In the Likely Event(35)

“And if I do have a reason?”

“You don’t. I changed your itinerary this morning the second I read the reports that it looks like Kunduz is going to fall today.” A couple of hours ago, I’d had her curled up in my lap, which was something I desperately tried to forget. It had been a slip on my part, but the second I’d seen her kneeling on that floor, shaking like a leaf, I’d acted on instinct, just like always when it came to her. “There’s zero chance you’re keeping that meeting.”

She swallowed and nodded. “Which I appreciate, as much as I hate it.” Closing her eyes, she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“In fact, I’d feel entirely better if you all got your polished asses on a plane and abandoned this whole trip. Cut your losses, Izzy,” I blatantly begged.

“We have a job to do,” she retorted. “Senator Lauren is still coming next week—”

“Which is a mistake.” I stepped back so I could get a break from the perfect sweetness of her perfume invading my lungs. “This country is going to fall a hell of a lot faster than forecasted.”

“Reports said we have six to twelve months,” she argued, but the pursing of her lips told me she knew I wasn’t blowing smoke.

“Yeah, well, I trust what I’m seeing in a place I know pretty damned well more than someone’s best-case-scenario analysis of it from half a world away, and what’s going on out there”—I pointed to my window—“is not the best-case scenario.”

“I’m not stupid, Nate. I know that.” Panic flared in her eyes. “But Serena is up there.”

“And I know what Serena looks like. I’ve already got feelers out in the area, so by the time I get there, hopefully someone will have tracked her down. I’ll be back before dinner.”

“She might not recognize you,” she fired back.

“Oh, come on, that’s the best argument you’ve got?” I cocked a brow at her, and she dropped her gaze, but it wasn’t in that You’ve won way I’d seen before, or even the Fine, I’ll give in way. No . . . that emotion beneath those furrowed brows was guilt. “What did you do, Isabeau?”

She swallowed. “Mazar-i-Sharif is still safe.”

My eyes flared. “You’re shitting me if you think that. Sheberghan fell to the Taliban yesterday. Intel indicates not only is Kunduz Province being overrun, but also Sar-e Pol, and Takhar. What do those all have in common, Izzy?”

“I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to see if you can find her. You might not be able to convince her to leave the country, but I will. Finding her means nothing if we can’t get her on the helicopter,” she argued, but that tone . . . she wasn’t telling me everything.

“Those provinces are all in the north,” I said, ignoring her reasoning. Maybe it made me an ass, but I wasn’t against hog-tying Serena and throwing her over my shoulder if it meant Izzy got the hell out of this country. “If Samangan falls, that leaves Balkh Province—Mazar-i-Sharif—cut off. Do you understand that?”

“I understand that every day she stays there, she’s in danger of never getting out, so I did what I had to do.”

She changed the itinerary. I saw it in her frustratingly beautiful eyes. My stomach hit the floor at the same moment Webb’s voice came across the radio in my ear.

“Sergeant Green.”

I tapped the button to speak. “Green here.”

“Your departure has been pushed back to give the aides enough time to assemble, since the itinerary just changed, and they’re now meeting with leadership and a group of stranded Americans in Mez at noon.”

I didn’t take my eyes from Izzy’s. “And we think that’s safe, sir?”

“Orders are coming straight from Senator Lauren’s office. Apparently, she has constituents in that group, and we’re going to evac them.”

“Acknowledged.” Fuck. My. Life. I got off the radio and leaned into Izzy’s space. “You went behind my back.”

“Yes,” she whispered, dragging her tongue over her lower lip nervously. “But we’re saving—”

“No,” I snapped. “No excuses. You go behind my back again, and I’m done.” She was putting herself directly in danger, and it ate through my veins like acid. Serena would have done the same for her, but I wasn’t irrevocably in love with Serena. Just Izzy. Always Izzy. “You trust me, or this doesn’t work.”

I wanted the words back as soon as they left my mouth, because that’s exactly why it didn’t work between us to begin with. Not that there ever had been an us. What Izzy and I had been was undefinable.

“I just—” she started.

“You trust me, or this doesn’t work,” I repeated.

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ll want to ditch the heels.” I opened my door and pointed to the hallway.

Two hours later, we buckled into one of four Blackhawks headed for Mez, accompanied by a Chinook.

“Won’t the Chinook hold us back?” Holt yelled over the noise of whirring rotors.

“They’re faster than we are,” Kellman yelled back, checking his charge’s belt. Naturally, three of the other aides had decided to come for the “fact-finding,” once the trip had been announced. Politicians never seemed to mind sending their underlings into situations they wouldn’t chance themselves.