by Alex Lukeman
"Hood isn't going to be happy to have his new DCO out of commission," Lucas said.
"I'm counting on it," Nick said. "We're going to need Langley's resources on this one. Besides, you're not out of commission. You won't be writing any reports for a while. That's what you've got secretaries for. A few days, you'll be back in the office."
"It depends on how Steph is doing."
"Sure. Hood is a decent guy. He's not going to give you a hard time about it. Right now it looks like she's going to be fine."
"They won't let me go see her."
"Lucas, somebody just tried to kill you and did a pretty good job on your shoulder. It's too soon for you to be running around. She's in good hands. When they move her out of ICU, they'll bring her in here. She'll be fine, believe me."
"Yeah. But the bastards who put her in here won't be, once I find out who they are."
You can take that to the bank, Nick thought.
CHAPTER 24
Outside Elizabeth's office the sun was shining. A large orange cat snored in a patch of sun coming through the French doors leading onto the patio.
"That cat makes a lot of noise," Diego said.
"You hear him burp yet?" Ronnie asked.
"Burp?"
"Why do you think we call him Burps?"
"I never thought about it. He's a cat. I don't think about stuff like that."
"Then you have something to look forward to. Ask Nick to tell you about it sometime."
Elizabeth tapped her pen on her desk to get their attention.
"I talked to Steph a little while ago," she said. "She's out of danger."
"That's good news," Selena said.
"Lucas is already talking about getting back to work," Nick said. "A little thing like an AK round isn't going to keep him down for long."
Elizabeth said, "Interpol had a file on Patrick O'Malley."
"They can write closed on it now." Nick looked at her. "Tell me it's got something we can use."
"We do have something."
Elizabeth entered a command on her keyboard. A picture of a castle in Spain came up on the monitor.
"Damn," she muttered. "That's my screensaver. That's not what I was looking for. I wish Stephanie was here."
She tapped the keys and a prison mug shot of Patrick O'Malley appeared. Elizabeth scrolled down to his record.
"A mercenary," Nick said. "It figures."
"A hired gun from Ireland. He's on almost everyone's watch list as an undesirable. He did time in Dartmoor for aggravated assault."
"Sounds like a real winner," Selena said.
"The money in his wallet came through a bank in New York. A direct deposit was wired from abroad into his account. Guess where it came from?"
"Not Lebanon?"
"Straight from Beirut."
"Then this must be about that scroll."
Elizabeth nodded. "Nothing else makes sense."
"Not a smart move," Nick said. "They should have left well enough alone. We were at a dead end. I'm not so sure it was about the scroll. We could have been after Abidi for something that had nothing to do with the scroll. An arms deal, for example."
"How could they know who we were?" Selena asked.
"There were cameras in the nightclub," Diego said. "Someone could have gotten an ID on us from those."
"Selena, maybe," Elizabeth said. "Not you. You're too new."
"I'm not even officially part of the group."
"Do you want to be?" Elizabeth asked. "Now's as good a time as any to get that out of the way."
"When they seconded me to you, I thought you guys were just a bunch of civilians. Would I still be in the Army?"
"No," Harker said. "You'll be honorably discharged with all benefits and receive the same compensation as the others. You'll find it's quite a step up from a sergeant's pay. Nick will be your commanding officer in the field."
"The Army is my career," Diego said.
"You can go back to your unit and your involvement with us ends now. If you say yes and everyone agrees, this will be your new career."
Diego looked at her.
"Diego, things are getting complicated. We have to make plans and I need to know if you want in or out. Yes or no?"
Nick watched him. What would he decide?
"What the hell. Yes."
She looked at the others "Raise your hands if he's in."
All the hands went up.
"Welcome to the team, Boot," Nick said.
"All right. Let's move on," Elizabeth said. "Diego has a point. The only way someone in Beirut would know who we were is from what happened in the club. Who has the ability to identify Selena and make the connection to us? That would take familiarity with the intelligence world we live in. Who has that kind of knowledge?"
"More people than we can identify," Nick said.
"I saw something when you ran that Interpol file," Selena said. She pointed at the monitor where the file was displayed. "Scroll back up a little. It might not mean anything."
They watched the screen as Elizabeth scrolled up.
"There. That paragraph, the one about trying to get O'Malley to turn informer."
The paragraph was only a few sentences long. MI6 had interrogated O'Malley while he was in prison about his association with a known terrorist. The interrogation produced nothing of value.
"You think MI6 is the connection?" Elizabeth asked.
"Not the organization," Selena said. "I was thinking of whoever it was that interviewed him. It's a link between an intelligence connection and the ambush, the only one we've got. Someone from MI6 would know how to find out who we were."
"We need to know who talked to O'Malley," Nick said.
"Lucas could help." Elizabeth drummed her fingers on her desktop. "He's got the resources at Langley. I can't coax information out of our computers like Stephanie can."
"You give Lucas a lead, he'll run with it," Ronnie said.
"It's exactly what he needs," Nick said. "He can help us get these people. He's beating himself up because he didn't spot the ambush."
"No one could've spotted it. There wasn't any reason to expect it. It was just another truck on the side of the road."
"Yeah, but he thinks it's his fault Steph got hurt. This will help him get through it."
"You're turning into a shrink, Nick," Selena said.
"Being around you, I've had a lot of practice."
"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that."
Ronnie laughed.
CHAPTER 25
Addison Rhoades didn't know what was going to happen when he entered Al-Bayati's study. After the fiasco in America, his position was in danger. Al-Bayati didn't like mistakes. It made no difference that Rhoades hadn't been on the scene. He'd hired the team that had failed, so he was responsible. Just in case Al-Bayati lost control Rhoades had a Walther PPK tucked away at the small of his back, a favorite of the police since the early days of Hitler's Germany. A classic old school pistol, small, efficient and deadly. One .380 caliber round was enough to stop most people. With Al-Bayati, Addison thought it might take three or four. The pistol had served him well in the past. The hard metal pressing against the small of his back gave him comfort.
To his surprise, Al-Bayati was smiling.
"I have found the tomb," he said.
Rhoades forced himself to seem relaxed.
"You have? That's fabulous, Nazar. Where is it? How did you find it?"
"The second scroll that you retrieved in London contained a coded passage describing the location of the tomb. It's in Saudi Arabia, not far from Yemen."
"You know exactly where it is?"
"It's in an isolated location in the Habala Valley of Saudi Arabia, near Abha. The landmark described is distinctive. There's only one place like that in the country."
"That whole area is considered sensitive by the Saudis," Rhoades said. "The monarchy is worried about troublemakers out of Yemen. It's not going to be easy to get to."
"
I have connections there. I can get us in."
"Us?"
"Do you think I would pass up the moment when the tomb is opened? I will be the first to enter."
"As you wish," Rhoades said.
"Yes. Prepare a team. Enough to transport whatever we find."
"We'll need equipment, weapons, vehicles."
"Make a list of what you need. Have it waiting for us when we arrive." Al-Bayati paused. "You did well in London. You failed in America. You had better hope that the Americans are unable to connect you to what happened."
"The men I picked were professional, the best in the business. The Americans were lucky. They'll never make the connection."
"That may be," Al-Bayati said. "Do not fail me again. Go. Make the arrangements. I want to leave in three days."
He waved his hand at Rhoades as if he were shooing away a fly.
Rhoades felt the Walther next to his spine, warm from his body and hard against his skin.
I'll kill him, the arrogant bastard. After we find the tomb and the gold.
As he left the room, Rhoades thought about the Americans. He hadn't been lying when he said they'd been lucky. He still didn't understand how they'd escaped. Instinct, perhaps, the instinct of the hunter who knew when he'd become the prey. Whatever the reason, there was no way they'd find their way back to him.
He turned his mind to the new task Al-Bayati had given him. Rhoades had spent time in Yemen before the fundamentalists had gained so much power. Before his career with British intelligence had gone down the tube.
The thought made him feel as though someone had wrapped his head with steel bands. He forced himself to stop and take a few breaths, to calm the flood of anger that had begun in Al-Bayati's study. His career had been ended by hypocrites. They'd supported his illegal methods, used what he'd gotten from the prisoners he interrogated to further their advancement and then pretended not to know how the information was discovered. Sometimes Rhoades fantasized about returning to England and walking into one of their exclusive meetings with enough firepower to obliterate every one of them.
Fantasy, to think about killing the key players in British government and intelligence. Al-Bayati was a different story. No government would care enough to go looking for the man who killed him. As for friends who might seek revenge, Al-Bayati had none. Business associates would see an opportunity, not a loss. Even the Iranians would simply move on.
When Rhoades left the Habala Valley there would be one more body in Solomon's tomb.
CHAPTER 26
Lucas Monroe had fallen in love with Stephanie the second time he saw her. The first time, he'd been attracted to her easy smile and her obvious comfort with him. Like all black Americans, his radar was tuned to a fine pitch for any sign of racism. As far as he could tell Steph didn't have a racist bone in her body. When she'd gotten pregnant Lucas thought that the gods must be smiling on him. He was in his 40s and had long ago given up ideas of children and fatherhood. Now that he was past the dangerous covert work that had formed most of his career at Langley he had begun thinking about leading a normal lifestyle. The loss of the baby angered him to the core.
They could have another child. Seeing Stephanie grieving hurt him more than anything he could have imagined. She would get over it, if that was the right phrase, as much as he would. He knew no one ever really got over a loss like that. The event would fade, the pain would retreat. Still, there would always be something there. The fact that it had happened because of who they worked for didn't make it any easier.
If there was any consolation, it was that his occupation might provide a way to track down the people responsible. For Lucas, revenge was not a dirty word. He had set the relentless resources of Langley to work on the problem, confident that sooner or later whoever was behind the attack would be identified. Then they would pay. It didn't take long to find something
He called Elizabeth.
"I got what you wanted about O'Malley."
"Are you back at work?"
"Not officially. I can do some things. I called in a favor at MI6. O'Malley was interrogated by an agent named Rhoades. He was kicked out of the service three years ago."
"That gives him the right character recommendation," Elizabeth said.
"What's more interesting is the money trail," Lucas said. "The wire to O'Malley's bank came from a corporate account that launders money for a string of false corporations. They're controlled by a man we've been watching for a long time. His name is Al-Bayati. What I don't know is why Bayati would send a hit team after either of us. "
Bingo, Elizabeth thought.
"I think it's about that scroll."
"Why?"
"You know about Yusuf Abidi and what happened in Lebanon?"
"Yes."
"Nick tailed Abidi to Bayati's villa. I think Abidi sold Semtex to Al-Bayati and that Al-Bayati sent someone to take the scroll, then blew up that train to cover his tracks. I'd put my money on him for the murder at the British Museum and the theft of the other scroll."
"I wouldn't take that bet," Lucas said. "Do you really think he'd go to these extremes on the chance he could find a lost tomb that might not even exist?"
"It's not just any tomb," Elizabeth said. "What would the Israelis do to get back the body of Solomon and whatever was taken from the Temple? What would the Arabs do to stop them? Al-Bayati deals in information. What would the location of the tomb be worth? And don't forget that the Temple contained priceless treasures of gold."
"It still seems far-fetched to me," Lucas said. "Like searching for Atlantis."
"We have a dead shooter who is a direct connection to Beirut and Al-Bayati. It's too much of a coincidence. The attack took place not long after we were in Lebanon, trying to piece together who was responsible for stealing the scroll. Al-Bayati doesn't know that Abidi died before he could tell us anything. I think he set up the hit to keep us from finding out what he was doing."
"Then he should've done a better job," Lucas said. His voice was tight and angry.
"Yes. He's made a mistake by targeting us. I'm sorry you and Steph got caught up in this. I'm sure his men were after us. They couldn't have known who was in the cars."
"What else can I do to help?"
"Send someone over with a high enough clearance to work with me on the computers while Stephanie is recovering. I can't call you every time I need something."
"Let me think about it. A couple of people come to mind. I'll talk to Hood about lending you someone. I don't think it's a problem."
"How's the shoulder?" Elizabeth asked.
"Hurts like hell. The painkillers help some."
"Stephanie?"
Elizabeth heard Lucas sigh. "She thinks about the baby all the time. She cries a lot. And she's pissed, really pissed."
"That's a lot better than feeling sorry for herself."
"When she's not talking about stringing up the people who did this or staring out the window she spends most of her time reading romance novels. Right now she's reading a book about a woman who travels back in time to 18th-century Scotland and gets involved with pirates."
"Every good romance novel has a pirate," Elizabeth said.
"I'll get someone over there to give you a hand. Keep me posted on what you find."
"You know I will. Thanks, Lucas."
After she'd hung up, Elizabeth thought about the conversation. Al-Bayati. Her intuition had been right. Now that she had a clear focus, she could begin planning how to bring him down. Before that happened she needed to be positive he was the one behind the attacks. The proof she needed was out there, she was certain. When she found it she wasn't going to stop until Al-Bayati was finished.
CHAPTER 27
The next morning Elizabeth got a call from security at the entrance to the compound.
"Ma'am, I have someone here who says he's from Langley and that DCO Munroe sent him over. Should I let him in?"
"He has identification?"
"Yes ma'am, CIA."
"Send him in."
Elizabeth went to the front door and waited. A white Ford pulled up and parked. The man who got out was slight and round shouldered, with curly black hair and glasses. He wore a rumpled blue suit and a tie with a tiny knot that looked like it would have been the height of fashion in 1950. He reached inside the car and took out a brown leather case. As he stepped onto the porch Elizabeth opened the door for him.
"Are you Director Harker? I'm Joe Eggleston. The DCO said you need some help with computers?"
"What did he tell you about us?"
Elizabeth led Eggleston inside and closed the door. They went into her office.
"Not much. Only that I should get over here and help you any way I can. He said everything you do is classified. I have the clearance to look at whatever you've got."
"Good. You'll be filling in for my deputy until she returns."
Eggleston walked over to a laptop sitting on Elizabeth's desk.
"Is this what's giving you trouble?"
"Not exactly," Elizabeth said. "Come with me."
She took Eggleston downstairs. The muffled sounds of gunshots came from behind the closed door of the indoor range. Eggleston looked surprised.
"You have a shooting range?"
"Among other things. This way."
She led him past the ops center and the swimming pool to the computer room.
In an earlier life, the computer room had been a hardened magazine for Nike missiles. Now it housed a row of Cray computers and the communications gear that let Elizabeth communicate with her team in the field. A console with three monitors sat at one end of the room, next to the Cray XT Stephanie called Freddie. An empty coffee mug with a wolf on it sat on the console. The room smelled faintly of ozone. It was cold.
Eggleston shivered.
"This is what you'll be working with."
"Whoa," he said. "Not a laptop."