eyes in a jar.” He released him, pushed him up the steps.
Rohki gave up on fighting his bruised body. A short man with Slavic features stood at the top of the gangway.
“Search him, thoroughly,” Zidane said.
The Slav inclined his head and he stepped inside. He wasn’t underdressed. While the outside of the craft was pristine, the inside was a dark hole, with only a few seats. A heavy curtain separated the rear section. He started to sit when two more men approached him, and without speaking, yanked him off his feet and tore off his clothes. He stood naked inside the jet, humiliated by the body search. He stared straight ahead. After what he went through last night, this was inconsequential.
One man wore an amused smile as he grabbed his dick, lifted, and cut the leather sack laced under his balls, nicking him.
“So that’s your preference, eh?”
The man sneered, spilled the contents into his palm, rolling the large stones. The other threw his clothes at him. Rohki dressed as the man spoke to Zidane in an unfamiliar dialect. Congolese?
Zidane’s dark gaze flicked up, pinning him. They couldn’t know one was missing, Rohki thought, staring back. He held his hand out for the sack and stones. The guard eyed him, refilled the pouch and returned it. Rohki tucked them into his pocket, wondering when he could conceal them again before the final stop, and if the buyer was powerful enough to skirt customs there too.
The doors closed, the engines whined louder as he lowered gingerly into a seat and exhaled. The aircraft moved, shaking everything inside. He glanced around, pausing on the shifting curtain. Shock jumped through him when he saw shackles and chains anchored to the wall.
They were occupied.
Sam stood outside the ICU unit in Colombo, staring through the glass.
Logan had set Riley’s shoulder, removed the bullet, and stabilized him as best he could. Then Sebastian ordered Riley on the jet along with several locals who needed intensive care in Colombo. The team’s cargo plane, Dragon Six, lifted off as a hospital jet. Surgery had taken hours and Logan assisted the government surgeons. Riley hadn’t regained consciousness.
A coma. Logan tried to convince Sam it was the body’s way of healing itself, but seeing him hooked up to tubes, with a machine pushing air into his weak, perforated lung, it looked doubtful.
Sam wanted him to just wake the hell up.
The vigil felt weakened without the missing members. Dragon One’s leader, Killian Moore, was off on his honeymoon and, typical of his former CIA wife, they hadn’t told anyone where they were. Sam didn’t blame them, if this was the news waiting for them.
He didn’t see Max nudge Sebastian, then motion to him. The men stepped out and closed the door. Sam continued to stare through the glass.
“He survived Belfast, he’ll be fine.”
“Sure, he’s just itchin’ to rip off those wires and go dancing.”
Sebastian Fontenot was silent for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”
Sam tensed, as Sebastian voiced his feelings. “I went after the runt, if I’d stuck closer—”
“The dam would have broken anyway.”
“I was his backup. I left it unguarded.”
“He didn’t get shot in the back, either. That hit was at point-blank range. Intentional. And if the dam hadn’t caved, you and Max were next.”
Sam’s lips tightened and he fingered his hat, then suddenly turned away.
“Where are you going?”
Sam didn’t break stride. “To find a bar, or the bastard that shot him. Whichever comes first.”
“He’s miles away or probably dead.”
“He better hope so.”
Sebastian muttered a curse. “Wait, take this.”
Sam stopped, half-turned, eyeing Sebastian’s approach. He held out a palm sized, grayish-white rock. “Riley’s fingers were locked around this so tightly it cut into his hand.”
Sam plucked it, holding it up. Prisms of light shot through it. A conflict diamond. Uncut, bloodstained.
And from the look of it, the biggest puppy the market had seen in a while.
Two
Archaeological Restoration Dig
Udon Thani Caves
Northern Thailand
“Xaviera, I found something.”
Viva flinched, smacking her head on the tunnel ceiling. If she didn’t recognize the voice, she’d have known who it was instantly. No one ever called her that anymore. Viva backed out of the narrow tunnel, giving the dig workers and Dr. Nagada an embarrassing view of her butt in shorts. Clearing the tunnel, she rolled to her rear, pulled her scarf off, then blotted her face.
“More pottery?” That’s all there was here. Aside from heat. Spending long, humid days brushing at powdery bits of dirt to reveal a single shard was, well, a real snoozer. Probably why she never did it for very long. Face it, you never do anything for very long.
“Would I truly bore you with something so uneventful as that?”
“Yes. You would. Remember the dig outside Giza? The third one,” she said before he could ask. “I trekked through the Sahara to see some pieces of a sarcophagus.”
He looked adorably affronted for a wizened old man. “For a queen to Ramses I.”
“Whoop-dee-do. He had hundreds, and just as many kids. Which is so the way to go if you’re a pharaoh, but if you’d found the rest of her, that would be something to crow about.” She stood and didn’t bother to untie the rice sacks strapped to her knees.
“You were more fit and eager for the discovery then.”
“Yes, well, so were you.” She tugged a lock of his long white hair. He had a dashing look about him: white hair, dark brows, rugged features, and she adored Salih. He let her join his digs whenever she had the urge. “So what’s this find?”
“Come see.”
“The suspense is killing me.” Probably a whole pot this time.
He handed her a bottle of cold water. She cracked it open, drank and when they stepped out into the sun, she poured half over her head, shook like a dog, then wiped her face. Then she dumped a bit down the front of her shirt.
He stared at her, neither frowning nor smiling. “You are such an odd woman.”
She fanned the material. “I don’t see you in the tunnels baking like pita bread.”
His face, weathered from years in the desert sun, wrinkled like a dried apple as he grinned.
