Flashpoint (23 page)

Foolishly in love.

Much like the Kazabek Grande Hotel, Sophia would look the same now, too, to someone who had known her seven years or even two months ago. Prettier than she had a right to be for a woman with a brain, as Michel Lartet had so often told her.

But inside, she was structurally damaged.

Had she escaped certain death this morning thanks to the whim of that American? Or had she survived only because he didn’t fully comprehend the enormity of the reward Bashir’s nephews had surely posted for her return?

Or had his intention all along been to help her—help he would have given regardless of whether she serviced him, help he no longer cared to provide after she’d tried to put a bullet in his brain?

Had she lost her chance to be rescued because she’d forgotten what it was like to live in a world where heroes still existed, where help came for free?

Oh, how she wanted to go home.

But her home was inhabited by strangers.

And Dimitri was dead.

She’d come the closest she’d ever come today to her own death. All day, as she alternately ran through the city or hid, sleeping only in brief snatches, she thought about that moment in the hotel bathroom, where she had been ready to choose immediate death over return to Bashir’s palace.

Right now, that choice was hers to make any time, at any given moment.

She had a handful of bullets for each of those two guns the American had returned to her. But she’d need only one.

Well, two, actually.

One for Michel Lartet.

Killing him would be easy enough to do.

In theory, at least.

Sophia sat and watched the volunteers at the mosque set up a sign bidding all in need to enter.

She knew that inside the walls of this mosque, her desire to spend the night covered by her robe and veil would be respected.

But the thought of spending the night completely covered—in this suffocating heat—was unpleasant.

Still, she needed water. Food.

She would have both of those things here.

What she wouldn’t find was a place to lay her head where her heart wasn’t filled with fear.

It was only a matter of time before Bashir’s men started searching these shelters, looking for her. And unlike the Muslim clerics, they would not hesitate before tearing off a woman’s veil.

If she went to the Grande, she could sleep undisturbed—provided the building didn’t fall.

She’d have access to Western clothes there—assuming the boutique in the lobby hadn’t gone out of business in the past two months. The hotel also had a store that sold bottled water, so she’d have plenty to drink, as well as sundries.

She’d always loved that American word—sundries.

Aspirin and cold medicine and toothpaste. Things travelers might’ve forgotten to pack. Makeup and breath mints and hair care products. Shampoo and blow dryers.

Hair dye.

Sophia got up slowly, careful not to jar her side, to aggravate her most recent collection of bruises, and started to walk. Away from the mosque’s promised sanctuary. Toward the Grande Hotel. She could get inside easily, despite the guards and the area’s restrictions.

She knew a way in through an underground tunnel that began in the basement of the Sulayman Bank Building, seven blocks to the south. The bank owner’s son, Uqbah, had visited Minneapolis during a trip to the United States and had come home raving over the underground system that allowed people to get around the city, untouched by inclement weather. He’d built a private route, traversable via golf cart, from his office to his favorite lunchtime spot at the Kazabek Grande Hotel.

Because it just wouldn’t do for a sandstorm to keep him from his afternoon dalliance with his mistress.

They’d lunched together many times. Dimitri, Sophia, Uqbah, and his beautiful friend, Gennivive LeDuc, who lived in a suite right there at the hotel.

A devoted People’s Party member whose message was diluted by his failure to cease his wasteful personal overspending, Uqbah had been killed in the days following the overthrow of the government and the warlords’ return to power.

Weeks earlier, Genny LeDuc had packed her bags and left Kazabek on the same flight that took the American ambassadors to safety. She’d sent Sophia a postcard from the south of France.

Some people had all the luck.

With Sophia’s current string of bad luck, the Kazabek Grande would fall the moment she set foot in the formerly opulent lobby.

Still, as far as death went, she preferred that to a beheading.

And it was far less definite in terms of being life-ending than a bullet from the barrel of her own gun. There was a chance that the hotel wouldn’t fall at all, that she’d get in and out while the building still stood, that she would survive.

Even though she had to hurry to get to the financial district before curfew, she chose not to take a short cut, going instead through Saboor Square.

Automatically checking the wall where she’d made her mark with a piece of limestone and . . .

Sophia stopped.

She wasn’t supposed to stop. She knew that. It brought attention both to her and to the mark on the wall—to this entire method of covert communication. To follow procedure, she should walk right past. Circle around and walk past again if she needed to, never giving the code on the wall more than a cursory glance.

But she was out of breath from hurrying, pain burning her side, and she bent down, pretending to adjust her sandal.

She had to count bricks, make sure she was checking the right one. It had been so long, and of course the brick she was supposed to use for her message changed, depending on the date.

But that was indeed the mark she’d left several days ago—a vertical line on the twelfth brick from the end, seventh up from the ground.

And that was definitely a horizontal line, bisecting hers.

An answering mark.

In years past, before the United States government and the U.N. had pulled out of Kazbekistan, leaving the people at the mercy of the warlords, that answering mark had meant she should check the side of the butcher’s shop. Made of wood rather than bricks or stone, this was the neighborhood’s bulletin board. In a society where most people still didn’t have telephones, everything from legal notices to birth announcements to scribbled reminders to pick up fresh vegetables on the way home from work was posted there.

Sophia would look for a message tacked to that wall that started with the words “Lost dog. Answers to the name Spot.” The message would contain a time and location—a place where she and her unnamed CIA contact would meet.

She’d scribble an answering note right on the sheet. “I have found your dog,” meant she’d be there. “American, go home!” meant she couldn’t risk meeting him then.

But in the aftermath of the earthquake, the butcher’s wall was covered with flyers posted by people who were searching for missing family members. A message about a lost dog wouldn’t last long. It would be pulled down to make room for more important matters.

Which was no doubt why, two bricks over, written in chalk on today’s brick in fact, was a small Arabic numeral nine and the letter T, with a square around both of them.

Nine o’clock. At the Tea Room, here in Saboor Square.

They’d met there many times, she and her CIA friend.

Sophia made herself start walking again. She forced herself to keep breathing. She was feeling light-headed from lack of food, from fatigue, from pain. And from sudden overabundance of hope.

It was entirely possible that her worthless, battered ass was about to be saved.

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

Jimmy was lying on a bale of hay, arm throw up and over his eyes, when Tess brought three cups of coffee into Rivka’s barn. She set one down nearby, careful not to disturb him, and he didn’t let on that he wasn’t asleep.

“You okay?” she asked Decker quietly as she handed him a cup.

Deck smiled. Shook his head. Laughed. He was obviously still embarrassed as hell. “I don’t know. I hate waiting. I’m not very good at it. And I’m . . . pretty nervous.”

Tess glanced over at Jimmy again before she sat down cross-legged next to Decker, right there on the dusty floor. “Maybe I should’ve made decaf.”

“No, this is great,” Deck said. “This is . . .” Jimmy could see the muscle in his jaw jump as he made himself meet her gaze. “Very nice of you. Thank you.”

“Dave’ll find Sophia and bring her back here,” Tess reassured him.

Deck forced another smile and said, “I know. He’s been a valuable asset to this team.”

They were both so freaking unbelievably nice. In fact, they were
the
top two genuinely nicest human beings Jimmy had ever met, and had this been another time and another place, he might’ve given in to the urge to shout at the pair of them to give up and just go get married, for the love of God.

How could Tess not see that Decker was crazy about her?

But now was probably not the time to put that topic of discussion out on the table.

Not after Decker had announced, right smack during a meeting no less, that he’d had a sexual encounter—holy shit—with Sophia Ghaffari that very morning, during a power struggle that had gotten out of hand.

And sainted Mary, Mother of God, how hard had
that
been to do? To stand there in front of an audience that included Tess Bailey and . . .

He’d told an almost no-detail version of what had happened, putting the blame on himself.

“I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you,” Deck had said, “but Tess had to know why I need her to be in the room with me when Dave brings Sophia back here tonight. I didn’t want there to be any surprises. What I did was stupid and wrong—”

Tess cut him off. Her cheeks had been tinged with pink that Jimmy had first thought was from embarrassment. “What
she
did was wrong. You said no.”

Decker shook his head. “Apparently not with enough conviction.”

Tess was unconvinced. And very fierce. That was anger coloring her cheeks. Anger at Sophia. “No means no. Why should the rules be different for women than they are for men?”

“I should have walked away,” Decker said, refusing to forgive himself.

“Yes,” Tess agreed. “You should have. But she shouldn’t have—”

Decker cut her off. “She did what she did because she felt threatened. I should have figured that out. She’s not the bad guy here.”

“You aren’t either,” Jimmy had told him, but it was pretty obvious that Deck didn’t believe him.

“He told me he’s hoping to get a permanent assignment as part of your team,” Tess told Decker now. They were still talking about Dave Malkoff.

“He should be leading his own team,” Decker countered.

“He doesn’t want to,” Tess said. “And he’s vehement about it.” She laughed. “You would have thought I was suggesting he stick needles in his eyes. I was, like, ‘Keep breathing, Dave—no one’s going to force you to be a team leader if you don’t want to be one.’ ”

The barn started to shake. Aftershock.

“I guess he doesn’t want the responsibility.” Deck laughed, but it was without humor. “Right about now, I can’t say I blame him.”

They were all getting blasé about the aftershocks that regularly rocked the city. Jimmy didn’t bother to move as Decker stood and hung the kerosene lantern from a hook on one of the overhead beams. It could hang there and swing without any danger of being knocked over.

“I think it’s because he knows his own strengths and weaknesses,” Tess told Deck as the world stopped shaking. “Dave’s very good at some things, but his people skills really do need work. He doesn’t inspire supreme confidence across the board—the way you do.”

Decker was silent, just looking at her, rubbing his forehead as if he had one bitch of a headache. He glanced over at Jimmy, as if trying to decide whether he really was asleep.

So Jimmy moved his foot. Just a little. Just enough to let Decker know that he was conscious and listening.

“What happened this morning was, um—,” Decker started, but then stopped and swore softly.

Tess was holding her own mug of coffee with both hands. “You don’t owe anyone an explana—”

“I don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t want you to think that I make a habit of—”

“I don’t,” she said. “Deck, believe me, no one does. But even if you did, so what? If it was Jimmy who . . . Well, does anyone think less of James because he
does
make a habit of—”

“Yes,” Decker said. “There are definitely people who think less of him.
I
think less of him for the way he treated you.”

Tess was silent.

Jimmy had his eyes closed—he was barely even breathing at this point. He knew that Deck was disappointed in him, but it was still remarkable how much it stung to hear him speak those words.
I think less of him. . . .

He sensed more than saw Tess glance over at him. When she finally spoke, she’d lowered her voice.

“I knew exactly who he was when I invited him in that night,” she told Decker. “Don’t you dare think that he took advantage of me, because he didn’t. If anything, I took advantage of him. It’s just . . . things don’t always work out the way you plan, you know? Sophia—she did what she did because she wanted to get her gun in her hand. But she didn’t factor shooting and missing into her plan. There were things about my night with James that I didn’t factor in either. I didn’t expect to like him so much—to keep on liking him after we, you know, hooked up. I thought there’d be an ick factor—like, he’d be all fake and, I don’t know, smarmy, I guess. And then I’d be kind of relieved when he left in the morning. But . . .” She laughed. “I liked him. I still like him. He’s . . .”

Jimmy held his breath.

“Sweet,” she said.

What? It took everything he had not to laugh out loud. That was like calling an alligator cuddly.

“It sounds stupid,” Tess continued, “but he is. He tries to hide it but . . . he’s a good person, a good man. And he’s in bigger trouble than you know, by the way.”

“Actually,” Decker said, “he’s way better off than I thought.”

Jimmy had expected him to question her. Trouble? What the fuck? He wasn’t in
trouble
. But saying that he was better off than Decker thought? What did
that
mean?

Shit.

“But talk about things I didn’t factor in,” Tess said. “I never in a million years expected to be working so closely with him again. With either of you.”

They fell silent then, just sipping their coffee. Jimmy could smell the cup Tess had brought out for him. He wanted it, but he couldn’t possibly sit up now.

“I’m sorry I agreed to let you come here,” Decker said quietly.

“I’m not,” she said. No hesitation. But again she laughed. “Jimmy probably is, though.”

She was right. Jimmy was very,
very
sorry. About too many things to count.

“I pretty much threw myself at him this morning,” she told Decker. “He’s not . . . He didn’t want to, but we were trying to make it look like . . . and I took it too far. God.” She laughed. Or maybe this time it was a sigh. “You’re not the only one capable of making stupid mistakes, you know. We didn’t even have a condom. It was beyond stupid, and now he’s completely freaked out. About everything.”

How could she sit there and tell Deck about that? Did she get off on twisting him totally into a knot? God
damn
, Jimmy had told her that Deck had a thing for her and . . .

But, of course, she now assumed Jimmy had been wrong. It wouldn’t occur to her that Deck was nuts about her despite the fact that he’d gone and let Padsha Bashir’s runaway bride give him a face dance. It wouldn’t occur to her that it was, in fact—in Jimmy’s mind at least—proof positive of Decker’s deep affection for Tess.

Decker was silent. Probably drawing and quartering Jimmy in his mind.

“Will you do me a favor?” Tess asked him. “When he wakes up, will you reassure him that it’s never going to happen again? I was half asleep and . . . He’s made it really clear that he’s not interested, so . . .”

“Yeah,” Decker said. “I’ll make sure he knows.”

“Thanks. We’re all under a lot of stress—you even more than the rest of us. I just . . . I wanted you to know that you’re not the only one who’s had a lapse in judgment.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I am aware of that. It seems to be contagious.”

Jimmy heard her stand up. “I’m going to get more coffee. Want anything from the kitchen?”

“No,” he said. “I’m good. Thanks.”

Jimmy heard Tess walk across the barn, heard the door open and then close behind her.

“You know,” Decker told him, before he, too, stood up and walked away, “you’re an even bigger asshole than I am.”

There was a light burning in the barn.

Sophia saw it from the yard and hesitated just inside the gate. If she could see it, the police patrols could, too.

But then she realized that it was okay. These people weren’t hiding. They were allowed to be here. They could have the lights on.

The man behind her touched her arm. Until he’d spoken to her after materializing like a sudden apparition in the Tea Room’s outdoor garden, she hadn’t recognized him as the short-haired CIA agent in the ill-fitting dark suits she’d dealt with all those years ago. But the sound of his voice had erased her doubt that the two radically different looking men were one and the same.

“I’d like to introduce you to our Kazbekistani hosts only after we get you cleaned up and dressed in American clothing,” he—Dave—said now.

Yes. That was smart. Sophia saw that there was a light coming from the house, too. The door to the kitchen was open, and she could see people moving around inside.

Their hosts. As in K-stani citizens. Did they support Padsha Bashir? They probably did. Most Kazbekistanis kept their heads down and supported whoever was currently in power. Supporting the opposition could get a person killed.

There was a lot in Kazabek that could get a person killed. Like standing in a yard and catching the attention of people with an allegiance only to keeping their families alive. People whose lives would be changed by the blood money from a warlord’s hefty reward.

She had to keep alert. She wasn’t out of danger, not by any means.

“I’ll need to color my hair before I meet anyone.” Sophia spoke just as softly as he had.

“We’ve already thought of that,” he told her. “We’ve got everything we need to darken your hair right in the barn.”

We.

“Who’s we?” she asked. She should have asked before this. But she had been so relieved to see him, she’d actually fallen into his arms and hugged him like a long lost brother. And when he’d told her they needed to get to safety, that he had a place they could go to talk, she’d followed.

“We’ll talk inside,” he said, gesturing toward the barn with his head.

So she followed Dave again—he’d actually told her his name, which either meant the CIA had had a policy change, or he was no longer with that particular alphabet agency—silently across the yard.

The barn door opened, and an American woman was there to help hurry her inside. Through her heavy veil, Sophia caught only a glimpse of a round female face, a face that looked as if it could belong to Shirley Temple’s even sweeter granddaughter.

A quick glance around revealed that they were sharing this barn with a tired-looking horse. It was a rustic building, part wood, mostly stone and clay. A lamp hung from one of the beams, and the light didn’t shine into the far reaches of the barn. Still, she could see that there was someone—a man—sitting back in the shadows.

“Who’s we?” she asked again. She sensed more than saw someone else behind her, someone besides Dave, hidden from her view by the folds of her burka and this blasted veil.

“Friends,” Dave told her. “We’re friends.”

“My name is Tess,” the woman told her. “The first thing I’d like to do is take you into one of the horse stalls, sit you down, and see if you need medical attention. Is that all right with you?”

“You’re safe here.” Dave’s familiar voice came from behind her again. “You can take off your veil.”

“She’s probably a little overwhelmed,” Tess told him—understatement of the century. She moved directly in front of Sophia, making sure she could be seen. “I’m sure you’ll take it off when you’re ready.” She smiled. “It’s very warm in here, and I apologize for that, but all the doors and windows are shut so no one can see in. No one can see you. You
are
safe now.”

Sophia realized she was clinging to her veil with one hand. Her other was hidden in the folds of her robe, wrapped around the larger of her two guns, finger on the trigger.

Tess kept on talking, her voice musical and reassuring. “I’m not a medic, unfortunately. I can really only handle basic first aid. Scrapes and the like. Murphy’s our medicine man. He’s very good. A former Marine—”

“No such thing,” a new voice, a man’s voice interrupted, not from behind her, where Dave still was, but from the side. She hadn’t seen anyone over there. He, too, moved so that she could see him. He was racially mixed, very tall and wide, with a smile that was nearly as friendly as Tess’s. “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

“My bad,” Tess said with a conspiratorial smile for Sophia. “Murph’s a Marine. I know you’re probably not thrilled at the idea of a male medic—I wouldn’t be—but I’ll stay with you. Okay? You’re safe here. In every way.”

Sophia found her voice. “I don’t need medical attention.”

Tess stepped to the side to start leading her toward the back of the barn, but Sophia could hear the smile in the younger woman’s voice. “Good. That’s good to hear. We don’t have a lot of water to spare, so we can’t offer you more than a sponge bath, but I do have some clothes I can lend you. They’ll be a little large—I’m bigger than you—but they’re clean.”