The Long-Lost Jules

by Jane Elizabeth Hughes

  One sleety evening that belied any promise of spring, I opened my encrypted home laptop and logged in to the agency records file. Close and continuing relationship, I typed in firmly. To hell with Leo and his moods. It was a close and continuing relationship for me, and perhaps always would be. Leo Schlumberger, I entered. With some relief, I answered no to those all-important questions: Is your contact associated with a foreign intelligence agency? Is your contact associated with any foreign government? No, no, and no. Before I could think, I pressed SEND and closed my computer.

  I wondered what Internal Security would make of Leo.

  The following week, I opened my Atlantic Bank emails to discover an invitation to my Bahraini sheikh’s yacht for his eldest son’s fortieth birthday. I drew in my breath sharply, feeling the sudden but welcome spurt of adrenaline in my veins. So, I had gained his trust enough to be invited on board his yacht. This was a golden opportunity to penetrate his inner circle, as I had never quite been able to do with Sheikh Abdullah—that was why the investigation had dragged on for so long.

  Besides, early spring on the French riviera would be gorgeous.

  I went through the tedious burner cell phone routine that evening so I could report the invitation to Bob. “Nice work,” he said immediately. “I’ll station an ops team on a navy vessel offshore, but I don’t expect any trouble.”

  Neither did I. Even if the sheikh suspected me, I figured his own yacht was probably the safest place in the world for me. He would never expose himself to the inquiries and attention that any injury to me would bring.

  “But be careful,” Bob added, and I shrugged. Being careful was never much fun.

  The next day at work, I announced my upcoming trip at the morning meeting. Kristen R. said immediately, “I’ll go with you, Amy.”

  “Oh, no,” I said involuntarily.

  “Audrey said I should second-chair you on your accounts, and you’ve never been on one of these jaunts. I’m coming with you.”

  I looked at Lord Featherstone in mute appeal. He couldn’t stand the Kristens. He deliberated a moment, apparently weighing the benefits of a one-Kristen-less office for a few days, and said, “No harm in having Rivers accompany you, Amy. Better to have two of you.”

  Despairingly, I realized no one had read him in on the Bahraini operation. He didn’t have a need to know, so he didn’t.

  “Fine,” I said shortly.

  Kristen dimpled. “It will be so exciting to see the sheikh’s yacht. I hear it’s spectacular!”

  You idiot, I thought sourly.

  Two days later, we were on a plane to Marseille.

  The yacht was spectacular. Tall and white and graceful, it dazzled the eyes in the pale, watery sun of early spring on the riviera. It was moored offshore, so we took the private tender from the small dock near Marseille, and the little boat cut through the waves with sharp-edged precision. The water was blue, blue, bluer than blue, and the sky a lighter shade of blue, with soft, scudding clouds above. Kristen said dreamily, “Isn’t this beautiful?”

  “Yes,” I said, still sour. “Just wonderful.” It had occurred to me that Kristen’s presence would be extra insurance against any trouble, and I was sulking over the realization that this really would be the danger-free, idle holiday that she expected. What a bummer.

  So I was perfectly relaxed the next morning when the yacht anchored off a small harbor in Juan-les-Pins, a beautiful and relatively unspoiled village just east of Marseille. The night before, I had managed to sneak into the sheikh’s private study and copied his computer files onto my tiny flash drive, which was now hidden within a locket in my jewelry box. My mission accomplished, I was actually looking forward to diving off the ship’s prow and snorkeling off the boat in the crystal-clear waters of the Mediterranean. The air temperature was a moderate sixty-eight and the water a cool seventy—perfect for snorkeling, despite Kristen’s elaborate shivers. I braced myself to dive into the chilly waters and swim ashore.

  But the sheikh came up to my elbow and said, “We will take the tender into the beach and then picnic there, yes? It will be warmer this afternoon.”

  I shrugged and pulled on my white linen shift dress over my bathing suit. “Sure,” I said agreeably.

  Kristen opted to stay on board, sunning herself under the greedy eyes of the sheikh’s sons. She took off her slender wrap and lay down on one of the plush deck chairs, her pretty, delicate-boned face tilted up to the sun. I noticed the sheikh’s son ogling her in her little white bikini and wished I could give her a burka. Today was her birthday, and at breakfast the sheikh had given her a Tiffany bracelet. Now she displayed it on her slim wrist, admiring the way it sparkled and dazzled in the sun.

  The tender scraped up against a stone pier, and I found that I too was inclining my head toward the sun’s welcome warmth. A few tourists were sitting on the rocky beach, applying sunscreen and chatting languidly, while some slicker-clad men fished off the pier. There were no other yachts anchored nearby. The scene could not have been more peaceful or idyllic.

  The men who had brought us ashore set up an elaborate little encampment for us against the rocks of the steep cliff overlooking the harbor. I watched in astonishment as they produced remarkably comfortable lounge chairs, a small cocktail table, and thick, sheet-size towels. Next came an array of foods, from caviar on toast points (which I adored) to little strawberry tarts topped with real, fresh whipped cream (which I also adored) to frosty margaritas draped with oranges and lemons (my cup runneth over). Contentedly, I leaned back against my chair and sipped the luscious cocktail, lazily watching the sheikh stroll down to the waterfront to watch the fishermen.

  I don’t know what warned me. One minute I was sucking on a tequila-drenched orange, luxuriating in the sybaritic comfort of the soft lounge and sweet fruit. A split second later, I sensed, rather than heard, a sudden whoosh of air above me and leaped sideways, avoiding by barely an inch a massive rock that had hurtled down the cliff in a direct path toward my defenseless head.

  Gasping, I didn’t have to feign my trembles and fear as the sheikh came running back to me, brushing aside the worried calls of the innocent tourists. He was furious. “Are you all right, Amy?” he cried. “How did this happen? Come away from the cliff. Come away, quickly!”

  He grabbed my arm, and I winced in sudden pain. Looking down, I realized the rock had scraped against my arm as it came rocketing down, leaving a network of scratches and blood in its wake. I pictured the weight of that rock crashing down on my head and, biting my lip, allowed the sheikh to guide me away from the cliff.

  Then we both looked up to the top, and I saw, quite distinctly, the outline of a tiny figure running away from the edge of the stony drop. The sheikh saw it too and was purple-red with rage. “Criminal cretins,” he hissed under his breath. “Criminal stupidity. Amy, are you all right?”

  My training was kicking in, and I was thinking coolly again. I wondered if the sheikh was angry because his men had failed to kill me. I didn’t believe in coincidences, and the odds that a giant rock would have picked just that moment to break loose and begin its lethal descent onto the head of Jules Seymour, CIA NOC officer, seemed poor to me.

  I said tremulously, “I don’t feel very well, Sheikh Sultan. I’m so sorry, but could we go back to the yacht now? I’d feel much safer there.”

  “Of course, of course. And we must clean your wounds as well,” he added. “I will bandage them myself.”

  Over my dead body, I thought. But I nodded submissively and drooped my way back to the tender, leaning heavily on the solicitous sheikh and wincing theatrically every time I moved my arm.

  Still, I was shaken. I thanked every god in the pantheon for that mysterious sixth—or seventh, or eighth—sense that had alerted me to danger and impelled me to jump aside in the nick of time. I had been so sure that the sheikh was completely unsuspecting. It was disconcerting—and, yes, a little frightening—to learn I had been so wrong. My eyes darted around the beach as I co
nsidered, for just one moment, making a run for it while I was still on land.

  But that would only confirm the sheikh’s suspicions, and what about poor, dumb Kristen, oblivious and helpless on board the yacht? Besides, I didn’t want to abandon that precious flash drive I had hidden in my locket.

  My heart pounding, I climbed into the little white boat, and we raced toward the yacht at breakneck speed.

  Chapter 42

  Back on board, I shook off Kristen’s exclamations and went immediately to my room, claiming an urgent need for a shower. I could see the sheikh’s men hovering indecisively in my wake and tried to recapture my certainty that nothing would happen to me on the yacht. I was a little less sure now. Thankfully, the men stood back, and I made it to my room unharmed. I threw the lock and leaned against the door, breathing heavily.

  Then I made a beeline for my jewelry box, thinking perhaps I should toss that fatally incriminating little flash drive overboard before they thought to search my cabin. But even as I hurried across the cool tile floor, inlaid with elaborate Arabic designs in brilliant shades of blue and green, I could see they had already searched—and hadn’t even bothered to hide their tracks. The duvet was hanging over the mattress instead of being tucked in; my Kindle lay open on the bedside table instead of closed, as I had left it; and drops of liquid from my ever-present water bottle were spilled carelessly on the polished wood of the dresser.

  Grimly apprehensive, I opened the jewelry box, but, as I had already known, the locket was gone.

  Well, that at least explained the clumsy attempt at murder or maiming on the beach. The sheikh had probably acted on an outraged impulse upon hearing of my treachery. Until then, he likely had been as unsuspecting as I had thought; he probably searched every passenger’s cabin daily. I cursed myself for my stupidity and carelessness. Bob would have my head for this.

  But then I cooled down and realized that my initial calculation still held: As long as I (and Kristen, a very inconvenient witness, from the sheikh’s perspective) was known to be aboard his yacht, I should be safe. Now that he had retrieved the drive, I was not a danger to him. Ergo, he was not a danger to me either.

  And yet there was that rock. . . .

  When I emerged on deck in a fresh blue sundress, my scratched-up arm discreetly hidden under a light shawl, Kristen was holding her cell phone in the air and scowling at it. “I’m trying to send pictures to the team,” she complained, “but the internet is down. Mahmud”—she appealed to the sheikh’s eldest son—“when do you think they’ll fix it?”

  He shrugged and spread his hands. “Tomorrow, maybe. Inshallah.”

  Kristen and I exchanged glances. Even she knew what the fatalistic “inshallah” meant. My brain was on high alert, registering the sinister implications of this development. I was completely alone, cut off from the ops team just a few miles out to sea. My certainty that I would not need them was fading, and I resolved to stick to Kristen like glue for the rest of the weekend. How ironic to be dependent on her for my safety. How humiliating. And how very precarious.

  I was running through possible escape plans in my head when we all heard the noisy sounds of drunken revelry aboard a ship nearby. Fast approaching from the starboard side came a tatty rust bucket of a yacht filled with loud partygoers on deck, each one equipped with a cell phone camera and selfie stick.

  “What the hell?” Kristen said, staring.

  I wanted to cheer and wave an American flag. However much I had assured myself that I was safe on the yacht, I hadn’t entirely believed it. “It’s the cavalry,” I said.

  “What?”

  The sheikh’s son came up and grabbed me by the elbow. “Come below,” he said. “Come now.”

  Something was sticking into my ribs, but I ignored it and made an agile leap to the side. He couldn’t possibly shoot me in front of fifty cell phone cameras. “No,” I said clearly. I waved and called out to the partiers, “Come join us! We have booze for everyone!”

  “Get below!” the sheikh commanded, and his men advanced on me, shouting. A dozen cell phones clicked, and someone called, “This is great! It’s live-streaming on Facebook!”

  I shoved the men aside, roughly, but they kept on coming. I waved at the cameras again. I turned to Kristen. “Jump!” I commanded.

  “What? I don’t even have my bathing suit on.”

  The sheikh’s men had hesitated, conferring. “Jump!” I said, more urgently.

  “Amy, your behavior is thoroughly irrational. Don’t think I’m not going to discuss the situation with Audrey when she returns—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” I shouted. I pushed her overboard, and she surfaced below with a small shriek as I threw myself into the cold water beside her. For once, she didn’t look perfect. Her long blond hair was dark with water and clung in wet strands to her cheeks. “Swim,” I said grimly.

  The partygoers, crowing with laughter, were already chugging toward us in a small motorized tender. They hauled us aboard and waved at the sheikh, whose face was mottled with rage.

  Kristen clung to the sides of the boat, panting. “I can’t believe you did that,” she said, shivering with cold and fury. “Are you crazy?”

  Small thanks for saving her life, I thought. So I said, “You’re welcome.”

  “What?”

  Until I felt the gun in my ribs, I hadn’t been sure that this was real danger. As welcoming hands pulled me up onto the rusted yacht, though, a delayed reaction set in, and I found that, to my annoyance, I too was trembling. Perhaps I had needed rescuing after all. I wasn’t sure. Uniformed ship’s officers wrapped Kristen up in warm blankets and hustled her away, but I stood up on the splintery deck, looking around for the CIA team leader, Shea.

  Instead, I saw Leo.

  He shouldered his way through the excited crowd and put his arm around me. For just a moment, I allowed myself to lean against him and feel the warm pulse of his heart against my soaked skin. Maybe there was something of Amy in me after all; sometimes it wasn’t so terrible to let someone protect me. When I was sure my voice would be steady, I said, “I might have been in trouble there. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Leo’s eyes traveled down my body, lingering at the sopping-wet sundress that clung lovingly to it, outlining every detail of my breasts and hardened nipples. “Oh,” he said as he pulled off his jacket and draped it around my shoulders, “I can think of a way.”

  “But how . . . ,” I began.

  “Shh,” he said. “The real cavalry is coming.” I recognized, again, how closely our minds seemed to work together and then heard what his keener ears had already detected: the putt-putt of another small tender, crossing the waves toward us. The sheikh and his men were tiny specks aboard the now-unmoving Ayesha, roped securely to a white cutter. Dimly, I heard shouts and commands coming across the water. This small tender, apparently, was from the cutter.

  A dark, closely shaven head appeared at the top of the ladder, and Shea climbed aboard, followed by six other heavily bearded, burly men with rippling muscles and hard faces. At last, my CIA team. The drunken crowd backed off quickly, and Shea surveyed the scene in grim silence.

  He said to me, “What the fuck?”

  “They tried to kill me on the beach at—”

  “I know,” he said impatiently. “But what the fuck?”

  Leo shouldered in between them. “At last, the CIA,” he said dryly. “Better late than never, I guess.”

  Shea inclined his head toward Leo. “And who the fuck is this?”

  “Civilian male,” I said briefly.

  “Name? Nationality?” His sharp ears had caught the slight accent, and he was tense, poised for action.

  “Name is L—” I started.

  “Lowenstein,” Leo said, cutting me off. “I’m Mossad.”

  Chapter 43

  I was rooted to the spot. If the earth had opened up a gigantic chasm under my feet, I would have been less shaken.

  “Oh, fuck,” Shea said.
>
  “Oh, fuck,” I said, startling all of us equally.

  “That your real name?” Shea demanded.

  “Of course not,” Leo said, sounding surprised.

  “You have ID?”

  “Of course not,” Leo said again.

  “Well, fuck me,” Shea said. He turned on me. “You’re collaborating with Mossad on this? Who signed off on that?”

  Leo said to me, “Don’t tell him anything.”

  I couldn’t have spoken if I’d wanted to; my mouth was still gaping open. I closed it into a firm line.

  Shea, scowling, glanced around the crowded deck. “What about the others?”

  “All civilians,” Leo said immediately. “Picked up at the Jewish Community Center of Marseille. They got free booze as long as they kept their cameras trained on that yacht.”

  Shea grunted. “I’m going to be filling out paperwork for the next month and apologizing to the fucking French for the next year.”

  “Or,” Leo suggested, “you could just let us sail on back to Marseille while you take your prisoners out to the US Navy ship you’ve got waiting a couple of nautical miles farther out.”

  The two men, both alpha males of deeply competitive intelligence organizations, sized each other up. Shea stuck out his hand, and Leo shook it; each man’s grip was like iron. To me, Shea said, “What were you thinking? Mossad!”

  “They’re supposed to be on our side,” I said.

  He shook his head. “What a clusterfuck.” Then he and his team clambered back down the ladder and off our ship. My drunken shipmates broke out into loud cheers, and we set our course for Marseille.

  Kristen was wearing one man’s jacket and another man’s scarf. Friendly Frenchmen were plying her with brandy from the ship’s bar, and she seemed to be almost enjoying herself. Pushing Leo aside, I made my unsteady way toward the bar. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even feel anything except the cold of my wet clothes and the even colder knowledge of my stupidity.