by Davis Bunn
Finally Harry blinked and rubbed his eyes and made the slow, steady reach toward the side table. Then he realized the kid’s mother was holding the water glass out to him. Harry nodded his thanks and took the glass, thinking that he must look like he was coming off a three-day drunk. She waited until he was done, then she took back the cup and walked to the table by the door and refilled it from the pitcher. She returned and offered it again. Harry shook his head, figuring he had a temporary pass to stare openly. The lady was too lovely to carry an expression that sad.
She spoke to him, and once again Harry was astonished at just how musical Arabic could sound. When Harry shook his head in response, she opened a voluminous purse and pulled out a pad and pen. Harry shook his head a second time. She stowed the items away, clearly embarrassed for him, assuming he could not read or write.
Moving in careful stages, Harry pushed away his bedcovers and slid his legs around so that his back was to the kid. The man in the bed to Harry’s left nodded a greeting. As did the guy beyond him. Their silent welcome to the fold helped Harry stow away his pain and shove himself to his feet.
He shuffled down the ward’s central aisle, through the main doors, and across the corridor. The washroom was as old and decrepit and spotlessly clean as the rest of the place. The doctor was making his rounds when Harry shuffled back to his bed. Both the doctor and the nurse greeted him solemnly as he passed. As did the patient they were working on. And the family who were gathered around the patient’s bed.
When it was Harry and the kid’s turn, the nurse rolled over a trio of portable screens. The wheels squeaked and rattled across the uneven linoleum. The nurse fitted them about Harry and the kid’s beds, as though his act had somehow bonded them in the best medical sense.
The doctor worked on the kid first. He peeled back the bandage to reveal a long diagonal scar with a line of neat stitches. There was quite a lot of seepage around the kid’s wound, from getting tossed out of bed, Harry figured. The kid showed no distress, even when the doctor started probing. Probably thinking of the alternative.
The doctor gave the mother some serious instructions, which were gravely accepted. The doctor then turned to Harry and spoke. From the motions of the doctor’s hands, Harry assumed that he was going to peel away the bandages on Harry’s face and neck and shoulder. And that it was going to hurt.
With the bandages gone, the doctor’s fingers felt cool through the latex gloves. He inspected Harry thoroughly, giving careful attention to his right cheek and ear and neck. The doctor moved farther down, going over the taped ribs and his bruised stomach. Then he spoke and gestured. Harry got the message that he wanted to leave the bandages off Harry’s face and let the wounds breathe. He showed Harry a tube and then applied the salve, talking all the while. The ointment felt soothing going on.
When the doctor placed the tube in Harry’s bedside table drawer, he spotted the Palestinian ID.
He looked at Harry and then back to the parrot guy’s photo. Harry caught his breath.
The doctor slipped the ID back inside and shut the drawer. He patted the top of the table. Nodded to Harry. And walked away.
Only then did Harry realize the woman and the kid had seen it all.
When the nurse started to move the screens away, the woman turned to her and said something. The nurse glanced at Harry and nodded, leaving the screens in place.
Harry waited until the doctor started talking to the guy in the next bed. Then he leaned toward the woman and spoke the first word he had uttered since the blast.
“Help.”
THE ARAB WOMAN REMAINED SEATED on the side of her son’s bed opposite from Harry. “You are British?”
“American.”
She pointed discreetly at the drawer to his side table. “You are not this man.”
“No.”
The woman’s name was Miriam. Her injured son was Fareed. Miriam had waited until the lunch hour and the surrounding clamor to speak with him. The privacy screens remained an unexpected bonus. Harry had no idea how much Fareed understood, for the kid did not speak. He also did not miss a thing.
“Why are you hiding?” Miriam asked.
“To stay safe.”
“You think here is safe?” She glanced at her son. “You must be in very much danger.”
“Maybe.”
“You think but you do not know?”
Harry asked, “Do you know about the bomb that sent me here?”
“All Hebron knows.”
“How many people died in that blast?”
“Only one man.” She caught his flicker of surprise. “You were the, what is word?”
“Target.” Harry eased himself up a notch. “Maybe.”
Harry’s lunch tray remained untouched on his side table. The nurse appeared and scolded Harry for not eating. Miriam resumed her silent vigil, hovering over her son. When the nurse departed, Harry asked, “What happened to your boy?”
Harry was not asking out of mere politeness. Clearly the woman understood, for she said, “My husband had no work. He, how you say, thieved.”
“Stole.”
“He is gone now.” She spoke the words as a whispered lament. “Fareed is all I have left.”
Harry voiced his guess: “The boy figured he should take up where his father left off.”
The woman sighed and said something that Harry figured was the Arabic equivalent of men. Then she said, “Tonight I must move my son.”
Harry understood. The boy couldn’t lay here and risk having the police return tomorrow. “Can I come with you?”
“How can I refuse? We owe you too much. But to have you stay with us, we will know such dangers.”
“Just get me out of here.”
“And do what? Leave you on the Hebron street for another bomb?”
Harry shook his head. “Where will you hide Fareed?”
A shudder coursed through her. “I must find some way to get him to my family in Jordan. He will be safe there. The hospitals are better. He can heal. Grow strong. Escape.”
Harry leaned over as far as his ribs allowed. “Maybe I can help make that happen.”
TEN
MIDWAY THROUGH THE MORNING AUCTION, Storm slipped into the theater lobby to check her messages. She found three from Raphael Danton. They started off irate and grew fiercer. Storm stepped onto the pillared front portico and placed the call.
Raphael Danton answered with, “I expect my charges to be immediately available. Around the clock.”
“Let’s get one thing straight. I am not now and never will be your charge.”
“Did it ever occur to you, Ms. Syrrell, that your attitude is the reason why your firm is on the verge of bankruptcy?”
“No, but I do wonder if you intentionally hunt for the hottest button to push.”
They both took time out to exchange a few tight breaths. Finally Danton said, “You continue to amaze me.”
“Was that why you felt it so vital to call three times and foam at the mouth?”
He laughed out loud. Maybe because the sound was so unexpected, Storm actually shivered. Danton asked, “Why did you only purchase two of the auctioned items, instead of all four?”
“I made an arrangement with Aaron Rausch. He took two, I took the other two. I assume your client is going to continue to bid against Rausch’s client. If you were to go to the wall this time, what happens next? Unless your client has completely unlimited pockets and his opponent is a total dodo, the opponent is going to realize what’s going on. And he’s going to start bidding on things he doesn’t want, just to watch your client climb the ladder to nowhere.”
Danton mulled that over, then demanded, “Where are you now?”
“Standing outside Marbella’s municipal theater.”
“I’m coming to meet with you. Be at the private gate of Málaga airport this afternoon at three. Danton out.”
STORM RETURNED TO HER SEAT. She had no need to sit through another day of sales. But she was here, and
this was her world, and trends were sometimes clearest when observed from the trenches. Besides which, she needed time to seethe and think.
The theater’s stage was jammed with new items. The main gallery held over a thousand people, and almost every seat was taken. The interior was neo-Gothic, with gilded cherubs adorning the upper tiers, red velvet walls, and massive chandeliers. The treasures on display revealed the private lives of some powerful and secretive people. Storm did not bother to pretend at bidding. She had established her cred the previous day. She watched the drama and she thought.
Prices were off by as much as half the previous year’s highs. But interest remained keen and bidding was fierce. When the auctioneer broke for lunch, they had managed to work through only a third of the day’s wares.
Storm and Emma wound their way through Marbella’s cobblestone streets to a small café. Outdoor tables faced a small plaza with the requisite fountain and crumbling facades. They ordered salads and coffee and juice, then watched the street theater. When Emma had finished eating, she said, “Okay if I walk through something with you?”
“Shoot.”
“We’ve got a Russian buyer represented by your friend Aaron Rausch.”
“Rausch is not my friend.”
“Seemed to me he was making overtures in that direction. Anyway, Rausch’s buyer has an enemy.”
“Whoever is hiding behind Raphael Danton.”
“Either this new guy has a thing for the exact same line of old goods, or he loathes the Russian so much he searches out whatever Rausch’s guy is after. And then Danton’s guy outbids him.”
Storm agreed. “It has to be revenge. You didn’t see the painting I bought in Florida. There can’t possibly be two guys crazy enough to pay a million dollars for that oil. Not in this market.”
“In that case, we need to know what Rausch’s guy did to earn this level of payback.”
“And how we are tied into it.” Storm nodded slowly. “And why they went after Harry.”
“So let’s make some guesses,” said Emma. “Rausch’s buyer learns about this guy who’s spoiling his game. He traces the purchases through you and the Swiss cutout. And he attacks.”
“There are two problems with this,” Storm said.
“I didn’t say it was perfect.”
“Number one, why go after Harry and not us?”
“I’m guessing it has to be the Amethyst Clock,” Emma said. “Harry was hunting counterfeiters. You said yourself this clock can’t exist. Which means they had to find somebody to make one up.”
“That still leaves problem number two. The timing. Harry could never have been dug out overnight. The Israelis took him because Harry Bennett has never worked for anybody but Harry Bennett. He is the ultimate treasure dog.”
Emma struggled to repress the grief that flayed her features. Then she said, “Even so, they tracked him down.”
“More or less the same day Danton sends me after that oil.” Storm shook her head. “We’re missing something here. Something big enough to destroy us both.”
THE HOSPITAL WARD TOOK THE afternoon siesta seriously. Miriam left with most of the other visitors. Harry waited until the loudest sounds were snores from neighboring beds. He swung his feet to the floor and rose to a seated position. The drawer to his little metal table squeaked as he pulled it open. There beside the parrot guy’s ID was Miriam’s phone.
Harry picked up the phone and nodded to Fareed. The kid watched him with an old man’s ability to offer trust and suspicion in one unblinking gaze.
The trek to the end of the outer hallway left Harry trembling hard. He breathed eternal gratitude at the sight of an empty bench beside the exit. Harry eased himself down, and when his strength finally returned, he opened the cell phone.
Harry had to smile at how just dialing Emma’s number was enough to cause his heart to zing.
The phone rang a half-dozen times, then Emma’s voice told him to leave a message. No soft hello, no identification as to who she was. Just a cold, professional tone and a few words shot out like verbal bullets. Even so, Harry found himself unable to respond.
His entire body clenched up so tight the tears were squeezed from his eyes. He opened his mouth but could not find the air to speak. Instead, the effort only crystallized the earlier sensations. How far he had come, yet how close he was to where he had begun. How trapped, and how liberated. How hopeful, and how very, very afraid. And how he had done nothing to deserve the woman who asked him to leave a message and the time that he called.
He shut the phone and waited for the emotions to ease off. He watched the sunlight and the world beyond the hospital’s exit. When he felt he could draw a halfway steady breath, he dialed the number again.
He almost broke down again just saying the words, “Emma, it’s me.”
ELEVEN
THE SUN WAS A RED globe over the Málaga harbor when the taxi sped Storm and Emma to the airport. Emma kept her gaze on a pair of container vessels and a tanker anchored a mile or so out, waiting for harbor tugs and their turns at berth. With the still air and the afternoon sun, the ships appeared to float in a molten vat. Emma needed Storm’s company almost as much as she needed space. They had not spoken since they had left the auction. Even so, she had never felt closer to her friend.
Highway air, laden with diesel fumes and regret, pushed through the taxi’s open window. Emma felt buffeted by all the arguments she had used to convince herself that her relationship with Harry had been fine the way it was. Love from six thousand miles away was safe. She could maintain her boundaries, focus on the next step up the Washington ladder. But now that the chance for real love was gone, Emma was flayed by old ghosts. In truth, she had kept Harry at arm’s length because she had never come to terms with who she was. And now she probably never would. Sorrow threatened to shred her soul.
The taxi deposited them by the smaller of Málaga’s two terminals. The airport seemed asleep. The palms between them and the silent passenger terminal were motionless. The rank of taxis seemed frozen. A lone single-engine Cessna trundled toward an otherwise empty runway.
The original terminal was now reserved for private planes. The structure was a distinctly Mediterranean mix of Art Deco and municipal concrete. Emma and Storm had the main hall almost to themselves. They walked across the tiled floor to a café. An older woman in diamonds and mauve silk was the café’s only other customer. Behind the service counter, a pair of attendants talked in the quiet manner of people who had exhausted every topic of real interest long ago. Emma and Storm chose seats partially isolated by potted plants. Emma pulled out her phone. Storm went to the counter and returned with coffees. She set one down on the table by Emma’s purse, then settled into the next chair. “I don’t know how you’re keeping it together.”
“I’m not.” Emma sipped from the cup, tasted nothing. “I can’t stop thinking about that mythical clock. You know what I’d give to have something that reversed time?”
“It’s not supposed to turn back the hour. What’s done is done.”
“Oh, so you’re the expert now?”
Storm drank her coffee and did not respond.
Emma said, “Maybe it does both. They just haven’t figured that part out yet.”
Storm gave that a second, then said, “I feel so guilty.”
“Why?”
“The whole way out here, I keep thinking about the sound of Raphael Danton’s laugh.”
“I’ve spent years training in unarmed combat, use of restraints, you name it,” Emma replied. “You need some advice on how to tackle this guy, let me know.”
“Forget it. You haven’t met Mr. Attitude.”
“But you made him laugh. Maybe beneath that icy exterior beats a heart of granite.” Emma set down her cup. “I need to check in.”
She keyed for her voice mail, then hesitated. She needed to get this done. But she couldn’t move past the fact that there was no one who really mattered at the other end. No man hungering for the
sound of her voice. Just the emptiness of never hearing Harry’s voice again.
When she reached out, Storm’s hand was there waiting for her. The one reassurance that meant anything at all.
Emma dialed the access code.
And her world fell apart.
TWELVE
TO HIS CREDIT, TIP MACFARLAND did not interrupt Emma’s muddled report via cell phone. He had been Emma’s first supervisor after she completed her training. He had stood with her through the worst of the previous year’s tempest. He was with her now. “You’re certain it was Bennett?”
“I couldn’t get this one wrong, Tip.”
“It’s a question I have to ask, on account of how this whole thing just keeps building by the minute.”
Emma felt like both laughing and shrieking. Not to mention tucking down one wing and doing a circuit of the Málaga airport. “Tell me.”
“Let me make sure I understand,” Tip continued. “The Israeli ambassador and the Polish priest were both off target. Your treasure guy survived the bomb blast. And now he’s being spirited from Hebron by some new friends he made in the hospital. He’s headed for Jordan. He doesn’t have papers. He’s looking for a free pass across the tightest border in the known universe.”
“That pretty much sums up things at my end.”
“I’ve got to tell you, there are days when I wonder if you’re worth the trouble.”
Laughing should not have caused the tears to flow once more, but it did. “Storm is trying to raise the ambassador to see if he can help.”
“Who is Harry Bennett running from?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Okay. Let’s set this aside for a second. I was with the director when you checked in. We haven’t heard a peep from our buddies at the CIA. My guess is, they still don’t have a clue about who Danton is working for.”
Emma could almost see the pieces of the puzzle swirl in front of her face, begging to be sorted into a coherent picture. But right now all she could think of was Harry’s message. The silence, the breathing, the sound of what she thought was probably a sob. Followed by his second message. The hoarse voice, the tumbling broken words she had needed to listen to six times, then give the phone to Storm just to have another person confirm what Emma really had heard.
