Burn (Story of CI #3) (16 page)

ARRIVING BACK AT THE TIMBUKTU AIRPORT was like a sandy, hot dose of deja vu.

Alejo walked through the scummy double glass doors with Cail and Wara on either side of him, all of them carrying big backpacks. The three of them were wearing shades but still winced when they stepped on into the noon sun. The rays were blinding, reflecting off the piled up sand. Cail put a hand to her head, groaning behind huge silver sunglasses with way too much bling.

Just outside the dinky airport, the platinum Ancient Texts Land Cruiser was idling on the curb. Lalo sat behind the wheel, lost in a daze of peppy techno music. He jerked to attention when he saw the three of them striding towards the car.

Lalo rolled down the window with a whine. Alejo ducked in through the window and he and Lalo did the back-patting hug thing. Lalo kissed each of the girls on the cheek with a smack. Cail threw her arms around him and just about choked the guy.

But Lalo was grinning. He liked it.

“They let you borrow this?” Alejo asked him when Cail finally let Lalo go and rounded the vehicle to the passenger’s side.

“Yep,” Lalo said. “Ancient Texts has a little higher budget for luxury items than CI. Luckily, the guys were in a good mood.”

They rode back to the Mission Compound in a swirl of sand. Next to Alejo in the back, Wara was staring out the window, fanning herself with a Tech World magazine the guys had left here in the car. Lalo took a hard right and eyed Wara in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, I bet the guys are wondering what happened to their magazines,” he said. “Now that Jason and Anne took their Office DVDs with them, everyone’s been running low on entertainment. They all came back, you know.” Lalo bared his teeth in a smile, now talking to Cail. “All the Ancient Text guys. Even Jonah. Such a small, small world after all, isn’t it?”

Cail scowled at him.

“You know Jonah?” Alejo asked.

“Yeah, we, uh, used to be friends. A long time ago, when we were growing up.” Weirdly, Cail looked almost…uncomfortable. She usually only squirmed when faced with hugging and kind words and things like cute, cuddly kittens.

“Well Jonah said he was gonna take a break in his busy schedule and go over to the mission compound.” Lalo raised an eyebrow at Cail. “He wanted to be there when we arrived to say hi.”

“Oh, how lovely of him,” Wara snickered.

Something weird was going on here. There was no way the geeky manuscript guy had something going on with Cail, or Alejo would have heard about it. Lalo would have done something about it, a long time ago.

Alejo had way too much on his mind to spend another second thinking about this.

He had to keep an eye on Wara.

He had to take out Lázaro Marquez.

They had to get the kids out of here and to safety.

“Are they gonna let us use the plane?” Alejo asked Lalo. Rupert had been trying to get permission to use the private Ancient Texts plane to fly the injured Malian kids out of the country. The old commercial planes that flew between Bamako and Timbuktu were full of seats and not set up for all the cots and IVs that would have to get in there to transport the kids. Plus, the Ancient Texts plane had a bullet-proof floor. CI was having a really hard time finding any other private plane interested in flying into AQIM-controlled Mali to transport a bunch of kids with severe burns.

Lalo exhaled loudly. “Pretty sure they’re not gonna let us use the plane. Ashton the pilot wants to, but the company says no way. Besides, we still have the problem of visas. We’re trying to set it up so the kids can get asylum, but nothing’s gone through yet.”

“Any new foreigners show up?”

“Not yet,” Lalo said. “Amadou’s got everyone he knows keeping an eye out. It’s not easy to hide as a white dude in Timbuktu. There are only a handful of us here now, and you can’t exactly blend in.” Lalo’s voice caught, probably choking on the sand that filtered in through the air conditioning grates. “There is some weird guy around town, though,” he added. “You’ll hear people talk about him for sure. Some Tuareg bounty hunter in the area, tracking some kind of weapon stolen from the Chinese. Of all things. It’s quite the talk around here.”

“If you see the guy, make sure he’s not Marquez in disguise,” Alejo frowned. “The Tuareg wear turbans, and anyone could be hiding in there. When Marquez got to us in Fez, we talked with him face to face and didn’t even recognize him.”

“Yeah, he had covered up the scars somehow,” Wara said. “Like with makeup. It made him look…darker. I didn’t realize it was him.”

“And why would you have?” Cail scowled. “Who would have thought the bastard could imitate your mother’s voice?”

Alejo was feeling kinda sick.

“Goodness,” Lalo suddenly said. “Can’t believe I’m forgetting. We have some news from last night. You’ll never guess who just walked in out of the desert.”

Alejo wasn’t in the mood to guess.

“Hannibal,” Lalo kindly filled him in. “He escaped. It seems the AQIM people were too busy with their internal fighting and power struggles…no time to even kill a foreigner on YouTube. Hannibal brought one of their knives back…he got a hold of it in their camp and got out into the desert. Walked through the night, then hid out all day and got into the city when it got dark last night. He’s back.”

At least there was one point of good news. “I never thought we’d see him again,” Alejo said. AQIM was really not very kind to foreigners. “Good for him. The company will be thrilled they don’t have to send a replacement.”

Alejo was pretty pissed at the manuscript company right now. If Ancient Texts weren’t so worried about money and paperwork, maybe they’d let their plane fly the kids out of Mali.

The company probably wouldn’t have paid a ransom for Hannibal, even if AQIM asked for it. Alejo wondered if the security guards got paid much.

Maybe Hannibal would get a raise.

They swung their way around a corner and closed in on the mission compound wall. The bright blue words spray painted on the adobe floated past the window, and Alejo felt Wara staring at them just like he was. “If God exists,” the graffiti accused in Arabic, “he’d better have a good excuse.”

Alejo remembered the tree house, Wara leaning into his side and shivering in the Atlas night air, goose bumps texturing her white legs. They had both been pretty speechless, not sure how to confront a world full of so many awful things. Alejo told her about the words painted on the mission house wall.

Now he was in the car with her, staring at the words in real life.

“This is it.” Alejo sat up straighter. “This is the Baptist Mission Compound. We stay here.”

Moussa shuffled out and Alejo helped him haul open the gate. The dented metal shrieked like a banshee as they pulled it back far enough for the Land Cruiser to get inside the compound.

“Hey, what do you know? It’s Jonah!” Lalo announced, wearing a rather inappropriate grin. For some reason, the guy suddenly reminded Alejo of the Joker from The Dark Knight.

Lalo was almost acting…jealous. But Alejo just couldn’t see feisty Cail attracted to the lanky guy with black glasses sitting on a folding chair under the lemon tree over there by the front door, twisting his hands around a big plastic cup of something bubbly.

Alejo really didn’t want to know.

Everyone piled out of the car. Cail kind of screeched to a halt halfway to the mission house, staring at the lemon tree. The Ancient Texts guy, Jonah, was smiling and walking towards Cail, leaving the shade of the yard’s only tree.

“Cail!” he said cheerfully, despite looking about to wilt in the Saharan heat. “You made it!”

Cail kept walking towards him, but she was wobbling like a newborn foal. “Jonah! Yup, how weird is this?”

Alejo narrowed his eyes at them, staring as Jonah patted Cail on the back awkwardly, sweat dripping down his forehead and onto his nice blue pinstripe shirt. Cail leaned into his hug and put her arms around him, then they pulled away and stood there looking at anything but each other.

Now that they were out of the car, Lalo and Wara were catching up. Lalo took her backpack from her and tossed it under a tree, then wrapped her up in a hug. He was teasing her about the trip, in that weird Lalo way that only people who knew him actually got. Wara looked happy to see him. Lalo, along with Caspian, had gotten her out of prison.

Someone scooped up Wara’s backpack to haul it into the house, and Alejo couldn’t help but grin when he saw it was Hannibal. The Hungarian security guard was one sneaky dude, getting away from AQIM like that. It wasn’t like things turned out so well every day. Usually kidnapped foreigners ended up dead.

Hannibal looked the same as ever, khaki clothes under the body armor, black gloves and scarf like a lot of the guys wore to keep the sand from shredding their skin. Hannibal caught Alejo’s eyes on him and he saluted, then headed for the house, carrying the backpacks inside. The security guard didn’t make it inside without sending a lingering glance Wara’s way. Alejo didn’t like it, but one of the South African scientists had also been ogling Wara ever since she got out of the car. She was cute, and the guys didn’t really have a lot of interactions with women out here.

Alejo tried to keep his fist from tightening when he saw Hannibal giving Wara a long look again from just inside the door.

“Hey! Cail!” It was Caspian striding into the courtyard, closing in quickly on Cail and Jonah. The Iranian’s skin was salmon-colored and wet. His curly hair frizzed around his head like a mad scientist. His arm was still swathed in bandages. “I bet that long trip was just about enough time for you to be unarmed, huh?” Caspian laughed. “I figured you’d be anxious to get your hands on some stuff here.”

Caspian knew Cail well. She smiled at him wickedly. “What do you got for me?”

Caspian grinned and pulled a Glock 17 out of the waist of his pants and proudly handed it to Cail. This all could have waited til they got inside, but everyone knew Cail was gonna be happy to get her hands on weapons. “And here’s one of my PSLs,” Caspian sighed happily, passing her the rifle he had dangling from one hand, assembled and ready to go. Just in case Cail wanted to do some shooting within sixty seconds of arriving.

Jeez, Caspian.

Alejo could tell by Cail’s wince that she would really rather have her Remington 700 here, but of course it would have been tricky getting it through Malian customs since their visas were with an NGO. The PSL sniper rifle was really easy to get around here, and Caspian had two of them. This particular rifle stood up really well in sandy environments with a minimum of maintenance. Caspian got really familiar with the rifle in Iran, and it worked really well for Timbuktu.

“Why, thank you, Caspian,” Cail smiled sweetly at him. As sweet as you could look while holding both a Glock and a PSL rifle. Cail took a long step away from everyone, narrowed her eyes and peered into the PSL’s scope. “I’ll take good care of this for you,” she said with the rifle against her eye.

Caspian raised a thick eyebrow. “I’m sure you will.”

That was when they all noticed Jonah splayed against the lemon tree. He’d backed up until he couldn’t get any farther away without rounding the trunk, but he wasn’t taking his eyes off the rifle. In Cail’s hands. His eyes behind the black glasses were about as big as dinner plates.

Alejo didn’t know if the guy just plain didn’t like weapons, or the shock of seeing a woman he used to be friends with wielding a sniper rifle was just too weird.

But Cail had noticed. She’d lowered the rifle to her side, saw Jonah by the tree, and her thin shoulders slumped. She turned away and walked towards the house, stuffing the Glock into her jeans, cradling the PSL in her arms.

Jonah watched her go.

Caspian was handing Alejo a Glock and an M4, and Alejo was pretty close to Jonah, the weapons right in his face. But Jonah was still eyeing Cail and digging his fingers into the bark of the lemon tree.

For some strange reason, Jonah was scared. Of her.

Jonah did not breathe easy again until Cail and her weapons disappeared through the mission compound doorway.

THE SUNLIGHT WAS STARTING TO FADE in Timbuktu, stretching dying arms of amber light through the tiny windows of the mosque. Alejo leaned against the mud-brick wall where he sat next to Wara inside the Muslim place of prayer. They were both mesmerized by the prisms of light dancing across the wall in this darkened hallway. It was cool and musty here, not yet prayer time. The entire mosque oozed silence.

Lalo had already given Wara and Cail the tour of Timbuktu. All the maps were on the girls’ cells, everybody got armed back at the compound and fitted out with body armor. But that was all for the morning, when it was time for shifts guarding the hospital.

Tonight, they just got to rest.

It had been a long, long week.

Thanks to Amadou’s friend who had a cousin who had a friend who worked at this mosque, Alejo and Wara had gotten a special tour. It had been a rather long lecture on Malian history and architecture, fascinating but hard to take in after the trip Alejo had just had.

There were three of these mosques in Timbuktu, built over six hundred years ago, testaments to Timbuktu’s golden age. This city had been great, home to great wealth and 25,000 scholars at Sankore University. The mosques were built almost entirely of earth and straw, and they had an alien beauty, rising up towards the desert sky, sentries from another world.

After his spiel, the mosque caretaker shuffled off to let Alejo and Wara explore a bit. They’d been pretty tired, and ended up just collapsing here in the hallway where it was so nice and cool, compared to the sauna outside. A fan was mounted on the wall, shifting one way, then the other, humming and making Alejo very sleepy. A worn carpet ran down the hallway, silky under their bare feet. Everyone had to leave their sandals at the door in order to enter the mosque.

Being here, seeing Wara walking on the same streets where Amy died last week, it was forcing Alejo to face his worst fears. The last thing on earth he wanted was to see her hurt, but here they were, in this city where so many had died.

They were here. He was facing it.

And here was Wara, thrilled to be sitting at his side. Not sleeping off the long trip. Not hanging out with someone else or off looking for something decent to eat.

She just wanted to be with him.

And if Alejo didn’t take the risk, he would never get to be with her. Yeah, someday he could lose her. And it was the most awful thing he could imagine.

But why did it matter if he lost her, if he never even had her to begin with?

If kept acting like a jerk out of fear, he was going to lose her. She deserved better than that.

He was thinking about telling her all that when Wara made him jump by speaking. “You know if he does remember me,” she said, “he is gonna want to kill me.”

Alejo blinked. “What?”

“He wants me to help him remember, so he can decide what to do. But if he remembers me, he will definitely want to kill me.”

They were talking about Lázaro. Wara must be thinking about how angry Lázaro had been when he saw her after five years in Bolivia. She’d told Alejo once about standing Lázaro up for the Puerto Rico trip, disappearing with a bunch of his money and his brother’s wedding ring. Lázaro had been a pretty angry person when he worked with Alejo in the Prism, always ranting against Americans and missionaries.

“He never got over it,” she said. Wara’s eyes had gone glassy in the dimming light. “I was really wrong to do what I did. And I guess some people just get angry and stay that way. Forever.”

There was no way Lázaro was justified in wanting to kill Wara, even if he remembered the bad way they’d broken up years ago. Alejo unfolded his legs and one of them ended up stretched out against Wara’s. “He should have gotten over it,” he told her. “Maybe he couldn’t forgive you because you broke his heart.”

He felt Wara freeze mid-breath next to him. “Ha ha. He didn’t care about me. That much.”

Alejo felt his heart get all tight, remembering what he did to Wara in Bolivia, the way he broke her heart when he had been responsible for the death of her friend Noah.

But Wara forgave him, and here they were.

This was the difference between him and Marquez. Well, one of the many, many differences. Alejo would forgive her anything, because he knew she had certainly forgiven a lot of crap that he had done.

It would be stupid for him to try to deny that he was in love with her.

“I care about you,” he heard himself say into the mostly dark hallway. Wara had gotten closer and he felt her breath tickling his cheek. “I love you.”

Alejo couldn’t figure out who started the kiss, and he really didn’t care. She was actually kissing him pretty hard, and Alejo was disappointed that he was still clear-headed enough to pull away a second and say, “If the caretaker guy finds us, we’re dead. Come with me.”