"Maybe in a minute. Do you know who shot at us?"
"No. But I know they weren't shooting at anyone else. We were the target. Someone wanted to kill us, and I can only think of a couple of people who knew where we were."
He met her gaze, following her thought. "Dominic. But he wouldn't have me killed."
"Maybe it was Caroline Rowe or one of Dominic's mysterious visitors. Maybe it was someone on his security team."
"Or someone on your team. You texted them. You said we were going to meet Dominic near his executive retreat."
She frowned at the reminder. "I didn't give the details, but you're right, I said something." She paused. "But that's not what I want to talk about now."
There was something about her tone that made him nervous. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Who's Nicole?"
Her question stole his breath away. "What?" he asked, stalling for time.
"Nicole. You talked about her. You apologized to her. You said it should have been you. And you said her name with Qadir's name about a hundred times. So, who was she?"
"She was another agent, and she was also my friend."
"She sounded like more than a friend. Like someone you were in love with."
He shook his head. "No, it wasn't like that. We had something a long time ago, right after we both joined the agency. But it didn't last. And then she got together with another agent a couple of years later. The three of us were close, and I cared a great deal about both of them. But Nicole and Brian were in love with each other, and they would have been together forever if I hadn't made mistakes."
She licked her lips. "Did Qadir kill Nicole?"
He slowly nodded, that truth always bringing him a great deal of pain. "He killed both of them. First, Brian, then Nicole. She had to watch her love die right in front of her. And I had to watch…" His voice trailed away. "Qadir is evil, twisted. He has no conscience. He can't be turned. He can't be changed. He's a monster. And the CIA never should have put him back out in the world."
"How could they do that if he killed two of their agents?"
"Because they didn't believe he'd done it. But I knew he had."
"Why didn't they believe it? Why didn't they trust your judgement?"
He really didn't want to talk about it all, but what choice did he have? Kara had saved his life, and she wanted answers. He owed her that much. "Qadir drugged me for days. I was hallucinating for much of the time. But before I was really out of my mind, I was able to send our location out to the team. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, I was delirious, and drug testing showed hallucinogenic drugs in my system. They put me into an immediate rehab center, and while I was recovering, Qadir told them a different story."
"What was the story?"
"That he'd come across the terrorists holding Nicole, Brian, and me, that he'd killed two of those men to save my life. Which wasn't true. He'd killed them to provide cover for his story, to make him look like someone who had decided he was tired of the bloodshed, that he wanted to change his life, be a better person."
"I still don't see how they could believe that?"
"It was beyond me. But Qadir was a con man, and they were blinded by the opportunity to get someone like him acting as an asset."
"And now he's back out in the world, doing terrible things."
"Yes, with more power than he had before."
"Why didn't he kill you, Max?"
"He had a plan to use me for leverage. Fortunately, the team got there in time to capture Qadir and save me, just not the others."
"I'm sorry about that. Was the team from your agency, or was it a team from Delta?"
"It was a mix," he said, meeting her gaze. "Tyler Brennan was part of it, although he wasn't at the rescue. He was someone I'd seen earlier that week, before it all went to hell. There was a break in the intelligence chain. That's how Qadir got to the three of us in the beginning. I don't know that Brennan had anything to do with it. But I also don't know that he didn't."
"Why would Tyler suspect you of being a traitor if you were the one who was responsible for sending Qadir's location?"
