Flashpoint (17 page)

“What about Dave?” Decker asked.

“He spent the night in the barn—with a bag of saline attached to his arm. He went out when Murphy came in—I told him to be back here at oh-eight-hundred so we could regroup. I thought that would give you enough time to take one of your combat naps.” Jimmy glanced at his watch. It was 7:20. Of course, he’d expected Deck in much earlier than this.

“That’s good,” Deck said. “That’s perfect. I just need to close my eyes for a few minutes. How about you—did you get some sleep?”

“I’m fine,” Jimmy said.
Larry, what exactly happened out there last night?
He didn’t dare ask. Doing so would give Decker permission to ask some decidedly tough questions of his own.

Decker was looking at him, obviously aware that “I’m fine” was not the same as “Yes, I slept.” And yet he didn’t comment. And he wouldn’t comment—as long as Jimmy managed to get his job done.

“Oh, Rivka and Guldana gave their bedroom—third floor—to Tess and me,” Jimmy reported as casually as he possibly could. “We set it up so they’d walk in on us, you know, in the pantry, together, when they came home and . . . Because the third floor’s the only place the phones work, so . . .”

Decker’s reaction was to stand there, just looking at him.

Jimmy kept talking. “I’m going to take advantage of the fact that Tess isn’t using the computer right now and get online and—”

Decker finally spoke. “Do me a favor,” he said. “See what you can find out about Dimitri Ghaffari—is he married, who’s his wife, does he have any business ties to either Michel Lartet or Padsha Bashir, last known street address . . . whatever you can dig up. I currently know jack about the guy.” He turned toward the house with a nod. “Thanks.”

Jimmy just watched as Deck went into the kitchen. But then Deck turned around and came right back out. “That kid, Khalid, is sleeping in my bed.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy said. “I told him to lie down on mine—”

“Because you were filled with an overwhelming desire for head lice?” Decker interrupted. He was seriously pissed, practically popping a vein, and Jimmy knew it had nothing to do with the K-stani boy. “Because it’s been at least two years since you’ve had to be dipped in chemicals and—”

“Because he came here straight from the hospital, where he spent the night with his little brother in the ER waiting room,” Jimmy said quietly.

This was actually something he’d learned from Decker. Lowering his voice was often more effective than raising it. If someone was loud and in his face, sure, he could shout back, but they’d probably just try to shout over him. But if he got really quiet, they’d have to shut up in order to listen.

It didn’t work all the time, but it worked right now. Decker had shut up, but he still looked as if he were seconds from taking Jimmy down into the dirt and pounding the crap out of him.

“Khalid hasn’t slept since the quake,” Jimmy continued now. He should have said,
Why don’t you tell me what you’re really angry about? What happened out there to make you late?
But he didn’t dare. Decker was his partner, his brother, his friend. He’d die for the man, and he knew Decker would do the same for him. But talking . . . putting voice to deep feelings . . . This was something they never did.

So he kept on discussing Khalid. “He came here to pick up his horse and wagon so he could get to work and earn the money his family’s going to need to keep food on the table. In case you haven’t noticed, the cost of living in Kazabek has just gone up—dramatically.”

Deck may have been silent, but the way he was shaking his head broadcast his disbelief loud and clear. “You hired him, didn’t you?” he finally asked.

And
told him that his first assignment was to get some sleep so he was fresh when they needed to get moving, yes. “We need transportation,” Jimmy pointed out. “Khalid’s got a wagon.”

“We don’t know who this kid is, who he’s connected to.”

“Like that’s anything new,” Jimmy countered. “Like Rivka himself wouldn’t sell us out to the highest bidder, if he had the—”

Decker’s eyes were arctic. “We don’t have room on this assignment for you to pick up your usual pack of strays.”

“I’m not—”

“And yet you’ll do it anyway,” Deck cut him off. “You do whatever you fucking want, whenever you fucking want to.”

Whoa.

Jimmy wasn’t often speechless, but he was grateful he was speechless now, because as soon as his brain clicked back on, he knew that getting defensive wasn’t the way to go.

Whatever Decker was pissed off about, it probably didn’t have anything to do with Jimmy. Because there was no real reason for Deck to be pissed with him. Well, okay, except for the part, just a few hours ago, where he’d had unprotected sex with the woman that Decker had a thing for.

Of course, Deck didn’t know about that. Yet.

Jimmy met his friend’s glacial gaze. On the other hand, Deck was a very smart man. He’d no doubt figured it out.

Shit.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said. “But she was all over me. I don’t know why I couldn’t seem to . . .” Stay away from her.

Now the look on Deck’s face was one he’d never seen before—a mix of emotions Jimmy didn’t realize Decker ever allowed himself to feel.

And as Deck opened his mouth, Jimmy knew they were about to go where neither of them had gone before. Decker was going to tell him what had happened out there.

But movement over by the house made them both look up. Tess was standing in the doorway, and from her expression, Jimmy knew she’d been there for the past few minutes. Perfect.
Perfect.

Decker shut his mouth.

“We need transportation, and the kid’s got a horse and wagon,” Jimmy said again, both disappointed and relieved that Decker wasn’t going to spill any of his closely guarded secrets.

“Wake me in forty.” Decker nodded curtly to Tess as he went past her into the house.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

“Word on the street is that Sayid came to Kazabek to meet with one of the local warlords,” Murphy reported.

“Padsha Bashir,” Dave Malkoff agreed.

After Dave had returned, Jimmy woke Decker and Murphy. Tess had quietly followed them out to the barn to talk, because Khalid, the K-stani boy who owned the cart and horse, was still asleep in the kitchen.

It was a good excuse that also took them out of range of their host’s overly attentive ears.

Tess and the others had watched silently as Murphy did a quick but thorough sweep of the brick-and-mud structure, checking to make sure no listening devices had been planted there in the night.

“Yeah,” the huge former Marine said now. There was a little bit of California surfer in his otherwise accentless voice. “That’s the name I kept hearing, too.”

Dude.
Tess couldn’t help smiling as she silently embellished his sentences for him.

But she stopped smiling when he added, “Bashir’s been connected to the GIK for years.”

Because the GIK—a group of Kazbekistani religious extremists—had ties to al-Qaeda. Ties that both sides were working on strengthening, apparently. There was nothing even remotely funny about that.

“There’s a concerted recovery effort still going on over at Bashir’s palace, where a large portion of the roof collapsed,” Dave reported. Although he looked significantly better than he had the day before, he was still pale, and there was a big bruise on the back of his hand from the IV he’d given himself.

While Murphy lounged on a bale of hay, Dave sat up straight, as if he were attending a board meeting. “Sayid’s listed as missing,” he continued. “Rumor has it he was with Bashir at the time of the quake. They both ran in different directions, and no one’s seen Sayid since.”

“Bashir’s palace is well within our five-kilometer radius of the Cantara hospital, where Sayid allegedly died,” Nash said. He was standing, leaning with one shoulder against the wooden wall of the stall, arms casually crossed. “So it fits.”

“It’s not alleged,” Tess volunteered, and they all turned to look at her. Everyone but Jimmy Nash, that is. After this morning, he was probably never going to look at her again. Attempting to talk about their unfortunate . . . encounter had only made things worse.

But it was more than just the flat-out rejection that made her feel so rotten. It was the fact that she’d thought she’d broken the code when it came to reading James Nash. She’d thought she knew him. And she’d actually believed that she’d seen attraction in his eyes when he looked at her.

What a fool.

She’d seen what she wanted to see.

And the truth was, she couldn’t read him any better than she could read Decker. Who was looking at her now, his eyes and face relaying only his default nonexpression.

She was all over me,
she’d heard Jimmy—Nash—telling Deck.

Tess felt her face start to heat with a blush, but she pushed on. She really hadn’t expected Nash to mention anything about their early morning encounter.

Yet he had.

“We received an encrypted email from Tom,” she told her team leader briskly. “He said that Sayid’s body was successfully extracted from K-stan and that he’s been positively IDed. It’s him—he’s definitely dead. Apparently the White House is eager to release that news bulletin, too—they’re going to hold a press conference just short of forty-eight hours from now.”

“At which time the entire world will start scrambling to find Sayid’s fabled laptop,” Nash pointed out. His words were a dire prediction, and he should have looked at least slightly grim, but he didn’t. He looked . . . like Diego Nash, superagent, man of mystery. He’d put on a fresh shirt and had even somehow managed to make his hair look good despite the heat and the lack of water for washing. He was calm and cool and so much in control that he seemed unperturbed by the situation. Tess doubted that he’d slept at all last night, but no one would’ve guessed that from looking at him.

“We need a copy of Sayid’s autopsy report,” Nash continued.

He, too, was talking to Decker—maybe that was how he was going to communicate with her from now on—but Tess spoke up. “Tom sent one, but I haven’t had a chance to download it.”

Nash finally looked at her—which turned out to be even worse than his
not
looking at her. “Excuse me?”

Had this man really had his tongue in her mouth just a few short hours ago?

“I said, Tom sent—”

“I heard what you said. You received the autopsy report, and you didn’t
down
load it?”

It was hard not to get defensive. She had to work her butt off to keep all sorts of embarrassing emotions from ringing in her voice. “I’m sorry. I thought it was enough to know that he was definitely dead.”

Nash started to speak, but stopped himself. When he started again, it was obvious he was keeping himself carefully in control. Or at least she thought that was the case.

But if that really hadn’t been attraction she’d seen in Nash’s eyes even as recently as last night, then Tess had to doubt every assumption she’d ever drawn from this man’s body language, every interpretation she’d made of his words.

“Download everything that Tom Paoletti sends,” he told her as if she were his new mentally challenged secretary, “regardless of whether or not
you
think we need it. And let either Decker or me know the moment it comes in.”

Tess had had only a limited amount of time on a tenuous connection, so downloading an extensive autopsy report had seemed frivolous. But she didn’t attempt to explain. She knew that if she opened her mouth, the demons of hell would come flying out, cackling and screaming. She just clenched her teeth and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Nash’s reaction to that may or may not have been disgusted exasperation.

“Right now we’re only guessing how far Sayid could have traveled to that hospital,” Decker explained to Tess. “The autopsy report will tell us the extent of his injuries and we’ll be able to guess a whole lot more accurately. Getting that info’s a priority.”

Oh, God. “I didn’t realize . . .” Tess stood up. “I can go and—”

“As soon as we’re done here,” Decker said, and she slowly sat back down on the overturned pail she’d claimed as a seat when they’d first come into the barn.

“If Sayid was with Bashir during the quake,” Dave said, “and his laptop is somewhere under the rubble at the palace—”

Decker interrupted him. “I spoke to a woman last night who claimed to be with Bashir when the quake hit. Alone with Bashir. She told me that he was dead. Anyone hear any rumors about—”

“No way.” Dave was absolute. “Padsha Bashir’s not dead. I was outside his palace this morning, and I saw him. He’d been injured, supposedly in the quake, but he was already up and around, surveying the damage, overseeing the recovery effort.”

“You’re certain it was Bashir and not one of his nephews?” Decker sat forward to ask.

“Yes, sir,” Dave said. “He was leaning on a cane, but it was definitely him. At one point, I was only about three feet from him.”

“You got that close to Padsha Bashir?” Murphy started to laugh. “Man, if he saw you—”

“He didn’t see me.”

“He’d have your head, just for being American.”

“He didn’t see me,” Dave repeated.

“You said he was
supposedly
injured in the quake?” Decker asked Dave.

“That’s the story they’re spinning, sir,” Dave replied. “But you know the way the staff always knows what’s really going on in a household?”

“You actually have a connection to someone on Bashir’s staff?” Murphy said. “Quick, call Tom Paoletti, because this man needs a serious raise.”

But Dave shook his head. “I wish I had that kind of connection. I overhead a conversation. Someone who knew someone who worked in the palace laundry. Granted, it’s just a rumor, but it fits with some other information I picked up about how Bashir’s put a huge price on the head of a palace cleaning woman.”

“Hey, I heard that one, too.” Murphy sat up. “Yay, me. A mysterious blue-eyed vixen, right? She used the chaos of the quake to steal some heirloom necklace. It’s got to be one major necklace though, ’cause the reward’s rumored to be a fifty thousand dollars. U.S.”

“That’s no rumor,” Dave told them with complete authority. “It’s fifty thousand, but she has to be brought back alive. If she’s dead, her body’s worth only five.”

“A mysterious, blue-eyed
cleaning
woman?” Tess repeated skeptically.

“You can pretty much translate that as concubine,” Nash informed her. “Padsha Bashir is one of those pious types with lots of rules about how to live—rules that don’t apply to him.”

“Except, no, see, he marries them,” Murphy said. “That makes it okay in his eyes. Of course, he has dozens of quote unquote wives.”

“The news that one of his wives stole from him and ran away from the palace would be just as potentially embarrassing to him as calling her what she really is,” Dave pointed out.

“You’re sure it was a necklace that was stolen?” Decker asked. “Not a ring?”

“I definitely heard necklace,” Dave said.

“Did this woman have a name?” Nash asked. “Perhaps . . . Sophia?”

As Tess watched, Decker looked up and briefly met Jimmy Nash’s gaze. She knew they’d spent a lot of time in K-stan back when they worked for the Agency. Could this woman be someone they both knew?

“I wasn’t paying much attention,” Murphy admitted. “Since it didn’t seem to pertain to Sayid—”

“Sophia, yes. No last name, though,” Dave reported. “Although she was also referred to as Soleil or ‘the Frenchwoman.’ I
did
pay attention, Murph, because of the size of the price on her head, and because she was Western,” he added, almost as if he were apologizing for being so thorough. “It occurred to me, from the size of that reward, that she might not have stolen jewelry from the palace as reported, but that instead she’d taken Sayid’s infamous laptop. If Sayid
was
injured when the roof collapsed at the palace, Bashir would care more about saving that laptop. It’s no secret that he’d love to get his hands on it—any one of the warlords in K-stan would. I thought maybe he had, only to have it taken from
him
. But then I overheard that conversation about how Bashir didn’t get injured in the quake after all, but that he—”

“Was stabbed with his own sword by one of his new wives?” Decker finished for him.

“That’s right,” Dave said, pleased. “You heard that, too?”

“Yeah,” Decker said. “That was . . . Sophia’s story. Although she was under the impression that she’d managed to kill Bashir.”

“Whoa, boss, you know this woman?” Murphy asked. His eyes were dancing with amusement. He was enjoying this meeting immensely. “Man, you guys are both way better at this spooky stuff than I am. I was out almost all night, and I barely managed to rendezvous with my own ass.”

“She didn’t.” Dave brought the discussion back on track. “Kill Bashir.”

“I met her last night,” Decker told them. “Or at least I met someone with blue eyes who claimed to be Sophia. She said that she was in Bashir’s chamber with him when the quake hit.”

“So who is she?” Murphy asked. “Where’d she come from, and what was she doing with Bashir?”

And how was it that Nash—who’d been with Tess instead of out collecting local rumors last night—knew her name?

“I mean, in the bigger sense,” Murphy added. “I can guess what she was probably doing with Bashir at that exact moment, but—”

“All that time, she might have been in possession of that laptop.” Decker was completely distracted. It was as if he didn’t even hear Murphy, as if he were talking to himself. “It never even occurred to me.”

“Yes, well, I’m not so sure about that particular theory anymore, sir,” Dave told him. “I mean, about her having the laptop. If she really did try to kill Bashir, that explains the price on her head. She didn’t have to take anything from the palace to warrant the size of that reward.”

“Is it possible she’s working for someone?” Murphy asked.

Tess looked over at Nash as he shook his head, as if, whoever this Sophia was, he knew her well enough to be certain that she wasn’t working for the Agency, or even the CIA.

It shouldn’t have surprised her one bit that Diego Nash should be on a first-name basis with a concubine. As she watched, he pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

“Whoever she’s working for—if she’s working for anyone—it’s not us,” Dave said with finality. “I was one of the last agents pulled out of K-stan three years ago.”

“Maybe she’s with the French government,” Murphy suggested.

“She’s American.” Nash finally finished unfolding that paper—it was a grainy news photo, from Tess’s portable printer. He handed it to Decker. “Sophia Ghaffari. She’s married to a man who’s part Greek, part French.”

Deck stared at the picture with absolutely no change of expression.

“So maybe she
is
working for France,” Murphy pointed out cheerfully. “Or Greece. Or maybe even Israel or the U.K.—”

“Ghaffari,” Dave repeated. “Ghaffari . . .”

“Is that the woman you met last night?” Nash asked Decker.

He nodded, and when he looked up at Nash, there was a flash of something in his eyes. Anger. Maybe. Or . . . remorse? “It’s her,” he said.

“It’s got to be hard for a woman that strikingly beautiful to hide,” Nash said. “I mean, unless she keeps a burka on at all times. Which, apparently, she didn’t do when she was talking to you. . . .”

Another glance up from Decker.

“You don’t really think an agent would willingly go undercover as one of Padsha Bashir’s wives, do you?” Tess asked Murphy as she sat on her hands to keep from reaching for that picture. She was dying to see Nash’s definition of strikingly beautiful. “Reality check, guys—I mean, even if he didn’t have a reputation for randomly slicing and dicing his friends and family along with his mortal enemies, there aren’t many women on this planet who would be up for that assignment.”

“Actually, I know one or two,” Nash murmured.

Decker looked up at Nash as he passed the picture . . . in the other direction from Tess. To Murphy. “What else did you find out?”