Jill Oliver Deception Thrillers (Box Set Books 1 - 2)

by Judith Price

  All she could see was the darkness of the land. She was no more than five feet from the water’s edge. Shouting. They were getting closer. Think, Jill, think! She looked around and hoped for some recognition of her surroundings. She saw streetlights at a short distance, but the bank she fell from blocked her view of the men with the silent guns. Jill slowly turned around to scan her perimeters, and as she looked behind all she could see was a large body of water, a river or canel. Maybe she could feel a current. There were lights on the other side of the shore. She couldn’t swim with her rib; it was too far. Jill searched her brain for answers – where was she and what should she do next?

  Jill was about to swim closer to the bank when she was startled by the sound of pebbles tumbling and plunking into the water with her. She dared not move as she crouched in the water. Then she heard a whisper. “Jill?” It was Leila, who squatted below the four-foot bank. Jill stood, showing herself to Leila. Then she silently lowered back into the water. Inch by inch she began to move in Leila’s direction. Time moved in slow motion.

  As the sounds of boots smacking dirt grew louder, she thought her heart had stopped—Am I breathing? The fear was maddening; she felt she was going to burst out of her skin.

  And then there he was. He stood on the top of the bank and looked out in her direction, only hesitating for a moment, before scanning the rest of the water. He was standing only three feet to the left above Leila. He couldn’t see her. Can he see me?

  Even in the dusk she could tell he was dressed in black with a black cap just like that guy in Doha, and like the guy at the Hamburg airport. He moved slowly and turned. It sounded like he was swearing. Definitely swearing. He began to walk away and then abruptly stopped. More swearing, before he turned and looked back in Jill’s direction. She did not move. She did not breathe, and for a moment Jill thought she should close her eyes. The man hesitated and continued to walk away. It seemed like an eternity before she noticed Leila waving her hand. Even with the moonlight, Jill thought not even Leila could see her. Minutes passed and upon hearing nothing more, Jill slowly continued to inch her way back to the slimy rocky bank.

  “You okay?” Leila whispered.

  “Yeah,” Jill whispered back. “Come on.” They waded along the edge of the shore, their feet half in the water and half on the rocks trying to not make any noise. An eerie feeling surrounded Jill’s soul and she stopped and held her breath, listening for the slightest sound that would ignite a sprint.

  “What?” whispered Leila. All Jill did was lift a finger in front of her shushing lips. They heard only the silence of night and a hint of the city’s hum in the background. Where were they? They began to walk again, punctuating their steps with frequent stops, hoping for continued silence from the men. The shoreline seemed endless. They needed to climb the bank. Jill motioned Leila to look over the edge. Leila stood, peeked her head and gave Jill a thumbs-up. They dug their feet into the walls of hard sand and pulled themselves over the ridge.

  The construction site was meagerly lit by moonlight. Dark shadows cast gloom everywhere. She didn't know if any of them were the men. Then Jill heard shouting and the crunching sound of gravel underfoot as the men moved towards them.

  “Come on, Leila.” Her waterlogged boots were heavy. She tried to get her hesitant legs moving, but her surroundings were hard to see. They were running now and Jill found a makeshift path amongst piles of pipe and concrete. No time to think, no time to plan. Just run.

  The sound of boots was getting closer; they were gaining on them! With only the moonlight as their guide, they fled as fast as they could. Jill’s only saving grace was that their pursuers couldn't go too fast on the treacherous slope, which would risk a hazardous fall—but neither could they. Adrenaline flowed fast. She didn’t feel any pain; she didn’t feel anything but raw fear. The men were gaining on them. She had to think, she had to be smart. She prayed for inspiration and it came.

  Jill and Leila took the corner. Jill darted an immediate right and saw stairs leading up from the pit to the street. She dog-paddled up the concrete stairs, Leila following.

  When they reached the top, they sprinted across a dark street and crossed the road into another construction site. Jill was startled when her feet hit piles of garbage—bags full of litter. The sounds, she knew, would alert them. They kept running left, and left again, then right, then they zigzagged in the maze of dark side streets. At last, just as Jill’s lungs felt about to burst, they ducked into a door-well and huffed for air. They waited for any sign of the trackers dressed in black. Silently Jill fumbled though her wet clothes to get Leila’s phone, but hope faded as her numb fingers pushed the powerless buttons on the waterlogged phone. “Shit!”

  They stood catching their breath and Leila snapped, “More friggin’ people trying to capture us. This friggin' time they wanted to kill us, Jill. Hanging out with you, is just so much fuuuuunnnn.”

  Jill didn’t retort. She needed to figure out where they were.

  “Well, I guess they know you’re in Dubai.”

  “They were probably watching the hospital,” Jill pointed out.

  “Ya think?” Leila mocked.

  Jill held up the phone, her breathing starting to slow. “We need to get one that works. Sorry.” She handed the phone back to Leila. The edge of adrenaline was beginning to fade as her torso began to throb. The air had a humid haze as Jill looked down the dark street. The streetlights were about a mile away.

  “They’ll be looking for us still,” said Leila. “Two chicks in a construction site? Seriously. And how big is this f'n mafia? They got cronies everywhere.” Leila took a final huff before sticking her head out and peering down the street. “Clear.”

  They began to move in the direction of the streetlights and decided to cut across a construction lot to get them off the street. They ducked in and out of darkness around large piles of dirt and rock. They stopped when they heard a car slowly pass on the other side of the fence behind them. After it passed they continued. They were almost to the gate that crested the well-lit street. Between them and the gate sat a large backhoe. On the other side was a small guardhouse that could only fit a chair. Jill could see by the streetlight shining down that there was no one in it. They stopped and Leila looked between one of the tall tinned panels. The space between the panels was held up by large cement blocks. Leila stuck her head through and then glanced back at Jill.

  “It’s clear, Jill, but the road has streetlights. It’ll be easy for anyone to see us. There aren’t any sidewalks either, so we’d be right on the road. And it doesn’t look like a place where taxis would be trawling at night.”

  Jill looked through the break in the fence. “Maybe we should try and stop a car or something. Hitch a ride to a taxi stand.” The fence was about ten feet from the road. “We can watch from here.”

  Leila was taller than Jill and they both watched the first car that was coming up the road. A white Land Cruiser with tinted windows. They ducked back as it passed. Within seconds a second white Land Cruiser drove past.

  “Is that all people drive around here—white Land Cruisers?” Leila said. The next car was a white Toyota pickup truck with brown stripes and no tint on the windows. It had a round orange hazard light that wasn't glowing on top of the roof.

  Leila leaped in front of Jill, through the panels, and onto the lit road and waved to the driver. Jill scanned up and down the road and followed her. A white bald man, early fifties, rolled down the passenger window.

  In a British accent he said, “Been dragged through a hedge backwards, mate?” As he looked in Jill’s direction, she looked down at her soggy pants that now stuck to her legs, and the dirt on her belly. Jill did another scan while Leila pitched their quest to find a taxi. There were no other cars. Not any that Jill could see, anyway.

  They squished into the front seat of the small-cabbed truck and sped out of the construction site. Jill was concentrating on watching the quickly passing scenery to ensure that they weren't
being followed.

  “What are you two birds doing in a construction site?” Leila gave him some song and dance about getting lost while trying to find a taxi.

  “Why didn’t you just get on with the concierge and get a taxi from him?” he asked.

  “Hospitals have concierge services?” Leila replied.

  “Spot on they do, even valet.”

  As the two continued to chat, Jill tuned them out. Looking out the side mirror, there was more traffic now that they were on a main road. Nothing seemed too suspicious to anyone else. But to Jill everything did.

  She thought of what Zayed had told them. About the pipeline in Grozny. About the Chechens. What do they think David has told me or given me? She did not know. It must have something to do with that schematic, Jill decided. Then another thought entered her mind. What if it doesn’t? Then what? She’d been chased around this Goddamn hemisphere by Chechens and she’d had enough. But what was she to do … ignore what she knew, or thought she knew, about Stan? Ignore her viewings? She could be wrong. She hoped she was.

  “Can you drop us off at a mall?” Jill abruptly asked the driver. “We need to find a phone.”

  “You can use mine.” The pudgy driver held up a Blackberry.

  “It’s an international call. We need one anyway.”

  Several traffic lights later, they approached a flyover and saw a sign. MALL OF THE EMIRATES. The mall looked vast and had a massive odd-shaped structure protruding like a bulky arm. The driver noticed they were staring and said, “Indoor ski slope.” He giggled. “It’s quite the picture seeing Arabs in their dishdashas with a jumper over the top, skiing.” He finished his sentence with the words. “Only in Dubai.” After what seemed to be endless speed bumps, they pulled in front of the bling doors and thanked the driver with a grateful good-bye.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What? What do you mean they came and took the schematic?” Jill said to Karine. Jill sat in the food court watching Leila saunter towards her with a tray of subs.

  “Yeah, when I got to the office this morning they had confiscated my computer,” Karine said with an annoyed edge to her voice. “They grilled me too. But I didn't know what was on the drawing. I told them … do I look like I can read Russian?”

  “Are you sure it was Russian, Karine? Could it have been Chechen?”

  “Ah, I, ah dunno. I suppose. The clerk just said it looked like Russian. So I assumed it was. Aren't they the same anyways?”

  “Chechen is a form of Russian, but it has its own dialect. If I remember correctly I think Chechen was a form of Arabic. Before Russian authorities attempted to ban it, that is,” Jill recalled.

  “I'd call the translation department for you and ask, but they were grilled harder than me. I think they'd give me a no comment kind of a gesture, if you know what I mean. Did Eric reach you, Jill? He called to tell me that he couldn't get through. I tried you too and nothing. The phone just went to some lady speaking Arabic I think.”

  Jill told Karine about the phone but left out the part about being chased by the Chechens. She gave her a new number and hung up.

  “What is it?” Leila asked, noting Jill’s frown.

  Jill told Leila what had happened to Karine at the office.

  “The CIA, what the …? She’s sure it was CIA?” Leila said, puzzled. She placed the tray of subs onto the shaky metal table and sat down. They were silently thinking until Leila asked, “Can you remember anything about that schematic?”

  Jill thought for a moment and then Leila flipped over a napkin and clicked on a pen.

  “I can't remote view here, Leila.” Jill felt utterly defeated.

  “I know that. Just see if you can remember anything. You’re not a grandma. You still have a memory, don't ya?” Leila teased with a half-smile.

  Jill feigned a chuckle and grabbed the pen. “Funny, ha ha.” Her left index finger pressed the napkin to the table as she drew. “Well, it had a large box that took up most of the page and then inside,” Jill ripped a bit of the napkin when she pressed a little too hard, “inside were smaller squares like this. They were all the same size,” Jill described as she drew the even smaller boxes. When she finished outlining the boxes she said, “There were lines, maybe arrows like this.” Jill dragged the pen drawing several lines from the small boxes to outside the large boxes and then printed X X X. “These were the words in Russian or maybe Chechen.” She finished putting the three Xs at the end of each arrow outside the large box.

  They sat for a moment both looking at what Jill had just drawn before Leila piped up. “Do you see what I see?”

  Jill looked up at Leila then back down to the drawing. “A bunch of boxes with lines leading to words.” Jill sighed.

  Leila huffed. “Look again, Jill. It looks like some sort of site plan.” She pointed to the large square. “See, this looks like a compound of sorts, and here,” Leila then touched the small squares, “this looks like buildings inside the compound. The words could be the name of the buildings or perhaps people’s names.”

  Jill stared at the napkin. “Maybe…”

  Something gave Jill a shiver. She scanned the food court. A man sat eating his food with his hand, staring at them before licking rice off his fingers one by one. He seemed harmless enough. Then Jill looked to her left. The food court was packed with an eclectic melting pot of nationalities. Jill snatched the napkin, and the chair scraped across the floor as Jill said pointedly, “Let’s go,” and walked towards the food court exit. Leila grabbed the subs and scrambled after her.

  “What’s the rush? We didn't even eat,” Leila said with hurried breaths. They briskly walked through the glamorous mall past branded stores. Past Louis Vuitton, past Monte Blanc, past Paris Gallery and out of the mall doors. Outside was a long line of patrons, most carrying large paper shopping bags, waiting in a taxi line.

  As Leila and Jill stood at the end of the line, Jill did her scans.

  Three o'clock. Three Arab teenagers dressed in dishdashas laughed loudly as they played on their mobiles.

  Six o'clock. A lady in a bright green hijab bounced a crying baby in her arms, shushing it.

  Nine o'clock. A white couple, that looked to be at retirement age, slid into the taxi before them.

  Leila watched Jill. “You're being paranoid.”

  Jill glared at Leila before hailing a cab. She stepped into the backseat of a bright pink taxi, the female driver of which matched her vehicle, in head-to-toe pink. The pudge of her cheeks pressed against the pink hijab. The music was blasting Bollywood. She punched on the meter, then turned down the music.

  Jill commanded, “The Address Hotel,” without so much as a please.

  “Music okay?” the driver asked. Jill just nodded.

  The sounds of Bollywood again streamed throughout the vehicle, and Jill's brow furrowed as she looked at Leila. “Look, Leila, I've been chased halfway around the Goddamn earth, been shot at, beat up.” Jill attempted to grab her damp clothes and then held up the crumpled napkin still in her hand. “And now the CIA goes AWOL with this drawing and you think I'm being paranoid.” Jill leaned back into the seat.

  “I guess you have a point.” Then she grinned inconsolably and threw a sub onto Jill's lap. “Eat!”

  It was hard to concentrate on eating, what with the crazy lady taxi driver weaving hard in and out of traffic. At one point Jill considered banging her on the back of the head with her sub when she drove onto the shoulder, too busy texting on her mobile phone.

  Jill scarfed down the last bite of her sub when her new mobile rang. Eric’s voice had to bellow to get above the loud music. After a few minutes of discussion about what Karine had told him about Stan, Eric said, “You sure about this, Jill? ‘Cause if I make the call to the Central Intelligence Department of the UAE, there’s no turning back. They will apprehend him. They take their laws very seriously. They don’t need to justify pulling him in, or even if he disappeared. ”

  “I know, Eric, but I can’t worry about
that right now. If something happened that harmed a lot of people then … I am looking at this as if I am working on a case. I’m trusting my instincts,” Jill yelled back.

  “We’ve verified most of the Intel you gave Karine. It seems Stan Brown has been on a low priority watch list for some time now. They suspect him of money laundering. Nothing more, Jill. I'll have to move this up the chain of command before contacting the CID there.”

  “My own father-in-law, how ironic is that.”

  “There’ll be an extra investigation because of that, Jill,” Eric warned.

  “I expected that.”

  Beside Jill, Leila silently watched and listened to the one-sided conversation and then mouthed the word D-A-V-I-D.

  “Have you heard anything more about David?” Jill's body lurched to the left from a too-fast approach at a large roundabout. “According to Johan he is here in Dubai, has been for a few days now.” Jill gushed hope. “There’s more, Eric.” Jill thought of Zayed and what he had told her. “Stan's plan may have something to do with control of a pipeline in Grozny, Chechnya. It's a long story and you can probably tell I'm not in the best place to discuss this right now. Did Karine tell you about the confiscation of that schematic I found?”

  “Yeah, I'm going to have to pull a few favors to get to the bottom of that, Jill. You know the drill.”

  Sure enough Jill remembered the politics, but couldn't these two agencies put their testosterone aside and cooperate for once?

  “Jill, I'll put in my report, but I think you should try contacting the US CIA department in Dubai. It's the largest in the Middle East. They operate out of the US Embassy there. Just in case something goes haywire with the CID. I'll put you in touch with someone I can vet. Stand by.” Eric put Jill on hold.

  “What?” Leila said as she lifted her hands palms up in the air before grabbing the handle to steady herself. “Bitch!” The driver merrily pressed on and off the gas pedal with music blaring, unaware of the complaints in the back.