Flashpoint (36 page)

“Yeah,” Nash said. He really liked this plan. “Who’s going to guard Sophia better than the men who want to collect that reward? The captain would save himself a hassle.”

“And if the captain goes and wakes up Bashir?” Decker asked.

“Then we improvise,” Nash said.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sophia told Decker. “I’m not doing this for free. I want that fifty thousand dollars—but I want it free and clear.”

“Done,” Nash said.

She turned to him. “Yeah, well, I’m not,” she said. “I want a promise from you, too.”

“Name it,” he said. “You’ve got it.”

“If something goes wrong,” Sophia said. “And I’m . . . not able to collect that money . . .”

“We don’t have to do this,” Decker interrupted her. “There are other ways inside without putting you at risk.”

“Other ways to get all three of us inside?” Nash countered. He wanted to get into that palace, to find Tess, so badly that he didn’t realize what he was asking of Sophia. “Armed?”

“Jimmy, think about this,” Decker implored him, purposely using the nickname Tess used. All it got him was a dark look.

“What do you need?” Nash asked Sophia, obviously ready to promise her anything.

“Michel Lartet,” she said. “He gave me up to Bashir, and if I die, I want him dead, too. The same way Dimitri died.”

Nash was silent. They all were.

“I want him to know what’s coming,” Sophia whispered, “the same way Dimitri knew—the same way I’ll know. I want him to kneel on the floor and wonder what it will feel like when his head rolls. And I want him to know that it’s me doing this to him, reaching back, even from death, to strike him down.”

She was looking at Nash, who looked unswervingly back at her.

Somehow she knew that, out of all of them, Nash was the one she should ask to do this terrible thing.

“Consider it done,” he told her quietly.

“I can help.”

“No, you can’t.” Jimmy didn’t have time for this, but Khalid wouldn’t back down.

“Yes,” the boy insisted, “I can.”

“Your little brother needs you alive.” Jimmy emptied his wallet, pressing the bills—both K-stani and American—into Khalid’s hand. He couldn’t give the kid his wristwatch—he still needed that. But he pulled off the gold ring he wore on his left hand and gave that to him, too. “Dave, you have any cash left?”

“You need me more,” Khalid said.

“Hide this,” Jimmy instructed him as Dave handed over another wad of bills—probably more than the kid had earned in his entire life. “When you get home, hide it somewhere outside of your house. Dig a hole and bury it, do you understand?”

“Thank you, sir—”

“If they come to question you—
when
they come to question you—start by shouting about how we left without paying you and how badly we mistreated you. Then you show them the bruises on your face to prove it.”

“These were from the bomb in City Center,” Khalid said.

“They won’t know that.” Jimmy saw that Sophia was finally ready to go.

He also saw that Khalid was only pretending to acquiesce. The kid stood with his gaze lowered, pretending he had no intention of following them out the door. Yeah, sure.

Jimmy looked at Decker in despair. “Don’t make me be the one to do this,” he said.

Decker had mercy on them both and gave the kid what looked to be an almost gentle tap. It was amazing how effective that could be—like pushing an on-off switch. Khalid’s legs buckled, and Deck lowered him to the floor as Jimmy pushed Sophia’s rolled up jeans beneath the boy’s head.

He’d wake up tomorrow morning with one hell of a headache. No doubt he’d be pissed, but he’d be alive. Of course, unlike the rest of them, he’d still be here, in Kazbekistan.

Sophia and Dave had already gone out the door, and Jimmy and Decker hurried to catch up.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

It went according to plan, considering that the plan was for fifteen armed guards to step down from the front gate of Bashir’s palace, their semiautomatics locked and loaded and aimed directly at them.

Decker stood back and let Dave talk.

Nash wore an M16, grenade launcher attached, slung over his shoulder, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He yawned, completing the effect of fatigue and boredom, squinting from the searchlights that were shining in their dirt-smudged faces.

Deck knew better. Beneath his hooded robe, Nash was a virtual arsenal of weaponry and ammunition.

Yes, they’d heard rumors of a curfew. Dave spoke in the dialect used up in the mountains, in Firyal. It was spooky how authentic he sounded.

But they’d gotten tied up on the road from Ikrimah. Transportation was spotty and they’d had to walk most of the way.

Yes, they knew it was very late, but they’d thought His Excellency and Lord Most High Padsha Bashir would appreciate them taking care to have the thief he’d been searching for locked inside his own gates tonight.

Decker was holding Sophia’s arm. He’d felt her trembling start when they’d begun their approach to the palace. Covered completely by her robe and burka, it was surely hard for her to see or hear any of this. Still, she knew what was happening.

“She’s changed her hair, of course,” Dave told the guards who glared at them. “But it’s the woman Bashir’s been searching for.”

At Dave’s nod, Deck yanked the burka off her head, jerked the robe from her body, pushing her down onto the street.

Naked.

She’d insisted on being naked beneath her robe, saying that if they were going to do this, they should do it right.

Her scars would convince the guards that she was, indeed, the woman Bashir was looking for.

And her nakedness would prove that she wasn’t armed beneath her robe, that this wasn’t a trick or a trap.

“Push me down hard,” she’d told Decker back at the Hotel Français. “We have to make this look real.”

So, yeah, okay, it looked real.

The light gleamed off her body, all that skin, all those angry-looking wounds that were finally starting to heal—wounds he’d thought were hennaed designs, or maybe even tattoos, put there by choice, when he’d first met her.

She lay in the street, head down in defeat, eyes tightly closed.

“It’s not a big deal,” she’d told him back at the hotel. “Being naked like that. It’s not like I haven’t . . .” She’d shaken her head. “Being naked is nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. She was as vulnerable lying there as she could possibly be.

Decker threw her robe down beside her—which was also part of the plan. She would cling to it, as if trying to cover herself. In reality, they’d quickly stitched her little handguns into the sleeves. If she needed to, she could grab them and fire right through the fabric.

The highest ranking guard, a lieutenant, nodded, his eyes wide. “Bring her inside,” he told them. He turned to his sergeant. “Get the captain.”

Jimmy Nash used the spectacle of a naked woman being dragged into the palace to slip out of the lobby and down the corridor.

No one saw him go—all eyes were on Sophia.

Jesus Christ, Bashir was one sick bastard. Tess had told him and Decker about the cuts on Sophia’s body. Seeing them was . . . It was the farthest thing from a turn-on he could imagine.

Bashir, apparently, got extra happy at the sight of blood.

Jimmy smiled grimly. He’d love a chance to give the fucker a postmortem boner.

He was halfway down a flight of stairs when his phone vibrated and nearly made him discharge his weapon into a row of potted plants.

What the hell?

He opened it. The number was one he didn’t recognize. “This better not be a sales call.”

“Jimmy? Is that really you?”

Holy Mother of God in heaven above, he nearly couldn’t squeak out a single sound. “Tess!” He sounded like Mickey freaking Mouse. He tried to move back even farther into the shadows, tried to keep from speaking too loudly. “Yeah, it’s me.” Holy Christ! “Where
are
you?”

“Oh, thank God,” she said. The connection was awful, her voice tinny and distant, as if she were calling from Mars. But at least she didn’t keep cutting out. “Thank
God
. Bashir told me the Grande Hotel came down, and I’ve—” She broke off, whispering, “Wait, wait, shhh!”

After what seemed forever, she said, “Okay, they went past. I’m on a land line—my phone was confiscated—and it’s a little inconvenient. Not to mention how pissed Bashir’s going to be when he gets his phone bill. Jimmy, please tell me, are you really all right?”

“Yes! Where the fuck are you?”

“I am—the fuck—near the roof of the palace, about four—no, five—chimneys to the west of what looks like some kind of helicopter landing pad. I set up our last sat-dish here, near what looks like a guard outpost—currently unmanned. I was hoping you’d be close enough for your phone to work. I haven’t been able to get through to Decker.”

“Are you all right?” he asked as he turned around and headed up instead of down. She sounded all right. Please Jesus God, let her be all right. He took the stairs two at a time to the first floor, the second . . .

“I’m a little scared,” she admitted. “Okay, yeah, I’m a lot scared. You should see Will Schroeder—they beat the crap out of him. He’s in one of the cells on the lowest level. There was a guard posted and he looked unconscious, so I didn’t do more than make note of his location. But I’m worried he’s—”

“Are
you
hurt?” he interrupted her as he passed the third floor. “You.”

“I’m fine—honest. You know, Bashir’s got so much security on the gate, it’s assumed if you’re in the palace, you’re supposed to be here. I’ve been walking around for a while—I went all the way to the lobby to get the bag with the sat-dish, and then back up here. I found a tray with a couple of coffee mugs. I’ve been carrying it around and people—servants, I think—have walked right past me. I haven’t been challenged yet. Which is good, because I don’t exactly speak the language.”

She paused just as Jimmy reached the top floor and looked for the stairs that would lead to the roof.

When she spoke again, her voice sounded even smaller. “I’m not exactly sure yet how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when the guards change shifts, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have a lot of time before they realize I’m not in my cell. I was thinking if you could create some kind of diversion—” She cut herself off as he found a door, opened it.

“Shit,” Tess said. “Someone’s really coming this time. Jimmy, I’ll call you b—”

“It’s me,” he said. God
damn
, this was lucky. He was assuming he’d have to head up to the roof, stick his head out the door to get his bearings. But she’d already hung up. “Tess,” he hissed. “Tess!”

And there she was.

In the shadows at the top of the stairs. “Jimmy?” she breathed. “Oh my God! You’re inside the palace . . . ?”

Jimmy pocketed his phone as he went up the stairs, as Tess came toward him, and then, oh my God, indeed, because he had her in his arms. She clung to him, and he just wrapped himself around her and held her as tightly as he possibly could.

“I knew you’d come,” she said, her faith in him ringing in her voice. “I knew it.”

Sophia knelt on the cool tile floor just inside the front doors to Padsha Bashir’s palace.

She kept her head down and her eyes closed as voices babbled around her.

She held her robe in both hands, keeping her guns nearby, but she was careful not to cover herself too much. She was well aware that her nakedness was the cause of much of the excitement and confusion.

Decker was standing near her, behind her. She couldn’t see him—even if she opened her eyes—but she could feel him there.

She hadn’t been able to look at him when she’d first stripped off her clothes back in the Hotel Français. That had been hard for her to do, hard for him, too. But she knew he would get angry at the sight of her, at her mementos of Bashir’s abuse. And once they were at the palace, he could not react.

He had to know what to expect.

She, for once, hadn’t been able to chatter away. She’d just stood there, eyes down and silent.

“I don’t want you to do this,” Deck had said quietly. “I don’t want you to have to go back there.”

She’d looked at him then. “I want the money. So unless you can think of another way for me to earn it . . .”

Now she heard the footsteps, heard Decker shift his weight behind her.

She opened her eyes just a little and saw a dark brown pair of boots before her. She didn’t let herself look any higher.

The boots’ owner put his hand beneath her chin, pulling her face up. “Look at me,” he commanded.

She opened her eyes. It was the captain of the guard—a large man with a full beard, eyes that seemed almost to twinkle, and ruddy, round cheeks. Friendly cheeks. If his beard had been white, he would’ve looked like Santa. Santa of the guard. She’d seen him often, standing in the hall, waiting to speak with Bashir.

“Hah!” he’d said to her once, coming out as she went in to Bashir’s chamber. “This time you wait for me.”

“Ah, yes,” he said now. “I remember you. Such pretty eyes.” His hand was warm, his touch oddly gentle, even as he reached down to cup her breast, his thumb tracing one of her nearly healed cuts. “Such a shame.”

Decker stepped into her peripheral vision, close enough for her to feel his body heat. “Don’t touch,” he muttered as if there were a real difference between being looked at and being touched. As if it mattered at all.

“She’s already dead,” the captain told Decker. He looked past him to Dave, who’d taken on the role of leader so Decker could stay as close as possible to Sophia.

None of the guards had seemed to notice that the third man who had brought her in—Nash—had vanished.

“The reward won’t be ready until morning,” the captain said. “My sergeant will escort you to a room where you’ll be quite comfortable. As for the girl, I myself will see that she’s properly confined.”

Sure he would.

“We didn’t bring her all this way only to lose her now,” Dave said. “If we wait, she waits with us.”

The captain took several steps back, and the dozen or so of his guards in the room raised their guns. As did Decker and Dave—aiming theirs directly at the captain. They all froze there. No one moved, no one spoke.

It seemed absurd that they were going to die protecting her virtue.

But if they died, they’d surely take the captain with them.

Seconds ticked by, interminably slowly, and still no one moved.

Finally the captain laughed. “If that’s what you want, you may as well wait right here,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Jimmy closed his phone. “Tom’s going to try,” he told Tess, who was sitting at the top of the stairs, near the roof of Bashir’s palace.

As in try to get a military helicopter to fly over the border into a hostile country, all the way to the capital city of Kazabek, to pick up a team of civilians who did not work, officially, for the U.S. Government?

Jimmy smiled at the look of obvious disbelief that was surely on her face. “They won’t be coming in to save
us
,” he told her. “Their single objective will be to pick up that laptop.”

He touched her hair, his hand warm against her cheek, and for the six thousandth time in the past few minutes, Tess said a silent prayer of thanks that the Grande Hotel hadn’t fallen.

Jimmy had told her that, to the best of their knowledge, the explosion she’d heard had been the result of a gas leak in the proximity of one of Bashir’s ammo dumps. All it would have taken was one person, lighting a cigarette. . . .

“Good job getting communications up.” Jimmy laughed, shaking his head. “How the hell did you get out of the dungeon? Sophia described it to us and—”

“Shouldn’t we get moving?”

He sat down next to her. “No. Tom asked us to wait a few minutes. He’s going to call right back. If he can’t get a chopper heading out here ASAP, we’ll have to extract according to Deck’s plan—hot-wire one of Bashir’s armored cars and blast out through the side gate. Head for the hills. If we dismantle this sat-dish and take it with us . . .”

They’d be able to set up an air extraction from their location in the mountains. Save themselves the long, dangerous hike across the border.

But once Tess dismantled the dish, they’d lose contact with Tom. For not the first time this trip, she wished their sat-com radios, with their long, mobile antennas, had survived their journey, wished they’d been able to replace them when they reached Kazabek. But not even Murphy, the king of scroungers, had been able to get his hands on that kind of equipment.

Jimmy was looking at her as if he still couldn’t quite believe that she was here and she was safe. He couldn’t believe she’d gotten out of her prison cell and then gone all the way to the front gate, back to where she’d seen Bashir’s men drop the equipment stolen from Rivka’s house.

“I’ve done field training,” she reminded him. “And I’ve passed the PT requirements. I know you’re always going to think of me as ‘Tess from support,’ but I paid attention in class. I know how to fight. And I noticed right away that most of Bashir’s security is on his outside perimeter. After they stashed me in my cell, only one man stood guard.”

“You got past a posted guard?” he said in surprise, which was a little annoying.

“Yeah,” she said. “I did. Remember that the next time you get the urge to mess with me.”

“I love this,” he said. Which was not exactly the same as
I love you
. Which she’d said to him just a few hours ago.
I love you, but you are going to hammer me emotionally, so I can’t do this.
Which was stupid. She’d found
that
out a few hours ago, too, when she’d thought Jimmy was dead. You couldn’t attach a
but
to
I love you
. You could only attach an
and
.
I love you,
and
you are going to hammer me emotionally and that’s just the way it’s going to go.