Kentucky Confidential (8 page)

“Which left the Mahalabi Muslims who settled in Cincinnati.”

“Exactly.”

“I think that was probably Dal’s reasoning as well,” she said with a nod. “He told me I would have to behave as a practicing Muslim in order to fit in.”

Her mother’s family were Muslims from the Mahalabi tribe, Connor knew, though Nazina DeVille had converted to Christianity a few years before she met Risa’s father. It had been her change of faith that had put her and her family in danger in the first place. But Nazina had educated her daughter about Islam so that she would understand the world from which her grandparents, aunts and uncles came.

“You’ve done it before,” Connor said. “In Kaziristan, anyway. Was it harder this time?”

“A little.” She shrugged. “It would have been easier if the refugees had come from a different tribe, maybe. The Mahalabis are patriarchal in ways that don’t have much to do with religious beliefs, to be honest.”

“Most of al Adar come from that tribe, don’t they?”

She nodded. “Most. Not all.”

“You were in Cincinnati the whole time I thought you were dead?”

“The first month, I stayed with Dal at his hunting lodge in West Virginia.”

A flicker of jealousy darted through him. “Just the two of you?”

She flashed him a look of disbelief. “Dal? You’re jealous of Dal?”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Right.” Her lips twitched as if she were going to smile, but the expression died away before it ever really started. “Poor Dal.”

“A double tap doesn’t really sound like an al Adar style of murder,” Connor murmured. “Way too businesslike and not nearly symbolic enough.”

“Dal probably had other enemies, as many years as he was in the CIA,” Risa said. “It might not have had anything to do with what I was doing in Cincinnati.”

“Or maybe what you were doing in Cincinnati had nothing to do with al Adar at all.”

Her shapely eyebrows notched upward. “Interesting thought. I suppose it could be a branch of al Qaeda. Or ISIL.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” He set his plate on the table on top of hers and turned his chair to face her. “When Quinn recruited me, before I agreed to anything, I did a little research on him and his partners in the company. And something I thought was pretty interesting is that most of his expertise, at least when he was running The Gates, was in domestic terrorism. Specifically, he spent a lot of time and money dismantling a militia group called the Blue Ridge Infantry. Ever heard of them?”

She shook her head. “No, but most of my career has been dealing with foreign threats, not internal ones. It’s one reason I’ve been assuming that whatever I was investigating in Cincinnati had an overseas provenance.”

“I’m not saying the Blue Ridge Infantry or any group like them is behind whatever you were investigating in Cincinnati,” Connor added quickly. “I’m just saying, we can’t assume we’re looking at a foreign threat just because both Dal and Quinn are interested in whatever is going on there. They have—had—their fingers in other pots.”

“Hmm.” Risa leaned toward him, the sweet smell of herbal shampoo wafting toward him, filling his head with potent memories. “Know what I think?”

“What?” he asked, trying to clear his suddenly befuddled mind.

“I think we need to have a long talk with your bosses.”

He smiled. “That’s good. Because while you were taking a shower earlier, I got a call from one of my bosses. She’s coming here to talk to us in the morning.”

Chapter Eight

So this is Parisa McGinnis
. Rebecca Cameron entered the small safe house shortly after nine the following morning, her gaze taking in everything—the cozy fire, the way Connor McGinnis stood slightly in front of his back-from-the-dead wife as if to protect her, and the sharp-eyed gaze of the woman herself, who seemed to be studying Cameron with the same animal wariness with which Cameron was assessing her.

Parisa was smaller, somehow, than she had anticipated, even pregnant. She was only average height, several inches shorter than her tall, broad-shouldered husband. She looked almost delicate, though the unclassified information she’d been able to access about the woman’s career suggested she was much tougher than she looked.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you,” she said aloud as she shook the other woman’s hand and nodded a greeting to Connor.

“I’ve heard a few things about you as well,” Parisa said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She had a lovely voice, warm and low, with a drawl that was pure South Georgia. It reminded Cameron of a year she’d spent in Savannah, working on a master’s thesis in military history.

She’d met Mitch Cranston there as well, although it had been many more years before she thought of him as anything other than a cocky young marine in town on shore leave who could promise nothing but trouble.

She pushed away the memory of Mitch before it distracted her and took in the look of wary concern in Connor McGinnis’s blue eyes. She let her own Alabama accent make an appearance, sensing it might put Parisa at ease. “I hope everything you heard was, if not good, at least interesting.”

“I was surprised to hear from you last night. I figured we’d be getting another visit from Quinn,” Connor said with his characteristic bluntness.

Unhurriedly, she turned her gaze to him. “Quinn asked me to stand in for him, since he was unable to get away.”

“Are you here to appease us or to answer our questions?” Parisa asked.

“May I call you Parisa?”

“Risa,” the other woman answered shortly.

“Risa,” Cameron said with a smile. “It’s a lovely name. I should tell you we were all very pleased to learn you had not died in the plane crash.”

“Two hundred and twelve other people did,” Risa replied bleakly, waving her hand toward the sitting area of the small living room. There were two armchairs near the fire and a small sofa angled opposite. Risa and Connor took the chairs, leaving her to sit on the sofa alone.

Clearly she was the one in the hot seat.

She sat, crossing her legs casually and folding her hands on her lap, waiting for one of them to speak.

For a moment, they simply looked her over, as if trying to discern her hidden motives. For once, her motives were exactly what she’d told them. She was here to help them, no matter what their dealings with Alexander Quinn might have otherwise suggested. And she was here to find out what they’d learned, pick their brains about what they might be up against, and figure out how Campbell Cove Security could help them.

Connor was the one who finally broke the increasingly uncomfortable silence. “Why did Quinn send you and not Maddox Heller?”

“Heller is on another assignment. Besides, he’s our tactics and training guy. Foreign relations and diplomacy are my areas of expertise,” she answered with a smoothness born of years in embassies and consulates around the world, dealing with people even more suspicious than the pair sitting in matching armchairs in front of her. “Quinn suspects, and I concur, that whatever trouble you’ve become embroiled in probably has its basis in a foreign threat.”

“Probably,” Risa murmured.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider other possibilities, however.” Cameron knew that in a government of a country the size of the US, corruption was inevitable. And the higher the stakes, the greater the risks—and rewards—of playing dirty.

She was doing a little investigation into the Cincinnati situation herself, from a different direction. But that wasn’t something Risa and Connor McGinnis needed to know, for the moment at least.

“Would you like a cup of coffee? Or I can probably brew a cup of tea.” Risa stood, color rising in her cheeks as if she had suddenly realized she was being a bad hostess. Cameron nearly smiled, recognizing the inbred guilt of a fellow Southerner caught in a moment of bad manners.

“Coffee would be lovely,” she said with a smile, belatedly observing the proprieties. “One sugar and a splash of milk if you have it.”

While Risa disappeared into the kitchen, Connor leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. “What kind of game is Quinn playing here?”

“I don’t think he is,” she answered, keeping her voice down as well. “He seems to sincerely want to help your wife uncover and eliminate the threats that drove her to fake her own death.”

“Does he have any idea what Martin Dalrymple was trying to uncover in Cincinnati?”

“Beyond the stated desire to stop a terrorist attack? No.”

“Not as far as you know,” Connor corrected.

Cameron inclined her head in agreement. They both knew that Quinn might have motives on his own that he wasn’t willing to share with others. “Not as far as I know.”

“What about you? Any thoughts on what Risa’s actually up against?”

Rather than reply to a question to which she had no good answer, she smiled at Connor. “We’ll get to that when your lovely wife returns. Meanwhile, I’ve brought supplies for you—groceries, for the most part, and a few first aid supplies and other things you might need. They’re in my car in the backseat.” She handed him her key fob and nodded toward the door.

His eyebrows arching, Connor took the key fob and headed out the door, just as footsteps coming down the hall signaled the return of his wife.

Risa entered the room with a tray on which sat two steaming cups of coffee. She paused a moment when she saw that Connor wasn’t there.

“He’s gone outside to fetch some supplies I brought,” Cameron explained with a smile. “He’ll be right back.”

Risa set the tray on the coffee table in front of Cameron, sliding one of the cups toward her. She set the other one in front of the chair Connor had vacated. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met before, have we?” she asked, her tone polite.

Cameron smiled. “No, I believe our paths never crossed during my time in the Foreign Service. But you spent a bit of time in Tablis, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Risa settled in her chair, one hand smoothing over her round belly. Cameron tried not to let her gaze linger, but emotion overcame her wisdom for a brief moment, allowing her to look a bit longer than she should, her imagination conjuring up the phantom of an old dream. Motherhood. Marriage. Two things she’d once desired with great intensity.

Two things she no longer considered an option.

“I discussed the matter of your pregnancy with Quinn and Heller,” she said aloud, dragging her gaze back up to Risa’s face. “We have access to an obstetrician in Lexington who has been vetted and cleared to handle sensitive cases. Our company will cover your medical costs if you need treatment before we figure out how to neutralize the threats against you.”

“That’s very generous.”

Cameron smiled. “Your husband is a valued member of our company. Technically, you’d be covered under his insurance policy anyway. We’re just cutting through the red tape.”

The door opened and Connor entered carrying two large canvas bags full of groceries. He angled a quick look at Risa. “She brought more ice cream. Including Rocky Road.”

“Put it in the freezer before it melts,” Cameron suggested.

Connor sighed and headed for the kitchen.

“My sister craved ice cream when she was pregnant. I told her she was a walking cliché, which didn’t amuse her.” Cameron laughed. “But I thought even if your cravings were different, everybody likes ice cream. So I bought three flavors. I take it you like Rocky Road?”

“Who doesn’t?” Risa offered the first genuine smile Cameron had seen since her arrival at the safe house. “Thank you.”

“This is all very polite and civilized,” Connor interrupted, returning from the kitchen, “but I’d like to know how long we’re supposed to hide here in the mountains. Shouldn’t we be doing something constructive?”

“Such as?” Cameron asked.

“Maybe someone should go have a talk with Risa’s boss at the restaurant in Cincy. Find out why he thought it was okay to let a stranger in her apartment to have a look around.”

“Someone is,” Cameron said, leaving it at that.

“Farid is a chameleon,” Risa said with a grimace. “He’s not really religious at all, but he plays the game around some of the true believers so that his business doesn’t suffer. With others, he’s about as American as they come. He’s happy to bow to the tribal pecking order if he thinks it’ll win him some approval, but I don’t think he’d have been helping that man find me if he thought it was about a terrorist attack.”

“So you don’t think he’s driven by any religious or political beliefs?” Cameron asked.

“He believes in money and power. Period.” Risa sighed. “Although, in truth, that’s what most of the brains behind al Adar believe in, too. They’re not like ISIS, trying to establish a worldwide caliphate. Al Adar uses people’s beliefs to manipulate them, but it’s not about religion for them. It’s about getting control over Kaziristan’s oil and mineral resources.”

“So Farid could be aligned with al Adar?”

Risa thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The kind of power he wants is much smaller in scale. He likes being the top dog at the restaurant, but I don’t think he’d appreciate the responsibilities of being the top dog in a bigger organization. When someone of real power or import comes into the restaurant, Farid’s quick to curry favor. That’s not the way of al Adar.”

“What about other people in the community? Did you have much interaction with them?”

“Ninety-nine percent of the Kaziris living in Cincinnati are wonderful people. Devout, peaceful people who are horrified by what radicals do in their name.”

“We know that,” Cameron assured her. “But the one percent—”

“Can do a lot of damage,” Risa finished for her. “I know.”

“Is it possible that the threat against Risa has nothing to do with any of the terrorist groups normally associated with the Middle East and Central Asia?” Connor asked.

“What do you have in mind?” Cameron asked.

He looked at her, wariness in his blue eyes. Analysis wasn’t Connor McGinnis’s area of expertise, Cameron knew. He’d joined Campbell Cove Security as an expert in weapons and tactics.

But he would never have been on the company’s radar if he hadn’t also possessed the intelligence to make smart choices and work out tricky puzzles. Quinn, Heller and Cameron had been tasked with hiring only the best people. They’d taken that calling to heart.

“I’m wondering if there could be another reason why someone wants Risa dead.”

“Such as?” Cameron directed the question to Risa.

“I was involved in several delicate operations,” Risa admitted, looking uncomfortable. “Some of which are still classified and I can’t really talk about.”

“Was your cover ever blown?”

“Not that I know of, but maybe it happened without my realizing it. Or maybe someone in the government has loose lips. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What was your role in these operations? Were they personal?”

“Do you mean was I a honey trap?” Risa glanced at Connor, as if gauging his reaction. “Early in my career, yes. A couple of times. But not for the past few years.”

“So a man you...charmed as a part of your job isn’t likely to be the one who put a hit out on you?”

“No,” Risa said firmly. “I know the results of both of those operations, and the men involved aren’t in any position to seek revenge.”

Connor’s eyes slanted toward his wife, but he didn’t speak.

“So you tell me then, Risa. Who would want you dead badly enough to kill over two hundred innocent people to make it happen?”

A look of realization flickered across her expression briefly before her brow furrowed. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Connor asked.

She turned to look at her husband, her eyes wide. “Remember when I told you that man at the restaurant looked familiar?”

“Yeah. You said you thought you saw his face on Dal’s corkboard.”

“I did, but I think I know why his face made an impression.” Risa looked at Cameron. “I mean, I can’t really be sure. The last time I saw this guy’s face, it was a decade ago, at least. He wouldn’t look exactly the same.”

“Who was he?” Connor asked.

“He was one of the terrorists who was part of the siege on the American Embassy in Tablis about a decade ago. I was assigned to track his movements shortly after the siege ended and he escaped. I managed to discover his whereabouts and alert the Kaziri government of his new identity. He was exiled from Kaziristan after that.”

“That sounds like a pretty good motive for revenge,” Cameron murmured.

“But see, the thing is, he popped back up a few years ago. In fact, you might want to ask your friend Maddox Heller about him.”

“Why’s that?” Connor asked.

“Because if I’m not mistaken, Maddox Heller watched him die almost eight years ago.”

* * *

M
ADDOX
H
ELLER
’
S
DRAWL
rumbled over Rebecca Cameron’s cell phone, slightly distorted by the speaker. “At the time, Quinn told me they’d found the body. But you know Quinn’s relationship with the truth is distant at best. I talked to him about it before I called you back. Turns out that, technically, the authorities never found his body. There were parts of that building that sank into the ground in a geologically unstable area. The government of Mariposa didn’t have the money to do an excavation just to recover a missing body.”

“And there’s no way Tahir Mahmoud could have survived the explosion?” Connor asked, his stomach muscles tightening as he awaited the response.

Heller took longer to answer than Connor liked. “Since nobody recovered his body, I don’t know that I could say there’s no way he could have escaped,” he said finally. “But it’s highly unlikely. And since we haven’t had any further sightings of the man...”