Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(102)

Zarif told me that Malik had been doing better, even in the few short weeks since I’d seen him. I’ve heard that our happiness level remains mostly stable throughout our lives, no matter what happens. Win the lottery, and whatever happiness the money brings will fade. Lose a loved one, and we bounce back. According to the psychologists, we have a happiness set point. We don’t deviate too far from it.

Maybe trauma was the same way. If we are not continually retraumatized, perhaps we eventually claw our way back to normal. Start sleeping through the night again. Regain our optimism.

Lose our ghosts.

Across the way, the Sir gave me a nod.

“This is the first time Malik has been outside a wall since he got here,” Zarif said.

“Freedom looks good on him.”

Zarif laughed, and I joined in. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head. “Did that sound theatrical?”

“Normally, I would say yes.” He slid the cigarettes back in his breast pocket and draped an arm across the back of the bench. “But with Malik . . . maybe it sounds exactly right.” He let out a sigh. “I was worried you were coming to persuade him to go to America with you.”

“I never wanted to claim him. I just wanted to give him a life.”

“On that you have succeeded.” His gaze returned to the game. “I’ve been following the news.”

The intel we’d provided the FBI had been a bombshell. A week after I picked up the phone and called Mac, Laura Almasi was arrested on what looked likely to be a long list of charges—kidnapping, torture, murder, money laundering, various tax crimes, conspiracy to defraud the United States, violations of the Arms Export Control Act and other statutes, acting as an agent of Iran, violating US sanctions, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy.

Her brother, James Osborne, faced similar charges. Authorities were also investigating some of the men Osborne had associated with at the embassy in Baghdad.

Whatever the Saudis had to do with Valor Industries, and whatever was sitting in the airplane hangar near Lindon, remained a secret. That, apparently, was information provided only on a need-to-know basis.

Cohen and I didn’t make the cut.

Cohen, Dougie, and I had been grilled for three full days. On the fourth day, Dougie hadn’t appeared at FBI headquarters. By noon the same day, Cohen and I were also cut loose. An investigation by the Denver Major Crimes Unit, led by Detective Gorman, was still ongoing, but looked certain to conclude that I had not used excessive force when I killed Fadden in self-defense or shot Almasi’s security guards while assisting in the investigation of Jeremy Kane’s murder. My interrogation had been brief. Bill Gorman was too busy basking in the applause he’d received for solving Kane’s murder and coordinating the investigation into Sarge’s death with the Nevada police. He stayed calm and matter-of-fact, even after I told him he was a self-aggrandizing cockroach who couldn’t solve a murder with a video of the deed and the killer’s signed confession. I’d withheld further opinion about his inability to tell his ass from a hole in the ground.

I was asked only a couple of times about the deaths of several guards both in and out of the complex and about the explosions that had rocked Almasi’s compound. When I said the details were fuzzy, that line of questioning petered out and then stopped.

As they say, it’s who you know. And Dougie, apparently, knew the right people.

Cohen and I were hailed as heroes in the media storm that broke after the arrests. And even as the military machine revved up to look into leveling charges against me for my actions in Iraq, I was assured in private that I would not face trial. If pushed, they’d play the “only following the orders of a superior officer” card. What it meant, reading between the lines, was they had bigger issues than a former Marine corporal to worry about.

I was okay with that.

Dougie had retrieved the rancher’s truck from the copse of trees where we’d stashed it. He told me the man never asked any questions. But with the story splashed all over the news, he didn’t have to. All he’d said to Dougie was, “I’ve never been wrong about a fellow.”

Dougie had also phoned Dalton’s half sister in Nevada and told her that her brother was a hero. He mentioned she might want to check the postal box, and left it at that. We didn’t know where the money came from. But Dougie said Rick would want his sister to have it.

Two weeks after my phone call to the FBI, Arvin Almasi was arrested in Mexico City. Two days after that, he was found dead in his cell, an apparent suicide. I’d considered asking Zarif if he’d played a role in finding Arvin, but decided some stones were better left unturned.

Some questions better left unanswered.

Now, in the park beside me, Zarif pumped his fist as Malik approached the end of the makeshift field and kicked the ball neatly past the goalie.

“He has a future, that boy,” Zarif said.

Indeed he did.

I stood. “I should get going.”

Zarif also rose. “You want to say good-bye to Malik?”

I shaded my eyes and watched his teammates crowd around him. “Don’t interrupt him. I’ll be back. And you’ve promised you’ll bring him to Denver.”

“I will.” He held out a hand. “It is a pleasure knowing you, Sydney Parnell.”

I looked at him. “You aren’t going to stab me again, are you?”