Burn (Story of CI #3) (9 page)

"That's the other reason I won't let Jess visit me there. I have a private security guard at all times. There are four guys that work with our company, and they all take turns. Hannibal is the coolest one. How could you not love that name?"

Jonah raised his eyebrows and glanced over his shoulder, probably checking for the girlfriend. He turned back to Cail, all shiny blue eyes. Cail guessed he hadn’t been told about the missing Ancient Text security guard yet. If she remembered right, it was the guy named Hannibal.

"I honestly wouldn't accept the job there without the security guys,” Jonah went on. “Al-Qaeda is really making a mess of the region, hurting a lot of people. Al-Qaeda wants to burn all those manuscripts, you know. They are hundreds of years old, prove that Africa had a written history and advanced scientific knowledge much earlier than anyone thought. The manuscripts are really a treasure. And if we don't get them on computer, the bad guys could get their hands on them at any time and burn them to ashes."

Cail was aware of this. She’d been reading up on Mali. "It's a really important job," she said. Silence dropped around the table. The food was taking forever to come.

How in the world were she and Jonah Jones ending up in Timbuktu together?

She remembered the message from Hannah Grace yesterday morning:
Stay away from him, you witch.

When Jonah's family found out Cail was with him in Timbuktu, they would go ballistic. Of course there was nothing they could do about it, being thousands of miles away across the Sahara and the Atlantic Ocean and a large part of the good old US of A. And out in AQIM-surrounded Timbuktu, she and Jonah would have much more important things to worry about than Jonah’s family freaking out.

But still. Cail felt sick.

She cleared her throat and attempted a smile at Jonah.

"So, did you get your money back from the Holiday Inn?"

Jonah grinned. "You betcha. I made them reimburse me in full. After all, they left me at some dive where I got held up at knifepoint."

Cail started to flush but then noticed the good-natured twinkle. He was teasing her.

It was good he could tease her, wasn't it? Friends winked at each other like that, with that kind of warm smile.

She and Jonah were friends?

That might be a bit of a leap.

The renewed chorus of lewd remarks from Camel Guy and his buddies clued Cail in that Jonah's girlfriend was arriving. Sure enough, a lady in tight slacks and red alligator skin pumps was working her way through the crowded tables, heading straight for Jonah and Cail. She was pretty, with shiny black hair to the shoulders and a little bit of makeup. At least the girl had the sense to wear a long tunic shirt, white and a little tighter than necessary.

Cail knew she should just let it go, but the way Jonah's girlfriend kissed him with gusto made her feel just plain bad.

"Jess!" Jonah grinned at her. "This is Cail."

Cail felt like cringing, imagining the stories Jessica had heard, what she must think. But Jonah's girlfriend just rounded the table in a swirl of coconut perfume to enthusiastically kiss Cail on the cheek. "So nice to meet you!” she drawled. “Jonah told me the other day that he ran into you, that you guys used to go to church together back in Nebraska. That is so cool! I grew up in church too."

Cail was stunned. The other woman's eyes were friendly and clueless. She definitely didn't know.

Before Cail could speak, Jonah's girlfriend patted her on the shoulder and flashed a smile. "Sorry, y'all, but I need to make a trip to the facilities. Hon, could you order a salad for me? Something light? I'll be right back." Jessica hugged her large red Coach bag tighter to her side and stalked back past Camel Guy, glaring at him as he wiggled an eyebrow at her.

Jonah and Cail watched her go. "At least he didn't smack her butt," Cail observed. She saw Jonah frown. "Arabic guys love to do that."

"They do that to you?"

"I'd like to see them try," Cail smiled wickedly. "Let's just say they always regret it. Her grin faded and she bit her lip, looking away. "Jessica…doesn't know about me?"

"What? Yeah, when we, uh, ran into each other at the hostel I told Jess I was going to get together with an old church friend that happens to be here in Morocco."

"But…I mean the other stuff."

"Oh. No. I never told her about what happened. Why would I do that?"

Cail raised both eyebrows at him in disbelief. She could think of a dozen reasons he would tell his girlfriend about Cail, the most interesting of which would probably be just for a good laugh.

"She'll find out," Cail said sadly. "Doesn't she ever use the internet?"

Jonah started playing with his empty green tea glass. "I'll probably tell her someday," he said. "If it comes up."

Cail was still incredulous. And so relieved she wanted to cry.

Somehow, amazingly, Jonah respected her enough not to go around telling people what she had done. That fact was like a healing balm, soaking into her soul.

"Thank you," she told him, then cleared her throat tightly. "I appreciate it."

"It wasn't your fault, Cail." Jonah was still fingering his glass, tracing little circles around the shiny golden rim. "I know it wasn't your fault."

Then Jessica arrived, plopping into the seat next to Jonah and wrapping a tanned arm around his shoulder. The two of them looked good together: attractive, fashionable. Her flawless dark skin glowed next to Jonah's rather pasty complexion.

"Did I miss anything?" Jessica grinned. She didn't even wait for an answer. "Oh honey, I have to show you the shoes I got. You won’t believe it! Twenty dollars."

Cail stifled a yawn, hoping she didn't appear too rude. She was so, so ready to leave. She needed to go to a quiet place and be alone, because something had just happened inside her that changed a lot of things.

Jonah didn't hate her.

He said it wasn't her fault.

But as Cail saw Jonah turn sappy blue eyes on his fiancée to ask her about some stupid twenty-dollar shoes, the realization slammed her that there was something that still was not going to change.

She had lost him.

Forever.

IT WAS THREE IN THE AFTERNOON, and Lalo was just now brushing his teeth for the first time today.

He’d kind of forgotten when he walked Amadou over to the hospital that morning. It had been a bad night, and dental hygiene wasn’t exactly the first thing on Lalo’s mind when he rolled out of bed.

Now at three, Lalo was back at the compound for a few minutes to grab some lunch and combat halitosis. He squinted into the triangle-shaped mirror that was so crappy and cheap the thing always made his face look like a funhouse escapee. Lalo spit into the tin sink right under the mirror, squirted a little water from the faucet to wash it all down.

A leggy cloud of mosquitoes buzzed just over his right hand, waiting to land and have a buffet of Colombian blood for a late lunch. Lalo just left them there. They could only sink their fangs into his hand or face, because the black jeans and long-sleeved shirt would save the rest of him.

Tomorrow he was gonna have to give Angry Birds a rest. The gray speckled Mario Bros tee was laid out over the footboard of his bed, washed out in the sink and starting to dry. The red and white spotted mushroom was starting to look pretty sad.

Lalo slapped his toothbrush down next to the faucet just as a loud rap sounded at the door. "Anne. Hi." Opening the door, Lalo found the skinny missionary lady with flame red hair down to the coccyx. She couldn't have been more than five foot two, but Lalo never wanted to get on her bad side. The lady lived in besieged Timbuktu at the Baptist Mission Compound with four kids. She had a steely glint in her eyes like Lalo had rarely seen. She also was a big fan of that TV show, The Office.

The only TV on the compound was in Anne and Jason's bedroom, and they also had the only air conditioning unit. Many nights Anne would invite everyone into the cool air for an episode or two of The Office. It was surreal to see Alejo, Caspian, Johnny and Hannibal, all these big guys along with Jason and Anne crunched into some spot on Anne and Jason's king size bed, silently squinting at the tiny TV while the generator rattled outside in the courtyard. Anne and her kids always made popcorn in the old iron pot that was heavy enough to serve as a murder weapon.

As far as fun went in Timbuktu, this was equivalent to a night out at a five star restaurant and the latest movie in 5D.

"Lunch is in the kitchen," Anne said, deadpan as a cowboy facing down a duel. "Help yourself.”

"Thanks," Lalo smiled at Anne. The thing felt unnatural on his face, lopsided and tattered. "The stew last night was great."

Anne bared her teeth at him in a smile, revealing a mouth full of braces, not exactly common in a lady her age. Then she whirled down the hall, probably off to tackle another load of laundry. Anne jerked to a halt halfway down the hallway, rust-colored curtain of hair wrapping around her scrawny ribs. "Forgot to tell you…Caspian's outside."

Lalo frowned and loped down the hallway, slipped through the entryway that smelled of dust and sticky cobwebs. Cardboard boxes and thick Rubbermaid containers crowded against the pocked plaster like wallflowers at a party gone bad. One of those spinach green lizards with the jagged, scaly collar around its neck crouched on top of a box that said Miscellaneous Christmas in spidery block letters. The tail flicked at Lalo and the lizard hacked, tried to dig its claws into the scuffed plastic and slipped off into the crack against the wall.

Lalo found Caspian slouched in a gutted porch chair in the shade just inside the gate. His pale Iranian skin was poached a miserable lobster red. Caspian's riot of black curls frizzed out above his head like an Afro on crack. The smoky circles the guy always wore around his dark eyes had deepened, ever since the attack five days ago. Caspian’s arm was still bandaged from the burns he’d gotten wading through burning wreckage to save the school kids.

Lalo was glad he got to work with Caspian Nadir again. The two of them had entered Iran last year to extract Alejo and Wara from police custody. The whole thing went off without a hitch. Cail was without a doubt the best sniper in the organization, but she had been up in the Swat Valley at the time so Lalo got to work with Caspian. The Iranian was young, twenty-seven, but his daddy back in Tehran worked in intelligence and Caspian started training at seventeen.

Then things went bad. Now Caspian worked for Rupert.

Caspian was best with anything technical, but he spent a lot of time with his PSL sniper rifle. Not that he could ever compete with Cail’s skill.

Caspian was chugging water, surely lukewarm and salty, from a hot pink metal canister. This was a Caspian distinctive. For some reason, the guy liked pink. And pastel yellow and lavender. Caspian's suitcase, the one he took to Iran last year and that now sat under the bed back at the mission compound? It was pale pink plaid.

If Lalo hadn't seen a lot of disturbing things during the course of his life, the pink suitcase might have bothered him a little.

"God in heaven," Caspian gasped in accented English, wiping his mouth and capping the hot pink bottle. English was the language he and Lalo always communicated in. "I never understood well the phrase hell on earth until these last two months."

"Iran is hot," Lalo said. He positioned himself in the shade, back against the adobe wall. "I'm about to eat. Trouble?"

Caspian could have just radioed that he was coming over, or called Lalo’s cell.

"The hospital is fine," Caspian shook his head. "Johnny's still there. But there’s trouble close by. I think me and you should check it out, just to make sure no one gets hurt."

"Don't tell me someone's losing a hand."

"Thank God, no. Manuscripts." Caspian winced, pulled at his rat's nest of curls. "We won't tell Amadou. Or the Ancient Texts guys when they get back."

If any of the action headed towards the mission compound or the school, Lalo and Caspian could follow it. They had Moussa the doorman let them out and hurried through the dust. They arrived at the square outside Sankore Mosque to find a crowd of locals, hanging back from a circle of robed Islamists and a writhing tower of black smoke. Most of the Islamists weren’t from Mali at all. They were imported radicals from countries like Afghanistan and Somalia who had shown up to support Al-Qaeda and imposed their strict ideas about Islam on the people of the region. Malians in general were not as strict with their religion.

The people of Timbuktu didn’t like Al-Qaeda much at all.

And the truth was, the people of the fabled city had a lot to be scared of. Right now this small group of radicals was burning things here in the square. If AQIM ever took over the city again, there would probably be floggings and executions, like when they captured Timbuktu back in 2012.

Lalo and Caspian took up posts under a shady overhang at the corner of a house. Local people eyed them stoically as they passed. Lalo knew he and Caspian drew attention for their skin color, not for the weapons they carried. In Timbuktu, there were a lot of people with weapons. Not many foreigners left, though.

"These people have no respect for education," Caspian fumed. Sweat dripped past his thick eyelashes, running down pink cheeks.

Lalo had no comment. The Baptist missionaries, along with Amy and Amadou, had started the school that burned last Thursday because they wanted to help kids in Timbuktu. This town had once been great, the center of a great empire, trade axis for incredible riches of gold and salt worth its weight in gold that traveled in slabs by camel caravan. Timbuktu gave life to Sankore University, home to 25,000 students.

And now it had shriveled to squatty dwellings of sand and dust, surrounded by desert.

Lalo leaned his head back into the sunbaked adobe, letting the heat wrap itself around his temples, numb his brain. The biggest scar, spread across his shoulder blades and lower spine, stung against the hot building. The air smelled like charred paper and petrol.

Another piece of Timbuktu's former glory imploded in a pile of red hot ashes.

Lalo watched as they heaved another priceless manuscript onto the pile to burn.

That was the last one for today. The Islamists were heading off, the people dispersing meekly. Lalo turned away towards the mission compound, inhaling burning wisdom and ink.

Caspian went over to the hospital to stand guard with Johnny. Lalo would join him soon and send Johnny home to rest, but first he wanted to get Amadou. The kids had been overjoyed to see their school director the first time Amadou visited the hospital. Amadou's dark complexion had turned wan seeing all the burns, but he had held a lot of hands and prayed with many of the kids. He’d even promised them he’d come back for a bit in the afternoon.

When too many of them asked after their beloved Amy, he'd had to leave.

It had only been five days since they buried Amy in the windswept Christian graveyard out behind the mission compound. Alejo had helped them make the cross from some dry wood. It was the only time Lalo had seen Alejo cry.

Lalo halted in front of Amadou's family home and knocked. He could practically feel the frosty shade seeping out into the street when Amadou opened the door.

"Let’s go over to the hospital,” Lalo said with a toothy grin. He tried his best to look cute and convincing.

Amadou's mouth pursed reluctantly. He wasn't looking convinced. "Well…alright," he finally said. "We can go. But first come in and have something to eat. My sister brought over some food."

You never had to ask Lalo Navarro twice when someone said "food."

"That would be excellent," he agreed, much too happily. He never did get to eat any of Anne’s cooking at the mission compound because Caspian had shown up.

Amadou stepped aside to let Lalo in the door. The temperature change inside the house was delicious. Amadou motioned Lalo down the white-washed hall to the living room. Cracked peach tiles fitted together across the living room floor. A circle of shamrock green tweed couches with wooden armrests protected a hulking chest made of hammered tin, which probably held more ancient manuscripts, part of the collection passed down from Amadou’s ancestors. An old TV sat atop a varnished table in the corner, blaring a news report from Bamako.

The lady on the television wore a bulging suit in a shade of violet so bright it should be illegal. Lalo squinted at the screen, trying to understand how the woman was able to concentrate on the weather report with gold rings the size of CDs hanging from each ear.

Surprisingly, it looked like a heat wave was coming to Timbuktu this week.

"Please, sit down," Amadou was saying to him. Lalo blinked away the news anchor and dropped into one of the armchairs. His long legs ended up folded at an angle, leaving his knees pointing up towards the ceiling. No sooner had he sat than Amadou's sister Maria came into the room.

"Lalo!" She threw plump arms out wide and grinned at him. "Just in time to eat!" Maria's African dress was a much healthier shade of purple than the news lady back in Bamako. Soft lilac flowers covered the wide dress, swirled with yellow diamonds. Maria wore a matching turban. She had those little jeweled stickers on a few front teeth and they flashed every time she smiled.

Lalo grinned back. Whatever was in that kitchen smelled amazing.

"You two sit," Maria ordered, eyes narrowing at her brother. Amadou actually jerked at her command, then walked robotically over to the smaller couch and gingerly sat against a very used-looking crocheted pillow. "I'll bring the food," Maria announced.

Lalo raised an eyebrow at Amadou. He was so glad Maria was here. What was Amadou going to do without Amy?

“Need any help?” he called after Maria.

“Absolutely not!” she said. “You stay right there.”

Within seconds, Maria was back, marching towards the giant tin chest. She flapped a crisp white tablecloth into place on the chest, freshly ironed and smelling of sun. Maria bustled back to the kitchen, then returned balancing two very heavy plates of culinary heaven.

"Eat," she ordered Amadou, then made the glare disappear as she turned a blinding smile to Lalo. "Please eat," she rephrased for the guest.

Lalo was gonna have no problem obeying that order. Sitting right in front of his knees on the tablecloth was about half a chicken, bubbling in something that smelled like peanut sauce. There were fried plantains and potatoes, glistening with grease, just fished from the frying pan. And a tangle of salad, cabbage and waxy green beans and carrots.

Lalo tried not to feel bad that he was downing a good five bites to every one of Amadou's. Lalo's Malian friend was munching listlessly at his food, casting furtive little glances towards the kitchen where his sister had disappeared to get a Coca-Cola from the fridge.

Maria served them icy glasses of bubbly Coke, then plopped down on the sofa next to her brother, balancing a plate with more food than Lalo believed he'd ever seen a woman eat in his life. They all chewed in silence for a few minutes, probably too hungry to make conversation.

"I take it you've heard the news?" Maria finally slowed down a bit, leaning back into the green tweed and daintily eating beans and carrots with her fingers.

Lalo chewed slowly, letting his mind revisit each of the newsworthy events that had happened in Timbuktu recently. "There's been a lot of news," he said.

Maria rolled her eyes. "About the bounty hunter," she said.