Burn (Story of CI #3) (8 page)

"I know," she said.

"Ask me to help in any other way," Lalo said tightly. He wasn't really talking to her, but to Rupert. To the universe.

God, if he could actually help people, wouldn’t he do it? But if he did, it seemed pretty obvious to Lalo that bad stuff was gonna happen. Very, very bad things.

The eye. The pure evil and the fire.

It would find him.

"I FOUND IT! THIS IS THE PAGE." Wara leaned back from the tablet on the glass table and into the sleek coffee shop upholstery. "I can apply for the visa right here, pay with my own credit card. Everything. Wara Cadogan is about to go to Mali."

Wara shifted her eyes over to the chair at her elbow, but Alejo barely glanced at her. He had brought one of his mud balls and was perched on the café chair with one ankle on his knee, polishing the rust-colored mud into a glassy sphere. Alejo's dark lashes were lowered as he squinted at the mud, rubbing it compulsively with a silky blue rag.

This was Alejo's new hobby. Rupert made them all pick something, since their job stress levels were pretty high. Rupert cooked, Cail baked bread, Lalo played computer games. Wara had her guitar.

When Wara met Alejo, he had exactly zero hobbies. Alejo had been a very, very serious guy.

Well now, Alejo had dorodango. The Japanese art of making shiny mud balls. Apparently you could use all different colors of mud. It took hours to polish the thing into a perfectly round, glossy sphere.

"Awesome," Alejo finally said. He frowned, leaning forward and honing in on some imaginary imperfection on his mud creation. Alejo wadded the rag in his palm and swiped it in miniscule circles across the coppery surface. "Rupert talked with the guy he knows at the Malian consulate, so everything should be ready for us to pick up tomorrow early."

“Nice. Looks like our flight’s at 3 pm tomorrow. Fez-Bamako.”

Wara started to reach towards the screen to enter her information for one Malian tourist visa, but her hands faltered, really not wanting to go there. She dragged her gaze in a wide circle around the Café Casablanca, where Cail had said goodbye to Wara minutes before and stalked off in a rotten mood to her lunch with old friend Jonah. The café was dingy with shamrock green vinyl upholstery. Dark wooden tables hosted Moroccan guys with fat cigars and fedora hats. The air swirled with espresso and aftershave and smoke that smelled like cloves.

They could have filmed Casablanca here.

"This is gonna work." Alejo peered at her from over the mud ball.

"Yeah, I know that." Wara winced, wishing she hadn't snapped. It's just that the idea of filling out the visa application was freaking her out. There was a reason she was sitting here with Alejo, pulling apart a flaky croissant while he chugged down black coffee. The internet at Rupert's house was totally secure, hard for anyone to hack in and discover Wara Cadogan's travel plans: a Malian tourist visa, then a flight to Bamako and on to Timbuktu. But here…anyone could find out what Wara Cadogan was up to.

And that was the idea.

She was supposed to be leaving a trail, little fresh bread crumbs so Lázaro Marquez could figure out she was still alive and follow her to Mali, then Timbuktu. Where Alejo, Cail, Caspian, and Lalo would be waiting.

Wara fought off a shiver, grimaced and grabbed Alejo's glass mug of coffee. The obsequious waiter had just been by with a refill from a steaming silver carafe. Yeah, it was sad, but she and Alejo were both pretty cheap. Why order two coffees when you could have free refills and just drink from the same mug? Wara threw back a large swallow of coffee, dark and deeply bitter.

"Eewww," she shuddered at Alejo, clinking his mug back in front of him. "Would it kill you to consume some sugar?"

Alejo kind of froze, then grinned at her, lopsided, eyes wary. “What can I say? I’m just not a sweet guy."

Wara grinned. "So true." She took a deep breath and pointed towards the dorodango ball with her chin. "Where did you get that mud from?"

Alejo lifted his eyes to her in surprise. As if this was unprecedented that she was interested in his mud hobby. "The banks of the Niger River," he said. "I got it close to Timbuktu."

"Ok. Cool." She flashed a smile at him, liking the spark in Alejo's eyes. Wara unhooked her turquoise hippy purse from the back of the chair. "Here. Can you read me my passport number? Let's get this over with."

Much too quickly, Wara found herself confirming the credit card transactions for the visa fee, then an airline ticket.

The email from Air France was already sitting in her inbox. Thanks to Rupert's guy who knew a guy, the visa was supposed to be ready tomorrow.

All of Alejo's team in Timbuktu were in Mali on tourist visas. CI was officially an educational NGO, and the guys were supposedly there as teachers at the school. It wasn't abnormal to see people carrying weapons in that part of Africa, especially with the political situation.

Wara inhaled sharply and grabbed her tablet, stuffed it deep into the recesses of her purse. There was no way she could take it back now.

Somewhere in cyberspace, Lázaro Marquez could be tracking her right now. He was probably already scrolling through her email account. Buying a flight to Mali and packing up his hiking boots and sunscreen.

"Don't you think we should leave now?" Wara heard her voice much too high. "Get out of this café?"

"Marquez couldn’t get to us right now unless he was already waiting right outside the door," Alejo frowned. "You told your family not to give any info away to anybody who called looking for you."

"Yeah, they had no problem with that, after the fiasco in Iran."

"You came to Morocco on the other passport." From Bozeman to Morocco, Wara had used another passport Rupert made up for her, so Lázaro couldn’t track her. “And besides,” Alejo frowned, “he thinks you’re dead. He’s probably halfway around the world, on another job by now.”

"True." Wara realized she was biting her lip and forced herself to stop. Alejo gave his mud ball a final polish and stuffed the silky rag into the pocket of his jeans. She had to admit, Alejo's fashion sense had grown a bit since she first met him. He used to live in khaki cargo pants and faded t-shirts, but now seemed to be more used to nice jeans, flannels, and trendy-looking hoodies.

Trying to distract herself by checking out Alejo was not working. Wara's heart was still doing a five K sprint inside her chest.

What if Lázaro
was
waiting right outside the door?

"Well, I think we should go now," she finally announced. "Unless you're hungry. You didn't really eat much today." Wara had thought Alejo would be thrilled at the tasty food choices back in Morocco, after months of eating corn gruel and no coffee. But he had just picked at the butterscotch pancakes Rupert made for breakfast, listless and as pale as a Bolivian guy could get.

Alejo didn't take his eyes off the mud ball. "Not hungry."

Wara's cell phone started to vibrate inside her purse, buzzing against the chair leg. Wara dug around in the bag until she felt the phone under a mini bottle of raspberry martini lotion and a tie-dyed headband. She shivered as her hand brushed the black metal of the tablet.

Mali. The day after tomorrow.

"Hello?" she croaked into the phone. The call said it came from Skype.

"Wara? Hey honey!"

It was her mom. Wara felt herself begin to grin as she scooped up the last bit of decimated croissant from her plate and stuffed it in her mouth. "Hey mom! You're up early." It was really good to hear a voice from home. "What have you been up to?" Wara tried to sound cheerful.

She could almost see her mom, stout with skin the color of milky coffee, bustling around the kitchen to make some awesome egg casserole for a hearty breakfast. With cheddar cheese. And lots and lots of bacon. Wara's mouth started to water.

She saw the kitchen where she had grown up, airy and open with tiny little red checked curtains. The walls of her family's house were all of wood. Her dad was probably already in his office near the entryway, wearing his trendy black glass and gulping Starbucks made in that expensive machine on the kitchen counter while he clacked away at the computer.

Oh my gosh, she was homesick.

Wara didn't often get homesick.

It was good her mom usually talked a mile a minute, because Wara's throat suddenly felt tight. Lara Cadogan banged something that sounded like a wooden spoon against the counter, then Wara heard running water. In the background, the microwave beeped.

"Oh, you know honey, the usual,” she was saying. “Got up at six for devotions. Breakfast will be a little later this morning, but now that it's just dad and me again we aren't in any hurry."

Mom hadn't liked it when Wara cut her visit to Montana short to head back to Morocco with her friend Cail. Who showed up with no warning. There hadn't really been a good way to explain it, short of admitting there was a guy out there who had tried to poison Wara with little feathered arrows.

They couldn't handle the truth.

"We still miss you," Lara Cadogan was going on. "We really wish we could have had you to ourselves for a few days more. As planned."

Wara smiled wryly.

"Anyway, dear, I'll call again soon because I know you are right in the middle of your workday over there. But Dad and I had planned to give you a little something while you were here, so you could go out and have some fun. We know your work there in Morocco must be pretty stressful. It can't be easy teaching English. You had to take off before we could give you the money to use here, so we're going to send you three hundred dollars, and we want you to use it only for fun. Got that?"

Wara found herself blinking and grinning at the same time. "Three hundred dollars? You're serious?" For Mom and Dad, that was rather generous. But Wara wasn't about to argue that she didn't deserve it. "Oh my gosh. Thanks!"

Mom had barely stopped to take a breath. "I'll send it from Western Union online as soon as I get the eggs in the oven. Then I'll email you where you have to pick it up."

"Awesome." Wara eyed Alejo, still grinning. Maybe the two of them needed to get drunk tonight. "Thanks Mom. I
am
really stressed. Teaching English is…hard."

She could almost see her mom smiling over the phone, black curls frizzy around her face. "Yeah, well, at least it's something safe." Wara tensed, hoping Mom wasn't about to mention prison in Iran. That would put a damper on the news of big money coming her way. Thankfully, her mom chose not to go there.

Thank God, there also wasn’t any teasing about the "cute Latino guy" Mom thought Wara should marry as soon as possible. After Alejo had kept Wara safe in Iranian prison, Wara's parents practically thought he was a god. From Latino background herself, Mom loved that Alejo was from Bolivia.

After saying goodbye, Wara passed on the good news to Alejo. "And you're coming with me," she informed him, stuffing her fear of rejection, even if for a moment. "To have fun tonight and spend all that money. I don't know what they eat in Timbuktu, but I'm pretty sure I don't like it.”

She saw Alejo blinking at her, wished she could do something, anything to wipe away that blank look that said he was thinking about getting rid of Lázaro, that deep inside something wasn’t right.

IF SHE HAD TO WEAR SKIN-TIGHT LEOPARD print pants, Cail would do it. She probably would be caught dead in a disco outfit from the eighties, and she would totally go out in old lady slacks and an Ugly Christmas Sweater if it would help her on assignment.

But Cail didn't do long skirts.

It didn't really matter if they were long and flowery or jean, even one of those supposedly cool, modern denim ones with sequins and distressing. Cail was not going to wear it.

She had enough of long skirts for a lifetime.

Wara loved her skirts, though. Cail had just said goodbye to Wara in front of the little French café where some movie had been filmed in the 1940's. Wara had been wearing a long black hippy skirt with silver coins jangling around the hem. Cail could see Alejo inside the café, legs crossed at a little table of dark wood, waiting in a haze of cigar smoke for Wara while he polished one of his stupid little mud balls. Alejo and Wara got to apply for Wara's Mali visa, leave all the information right out there in the open for Ex-Boyfriend Marquez to find.

"Have fun," Cail had nodded and tried to grin. She swallowed hard now, only wishing that she could hope the same thing for herself.

This was like the lunch reunion from hell.

Cail pulled her cell out of her purse as she walked, checking for messages, really not sure if she hoped he would cancel.

She was on her way to meet Jonah. And his hot fiancée.

Jonah's girlfriend must think she was the lamest loser ever. They were probably laughing about her right now.

Cail ground her teeth together, really angry that she was checking her reflection in a shiny black store window. It was still weird that Jonah had recognized her the other day without a long skirt. Today she had on a tight black long sleeve dress that fell mid-thigh and some maroon wide-leg pants, latest style from Banana Republic. She hoped she didn't look too dorky.

Jonah’s girlfriend would probably have sexy red high heels and perfectly flat-ironed hair.

Cail felt her cheeks do a slow burn.

She pulled up at the entrance to a tunnel-like side street off the main bazaar, letting the bustling crowds flow past her. Warm mint tea simmered in a copper pot to her left and the tiny glasses tinkled every time the tea stand's only patron shifted on his stool. On Cail’s right, a mountain of spices glinted in the sun, powdery cones of saffron and cumin and things crimson and chocolate and pistachio green. The air smelled exotic and mouth-watering.

Good thing it was time for lunch. With Jonah and his hot non-dorky girlfriend.

Yippee.

Cail tried to keep from glaring at all the people who bumped her shoulder as they raced by. A lot of them turned to gawk at the blond girl who stood head and shoulders above most Moroccan women. Cail hoped they could tell she was not pleased.

She checked the street name on a weathered tile plaque on the crumbling corner building and then headed further into the rabbit warren of Fez's bazaar. This was the right place. Cail had even been here before, maybe six years back, with Rupert. If she remembered right, the restaurant made a mean date and raisin couscous.

At the moment, Cail felt sick. But she would eat like a horse if it meant Jonah and his true love wouldn't notice how the sight of them hurt her.

YOU SHOULD PRAY ABOUT THIS! the OCD screamed at her. THIS IS JONAH JONES! HOW COULD YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT GOING INTO THIS UNPREPARED? YOU NEED TO PRAY!

Every muscle in Cail's body tensed. The street shimmered as the panic swam around her head and she couldn't focus on anything but the noise.

It really felt like she should pray. Because it was Jonah Jones, and she could really mess up this situation, and not just a little.

This could be a disaster.

She knew it was just the OCD.

But it seemed so damn real.

Many people with OCD felt the overwhelming urge to wash their hands or clean stuff, but with Cail it was religion. Say the right prayer. Repeat that Bible verse. Cleanse her mind of that improper thought. For her, religious things had become obsessions, and they were always threatening to take over.

She had gotten by for so many years now without medicine, but since nearly knifing Jonah things had gotten worse and it was frustrating her to death.

Everything slowed, then funneled together into a blur that rushed by her ears with a long, dull roar. Jonah was standing there on the street outside Farid's, wearing dark jeans and a white button down shirt with silver stripes. Cail panicked even more at how seeing him affected her. She forced herself to breathe deep and slow, keep walking towards the restaurant, pretend she hadn't seen him.

That feeling isn't real. It's just an obsession, a chemical problem in your brain. Think about something else.

The roaring went away, thank God, leaving her with just a belly full of butterflies with razor blades for wings. She casually turned her head toward Farid's a few seconds before arriving, let her eyes flick over Jonah, then back with a hint of recognition.

As if she hadn't at one silver moment in her life memorized every plane of his face. As if she had been able to forget.

Despite the horror in the pit of her belly, she forced herself to focus on Jonah.

"Cail! Hey!" Jonah smiled and waved. "You found the place."

"Uh, yeah." Cail forced herself to smile and cross the last few steps over thousand year old cobblestones. "I've been here before. The headquarters of my organization is in Ifrane, and Ifrane is really close to Fez, so we come here all the time to hang out."

"Oh. Cool." Jonah's eyes were wide. Maybe he never imagined Cail Lamontagne "hanging out" anywhere besides a revival meeting. In jean skirts and neatly-plaited buns, carting around a big fat Bible.

This whole lunch reunion was so going to suck.

"So, your fiancée's not here yet?" she asked. Cail felt her eyes wandering around the tiny space in front of the restaurant, making circles that were much too exaggerated. Jonah shook his head.

"No, she's on her way, though. She was gonna shop for some stuff, then meet us here but she texted me that she's gonna be late. Let's just get started." And he pulled open the brass door for Cail, holding it open casually with one palm. She shivered and went inside the dimly-lit restaurant, blinking against the sudden lack of light.

Inside, everything was like she remembered: reams of colorful Moroccan embroidery on the walls, carved wooden tables with plump, fringed pillows for cushions and brass lamps that were right out of Arabian nights. Not the least bit out of his element, Jonah flicked a hand at the waiter and asked for a table for three, no smoking. Cail trailed after him towards a table in the corner, bathed in the glow of a golden chandelier with Arabic figures and tinkling silver coins. As they squeezed past another table full of Moroccan guys, a good-looking one in a black leather jacket grabbed Jonah's arm and grinned wickedly at first Cail, then an annoyed Jonah Jones.

"I give you one thousand camels in trade for your woman," the guy said in throaty English. Jonah glared at him and shook his head curtly. "Ok, for you one thousand one hundred," the guy called after him. "We have a deal?"

This was turning out to be a wonderful lunch. Cail slid into place on a heap of cushions at the table the waiter showed them. Thankfully it was far enough away from Camel Guy that he gave up interest and turned back to his plate, snickering.

Cail wondered what was wrong with her. Normally she would have tried to pin the guy's hand to the table with a knife or something, or at least hurt him enough to wipe that smile off his face.

Having Jonah come back was making her drift. She had worked so hard to become someone else, but seeing him was somehow pulling up the anchor she had so carefully placed to keep her in the now, away from the past.

Jonah sat across from her at the table, still looking more than a little ticked off. "Don't worry," Cail told him with a smile that felt like the realest one she'd given him in years. "That kind of stuff happens all the time here. I didn't beat him up because I wouldn't want to get you in trouble. Since you're about to leave the country."

Jonah blinked, lips parted but not sure what to say.

"Too bad your hot Latina fiancée isn't here yet," Cail nodded. "I bet you could have gotten a really good deal for her. Maybe five thousand."

Now Jonah grinned. "Oh yeah. I could become a camel billionaire."

The waiter swooped towards their table in a crisp white dress shirt, black slacks, and a shiny red Moroccan cap with dangly gold tassels. Cail pretended to study the menu, but already knew she wanted couscous. The one with dates and a whole bunch of fruit. The thought of meat still made her queasy.

"I'll just let Jessica order when she gets here," Jonah said. "Once that woman starts shopping, it's hard to get her to stop. Plus I don't think she really likes the food here anyway. Worried about bugs and stuff."

Ah.

Cail arched an eyebrow and nodded, then ripped a piece of flatbread from the silver dish the waiter had left on the table, stuffed it in her mouth and slowly chewed.

YOU FORGOT TO PRAY! screamed the OCD. Cail took a slow breath and kept chewing, ignoring the panic that wanted to swallow her whole, redirecting her mind to something much more interesting.

Jonah Jones was with a prissy girl.

Probably a very good thing we didn't end up together, then.

"I think I definitely won't let Jess visit me where I'm working," Jonah was saying. "I've been there for six weeks already, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't like it."

Cail felt like a claxon was shrieking danger in her head and her heart totally wanted to keep pace with the noise. But the idea of Jonah's fiancée wimping out on a trip to visit him in whatever city he worked in in Africa was distracting Cail from the panic a little.

"She's doing ok here in Morocco, though?" Cail asked dryly.

"Yeah, well enough," Jonah shrugged. "In the couple days she’s been here. I was thrilled she decided to come meet me here for my vacation. Who would have thought Morocco could be vacation? But Morocco is so developed compared to where I was working. Timbuktu is so remote."

"Excuse me?" Cail nearly snorted crumbs of flatbread. She heard herself wheeze a little bit over the din of Arabic music. "You work in…"

"Timbuktu," Jonah grinned. "Sounds like a joke, right? But that's where one of Africa's most important collection of manuscripts is. And that's right up my alley." His grin faltered, probably noting the abject horror on Cail's face. It took her a while to stop blinking.

She should have realized it. The night she almost knifed Jonah, he’d said he worked with ancient manuscripts. But running into Jonah that night had been so unbelievable. Cail’s mind just hadn’t caught it.

The most important manuscripts in Africa were in Timbuktu.

"This is crazy," Cail finally said. "
I'm
going to work in Timbuktu. My new assignment is there. We're leaving the day after tomorrow."

Jonah's mouth gaped open. "You're kidding me! That's…incredible. Have you been there yet?"

Under the table, Cail's foot was going crazy against the tiles. How could this have happened? "Uh, no. No I haven't. But I've heard a lot about it because one of my best friends is working there at the Christian school. Lalo Navarro."

"Oh my gosh! Lalo? Yeah, I know him. There aren't very many of us foreigners out there, so we all know who each other are. Yep, while I
have
security guards from my company, Lalo and his friends
are
the security guards. Those guys are always seriously armed. You know Lalo ‘cause he works at the Christian school?"

Jonah frowned and Cail fought releasing a sigh. Everything always came back to church. "Kind of. The NGO Lalo and I work for sends teachers overseas. Lalo was sent to work with the school earlier, and now they're sending me."

She willed away the question she saw rising in Jonah's brain, just itching to get past his lips: So, Cail, do you walk around seriously armed too, like the other guys in your NGO?

Please don't say it. Please, God.

The moment passed, and the words never came.

Jonah was thinking about something, though, and the blue light in his eyes dimmed quite a bit. "Of course you heard about the attack on the school?" he asked.

"Yep." Cail pressed her lips together. She sat up a little straighter, glad for the breeze from the overhead ceiling fan. The obsessions had died down to the kind of anxiety you might feel about going into the dentist office to get a root canal. Unpleasant, but not threatening to eat her alive. Her skin was still damp with sweat from the stress of it all. "Our boss told us about it, and I talked with Lalo. It's horrible. You were already here in Morocco?"

"Yeah,” Jonah nodded. “It happened when we were already here. That's why Lalo and the guys are always armed, I guess. I'm really surprised your NGO is sending you over there. The security situation is terrible." His face creased, and Jonah seemed really worried.

Before Cail could say something stupid like, “I can handle myself,” Jonah rambled on.