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There were grumbles from around the table. “She’s fucking nuts if she thinks the military will send in a team to save her again after what she did.”
There was a rumble of agreement, and Kramer added, “She never even gave us a chance to rescue her.”
Lange responded, “Of course Diana doesn’t expect the military to risk another op for her. But she knows you’ll do it to get Makram Rafiq. He’s evaded your bombs more than once, and now he’s back from the dead. I would think you’d be more than eager to get the man who orchestrated a number of bombings, including one that killed more than a dozen SEALs.”
Chapter Eight
They drove for hours, twisting through wadis and small towns. Bassam and Jamal took turns driving as they waited for instructions on where to take Diana.
The initial plan to have Diana excavate the site near the fake Bedouin camp had been spoiled by the SEALs. Five terrorists in their cell were dead, and now the government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan knew the Islamic State had intended to loot the site.
The tents and digging tools Rafiq had asked about would be seized and the site would be monitored via satellite by the Kingdom and, Diana hoped, also by the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab in Virginia. CHML was tasked with monitoring known sites, while the Friday Morning Valkyries’ job was to track the supply chain and recover the artifacts.
With the botched rescue behind them, Rafiq was in need of another site to loot, and Diana feared what that meant for her.
After her conversation with Rafiq last night, she’d braced herself for the job of running a dig for which there would be no data collected and the sole intention was to use the artifacts to fund mass murder. She’d accepted it as what she’d need to do to survive and eventually allow her to tell the US military that Rafiq was alive and operating out of Jordan, not Syria or Iraq, as he’d been before his supposed death.
Now she’d told the military—at least, she hoped Morgan and Freya had interpreted her hand signal correctly—and there was no reason to do Rafiq’s dirty work unless it would lead to learning the location of the terrorist leader’s base of operations.
At the time of his faked death, Rafiq had officially been the fourth most wanted man in the US’s War on Terror. SEALs would come running to save her if they believed they could get Rafiq.
It was the only way to get out of this nightmare alive.
But she feared she’d have to betray everything she believed in to reach the endgame—assuming she survived that long.
The debriefing continued for hours after Lange and Adler dropped their bombshell about the Four of Diamonds. It was well after dawn when Chris and the rest of the team were released to catch several hours of sleep. Now Chris was in his berth, eyes closed.
Makram Rafiq.
The name changed everything. Probably saved Chris’s ass, because it at least made Edwards’s actions make sense. Still irrational and horrifically dangerous, but there was logic in the mix.
Did Edwards have a death wish? Lange and Adler had hinted that the woman might feel like she had nothing left to lose.
Was that what he’d seen in her eyes? The cold calm of someone with no fucks left to give?
But to sacrifice oneself in the way Edwards was doing, it had to mean she cared about something. And that something was protecting Middle Eastern antiquities.
Or stopping terrorists.
Or both.
With his eyes closed, he was back in the wadi, reliving the exchange. He’d watched the video dozens of times. He could recite every moment, every expression. The thing the video didn’t show was Chris’s face and his own thoughts.
His mouth had been covered by a shield. Dr. Diana Edwards had only been able to see his eyes. She couldn’t read his lips like he had hers. She didn’t know what or if he’d mouthed back. But she’d seen the anger in his eyes, and her gaze had flicked to his rifle when he adjusted his grip as he braced for her to grab her captor’s gun and turn it on Chris.
More than two years ago, he’d been on an op where the hostage didn’t want to be rescued. To that end, the young woman had taken out two SEALs and wounded a third. Chris had done the only thing he could to save his Fire Team.
In the desert last night, he’d been prepared to do it again.
It wouldn’t have taken much for him to turn his weapon on the beautiful Dr. Edwards.
Then she mouthed the words that pulled him back from Belarus and centered him in the Jordanian desert.
He’d done the counseling. He knew he’d done the right thing in Belarus. But now he had to ask himself if he was fit to serve or if he was a danger to the very people he was supposed to save.
Chapter Nine
Bassam blindfolded Diana hours before they reached a house. For all she knew, they drove in circles during that time. Or they could be on the outskirts of Aqaba or even Amman. They had driven for so long, they could be anywhere.
