Flashpoint

by Suzanne Brockmann

  The high-pitched whine of the floor being cut made it impossible for her to respond to that. Jimmy pushed the water bottle up toward her mouth, tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

  But then he moved back. He was looking at something over her shoulder, and she turned to see Will Schroeder watching them as he went past.

  “He knows who we are,” Tess said.

  Jimmy didn’t try to speak over the noise. He just nodded.

  The saw finally shrieked to a stop. “Why is Decker doing that? Why can’t we just open the basement door?” she asked.

  “There’s a fallen beam leaning up against it,” Jimmy told her. “It could jeopardize the structural integrity of the building if we move it. At least that’s what Murphy said. I had no idea, but he’s some kind of engineer.” He laughed. “Who would’ve guessed? You learn something new every day, huh?”

  You do, indeed.

  Tess had learned quite a bit that very afternoon. She’d learned that although there was a great deal of bad in the world, there was also good. And it sometimes came from the most unexpected places.

  She’d followed Jimmy at the Ikrimah airport terminal and watched him approach a Muslim woman who had a blanket on the ground covered with some of the most beautifully crafted jewelry she’d ever seen.

  Jimmy had selected a bracelet. Tess didn’t speak the language, but she understood the conversation just from watching. The woman told him that the rice was too much payment for what he was buying.

  He picked out a necklace then, too, giving the woman that roll of nickels he’d gotten from the bookstore in the San Diego airport. Tess had puzzled over that for a long time on the flight. What on earth did Jimmy Nash want with forty nickels?

  Now she understood.

  Those coins were what this woman used to make her jewelry. She must melt them down and . . .

  Jimmy had asked the woman something, gesturing toward one of the children. The woman pulled the child closer—a dark-haired little boy who couldn’t have been more than four years old.

  As Tess watched, Jimmy greeted the boy, even shook his hand. He then passed out candy bars to all of the children. He had only three, but none of them complained about having to share the treat.

  “He is my sister’s child,” Tess heard the woman said to Jimmy in heavily accented English, glancing back at the littlest boy. “He doesn’t speak American. His mother is very sick. He doesn’t know it, but he will soon be my child.”

  “Doesn’t he have a father?”

  “His father died in the same factory explosion that killed my husband.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jimmy told her. “Just what you need—another mouth to feed.”

  “He is a gift from God,” she said quietly. “With a very small mouth.” The smile she gave him was tremulous. “And I now have rice enough to fill it. Bless you for your kindness and charity.”

  “There’s no kindness or charity here,” Jimmy told her, almost as if she’d insulted him. “Just fair payment.”

  But Tess and the K-stani woman both knew otherwise.

  Jimmy was looking at Tess now, eyes filled with concern in that face that he’d gotten dinged up, probably on purpose. “You okay?” he asked. “You kind of zoned off for a second there.”

  “Yeah. Yes. I’m fine. I was just thinking about . . .” She didn’t want him to know that she’d seen him giving away that rice. He would be embarrassed. And he would also think she’d been following him, which she had been. Sort of. Not the way he’d think, but she would end up embarrassed, too. She stood up. “I should get back to work. You should, too.”

  “Yeah.” He just stood there, looking at her, as if he were going to say something more. But he didn’t.

  “This sucks,” she finally said. “I never imagined anything could be this bad.”

  “Yeah, well, welcome to Kazbekistan,” Jimmy said. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into catching the next flight home?”

  “Not a chance,” Tess said.

  His smile touched his eyes. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  Sophia was getting robbed.

  The pawnshop owner put the ring down on the counter. “Two hundred. That’s my final offer.”

  “Kind sir.” Sophia kept her voice even, low, respectful. Disguised. She’d done business with him before—months ago. She was grateful now for the burka and veil that covered all but her eyes. He was a bastard and a thief, and if she could have, she would have gone somewhere else. Anywhere else. But his was the only shop open. Probably for this very reason—so he could have his turn thieving from the thieves who had used the quake’s aftershocks exactly as she had.

  Sophia had used the second aftershock to steal a robe and burka, some pillows and blankets, jewelry, food, candles, and even a nifty little pair of his and hers handguns from an undamaged house in a well-to-do neighborhood.

  The Kazbekistani family who lived there all ran outside when the walls again began to shake, so she’d slipped in through the open back door. As they’d stood in the street with their neighbors, talking, shouting, a baby crying, dogs barking, she’d helped herself to things they probably wouldn’t even notice were gone.

  Well, except for this ring. “The value of this ring is a thousand times that.”

  “Two hundred,” he said again. “Take it or leave it.”

  Sophia needed cash, lots of it, if she was going to buy the false papers and ID cards she’d need to get out of Kazbekistan.

  But she needed, even more, for her head to remain attached to her neck.

  If she caved in to this pawnbroker’s insulting offer, he would know how truly desperate she was. She might stand out in his mind. Yes, she was wearing a heavy veil, but her eyes were blue. And while blue-eyed Kazbekistanis were not unheard of, they were certainly noteworthy.

  And if word of a blue-eyed thief got back to Padsha Bashir’s nephews, they’d know she was still in Kazabek. The only reason she hadn’t fled into the mountains was this ridiculous sense of hope—that the Western relief workers flooding the city meant that the American embassy would soon open its long-closed doors. That old friends might finally return and provide the help she desperately needed.

  But each time she checked, the doors to the old embassy building in Saboor Square were still boarded shut.

  Without another word, Sophia took the ring from the counter, pulled the burka’s heaviest screen over her eyes, and went out into the street.

  Tess was already sleeping in the back as Jimmy climbed up and into the driver’s seat of Khalid’s wagon.

  She was asleep sitting up, leaning back against the hard wooden sideboards, Dave Malkoff’s head in the softness of her lap, her hand in Dave’s hair.

  Dave had his eyes closed, too. His food poisoning was significantly more severe than he’d let anyone believe, and Jimmy couldn’t help feeling respect for the man. Dave had worked tirelessly all day, without a single complaint, as they’d dug more than six hundred surviving boys out of that basement bomb shelter. He’d just stepped aside, dropped to his hands and knees, and quietly communed with the dust and dirt when necessary.

  In the past, when Jimmy had done the food poisoning tango himself, he’d been able to do little more than lie in bed and moan. So, okay, yeah. He was impressed. And a little jealous of that hand in the hair thing. Jealous and impressed. By Dave Malkoff. It was surely a sign of the coming apocalypse.

  Vinh Murphy climbed up beside him, and the ancient cart creaked and groaned under the big man’s weight. “Yo, Nash, you really know how to drive this thing?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Murphy looked at him and laughed. His eyes actually twinkled—a giant Asian-African-American leprechaun. “Yeah, right.”

  Murphy had two basic modes. Silent and watchful, which played to most of the world as just this side of comatose, and amused. It was hard not to laugh, too, when Murphy was laughing, probably because he wasn’t ever mean-spirited. Murphy didn’t laugh at anyone—he laughed at the world ar
ound them.

  “You know, Khalid had no trouble believing me,” Jimmy told him.

  “Khalid is, like, twelve years old. Besides, he wanted to go to the hospital with his brother,” Murphy pointed out. “You could’ve told him you were the Queen of England, man, and he would’ve kissed your ring and asked you for a knighthood.”

  Khalid had wept with joy when Amman had been carried from the basement with nothing more serious than a sprained wrist and a bad case of dehydration. He’d needed to go to the hospital to get checked out, but the little boy wouldn’t stop clinging to his brother’s neck.

  Jimmy had suggested Khalid trust him to drive his horse cart to Rivka’s house, where they were planning to stay. Khalid could go to the hospital with his brother and pick up both horse and cart the next morning.

  The boy had extracted a number of promises from Jimmy. He promised to feed and care for the horse and to lock up the cart in Rivka’s yard. He also promised that he’d handled a horse and cart before.

  “Okay, James,” Decker called softly to him now from the back of the wagon. “We’re good to go.”

  “Yeah, James,” Murphy said. “Pedal to the metal, man. I told Angelina I’d try to call her tonight, and cell towers are still down in this part of Kazabek. I’m hoping something’s been restored in the wealthier part of the city.”

  “Don’t count on it.” Jimmy smacked the reins loosely against the back of Khalid’s horse, Marge. As in Marge Simpson. Hooray for satellite TV.

  Marge glanced back at him in mild annoyance, but otherwise stood there.

  Come on. He’d seen it done this way in the movies. Jimmy tried again. “Giddyap.”

  The horse’s ears flickered. He—Marge was a gelding, go figure—didn’t even bother with the WTF look this time.

  Murphy knew when it was not a good idea to laugh.

  “So, okay,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I was exaggerating a little.”

  Murphy turned toward the back. “Maybe we should wake up Tess. She’s from Iowa—”

  “She hasn’t lived in Iowa since she was ten,” Jimmy said. “And believe it or not, there are a lot of people in Iowa who’ve never even touched a horse.”

  “She told me she was from Greendale. That’s farm country.”

  “Yeah, but she lived in town,” Jimmy told the big ex-Marine. “Her father worked at the public library. Right on Main Street. Not a horse in sight.”

  Although she did have both a swing and a porch to swing from on that house in Greendale. God. Green-freaking-dale, Iowa.

  “Maybe she had friends who had—”

  “Let’s let her sleep.” Jimmy handed the reins to Murphy and climbed down from the cart. He could do this. How hard could it be?

  He hadn’t been lying completely when he’d told Khalid he knew a thing or two about horses. He and Deck both had gone in for special training after horses had proven a handy mode of transportation for the Spec Ops teams during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. They’d both learned how to ride, as well as how to care for horses.

  The cowboy who’d taught the class had told them that A) horses were smart, and B) they would immediately know it if you were inexperienced. They’d then proceed to dis you totally.

  Jimmy approached dead on and looked the horse in the eye. “Stop fucking with me,” he said. Then he said it again in the local dialect.

  The horse was not impressed.

  Jimmy resisted the urge to lift his shirt and flash Marge a glimpse of the sidearm he had tucked into the top of his pants. Murphy had scored a whole bagful of weapons in Ikrimah and had distributed them to the entire team. A quick look at the old 9mm was often enough to get stubborn humans to shake a leg.

  The horse shook his head to dislodge a fly.

  Maybe this thing needed a running start. Jimmy had seen Khalid leading the horse. He grabbed the horse’s bridle in a likely looking spot and pulled.

  Okay. Now they were moving. Of course, Jimmy was walking, too, which sucked. It was probably twelve miles to Rivka’s. It would be bad enough to have to sit on that hard bench up front, holding the reins. Especially when he wanted to be in the back, with his head in Tess’s lap.

  He got them up to speed and attempted to climb back into the moving cart.

  Which wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do, especially after all those hours spent clearing rubble.

  Of course, the horse made it easier by courteously coming to a full stop.

  “Shit.”

  Murphy gave the reins a try.

  Nada.

  Again.

  No movement.

  Jimmy heard Deck sigh from his seat in the back of the cart. Or maybe he didn’t hear it. Maybe he just imagined it. Whatever the case, it was motivating.

  He climbed out of the cart.

  “I think he’s tired,” Murphy said.

  “No kidding.” Jimmy returned to the eating end of the horse and got the wagon rolling again.

  They lurched and squeaked and clopped past Will Schroeder, who was sitting by the side of the road with his duffel bag, his head in his hands.

  He wasn’t alone. Jimmy realized there were quite a few people who had been on that bus from Ikrimah sitting there, looking shell-shocked after having helped recover the bodies of those children from that school.

  They were probably all reporters, most of whom had never seen the aftermath of an earthquake in a third-world country up close and personal like this. At best, they’d stood on the fringes of the destruction with their news cameras and reported death tolls in hushed tones, without really comprehending what those numbers meant.

  Today it had been spelled out for them quite clearly.

  Picking a path through the rubble and ruins, Jimmy led the horse and wagon down a street he barely recognized but knew had to be Rue de Palms.

  “Okay, Marge,” he murmured to the horse. “I guess I’m going to walk it with you.”

  Twelve miles wasn’t all that far.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Tess woke to the extremely odd sensation of being carried. She opened her eyes to find herself moving through a doorway into a house with a low ceiling.

  Jimmy Nash was holding her, her head tucked against his chest. He had one arm around her back, the other beneath her knees.

  “Whoa,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Sorry,” he told her as he took her farther into a rustic-looking kitchen and set her down. “I tried to wake you, but you were completely out. I had to get you inside because a curfew’s being enforced, and we’re already nearly an hour beyond it. We’ve been traveling with a police escort for the past twenty-five minutes.”

  Tess looked around. There was only one oil lamp burning. Set on a big table in the center of the room, it threw shadows against walls that were quite possibly made of mud.

  Murphy and even Dave were carrying the supplies in from the wagon, stacking crates neatly on one side of the room.

  “Rivka’s not here. He left a note,” Decker reported, after poking his head into a curtain-covered doorway back by what looked to be an earthen oven and an ancient cast-iron stove. “His son-in-law is in the hospital. He and Guldana went to keep their daughter company—he wasn’t sure if they’d be back before curfew.”

  “Apparently not,” Jimmy said. He smiled at Tess. “If Rivka were here, we’d know it.”

  Decker handed him the note, then went out to help Murphy and Dave unload the wagon.

  Tess tried to follow, but Jimmy caught her arm. “Head scarf,” he said. “The police are still out there.”

  “It’s in my bag,” she said. Which was in the wagon.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, quickly skimming the note.

  Tess moved closer to the window so that she could see outside. The night was dark, but someone had set a lantern on the front bench of the wagon. It lit Dave’s face eerily as he helped Murphy and Decker negotiate a particularly large crate from the wooden bed.

  The yard was sma
ll and fenced in—just a dusty patch of land between this house and what looked like a barn.

  “Rivka’s cleared a space for you in the pantry.”

  Tess turned to see Jimmy pointing toward the curtained room that Deck had peeked into.

  “He got the message that we had a woman with us, but he doesn’t seem to understand that you’re my wife. Maybe I wasn’t clear about that,” he added.

  Along with leading the rescue efforts at the school, Jimmy and Deck had also managed to send a message to a Kazbekistani friend, asking him to help them find accommodations. But housing in this city was at a premium, and the best that that friend, Rivka, could do was offer them his own kitchen floor.

  Which wasn’t great in terms of setting up her computer and other communications equipment. Tess looked behind the curtain—the pantry was barely big enough for her to sleep in. But this entire situation was a significantly better alternative than, say, the barracks-style housing over at the old U.S. Army base. There’d be even less privacy there. They needed to be able to come and go at will.

  Jimmy laughed. “Hey, I just carried you over the threshold, didn’t I?”

  “Isn’t that supposed to mean that now we’ll have good luck?” Tess asked. They could use some. They were going to need it to find that laptop in what was left of this battered city.

  There was a long crack in one of the kitchen walls, but other than that, this house and the nearby barn had survived the quake. Apparently, others in this neighborhood had not fared quite so well.

  “I’m not sure, but I think it’s probably more of a tradition having to do with the fact that as my wife you’re considered my possession,” Jimmy said.

  “Nice,” Tess said. “I’ll keep that in mind—ix-nay on the eshhold-thray. You know, in case I ever do get married for real.”

  Jimmy had started for the door, but now he turned around. He came all the way back to her and even put his arms around her, pulling her in for what probably looked like an embrace. To anyone who couldn’t hear the chill in his voice, that is.