“I made the arrangements for the pick-up.”
“I see.” Shortly after he’d arrived in Germany, he’d been waiting for transport when the last thing he remembered was being hit over the head.
“It was the only way I could get to Ghafor.”
“By delivering me to Zamed Safi?”
The man with connections to al-Qaeda and his goons had beaten him close to death and caused his temporary amnesia. He’d escaped only to be found wandering the streets of Germany by Malin, and set up a second time for capture. Safi hadn’t really wanted him, he’d wanted Mantis, who had been responsible for the death of both of Safi’s brothers. Dutch was only the bait to lure Mantis there.
“I’m sorry, Dutch.”
He stood and walked over to the water.
“Tell me why you did it.”
“I told you it was the only way I could get access to Ghafor. I had to prove myself.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s all it was, Dutch.”
“I want to know the truth, Malin.”
“If you’re suggesting I did it out of some kind of revenge, I resent the accusation.”
“I had to ask.”
“That wasn’t what it was, Dutch, and again, I’m sorry,” she said. “At the time, I asked myself what you would do.”
Dutch turned around and looked at her. “And?”
“I knew you’d keep the mission going.”
“Like I did in Islamabad?”
Malin scrunched her eyes. “That wasn’t your mission.”
“If it had been, do you think I would’ve let Orlov kill you just to keep it going? If you do, you don’t know me at all.” Dutch picked up his shirt, socks, and shoes. “I’ll catch up with you later,” he said before walking away.
“Wait!” she shouted after him, but he pretended like he didn’t hear her. He needed time to think not only about the fact that she’d set him up, which he’d already known, but that she believed it’s what he would’ve done too.
Instead of taking the most direct trail up to the house, he kept going along the shoreline, stopping when it rounded a bend, to put on his socks and shoes.
There was an unspoken deal among the K19 partners. If the life of someone they cared about was threatened, the objective of an op immediately changed to rescue and/or extraction. No questions asked.
When Dutch and the rest of the team had gone in to get Alegria after she was kidnapped and held for a hundred-million-dollar ransom, they had direct orders from the CIA not to jeopardize Malin’s op.
Dutch ignored those orders, shot and killed the man who held Malin with a gun to her head, and blew her mission.
“Doc, I have a question for you,” he said when the man answered his call.
“Shoot.”
“When Alegria was kidnapped at the hotel in Islamabad, her father reported that an American woman had been involved? We’ve determined that Kilbourne was that woman, right?”
“That’s right. Tell me why you’re confirming that at this particular time. It’s old news, Dutch.”
“Malin just confessed that she set me up in Ramstein. She was behind the initial abduction.”