General Ertonç is shady as shit. He has been for decades. And the major has been in the thick of some of the worst of that shit, right along with the guy."

Kabul.

The night John had invited her into his home for dinner, he'd freely admitted that Ertonç had had a reputation as an ass when the men had met years earlier in Afghanistan—not to mention Ertonç's rather tight relationship with a local Afghan warlord of shady repute.

So what?

"That's it? That's all you've got? Some Turkish general Garrison did a favor for almost a decade ago?" And another, sixteen months ago, in Germany. But since she didn't know if Riyad was cleared to be privy to that latest one, she left it off the list. "A favor, I might add, that the upper echelons of the Army not only knew about when Garrison was in Kabul, but had whole-heartedly approved—prior to the major bestowing it."

"And did the Army also approve of Garrison's relationship with Sergeant First Class LaCroix in advance of the sergeant plotting to blow up Ertonç's daughter, her husband, two children and half a city block in Vilseck, Germany?"

She shrugged. "If not, shame on the Army." Because while John had been juggling that latest sanctioned mission with regard to General Ertonç, he'd also been working his ass off to pull a valuable, hurting sergeant back into line for the Army.

While that intervention with LaCroix had ultimately turned out to be futile, no one else had even bothered to attempt it.

Arms still crossed, Riyad took another step toward her. He was inches away now, and even more pissed. "And the translator? Was Garrison working on behalf of the best interests of the Army when he vouched for Hachemi less than two weeks ago at a critical juncture in that cave case, after Hachemi and that bastard Durrani had hacked up those women? Was Garrison also working on behalf of the Army when he approved yet another mission with Hachemi to supposedly take down the doctor? A mission that saw Hachemi take the wheel of a van just before he ended up gassing a squad of Garrison's own soldiers and killing one of your fellow CID agents?"

"Yes, he was." And despite the loss of Art Valens' life and nearly her own, "Garrison got the job done too." And then some. "We were able to arrest Hachemi, save even more lives and prevent a political powder keg from exploding in the region."

One that would've obliterated the US military's reputation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the entire world beyond.

Hell, it still might, if she couldn't push through Hachemi's death investigation in time to get her hide down to the ship's brig and pull the name of the real traitor out of Durrani before this spook got Admiral Kettering to change his mind about her and succeeded in having her removed from the Griffith.

As for John's relationship with Tamir Hachemi and General Ertonç, "Special Forces operate in the gray, Agent Riyad. Much like the SEALs in your own branch, as even you must be aware. SF seeks out, works with and—yes, befriends and maintains relationships with—some seriously crappy characters. Because that's part of their job. A job Major Garrison has proven that he excels at, despite the fact that he clearly doesn't know everything. Which, by the way, neither do you. So, unless—"

"What about McCord?"

"Mark McCord?" The captain of the SF team who had originally been framed for the murders in that cave.

"Yes. Yet another questionable association of the major's."

"How so?"

"McCord and Garrison are good friends. You may have found evidence that exonerated the captain, but the reason the frame worked as well as it did against him was because McCord was screwing a married local of Pakistani descent—in direct violation of US military policy. Both Admiral Kettering and the State Department are still dealing with the resulting hot potato, since the sole surviving baby from that cave massacre carries the captain's DNA."

"You're right about the DNA, but wrong about the rest. Garrison can't stand McCord."

Disbelief had that scarred brow scraping higher. "My source—"

"—is wrong. Granted, McCord saved Garrison's life. Twice. Both times, in combat. But that's it. There is no love lost between those men, and on either side. So if you think Garrison took out Hachemi this morning with deliberate intent, as some sort of premeditated payback for Hachemi killing the mother of McCord's child, think again. And dig a little deeper while you're at it. You'll be surprised to discover just how many soldiers who manage