Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(92)
Touched her because he was right. What they’d shared was beautiful. Glorious. The reason poets composed sonnets, musicians wrote songs, and writers penned stories of love and triumph.
Brutalized her because…Rusty. That one name, spoken aloud, reminded her why the beautiful, glorious thing they’d shared could never last. Because she’d lied to Leo from the first minute she knew him, betrayed him each moment after that by withholding the truth, and killed a man he loved like a brother with one split-second decision…
“I received an interesting bit of information yesterday,” General Al-Ambhi said in his thick accent, leaning back in his desk chair and spinning a letter opener in his right hand. Its sharp edges caught the overhead light, glinting ominously with each twirl.
“What was that?” Olivia asked from her seat across from him, careful to keep her expression only mildly curious though all her internal green lights had flicked to a foreboding yellow. Ever since she’d received the call from the rebel general to come to an impromptu meeting at his house, she’d been uneasy.
On the surface, the two of them had a friendly relationship. She was the CIA attaché to the SEAL Team charged with training his men in battle tactics for the ongoing fight in Syria. And he was the rebel leader who was sympathetic to Western ideals and the promise of what would hopefully one day be a democratic society.
But that was just what was on the surface…
Because underneath all that charm and ideology, General Al-Ambhi was a traitor to the rebel cause he claimed so fiercely to fight for. He was secretly in league with the Islamic State—ISIS or ISIL or IS or whatever else you wanted to call them. She preferred the title Evil Incarnate. And little did he know that she was playing both sides of the board too. The CIA had grown wise to his double dealings and had sent her in to feed him disinformation. The wide world of international intrigue coming full circle.
“I heard you were to meet five of your assets within IS last night in a coffee shop,” he said slowly. “So I followed you to determine their identities.”
Okay, now her internal green lights weren’t yellow, they were flashing red and blaring out warnings. Only those within The Company knew she’d planned the clandestine meeting. How the hell had Al-Ambhi found out? It didn’t make any sense. Unless… Is it possible there’s a leak?
The thought sent a cold chill slicing up her spine until she fancied it was the tip of that letter opener he was holding.
“Why would you want to know their identities?” she asked carefully, remaining perfectly still though her thoughts were spinning.
Al-Ambhi tsked. “Come now, Agent Mortier. Let us stop playing these games. You know I am not really fighting for the rebels. And I know that you know. I have known that you know for a while now.”
Her breath wheezed out of her, dry as the wind whipping around the concrete wall surrounding the perimeter of the general’s compound. The cold metal of her Sig P228 was an acute ache against the small of her back, and the smell of her own fear was sharp in her nose. “How?” she asked, surprised to hear her tone was steady, considering her heart was racing a mile a minute.
“Really?” He cocked his head, dropping the letter opener on his desk. The resulting thunk sounded particularly loud. Her insides winced, but her outside remained rock steady. “You find the how more interesting than the why?”
Play along, Mortier. Just play along.
“Okay.” She shrugged unconcernedly, so he wouldn’t know she was sweating bullets and close to pissing her pants. There were a million ways for this to go horribly wrong and not one way she could fathom for it to go right. “Why? Why wait so long to let me know you’re on to me?”
“Because I needed leverage.” He smiled, his tanned face splitting around a mouthful of white teeth. Al-Ambhi was a handsome man. With curly black hair and flashing dark eyes. But that beauty was only skin deep. On the inside, he was hideous. What else could explain his affiliation with a group that slaughtered, raped, and beheaded on a whim?
“Leverage for what?” It was hard not to spit out the words like rancid meat.
“For blackmail, of course.” His smile widened. He sat forward, running one long, knobby-knuckled finger over the cellular phone lying faceup beside the letter opener. “You see, I am sick of this whole mess. The fighting. The sneaking around. The endless battle for this beastly country. I left my position in the Al-Assad regime because I thought, like in Libya and Egypt, the rebels would quickly see victory. Take over governing. And I wanted to make sure to position myself at the very top of that new government.”
And suddenly it was perfectly clear. He had no morality. No conscience or cause. He was simply an opportunist, a man out for no one but himself. And that was what accounted for his inner ugliness. “And when that proved to take too long, you threw in your lot with IS,” she snarled, no longer able to maintain her emotionless facade.
“Exactly.” He continued to stroke the phone. A shiver of repulsion rippled through her. “But I have come to realize there is no hope for them. They are too violent, too unstable. They have too many enemies in the region now. They will never be allowed a caliphate. At most, they may be able to rule a small plot of sand somewhere no one wants or cares about. It is not the future I pictured for myself.”
“Which is where I come in.” She curled her hands into fists when he nodded. “What do you want?”