“So you were pretty serious already?” Had Ian’s voice turned flat? No. She was imagining things.
“Not then. We’d only just started dating. Suzanne said later—after he was arrested—she thought he’d originally asked me out because of my internship—he knew I’d get to meet Dr. Hill and wanted an in.” She didn’t bother to say how much Suzanne’s suspicion had hurt—the idea that Todd’s interest in her had stemmed from his ambition. “But I liked him, and I thought he liked me. I didn’t want to go to the garden party as a fifth wheel, tagging along with the high-profile couples. I didn’t think Curt Dominick would appreciate hanging out at a political event with a lowly intern.” She smiled, thinking of Trina. “It was right before Trina met Keith, and at the time she had the hots for Dr. Hill’s assistant. Some jackass whose name I forget…but I knew she’d be busy at the party pursuing that guy, so I invited Todd.” She let out a humorless laugh. “I was wrong about Todd and Curt. Todd was so busy sucking up, he ditched me, and I spent the afternoon playing pool with Mara, Curt, and Lee.
“When we left the party, I thought Todd would be pissed because I hadn’t hung out with him, and he was worried I was mad for the same reason. Trina had left with Keith—and had her own man issues to deal with—but really, I’d had a great time. Todd had a great time. We’d both been invited to join Dr. Hill on his next submarine mapping demonstration he was setting up for Erica’s benefit. Hill really wants his institute to be locked tight with the Navy’s underwater archaeology program…”
“Get to the point about Todros Ganem and how he’s involved.” There was no mistaking the hostility in Ian’s voice.
She glared at him. “After that weekend, things shifted between Todd and me. It was a good weekend for us, relationship-wise. We became more serious.”
Yeah, his jaw was definitely clenching. So maybe the spy felt something for her after all. “The next two weeks were insane. Keith’s townhouse blew up. Alec Ravissant assigned Sean Logan to act as Trina’s bodyguard. Eventually, I was moved to Alec’s house. The bomber was identified right before I flew back to Tallahassee. It had been so crazy, I hadn’t set up a place to live. I stayed with Suzanne while I apartment-hunted. I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t a craphole and was frustrated. Todd suggested I move in with him. It was early in the relationship, but I figured what the hell, I needed a place. And”—she fixed Ian with a glare—“I liked him. A lot. I figured my luck had changed, and I’d finally found a good guy.”
Her breath hitched. Things really had started off great with Todd. She’d forced herself to forget that last spring but couldn’t deny it now. “That Thanksgiving, he flew home to visit his parents in Delaware. I hadn’t met them yet, and he wanted to prepare them for his non-Middle Eastern, non-Muslim girlfriend. I was pretty much their worst nightmare, and we talked about making a joint visit over winter break, after he’d softened them up.
“I stayed in Tallahassee over the holiday weekend and, with nothing to do, decided to study the maps I’d photographed over the summer. It had been such a busy semester, I hadn’t had time to even look at them until that point.” She paused. “It was just a cursory examination. Nothing about the particular map stood out. It wasn’t like T. E. Lawrence had labeled it ‘Eastern Turkey’ or anything. There was no scale. It was just a sketch map. Matching his hand-drawn lines to the terrain without a scale was…a challenge. It wasn’t until I realized that what I thought was a label was actually the mapmaker’s signature that things got interesting. A quick Google search on T. E. Lawrence, and I was pretty sure the map I’d photographed back in DC was a genuine Lawrence of Arabia original. The signature looked good, and why would anyone forge his signature on a map that had been filed away and forgotten?”
From Ian’s fixed gaze and intent eyes, she knew she had his rapt attention. “After that, I researched T.E. and learned he worked at Carchemish, on the Euphrates River in northern Syria in 1911 and again in 1914. Once I had Carchemish as a starting point, I was able to narrow my search, and eventually matched the map to the area west of Cizre, east of Nusaybin. Historic maps generally ignored that area, so it wasn’t easy. T.E.’s notes indicated an archaeological site, but not just any site, an underground Roman aqueduct. My guess is it was a Roman effort to route water from the Tigris, and I think it originates near the current village of Kefshenne and goes south from there, filling in the dry stretch of land between the Tigris and Euphrates.”
She glanced to the southeast. Somewhere in the distance beyond the near hills, the river flowed. “I suspect T.E. mapped it right before World War I broke out. In 1914, he went on a mapping expedition on the Sinai Peninsula after Carchemish—but the expedition was really cover for British Intelligence, who wanted reconnaissance of the area—and he must have explored the area near Cizre either before or after that excursion. Most, if not all, of his maps from that period went to the British War Department. A stamp on the back indicated the map had been property of the British Naval Attaché, and I know they regularly trade information with the NHHC. Basically, I think the Attaché gave it to the US Navy anywhere from sixty to eighty years ago, and it was filed away with intelligence gathered during both World War I and World War II, and forgotten.”
Ian had been silent for a long time. But she didn’t doubt he was keeping up with the story.
“So, back to Todd. He returned from Thanksgiving, and I debated whether or not I should tell him what I’d found. I mean, I’d just been handed an amazing subject for dissertation research—except, it wasn’t underwater. I had to work my ass off to sell the topic to my advisor, using the trade routes angle—without mentioning Lawrence.”
“If you’d told him about the Lawrence connection, would he have approved it without question?”
“Probably. Maybe.” Cressida rubbed her arms, feeling chilled as she admitted to the one thing she felt guilty about. “I didn’t mention the map or Lawrence, because academia can be cutthroat. I worried my advisor would…try to steal my lead. Take my glory. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened to a graduate student.” She bit her bottom lip. “But the hardest part was not telling Todd. He was desperate—really, really desperate—for a dissertation topic. He squeaked by on his MA. It was well written and hit all the right notes, but in the end, his underwater survey of a Sint Maarten bay turned up nothing. He’d hoped to find the hull of a Spanish naval vessel sunk by the Dutch in a 1630s battle, but he got nada. If he didn’t come up with something better for the PhD, he’d be done academically. And his parents were pissed that he was pursuing academic underwater archaeology and not computer science.”
“Do you think he would have stolen your project?”
“He didn’t have the power to steal it—not like a professor could—but he certainly would have wanted in on it. Equal billing. I knew him well enough to know he’d take over. It would’ve become his. I’ve been pushed around by enough men in my life to know I didn’t want to open that door with Todd. But there is enough research involved to feed a dozen dissertations, and I would have happily shared—after I found the site and got full sole finder’s credit.”
She shook her head as guilt stabbed at her. “Todd didn’t know why I’d fixated on Roman aqueducts in Eastern Anatolia, but he must have guessed something had triggered my sudden shift in research.” She resumed pacing. “If he found out, it would explain a lot, actually. He could have hacked my computer the weekend I went to visit my mom. I usually bring my computer, but Mom insisted I unplug. She told me in no uncertain terms to leave my work at home or don’t bother visiting. It must have been too much for Todd to resist, being home alone with my laptop.”
She closed her eyes, imagining how Todd must have felt when he discovered her secret. “A few days after I returned, he broke into the department and stole the Lidar. Looking at it now, my guess is he wanted to cut me out. He probably had some insane notion of heading out here on his own and finding the site before I could. With his Jordanian family, he would certainly have h
ad an easier time arranging the trip.”
“More likely he intended to sell the equipment to his Jordanian relatives.”
“Yeah. I heard the FBI found emails on his hard drive that indicated he was trying to sell the equipment. I was told he wasn’t anti-American or pro-Jordanian. He just wanted money. When he was caught, he implicated me. I was stunned. I’d been in love with him, and he claimed I’d put him up to the task of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment from the department I’d devoted my life to.” She met Ian’s hard gaze. “It appears the fact that I didn’t trust Todd is what set him off. It might even be what set this entire horrid fiasco in motion.”
She took a deep breath as she digested her own words. “He may have promised his uncle or Hejan’s group he’d find the tunnel in exchange for getting him out of the US. It could explain why he’s in Turkey.”
She looked out over the landscape, toward the Syrian border. She guessed they were forty or fifty miles away. “To me, it’s an archaeological site. A rare find that could launch my career, establish me as an expert in something.” She frowned. “But I wonder if Todd saw modern implications.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ian had known the potential for illicit purposes when she first described ancient tunnels, but the proximity to an international border changed everything. The fact that it could be a route into a NATO country from volatile Syria—and vice versa—well, the implications were huge. And horrifying if the knowledge got into the wrong hands.
“My plan for this trip was a scouting mission,” Cressida said. “To see if Lidar could be effective for survey. The Gadara Aqueduct was built by digging a series of well-like vertical shafts—called qanats—every twenty to two hundred meters, then workers tunneled between the shafts. The shafts were later filled in, but archaeologists have found over three hundred entrances so far. Lawrence marked two qanat entrances on the map, but there must be more. He indicated the tunnel was several miles long.”
“What does Todros know?” Ian refused to call the sonofabitch Todd. Todd was Cressida’s boyfriend. A man she’d been in love with. Whereas Todros Ganem was a traitor with Jordanian ties who might have given terrorists the coordinates to a smugglers’ tunnel. “Does he have the map?”
“If he found Lawrence’s map on my computer, he won’t have everything he needs. I cut the key from the jpeg file and buried it on my hard disk. Just the map wouldn’t tell him a thing. My guess is he found my composite map—one I’d drawn as I was trying to narrow down the location.”
“Where is your composite map?” He looked at her bag. “Do you have it?”
She pointed to her temple. “It’s in here. I created it. I know every contour line. So I didn’t bring it. I didn’t trust the other grad students. After the fallout with Todd, some of them turned on me. And they all wanted to know what my lead was. So I left the map behind in Tallahassee.”
“So Todros knows the general area of where to look, but not the exact coordinates?”
“I don’t even know the exact coordinates. I calculated the accuracy of my map to be within five kilometers. That isn’t a huge area for a pedestrian survey if you know what you’re doing.”
“And Todros knows what he’s doing.”
“Yes. He teaches survey courses to the undergrads.” She paused. “Taught. He taught survey courses.” Her gaze dropped, preventing Ian from seeing her pain at Todros’s actions.
Todros had lived with Cressida. She’d loved him, yet the motherfucker had betrayed her. For what? Academic glory? Revenge? Or was there a political ideology behind it all? Had he seen the potential of the tunnel and wanted to exploit it? What drove a man to betray a woman like Cressida? To betray his country? Because sure as hell the moment Ganem popped the lock on the anthropology department door, he’d made his choice.
Why had he shown up in Antalya when he did? And where was he now?
Ian wished he could see Cressida’s composite map. “Why didn’t you bring a computer?”
“I was warned traveling to Eastern Anatolia with sophisticated mapping software and data would be a bad idea.”
She took a step toward him, then stopped. “Ian, I know you’re mad I didn’t tell you, but you need to understand, this has been my secret, and mine alone, for months. I had no idea anyone had seen my composite map. I honestly didn’t think it was relevant to what was going on. I’m sorry—” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I haven’t told anyone. Not my best friend. Not my mother. Not my advisor. I didn’t even tell the man I lived with. It never even occurred to me it was something you needed to know.”
Put that way, it was hard for Ian to hold it against her. But he tried. He was developing feelings for her—which was flat out forbidden in his world—while in Cressida’s world, Ian was just another mistake on a long list of them.
She’d kissed Ian once. Not that he was counting…except apparently he was…
All he really knew was his life was forever changed thanks to this screwed-up mission, and Cressida Porter had managed to steal a piece of him he hadn’t known was up for grabs. “You can find an entrance to the tunnel?”
She bit her bottom lip. “Maybe. But I doubt we’ll be able to open it, not without tools and a team of workers. My goal for this trip was just to locate it. Then use Lidar next year to map the length.”
As a poker player, Ian didn’t like the odds. But at this point, he had no other hand to play. “We’re ditching the bike. We’ll rest during the heat of the day and start walking in the late afternoon. For lack of a better plan, we’ll head to your tunnel.” He patted the ground next to him. “We may as well rest in the shade while we can.” He refused to acknowledge the reason he urged her to his side was because he wanted to be next to her.
He had a feeling he’d never recover from meeting Cressida. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
* * *
Walking south was far more pleasant than the bumpy motorcycle ride, except Ian missed the press of Cressida’s thighs and the feel of her hands on his hips. When they rode, every bump and bounce was a reminder that she was with him. That they were alive.
And in spite of everything, he was pretty damn grateful to be alive.
The burn had ached less on the motorcycle, as his pack had been tucked in a saddlebag, but walking forced him to wear the forty-pound pack crammed with weapons and survival gear, and even though Cressida had tripled the layers of gauze, there was no avoiding the rub of pack on wound.
But the pain was yet another sign he was alive, so he accepted it without complaint.
It was half-past dark, and they’d covered at least ten rugged miles when Ian saw a campfire lit in the distance. They finally drew close enough for him to discern the camp configuration. He stopped and held a hand out to halt Cressida.
“What…?”
“Sweetheart, would you like something other than trail mix for dinner tonight?”
Her brows drew together. “That depends. Is that a friend of yours?”
“Nope. Never met them before in my life. They’re Kurdish nomads. Shepherds. You’ll never meet kinder, more giving people. Best of all, they won’t have phones, TV, radio, or computers. They won’t have seen our pictures on the news. Given we’ve got about forty miles of walking ahead of us and need to refresh our supplies, I think we’d be wise to accept any charity they offer.”
She smiled, and her shoulders relaxed a bit. “So what’s our story?”
“It’s doubtful they speak English, so you don’t have to worry about memorizing a role. Odds are they’re Sunni Muslims. We’ll say we’re married and on vacation.” He cut a glance her way. “We’ll go with the honeymoon cover again. Everyone’s a sap for newlyweds.”
As they walked, he took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “This is how they would expect American newlyweds to walk.”
Her fingers tightened around his. “They wouldn’t be bothered by the public display of affection?”
“Hand
-holding is common in the Arab world. Men hold men’s hands here as a sign of friendship. While a man holding a woman’s hand isn’t as common, we’re Americans, and even Kurdish nomads are familiar with Americans and our relaxed social mores. If we want to sell them on the fact that we’re married, we need to look like what they’d expect to see.”
She halted midstride, their entwined fingers forcing him to stop too. “So, you mean I can do this in front of our potential Kurdish hosts?” Cressida released his hand and slid her arms around his neck, then planted her lips on his. Her tongue invaded his mouth. Sweet, hot, and sexy as hell.
He cradled her face between his hands and slid his tongue over hers. This. He needed this. She gave him a taste of everything he’d given up for his career. Everything he could never have.
He ended the kiss before he completely forgot himself. If all went well with the nomads, not only would they have all night, they’d even have a bed.
“So is that a yes?” Cressida asked.
He shook his head, trying to remember what the hell they were talking about. Oh yeah, PDAs in the nomad camp. He cleared his throat. “Um. No. That would be a bad idea. In fact, you’ll probably be expected to hang out with the women and keep your hair covered.”
There’d been no need for her to wear her headscarf so far, but she’d kept it with her and pulled it out of the pack now and draped it over her hair. Ian arranged it into the proper drape.
Her wide mocha eyes caught the moonlight, and he held in a breath to even out the gut-clenching awareness that this was no ordinary attraction.
He took her hand and continued toward the campfire that beckoned. “I’ll tell them we’re here to visit my motherland—my mom was an ethnic Kurd. We ran out of gas when I got it in my head that it would be fun to go off road and explore. You’ll pout and show you’re annoyed with me for insisting on the dangerous adventure.”
They walked in companionable silence, the light of the fire growing brighter with each step. “So my handsome new husband led me astray on our rental bike. We were on our way to meet your cousins on our honeymoon to fulfill your granny’s dying wish.”
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