Flashpoint (10 page)

Apparently the language of women’s shoes was universal.

Sophia was wearing a stolen pair of flat leather sandals. They were a size too large on feet that were still swollen and red, sore from her barefoot run from Bashir’s palace. She hoped that the message received from
her
shoes was a warning about possible infectious diseases.

Her own wrists were unadorned. She
was
wearing the ring she still hadn’t managed to pawn—having chosen to arm herself with the ability to offer a bribe as well as one of those deadly looking little handguns she’d stolen. But she wore that ring turned around, the jewels hidden in her palm.

She caught another pointedly amused glance from one of the other women and knew, with some relief, that if a client approached, she wouldn’t be chosen first.

Not that she wouldn’t appreciate the chance to separate some man from his money. Of course, the services rendered would be a knock over the head instead of a roll in the dust.

But as appealing as the idea seemed, she wasn’t here for that.

She was here to watch Michel Lartet’s response to the message she’d sent him—a written message he should be receiving any moment. She wanted to see his reaction to her note, see if he’d gotten wind of the reward that was surely on her head. She was eager to see if the promise of a huge amount of money was enough to bring him into his hated enemy’s camp, or if he would be her salvation.

She was sitting close enough to the main bar to hear Lartet’s booming voice.

He was telling a joke—badly.
A camel, a horse, and a zebra walk into a bar . . .
Lartet loved to tell jokes.

And Dimitri used to tease him mercilessly—the two men had been close friends—for always blowing the punch lines.

Sophia sat, with her hands in front of her on the table, ring carefully hidden, and waited.

After Jimmy finished tucking Khalid’s horse into bed in Rivka’s barn, he came into a kitchen that was decidedly empty.

Dave Malkoff was out in the stable. Clutching a bucket, he’d crawled into an empty stall to sleep, still terribly sick.

Tess had worried he’d be uncomfortable sleeping in the barn, but ol’ Dave had been adamant about it. Jimmy had pulled Tess off the man when she’d looked as if she was settling in for a fight. He recognized where Dave’s head was at. He knew that the only thing worse than being wicked-ass, groaning sick was to be wicked-ass, groaning sick within earshot of teammates. Teammates whose eyes Dave wanted to be able to look into over the next few weeks without wondering if they’d heard those nasty noises he was going to be making all night long.

Although, to be honest, each time Dave gave the old heave-ho, within earshot or not, Jimmy’s respect for the man only climbed higher.

Jimmy had checked on him one last time after kissing Marge-the-gelding good night, and had found him sticking a needle into his arm. Dave was so freaking sick, he was actually giving himself an IV. It was just a saline drip to keep him from getting dehydrated, but still.

“I’ll be okay by morning,” Dave had said, looking up at Jimmy from the floor. The man was wrapped in blankets and shivering despite the eighty-five-degree Fahrenheit sweatfest they were enduring. “Don’t tell Decker.”

Jimmy sighed as he shook his head. “I
am
Decker,” he told Dave.

Who didn’t understand. Of course, his teeth
were
about to rattle out of his head.

Jimmy spelled it out for him. “If I see or hear something, it’s going to get back to Decker. There are no exceptions to that rule. If you’re looking to hide something from Deck, you better hide it from me, too. I should also point out that hiding something—or trying to hide something—from Deck is the quickest way to find your ass. Because it’ll be on the next flight home. You follow?”

Dave nodded. And took a deep breath, obviously ready to list the top ten reasons why it would be a mistake to ship him off to the nearest hospital.

Jimmy didn’t let him make a single sound. “On the other hand, arguing with me is not the same as arguing with Deck, so save it for when you see him. Which, incidentally, probably won’t be until tomorrow morning.”

There was so much relief in Dave’s eyes at that news, it was as if Jimmy had told him that power was out, making the electric chair non-operational.

“If you look like this in the morning—,” Jimmy continued.

“I won’t,” Dave said.

Jimmy rephrased. This guy had bowling balls. “If you
feel
like this in the morning—”

“I’m feeling better already.” Dave forced a smile. It was a worthy effort that was completely blown by his having to lunge for his bucket.

“I’ll check on you later.” Jimmy left Dave to his private conversation with the bottom of that plastic pail.

He passed Murphy going out as he went into Rivka’s tidy house. Curfew, shmurfew. In fact, the curfew was a good thing. It would keep the streets clear of innocent civilians. Anyone out and sneaking about in the night was either dangerous or very dangerous.

Deck himself had ninja-ed out after helping Jimmy lock Khalid’s wagon in the yard. Like Murphy, he was going into the heart of Kazabek to try to touch base with his various contacts, get a read on what the street people were talking about—not just the news but the rumors. You could learn a lot from rumors, if you knew how to read them.

Although Decker also had an additional agenda—to locate and talk to this Dimitri Ghaffari guy. Jimmy had no doubt that Deck was going to get right on top of that special assignment from Tom Paoletti.

Jimmy was a little jealous as he washed the day’s grime from his face in Rivka’s kitchen sink. He’d be getting ready to break curfew and go out himself if Rivka had been home or if Dave hadn’t been so sick. But he wasn’t about to leave Tess alone in an empty house.

Of course this meant that he and Tess were alone together in an empty house.

She’d already gone behind the curtain, into the tiny pantry where Rivka had cleared just enough space for her to put her sleeping bag. If Jimmy was lucky, she was already asleep.

But the curtain moved—these days his luck was for shit—and she came out into the kitchen.

“Okay,” she announced. “I’m ready.”

Jimmy stared at her. She was dressed in basic evening black—minus the heels and pearls.

Black pants, black shirt, black nylon shoulder holster, black cammy paint covering up all those freckles . . .

Pippi Goes Commando.

He laughed. “No, you’re not. Go wash your face and get ready for bed.” Hindsight, which came immediately after he spoke, made him realize that just a little more finesse might’ve allowed him to avoid the shit storm that was now bearing down on him at high speed.

“Excuse me?” Tess said.

If real life had a sound track, that song that went, “You’re not the boss of me, now,” would have been playing. At a very high volume.

“Tess. Come on. You’re exhausted,” he said, even though it rarely worked to play the “Let’s be rational” card after laughing in someone’s face.

She stepped closer, close enough to kiss him—or to speak without being overheard. “So’s Deck and Murphy,” she pointed out practically inaudibly. “They’ve both gone to do their jobs. I’m going to do mine.”

She would have moved away, but he caught her arm. “Your job is to not get yourself thrown into prison on the first night we’re in Kazabek,” he told her in less than a whisper, his mouth near her ear. “Your job is to still be in one working piece if and when we find . . . what we’re looking for.” The laptop. He was not going to use the L-word. Not ever. Not aloud.

Tess pulled free, held up one finger, then disappeared back behind the curtain. She came out seconds later carrying what looked like a dictating machine—one of those little handheld jobs that used miniature cassette tapes. She pressed the button and a conversation between two people—a man and a woman—began playing.

Hey, that was his voice. And hers, too. What the hell?

He heard the Tess on tape mention the latest Tom Hanks movie, and he realized she must’ve taped the conversation they’d had at the airport. They’d had an extremely innocuous discussion about their favorite movies while they’d waited to board the plane—while Jimmy had tried not to think about that night he’d spent with Tess. Usually he enjoyed his memories of intimacies shared, but this time those thoughts made him feel restless.

She now set the tape player down on the table and stepped closer to him, but not as close as they’d been before.

Which was something of a shame.

“My job includes getting our computer system up and running,” she said in a low voice as, on the tape, she chattered on about
Forrest Gump
. Anyone listening in would hear only that taped conversation. “With Internet access. We need communications, too. In case you didn’t notice, both of our sat-com radios didn’t make it over here. If I can get a satellite dish placed somewhere high enough, I can rig a comm system with our phones. We’ll be able to keep in touch with one another as well as Tom—provided we’re in range of the dish. This is important, Jimmy. And it’s not something I can do when the sun’s up.”

“Well, I’m sorry.” Jimmy tried to look it. It was hard. He was distracted by his own voice making some totally lame joke about Wilson the Volleyball in
Castaway
deserving the best supporting Oscar. On the tape, Tess’s answering laughter sounded much too polite. “But Decker thought it would be best if you used tonight to depressurize. Get your feet underneath you, get some rest.”

Her eyebrows had lifted, and she looked amused. “Decker said that?”

“Yes,” he lied. “While we were locking down the cart. Out in the back.”

“You know, that’s odd, because I spoke to Decker, too, right before he left. And he gave me an absolute thumbs-up to go out and get that portable sat-dish in place.” Tess swung a black backpack off her shoulder. “He even gave me this to carry it in.”

Oh, crap. That was indeed Deck’s bag. But . . . “You’ve actually got a sat-dish in there?”

“It folds. It’s made from a special fabric, kind of like a kite,” she told him. “There’s a frame that opens up and snaps into place.”

It was funny. This techno stuff—even just talking about it briefly like this—really turned her on. Tess Bailey was a true technogeek.

“The heaviest part of it is the power pack,” she was telling him. “The whole thing’s ultralightweight.”

She’d been all lit up, just like that, two months ago when he’d raced her down the hallway to her bedroom.

“How do you anchor it?” Jimmy asked now. “What happens in a windstorm?”

“It’s been known to fly away,” she admitted. “But really, it more than makes up for that by being so easy to replace.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Jimmy scoffed, purposely dissing her glorious new technology. It worked to make her take a step back, away from him.

Which was a good thing, because whenever she stood so close, he had the urge to drop to his knees and beg her for a replay. And maybe even tell her the truth about why he’d never called her back: Because he’d wanted to call her. And hadn’t
that
scared him to death. . . .

“We’re coming up on dust storm season,” he told her instead. “Usually there’s only one per week, but this time of year there could be three or four. Or one long one that lasts six days.”

“Like any piece of equipment, this system has got its disadvantages as well as advantages,” she said. “I’ll have to check it regularly and replace it when necessary. Personally, if I’m going to climb up the side of a building, I’d rather not be carrying a traditional sat-dish.”

Climb up the side of . . .

Tess shouldered the bag, ready to head for the door.

Okay. Moment of truth. Should he stick to his claim that he spoke to Deck in the yard, call her bluff, and accuse her of being the one who was lying? It was so obvious that her story wasn’t any more real than his, despite the fact that she had Deck’s bag. It was just her style to ask to borrow it without telling Deck exactly what she wanted to use it for.

But before he could decide, she injected just the right amount of doubt in his mind by looking him directly in the eye and saying, “Deck said he wanted you to go with me. I told him I didn’t need a babysitter, I know exactly where I’m going to place this—I took a look down the street when I was helping unload the wagon. There’s an abandoned Catholic church not far from here that seems to have the right height to it. But he insisted. He doesn’t want me doing this alone. Not the first time, he said. Which, okay, I can respect that. I don’t necessarily agree, but . . . I know you’re tired, Jimmy. I am, too. But Deck really does want our computers up and running as soon as possible.”

Damn, she was good.
Not the first time.
That really sounded like something Decker would say. And then to end it with that little challenge.
I know you’re tired, Jimmy.

Yeah, he was tired and his feet freaking ached—that twelve-mile late-night stroll had really put the frosting on his pain cake—but he wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep anyway. Damn it, after this afternoon, it was possible he was never going to sleep again.

Jimmy knew that he didn’t move an inch, but something he did—or maybe it was something he didn’t do—made Tess’s eyes soften. She actually touched him, her fingers surprisingly cool against his face.

Cool, but far too fleeting. Jimmy didn’t catch her hand, though. He didn’t touch her at all.

“Thank you for being so great out there today,” she said. “That was . . . challenging in so many ways.”

No fucking kidding.

“You were wonderful with Khalid and Amman,” she continued. “I just . . . I was impressed.”

Wonderful. Great. Yeah, he was terrific—he had a real way with kids who were still alive. But today, too many hadn’t survived.

“Decker told me it was okay to cry,” she said, almost too quietly.

Did she honestly think . . . ? Yes, she did. He’d let her get too close once before, and now she thought . . .

Jimmy knew, without a doubt, that now was the perfect time to tell her. “Decker told
me
that if you weren’t on his team, if you didn’t work for Troubleshooters Incorporated, he’d be chasing you down the street.”