Beyond Limits (Tracers #8)(8)
The cool expression faltered, and she tugged her hand away.
The chief pulled the door open, and Hallenback led the visitors inside. Elizabeth fell in line behind her boss, and Derek stared after her.
“It’s about A-bad,” Luke muttered.
Derek looked at him.
“Asadabad. He’s with CT. Didn’t you hear what they said?”
No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t heard a damn thing.
* * *
The Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility was a state-of-the-art briefing room with lead-lined walls to thwart electronic listening devices. Derek had been in it exactly once, and the conference table then had been packed with VIPs, meaning standing room only for a team of SEALs about to spin up on a top-secret mission.
This time everyone took a chair. Derek waited for Elizabeth to settle in and grabbed a seat directly across from her. Luke took the seat beside him, eyeing the suits around the table with a wary look.
Derek checked out the faces, sizing everyone up and trying to get his head around the situation. Twenty-five minutes ago he’d been underneath a destroyer. Now he was in one of the Navy’s ultrasecure meeting rooms with a team of feebies that included Elizabeth LeBlanc.
Derek tried not to stare at her, but it was damn near impossible. Same eyes, same lips, same stubborn tilt to her chin. She was avoiding his gaze, which gave him a chance to get his thudding heart under control.
Derek hadn’t seen her since last summer, when his best friend had found himself at the center of an FBI murder investigation. Elizabeth had been assigned to the case. Derek had spent nearly a week with her, and when he hadn’t been dodging her questions and pissing her off, he’d been trying to get her to go to bed with him. No dice.
Had she thought about him at all since then?
“Let me start by saying the information we’re about to discuss is highly sensitive.”
Derek dragged his attention back to Elizabeth’s boss.
“It’s part of an ongoing investigation and must not leave this room.”
“These men are familiar with the concept of a classified briefing,” Hallenback said. “You can speak freely.”
“Fine.” Moore’s attention locked on Derek. “Lieutenant Vaughn, I understand you offered to guard a prisoner directly following the rescue operation in Asadabad.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I understand you know Pashto?”
Derek glanced at Hallenback. “I get by.”
Moore looked at Luke. “Your CO tells me you’re fluent?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Luke had picked up the language while working alongside Afghan medical personnel. And now Derek understood where this conversation was going.
“So, you spoke to the prisoner.” Moore’s statement was directed at Derek.
“We had a few words.”
“Why?” This from the suit beside Elizabeth. Potter. His introduction had included something about the CIA. “We had a trained interrogator en route to your location.”
“Thought it wouldn’t hurt to debrief him a little,” Derek said. “Way things have been going with the CIA lately, you never know.”
“You have a problem with our people, Lieutenant?” Potter leaned forward on his elbows, clearly affronted.
Derek glanced at Hallenback, whose expression told him he was clear to give his opinion. Not that Derek minded offending a few pencil pushers, but he didn’t want to cause his CO any headaches.
“Not your people, your policies,” Derek told him. “It’s catch and release over there. We risk our necks taking down some Taliban stronghold, bag up a bunch of tangos, and two weeks later they’re back in business making suicide vests and planting IEDs.”
Derek glanced at Luke, whose teeth were clenched, probably as he remembered the raid. Sean had discovered a shit ton of intel and spent the last minutes of his life collecting it before taking a bullet. As soon as they’d touched down at base, the team had put him on a medevac plane to Germany, but he never made it.
“The A-bad raid netted a huge volume of information,” Derek said now. “Plus a high-value prisoner. And yes, we were more than happy to guard him, case he had anything to say before the CIA showed up.”
“Then I assume you noticed the maps,” Moore said.
Derek had grown up in Texas, which this guy probably knew. Of course he’d noticed the maps. “They caught my eye, yeah.”
“Did he say anything about the tactical objectives involved?”
“Well, as Agent Potter here pointed out, I’m not a trained interrogator. I knew that was a sensitive topic, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “?’Scuse my language, ma’am.”
Her expression didn’t change, but Derek knew he’d annoyed her. She didn’t like to be singled out for special treatment.
“So what did you talk to him about?” Potter asked.
“The houses, mostly. Who lived there. Who was in and out. We tried to get names.”
“These guys operate in a network,” Luke said. “We’re always looking for the missing links. We needed names to plug into what we already had on the area.”
“Did you get any?” Moore asked.