Flashpoint

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Go,” Decker said, and Dave went out the door.

  Jimmy Nash was playing a game of ‘If I Were Sayid’ when his phone vibrated.

  He’d heard the distant explosion, heard the rumors that had immediately started. Car bomb. In City Center.

  He’d stayed seated. He’d even kept himself from reaching for his phone. Murphy was with Tess. They were both safe—over at the north sector relief aid headquarters. He was not going to freak. Not this time. She was doing her job, he was doing his.

  It might’ve looked to some as if he were simply sitting in an open air café, enjoying a cup of coffee, but he was, in fact, hard at work, running different scenarios.

  Option one. He was Sayid, and he was in town to meet with Padsha Bashir. Where would he stay? Bashir’s palace, of course. The only other place that came close to the kind of comfort that could be found at the warlord’s palace was the Kazabek Grande Hotel—and that was the last place Sayid would stay. He wouldn’t be caught dead in that testament to Western culture and capitalism.

  Option two. He was Sayid, and he was in town, but he wasn’t staying at Bashir’s palace because . . .

  There was no reason Sayid wouldn’t stay at the palace. It was secure, it was comfortable, it was safe—from all of Bashir’s enemies.

  Of course, it wasn’t safe from Bashir. Hmmm.

  He was Sayid, and he was in town, but he wasn’t staying at Bashir’s palace because he wasn’t meeting with Bashir.

  And if he wasn’t meeting with Bashir, it was possible there had been a falling-out. In which case Sayid would need to be careful while he was in town, to hide his presence from Bashir.

  He was Sayid, and he was in town, and he needed to be sure Bashir didn’t find him while he was in town. Where would he stay?

  If he were Sayid, he’d stay the last place on earth Bashir—or anyone—would expect him to stay.

  The Kazabek Grande Hotel.

  Jimmy could see it from his table here in the café—a structurally damaged time bomb, the late morning light reflecting off its windows.

  Shit.

  He was going to have to go in there. Before this was over, before they got on that plane that would take them back home, he was goddamn going to have to go into that motherfucking about-to-fall building. He just knew it.

  It was immediately after this most unhappy realization that his phone started to shake.

  The rumors about that car bomb were flying fast and furious in the street outside the café. Even the waiters were talking about it now. A hundred people killed, dozens injured. A cargo van had been driven right up to the front of the main relief headquarters.

  Jimmy flipped open his phone and saw that Tess’s number was on the display. Thank God. She was safe.

  He stood up, aware that he was getting curious glances from simply having a phone. Who in this city could possibly have a working phone? He tossed several bills on the table and went out into the street as he took the call.

  “Hey,” he said, working to make sure his voice sounded completely unworried. “What’s up?”

  “Jimmy!” she said, her voice shaking, little more than a exhaled sob.

  Instant adrenaline flood. The connection was bad, she kept cutting out. His heart nearly stopped. “Tess! What’s the matter?”

  “. . . can’t believe . . . actually got you!”

  “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m . . .” It was garbled, but then he heard, “. . . Murphy! We were with Khalid, in the cart, just outside main . . . Q . . . City Cent . . .”

  No fucking way.

  “Shit, Tess, I can’t hear you very well!” He moved back several steps, searching for better reception, until . . .

  “. . . car bomb,” he heard, and he stood still. His heart was beating again, though. It was pounding, as if he were running a six-minute mile.

  “at the hospital . . .” she said. “Servant of the . . . Guided. . . . dul-Rasheed.”

  Jimmy forced himself not to start running, to start searching for a map.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked her. “Is that where you are? At that hospital? Repeat the hospital’s name, Tess. God damn it, I’m having trouble hearing you!”

  “Abdul-Rasheed.” He could barely make her out. “. . . Murphy’s inj . . .” He strained to make sense of her words, but then part of it leapt out, clear again. “. . . wouldn’t let me in with him.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked again.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  Fuck. As the king of evasive answers, he knew damn well that “I’m fine” was not the same as “No, I’m not hurt.”

  “Please, Jimmy,” she said. “. . . got to make sh . . . Murph’s getting . . . care of . . . urt bad . . . can’t reach Deck . . . an’t believe . . . got you. This . . . nection’s bad. I’m gon . . . peat the . . . pital. Abdul-Rasheed Hospital. Abdul-Rasheed Hospital.”

  She repeated the hospital’s name over and over and over, with bits and pieces of it cutting out, until he was convinced he got it.

  He did the same, repeating it back to her, then repeating, “I’m on my way.”

  “Thank . . .” he heard her say.

  The connection was cut, and Jimmy started to run.

  Tess hung up her phone and punched in Decker’s number again.

  Again, there wasn’t even an automated message telling her that the “customer you are trying to reach is out of range.” Even though she was standing on the room’s only piece of furniture—a hard wooden bench—with her phone up as close to the narrow slit of a window as she could get it, she still got nothing.

  She tried Dave’s number.

  Zilch.

  Okay. Okay. Jimmy was on his way to Murphy. That was good. That was very good.

  Tess wiped the last of her tears from her face as she climbed down from the bench and started to pace, aware that for the first time since she’d gotten off the plane in northern Kazbekistan, she was actually chilly.

  The irony of that was profound, and she rubbed her bare arms as she examined the inside of the tiny prison cell into which the police patrol had thrown her.

  The walls, floor, and ceiling were solid stone. The bench was bolted down and the window—far too narrow for even a child to slip through—was way up, close to the ceiling.

  It was obvious that there was only one way out of this cell, and that was through the ancient wooden door.

  Tess ran her hand across it—the wood was thick and smooth, made even harder with age. There was a small barred window in the center, with some kind of apparatus on the outside that would allow it to be opened and shut.

  She heard footsteps coming down the stairs—boots on stone—and tucked her phone back into her pocket. She sat down on the bench, knees and ankles together, wiping her eyes one more time.

  The window screeched opened and a man addressed her in the local K-stani dialect. She couldn’t see his face.

  “I’m sorry. I’m American,” she said. “I don’t speak—”

  “Of course not,” he interrupted. “You expect everyone to speak English, wherever you go.”

  That wasn’t what she would call the best of starts. She politely shook her head. Everything she did had to be polite. “No, sir. I’m in your country with my husband and my friends—all Americans—who speak your language. What I expected was never to be separated from them.”

  “Do you consider your apparel to be appropriate for the streets of Kazabek?”

  She was wearing a running bra with her bloodstained pants. It was the type of top that women in America frequently wore when they worked out, or even just worked in the yard.

  “I respect your culture and customs, and was dressed quite appropriately,” she told him, “before I used my overshirt as a tourniquet on my friend Vinh Murphy’s leg. I thought keeping him from bleeding to death was more important than keeping my arms covered.”

  There had been so much blood, and Murphy’s leg probably wasn�
�t the worst of his injuries. He’d been burned on his arm and chest, his skin raw.

  Get Decker! she’d shouted at Khalid over the sound of sirens as she’d yanked off her shirt. Deck was back at Rivka’s, with Dave and Sophia. The boy had turned and run as she’d . . .

  You’re okay, she’d told Murphy. Oh, God, he was in such pain. You’re going to be okay, Vinh. Stay with me.

  Didn’t see it, he’d gasped. Should’ve seen it coming. . . .

  “Surely there was something else you could have used, besides your shirt,” the man now admonished her. “Surely someone else could have helped him.”

  Tess’s hands—Murphy’s blood still caked around her fingernails—were trembling. She tucked them now beneath her arms. Don’t cry, don’t cry . . .

  “There wasn’t,” she said. “His own shirt was burned onto his body. There was no one else around. Your police were far more interested in harassing me than helping the injured. . . .”

  I am warning you for the final time to get inside!

  Tess didn’t even look at the police guard. I’m not leaving him. How’re you doing, Murph? They were next in line for the ambulance. A paramedic had come by, dispensing morphine, and she could tell from Murphy’s slackening grip on her hand that he was starting to float.

  Angelina, don’t leave me, he mumbled.

  She didn’t see it coming, either, when the police guard backhanded her across the jaw. . . .

  “What kind of country is this?” Tess demanded now. She was standing up, she realized, her hands tightened in fists at her sides as she glared at that little window.

  It closed with a thunk, and Tess breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

  But it was short-lived because the key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Shit. This wasn’t good.

  She sat back down. Relaxed her hands.

  “We have some questions for you,” the man said. He gestured to the open door. “Please.”

  She didn’t move. Shit. She could hear Jimmy’s voice chastising her. For God’s sake, don’t look directly at him. Eyes down, Tess. Come on, you know you’re not going to win a debate with these people. Eyes down—shit, that was hard to do. She closed her eyes instead. “Questions?” she asked.

  “About the incident,” he said.

  Tess shook her head. “I don’t know anything about . . . anything. I just happened to be there.”

  “And yet you were there, causing trouble.”

  “No,” she said, quickly adding, “sir.”

  “The police report says otherwise,” he said. He paused. She didn’t dare look at him. “Shall I have the guards escort you upstairs?”

  Out in the hall, she heard weaponry being locked and loaded. Ca-chunk.

  Tess stood up. “No, sir,” she said.

  “Please,” he said again with another sweeping gesture. He had such a pleasant voice, a pleasant accent, a pleasant face.

  Don’t look at his face.

  Head down, eyes lowered—damn it, this was hard to do—Tess went out into the hall and up the stairs, toward the Kazbekistani police interrogation room.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  When the door closed behind Dave, Sophia was completely alone with Lawrence Decker.

  She closed her eyes briefly, knowing he was as uncomfortable as she was. Maybe even more so.

  Okay. Come on. She could do this. She’d had sex with men she’d despised. Surely she could have a conversation with this one.

  She forced a smile, forced herself to look at him. “You probably have things to do—”

  He spoke over her. “I got hold of the money we’ll need to buy you safe passage out of here.”

  Good thing she was sitting down. As it was, she had to steady herself with both hands on that bale of hay. James Nash had said it would cost fifty thousand dollars.

  Decker wasn’t done with his mind-blowing news flash. “I had it put into a Swiss bank account—it’ll be easier to transfer from there. We’ll figure out some way to put it into escrow—maybe held by one of the local clerics. That way we don’t pay it until you’re free, and the . . . businessmen we hire to smuggle you into Afghanistan don’t have an opportunity to collect from both us and Bashir.”

  She had to ask. “Did you talk the Agency into ponying up the funds to—”

  “No, they, uh . . . No.”

  Now he was the one who wouldn’t look at her.

  “So to whom am I going to owe fifty thousand dollars?” she asked, even though part of her already knew. “And what’s the interest rate?”

  “Zero percent,” he said, finally meeting her eyes.

  She was gaping at him, she knew it.

  “I wasn’t getting much more than that anyway.” He shrugged. “The bank rates suck these days, you know.”

  “You had fifty thousand dollars just . . . sitting in the bank?” She couldn’t believe it.

  Of course now she’d gone and insulted him. “Yeah, and you had over half a million before Bashir stole it.”

  “But I ran an import business. That was working capital. You’re . . .” A mercenary? That’s what Sophia had thought. That they were hired by the Agency, but . . . “What are you?”

  Decker actually laughed at that. “You mean, besides crazy?” His smile erased some of the lines of fatigue on his face.

  But Sophia couldn’t smile back at him. She couldn’t even look at him again. She wanted to cover her face with her hands. Who would risk fifty thousand dollars on a stranger who had tried to kill him, a stranger who was obviously little more than a whore?

  “Hey,” he said gently. “Just so there’s no question in your mind—I don’t expect anything from you, Sophia. I’m not looking for . . .” He cleared his throat. “If you someday get to the place where you can pay me back—”

  She looked up at that. “I will,” she said.

  “Well, good.” He nodded, taking her words at face value. Which was amazing, too. “Good.”

  Sophia couldn’t help it. She started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to . . .” Now that she’d started, she might never stop.

  “Ah, God,” he said. “Honey, you know, it’s okay to cry. You don’t have to apologize.” His words were gentle, but he didn’t move any closer.

  She knew without a doubt that this man was never going to touch her again—never. It was another thing she could add to that long list of all she’d lost.

  “Awful people did terrible things to you,” Decker continued softly. “You don’t have to pretend it’s okay anymore. In fact, it’s been my experience that you heal a little faster if you—” But then he stood up and took hold of her arm. “Get down.” His voice was suddenly sharp, his words an order.

  Even through her tears, Sophia realized that there was some kind of ruckus out in the yard. Just as he pushed her down behind that bale of hay, the door burst open.

  “Sir! Sir! Are you here, sir?”

  It was only Khalid, thank goodness.

  But it was a quite distraught Khalid. His cheek was badly scraped—it had bled down his neck and stained the collar of his shirt. His clothes were torn and streaked with soot, too. He looked as if he’d been used, rather violently, to clean out a chimney.

  He was crying. Poor Decker. Everyone around him today was in tears.

  “I’m right here,” he told Khalid, who let out a stream of rapid-fire K-stani.

  “Slow down,” Deck said right back at the boy in the same dialect. “Breathe, son. Start back at the beginning. There was a car bomb. Where?”

  “City Center.”

  “Who’s been hurt?”

  “Murphy,” the boy sobbed. “He’s bad. He went in an ambulance to the hospital.”

  “Tess?”

  “They arrested her,” he told Decker.

  The muscle was jumping in his jaw. “Who did? Was she injured?”

  “No,” Khalid said. “But she was shouting at them because she wanted to go to the hospital with Murphy,
and they wouldn’t let her, and they told her she had to get inside, that she was indecent, and she still wouldn’t let go of Murphy, he was bleeding so badly, so they hit her and they threw her into this truck and I don’t know where they took her but Mr. Schroeder said he’d make sure Murphy got to see the American doctor, and then he’d go find out where they took Tess, and he gave me this”—he handed Murphy’s phone to Deck—“and told me to call you, but I couldn’t get it to work, so I unhooked Marge from the cart and rode over here as fast as I could.”

  “Who took Tess?” Decker asked the boy again.

  The look on Deck’s face was terrible, and Sophia knew that whoever had taken Tess had better not hurt her or they would not live to see another day.

  “Was it Bashir’s men or the police?” he asked.

  “I think it was the police, but I don’t know. I’m sorry, sir.” Khalid’s face crumpled.

  “That’s all right,” Decker said. “It’s okay. We’ll find out where she is. You did a good job, son. A good job. Get something to drink—for yourself and Marge.” He turned to Sophia. “Where would they have taken her? From City Center?”

  She wiped her face, her own tears a thing of the past. Why had she been crying? She couldn’t even remember now. “The biggest police station in Kazabek isn’t far from there. Chances are, even if it was one of Bashir’s patrols, they’d bring her there.”

  With one quick motion, Decker flipped open the street map. “Show me.”

  It took her a moment to find City Center. “Even if she is there, you won’t be able to help her. Only her husband will be able to pay the fines and sign the forms for her release. Here.” She pointed to the police station on the map.

  She could see that Decker knew what she was saying was true, but he didn’t like it one bit.

  “Give me Murphy’s phone,” Sophia told him. “I’ll reach Nash—his number’s programmed in, isn’t it?”

  Decker nodded, hesitating only slightly before handing it to her, an apology in his eyes. He’d tried to wipe it clean, but blood had a way of creeping into little crevasses and cracks. She knew that far too well.

  She pretended it didn’t bother her as she opened it, and it came to life. “Searching for service . . . ,” it said.