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for us.”
    “You aren’t ready.”
    Anger surged inside her. And frustration. “How much more ready can I be? I’ve been here for two months, Ian. I speak the language. I am the Light of Zaran,” she spat, hating the name as much now as she did then. She hadn’t been his light at all. He’d used it to mock her, mock that she’d come to mean nothing to him.
    “It’s not as simple as that. There’s groundwork to be done. If you walk in there and they aren’t prepared for it, they’ll kill you. They have to believe that you’ve returned willingly, that you escaped the Americans and want to help their cause.”
    She snorted. “I was a part of their cause for three years. I think I can fake it well enough.”
    “We don’t know who’s in charge now. Since Al Ahmad was taken, things have changed. Your husband was slaughtered with his own knife, his men were overrun, and you disappeared. How do you think that looks?”
    She felt herself pale, but she didn’t shrink from his stare. Ian didn’t know that she’d been the one to shove that knife into Zaran’s gut. Or maybe he did and he just hadn’t told her.  
    “It looks like I was kidnapped when they killed my husband and his men. How else is it supposed to look?”
    “Like maybe you betrayed them?”
    Her stomach roiled. “How it looks hasn’t changed in the past two months. You knew this from the beginning, but you still brought me here. For what, Ian? To meet with Mustafa and pass on information someone else could have gotten?”
    His gaze hardened. “I brought you here to do a job, which is what you’re doing. You know these people. You know what they’re like. Filtering the information from Mustafa—who wasn’t nearly as forthcoming with anyone else as he has been with you, by the way—through the lens of your experience is invaluable to us. When the time is right, I’ll send you in. Not a minute before. Besides, this situation with the hostages changes things a bit, at least for now.”
    Emily put her hand over her eyes and pressed against the tears threatening to fall. For heaven’s sake, why was she so emotional? Did she really want to walk into a den of terrorists and pretend to be one of them? What she was doing now was dangerous enough. She met with her contact at a location of his choosing. She went alone. If he decided to grab her or if he fed her wrong information, how would she stop him?
    There was always someone from Ian’s group watching, but that didn’t mean they could stop the man if he tried. He wasn’t precisely trustworthy. Hassan Mustafa was a jaded warrior who’d grown tired of the promises and ideals of the group. He hadn’t grown tired of the possibilities of padding his own pockets, however.  
    So he sold information to Ian, and then he went back to the group. How did she or Ian know he was telling them the truth? They didn’t, not really, but it was true that a group of archaeologists had been kidnapped in the Lost City of Maz recently. The Freedom Force hadn’t released any videos yet, but she knew it was coming.
    She desperately needed Mustafa to tell her where they were being held so someone could get them out. She’d tried before, but he was reluctant to talk about it. He was afraid. She understood that, but her duty was to get him to talk. Maybe if they offered him more money. Everything was about money to Mustafa.  
    Emily straightened as a wave of weariness washed over her. “Rascal said something about company coming to help us with the archaeologists.”
    Ian’s gaze darkened for a moment. “Hostage rescue, yes. The government is sending in a military team. Once we learn where the hostages are, they’ll go in and extract them.”
    Her heart thumped. A military team … “Why can’t we do that?”
    He had enough men here. Enough equipment and expertise. Ian Black pretty much had his own army, so they didn’t really need another one showing up.
    “Not our mission. It requires too many resources