by K. T. Tomb
The men turned to her in shock. They stood there scrutinizing the small brunette for a moment before the captain spoke to her directly.
“What is wrong with the fruit?”
“Nothing. She’s just really hungry. Don’t you guys have anything else we could eat? You haven’t given us anything since yesterday. We’re all starving.”
“These men were instructed to bring you supper last night. You are lying, woman. You’re a lying American.”
“The last thing we ate was the shawarma they took from the street vendor when we entered the city yesterday afternoon. No one brought us any supper.”
The captain went over to the two soldiers and hit them both over their heads. He cursed at them in another language that Lana could barely understand and she guessed that it must have been a rural dialect, Kurdish perhaps. The three men argued for a long time during which it was obvious that the captain was berating them. Lana cringed at that. It wasn’t a good idea in any situation to aggravate one’s captors, when the captain eventually left they would remain at the mercy of the two embarrassed men.
“Bring them proper food,” the captain ordered, speaking Arabic again. “Thieves should have their hands removed but I have too few of you stupid buffalo to start dismembering you! So serve them like the thieving women that you are. Bring them khubz and bighilla and eggs. Don’t forget the tea, either.”
The captain turned to Lana and walked over to her. He offered her his hand to help her up from the ground which she gladly took since her back was still hurting. With his arm around her waist, Lana hobbled over to the boarded up windows with the captain.
“I apologize to all of you for the poor behavior of these fools. They are not used to the delicate art of kidnapping; they are more suited to hostage taking. Me and you, we can recognize the subtle differences between the two. They took your evening meal for themselves, so please do not think I’m not concerned with the welfare of you and your friends.”
“I will let the others know. Thank you.”
“I am Aziz; captain of these few men here.”
“I’m Lana.”
“Lana, they will bring you bread, beans and eggs, with tea. It is in the best interest of all involved that you are kept in the best of health and comfort.”
She laughed at the comment and shook her head slowly. The captain gave her a strange and questioning look.
“We need something to sleep on captain, it’s cold at night and we are used to much better than this. As kidnapped people we should have a proper place to sleep; unlike hostages, yes? As far as the distinction goes, we have no idea why we’re here, captain. Maybe if I could explain the situation to the others then they would be a little less antagonized.”
“The company they work for has been robbing the people of the Babil Valley for more than ten years by taking the relics from the ruins of Babylon and selling them to foreign museums and universities. The site was declared a World Heritage Site, so anything removed should be compensated for and all the jobs that support visitation of the site are required to go to resident natives of the immediate area.”
He paused for a moment and looked over her shoulder at the other investigators who were now being served their breakfast by the two soldiers.
“Instead, they hire foreign scientists who do not even take on any local apprentices and the tour site is staffed by people of a hundred different nationalities, most of which don’t even speak Arabic. They got their sanctions to be there from UNESCO but then they are left to run amok without so much as reports about the items they remove and where they are going. We believe that UNESCO should be made aware of the situation in Hillah; if they pay for their negligence as well, then we will regain at least a little of what we have lost.”
“Ransom…well played,” Lana said.
***
“Oscar, come on!” Sirita bellowed from around the table in the living room. “The food is getting cold and we’ve got to get going soon.”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he replied.
“Before Oscar and I ended up on assignment together in Greece, I never knew I’d meet a man who can primp more than a woman,” Chyna said jokingly.
Thorin chuckled at her comment while Demetri and Sirita exchanged amused grins. Finally Oscar appeared from the bedroom looking a whole lot better than he had going in. His jeans were no longer an homage to the pioneer man; they were slim and dark and modern. The cowboy hat was gone, leaving freshly shampooed, greaseless hair in its place. He no longer donned the comfortable plaid shirt he had traveled in; that he had replaced with a trendy, long-sleeved jersey shirt. It was a good look on him.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked, sitting down at the table.
Sirita pushed a covered plate in his direction and said, “There are drinks in the fridge.”
“Did you bring the watch for Sirita?” Chyna asked him.
“Of course, along with a bunch of other stuff she’s going to need,” he replied. Then pointing to a black case that looked like the type a camera would be kept in, he continued, “Her entire personal cache is in that case.”
After they had eaten and put their things together the five went back downstairs into the hustle and bustle of the airport and to the main security check point. All seven pieces of their firearms were turned over with the corresponding paperwork at that point for secure transportation to and storage aboard the aircraft.
When they were through all the procedures and had arrived at their gate, Chyna was relieved to see Asha and Eli waving animatedly at them from the counter of a coffee shop. Chyna and Sirita waved back at them and the group made their way over.
“It’s nice to see you two here. Are you ready for our adventure?” Chyna asked.
“Absolutely,” Eli said, answering for the two of them.
“Excellent. Well, let me make some introductions. Eli, Asha, this is Demetri and this is Thorin; our security detail and this is Oscar, our technical engineer.”
“It’s lovely to meet you all,” Asha said.
Sirita chuckled softly as she observed the two. Somehow they reminded her of the Tweedle Twins in Alice in Wonderland. One would answer one question, and then the other would answer the next. She assumed that it must come from so many years of working closely together. It was still funny as hell though.
It wasn’t long before the details of their flight came over the loud speaker and boarding instructions were announced. They stood almost immediately; ready to get out of the noisy locomotion of the terminal and into their comfortable first class seats. Soon the flight was fully boarded and the flight attendants closed the door and made their safety demonstrations in preparation for takeoff.
As soon as they were at cruising altitude, Chyna ordered a gin and tonic and turned on her laptop. The inflight Wi-Fi was reasonably fast and soon she was logged in to Found History and checking her secure email. There was a message from Nigel informing her that Lana had not been sending many emails in the last few days. This Chyna knew because they always communicated using an instant messaging app. He went on to say that what Lana had done was consistently upload her notes from the cataloging exercise and the photographs she took of the items she was working with. There were even photos that she had taken of the other members of the team and group shots of all of them at work together or out on the dig site.
Chyna replied to the email telling Nigel thanks and that they were finally on the way to Baghdad. She also told him to be sure to keep a close eye on the signal from Lana’s tracking device. She would want to know immediately if anything changed at all. When she went to the photographs, Chyna noted the people who were in the pictures with Lana. She didn’t recognize any of them but she knew her lead investigator, if she had taken their picture, they were of some importance to the project. Chyna forwarded those pictures to Oscar, Sirita and Ilea, asking the Director to identify the people for them. Then she went to the pictures of the artifacts. There weren’t many, which meant that Lana had not been ver
y impressed with what she had seen. But then there came a series of about fifteen pictures of one particular item.
It was black and highly polished; made of hematite as well. The object was in the coiled shape of a snake that was hooded like a King Cobra. It seemed poised to strike but the head seemed too low as if it were bowed. In another picture, the top of the statue was shown to reveal a rough patch on the top of the snake’s head. It was evident that something had broken off from that spot.
Chyna went to the notes that Lana had archived regarding the idol and began to read:
‘I’ve studied the idol from every angle and there is nothing here that supports Dr. Linder’s theory that it may have been a singular idol; something from a temple alcove or originally made for someone’s house. I am convinced that the altar we uncovered had been plundered before this team arrived here. The Ninurta and the monster are intact and make sense in relation to each other, but what do they have to do with the basilisk? Whatever is missing from the top of the idol’s head will be the answer to the riddle. But because I am convinced of the theft beyond doubt I will inform the Director in the morning. Without an investigation and some testing done, there’s no way for us to know if whatever that was happened two thousand years or two weeks ago.’
“Oh, Lana,” Chyna sighed, shaking her head, “What did you do?”
***
“Aziz, I didn’t expect you of all people to be calling me with such petty complaints. You’re supposed to be the best at this sort of thing. Why are you so concerned about the Ambrose woman?”
“She speaks Arabic. This morning she took up the complaint from one of the scientists about the food we gave them for breakfast. I had to have a long talk with her. It was her behavior that upset me the most and I thought that I should call you. If I could get rid of her right away, things would go much smoother.”
“No!” Petrovik hissed into the phone, angrily. “Listen to me Aziz; regardless of how much Lana Ambrose disconcerts you, we are not killing any of those people. We separated the Americans from the others for one reason only. Whereas the Europeans will pay to get their people back in order to avoid it coming out about how their precious artifacts got into their museums and collections; the Americans will not negotiate with terrorists, neither have they made the mistake of procuring anything that has been removed from Babylon. The Director is already very flustered over the situation and she is staying far from the media with it. So we have to just stick to the plan. Send the message about the Americans to her today; it’s only a matter of time before the family members start asking questions at which point, it’s bound to be all over the news.”
“What about the Europeans and Lana Ambrose?” Aziz asked.
“I’ll let you know when to contact the United Nations about them. If I don’t get Ilea out of UNESCO by the end of this whole affair, I’ll be rather disappointed,” Petrovik said, with a sinister laugh. “As for Lana, I think you can figure out a way to use her to manipulate the situation. Just be careful; she’s a clever one. Too much time spent with Chyna Stone, if you ask me.”
“By the way, didn’t Director Le Gal call her and her team in to retrieve the girl? She’s not going to become a liability to us now that her friends are on the way, is she?”
“They don’t have a clue where to start looking for her, Aziz. So, unless you’re planning to make it into a problem for us, we should be fine. Did you search her for devices? Take away the cell phones and weapons?”
“Of course we did,” Aziz replied, exasperated.
“Then you won’t be compromised by Chyna being in Baghdad. Be that as it may, I still don’t want you to take her for granted. She’s a better warrior than you and all your men combined. I’d suggest that you move the captives regularly and do it so they can’t get a clue as to where they are. Keep an eye on the Found History team, too. You won’t be able to outsmart them unless you know what they do.”
“Okay,” Aziz said, “We’ll stay alert.”
“Good.”
As Petrovik hung up the phone, he let a wide smile spread across his face.
It was about time the regime changed around here. They had become inert, stagnant, and stale under Ilea’s leadership. She was way too unconfrontational; she hated a dispute, ran from an argument. There was no way the organization could be led in that manner and survive for much longer, he thought. But when I’m in charge, things will be a whole lot different and then maybe we can be known a little more worldwide for doing and not just sitting around looking.
He was very pleased with himself as he sat looking out over the Paris skyline from his office window. What Petrovik didn’t know was that if he had turned around at that second, he would have been in time to see Moira, the intern, step back out into the hall and silently close his office door.
Chapter Three
It was hard not to notice the large white van following them from the airport all the way into the city. Chyna thought it lucky that at the airport she had decided to drive one of the Land Rovers herself and give the second to Eli. She took Asha, Sirita and Demetri with her, allowing Thorin and Oscar to go with Eli. Initially, it had been to ensure that each vehicle had one guide and one bodyguard, but with the van on their tail, her plan would allow them to split up and confuse whoever it was trying to follow them.
She took the chance that if they split up, the followers would choose to stick with her vehicle and she was right. With military precision, the two Land Rovers approached the next exit on the highway as if they were going to pass it and then at the last minute, Eli veered off onto the exit ramp. Chyna watched the driver falter for a moment behind the wheel of the white van before following her at a steady pace. She slowed down and moved over into the slow lane as she drove directly to the U.S. Embassy on the Tigris River. When she pulled into the gates, Chyna was relieved to see the other vehicle had already arrived, which meant that Oscar and Thorin were in position.
As she got out of the Land Rover and glanced towards the gate, she noticed the white van passing at a very slow pace and though she couldn’t see the occupants, she knew they were looking directly at them, wondering what they would do next. Chyna assumed that they would find somewhere to park close by and wait for them to come out of the embassy compound. At that moment, she saw a little movement in a tree that was just inside the embassy wall. The shaking continued until she saw Oscar drop from the lower branches with his long range rifle secured across his back. He jogged across the lawn towards them.
“Is it activated?” Chyna asked him.
“Sure is,” Oscar replied. “You should be able to track them right now with that app I put on your phone.”
Chyna took the phone from her pocket and opened the application. It took a few seconds for anything to happen but soon enough there was the little dot moving slowly along a road a few streets over from where they stood. She smiled at the image, satisfied with what she saw. They would stay in the embassy as long as it took for the van to leave the area and proceed to the place where they were now holding the American group of Scientists.
They were all painfully aware of what could possibly happen to the second group of hostages if they were to sweep into the building in Baiyaa and rescue Lana and the European archaeologists. They just couldn’t risk it so they would wait for the followers to lead them there. Agent Hamilton was duly impressed with their little tagging exercise. He and a few of his operatives had surrounded Oscar to get a look at his equipment and the tracker that was up on his laptop screen showing that the van had parked a few streets over waiting for their departure from the compound.
“I definitely have to get me a few of those,” he said, laughing and clapping Oscar firmly on the back, as he listened to the engineer reel off the firing distances and tracking radius of the apparatus.
“Agent Hamilton,” Chyna called to him, as she approached the little group.
“Miss Stone,” he replied, extending his arm to her for a handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you
. Agent Stewart has only the best things to say about you and your team and this young man here has certainly wowed us so far with that awesome tagging he did on your little tail there.”
“Yeah, they’re certainly a bunch of amateurs. I don’t think it’s going to be difficult to get our people back.”
“We’re here to help in any way we can.”
***
Moira sat at her desk feverishly firing off the emails that Petrovik had instructed her to send.
How the hell did I still manage to become the intern in this whole thing? Hadn’t I been the one who had blackmailed him? She thought, as she typed furiously.
But she knew the answer to her question only too well. Petrovik had been completely blindsided by her brazen confrontation in his office that evening. He had no idea how much of his conversation with Aziz she had overheard and she planned to use that to his disadvantage.
“So, Mr. Petrovik,” she had started, as she closed the door to his office behind her and turned the lock. “This is what the United Nations is all about, is it?”
“What are you talking about, Moira?”
“Conspiracy with paramilitary groups, kidnapping, ransoms, blackmail? I really just thought it was a lot of boring paper-pushing up until now.”
“What are you talking about?” he had demanded angrily. “There’s nothing of the sort going on around here. What is it that you think you know?”
“I know your man Aziz was supposed to send Director Le Gal an email this afternoon with the ransom details for the missing group of archaeologists. So I made sure to intercept her incoming mail today by setting her inbox to automatically forward everything to my email address and lo and behold, there came the email from an anonymous address demanding one million Euros for each of the captives.”
“Oh shit!” he said, placing his face in his hands.