Pushing the Limit (12 page)

“Not since I punched out. War turns us. Makes us all different. Don’t you think?” He raised his hand to order another drink, asking Matt if he wanted one, too, with the rise of an eyebrow.

Matt shook his head. Guess he’d be driving back.

When the waiter had left, he said, “What do you mean, ‘makes us different’?”

“All my friends reacted differently to war. But I think we don’t react to war, it exposes who we are, deep inside.”

Hell, things had gotten serious, fast. “What did it expose in you?” Matt asked, somewhat dreading the response.

A flicker of dread passed across David’s face for a second. Then he smiled, it not quite reaching his eyes. “My awesomeness, of course.”

Matt didn’t believe him in the slightest but was relieved that David had decided not to go the “heavy talk” road.

“Ah well, of course it did,” Matt said. “For me it was my superpower of separating a woman and her panties within ten minutes of meeting her.” He sat back in his chair with a grin.

They clinked glasses. Before they had a chance to drink, David’s phone rang. Matt resisted the urge to grab it, and let David take it. He answered it and gave a slight shake to his head, indicating that it wasn’t Harry.
Dammit.

Matt checked his watch for about the hundredth time since they slipped out through the hotel kitchen. Just under an hour had passed. He took a breath and looked around at the other patrons of the bar. He’d clocked most of them as they’d walked in. Assessing people in public places had been ingrained in them from the first day of EOD training. That was back in the day when people actually stuck around to detonate bombs. Before suicide bombers had become de rigueur.

David hung up and filled him in. “According to the guys I have outside the hotel, the body has been removed, but the police are still there. They haven’t called for reinforcements, so they can’t really think the killer is still in the hotel. So that’s good. We’ll give it a bit longer, and I’ll call my guy inside. Okay?”

“Sure. Not much choice.”

“In a place like this there isn’t much crime. This is probably the story they’ll be dining out on for the rest of their police career. Don’t worry. Besides, I have an in. My company trains and arms them.”

Harry’s brain was going a million miles an hour.
Protect Molly, protect Malcolm’s research
. She stood face-to-face with the policeman, who obviously didn’t want to take a step back. With her heart beating so loud she was sure he’d be able to hear it, she slowly and carefully pushed Malcolm’s bag toward Molly behind her back. The policeman’s rudeness at trying to intimidate her resulted in him not being able to see anything except her pores, up close and personal. She resisted the urge to push him away.

Just as Molly had the bag in her possession, the young policeman grabbed her arm and walked to the middle of the foyer, pulling her with him. His grip was going to leave bruises. He wasn’t local, she knew that much. She’d never been shown anything other than respect and friendliness from the locals. Still, she wasn’t scared. She just wished Matt was here. Wished he could help, or that she could just be able to say good-bye to him.

Harry managed to gently toss the sat phone back at Molly. As the policeman started walking, dragging her in his wake, she said to Molly, “Remember to
pound
on that airman when you see him, right?”

“Right,” Molly whispered.

Still holding her arm, he shouted at the other policemen. He was gesturing toward her and spitting out words that she had no idea how to translate with her rusty Arabic. Certainly this didn’t look good. She wondered if she’d get more sympathetic treatment if she cried.

Suddenly a new voice came from behind them. Quieter, more reasoned. She couldn’t turn around to see, but she swore it was Mueen. And then she heard as the voice invoked the name of the sheik who had allowed her to work there, and who supplied their workers.

Suddenly everything changed fast. She was released, and the man who had been holding her stormed off, out the front door of the hotel. She turned. It was Mueen. She wanted to hug him, but as American as he seemed, she knew it would be entirely inappropriate. Molly ran to her and wrapped her arms around her. “Oh my God. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Well, I was scared for
you
,” Harry said, and she realized right then that she had to send them home. She wasn’t allowing either Jason or Molly to decide for themselves. “Pack up your things, and we are getting you guys out of here. No argument.”

“You’re not coming with us?” she replied, as they stood watching the police peel out of the lobby in pairs.

“No. I am going to finish the job, send that damned report, and if I can’t help Matt find the aircraft and whatever’s in it, then I’ll be on the next flight home. Promise.”

Molly nodded. “I hate leaving a project undone, but I won’t lie, this isn’t like the last time we were in Iraq. It’s like everything’s shifted in a bad way. Not the countryside, or Mueen and Ain, or the people, just this place. I’ve just been getting bad vibes since we started at the site, you know?”

Harry smiled. “Are you sure it’s not Jason giving you the bad vibes?” She paused as she remembered. “We still don’t know where he is, do we. He wasn’t in his room?”

“No, I knocked, and called his room on the landline. Nothing. He could have gone out?”

It was unlikely. The rest of the town was a few miles from their hotel, and to her knowledge he didn’t have any transportation. He could have got a taxi or a ride from another hotel guest, she figured. “Okay, let’s go to our rooms, and we’ll poke a note under his door. I’ll arrange your flights in the morning.”

“Here.” Molly shoved the satchel and the phone back at her. “You didn’t really want me to hit Matt, did you?”

“What?”

“You told me to pound on Matt.”

“No! Press the pound key for Matt. Jeez, Molly. You’d be a hopeless spy.”

She grinned. “Good thing I’m an archaeologist then. Night!”

“Lock your door,” Harry said and watched as Molly threw her a salute.

She gathered her things and turned to Mueen. “Thank you,” she said simply.

“You’re welcome. His Highness does not want any trouble for you. He also does not believe you would have killed your colleague.”

“I didn’t.” She sighed as the real impact of Malcolm not being around hit her. A heaviness pulled at her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Unexpected tears sprung to her eyes. She reached up a hand and looked at the wetness on her fingers. She hadn’t cried since…

Mueen stepped forward, but as if he had checked himself, he stopped abruptly. This evening was a train wreck. Malcolm was dead, and everything was weird. Molly’d been right. Iraq felt strange this time. “Thank you so much, Mueen. You saved us.”

He bowed to her, silently. It made more tears prickle her eyelids. “Good night.”

“Good night, ma’am,” he replied, sounding as American as apple pie.

* * *

“All right. Enough is enough. I’m going back.”

“Hmmm?” David said, presumably so he wouldn’t slur.

“Dude. You’ve had enough. Let’s get you a room here, and I’m taking your eyesore of a vehicle back to the hotel.” Matt was pissed. No one was going to have his back if his backup was halfway comatose with alcohol.

“S’all right. I’ve got a room. S’where I live,” David mumbled.

That pissed Matt off even more. He wondered if David ever intended on taking Matt back to the other hotel. Dammit. Well, too bad, so sad. He picked up the keys to the Suburban, and then took the sat phone from David’s jacket pocket and propped him up a little better against the wall.

He handed the bartender some Iraqi dinars and asked him to make sure David got back to his room. The man nodded and sighed. This probably wasn’t the first time David had gotten drunk here. Jesus. One more thing to worry about.

He left the hotel and got in the Suburban, shifting the seat back to accommodate his larger frame. He surveyed the car’s interior. The extra handgun was still Velcroed under the dash, and there were all kinds of widgets and gadgets Matt had no idea how to use. He put his foot down and took off down the bumpy road. Except, where the hell was he? He’d been so concerned about Harry when they’d left the hotel, he didn’t pay attention to where they’d been going.

He pulled over and found the car’s GPS. Harry’s site was listed, as was their hotel, David’s hotel, MGL’s office in Baghdad. So was an address in Mueen’s village, which he supposed could be Mueen and Ain’s address. That was weird. He got directions to the hotel and set off.

When he reached the hotel, it was in total darkness. No lights showed at the windows, no lights from the lobby. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on the whole building. The houses on the other side of the road didn’t seem to be affected, though. Unexplained power outages were never good.

He took David’s handgun and checked the rounds. Two missing. Four should be enough to accomplish what he needed. He locked the car by hand, not by the key fob, because he couldn’t remember if the Suburban bleeped or its lights flashed when it was locked and unlocked. He stuck the gun in his jeans waistband, and he pulled out his shirt to cover it.

The lobby was quiet. No sounds from the bar, restaurant, or the reception desk. He stood silently in the middle of the lobby, waiting for some noise, or motion. Nothing.

Having grabbed a pillow from the world’s most uncomfortable sofa to use as a silencer, he slowly crept up the stairs. He kept to the parts of the staircase nearest the wall, less likely to creak. Shit. He should have searched the car for night vision goggles. He was so out of practice.

As he reached the hallway leading to Harry’s room, he stopped to listen. There were no sounds coming from any of the rooms. It was eerie. He took out his gun. His heart pounded in his ears as he felt his way along the dark corridor. He felt for the numbers on each door, until he found Harry’s.

He knocked softly and got no response. Plan B: the credit card.

The door swung open, but it was light inside. Harry was standing directly in front of the door, toweling off her wet hair. His heart rate normalized and the fist that had been pressing against his stomach faded.

“What? You’re breaking in for a slumber party?” Harry said, eyeing the cushion he was holding.

“That depends. You up for a pillow fight?” His shoulders relaxed, and he dropped the cushion. Her eyes widened at the sight of the handgun.

“Aren’t there better ways to hide a gun than holding soft furnishings in front of it?”

“I brought it in case I needed a silencer.” That stopped her in her tracks. He closed the door behind him and locked it. “Why the hell didn’t you call? I’ve been going out of my mind with worry,” he demanded.

She showed him his sat phone. “I tried, but it kept going to David’s voice mail.”

He dug the phone from his pocket. It was dead. He pushed the 1 button, and it powered up immediately. It wasn’t dead. It had switched itself off. His jaw clenched and his shoulders started bunching again.

“How do you have light in here?” he asked.

She brought a lantern out of the bathroom. “It’s solar-powered with a backup battery. Unfortunately archaeologists can’t rely on there being a handy outlet wherever we need to work. I gave one to Molly, too. But just so you know, we haven’t found Jason. He’s been missing since before dinner.”

“What?”

“Yeah. There isn’t much we can do. Neither Molly’s nor Jason’s cell phones work here, so it’s possible he went into town for dinner or something, but we won’t know until morning, I guess. And, for obvious reasons, I can’t go to the police. They nearly arrested me earlier.”

A cold stream of dread ran down his back. Police prisons in Iraq were brutal. He couldn’t imagine her in one. “Why didn’t they?”

“Mueen invoked the name of the sheik. I don’t know if it will hold them off forever, but I’ve got a reprieve, at least.” She sat on her bed, running a comb through her hair that almost appeared translucent in the artificial light.

He sat at the desk and rubbed his hands over his face. It wasn’t until he’d sat down that he remembered the bug. Aw, shit. He needed to be able to speak freely. Holding up his finger to her, he grabbed the bug and placed it on the edge of the basin in the bathroom. He switched on the extractor fan and closed the door. “You have to leave. It’s not safe. Everything has gone to hell in a handbasket and I can’t have you staying here in danger.” As soon as the words were out, he knew he should have taken a moment to phrase that in a way that wouldn’t make her—

“What? You can’t tell me what to do! Will you get it out of your head that you’re my protector? You’re not. I didn’t ask you to be, and it’s not your job,” she hissed, pacing the room.

He sighed, slid his back down the wall facing the door, and sat, gun cradled in his lap. He put the safety on. He said nothing. He was going to sit here until morning, until he knew that nothing unwelcome was going to come through that door. She was going to have to like it, or lump it.

She sat on the bed and watched him. “You’re going to stay there all night?”

He nodded, stuffing the dropped cushion behind his back. He’d been in this very position a few times when he was still in combat. An ass patrol, they’d called it. Someone sitting guard over the sleeping team. He just never expected to have to do the same for Danny’s wife. He never expected anything that had happened in the previous two days.

“Look, I won’t deny things got hinky very fast here, but my ability to make a living hinges on completing the survey. Archaeology is a terribly incestuous field, and if anyone heard I hadn’t reported, or didn’t complete a survey, the words “looters,” and “untrustworthy” would circle around my name, and I’d never, ever get work again. I need to do this. I need to finish this.”

“How long will it take to salvage your reputation?” How fast he caved.

“I’m sending Molly and Jason home tomorrow, always assuming we find Jason.” She worried a fingernail with her teeth as she paused.

“I’ll find him. Tomorrow, though. Go on.” He hoped he could.

“Then I think I could finish in one day. Maybe go home tomorrow night, or the following morning? Maybe. I hate doing a less-than-thorough job, but since Malcolm won’t be able to file his report, either… maybe I can find his notes and complete his report, too. At least his staff will be paid, then.”

“His research. Where is it?” Matt asked. “Didn’t you say there was something you wanted to tell me?”

“Oh my God. Yes. I’m sorry,” she said, jumping off the bed and grabbing Malcolm’s worn old bag from her closet. “I mean, he said he’d done research on the Megellin Foundation, and… God, I can’t remember what he said with all the…”

“Murder?” Matt said, trying to make her feel better.

“Give me a second.” She closed her eyes and nodded to herself as if replaying the conversation in her head. It was adorable.
No, no it wasn’t
.

“Okay, Malcolm said that the last survey I did for them wasn’t subsequently excavated by students. Even though they told me that the Amersham College archaeology department was going to. He told me that the college didn’t even exist. I couldn’t figure out why they would do that, unless they wanted a survey for another reason.”

“Like what?” Matt asked.

“Off the top of my head, maybe someone wanted to build there and wanted to be sure there wasn’t any archaeological reason not to?” She paused, and he gave her a second to reach the conclusion he had. She didn’t.

“Or they want to extract the artifacts or treasure without anyone knowing?”

Harry closed her eyes and sighed. “I can’t imagine anyone doing that, but it’s a possibility.” She paused. “Malcolm thought the foundation wanted us here to find something specific. And I wonder now if they’re looking for the same thing we are. In all honesty, I really don’t know who they are. Just that they pay well, are well-known in the world of academia… and are unusually anxious to get our reports on this dig. And I suppose we can guess why.”

“So your Megellin Foundation knows about the aircraft carrying the Iraqi cash. They know about it, and they sent your team to see what you could find. You found a piece of an aircraft, reported it, and somehow, that information got to them. That’s all I can figure,” he said.

“You think they are the ones behind Malcolm’s death?” she asked, quietly.