Page 37 of SEAL's Sunshine
After he took his place at the table, Jake and the captain filled him in on what they’d found out about the shooter.
“We don’t have an ID yet, but we have a few leads and it looks like they were after us, not Miranda. But now that they know she’s here, that could change.”
“Why are they after us?”
“Chatter has turned up some weird information.”
“Why isn’t Lynch here then?” The CIA was the purveyor of that information and since he was embedded with their team, he was the one who shared the updates.
“Because he wasn’t the one who picked it up. I think you all know Chrissy Stillwell.” You could have heard a pin drop and every eye went from Chrissy to Ryan and back again. Holy shit. Things just got more complicated.
“Yes, we do. Sorry, no disrespect intended, but how are you involved in this?”
“I’m an analyst for the FBI, you all knew that. But you didn’t know what I analyzed, it’s top secret.”
Cam wondered if even Meghan knew what Chrissy did for the FBI. Probably not, and now he understood why she hadn’t joined Meghan and Miranda on the shopping trip.
“Go ahead, Chrissy,” Captain Knox said.
As she set up her computer and started a slideshow of photos from the scene of yesterday’s shooting and explained what they were seeing. “I got called into work last night. Originally, my boss thought this was MS-13 activity against the restaurant owner, but then one of the cameras caught part of one of the shooter’s faces.”
Flipping to the image of the shooter’s partial, she then clicked to display the side-by-side with the full image.
Jake spoke first. “He doesn’t look familiar.”
“No, he wouldn’t to you. He’s been on our watchlist for quite a while. He was radicalized back in twenty-fourteen. His name is Musafa Arfat.”
“So that’s what you do? Monitor terrorist threats?” Rafe asked.
“Yes, mostly. Sometimes other stuff too. Depends. I’m good at analyzing scenarios and figuring out puzzles. So I get the nasty, complicated ones.”
“Who radicalized him?” Cam asked although he had a feeling he already knew.
“The Taliban, but apparently he and your friend Azfaar have a connection.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly,” Captain Knox said. “It looks like the Saudi mission was partially wishful thinking and to get you guys out of hiding.”
“They were going to try to take us out? He must have his head up his ass,” Jake said.
“It looks like it. The intel was accurate about the threat, but you were too quick on following the threads. They were going to try to take out half the team at the bomb site and the other half at the airport. Somehow, they knew our plan. We think the guy Lynch put you in touch with worked for ISIS.”
“Azfaar is aligned with ISIS for sure?” Murph asked and then let out a low whistle.
“Yes.”
“Why is he all rapid dog on us?” Murph mumbled.
“Because you killed his baby brother. And now he wants revenge,” Knox said with a grim expression. “Problem is since he didn’t get you on foreign soil our hands are tied. You can’t operate her.”
“Fuck that,” Rafe said. “We’re just supposed to sit around and wait for him to pick us off one at a time, or worse our family or women?”
“No, not exactly.”
“What does that mean?” Ryan asked. It was the first time he’d spoken since Chrissy had come into the room.
“You all know Tex, right? Ex-SEAL, computer whiz, overall badass? He can pull information from thin air that no one else even knows exists.”
