“As it intrigued you.” Dalai’s gaze hadn’t shifted from the trunk. “It must have made you feel very strong and powerful.” She lifted the lid and gazed down inside it. “Because being that afraid made me even weaker and more dependent on you than ever.”
“You had to be taught your place.” Zahra was frowning again. “And you’re sounding very disrespectful. I won’t permit that, Dalai. You know what I’ll do to you.”
“My place,” Dalai repeated. “I’ve let you tell me what that is all these years. I believe I’ve learned it very well.” She paused. “But not from what you told me. It was because I had to teach myself who I really am to survive you.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Zahra hissed. “I won’t take this from you. Have you forgotten who I am? I’m the leader of this country. Your father sent you to serve me. I let you live in my palace. You’re nothing, Dalai.”
“So you tell me,” Dalai said. “Nothing. Or rabbit.” She paused. “Or slave. But I’m none of those things, Zahra.”
“Zahra?” Her lips tightened, her expression incredulous. “Insolence. You do not address me in that fashion.”
“No, I won’t address you at all,” Dalai said. “After I’ve finished with you, I will go away and not see you again. I will try not to ever think of you.” She met her eyes. “And I believe I will succeed because I’m stronger than you think I am.”
“Go away? Do you think I’d let you leave me?” Zahra’s dark eyes were glittering, her lips curled. “Perhaps I will, but only to go to Varak. I’ll let him teach you manners, you little slut. You shake when he looks at you.”
“Yes, I do. But how will you send me to him when you said you might kill him? You must make up your mind, Zahra.” Her smile had a tinge of mockery. “Because threats won’t work anymore. I’m afraid of Varak, but I’m not afraid of you. I haven’t been afraid of you for a long time.”
“Of course, you are. You know what I can do to you. You jump when I snap my fingers.”
“Because I knew it pleased you, and it kept me safe. Pretense. Only a game. You had to believe I would never betray you. You had all the power, and I had to wait until it was my time.” She met her eyes. “I realized when I was lying in that trunk that I wasn’t going to live if I didn’t change and become as strong as you are. I’m afraid your punishment backfired, Zahra.”
“And you think this is your time?” She laughed. “What a fool you are. I’ve never been more strong.”
“And I’ve never had a time when I wasn’t alone. It makes a difference.” She shined the beam of her flashlight around the room. “Kiya’s treasure. I’ve always hated it. But only because of what you did to me here. You said she was like you, but I think she stood on her own.”
“Not alone?” Zahra’s voice was suddenly suspicious. “Why aren’t you alone? Why are you saying all this now?”
“Because you’re not going to get your statue. You’re not going to get to make a choice of alternatives. Varak is going to die, and everyone is going to know what you’ve done.” She was looking down at the trunk again. “I could tell them, couldn’t I? You’ve shared so much with me.”
“You? No one will believe you,” Zahra burst out. “Why would anyone pay attention to a little servant girl when she’s muttering lies against me?”
“Perhaps when they hear from your own lips that they’re not lies.” She reached down into the trunk and pulled out a disk lodged against the ornate side of the gold interior. “Your voice is very well-known, Zahra. Jill Cassidy thought that there would be no problem having it identified by experts.” Her smile was bittersweet. “It was her idea to put the recording device in this golden trunk. I wouldn’t have chosen it because the fear is still with me. But she’s kind, and she was upset when she heard about my hours in this cage.”
“You and that bitch bugged my conversation with Varak?” Zahra’s eyes were blazing. “It won’t do you any good.” She was moving toward Dalai, every step sleek, catlike. “Because you’re going to give it to me. Who knows? I might forgive this madness if you don’t make me more angry.”
“No, you won’t.” Dalai was backing away, slipping the disk into her jacket pocket. “I’ve gone too far. We both know it. You’ll have to stop me any way you can.”
“I want that disk,” Zahra said between clenched teeth. “Give it to me.”
Zahra jumped toward her.
Dalai threw her flashlight at her, and it hit Zahra in the mouth. Then Dalai dived behind a huge urn as the flashlight rolled across the floor.
“Hiding, little rabbit?” Zahra was half kneeling as she moved across the dim room. “How stupid to throw that flashlight at me. How are you going to see me? But I still have my flashlight, and I’m catching glimpses of you. Frightened? Look at you, dodging behind all those trunks and statues in the dark. I’m closer to you now. I can hear you breathing. And you said you weren’t afraid of me. Liar.”
Dalai froze behind a carved chaise. She could hear Zahra breathing. But Zahra sounded excited, and Dalai realized that she was excited, too. She wasn’t frightened as Zahra assumed. The blood was pumping through her veins, and there was no fear, only the rush of adrenaline. She felt…eager, her gaze on every move Zahra made.
She could see Zahra’s shadow behind the glare of her flashlight. She was reaching up to her chignon.
The ruby comb, Dalai thought. She had been expecting it.
She watched in fascination. Zahra was loosening the comb in her hair, getting it ready for the strike. “You’re right. You’ve gone too far,” Zahra said softly. “You went too far the moment you thought you could stand up and be anything but the slave you are. Slaves should always kneel, Dalai. You should have remembered that.”
Then she leaped. She was on top of Dalai. She hit Dalai’s head with the flashlight. Then she struck Dalai again.
Dalai rolled away from her, grasping the flashlight and using all her strength to pull it away from Zahra. Then she was frantically searching in her jacket pocket as she watched Zahra pull the ruby comb from her hair.
She was aiming the prongs at Dalai’s face! Dalai felt the prongs break the skin at her chin as she fought to push Zahra’s hand aside. Strong. Zahra had always been so strong…
“Yes,” Zahra said fiercely. Her eyes were gleaming down at Dalai. “That should be enough. You’ll feel the poison any second. You’re dead, Dalai. We both know it.” But the comb was moving again, raking Dalai’s throat, she could feel the blood flow…“But this is pure pleasure…” Zahra whispered: “I want more. I want to see you suffer. You thought you could hurt me? You betrayed me!”
Zahra was enjoying this too much, Dalai thought. If Dalai didn’t move quickly, Zahra might decide to cut her throat. Dalai’s hand closed on the switchblade knife in her pocket. Distract her. She gazed at Zahra frantically, pleadingly. “Please, don’t do—”
She rolled to the side, taking Zahra by surprise. The switchblade was out and open.
Dalai reached out and plunged the pearl-handled knife into the hand holding the comb.
Zahra screamed.
“What are you doing?” Zahra was staring at her hand in disbelief. “Why did you—You fool! It’s too late. You’ll be dead in—”
“That’s what you said.” Dalai’s heart was beating hard as she carefully edged away from the knife she’d plunged into Zahra’s hand. She swallowed. Everything had gone so quickly, she was having trouble believing what she’d done. “And you might be right if you hadn’t always let me prepare the poisons for the comb. But I couldn’t take a chance that you would use the poison on Eve Duncan instead of Varak. I had to be in control.” She stared into Zahra’s eyes, then her glance shifted to the knife sticking upright in the hand clutching the comb. “You understand control, Zahra.”
Zahra’s eyes widened in horror as she realized what Dalai meant. “The comb had no poison? You switched the poison to that knife?”
“I had to be prepared. That’s what I told myself. But it might have
been a lie.” She said wearily, “Maybe this was always how I intended it to end. I could have run. I could have hit you on the head. I could have just pretended that nothing had changed. But I let the words come. I let you go after me.” She was slowly sitting up. “Because something had changed, and I couldn’t ignore it.”
“It hurts.” Zahra was staring dazedly down at the wound in her hand. “It’s burning, you bitch. You did it. It’s really the poison.” She was suddenly trying to move toward her. “I’ll kill you.”
Dalai shook her head. “You’re already too weak. Remember how you described what the poison would do to frighten me? All you can do is lie there and hate me. It won’t be long now.”
“I won’t die,” Zahra panted. “Weak people like you die. I’ll live through this. I’m like Kiya and Cleopatra, queens who ruled the world.” Zahra’s voice was frantic with fear and anger as she felt the poison sear inside her. “But I would have been greater than them. I have to be greater. I won’t let you take that from me. I won’t let anyone take—”
Dalai shook her head. “You’re not great, Zahra.” She leaned closer and looked into her eyes. “You’re nothing. You should recognize that word. Nothing. And soon you’ll be less than nothing.”
Zahra’s eyes were filled with outrage and horror. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes glazed. “No! Not me. I won’t have it! This can’t happen to—”
She was dead.
Dalai stared at her for a long moment. So many years of fear and torment…She should feel something, shouldn’t she? She felt nothing but flatness and bewilderment. She got wearily to her feet. It didn’t matter what she was feeling. Maybe she’d know later.
Now she had to do something to help Jill or Eve Duncan. Varak had seemed so confident that he could get through that tunnel. Dalai had to call Jill and let her know. She was helping no one staying down in this splendid golden treasury that Zahra had worshipped.
Hurry!
She reached for her phone as she started to run up the ladder.
She heard the explosions before she’d gone more than two rungs.
She climbed the rest of the rungs, panicked.
Then she was outside, staring desperately in the direction of the museum. But she couldn’t see it! It had disappeared.
All she could see was the thick layer of rolling black smoke reaching for the sky.
* * *
“Come back inside.” Hajif was trying to draw Jill back into the cave. “You’re not supposed to be out here. All is going well. Mr. Novak said that it should be over soon.”
She could see that it was going well as she gazed down at the streets of the village. Varak’s men had been sitting ducks for Novak’s team waiting for them. But there was still violence and blood and all the hideous signs of war to which Jill had become accustomed.
The acrid scent of tear gas…
Gunshots.
Men running…
Explosions.
Men firing automatic rifles…
And men with machetes…
How she hated those machetes.
“Come back inside,” Hajif said again. “Mr. Novak will not be—”
Kaboom.
The ground shook, throwing her to the ground.
Then another explosion.
Her eyes flew toward the hill.
Smoke. The entire hill was wreathed in thick, black, smoke.
“What is that smoke?” Hajif’s gaze had followed Jill’s to the top of the hill. “Was it a bomb? I don’t see a fire.”
Neither did Jill though she thought she could see a dull glow beyond those thick clouds of smoke. “I think…it’s a military-grade smoke grenade. I’ve seen them before, in Pakistan. Varak must have launched it with a chemical explosive of some sort to keep feeding the smoke.” She was struggling to get to her feet. “Probably oil or carbon base…I don’t know why he—” She broke off as the reason came to her. “No one can see through that smoke. You’d be almost blind.”
Smoke. Black. Impenetrable. Curling like thick shadow serpents into the sky from the hill.
From the museum.
That thick black smoke would completely obscure vision from only a few yards away.
And Joe’s position in that banyan tree was more than twenty yards from the museum. He wouldn’t be able to see anything.
Panic iced through her. “No!”
Then she was ripping off her tee shirt. “Keep everyone in the caves, Hajif.” She wrapped the tee shirt over her mouth and nose as she tore away from him. She heard Hajif shouting behind her as she ran through the jungle and streaked up the path.
Through that impossibly thick smoke, she couldn’t even see the banyan tree where, only hours earlier, Joe had shown her he’d set up to take his shot. She didn’t know if he was still there in the jungle or heading toward that museum as she was doing.
She didn’t care. She only knew what she had to do.
Get to Eve.
She reached the museum. The door had been thrown wide.
No fire. But smoke in every corner and pouring out the door.
And there was a gaping black hole where the back windows had been. A hole big enough for Varak to have been able to take Eve out of the museum and avoid that front entrance.
And no Eve.
Maybe Joe had already gotten her out…
But Mila’s reconstruction was still on the worktable. Eve would never have left her there to be destroyed.
She grabbed the skull and took it with her as she tore back out of the museum.
Her eyes were stinging as she ran out into that thick cloud of smoke again. She shouted, “Eve!”
“Here she is!” It was a man’s voice in the distance. “Come and get her, Jill. It is Jill Cassidy, isn’t it? How could I ever forget your voice? I was hoping to see you here.”
And how could she ever forget Varak’s voice? Laughing as she struggled beneath the weight of his body as he beat her. Don’t think of that moment of weakness. Make him speak again so she could locate him.
And so Joe could locate Eve.
“Say something, Eve,” she called. “Has he hurt you? He’s a coward and very good at hurting helpless women…or children.” Her hand tightened on her gun. “Isn’t that right, Varak?”
“Yes, because they’re of no importance. Except when they’re being stubborn. Your friend Duncan is proving to be very obstinate. She won’t tell me where the Great Beloved Wife statue is hidden. Come and help me persuade her.”
“Stay where you are, Jill,” Eve called. “You know you can’t do anything. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Jill was almost sure Eve’s voice was coming from the dense jungle behind the museum. She started toward it. “You’re alive. That means there has to be something we can do.”
Are you listening, Joe? Do you hear us? All that training, all that intensity and boundless passion. Track him. Find him.
She was struggling to breathe. Her throat felt raw. But there was less smoke as she rounded the curve in the trail that led to the rear of the museum. She thought she could see darker figures among the haze. Eve?
“I see you, Jill,” Varak said. “You’re just a shadow in all this smoke, but I can make you out. And I don’t see the gun in your hand, but I know it’s there. Because you had one when we had our little party with you. It didn’t do you any good then. It won’t do you any good now. Because your friend, Eve, also had a gun, and I was forced to smash a few fingers and take it away from her. I admit I was tempted to use my machete on them. But perhaps later…right now all you have to know is that the barrel of the gun is pressed to her temple. That means you’re going to come forward and toss your gun to me, or I’ll press the trigger. I’ll give you to the count of three. I want that statue, and I don’t have time to play games. Unfortunately, I’ve had a call from Markel, and he says things aren’t going as we hoped in the village. So it seems I’ve got to get out of here.” His tone was suddenly harsh. “But I’m not going before I get tha
t statue. It appears as if I’m going to need money. But I’d do it even if it weren’t worth a fortune, just to keep it away from that bitch, Zahra. She worships it.” He started the count. “One…Two…”
“Stop.” She knew that the crazy bastard would do it. “I’m coming toward you. We can work this out. Don’t hurt her.”
Where are you, Joe?
He had to be close. He was a much better tracker than she was. There had to be a reason why he hadn’t made his move, and it was probably that threat Varak had made.
She stopped a few yards from Varak. The smoke was still thick here, but she could see him. He had a scarf covering his mouth and nose, and it brought back the chilling memory of that night in the jungle. Forget it. Fear was her enemy, and it would only weaken her. She flinched as she saw that he hadn’t been lying about the gun pressed to Eve’s temple. She quickly tossed her gun on the ground beside him. “If things aren’t going your way, you should let her go and run. If Eve Duncan dies, they’ll never stop hunting you.”
“I’ve been hunted for most of my life. I haven’t been caught yet.” He cocked his gun. “The statue, Eve,” he said softly. “I know you have it. I saw it when you were bragging about that press conference on TV. Where is it?”
“I’m listening. I want to live,” Eve said. “I have a family. I did hide that statue. But Jill might be right. Maybe we can make a deal.”
She was playing for time, Jill knew. Banking on the belief that Joe was close. But Joe couldn’t do anything as long as that gun was pressed to Eve’s temple.
So get the barrel away from her.
Give Joe his chance. Give Eve her chance.
How?
Smokescreen Page 41