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Bringing the chopper back to level, she glanced back at him. “You do not have permission to talk in my helicopter unless it’s to answer a question. The next time you do, I’ll dump you in the drink and tell Finn you fell out because you were too stupid to buckle up. Got it? You can answer that,” she said wryly when he just gaped at her.
“Are you seriously going to let her talk to me that way?” Christian asked Thom.
“Her helicopter, her rules,” Thom answered. “And trust me, I’ll have no trouble faking our flight information to back it up.”
Realizing he was facing a united front, and one that didn’t particularly care for him, Christian was quiet for several minutes. “May I speak?” he asked respectfully.
“Go ahead,” Avery said evenly, exchanging looks with Thom out of the corner of her eye.
He gave an almost imperceptible nod as a smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“Did you get the information I gathered to Markoff?”
“We did,” answered Thom.
“What about Fariq?” asked Christian.
“What about him? We’re assuming he’s cruising outside of anyone’s territorial waters. His operation is crippled, his compound is rubble, we’ve arrested most of his men, and with the information you provided, his planned attack against the International Summer Games has been neutralized.”
Again, Christian was quiet, but again, he didn’t stay that way. “All right, look. Here’s what kept bothering me and the reason I wouldn’t get out. First, Fariq isn’t an extremist. He has no ideological doctrine that he follows. The only God Fariq worships is money.”
Thom nodded. “Noah and I talked about the same thing… that it ran contrary to what we know about him. Also, why send a hit squad after the girls?”
“What?” asked Christian. “Is Finn all right? Is everyone else okay?”
“We are; thanks for asking,” said Avery sarcastically.
“Why would he do that?” asked Christian, almost to himself.
No one had an answer, and so nothing more was said. They returned the helicopter to Cadiz, where Junior had flown the corporate jet and secured a small house for the men to reconvene. Christian was taken back to the States for debriefing.When the rest of the team arrived tired and hungry, Avery was glad to see that Thom had been right. Although everyone knew she and Thom were together, no one said a word or made her feel in any way that her place as one of them had changed.
Most of the group ate and turned in, leaving only Noah, Thom, and Avery.
“Christian’s right about Fariq,” Noah said, rolling a drink between his hands. “His funding a terrorist operation is as out of character as his attack on the girls.”
“Unless…” Avery speculated, fresh pieces to the puzzle suddenly occurring to her.
“Unless?” Thom asked, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
“Unless he was trying to flush out the traitor… you know, planting different bits of information with each of those whose loyalty he suspected. Christian might have betrayed himself by what he’s told us.”
Noah looked back and forth between them. “But how would Fariq know unless…”
“He’s got his own spy at NATO,” Thom finished for him.
“Then it was Finn he was after…” said Avery.
Noah was already on the phone, ensuring that Finn was safe at her and Croft’s home. He arranged to have a security detail pick her up as soon as they could get there. Once he was off the phone, he called Croft’s. The phone rang with no answer.
“Shit!” said Noah as the voicemail system picked up.
Noah was immediately on the phone to company headquarters, arranging for the remaining members and families to be picked up and brought into custody; Thom was busily setting up a communications system; Avery bolted up the stairs and was waking and rallying the team. She woke Croft last.
“Croft. Wake up,” Avery said, touching his shoulder.
Croft, a former SEAL, was awake immediately. “What’s happened?” he asked.
“We think Fariq set a trap to find the traitor.”
