Chapter One

 

 

DEA Special Agent Jaliya Rabani rushed down the hallway of one of the many buildings that made up Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, her insides a flurry of excitement and anticipation.

She’d waited months for this chance, and was chuffed that it was finally happening.

A door opened at the end of the hall and Supervisory Special Agent Jared Taggart, commander of the DEA’s Foreign Advisory and Support Team Bravo, emerged. “He’s here?” he asked her, his blue-green eyes locked on her as he stepped out of the room. A tall, intimidating man who commanded respect with his presence alone.

“Yes.” And about damn time, too. After all the previous trouble with getting her informant to commit, she’d been afraid he would no-show again. “He’s waiting in one of the interrogation rooms now. Got in about ten minutes ago.”

The overhead lights caught on his dark blond hair and the slightly darker stubble on his face as he nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

She fell in step with him and together they hurried through the building and outside into the late morning sunshine. An icy blast of late December wind cut through her jacket. She wrapped her arms around herself and tucked the bottom of her hijab into her jacket to keep it from flapping around. Though she’d grown up wearing one, she’d stopped doing so in ninth grade, but over here she always wore it when dealing with locals.

The familiar sounds of the base surrounded her as she walked: aircraft engines and trucks passing by, troops out for their daily PT. Agent Taggart followed her into another building on the other side of the base. Armed guards were posted at the door and there were no windows on its exterior.

He and Jaliya showed their agency IDs. The guards let them in and immediately locked the doors behind them.

“Down here,” she said to him, leading the way down the long center hallway past the various cells, the sounds of their footsteps echoing off the cinder block walls.

Even with the bright overhead lights glaring off the white-painted walls, this place had a creepy vibe. Behind each steel door they passed lining the hallway, terrorists were locked away to await their fate at the hands of the U.S. judicial system for crimes committed against American troops and interests.

A member of her team from the Foreign Cooperative Investigations unit was waiting for them outside the second-to-last room at the end of the hall. “I couldn’t get an interpreter here in time,” her colleague told her as she approached.

“It’s fine. I’ll do the translating.” She was twenty-eight years old with a Master’s degree in political science, and had recently gained enough trust from her boss for him to allow her more operational latitude within her investigations. These days he pretty much let her run her own show, and in turn she reported back to him to keep him apprised of what was going on.

“I’ll watch from out here,” her colleague said. The large window in the wall beside them allowed them to look in while those inside the room couldn’t see out.

“That’s fine.” She mentally squared her shoulders, more than ready for this. Show time.

Ignoring how fast her pulse raced in her throat, she opened the door and walked into the room, with Taggart right behind her.

At the rectangular table set in the center of the room sat a young man in his late teens. He wore traditional garb of loose white pants and a tunic topped with a vest. His short dark hair was covered by a pakol, and a thin, dark beard obscured the lower half of his face. His deep-set, dark eyes locked on her the moment she crossed the threshold, wary and distrustful.

“Barakat. It’s good to meet you in person finally,” she said in Dari, taking off her jacket and draping it over the back of the chair opposite him.

His eyes widened for a moment in astonishment, then chilled before he focused on Taggart. Dismissing her.

Annoyance bubbled up inside her. She’d seen that look way too often from local men during her time over here, and it never failed to piss her off. Nuh-uh. You’re here to talk to me, not him.

“I gather you received the medicine and supplies I arranged for you at the hospital earlier?” she asked, ignoring his attitude as she nodded to the knapsack lying next to him on the floor. The guards and her coworker waiting out in the hall would have already searched it for weapons before putting him in here, so he was no threat to her. And definitely not with a man like Taggart standing behind her.

Barakat’s gaze slid back to her, flicking over her with clear distaste.

Jaliya folded her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow, prepared to wait him out. “Well?”

“Yes,” he finally muttered and looked away again.

Fine with her. She didn’t care whether he looked at her or not while they had this conversation. “Good. Well, let’s not drag this out and waste any more of my time than necessary. What can you tell me about The Jackal?”

He stiffened at the name, and this time when he looked at her, there was pure contempt on his face. “You have no right to ask me this.” His tone was even more contemptuous than his expression.

“Oh, but I do. You already owe me for the supplies you’ve been given. And if you want the money you’ve been offered, you’ll tell me what I want to know.” She and her taskforce had been trying to identify the man known as The Jackal for almost five months now, and all their efforts thus far had proven futile.

No one claimed to know his identity, but he routinely smuggled large shipments of opium and weapons through the Hindu Kush either to southern Afghanistan or over the border into Pakistan. And then on to America with the heavy involvement of the Veneno cartel operating out of Mexico.

Barakat’s upper lip curled into something close to a sneer and he hunched down in his chair, his body language telegraphing his disrespect and defiance.

“There a problem?” Taggart asked from behind her in English. “My Dari isn’t awesome, but I’m getting the sense he’s being uncooperative.”

“He’s just upset because he didn’t realize he’d be dealing with a woman,” she said without looking over her shoulder. Well, too damn bad for Barakat. She’d been working various informants over here for the better part of three years now, and refused to let misogynistic wankers like this one get to her.

“Barakat,” she said, her voice sharp. The kid’s jaw clenched beneath his scraggly beard and he reluctantly made eye contact again. “We brought you here for a reason. You need to tell us what you know about The Jackal and any upcoming shipments you’ve heard about, or there’s no deal.” To press her point, she pulled the chair back from the table, sat down and leaned forward, deliberately crowding his space. Refusing to give him any wiggle room.

He pushed his chair back as though the very idea of having to sit so close to her was offensive. “I do not negotiate with women.”

His hateful expression and tone set her teeth on edge. Too often in this part of the world men treated women like livestock or stray dogs, placing no value on them whatsoever, let alone granting them respect as fellow human beings.

Jaliya didn’t stand for it. She didn’t care what men around here thought about her—she was working to help stem the endless flow of opium out of this country, and she didn’t give a shit whether assholes like Barakat liked it or not.

“Well, you’re going to have to today, and for as long as you want money from the DEA. You’ve seen what The Jackal does. How he prospers off the poison he smuggles out of your country, profiting off the broken backs and broken lives of the people he uses to make himself rich. How he kills or tortures anyone who opposes him.” She paused. “Including your grandfather, the man who raised you.”

Those dark eyes darted back to hers, now burning with resentment instead of just loathing. He didn’t answer.

She pushed. “I can help make him pay for everything he’s done. But to do that, I need to find him first. I was told you know something that might be useful to us. Was my source wrong?”

No response, just that defiant stare.

All too aware of Taggart and her colleague impatiently watching all of this happen, she tamped down her irritation as the back of her neck began to heat up. She’d worked damn hard to build a reputation within the agency for getting things done, and being one of the best intelligence personnel they had. She was proud of that, and wouldn’t let anything diminish it.

Including the ignorant little shit before her now.

She held Barakat’s gaze, refusing to back down. “Don’t waste my time. You’ve got ten seconds to answer me, or the deal’s off.”

“Well?” Taggart prompted, still standing behind her.

She was glad he couldn’t see her face or tell how fast her pulse was pounding. “He’s not cooperating,” she gritted out, frustrated and embarrassed.

He sighed. “Let’s get a male translator in here then—”

“There aren’t any available,” she said, continuing the staring contest with her so far useless informant. She’d pulled so many strings to get him here, and he was giving her nothing. Dammit. “My colleague just said so.”

Taggart exhaled impatiently, his boots shifting on the floor.

Jaliya resented being made to look like a fool. It played on her secret fear that she didn’t have what it took to pull off this kind of job, that she might fail and lose her position within the taskforce because of her gender. Her father’s words were always there in the back of her mind.

Why would you waste your time in that job? You won’t do any good over there. You’re a woman. They won’t respect or cooperate with you. Stay in the States and do something with your life that will actually make a difference.

No. She’d invested too much time and effort to get where she was. She wouldn’t allow this bullshit misogynistic behavior to jeopardize any of it.

Jaliya held Barakat’s gaze for another few seconds, then shoved her chair back and stood up. “Take your medical supplies and go, and don’t bother contacting us again,” she told him in a cold voice. “Have a nice trip back to your village.” She grabbed her coat from the chair and turned to leave.

Taggart stopped her with an upraised hand. “Wait. I’ll bring in one of my guys to help.”

She stared at him. “What?”

He already had his phone to his ear. “He speaks fluent Dari and he’s got the necessary security clearance.”

There was no doubt as to who he meant.

An immediate protest formed on her tongue but she bit it back as conflicting arrows of dismay and anticipation shot through her. It wouldn’t do any good to argue. And she did need help.

It just chafed that he would be the one called in to assist.

 

****

 

Deeply engrossed in the Web Griffin book he was currently reading, SA Zaid Khan had just flipped to the next page when someone nudged his shoulder. Pushing up on his bunk, he pulled off his headphones and blinked down at his teammate, Reid Prentiss, who stood beside their stacked bunk beds, his dark brown hair damp from a recent shower.

“What?” Everyone knew better than to interrupt him when he was sucked into a book during his downtime. Or at least, they should know better.

“Your phone was ringing,” Prentiss answered in his Mississippi drawl, handing it up to him. “You left it on your duffel.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He and the others were supposed to have until sixteen-hundred-hours off. But seeing the team commander’s name on the display, he called back immediately, on alert. Taggart wouldn’t call him just to say hi. “Khan here,” Zaid said when his commander answered.

“You busy right now?”

“Nope. What’s up?” It was out of the ordinary for Taggart to single him out like this. Normally he only addressed them as a team.

“Need a male translator. This informant’s not talking and we’re all out of patience. How soon can you get over here?” He told Zaid what building he was in.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He jumped off his top bunk, his combat boots thudding lightly on the concrete floor, and grabbed his duffel.

“What’s goin’ on?” Prentiss asked, tugging a clean shirt over his head. On the other side of the tiny room, the other bunk bed was empty, their two roommates probably off to the gym. Or in Maka’s case, maybe getting more chow. That guy had an appetite unlike anything Zaid had ever seen before.

Their living quarters were Spartan, the thin walls made up of plywood boards. Not exactly the Hilton, but better than a lot of places he’d bedded down during a deployment, and FAST Bravo usually only stayed at Bagram for a week or so at a time anyhow.

“Taggart needs me to translate.” Must be the informant the taskforce had been waiting on to meet about The Jackal. The drug smuggler was slipperier than a greased eel, and the DEA’s number one high value target for this deployment.

Zaid pulled on a sweatshirt hoodie over top of his T-shirt and then put his jacket over top for good measure as he hustled out of the squad barracks they shared with some SOF guys who rotated through here. Putting on his shades to protect his eyes from the winter sun’s glare, he stepped out into the frigid cold and headed across to the building Hamilton was waiting in.

Dry, crisp air filled his lungs, carrying a tinge of jet fuel and diesel. To the east, the jagged, white-capped peaks of the Hindu Kush range speared upward into the sky.

Zaid was looking forward to helping out with an interrogation, especially if the informant could help give them valuable intel. At the detention facility, he showed the guards his ID and entered into a long, narrow hallway lined with cells.

He spotted Taggart waiting for him at the other end, but his pulse quickened when Agent Rabani stepped out of the interrogation room to stand beside Zaid’s team leader. Even with the hijab covering her long, wavy black hair, it highlighted the beauty of her face with her large, dark eyes, full lips and high cheekbones. The fitted black T-shirt she wore clung to the pert outline of her breasts, and the beige cargo pants hugged the curve of her hips, making it hard to tear his gaze away from her.

“Thanks for coming,” Taggart said to him once Zaid got close.

“No worries.” He turned his attention to Agent Rabani, who was watching him with her arms folded across her chest.

She was somewhere in her late twenties or so. They’d first met at a briefing back at headquarters in Virginia several months ago and their paths had crossed several times since he’d been over here for this deployment, but he’d never seen her outside of work-related meetings. He’d like to change that.

“So, he’s not talking?” Zaid asked.

A slight flush burned along her cheekbones as she set her jaw. “No. Not to me, anyway,” she said, her clipped voice edged with the trace of a British accent that was a little more pronounced in her annoyance.

Ah. The dick in the interrogation room wouldn’t talk to her because she was a woman. Not too surprising, considering where they were. Going by her expression, however, Rabani didn’t seem too pleased that Zaid had been brought in for this, even though he was only here to help, not to interfere or steal her thunder. He hoped she realized they were on the same side.

Keeping his expression neutral, he gestured to the door. “Want me to give it a try?”

“I’ll need to bring you up to speed first.” She gave him a quick rundown of what he needed to know about the situation while Taggart stood listening with his hands on his hips. Their commander wanted The Jackal. Bad. They all did.

Whoever he was, the drug runner was a big player in the opium trade that was now streaming from here into Mexico, courtesy of the Venenos, to make fentanyl and other goodies to lace their coke and heroin with. Not only that, the money from selling that shit funded terrorist groups, gangs and other criminal entities that posed a security threat to innocent people all over the world.

That’s why Zaid and his teammates were here—to act as the sharp point of the spear in the war to destroy them.

When Agent Rabani finished summing things up, he nodded once. “Got it.” He glanced at the closed door, then back to her. “Ready?”

“Yes, but I’ll feed you questions in English if I need more. And Agent Taggart and I will be in the room the entire time, and hard cheese if our reluctant informant doesn’t like it.”

Zaid fought back a smile, loving the hard edge to her voice. Over here, she would have to fight for basic respect from the locals a lot of the time. He admired that she was up for the challenge, but it didn’t surprise him. She was affectionately known around here as the British Bulldog while involved with an investigation, relentless in her pursuit of anything that would help them find a high value target. “Understood.”

“His name is Barakat. Anything that might be useful would be a big help.”

“Roger that.”

She studied him for a moment, her dark gaze darting over him in a way that was subtle enough to call curious, yet it heated his blood anyway. She turned to the door. “Let’s go.”

Zaid followed her into the room with Taggart. Barakat was seated on the opposite side of a table set in the center of the cinder block room, his arms folded in a defiant posture, his expression bored until his gaze landed on Agent Rabani. Then his face hardened.

Zaid felt for her. She and the others on the taskforce had been working overtime to find The Jackal, and woman-hating assholes like Barakat gave her no time or respect whatsoever, making her job even harder.

“Barakat,” he said, immediately taking the chair opposite him and pulling up to the table. He leaned back in it, his hands resting on his thighs in a deceptively casual pose. Open body language made for a higher chance of building a fragile thread of trust.

The kid focused on him, but flicked another cold look over at Agent Rabani in the corner.

“I understand you can help us find The Jackal,” Zaid said in Dari, wanting to take the kid’s attention off her so they could get things moving.

“Why is she still here?” Barakat demanded as he stared at Agent Rabani.

“Because she’s in charge of this investigation. So if you have a problem with her being here, that’s too bad. Because she’s staying.”

Barakat’s expression turned sullen as he looked back at Zaid, like a child who’d just been scolded. But he didn’t argue. Progress.

Zaid cocked his head a little. “So. We doing this, or not?”

The kid stared at Zaid’s chest rather than looking at his face. “I don’t know who he is.”

“So then what do you know? Maybe you’ve heard where he is? Where he’s going? Or maybe you know something about a shipment. You have to give me something.”

He flicked a fulminating look at Rabani again. “Maybe I know something.”

Part of Zaid itched to reach across the table and grab this rude little fuck by the throat. But since he wasn’t authorized for that sort of interrogation, he’d have to play it cool and save the choking bit as something to fantasize about while he sat here.

“Look,” Zaid said, bringing that black gaze back to him. “You know there’s no money unless you give us something we can use. And you wouldn’t have come all the way to Bagram, risking someone seeing you enter the base unless you had something to tell us. Something you didn’t want to say over the phone.”

The kid lowered his gaze. “I did hear something. Last night. But I’m not sure how reliable it is.”

Finally they were getting somewhere. Zaid crossed his arms casually over his chest. “Let’s hear it.”

Barakat hesitated for a long moment before answering. “Supposedly he’s getting ready to move a shipment. From Kabul to a village in the foothills to the east.” He named it.

Zaid had never heard of it, even after all the time he’d spent deployed over here. Must be small and remote. “Go on.”

“I heard it’s going to be moved over the border into Pakistan within the next few days.”

Well, it was something. And at least the kid didn’t appear to be preoccupied by Rabani anymore. “What kind of shipment?”

“Opium.”

Of course.

“And weapons. Lots of weapons. I don’t know what else.”

Money. A shitload of money, likely U.S. greenbacks. “And The Jackal ordered it?”

“Yes. I don’t know if he’ll be there in person though.”

One could only hope. Zaid and his team would love to help capture that son of a bitch before this tour was over. “Who did you hear this from?”

“An elder in my village. I overheard him talking to some of the men at a council meeting last night.”

Jaliya crossed to the table and spread a map down in front of Barakat. “Show us where the village he’s moving the shipment to is.”

Without looking at her, Barakat placed a fingertip on the map, right in the foothills of the central Hindu Kush.

Zaid watched her, taking in the sweep of her thick lashes, the strong lines of her profile as she studied the map for a moment, then stepped back. Even without knowing her well, Zaid could tell that having to hand over the reins to him for this was hard for her. “You need anything else?” he asked her quietly in English.

Those bittersweet chocolate eyes cut to him, sharp and direct. He could almost hear the gears turning in her head, analyzing all the data Barakat had just given them.

“Not right now.” She transferred her gaze back to their informant, and spoke to him in Dari. She spoke it perfectly, without so much as a trace of an accent. She must have been raised speaking it since she was a child. “You’ll be paid what we agreed on. If what you told us is true, you’ll get a bonus. I’ll be in touch.”

Not bothering to wait for a response, she nodded at Zaid and headed for the door. He pushed out of his chair and followed out behind Taggart, leaving one of Rabani’s team members to finish up with Barakat. Probably handing out the dough and maybe arranging a ride for him back to his village.

Outside the room with the door closed, Zaid waited a discreet distance away while Rabani conferred with Hamilton and two others from the taskforce. Taggart offered him a nod, his piercing aqua eyes warming a fraction as he half-smiled. “Thanks for helping out.”

“No problem.”

His commander clapped him on the shoulder once. “See you at the briefing this afternoon.”

“You bet.” Zaid stood where he was as Taggart strode down the hallway, hands in his pockets while Agent Rabani finished up with her team members. She glanced over at him, her eyes locking with his.

She stared at him for a heartbeat, then put on a stiff smile. “Thank you for your help.”

“My pleasure.” Except the real pleasure would be getting to know her better, because she intrigued him. There were so many things he wanted to know about her. Where she was from, why she’d joined the DEA and chosen to be stationed here. Afghanistan wasn’t for everyone. He’d wanted to talk with her socially over the past few weeks, but hadn’t yet had the opportunity. He’d have to think up an excuse.

“Well. I’ll see you later.”

He nodded and watched her walk away in her combat boots, her rounded hips swaying with each confident stride she took. Strong, yet feminine. Sexy, but professional. The woman was a mass of contradictions, a puzzle he wanted to figure out. But she was also a fellow special agent, and pursuing her was a big professional no-no.

Damn shame he’d sworn off the whole dating thing, because she was the first woman who’d sparked his interest in a damn long time.