“All I wanted to say was…” The anger seeped out, and the words got harder to say. “All I wanted to say was I’m sorry. The last time I saw you…I’m sorry for the things I said. You have to understand. Well, maybe you don’t. But the fact is, I have issues with sudden death.” She felt more like herself now, talking to him this way.
“Okay, that’s not entirely correct. As a matter of fact, I’m all for sudden death; in fact, that’s how I’d like to go. Every time I face my own death, someone seems intent on dragging it out in very unpleasant ways.
“To be more precise, I have issues around sudden bereavement. Losing both my parents and my husband has made me a bit skittish in that regard. When we last spoke, I had once again been plunged into a horribly sudden bereavement, which was shared by someone I hold dear. Someone to whom I felt responsible.”
“You have issues with sudden bereavement,” he said, something obviously still in his mouth. “So you became an Army chaplain.” While his words were heavy with irony, they were the first he spoke that weren’t spoken in anger.
“Go figure,” she said. She had to wait a moment as the pain across her back flared up again and finally settled back down. “What I’m trying to say is, I wasn’t at my most rational. So I’m sorry. On reflection, I’ve come to see that you were right about some things. Most things.”
“Is that it? Anything else you need to say?”
He was so infuriating. Keeping himself a step removed, like he was her therapist. She answered, “You could have been a little more understanding, knowing my background like you do. You could have given me a little room, instead of just exiting my life.”
“If you recall, you quit. And you told me good-bye. It wasn’t a tentative conversation. Sit up.”
She sat up. He was behind her. “Raise your arms as high as you can.”
Jaime tried to raise her arms. She couldn’t get very far before the fragile skin on her back began to pull.
“That’s fine,” he said. He had a roll of wider bandages. “Hold this,” he said. He scooted around front, and put the end of the bandage at her mid-chest. She held the end as he began wrapping it around her body, to hold the other bandages in place. He didn’t as much as glance at her breasts, or react when he pulled the bandages taut across them. He was all business. Not the merest hint of jollies.
“Tell me what you know about Frank McMillan,” Yani said. Obviously, he’d gotten at least some word from TC2 about her previous outing.
“I believe he’s on his way here if he’s not here already. He’s posing as one of the jewelers bringing the Hajj a gift for the bride.”
“He is here,” Yani said. “Do you know what he knows about the box?”
“He knows it has some connection with Eden. He recognized the Six Sisters.”
“That’s it? Do you remember anything he asked you about it?”
“I remember everything he asked me about it. He was quite emphatic,” she said wryly. “He believes it somehow reveals some important secret. Maybe the location, maybe a code in the gems, maybe a GPS inside, I don’t know.” Now she was getting testy. “How can we keep the Hajj from selling it to him? Or him from stealing it?”
“The Hajj doesn’t have it,” Yani said quietly. He’d run out of the wider bandages halfway down her back, but it would have to do.
“He doesn’t have it?” Jaime asked.
“He told me he doesn’t know who stole it,” Yani said. “And, from his nervous state, I’m inclined to believe he’s telling the truth.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means that, unless we can help him find it, it’s all going to blow up at some point tomorrow, when the auction ends and no box is produced. Do you need something for the pain?”
The tone in his voice made it sound like a test.
One she was fine with failing.
“Yes. Please.”
He took out a small plastic bottle of over-the-counter pain relief pills, and Jaime accepted it gratefully. The ache was still so intense she had no idea how she was going to make it through the night.
“Oh, for pity’s sake. Lie down,” he said.
She did. He went back to his first-aid kit.
“So, how did Frank kidnap you?” he asked.
That was such a loaded question. And there was the smallest hint of the old Yani as he spoke. Jaime knew he was asking because he was sorry she’d been kidnapped. But he was also asking because she should have known better, should have been able to head Frank off, keep it from happening. If she was a trained Operative worth her salt.
“He…,” she started, and her voice broke. “He was working with a partner. An old friend of mine. Someone I trusted.”
“Are you talking about Mark Shepard?” As Yani spoke, he gave her a dose of a serious painkiller in her lower back, just above the briefs she’d pulled on in Mark’s manor house. Like he couldn’t have given it to her when he’d started working on her back twenty minutes earlier, instead of giving her a roll of freaking bandages to bite on?
“If you knew about Shepard, why did you ask?” she said, fighting to keep from revealing to Yani her tears at Mark’s profound betrayal.
“Jaime, I don’t know what Frank told you. But he wasn’t working with Mark Shepard. Shepard was bludgeoned and bound. He’s in the hospital with a concussion and internal injuries. He was battered pretty badly, but they think he’ll be all right. His security man was killed, though.”
Jaime sat up so fast that her bandages pulled tight across her back, but she didn’t care. “What?” she said. “The security man was killed? And Mark’s in the hospital?” She faced Yani, fully aware that she was staring at him, her mouth agape.
“Oh, dear God, I’ve got to call him. Right now. What does he think happened to me? Do you have a phone?”
“Shhhh. Jaime. Are you completely insane? You can’t call anyone from here. It’s way too risky. What are you thinking?”
“But Mark…and Derrick…”
As awful as the news was, as horrified as she was about Derrick, great buckets of relief were pouring over her.
“He’ll be all right? Mark will be all right?”
“He’s expected to make a full recovery.” Yani quickly replaced the kit in the bottom of his satchel and prepared to leave.
“He wasn’t in on it?”
“No. When your effects were picked up, they found a bug on your ski coat–undoubtedly how McMillan got his info. Now. Put your clothes back on. Give me a five-minute head-start. Then go back down to the women’s tent with the girl. If anyone asks, you were helping with the girl’s goats.”
Yani turned back to her at the bend in the cave. “Mark Shepard is a good man. There’s a gardener file on him. He’s clean. He is who he says he is.”
There was the smallest beat before he added, “He’s worthy of you.”
And then Yani was gone.
SATURDAY
January 27, 2007, 3:48 a.m.
(6 hours, 42 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
The Hajj awoke from a violent dream and sat up, panicked, in his bed.
Rashid had come with a knife to taunt him. Had driven the knife into the Hajj’s belly and turned it slowly, laughing at the pain, at the grisly death the Hajj was dying.
The Hajj was still gasping for breath, even though he was now awake. The dream had been so real–he was frightened that it was an omen. That today was his day to die.
He heard a noise, felt a scraping of movement, and someone was behind him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, the sharp blade of a real knife at his neck.
“I regret I have no physical wedding gift to give you,” said a gravelly voice in the dark, “but I do have a very valuable piece of advice that I offer in its place. Honor the promises you have made, and hand over the jeweled box by the end of the auction, or you will certainly dishonor your family and your tribe.”
>
The Hajj felt the sharp metal of the shabriya as it threatened to slice through the skin of his neck. Somehow this actual threat gave him presence of mind that omens withheld. “If and when I hand it over, it will be the time of my choosing,”
“And if you choose not to hand it over, your life and the lives of those you hold dear will be in grave danger.”
“You dare come to my wedding feast and threaten me?”
“I do not waste time on threats. I simply share a fact of life with you. I will have the item by ten-thirty this morning, or another item of equal value is forfeit in its place.”
The man, who was dressed all in black, stalked out of the Hajj’s private quarters and into the men’s tent, where the guests were all asleep. And the Hajj pondered with a chill that he could not identify the man at all. Should he see the man again, he would not know to worry, until it was too late.
January 27, 2007, 10:14 a.m.
(0 hours, 16 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
The only physical evidence that the eBay auction was about to end was the extra adrenaline Jaime could feel coursing through her body. What exactly would happen when it did end?
Would the Eden bidders win it?
Would it matter who won it, if the Hajj didn’t have it?
How would it all play out? Although some Bedouin towns had electricity, television, and even Internet connections, the desert camp certainly did not. Very few people here even knew there was an auction, or that the Hajj was truly selling the box, let alone when the bidding would be closed.
Jaime had ended up sleeping in a family tent with the girl Safia and her mother. She was grateful to them both. After Yani had tended to her back, she found she was still not thinking clearly. She wasn’t sure if it was the infection or the pain medication Yani had given her, but she had needed to collapse somewhere safe. When young Safia saw that Jaime would not be able to make it all the way to the tent where the celebration was occurring, and where the female guests were staying, she led Jaime to her own tent. Safia’s mother saw that Jaime was not well and invited her in to sleep.
She felt much better in the early morning when she awoke. The women didn’t let Jaime help cook, but the fact that she’d come back over with Safia and her mother had kept there from being questions about her whereabouts during the night.
Jaime also rediscovered the universal truth that if you let someone help you, a connection is developed. Young Safia, with her profusion of black hair and sparkling blue eyes, now seemed to feel protective of Jaime. Safia pointed things out to her, made sure Jaime knew proper protocol for interactions, and treated her as a personal guest.
Jaime appreciated this. As the morning progressed, she casually asked Safia questions about various women, always careful not to get too personal. Jaime sensed Safia had a good take on personalities. Those women Safia dismissed as frivolous Jaime also put at the bottom of her list of people who might know anything relevant about the current mission.
When they were sitting, eating breakfast, Jaime said, “What is the box I heard Johanna ask you about yesterday? Do you think the Hajj will show it to the guests today?”
Safia froze for a moment, then slid back into the guise of answering a simple question. “Surely she told you about the box? It is a jeweled box that has brought us good luck, and has made us so very wealthy, ever since the Hajj found it when he was a boy.”
Jaime couldn’t help but feel warmly toward the girl. Any outsider would look at the circumstances in which they lived and dispute the idea that this tribe was wealthy at all. The landscape was barren; the tents, small, with no amenities. The desert was completely desolate.
“What is the thing that makes you wealthiest, Safia?” she asked. “What is your tribe’s greatest treasure that the box has made possible?”
“Our freedom,” she replied simply.
“That is a very great treasure, indeed,” Jaime agreed. “Is the box beautiful? Is that why he likes to show it?”
Now Safia was looking away, almost nervously, as she spoke. “The box is very beautiful. I don’t know what will happen to us when it is gone. Perhaps our luck will go to another tribe. But no, I don’t believe the Hajj will show it today.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think he can,” was her simple answer.
This girl was smart as a whip, and she noticed things. Jaime was grateful that she’d made a good call last night when she’d asked Safia for help.
Help in fetching Yani, whose final words were, “He’s worthy of you.”
About Mark.
Casually handing her off to another man.
Jaime knew those words would weigh on her until the day she died.
At least it meant Yani thought highly enough of her that someone would need to be “worthy” to be with her. Did Yani think he got points if his final kiss-off was polite on the surface?
As much as she loved Mark, she yearned for Yani. But apparently, during the last year, during which Jaime had come to know that no matter what she did, Yani was lodged inside her, the focus of her existence, he had spent his time distancing himself from her. Withdrawing completely. Jaime thought she had gotten good at reading him, and she had seen nothing there to signal there’d ever been any feelings on his side at all. No second thoughts. No wistfulness. No remorse.
To him, she was now an interesting psychological study at best; an irritatingly inept third Operative on the current critical, at worst.
The entirety of her emotional life had crashed and burned, and she had no time to deal with it.
A great commotion stirred outside the tent. All the women stopped whatever work they were doing, and the guests got to their feet.
“It’s the bride,” Safia said. “She’s here!”
Jaime knew that in the old days the bride would arrive from her own clan on a camel, in a procession of her kinsmen, who would be singing and dancing.
Today, instead, she arrived in the backseat of the first of a parade of pickup trucks that were honking their way into camp.
Jaime followed Safia outside to stand with the women as they watched the vehicles come to a stop.
The men unloaded from the trucks. Only then did the music start up again. In the midst of the jubilation, the other women in the girl’s procession stepped out and helped her down.
It was hard to tell anything about her, except that her galabia was well jeweled and that she was heavily veiled.
The women of the Hajj’s clan all stayed in a group, not moving from their vantage point outside the women’s tent. The men who had come in the bridal procession went into the big tent first, to join the men of the Hajj’s clan.
Only after that did the three women who had come with the bride–who were also heavily veiled–take her arms and lead her toward the tent.
“She’s about to become a wife,” whispered Safia.
January 27, 2007, 10:27 a.m.
(0 hours, 3 minutes until end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
Three minutes until the auction ended.
The Hajj looked at his watch, then closed his eyes and muttered a prayer. He had heard the threat in el-Musaq’s voice in his tent the night before. He knew it was serious.
But what could the man do here, in front of the whole clan?
The Bedouin were ruthless in revenge.
Surely the man was not that stupid?
Two minutes.
Maybe it wouldn’t happen today. Or perhaps, when he least expected it, the Hajj’s throat would be slit. No one would know who. No one would know why.
One minute.
It was time for him to go into the tent. What would this day hold? How had he ever thought he’d be on his way to San Francisco?
Was he about to be married? Or was he about to die?
Or both?
; Ten seconds remaining, according to his watch.
Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five.
What had he done?
Four. Three. Two. One…
It was done.
The box belonged to someone else.
The Hajj turned and walked into the tent.
January 27, 2007, 10:33 a.m.
(3 minutes since end of auction)
Judean wilderness west of the Dead Sea
Israel
* * *
Yasmin didn’t feel like a bride. She felt like a sheep being led to the slaughter.
She knew she should be nervous. She knew she needed to act frightened and unwilling. But the truth was, she felt nothing.
She had no control over the events of this day.
She had no control over whether she lived or died.
The women had led Yasmin forward, brought her to the mats, and made her lie down. She was only peripherally aware of the gathered men around her–or when her new husband, Omar, the Hajj, came in, except that the women’s hold on her shoulders became tighter.
The Hajj came over. She was sure he held a white cloth, but she didn’t look. His hand went up under her robes, and she felt him brush against her thigh. But he didn’t go anywhere near her woman’s place. He made a sigh, like a release of held breath, which she took as her cue to also cry out and move slightly.
And then his hand was gone from her robes, and “ahhhs” of appreciation were heard from the men around her. One of the women took the cloth. Yasmin looked up in time to see it had a bright red stain on it.
Then the women took it outside, and the men turned away from her, ready to celebrate.
She could imagine the jubilation among the women waiting outside when the cloth of honor–the one that her new husband had obviously prepared in advance–was shown.
But then something happened that she did not expect.
The sound of gunfire came from outside.
At first Yasmin thought it came from some of the Hajj’s men, firing their guns in high spirits.
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