Nori's Delta (Delta Team Three #1) - Lori Ryan Page 0,40

he knew he might not be able to protect Eleanor. Again.

Chapter 18

Eleanor was relieved to find she hadn’t overplayed her hand with Demir. They didn’t return to the compound immediately after lunch in light of the truck trying to run them down, but they did go back later that afternoon.

And her ploy had worked. Demir was ready to talk about the hostages.

“I could be convinced to release the hostages if you can get me access to military satellites when I need them.”

Eleanor kept her face schooled and didn’t let her shock show. How did he think they were going to give him access to military satellites any time he demanded that?

How would that even work? Did he think she could arrange for him to call up a general at the Pentagon whenever he wanted intel?

He had to know that wasn’t possible. So what was his game?

“That’s certainly something I can talk to my people about,” she hedged. “I’m going to need to see the hostages, though. I need to know they’re safe and well.”

“I will arrange for a video chat with them. They’re not here on-site.”

She wasn’t about to let him know that she knew exactly where the hostages were. “I’ll need to see them in person before I can bring this request to my boss.”

She didn’t love the fact that she was going to have to go to her boss for approval of something like this during the talks, but she couldn’t make any promises about satellite imagery without getting a whole lot of higher-ups involved. But maybe she could use this to get her eyes on those doctors and nurses and make sure they were safe and being cared for.

It wouldn’t hurt to confirm that they were in the bunker either.

“They aren’t in the region,” Demir said. “A video call will have to do.”

She didn’t know if he was bluffing or if their intelligence was that far off. Or maybe they’d somehow moved them in the last twenty-four hours.

Her gut told her that something about this whole thing was off, though. Demir was a smart man. He had to know this ask was too much. So why was he asking for it? Was he purposely trying to sabotage the talks? Or was he just trying to buy time?

She was beginning to wonder if there was more to his taking doctors and nurses than the simple fact that they had been in country and available to be grabbed. She needed to talk to her people back in the office. There had to be more going on here than any of the analysts had discovered yet and she needed them hunting down that information if she was going to have a shot at being successful here.

“Set up the video call and I’ll see what I can do. I can’t make any promises, though. I can almost guarantee you my boss is going to want me to have eyes on those doctors and nurses in person before this goes any further.”

Demir waved a hand to one of his people and spoke quietly to him when he came over.

Then he looked up at Eleanor. “Why don’t we break while the video call is being set up?”

Eleanor held in a sigh. At this rate they were doing more breaking than talking during these negotiations. It was part of the reason her gut was telling her something was off with this whole thing. If they didn’t have more than one reason for wanting to support the overthrow of the current regime in Kazarus, she might tell her boss this wasn’t going to go anywhere.

But these talks could very well be the key to stopping a resurgence of ISIS and Al Qaeda. And she’d be damned if she would shut down anything that gave them a chance of doing that before she tried everything in her power to make it happen.

She would keep at this as long as she could to see if she could make headway with Demir. Headway that would keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Chapter 19

“I don’t like it,” Marcus said.

“Then we’re in agreement,” Eleanor said as she turned to Heath and his team. “Did any of you see anything on the video feed that makes you think our intel is wrong about where the doctors and nurses are being held?”

They all shook their heads. There hadn’t been much to see in the background when they talked to the hostages. Nothing more than a basic room