-10-
July 7, 2007
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Hamid al-Jubeir normally preferred to keep his investigations civilized. He didn’t stoop to the fright tactics of some of his peers by threatening bodily harm or worse to people he believed could assist him in his work as an inducement for their cooperation.
But the assistant to Israt Medivir challenged Hamid’s lofty ideals.
The man was dumb as a roach, ready to slip with his fogged brain into a dark corner at the earliest opportunity. Hamid had had him into his office twice since discovering Medivir’s oil-infested body. And each time, he was certain that the man, Konal, had something to hide.
And perhaps something to share.
Finally, frustrated beyond courtesy, Hamid gave up all pretense of civility and rounded on the slender man.
“I do not care if you took riyals from the dead man’s pocket, or if you stole his business secrets! You must have something more you can tell me about your master’s visitor.”
Konal’s eyes popped wide in his stolid face. Hamid realized he’d struck the nerve he’d been hoping for, and he lowered his voice into one that hinted of menace. “If you do not recall what it is I know you are hiding, I will set my colleagues of the Muhabith on you to find out where and how you came into a sudden fortune.”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in a long, slender throat the color of mahogany. “I have already told you what the man looked like. Your artist drew a picture that looked very like him.”
“Yes, but I know there is more. Did he…” Hamid trailed off as a thought struck him. “He did not give his name, nor did he have an appointment. Did he perhaps have any identification on him? Or provide a calling card of some type?”
The wary look disappeared from Konal’s face. “A card. He did have a card.”
“And what happened to that card? What did it say on it?”
“I didn’t think anything of it, for it had no writing on it. Just a symbol. An odd symbol that I had not ever seen before.”
At last. “What did it look like? Can you draw it? Where is the card?”
“I may still have it.”
Hamid resisted the urge to throttle the man in front of him. The Qur’an made it clear violence was not a solution. Still. “Where might it be if you still had it?” He forced his voice to be slow and low and calm, and tried not to think that nearly a week had passed since he’d found Medivir’s body, and that this balid had sat on important information through two other interviews.
Thank Allah that Hamid knew how to read people, knew when something was missing, and knew when to push.
To his complete astonishment, Konal reached into his thobe and pulled out a flat black billfold, opened it, and thumbed out a card.
A business card.
It was blank on one side and on the other, just as Konal had described, was a black symbol. Nothing else.
Hamid had never seen anything like it before.
But he was certain that somewhere in the world, someone had. Where one murder happened, another followed, and may just as likely have been after a previous one.
He snatched the card from Konal and called for his assistant to take the absurd, thieving man from his office. Before he strangled him.
And then he got on his computer and started emailing every contact he had in every law enforcement precinct around the world.
Someone would know something about that symbol.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
“Bergstrom isn’t one to make idle threats, but he’s also not one to make any threats at all if he doesn’t need to,” Gabe MacNeil said to Marina as he eased the government-issue Taurus down Main Street in Ann Arbor, the city where she lived. He’d never been to the university town himself, but had heard enough about it, and was enough of a Big Ten fan, to want to take a spin past Michigan Stadium. The Big House. It almost made it worth having to bring her home, if only temporarily.
“Idle threat or not, he made it. He’s eliminated any voluntary help I might have provided now or in the future. I’m not going to be going out of my way for Colin Bergstrom.”
Marina’s short, messy hair tossed in the breeze of the open window. She flattened it with the palm of her hand, smashing it down, apparently heedless of any formal style. Despite her black expression, she was a good-looking package: with her pointed chin and wide, sensual mouth, round, apple-sized breasts, and long, slender legs. Her features had a trace of the exotic, with almond-shaped eyes, high, slicing cheekbones, and dusky olive skin. More than once, he’d found his thoughts wandering to that shower she’d taken in the hotel room, and he had to catch himself and refocus—which pissed him the hell off. Even when he was on a case with Rebecca Ives, he’d been more focused.
Of course, they had been sleeping together at that point, so the curiosity had been sated.
Irritation with himself came out in his response. “You won’t help Bergstrom even if it’s regarding a threat to our national security? That’s big of you.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? The CIA’s got me for eighteen hours, and I’ll do what I can during that time, clearly under duress.” She returned her attention to the pedestrian-clogged thoroughfare. Friday night on Main Street. It was hot in Ann Arbor, and it showed in the tank tops and short skirts clinging to the college kids that had stayed on for the summer.
Antipathy burned off Marina in the same way the sun beat down on the tall, awning-less buildings. It was too bad, because, as annoyed as he might be with the way Bergstrom had set this whole thing up, Gabe also recognized that the man didn’t make mistakes. His instinct was usually dead-on. Obviously, this operation was important enough to him to go out on a limb with not only a civilian, but also with Gabe, while working around the Agency’s protocols. Gabe trusted and respected his director. He didn’t always agree with him and his methods, but he trusted him.
“Why are you so sure my father’s in danger?”
He’d never said that Alexander was in danger. Instead, he turned her question back around. “What do you think? You know more about the Skaladeskas than any of us—which isn’t saying much, because we know very little. If he left them against their will years ago, why would they want him back? Are they such a close-knit group that they insist no one venture to the outside? And if they do—are there consequences?”
Of course, the guy could be dead somewhere too, which would put a whole different spin on this situation.
The reality was, the Agency crowded too many other issues on its plate to be concerned about a tiny little tribe in the snowy mountains of Siberia. He and Bergstrom and their intelligence reports about Taymyria would never make it into the daily briefing for the president. In fact, this data was barely reviewed. If it didn’t have anything to do with al Qaeda, nuclear weapons, or drug trafficking, they were pretty much left alone.
That was good and bad. Good because Colin and Gabe would have little interference. Bad because they had fewer resources. Which was, of course, one of the reasons Bergstrom wanted a free ride with Marina Alexander. She could help, and she would be a cheap resource. Free.
One thing was sure: unlike Manning Browne, whose team had been taken unawares before the Kuala Pohr incident, Gabe was not about to be caught picking up the soap in the case of the Skaladeskas.
He didn’t care if he came across as hyper-vigilant or overly suspicious. He wasn’t going to have the deaths of innocent people on his conscience.
“So why would the Skaladeskas want your father back?” he asked again.
Marina shrugged. Despite her long legs, she had a small frame that made her appear delicate. Though from what he’d learned from his background check, she was anything but. The woman flew planes, explored caves, traveled to unsafe regions of Asia and parts of the Middle East to see first-hand the art treasures she taught about, and was training a rescue dog. She’d even made a trip down the Amazon in a little skiff for the pure adventure of it. And in her free time, she volunteered for cave rescues.
No wonder she thought she was in charge.
“Until this morning, I believed my father and I were the last of the Skaladeskas, and that the line would end with me. I had no clue any others existed at all anymore, so I don’t have any idea what to think. I tend to wonder if your team hasn’t jumped to conclusions that these people have taken my father. Maybe he just took a vacation.”
Gabe turned down the tree-lined street she indicated. He could already feel that it was cooler here. The houses were brick, the street curved, and the sidewalks were well kept there under the shade of tall oaks and maples. Saabs, Volvos, and BMWs of various ages and conditions sat in many drives, and more than half the houses sported mailboxes or garage doors with the big M for Michigan on them.
As he pulled into the driveway of her home, his attention focused on the tidy brick Cape Cod, the shady, lush green lot, the well-tended flower gardens. When did she have time to do that, if she was always running off on rescue missions? “You ever fire a gun?”
“A gun? No, I’m generally trying to save lives, not take them. Why?”
“Just curious. You might have to someday.”
“I doubt that very much.”
He followed her up the brick walkway lined by some frilly pink flowers, listening for the rapturous barks of the dog he knew she had. When he heard nothing but the distant sound of cars, and the shift of wind, his instincts went on alert. “Wait a sec.”
“What is it? You think there’s a bomb waiting on the other side for us? It must be difficult living a life of suspicion.”
“I don’t hear Boris,” he replied. She had no idea what they might be dealing with, and he hoped she was able to keep herself out of it.
“He’s not here. He’s with my neighbor.” She turned back to inserting the key into the lock, and Gabe didn’t try to stop her.
Inside, her home was stuffy from being closed up. He found it casually neat. Not pristine, House Beautiful neat like his mother-kept house, but organized and cluttered in a charming way. There were stacks of catalogs on a square coffee table and a haphazard row of shoes and boots lining the floor in the foyer. Lived in. Not so different from his own condo, with his paints and canvases tucked into the same corner as the kitchen stuff his mother kept buying for him. He still had no idea what to do with a lemon zester.
From his research, Gabe got the impression Marina moved around and in and out so quickly and so often that she didn’t spend what would be a waste of time to her arranging and moving things, and the soft clutter of her home bore that out. The interior was not well lit unless the lamps were on, due to the thick green trees that hugged the house, but once she flipped on the switches, a soft glow filled the room, illuminating what looked like an original movie poster for The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Catalogs from Pottery Barn, Hammacher Schlemmer, Anthropologie, Sundance—but no Victoria’s Secret—and a whole slew of other places he’d never heard of were piled on the center table, next to a group of crystals: amethyst, ruby, an opaque green one that could be jade. So she was a New-Ager.
He reached to pick up the palm-sized amethyst crystal.
“Good choice,” Marina said, eyeing him as she placed a stack of mail on a credenza.
“What do you mean? It matches my eyes?” Strangely enough, the crystal actually felt warm to the touch.
“Mmm…no. Hold on to it long enough, and it will help take the edge off your impatience. Maybe ease your anger a little, too.” She surprised him with the first sign of a sense of humor as she bent to drop three more catalogs on the table with a loud thwack.
“What’s this one for, then?” He picked up the small blood-colored one that sat next to it.
“Ruby? That’s for impotence. Among other things.”
Gabe chuckled. He didn’t know if she was saying that to needle him, or because it was true, but either way, he appreciated her wry tone. “I didn’t peg you for the kind of person who believes in crystal healing.”
“I take aspirin for a headache, or I hold my amethyst. Either one works for me. There are a lot of natural healing methods that have been passed down through the ages. If they work, I use the ones from the earth. No side effects.”
Time to get back to business. “I’d like to check through all the rooms, if that’s all right with you.”
“Knock yourself out, MacNeil. I’m heading upstairs first. If you want to follow me, you can lug that up.” Marina pointed to a hefty suitcase—the one he’d carried for her before.
She might not be thrilled about his presence, but she was an opportunist. That was one quality she and Bergstrom shared. He grabbed the handle and followed her up the stairs, equally opportunistic as he noticed an excellent ass and toned legs.
“That was one of the benefits I gave up when I got divorced,” she was saying as he stepped from the top stair directly into her attic-like bedroom. “Someone to help me drag my luggage through the airports. Not that I can’t manage it myself, of course,” she continued, gesturing for him to put the suitcase on the bed, “but if help’s to be had, it’s welcome.”
He knew about her divorce, of course. Nearly three years ago, from an engineering professor at the University of Michigan named James Zelder. They’d been married for three years. No children. He’d since remarried and had a three-year-old child with his new wife—likely a contributing factor to their marriage breaking up.
Gabe tossed the case onto her sapphire, topaz, and ruby colored bed, a design reminiscent of traditional Islamic art, and noted another movie poster, this one for To Catch a Thief. Definitely a Hitchcock fan. And more crystals—small ice-colored ones, three of them of different shapes—on the table next to her bed.
He scanned the room, walked into the adjoining bath area, looking and sensing and listening. It smelled like something pleasant in here, not like cleaning supplies. And not too many bottles lined up on the counter. Very low maintenance.
Nothing felt out of place in the upstairs, so he decided to finish scoping the rest of the property.
Marina watched as he disappeared down the stairs, leaving her alone for the first time in twenty-four hours. And it would be another day or two before she was really left alone. Hell.
She was furious Colin Bergstrom had made such a threat.
And even angrier that she’d had no choice but to succumb to it.
She really had no choice. The CIA could easily stop her from leaving the country, and despite Bergstrom’s power play, Marina believed him when he agreed she could leave tomorrow evening as planned if she gave them her full assistance until then. He’d had to fly back to Langley from Pennsylvania, but he would be meeting them at the airport the next morning.
She closed her eyes. She might as well stop stewing about it, because there was nothing she could do. She had to play along with the Good Old Boys. Not something unfamiliar to her. After all, she was in academia.
Marina relaxed, tipping onto her side and resting her head on a pillow.
Good grief, she was tired! And sore. She was actually looking forward to her flight to Myanmar. She’d be able to relax a bit. Catch up on some sleep.
Twenty-four hours and she’d be on her way. Twenty-four hours of playing along with the spooks. She could do that.
She just had to get through this little glitch first. Get Gabe MacNeil and his boss off her back.
Get Dad out of her mind.
But first, she was going to travel with the CIA team up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to her father’s house west of Marquette, just, as Bergstrom had put it, for one day, for her to look around and see if there might be any clue to Dad’s whereabouts. As if she would recognize anything out of the ordinary anyway. The last time she’d been to his house was, what, seven years ago?
But she could do that, placate the CIA, and then she could get to Myanmar on time. She’d have a little less opportunity to get organized or prepared, but at least she would have done her duty. The bare minimum. Against her will.
And wasn’t that all she’d ever gotten from Dad anyway?
At least MacNeil seemed to be as eager for them to part ways as she was.
Her eyelids drooped. It was surreal to even consider that her father was involved in some kind of international intrigue. That she or Dad might somehow touch the world of James Bond or Sydney Bristow.
No effing way.
She liked her life just the way it was—danger and adventure limited to that of her own choosing, thank you very much. And as fatherless as it could be with her guilt forcing her to make Father’s Day and birthday phone calls on schedule. Thank God they were six months apart.
Though she wanted nothing more than to doze off, Marina forced herself to climb off the bed and change her clothes. Good grief. She’d have a ton of laundry when she got back from Myanmar, with all these back-to-back trips.
When she came downstairs with her small bag, repacked, she found MacNeil on the sofa, flipping between several news channels and occasionally touching base with the All-Star Game. “Everything in order?”
“Far as I can tell. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“I need to take care of a few other things. And then we can get something to eat on our way out of town.” Marina swept through the small room and headed for the adjacent office, where she fired up her laptop to check email for the first time in a week. They didn’t have Wi-Fi at the Betty Lou’s Beds motel she’d used as her home base for the last week in Terre Haute. Great cinnamon rolls with thick, heavy icing and gravy-laden meatloaf, but no internet access.
“What’s good to eat around here?” called MacNeil from the living room. She heard him shift the volume lower on the television. Apparently his hunger overrode news and sports at this juncture.
Her laptop whirred smoothly as she logged in to her email. While she was waiting for them to download, Marina wandered back into the living room to answer his question. “Just about anything you might want. You name it. I’ve eaten everything from python to mopanē worms during my travels, so I’m not fussy at all.”
“Mopanē worms?”
“Cheap food in Zimbabwe. They look like large green and blue caterpillars and taste like wooden cardboard. I prefer them fried and served with peanut sauce.”
MacNeil’s expression spoke volumes. “I think I’d rather have something like steak or fish.”
Marina strode back into her office, smothering a grin. Not that mopanē worms had been exactly high on her menu selection, but at least she’d tried them.
Her email box had 1300 messages, 1245 of which were spam. She rued the day she’d filled out surveys on a few websites a decade ago when spam was unheard of. Thus her email address had long been added to the spammers’ lists. Good grief, she was still getting advertisements for the Iraq Top-50 Deck. Not to mention suggestions regarding improving her sex life (increasing the size of her penis and strengthening her endurance) as well as suggesting that she could get Cialis for cheap.
No blind dates. Delete. No Top-50 cards. Delete. No need to improve her sex life. (What sex life?) Delete.
The rest of her messages were legitimate—from former students, colleagues, friends, and…Dad?
Marina’s fingers froze on the mouse, then she clicked rapidly, clumsily, in her haste to open the email. Mina, the message read, Trust no one. Do not get involved. Stay away from this. Stay away from anyone who wants your help. Dad.
She stared at the message. Then she clicked the screen closed, but not before she felt MacNeil behind her. Her reaction had been a split second too late, apparently, for he said, “‘Mina’?”
“He’s the only one who calls me that.” She stood, pushing her chair back with enough force that it bumped into his legs. Probably even ran over his foot. Good. Served him right for peering over her shoulder.
“Or it’s from someone who wants you to believe it’s him.”
“That’s already occurred to me. Anyone could hack into his account, or even force him to write it. But then again, he could have written it himself. I don’t have any way of knowing. Except that not many people would know he calls me ‘Mina.’” She stepped away, around MacNeil, out of the office, into the kitchen, walking as quickly as she could in the small space. She had to get away. She had to think.
“I know what you’re thinking,” came MacNeil’s smooth voice behind her. She’d already taken note in the less than a day since she’d met him that it was always like that: low, cool, unruffled, steady. Really annoying.
“I’m sure you do. You know pretty much everything about me, my life, and my family, don’t you?” More, it seemed, than she did. Marina pushed past him, stalking back toward the living room toward the front door.
She opened it. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not leaving with you—at least not right now. I want some time to myself to figure this out without you shadowing me and popping up behind me every two minutes. My house is secure—you’ve already checked that out—so why don’t you go get something to eat. Come back in a little while. A few hours. Tomorrow. Better yet, next week when I’m gone.”
To her astonishment, he complied. He walked past her—his blue eyes glinted with annoyance, but he did leave. And it sounded like he muttered something about why didn’t she hold on to the amethyst for a while.
He’d be back, no doubt about that, but at least she had a private moment to catch her breath.
Now that she’d received the email purportedly from Dad, though, Marina had to think about the situation more realistically. Was she putting him in danger by working with the CIA? Was he even in danger?
Or had someone else written the message to warn her off?
Of course, they could try and track the email. In fact, Gabe was probably already on his BlackBerry calling Langley to get that process started.
The fact remained, however, that she’d received an email date-stamped only thirty-six hours earlier, telling her not to work with anyone. So someone knew that his disappearance had been noted and quite possibly that the CIA—or someone—would come to Marina.
Thus, there was something about Dad’s disappearance that was cause for concern to more than the CIA.
The knock on her front door deepened her annoyance. Back already. It figured.
Marina pulled the heavy door open and found herself looking up into a shadowed male face she did not recognize.
Instincts took over and she reacted blindly, whipping the door shut with a force that jolted the painting on the wall next to it. Her door was still locked, so when she closed it, it couldn’t be opened from the outside without a key. Thank God.
She started to turn, to run, then stopped. Her nerves were dancing, but the man at the door hadn’t done anything threatening.
He’d just knocked, and she’d opened to someone she didn’t expect to see, and because of Gabe MacNeil, she’d reacted from her gut. Not a very auspicious action. Another skill she would have to hone.
Feeling sheepish, Marina returned to the front door and peeped out of the curtain sidelight.
The man still stood there, but now he was holding a gun.