Flashpoint (9 page)

He picked out a necklace then, too, giving the woman that roll of nickels he’d gotten from the bookstore in the San Diego airport. Tess had puzzled over that for a long time on the flight. What on earth did Jimmy Nash want with forty nickels?

Now she understood.

Those coins were what this woman used to make her jewelry. She must melt them down and . . .

Jimmy had asked the woman something, gesturing toward one of the children. The woman pulled the child closer—a dark-haired little boy who couldn’t have been more than four years old.

As Tess watched, Jimmy greeted the boy, even shook his hand. He then passed out candy bars to all of the children. He had only three, but none of them complained about having to share the treat.

“He is my sister’s child,” Tess heard the woman said to Jimmy in heavily accented English, glancing back at the littlest boy. “He doesn’t speak American. His mother is very sick. He doesn’t know it, but he will soon be my child.”

“Doesn’t he have a father?”

“His father died in the same factory explosion that killed my husband.”

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy told her. “Just what you need—another mouth to feed.”

“He is a gift from God,” she said quietly. “With a very small mouth.” The smile she gave him was tremulous. “And I now have rice enough to fill it. Bless you for your kindness and charity.”

“There’s no kindness or charity here,” Jimmy told her, almost as if she’d insulted him. “Just fair payment.”

But Tess and the K-stani woman both knew otherwise.

Jimmy was looking at Tess now, eyes filled with concern in that face that he’d gotten dinged up, probably on purpose. “You okay?” he asked. “You kind of zoned off for a second there.”

“Yeah. Yes. I’m fine. I was just thinking about . . .” She didn’t want him to know that she’d seen him giving away that rice. He would be embarrassed. And he would also think she’d been following him, which she had been. Sort of. Not the way he’d think, but she would end up embarrassed, too. She stood up. “I should get back to work. You should, too.”

“Yeah.” He just stood there, looking at her, as if he were going to say something more. But he didn’t.

“This sucks,” she finally said. “I never imagined anything could be this bad.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to Kazbekistan,” Jimmy said. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into catching the next flight home?”

“Not a chance,” Tess said.

His smile touched his eyes. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Sophia was getting robbed.

The pawnshop owner put the ring down on the counter. “Two hundred. That’s my final offer.”

“Kind sir.” Sophia kept her voice even, low, respectful. Disguised. She’d done business with him before—months ago. She was grateful now for the burka and veil that covered all but her eyes. He was a bastard and a thief, and if she could have, she would have gone somewhere else. Anywhere else. But his was the only shop open. Probably for this very reason—so he could have his turn thieving from the thieves who had used the quake’s aftershocks exactly as she had.

Sophia had used the second aftershock to steal a robe and burka, some pillows and blankets, jewelry, food, candles, and even a nifty little pair of his and hers handguns from an undamaged house in a well-to-do neighborhood.

The Kazbekistani family who lived there all ran outside when the walls again began to shake, so she’d slipped in through the open back door. As they’d stood in the street with their neighbors, talking, shouting, a baby crying, dogs barking, she’d helped herself to things they probably wouldn’t even notice were gone.

Well, except for this ring. “The value of this ring is a thousand times that.”

“Two hundred,” he said again. “Take it or leave it.”

Sophia needed cash, lots of it, if she was going to buy the false papers and ID cards she’d need to get out of Kazbekistan.

But she needed, even more, for her head to remain attached to her neck.

If she caved in to this pawnbroker’s insulting offer, he would know how truly desperate she was. She might stand out in his mind. Yes, she was wearing a heavy veil, but her eyes were blue. And while blue-eyed Kazbekistanis were not unheard of, they were certainly noteworthy.

And if word of a blue-eyed thief got back to Padsha Bashir’s nephews, they’d know she was still in Kazabek. The only reason she hadn’t fled into the mountains was this ridiculous sense of hope—that the Western relief workers flooding the city meant that the American embassy would soon open its long-closed doors. That old friends might finally return and provide the help she desperately needed.

But each time she checked, the doors to the old embassy building in Saboor Square were still boarded shut.

Without another word, Sophia took the ring from the counter, pulled the burka’s heaviest screen over her eyes, and went out into the street.

Tess was already sleeping in the back as Jimmy climbed up and into the driver’s seat of Khalid’s wagon.

She was asleep sitting up, leaning back against the hard wooden sideboards, Dave Malkoff’s head in the softness of her lap, her hand in Dave’s hair.

Dave had his eyes closed, too. His food poisoning was significantly more severe than he’d let anyone believe, and Jimmy couldn’t help feeling respect for the man. Dave had worked tirelessly all day, without a single complaint, as they’d dug more than six hundred surviving boys out of that basement bomb shelter. He’d just stepped aside, dropped to his hands and knees, and quietly communed with the dust and dirt when necessary.

In the past, when Jimmy had done the food poisoning tango himself, he’d been able to do little more than lie in bed and moan. So, okay, yeah. He was impressed. And a little jealous of that hand in the hair thing. Jealous and impressed. By Dave Malkoff. It was surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Vinh Murphy climbed up beside him, and the ancient cart creaked and groaned under the big man’s weight. “Yo, Nash, you really know how to drive this thing?”

“Yes, I do.”

Murphy looked at him and laughed. His eyes actually twinkled—a giant Asian-African-American leprechaun. “Yeah, right.”

Murphy had two basic modes. Silent and watchful, which played to most of the world as just this side of comatose, and amused. It was hard not to laugh, too, when Murphy was laughing, probably because he wasn’t ever mean-spirited. Murphy didn’t laugh
at
anyone—he laughed at the world around them.

“You know, Khalid had no trouble believing me,” Jimmy told him.

“Khalid is, like, twelve years old. Besides, he wanted to go to the hospital with his brother,” Murphy pointed out. “You could’ve told him you were the Queen of England, man, and he would’ve kissed your ring and asked you for a knighthood.”

Khalid had wept with joy when Amman had been carried from the basement with nothing more serious than a sprained wrist and a bad case of dehydration. He’d needed to go to the hospital to get checked out, but the little boy wouldn’t stop clinging to his brother’s neck.

Jimmy had suggested Khalid trust him to drive his horse cart to Rivka’s house, where they were planning to stay. Khalid could go to the hospital with his brother and pick up both horse and cart the next morning.

The boy had extracted a number of promises from Jimmy. He promised to feed and care for the horse and to lock up the cart in Rivka’s yard. He also promised that he’d handled a horse and cart before.

“Okay, James,” Decker called softly to him now from the back of the wagon. “We’re good to go.”

“Yeah, James,” Murphy said. “Pedal to the metal, man. I told Angelina I’d try to call her tonight, and cell towers are still down in this part of Kazabek. I’m hoping something’s been restored in the wealthier part of the city.”

“Don’t count on it.” Jimmy smacked the reins loosely against the back of Khalid’s horse, Marge. As in Marge Simpson. Hooray for satellite TV.

Marge glanced back at him in mild annoyance, but otherwise stood there.

Come on. He’d seen it done this way in the movies. Jimmy tried again. “Giddyap.”

The horse’s ears flickered. He—Marge was a gelding, go figure—didn’t even bother with the WTF look this time.

Murphy knew when it was not a good idea to laugh.

“So, okay,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I was exaggerating a little.”

Murphy turned toward the back. “Maybe we should wake up Tess. She’s from Iowa—”

“She hasn’t lived in Iowa since she was ten,” Jimmy said. “And believe it or not, there are a lot of people in Iowa who’ve never even touched a horse.”

“She told me she was from Greendale. That’s farm country.”

“Yeah, but she lived in town,” Jimmy told the big ex-Marine. “Her father worked at the public library. Right on Main Street. Not a horse in sight.”

Although she did have both a swing and a porch to swing from on that house in Greendale. God. Green-freaking-dale, Iowa.

“Maybe she had friends who had—”

“Let’s let her sleep.” Jimmy handed the reins to Murphy and climbed down from the cart. He could do this. How hard could it be?

He hadn’t been lying completely when he’d told Khalid he knew a thing or two about horses. He and Deck both had gone in for special training after horses had proven a handy mode of transportation for the Spec Ops teams during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. They’d both learned how to ride, as well as how to care for horses.

The cowboy who’d taught the class had told them that A) horses were smart, and B) they would immediately know it if you were inexperienced. They’d then proceed to dis you totally.

Jimmy approached dead on and looked the horse in the eye. “Stop fucking with me,” he said. Then he said it again in the local dialect.

The horse was not impressed.

Jimmy resisted the urge to lift his shirt and flash Marge a glimpse of the sidearm he had tucked into the top of his pants. Murphy had scored a whole bagful of weapons in Ikrimah and had distributed them to the entire team. A quick look at the old 9mm was often enough to get stubborn humans to shake a leg.

The horse shook his head to dislodge a fly.

Maybe this thing needed a running start. Jimmy had seen Khalid leading the horse. He grabbed the horse’s bridle in a likely looking spot and pulled.

Okay. Now they were moving. Of course, Jimmy was walking, too, which sucked. It was probably twelve miles to Rivka’s. It would be bad enough to have to sit on that hard bench up front, holding the reins. Especially when he wanted to be in the back, with his head in Tess’s lap.

He got them up to speed and attempted to climb back into the moving cart.

Which wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, especially after all those hours spent clearing rubble.

Of course, the horse made it easier by courteously coming to a full stop.

“Shit.”

Murphy gave the reins a try.

Nada.

Again.

No movement.

Jimmy heard Deck sigh from his seat in the back of the cart. Or maybe he didn’t hear it. Maybe he just imagined it. Whatever the case, it was motivating.

He climbed out of the cart.

“I think he’s tired,” Murphy said.

“No kidding.” Jimmy returned to the eating end of the horse and got the wagon rolling again.

They lurched and squeaked and clopped past Will Schroeder, who was sitting by the side of the road with his duffel bag, his head in his hands.

He wasn’t alone. Jimmy realized there were quite a few people who had been on that bus from Ikrimah sitting there, looking shell-shocked after having helped recover the bodies of those children from that school.

They were probably all reporters, most of whom had never seen the aftermath of an earthquake in a third-world country up close and personal like this. At best, they’d stood on the fringes of the destruction with their news cameras and reported death tolls in hushed tones, without really comprehending what those numbers meant.

Today it had been spelled out for them quite clearly.

Picking a path through the rubble and ruins, Jimmy led the horse and wagon down a street he barely recognized but knew had to be Rue de Palms.

“Okay, Marge,” he murmured to the horse. “I guess I’m going to walk it with you.”

Twelve miles wasn’t all that far.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

Tess woke to the extremely odd sensation of being carried. She opened her eyes to find herself moving through a doorway into a house with a low ceiling.

Jimmy Nash was holding her, her head tucked against his chest. He had one arm around her back, the other beneath her knees.

“Whoa,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry,” he told her as he took her farther into a rustic-looking kitchen and set her down. “I tried to wake you, but you were completely out. I had to get you inside because a curfew’s being enforced, and we’re already nearly an hour beyond it. We’ve been traveling with a police escort for the past twenty-five minutes.”

Tess looked around. There was only one oil lamp burning. Set on a big table in the center of the room, it threw shadows against walls that were quite possibly made of mud.

Murphy and even Dave were carrying the supplies in from the wagon, stacking crates neatly on one side of the room.

“Rivka’s not here. He left a note,” Decker reported, after poking his head into a curtain-covered doorway back by what looked to be an earthen oven and an ancient cast-iron stove. “His son-in-law is in the hospital. He and Guldana went to keep their daughter company—he wasn’t sure if they’d be back before curfew.”

“Apparently not,” Jimmy said. He smiled at Tess. “If Rivka were here, we’d know it.”

Decker handed him the note, then went out to help Murphy and Dave unload the wagon.

Tess tried to follow, but Jimmy caught her arm. “Head scarf,” he said. “The police are still out there.”

“It’s in my bag,” she said. Which was in the wagon.

“I’ll get it,” he said, quickly skimming the note.

Tess moved closer to the window so that she could see outside. The night was dark, but someone had set a lantern on the front bench of the wagon. It lit Dave’s face eerily as he helped Murphy and Decker negotiate a particularly large crate from the wooden bed.

The yard was small and fenced in—just a dusty patch of land between this house and what looked like a barn.

“Rivka’s cleared a space for you in the pantry.”

Tess turned to see Jimmy pointing toward the curtained room that Deck had peeked into.

“He got the message that we had a woman with us, but he doesn’t seem to understand that you’re my wife. Maybe I wasn’t clear about that,” he added.

Along with leading the rescue efforts at the school, Jimmy and Deck had also managed to send a message to a Kazbekistani friend, asking him to help them find accommodations. But housing in this city was at a premium, and the best that that friend, Rivka, could do was offer them his own kitchen floor.

Which wasn’t great in terms of setting up her computer and other communications equipment. Tess looked behind the curtain—the pantry was barely big enough for her to sleep in. But this entire situation was a significantly better alternative than, say, the barracks-style housing over at the old U.S. Army base. There’d be even less privacy there. They needed to be able to come and go at will.

Jimmy laughed. “Hey, I just carried you over the threshold, didn’t I?”

“Isn’t that supposed to mean that now we’ll have good luck?” Tess asked. They could use some. They were going to need it to find that laptop in what was left of this battered city.

There was a long crack in one of the kitchen walls, but other than that, this house and the nearby barn had survived the quake. Apparently, others in this neighborhood had not fared quite so well.

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s probably more of a tradition having to do with the fact that as my wife you’re considered my possession,” Jimmy said.

“Nice,” Tess said. “I’ll keep that in mind—ix-nay on the eshhold-thray. You know, in case I ever do get married for real.”

Jimmy had started for the door, but now he turned around. He came all the way back to her and even put his arms around her, pulling her in for what probably looked like an embrace. To anyone who couldn’t hear the chill in his voice, that is.

“That’s the dead last time you say anything like that in an unsecured area,” he said almost inaudibly, directly into her ear. “Do I make myself clear?”

He was serious. She tried to remember what she’d just said.
Married for real.
Oh, God.

“We’re married. I’m your husband. You’re my wife,” he continued still in that near-silent voice. “Even when we’re alone. Especially when we’re alone, because until we sweep for bugs, we may not really be alone.” He pulled back to look at her.

Tess nodded. “I’m sorry,” she told him silently. She knew this. She’d even prepared for it.

“I know you’re tired,” Jimmy said into her ear. “I am, too. It was a bitch of a day. But think, Tess. Always think first. Before you say or do anything.”

She nodded again.

“I’ll get your scarf.”

He finally released her and went out the door, and Tess sat down heavily on one of the benches that lined the thick wooden table. He was right. She hadn’t been thinking. At all. She’d really blown it.

Decker was across the room, helping Murphy stack another crate along the wall. He was watching her, so she squared her shoulders, plastered a smile on her face, and stood up and went over to see what she could do to help while stuck here inside.

Deck met her halfway. His clothing and face were still streaked with that pervasive yellow-brown dust. He’d been the first one down into that basement, the first person those trapped children and teachers had seen, an angel come to lead them out of the darkness and into the light.

Then, as he did now, he’d looked American. Quietly strong and confident, with a nearly visible aura shimmering around him that spoke of a life lived with freedom from fear. Freedom and orthodontists for all—her team leader had a truly American smile with straight white teeth.

“You don’t need to be a cheerleader, Tess,” he told her now. “No one’s going to be surprised if you let it slip that you feel bad after seeing what we’ve seen today.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I know.”

Decker didn’t believe her. “You did a good job out there,” he said quietly. “Did Nash remember to mention that when he was dressing you down for whatever it was that you did or said that pissed him off?”

She sighed. “You saw that, huh?”

“Yeah.” His eyes were unbelievably kind. “He can be an asshole when he’s exhausted, and believe me, he’s exhausted. Don’t take it to heart.”

“I did mess up,” she admitted.

“So you learn from the mistake and move on,” Decker said. “Don’t dwell on it. Just don’t do it again.”

“I thought I was allowed to feel bad,” she countered.

He laughed as he headed for the door. “Yeah, but only about the things that matter.” He turned back, his smile gone just as quickly as it had appeared. “You know, no one’s going to think less of you if you cry. It’s good to let it out, especially after a day like today.”

Tess nodded and crossed her arms. “I know you don’t mean to be rude, but don’t you think it’s just a
little
offensive to say something like that to me? I mean, would you really tell Murphy or Dave that they should cry?” Or Nash, who probably needed to hear that more than any of them?

“Yeah,” he said. “I not only would, but I did. Dave Malkoff’s out in the wagon right now, weeping like a baby.”

“Really?” Tess laughed at herself for believing him enough to ask. He was an awesome liar.

“Yes about saying it, no about Dave,” Decker admitted, smiling again, too. He was an awesome liar with a killer smile. But what was real and what was an act? Was he playing the strong American for her, too? “But more’s the pity he’s not, huh?” His smile faded again. “This is going to be a long, tough assignment. Make sure you do what you need to do to take care of yourself.” He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “I know this can’t be easy for you, and I am sorry about that.”

He was talking about her having to work with Jimmy Nash.

“I’m okay with it,” she told him, but again, she could tell that he didn’t believe her. And at this point, after all that she’d seen and done today, she wasn’t sure she believed herself.

It was one thing to handle being so close to Nash in the sterile environment of Tom’s office or on an airplane. It was another entirely to be pushed beyond her emotional limits. God, they’d found the body of one little girl—she was probably twelve years old. . . . But she’d been one of dozens.

Decker looked over at Nash and Murphy, who were wrestling another crate through the door.

He cleared his throat and forced a smile that now only served to make him look as tired as he probably felt. “Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he continued. “You know, to make this any easier.”

“Hey, Tess,” Nash called, and she looked over at him. He was just as dusty as Decker—and just as capable of playing a role and hiding his true feelings. What awful things had
he
seen today that had made him want to cry? Not that he ever would, not in a million years. “Catch.”

He’d had her bag over his shoulder, and he tossed it to her now. She caught it. “Thanks.”

“Get the rest of our personal gear inside, will you?” he said.

“Yeah.” Her scarf was right there on top, and she pulled it out and put it on.

Tess turned back to Decker to thank him, but he’d already gone back to work.

The doors of the American embassy remained locked up tight.

Still, Sophia checked Saboor Square regularly for messages, all the while knowing that help wasn’t going to come from that quarter.

If she wanted to get out of this country—and she did—she was going to have to rely on former business associates, such as Michel Lartet. A French ex-pat, Lartet ran an illegal bar and gambling casino from the basements of his various properties. The location of his establishment was rolling—always different from night to night—and it sometimes changed even within the course of a single night. It hadn’t always been that way. But over the past few years, Lartet was kept on his toes by the ruling warlords like Padsha Bashir.

Although the former K-stani government had outlawed both alcohol and gambling, the officials assigned to enforce the law took bribes and payoffs. Not so Bashir and his compatriots.

Dimitri had always said that there was no payoff large enough for the warlords to allow Western contamination to remain within the borders of their country.

Out of all of her former friends and business acquaintances, Lartet was most likely to offer her aid. Or perhaps he would trade assistance for the promise of substantial payback. At least Sophia thought he would. She was not, however, willing to gamble her life on that.

And so she had devised a plan.

She found Lartet’s bar easily. In fact, the people she’d asked implied that he’d been at this same location for quite a few weeks, which was a surprising turn of events.

These days, apparently, he was operating in the basement of a squat little building that housed a butcher shop above. Generators kept the freezers and refrigerators humming, even though the meat was probably stringy and exorbitantly priced.

The place wasn’t full by Lartet’s usual standards, but that was to be expected, considering it was after curfew.

As a woman in a burka, all but her eyes veiled, Sophia was noticed coming in, but quickly forgotten as she took a table in the shadows on the side of the room. She sat near a handful of other women, all prostitutes.

Prostitution was an extremely dangerous business in this country. Being caught was a guaranteed death sentence, one that was usually carried out by the woman’s own family—brothers and father and male cousins.

Never mind the fact that many women turned to prostitution as the only means for feeding that very same family.

Sophia had come into Michel Lartet’s bar, into this very room, dozens of times in the past eight years. But she’d come in as an American woman and had been welcomed as an equal. She’d take off her burka and robe once inside to reveal clothes she would have been arrested for wearing on the street. She sometimes wore shorts and a T-shirt, sometimes a slinky dress Dimitri had ordered for her—for him, really—from some catalogue.

She’d sat at the bar with the men, drinking and laughing. She’d noticed the women who kept on their burkas as they sat in the corner, and she’d understood why they might want to keep their faces hidden.

She’d also seen them leaving, one by one, with Lartet’s patrons as the night drew to an end.

She’d never had much compassion for them before—women who’d let their lives get so out of control that they had to sell their bodies just to eat.

Just to survive for one more day.

Even as recently as mere months ago, she’d foolishly believed that she’d rather die than be reduced to such degradation. Sex without love. Sex with strangers. What woman with any self-esteem would resort to that?

Sophia had discovered as she’d lain with Dimitri’s killer, with her husband’s blood still splattered on her face, on her dress, in her hair, that there was little she wouldn’t do to keep from dying.

And as the days turned to weeks turned to months, as her survival depended on her ability to “entertain” her sworn enemy and his loathsome friends, she realized she’d never understood just how insignificant sex really was, how little true meaning it held.

The poetry, the magic, the beauty—the fanciful concept of true love—was all a pathetic attempt to romanticize something that was nothing more than a basic biological function. Sex was no more profound than eating or sleeping or taking a dump.

Sophia sat now among the prostitutes in Lartet’s bar, aware of the scornful glances she was getting from the other women. Before this, she’d never quite understood how the men who bought them for a night or an hour could differentiate one from another. They were all covered, enshrouded—the men could only guess what was underneath.

But now, as she sat among them, she realized that the Kazabek streetwalkers had their own variation of a New York City street hooker’s garb. Instead of miniskirts and tube tops, they wore the sleeves of their robes pulled up just enough to reveal intricate artwork done in henna on their arms. They kept their hands on the tables in front of them, artfully arranged. Young, soft hands, wrists adorned with bracelets. They wore toe rings and toenail polish and, like their sisters on Forty-second Street, they wore remarkably high-heeled sandals.