"Pauley?"
"Pauley's a good enough guy." Dardon still wasn't looking at her. "And anyway, Garrett likes to work alone on a job like this. He says it's safer not to have to trust anyone. You can react faster if some¬thing-" He added immediately, "But nothing is going to go wrong."
Anything could go wrong. For all she knew Garrett could be dead now. "How long has he been gone?"
"About four hours."
"And he hasn't called you?"
"I didn't expect it." He put the coffeepot on the burner. "He told me to call him if there was something that went wrong, but he-" "Look at me, Dardon."
He sighed as he turned to face her. "I told him that I'd be the one who'd take all the heat. Okay, shoot."
"He made you stay here because he wanted you to take care of me, didn't he?" Her hands clenched into fists. "And he didn't tell me. He just walked off and left me here without a word."
"As I said, Garrett likes to work alone."
"He took Pauley."
"He'd worry about you. Pauley wasn't going to do much, and he won't have to watch over him nonstop."
"He didn't say a word." She couldn't get over it. She felt as if he had betrayed her. Babin had been her enemy as well as Garrett's, and he had closed her out. He had gone to face Babin by himself.
And he might never come back.
"Sit down." Dardon was suddenly across the room, urging her to¬ward the kitchen chair. "You don't look so good."
She didn't feel so good. Her knees were shaking and she felt sick. "Stop coddling me. I'll be fine." She dropped down in the chair. When Garrett walked through that door, she'd be fine.
And then she'd kill him herself.
FIFTEEN
IT WAS ALMOST DAWN WHEN she heard the car stop. It was barely-audible, and she knew he had parked far away from the house.
A few minutes later he was quietly opening the front door.
"Too late," Dardon said. "I did my best, Garrett."
Garrett stood in the doorway, his gaze on Emily. "Good morning."
She wanted to run across the room and hold him. No, she wanted to hit him.
"You should put more clothes on," Garrett said. "It's a little chilly in here. "
She glanced down at the long tee shirt, which reached her thighs. "I have enough on. And I don't feel chilly. I feel decidedly warm."
Dardon gave a low whistle. "I just remembered that I should be on my way to meet that plane bringing Irana." He got to his feet and headed for the door. "I'm out of here."
"Irana?" Emily repeated. "Irana's coming here? Why?"
"I thought we might need her. We were told Babin has some deal¬ings with the Church, remember?"
"And you'd run that risk on 'might'?" she asked. "When were you going to tell me she was coming?"
"It was no secret. You were a little upset earlier, and I didn't want to disturb you."
"You're damn right. I am disturbed." She drew a deep breath. "But we'll go into that later. What about Babin?"
"Oh, he's still alive. Pauley is driving him to the airport in Moscow even as we speak. I drove Babin's car back here. He's going to stay at his house in Monte Carlo for a while. He told me he'd feel safer from Staunton if he was as far away from Russia as he could get. Though I think he was more eager to get away from me. He was a little worried that I refused to give him my word that I wouldn't go after him later." His lips tightened. "Which I will. He's just unfinished business. I only let him scoot out of here in case I found I needed more information from him later."
"He'll probably disappear anyway."
"Maybe. But I'll know where he is. I called Ferguson and asked him to have an agent trail him from the time he got off the plane in Paris. Could I have a cup of that coffee?"
"It's cold. Dardon and I have been sitting here for hours."
"I'll heat it up." He moved across the room and put the pot back on the burner. "And I'm sorry you've been worried. I hoped you'd sleep through the night."
"You could always have given me knockout drops," she said sar¬castically.
"That wouldn't have been honorable. I took advantage of the sit¬uation. I didn't create it." He gazed at her. "And I knew I'd eventually have to face you over this. I had to decide if it was worth it."
"Babin," she prompted.
"He was reluctant, but I eventually convinced him that he'd talk to me or never talk again." "Is he a middleman?"
"Yes, for Peter Joslyn, the big plastics industrialist." He took the pot off the burner and poured coffee into a cup. "Joslyn hired him when Nicholas Zelov came to Moscow with old Mikhail Zelov's book and three amulets and wanted to turn them into gold. Nicholas Zelov went to Bishop Dimitri and offered them to him, but somehow)slyn was pulled into the mix. Joslyn didn't want Zelov to know that e was involved so he used Babin as a go-between. He told Babin that e was to get the Book of Living and. the amulets, and in return Zelov as to receive a huge lump sum that would get him out of financial ouble and quarterly allowances from then on."
"The amulets were that important?"
"Very important."
"And there was a treasure hidden in the hammer?"
"According to Babin. He said it was all in the Book of Living. As ell as where the hammer was hidden away."
She shook her head. "What difference would that make when all lat happened almost a hundred years ago? Why wouldn't he have Hie back and retrieved it himself? Or why wouldn't the Communist wernment have discovered it in all that time?"
"Evidently they didn't."
"It's hard to believe that it could be safely hidden for nearly a cen-iry. Where?"
"In plain sight. With a collection of other farm equipment in a useum in Siberia. What could be safer?"
"Artifacts in museums aren't safe. I'd be out of a job if they were."
"This museum was different. It was called the People's Museum, he exhibit was a symbol of the workers' revolution. It was several iols artfully arranged, and over it flew the flag that had the hammer id sickle of the new Communist state. For decades it would have;en considered close to treason to disturb such a patriotic showcase, ibin said that Joslyn must have believed that it had remained undis-›vered, or he wouldn't have been willing to put out the kind of loney he did to buy the Book of Living and the amulets. Or to au-lorize him to hire Staunton to go after the hammer when they found it that the farm equipment exhibit had been sent on loan to that luseum in Afghanistan. He told Babin to keep the amulets in the safe in his office. He didn't want to have them in his possession since the} were stolen historical artifacts." He patted his jacket pocket. "We have them now. That makes three."
"Are they any different from the one we got from Nemid's safe?"
"Only minor differences in the scrolling of the gold around the picture."
"But did Joslyn take the Book of Living?" He nodded. "Joslyn has one book." "One?"
"Babin is a crook. Do you think he wouldn't make a photocopy of the book for himself before he let it out of his hands?" He reached into his jacket pocket. "By the way, he said that there was a map dated 1913 tucked in that Book of Living that he gave to Joslyn. He made a copy of that, too. That means Nemid's map was probably a very well done fake. Babin was very disappointed in most of the content of the book. He was only interested in the treasure that was in the hammer. He was likely thinking of doing a double cross, but when he found out that all the farm equipment had been sent on loan to the museum in Afghanistan, it complicated everything, and he felt out of his league." He pulled out a loose-leaf volume. "But he kept this copy in his office safe anyway. So we dropped in there and retrieved it before I sent him off to the airport."
She reached out and took the volume. "Russian."
"Yes, you'll have to trust me to translate." He gazed at her over the rim of his cup. "If you can."
"I think I can trust you in some areas," she said coolly. "But the hammer wasn't with the other farm equipment in that museum cellar in Afghanistan. So it has to be somewhere else, doesn
't it?"
"So it would seem."
"And what was that amulet we found in Nemid's library?"
"A bribe. Babin said he left it up to Staunton how to get the ham¬mer from the museum in the fastest manner possible. The U.N. was to be the first to go into that area after the fighting. So Nemid commandeered your team to go in so that Staunton could raid your truck on the way back."
Blood running from beneath the overturned truck.
"And that amulet with Rasputin's picture was Nemid's bribe money? Why? What's it supposed to be?"
He shrugged. "I didn't go into more than the bare facts with Babin. Staunton must have convinced him that it had some value. Probably it was supposed to seal the partnership. Maybe after we read the book, we'll know more."
"I want to see the amulet again."
"It's in my suitcase. I'll get it for you." He got to his feet and went outside to the lean-to. He was back in minutes and handed her the box. "Anything else?"
"You can translate Mikhail Zelov's book double quick." She opened the box and gazed down at the amulet of Rasputin. "Payment for all that blood and misery… Look at him. Those burning eyes. He looks like the holy man he pretended to be. The holy man Zelov created." Her gaze shifted to the words below the amulet. "You're sure this is just a blessing?"
He nodded. "And I looked for any secret compartments or other writing. Nothing. I checked out the map, too. No invisible ink or any¬thing similar. Though if it was a copy, it probably wouldn't show any indications. That doesn't mean that under sophisticated tests some¬thing might not show up. But you have to consider that this amulet was created in the early twentieth century."
She closed the box again. "Did Babin tell you what was supposed to be in the hammer?"
"Oh, yes." He smiled faintly. "And it's quite a treasure. Not Anas-tasia's jewels or the Tsarina's favorite pearl pendent. It's precise direc¬tions to the location of the treasure the Tsar had sent out of the country in case the royal family had to flee the revolutionaries." He paused. "Billions, Emily. Billions."
"It didn't do him any good, did it? His whole family was butchered before he could get them out of Russia."
"But you can see how it would be a lure that would attract Babin and Joslyn… and perhaps Bishop Dimitri."
She nodded. "I can see it." She got to her feet. "I'm going to try to get some sleep. Why don't you take a nap, then start working on that translation."
His brows rose. "That was more an order than a request."
She stared him in the eye. "Neither would really do me any good, would it? I know you'll do whatever you want to do. You proved that tonight."
"Is this where you tell me what a bastard I am for leaving you here while I went after Babin?"
"You like to work alone. Dardon was very definite on that subject." She paused. "So that leaves me no choice but to work alone, too."
Garrett muttered a curse. "That's exactly what I didn't want to happen. I didn't want you to get impatient and go out on your own because you thought I was dragging my feet."
"So you left me and went off and risked your neck. Was it to prove you weren't dragging your feet?"
He shook his head. "I won't lie. I was planning on doing it before we even went to Babin's office."
"And you didn't tell me."
"Dammit, I saw how you were at Babin's office. Just seeing him and knowing he was at the hut made you go into a tailspin."
"Okay, I was upset. But I worked my way through it. You didn't give me a chance. You just patted my back and said, there, there, little girl. Then you went off to do my job."
"It was my job, too, Emily."
"I thought it was our job. Last night I was going to come to you be¬cause I trusted you. I was feeling alone and uncertain, but I thought that we were partners, that we were working together. I wanted to be close to you." She added fiercely, "But I couldn't trust you. You were gone. You'd lied to me." "Not exactly."
"Don't quibble. If I'd walked out of that room before you left, would you have told me the truth?" He was silent. "Probably not."
"I rest my case." She turned away from him. "How can I trust you again, Garrett?"
"You can trust me to get the job done," he said. "You can trust me to keep you alive. You can't trust me to let you risk your life. I can't let that happen."
"It's my choice."
"No, it's my choice," he said roughly. "I can stop it. I can step in the way. I did that tonight."
"Why, dammit? We were working together."
"How the hell do I know? It just hurts me to think about it." He smiled without mirth. "And it's not because you're a great lay. Though you are. But I've had great lays before, and I didn't get torn up. You should have known it would come down to this. It's been hovering there since that first night at Shafir Ali's tent."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Is it because you pity me?"
"Lord, no."
"I think it is. Why else would you send for Irana? You'd risk her be¬cause you think that I'm not competent enough to do what needs to be done. You wanted to put me in one of those hideous burquas and throw me behind closed doors." Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Don't you dare pity me. Don't you dare discount me. I could do this alone. It would be hard. It would take me more time. But I could do it. You don't want me to go off by myself? Then you straighten up and keep the promise that you gave me. I asked you to help me, not take over." Her voice was shaking with anger, and she tried to keep it even. "And I didn't ask you to let me sit here and wonder if you were going to be killed at Babin's place tonight. You might deserve it for be¬ing so stupid and male and domineering, but that wasn't our agree¬ment, and if you ever do it again, I'll-" She whirled and strode toward her bedroom. "Now you translate that book, dammit."
STAUNTON WATCHED AS P A U L E Y and Babin got out of the car at the airport parking lot and entered the main terminal.
Yes. He'd hoped that Garrett's man would go in with Babin when he'd followed them from Babin's house. He got out of his own car and moved down the two rows separating them. He'd go in and check Babin's destination later, but this came first…
He carefully slipped a bug under the back bumper. It might not even be necessary. The man Garrett had designated to deliver Babin to the airport didn't appear any too sharp, and Staunton might be able to follow him back to Emily. But Staunton always prided himself on being thorough.
Ah, Emily. How he missed the bitch. They had been so close, they had almost become one when he was working on Levy. She would be an exquisite pleasure.
Soon, Emily. Bugging the car might not be needed at all. After re¬ceiving that call from Borg earlier in the evening, he was almost sure of it. If everything went as planned, Emily might be coming to him on her knees. What a pleasant thought.
He returned to his own car and slipped into the driver's seat. He would wait here and make sure that Babin was just being put on a plane and not accompanied.
In the meantime, he had other business to conduct. Garrett was proving to be difficult. It might be time to change tactics. Staunton had hoped to buy a little more time, but it could be that he'd have to be satisfied with what he'd already gouged out of Babin.
But he might still be able to tap the prime source. It was time
Joslyn was brought into the real world and got his hands a little dirty. He couldn't hide behind Babin any longer. Staunton would know as soon as he told Joslyn what he'd done to get that hammer whether he'd go along or if Staunton would have to go in another direction.
A new day was dawning, things were changing, and he had to meet the challenge.
He dialed his phone, his gaze on the front entrance of the airport.
"Joslyn, this is Staunton. We have to talk."
IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME since she'd been to Russia, Irana thought as she gazed out of the window as the jet came in for the land¬ing at the small private field outside Moscow. She had been only a young girl, full of enthusiasm, thirsting for knowledge, ready to
ex¬plore the entire world.
She supposed she hadn't really changed that much. She was older, more experienced, a little sadder, but she hoped that she had kept that enthusiasm and boundless curiosity.
But Russia had changed in those years, and she was eager to see those changes.
"We're here, Dr. Povak." The pilot, Chad Nalley, came out of the cockpit after taxiing to a stop. His smile lit his wholesome, boyish face with warmth as he said to Irana, "And if I'm not mistaken, that's Dar¬don parked by the hangar. Evidently he wants to make sure you're whisked back to Garrett with the speed of light."
"I got that impression." Irana smiled as she released her seat belt. "Thank you. You've been very kind."
"My pleasure. You're a very nice woman, Dr. Povak." He turned the switch that let down the automatic stairs. "You take care of your¬self." He went down the steps ahead of her and turned to help her. "Garrett isn't the safest man to-"
Pain!
She was lifted, thrown like a paper doll down the rest of the stairs. Fire. Heat.
Blast. There had been a blast…
She rolled over on the ground and saw Dardon trying to get out of the car. But the windows had been blown out, and the doors were twisted.
The pilot was groaning a few yards away from her, blood dripping from a deep cut on his forehead.
She had to get to him. She had to help him.
She couldn't move. What was wrong with her? She struggled to her knees. If she could get to her medical bag in the plane, she could-
What was left of the Gulfstream jet was in flames.
"Welcome to Moscow."
She looked up at the man who was coming toward her. Sandy hair, broad fair eyebrows, carrying an AK-47. He was smiling… Who would smile at a moment like this?
"Come along, I've been waiting for you." He jerked her to her feet. "Emily must have told you about me. I'm Staunton." He was pulling her toward a car on the other side of the burning aircraft. "Now be a good girl. I'm in a hurry. You can either accommodate me, or I'll send a few bullets toward Dardon in that car and a few more at that pilot lying on the ground."
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