Oh. My. God.
She’d never actually seen a man’s butt fill out a pair of pants like that before, his buttocks shifting with each step. It all but made her mouth water.
3
Derek climbed into the Land Cruiser, shut the door for privacy, and called Corbray on his secure satellite phone. “She won’t come back with me.”
“No big surprise there. Do you have a plan?”
A plan?Hell, no, he didn’t have a plan.
“I’ve told everyone I’m her brother to ensure that I have easy access to her. I’ll stay a week and do my best to get her to trust me and change her mind. After that, I’ll fly home and tell her old man that she refused to come.”
“Hamilton won’t like that. He’ll make trouble for us in the Armed Services Committee.”
Didn’t Derek know it? “What the hell can I do? She signed on for two years and is determined to stay the remaining eighteen months. I won’t abduct her. If he wants someone here playing bodyguard that entire time, he’ll need to find somebody else.”
Derek had a business to run.
“You knew her brother, right? Can you play on that relationship and sweet talk her into coming back?”
Derek had already thought about that. “Given that he died taking bullets meant for me, I’m not sure I’ll win her over by bringing her brother into this.”
“Think about it. If there’s any way to complete this mission…”
“Did you get anything back on those names?” He’d sent Corbray a list of the hospital staff, including Farzad and his security team, earlier today so that Corbray could run them through Cobra’s database of known assholes.
“One name popped. Hamzad Shah. As a boy, he attended a madrassa in Punjab that was shut down last year for suspected extremism. That’s all we’ve got on him—no arrests, no known terrorist affiliations.”
“Thanks.” It wasn’t much, but it gave Derek reason to keep a close eye on Hamzad. “Anything else?”
“We got word of some extremists who are posing as local militia in the northern provinces. They’ve been roving around the countryside, intimidating villagers in rural areas, taking their food and weapons, killing men here and there, and abducting women. So far, they’ve kept a pretty low profile. Their leader is reportedly Uyghur.”
Derek wondered if Kazi knew about this. “I’ll find out what I can.”
“How did your meeting with Kazi go?”
“I gave him the full ATF treatment—a crate of whiskey, cigarettes, and firearms. He seemed pleased. He lives like a king these days.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Neither do I. I’ll check in at this same time tomorrow.”
Derek ended the call, taking a few minutes to think through what he’d learned about Jenna. She was intelligent, educated, and reportedly good at her job. She didn’t care for her father. Who could blame her? She’d come to a country with terrible maternal and infant mortality rates to save lives, but he didn’t take her for a self-righteous do-gooder. She was direct, truthful, sincere. She believed she could make a difference here, and she was willing to risk her life to do it.
He could only admire her for that.
She knew the dangers, so there was no point in trying to frighten her into coming back to the U.S. She wasn’t close to her father—an understatement—so there was no chance she’d head home out of concern for him. She spent long days taking care of others, but what did she do to take care of herself? Was she lonely, homesick?
Maybe if he took a softer approach, showed her sympathy, became her friend, he’d have a better chance of getting her to change her mind.
Shifting tactics was no more complicated for Derek than changing clothes. As a Green Beret, he’d often spent months behind enemy lines, working with local assets, doing whatever he needed to do to get the desired outcome. Assassination, manipulation, intimidation, feigned friendships—it came easily to him.
Hey, whatever works.
As for Jimmy, he had no idea how Jenna felt about her brother’s death or the fact that he had saved…
“Sniper!”