Beowulf: Explosives Detection Dog (58 page)

Timbrel whirled around, her mind catching up with the eruption of chaos, noise, and insanity. Where was her dog? “Beo?”

A whimper sounded behind her. Timbrel pivoted. Beo, head down, limped toward her. Stumbled. Collapsed. Darkness stained his coat. Glistened.

“No!” Timbrel leapt toward him. “Beo!” She planted a hand over the bloody spot. Tears blurred her vision before she could stop them. “Beo!”

A loud thud and crack erupted near the front. “Everyone, on your knees. Hands in the air!”

SWAT.
About time
.

But she had to tend Beo. He panted hard, his tongue dangling out of his mouth. On her knees, she assessed the spot where he’d been shot. In the shoulder. Good, that was good. It wasn’t the chest or lungs. Thank the Lord every handler had to have basic life-saving skills for their dog, to be able to treat them in theater for a variety of injuries, or Beo …
No no no. Don’t go there
.

But she had no supplies. Only panic. And fear. She could
not
lose him after all they’d been through. A table whooshed to the side, the stark-white fabric billowing like a ghost under the controlling fingers of death.

She reached for the cloth, for anything to staunch the blood.

Jibril scrambled toward her. “What can I do?”

“I need something to stop the bleeding,” Timbrel said.

Hair akimbo, Jibril snatched the tablecloth and looked over Timbrel’s shoulder. “Khaterah, hurry!”

Khat. Of course. A vet. Timbrel felt the edges of her panic begin to fade as Jibril’s sister rushed toward them and dropped to her knees without hesitation. In Beo’s blood.

“Khaterah!”

“I’m here, I’m here.”

“Please, don’t let him die.”

“No, he’s going to be fine. Too tough to die.”

“Sort of like his handler.”

Timbrel glanced up at Tony and smirked. “We’re just too thickheaded.”

“There is that.”

“Jibril.” Khaterah motioned to an overturned table. “The medical-kit display.”

“Here,” Jibril shouted as he rushed from the pile with a big silver case.

Timbrel gaped as he flung a full medical kit toward her.

Khaterah flipped open the case, slipped on gloves, then handed some to Timbrel, along with a hypodermic needle.

Timbrel didn’t hesitate. She pinched his skin at his shoulder and slid a needle between his rolled skin to administer a sedative. He’d never been the best patient in the first place. Beo huffed and lifted his head. “That’s right,” she said. “Tell me that bothers you.” If he could complain, he had fight in him. His breathing was steady, though she could tell he was hurting.

Hands bloodied, Khaterah gently peeled back the cloth.

Dark red stains blurred against his gold and black stripes. Timbrel felt her own pulse shimmy down a bit—blood had coagulated. Stopped. “Will he be okay?” She’d never wanted the answer to be a positive as much as she did right now—wait. Not true. There was another disaster when she’d wanted more than anything to hear that the one tended would survive. Tony. Where was he?

“Yes, I think,” Khat said. “I don’t think the bullet hit anything major. We need to get him to a vet for surgery.” Khaterah smiled at the two medics who carried a stretcher toward them. “Thank you.”

Timbrel bent closer, but her dress defied her.

“May I?” Tony offered.

Timbrel smiled her appreciation.

He lifted Beo from the floor and set him on the long blue stretcher. They worked together with Khat to secure Beo.

“Anyway, looks like Beo saved the day. Again.”

Timbrel turned to Tony, who squatted over Beo, petting him. Felt all the emotions of the evening tumble into one big glob. “Tony …”

He nodded. “We’ll talk later. Let’s get this sorted first.”

“Dehqan, no!”

Timbrel jerked toward the eruption of noise. Only then had she realized how quiet things had grown in the last ten minutes or so. But what she saw stopped her heart.

A teenage boy aimed a weapon at Bashir, who stood handcuffed between what looked like two federal agents.

Shouts exploded as FBI, CIA, DIA, and special operators demanded the boy lower the weapon.

“No,” he spit out. Face awash with agony and unshed tears, the boy shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

Bashir paled. “Dehqan.” Shock morphed into rage. “How dare you! I gave you a home, a life!”

“You gave me torment,” the boy gritted out.

“Dehqan, do not do this,” Sajjan said as he inched closer. “It’s over. Bashir will not be able to harm you anymore—”

“Don’t you get it?” The raw pain writhed through his voice and expression. “He’s already done the damage!” Tears sped down the boy’s face as he slapped his own temple. “It’s in here. Forever.”

Timbrel felt nauseated, barely able to imagine what life beneath the thumb of Bashir must’ve been like for an impressionable teen. She darted a look to the mastermind and drew back at the sneer.

“Surah 11:101: ‘We did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves.’ ”

“But you
did
wrong them.” Dehqan aimed.

“Dehqan!” Sajjan scrambled from the side. “Do not give him what he wants.”

The boy stilled. Shot Sajjan a wary glance.

“He wants to be martyred. You know what that means.” Sajjan moved purposefully toward the teen. “Do not give him to that end. Do him no favors. Let him languish in an American prison, the ultimate shame.”

“I do not want to see him again, and he is dangerous.”

“I will make sure that does not happen,” Sajjan said.

“He is dangerous. Cruel. He killed her.”

Sajjan’s face softened as he swiped a palm over the weapon and lifted it from the teen’s hand. “I know.”

Timbrel blew out a breath as her mother’s fiancé led the boy to safety and the authorities carted Bashir off.

“We need to go,” Khat muttered, pulling Timbrel back around to the stretcher, to her boy, panting heavily. She set her hand on Beo’s shoulder as her gaze skittered around the room. SWAT team members had five men on the ground, hands cuffed.

A really tall guy—the same who’d thrown himself into the books—stood next to Burnett, holding the flashlight-like device. What was it and who was he? And perhaps the more important question—why was Burnett letting the guy take it?

“Australian Special Air Services, equivalent of Special Forces.”

Timbrel eyed Tony, so grateful for his presence. His strength. His courage. He’d come back. He’d fought. Even with a missing leg.

A bit of confusion and confliction darted across Tony’s face. “I think he’s my replacement.”

“Replacement?”

Tony’s smile didn’t reach his face. “I think it’s time I turned in my keys, so to speak.” He drew in a breath and shrugged. “Settle down. Find a wife.”

“ ‘That’s your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!’ ”

Tony’s eyes brightened. “
Farscape
. Baby, you’re talking my language!”

Years spent watching the recoil of a weapon as the colonel fired it. Years of watching lives cut short by his hand. And now I almost did the same. Should I be ashamed when my actions would have wiped a very evil man from the planet?

But somehow, I knew Nafisa would not have wanted me to kill him. Ironic since it was for her, the love of her, that I wanted to hurt him.

I felt more alone now than ever as I waited in a chair at the back of the room, the police working the scene. The witnesses giving their testimonies. What would I do now? I had no home, no family. No Nafisa. With her—with her, I could figure something out. Plan a life. Together.

The pain washed over me anew with a fresh wave of grief.

“How are you doing?”

I looked up, startled. “How … how are you here? How have they not arrested you?” My mind struggled to assemble the crazy pieces of the puzzle. Him talking me down, stopping me from killing the colonel. Others … hadn’t they called him Sajjan?

He smiled as he eased into a cushioned seat beside me, his back to the chaos around us. “It would be good if you did not speak of what you know.”

I eyed him, afraid of trusting him. Afraid of
not
trusting him. “What do you want?”

“Be at peace, Aazim.”

When I sucked in a breath, my mind choked. How did he know that name?

“I know what he did to the girl, to your friend. I know more about Bashir Bijan Karzai than any person should have to know.” He smirked at me. “There is nothing I do not know, even about his adoption of a street urchin named Aazim Busir. Son of Mehrak and Habiba Busir, two of the seventeen victims of a bus bombing.”

“How do you know so much, Maahir?”

“Because it is my job.” He leaned a little closer, his presence both commanding and terrifying. His shoulders looked wider. Fists larger, stronger. “Can you answer a question for me?”

It sounded like a serious one. I was not sure my brain was up to that after all that had happened, but I still nodded. It seemed wrong to tell this man no to anything. “I will try.”

“First, let me say that there are men in the world like Bashir, who are on a path so doggedly and with such determination and conviction they cannot fathom that it is a corrupt or wrong path. It is possible with anything, any belief, any concept, to take it and twist it into whatever one wishes.”

“You fear he brainwashed me.”

Maahir held my gaze without question and without speaking.

My mind flicked back to Nafisa, to our kiss, to my last embrace with her. After a blink, I met Maahir’s gaze boldly. “I saw
truth
lived out. I saw love.”

“You mean you fell in love.”

“No. Yes.” I frowned for a second. “Both.”

A smile crinkled the edges of his eyes. But he said nothing.

“Is there a question?” I asked.

He set something on the table. When I looked down, I was surprised to find a picture. Of a man and woman. I shrugged. “I’m sorry … I don’t—” Something pinged my mind. “Wait.” I touched the edge of the picture, something terribly familiar. Achingly familiar.

“Do you remember them?”

“My … my parents.”

The man smiled. “Yes. Do you have any pictures of them?”

Mutely, I shook my head, unable to tear my gaze from the image.

With two fingers, he nudged it toward me. “Take it.”

“How…? Why…?”

“You will be taken care of, Aazim. I will see to it.”

“Why?”

“In the future, I may have need of you. To help right wrongs. Bring justice where none is delivered. Where wrongs outweigh good.” The intensity of his eyes made my heart thump hard. “Would you be interested in protecting the innocent, Aazim?”

        Epilogue