Julian walked to Lagat. “Has Tubeec Hirad made contact with you?”
Lagat glared back at Julian, refusing to answer.
Sunny took the butt of her gun and slammed it against his head, sending Lagat down to one knee. “Answer him! Tell him and all of these wonderful ASF agents how you received a direct request from Tubeec Hirad to spare your wife’s life that you decided to ignore!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What did he say?” Julian asked, stepping in front of the chief special agent.
Reggie gave him a cursory glance, then pushed past him into ComCentral. Julian watched as Reggie looked around the room, searching, then turned back toward him.
“Where’s Sunny? I need to speak to her,” Reggie said.
“Tim Irungu summoned her back at the family compound in Runda. Did Okeyo tell you what Tubeec Hirad wants from him?” Julian asked. For the last hour, Reggie and a team of agents had been locked in the conference room, questioning Okeyo Lagat about his communications with Tubeec Hirad.
Sunny had admitted that the proof the Irungu security team had gathered indicating a point of contact between Okeyo and Tubeec was circumstantial at best. But once she’d heard that Lazirprene was used in the kidnapping, she’d been convinced that the unknown calls to Okeyo Lagat’s phone earlier that morning were from Hirad.
Julian wasn’t convinced … yet.
Reggie turned and walked toward his office in the corner of the command room, with Julian on his heels.
Julian continued, “I didn’t create this fucked up situation. Your organization got in bed with the one percent to get off the ground, which means you have to deal with me.”
ASF had been the brainchild of a small group of the wealthiest Africans working in concert with the governments of several nations to create an elite special operatives group to protect the continent from the growing presence of terrorism. This legacy made the group beholden to two interests—those of the countries they served and those of the wealthy families who’d made their existence possible.
Reggie crossed his arms over his chest. “Sunny was wrong. DPP Lagat doesn’t know anything that can help with our investigation. The phone calls he took this morning were official governmental business and not from Hirad. He was on a plane when the attack occurred, and he didn’t learn about it until he landed.”
“You believe Sunny was wrong about him?” Julian asked.
“It’s no secret that Tim Irungu is not fond of his son-in-law, despite his prestigious position in the Kenyan government. Okeyo Lagat has breathed life into the Office of the Department of Public Prosecutions. He was the first in his role to actually go after corrupt officials and put them in jail. He is one of the good guys. While I understand the family’s need to suspect and blame him, suspicion and flimsy evidence doesn’t make it true.”
“What kind of proof did Lagat give that the calls were government business?” Julian asked.
Reggie ignored the question and walked into his office, sinking down into his leather chair as his eyes focused on the computer monitors.
Julian stepped inside, leaning against the doorframe. “I can do a whole hell of a lot to help if you just drop the grudge and bring me into the fold.”
“I’m well aware that you believe your skill set is superior to mine and my team’s, but I can assure you that we don’t need a former SEAL who hasn’t seen action in the past four years,” Reggie said.
“Even one who taught you everything you know,” Julian countered.
“The Navy’s assistance to our organization is much appreciated, but we’ve moved past those early days. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, my team is recognized as one of the top operative groups in the world. We’ve continued to refine and improve on the foundation we were given and are not inferior to other comparable groups,” Reggie said. “I will keep you informed of our progress, but I advise you to stay out of our way. I don’t need your help.”
“Tell that to your team. They were floundering, trying to triangulate the locations of the six East Africa Flower Company trucks on the A104. With my help, we located the two trucks most likely to have contained Tubeec and the hostages and tracked them to a rarely used airstrip outside of Nairobi,” Julian said.
“If Tubeec had access to a plane, they could be anywhere right now,” Reggie said, pushing up from his chair.
“Which is why I told them to search all the flight plans filed for that airstrip and review radar maps for any non-commercial planes flying within a 50-mile radius of the area,” Julian said.
Reggie paced. “The search area needs to be expanded, and media blackout extended to neighboring countries.”
“Media blackout?” Julian asked.
“The media hasn’t been told about the kidnapping of Wangari Irungu or her staff, and I plan to keep it that way. We secured an executive order to ban the release of that information to the press, giving us a bigger advantage in locating Tubeec Hirad and negotiating the release of the hostages,” Reggie said.
The hostages.
Another group of innocent victims ASF was charged with rescuing, like so many before and so many that would come after. No different from the civilians that Julian had vowed to protect from terrorist forces as a SEAL. The nameless civilians who were an amalgamation of an ideal, but not real to him. Even when he’d been pulling them from danger, feeling the warmth of their skin against his, seeing the tears streaming down their faces as they effusively thanked him for his protection. They still hadn’t been human to him. They couldn’t be. If he’d taken a moment to think about who they were, that they were people with friends and family and hopes and dreams, he would have lost all semblance of the laser focus needed to complete his missions.
