Chapter 5
"Catherine!"
Ian had no idea what had just happened. The entire camp had blown up. The blond Seal ran, shouldered the unconscious Catherine and quickly retreated. One of his teammates had also been hit, but he was already being taken care of by the other two.
Back at their base, they laid the two injured on the cots.
"Cath?"
Ian carefully removed her vest. She groaned, but slowly regained consciousness.
"What happened?"
"Careful, you took quite a beating."
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, that's why you were unconscious and have a fat laceration on the back of your head. And your arm doesn't look good either. Hold still."
"What about Phil?"
Ian glanced over at his buddy. Sadly, Max shook his head slightly.
"He didn't make it, I'm afraid."
Tears came to Catherine's eyes.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dragged you guys into this."
Ian took her face in his hands.
"Cath, look at me. We were in this a long time ago. After all, Steve is a Seal and a friend of yours, so we couldn't help ourselves."
"Explain that to Phyllis."
"There's not much to explain, Cath, Phyllis left him for someone else three months ago."
Horrified, Cath looked at him.
"I didn't know that."
Her sad gaze fell on the deceased.
Ian stroked her cheek. "It's not your fault."
Carefully, he tended to her wound on the back of her head and then attended to her broken arm.
Despite her headache, which was probably from the concussion, Catherine was sitting at her computer logging on not ten minutes later. Ian had given up on sending her back to her cot, she wouldn't do it after all.
He could understand her too, the whole thing was beginning to look a lot like a trap, which after all had cost one of their men his life.
They had to know where the information had come from. So far, they hadn't made any progress at all, otherwise they wouldn't have dared to make the advance they had just made.
Catherine had been back on the search for an hour when Ian stepped up beside her.
"Cath, I might have something." She followed him to his seat.
"Look at this."
"A CIA identifier?"
"Yeah, but it's actually been disabled for years."
"Let me see."
Catherine tapped on the keyboard.
"No, that's impossible."
"Who's that?"
"Steve's mom."
"But why would she put out a false report about her son?"
Catherine didn't respond to the question, but continued typing with high concentration. Then she took her hands off the keyboard.
"Damn."
"What?"
Ian read the entry.
"Greer? But she's dead, isn't she?"
Catherine gasped.
"I guess not. But that explains a lot. Someone here is out for revenge."
She took a breath.
"Okay, I'll let Danny know Afghanistan was a false lead and fly back. Will you please start looking for Greer. We need to find her, not that she's cooked up something for Mel, too."
"All right."
He quickly pressed a kiss to her mouth and disappeared. Catherine pulled out the satellite phone and dialed Danny's number.
To Danny
"Catherine. Finally. Are you okay?"
"Any way you look at it, Afghanistan was a trap. Steve's not here."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah for the most part. Danny, listen. We finally figured out who was behind this whole thing. Greer set this whole thing up."
"Greer? But I thought she was dead?"
"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. She passed out the info on Steve's mom's deactivated ID. I'll get on the next plane right away. You guys need to find Mel as soon as possible. I imagine Greer has come up with something for her, too."
"But don't you think she would have done that by now? After all, Mel was asleep in the house when Greer took Steve."
"Again, was. Or maybe she was just trying to get at Steve and me. Still, we should keep our eyes open."
"Yeah, you're right. I'll call her right now, she got back to me last night and she's blaming herself terribly for not seeing through the phony letter."
"After all, I only know Mel from Steve's stories and she seems to me to have a tough personality, but I would imagine that emotions just got the better of her."
"That's what I told her."
"Keep an eye on her, Danny not that she'll do anything rash."
Danny rubbed his face; he hadn't even thought of that.
"Damn, you're right, I'll put Tani on it. Adam, Lou, Junior and I are on our way to the Big Island right now, Adam picked up a lead on an unregistered flight. If Steve wasn't in Afghanistan, he might be there."
"Okay, I'll rejoin you guys as soon as possible."
"Thanks Catherine."
After Danny hung up, he immediately dialed Mel's number; he had to warn her. But he landed on the box again already, this couldn't be happening now.
