In the end, Muhammad’s men and the pricks they’d gone there to meet had all shot each other dead. As for Chase and his team, they’d survived, but…
Total mission failure.
“You gonna get to the point of this little walk down memory lane sometime soon, or do we get three guesses?” Van crossed his arms at his chest as he stared straight back at Webb.
Webb’s dark eyes didn’t so much as flinch. “You remember the civilian who was caught in the crossfire that day?”
“I remember.” Lucky sat up a little straighter. “Middle-aged. Dark hair. She and her mahram exited the restaurant shortly before the first shots rang out.”
“That’s right.” Archer nodded in agreement.
“Whole point of a mahram in their culture is so the unmarriable male can watch over the females.” A haunted look filled Logan’s eyes as he gave a slow, steady nod. “But he let her walk out that door first. Totally unprotected. He survived, but she didn’t.”
“No,” Webb concurred. “Unfortunately, she did not. She was preceded in death by her husband, but they had a daughter.”
“Let me guess,” Chase put the pieces together quickly. “Her name’s Kaamisha, and?—”
“She blamed us for her mother’s death.” Logan seemed to read Chase’s mind.
Webb gave his head a solemn nod. “According to the chatter we’ve been hearing, yes. Three years ago, in the two weeks after her mother was killed, Kaamisha Dawari tipped off the Taliban to the fact that your team was returning to the area, effectively setting you all up to die.”
5
Several seconds passedas the team processed the bomb Webb just dropped. Needing to recap—to make sure he understood what the powerful man was saying—Chase went back over what they’d just learned.
“Okay, so let me see if I’ve got this straight.” His gaze swept the room before landing on Webb. “We go to Kandahar on a surveillance-only mission, during which two separate Taliban groups opened fire on each other, and an innocent woman was caught in the crossfire. The woman’s daughter, this…Kaamisha person…gets the wrong intel, and thinks it’sourfault her mother died. She somehow finds out we’re coming back to the area two weeks later and manages to convince enemy forces to slaughter us on her behalf. Is that what you’re saying?”
He held the man’s stare and waited for confirmation.
The nod Webb gave matched the certainty in the man’s eyes. “As far-fetched as it sounds, the intel and evidence we’ve gathered so far points to that very scenario.”
“Bullshit,” Van growled from where he still stood. With his arms crossed tightly at his broad chest, the man looked even more pissed off than normal.
Can’t say I blame you on this one, big guy.
“It’s not bullshit, Braddock,” Webb argued. “You’re familiar with the kind of screening that’s done with incoming intel. We’re also still looking into Dawari’s known contacts, and I have techs scrubbing her background and electronic footprint with a fine-toothed comb. We may not have the names of all those involved yet, but we will. I just need you boys to know that everything we’ve received up to this point…it’s as solid as it gets.”
Chase turned his focus to the woman on the screen. She was standing in front of what appeared to be a university building, and she was smiling.
Big. Bright. Toothy smile. One that lit up her eyes in a way that almost shouted innocence.
Sure doesn’t look like a cold-blooded killer to me.
“NCIS proved the bullet that killed that woman came from one of the terrorists’ weapons. Not ours,” Archer pointed out. “That’swho she should blame.”
“I know that, and you know that,” Webb acknowledged. “Hell, even the president knows that. But you’ve seen enough grief during your years in service to know it affects everyone differently. Especially when a loved one is lost in such a sudden and violent manner.” His gaze shifted back to Van’s. “They look for someone—anyone—to blame. And sometimes, in their tormented desperation, that blame shifts in the wrong direction.”
The room grew quiet once more before Lucky chimed back in. “So in the two weeks between her mother’s death and our return to Afghanistan, this Dawari woman somehow finds out when and where we’ll be, puts herself in bed with the fucking Taliban, sets us up to die, and then just…walks away?”
“Dude.” Chase shot Lucky a look. “You basically just repeated what I said.”
“Sorry. You start talking, and my ears just sort of shut down, all on their own.”
“Hardy-har, asshole.” He flipped the jerk the bird.
“Well, you were both right.” Logan rejoined the conversation, bypassing their juvenile ribbing altogether. “We lost Hunter that day, but the rest of us managed to walk away. Yet, in three years’ time, she hasn’t tried coming after us again.” He glanced around at Chase and the others. “Why not?”
Chase met his former team lead’s stare. “Maybe one of us was all she needed. An eye for an eye and all that.”