Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (47 page)
Read Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) Online
Authors: Nicholas P Clark
Russians when they were still at war. All unofficial of course, but you
have to admire his cheek.”
“I
don’t
know,” Jack said. “It has never been that hard to pull the
wool
over the eyes
of the Ruskies. I have done it a few times myself.
And I didn’t have a millionaire education.”
Alexa smiled again.
“Don’t worry Jack, you don’t need to compete with him.” “Hardly,”
said Jack, dryly. “But he does sound like some over privileged child who wants to play at war. Hewill come in, make war, leave
the country in a mess before moving back to his palace in Saudi. I have
met his type before.”
“I don’t know Jack. This guy seems to be different.”
Jack smiled.
“Are you sure that I shouldn’t feel jealous.”
She reached across, touched his arm and beamed a smile at him.
“I’m quite sure darling,” she said.
They
kissed. Jack pulled her towards him. He gently stroked her
arms.
“Trust me,” Jack continued, “in a few years’ time he will have gone
back home. His kind always do.”
Alexa smiled. She was too hot to argue any further. The temperature inside the car was rocketed up. There was no air conditioning in
the vehicle and even though they had all of the windows turned all the
way down, it made no difference. Jack sighed. The line of cars in front
of them did not appear to be getting any shorter. There had been a
number
of suicide bombs in Israel at that time and so the government
had
ordered a security clampdown. Long lines
of cars and people on
foot at border crossings were the result.
“Can’t you get
out and tell them who you are?” Jack asked, with
mild desperation.
Alexa shook her head and she smiled at the very suggestion.
“Sure Jack.
And I can hand out business cards to everyone waiting
in the line, announcing who I really am.
And here was me thinking
that you were here to protect
me. Looks
more like you are trying to
get me killed.”
202
“Perish the thought,” Jack said, through a wide grin.
There was a short period of silence.
“Do you think that they would risk shifting the nukes through one
of these checkpoints? Especially with the country
on lockdown,” Jack
asked.
“What are you saying?”
“It’s just a thought but would it not make sense for them to lie low
for a week or two somewhere in Jordan? You know, until the heat dies
down.”
“There are risks associated with that strategy too,” she said.
“Sure,
but
on balance I think they would hide
out for a week or
two. If they are caught trying to get nukes into the country your government will go into security
overdrive—they will never again get the
chance to shift those kind of weapons into the country.”
Alexa paused for a few
moments as she thought about what Jack
was saying.
“OK Jack,” she said. “But if I find out
that you only suggested going back into Jordan to get out of this damn line I will kill you.”
“As if I would do something like that,” Jack said, playfully.
With a little careful
manoeuvring and several blasts
of the horns
from neighbouring cars, Jack turned the car around. A few hours driving around Jordan would not
make much difference when they
had
no other leads to follow. Jack felt better
on three fronts—cold air was
now flowing through the moving car; they were doing something that
he felt was useful, and he was driving her away from danger.
After an hour
of leisurely
driving they
pulled
over to the side of
the dusty
road. They got
out
and took stock. The parched landscape
was an open ended canvas of hiding places—small patches of wooded
areas, little villages with flat roofs and oversized satellite dishes; and
mountains—or
hills,
as Alexa
insisted on
calling them. No amount of
deductive reasoning was going to put them within a
million miles of
the weapons that they so desperately sought. It really was the end of
the line.
Alexa was not going to give up without a fight. Jack had no
idea where she had concealed them in the car, or on her person, but as
they stood by the side of the road,
Alexa was slowly sweeping the landscape with a tiny pair
of binoculars. Jack smiled as she searched the
203
countryside—the weapons were
certain to
be well
hidden
by
that
point,
and even if they were on full display, there wasn’t a hope in hell that
she would ever locate them using binoculars that looked like they had
come out of a small child’s toy box. The smile dropped instantly when
she removed the binoculars from her face and turned towards Jack.
“Really?” replied Jack, with more surprise and disbelief in his voice
than he had intended. Much to her annoyance.
She sighed with impatience. Jack quickly moved to fix her mood.
“Where? Show me,” Jack said.
Alexa handed Jack the binoculars and she pointed at a small huddle
of unremarkable buildings about a mile from where they stood, across
a shallow valley. Jack looked at the buildings through the binoculars.
He was surprised just how powerful the tiny ocular device was. He was
then annoyed. He could see nothing that would raise his suspicions
about the small collection of buildings. The vehicles next to the buildings were old and none of them were any bigger than a small family
sized car. A dog
on a long rope paced across a small courtyard. The
animal was not looking at anything in particular. She had seen something obvious through the binoculars and the fact that Jack could not
see whatever that something was really annoyed him. She would not
make fun of him, as he would have done to her had the situation been
reversed, but she would give him a look that he had already, only days
into their romance, characterised as her
mommy look
. That
mommy
look
was
nothing
compared
to
the
mommy
tone
of
voice
—
sympathetic
and
patronising
and
entirely
unintentional
and
annoying.
“Sweetheart, you are going to have to help me out here,” Jack said,
removing the binoculars from his face.
“Ok,” in her
mommy voice
, “see the dog?”
Jack looked through the binoculars.
“I see it. So what? It’s walking back and forth. What am I supposed
to be looking at? Does it do tricks?”
“Just one trick. Keep watching,” said Alexa, the
mommy tone
gone.
The dog continued to walk the same route, from one side to the
other,
