at Bagram had already thoroughly vetted them.
None of the pictures matched the description Kim had given them, and worry churned in Ethan’s gut.
Troy frowned beside him. “This seems like a dead end. I know Kim thought she saw the man who assaulted her there, but none of these men are missing part of an ear.”
“How recently was he wounded?” Raptor asked, his gaze narrowing. “If it’s a new injury and these photos are old, they won’t help. We could be looking right at him and never know it. Did she mention any other distinguishing features?”
Ethan shook his head no. “It was the first night she was kidnapped, and she woke up tied up in a goddamn tent. I don’t think she remembers much of anything. She didn’t even see him close-up after that. It sounds like some lower-level assholes were the ones interacting with her daily and moving her around to different camps.”
“Fuck,” Grayson spat out. “It could be any of those bastards. And we still don’t know for sure if it relates to the break-in at her apartment.”
“So what are we thinking?” Logan asked. “The guy possibly worked on base and kidnapped her? They’ve been investigating her kidnapping nonstop and came up empty. What are the chances he’d show up now that we found her?”
“God damn it!” Ethan said, pounding his fist on the table. The men continued looking through the pictures, not a single one of them appearing anything other than irate. “She’s supposed to fly home in several days. How am I supposed to let her do that if she’s being targeted here? We don’t know who broke into her apartment. We don’t know if it’s related to Bagram, although the timing seems suspect.”
“None of this makes sense,” Raptor said, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “The Afghani interpreters are in Bagram. They wouldn’t fly to the U.S.” He glanced down at the photographs spread across the table.
“What if it wasn’t an interpreter?” Ethan asked, freezing.
“What do you mean?” Raptor asked, looking over to his teammate.
“There was an informant. That’s how we got the intel on where Kim was located. They moved her around all the time. Almost daily. When the CO finally gave us word to move in, he said it was an informant that tipped the authorities off about her actual location.”
The other men abruptly looked up. “Shit. The informant?” Logan asked. “Wasn’t he relocated to the States with his family for their safety?”
“Fuck yeah, he was,” Ethan said, walking over to the table the men were all sitting around. “He was brought back to the States by his handler. I don’t even know who all was involved in it—State, the CIA. The hell if I know. All we cared about was the intel he gave us and getting the hostage. We rescued Kim and flew back. Mission accomplished. But what if he’s here, too?”
“You think he’s playing dirty,” Troy mused. “He was part of her kidnapping and then helped us to rescue her with the tip?”
“Why help us rescue her if he was only going to break into her apartment?” Ethan asked. “We don’t even know who that suspect was yet. The only description we’ve gotten was that it was a Middle Eastern man.”
“It could make sense if he was double-crossed,” Raptor said, looking around at his teammates. “Maybe the other leaders ousted him. Or he spent all this time orchestrating the kidnapping and realized he’d never get a dime in ransom. We know the names of the other leaders in that terror cell, but this guy is a wildcard. What if he moved up the ranks and stayed hidden? He gave up the location, gets asylum here, and decides he still wants his money.”
“So…what? He fed us information about her, moved to the States when she was rescued, and then broke into Kimberly’s apartment?” Logan asked. “He didn’t steal anything, just wanted to kidnap her again?”
“Gentlemen,” Commander Slate Hutchinson said as he strode into the bullpen. He was in his early forties, and despite being older than the rest of the men, Ethan had no doubt he could hold his own in a battle. He was nothing but a wall of muscle, and his green eyes bore into Ethan as he stopped. “I assume Ms. Turner is still safe at your house?”
Ethan nodded. “Affirmative, sir.”
“Good. Although the police detectives in Virginia seem to think it was someone local to the DC area targeting her because of the massive media attention her case has