Trust Me, page 7
She weighed her options. The Jordanian archaeologist’s trust mattered more to her than Gardner’s. On a purely mercenary level, while Gardner’s grant was paying the bills now, Fahd could open doors for more research for her in this part of the world even after Gardner’s funding dried up.
But would honesty serve her if she expressed distrust of the man who financed her position? Was Fahd now the spy for Gardner?
She cleared her throat and went for it. “He’s vain and not the intellectual he wants the world to believe he is. He’s no champion for knowledge or history. He’s driven by profit and doesn’t give a damn about science.”
Fahd was Muslim and a scientist. He wasn’t a man to let his religious beliefs dictate his interpretation of the sites he excavated, which was particularly important in this part of the world where archaeology and three major world religions were deeply intertwined. But archaeology was never without controversy, starting from the days when it was pioneered by white men with their white supremacist and paternalistic views.
There was a huge push by archaeologists to decolonize the profession, and Diana, a white American woman who specialized in the Middle East, believed in that agenda and always sought to tread carefully. She wouldn’t have taken this position if it pushed a Jordanian man or woman out. But Gardner wouldn’t have funded the dig without her presence, and the fact that she was teamed with and answered to Fahd was what made this particular job work for her. She had no intention of eclipsing Middle Eastern voices in the field. She was a worker bee, bringing knowledge to the table and, in this instance, funding.
Without Salim by her side, that was all she aspired to in this part of the world.
Fahd gave a short nod. “He and his group of financiers are putting together a funding package for next summer.” He said this like it wasn’t good news.
“Is he planning to replace you?” she asked. “Or me?”
“We did not discuss your role, but I have no doubt he will again insist on an American field director. I will request your return.”
She felt a spark of gratitude along with a flare of pride. She’d worked hard to win this man over. His words meant more than she could say.
“Thank you.”
“I am concerned because he wants a list of potential sites. Not just sites, but pertinent details including location, date range, artifacts that have been recovered to determine it is a site. He wants to choose—or rather dictate—where we excavate. I have a feeling he will submit research questions to be addressed as a condition of funding.”
She understood his unease. The donor didn’t get to decide the direction of the research. And only the government could issue the permit—which would be evaluated based on Fahd’s research questions.
“How do you want to respond?”
“I’m not sure. The funding—it’s a lot. Enough to pay for a full crew for the entire summer, instead of filling out the team with student volunteers. At least a year of lab analysis for five people. Money for all the scientific tests. Plus ground penetrating radar, lidar, multispectral and RGB drone imaging, photogrammetry, and 3D modeling. But I don’t want to let him cherry-pick my research based on his goals for tourist destinations and a desire for new artifacts to replicate in his stores.” He paused and held her gaze. “Given your knowledge of the man, what would you do?”
She frowned. She didn’t really know Gardner and didn’t particularly like what she did know. He was the money guy, and in research archaeology, money guys were a necessary evil.
She had specialized in Middle Eastern archaeology and learned Arabic because she was in love. Plain and simple. The shift had been gradual. She’d been interested in Egyptology, with its deep history in the same region, but slowly, her focus changed as Salim wooed her with his ancestral culture and history.
And she loved the history and culture she’d studied as much as she loved the man. But now she was here, in Jordan, working on the dig of his—and her—dreams, and Salim was gone.
What would her dead fiancé do?
Of course she knew. He’d laugh at the billionaire and find a way to take his money and use it for the good of Middle Eastern archaeology. She took a slow breath as she imagined Salim’s glee. He’d have loved this job, and the students would have loved him.
“Give him a list of two or three sites—no locational data, we don’t want him to try to investigate on his own—that you believe the government would give you a permit for.”
She then sat down beside him to go over his maps with recorded sites and cross-referenced the known data. Included on his list were sites in Syria that were in jeopardy and had been since the rise of the Islamic State.
Khaled al-Asaad, the head archaeologist at Palmyra—a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Syria—had been beheaded in 2015 by ISIS for refusing to disclose the location of valuable relics. His murder had sent shock waves through the community and world. While working for FMV was dangerous, there was a strict protocol that excluded entering Syria in their efforts to stop trafficking.
It was heartbreaking knowing sites were being lost to looting in Syria. And even more devastating that the Islamic State and its offshoots practiced malicious destruction of features too big to transport and sell. Even knowing all this, Syria’s archaeological resources were off-limits for protection by the Valkyries. It was just too dangerous.
“You worked in Syria, before the war?”
Fahd nodded, his eyes taking on the sad look of someone who’d lived a dream only to witness its annihilation. He’d probably known al-Asaad. They might even have been friends.
She didn’t ask. Didn’t want to open that wound.
Fahd pointed to the map. “I spent six weeks on a dig here, postdoc. The site was incredible. I was just a field grunt, helping out a fellow grad student. It was the kind of site a person could work for a decade and still not know the extent of it. This was before advancements in satellite technology to really see beneath the surface without the destructive process of digging, mind you, but we were careful—we knew the technology was coming and we didn’t want to be like Schliemann and dynamite our way through the historic layers we were interested in to get to the goodies, so the site went largely unexcavated.”
“It’s still intact?” Diana asked.
“As far as I know. My friend—the archaeologist who’d been studying the site for over a decade at that point—disappeared in early 2014.”
Disappeared. Probably dead. A casualty of the civil war, or a target because of his work? Too much time had passed for clear answers, and Diana’s own heart ached at Fahd’s loss of friend and colleague.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Over the years, I’ve wondered if Rabi died keeping the secret of the location of the dig. I make it a regular practice to monitor satellite images of the area, and it remains intact.”
Given that Fahd Yousef’s specialty was using satellite imagery to find sites in the desert, this wasn’t surprising. The man had special access to satellites, granted by his government, so taking a peek just over the border wasn’t much of a stretch.
Fahd’s eyes took on that wistful look, and he tapped at his keyboard, and next thing Diana knew, she was looking at the satellite images database, and he was typing in the coordinates. His finger hovered over an area of the screen pointing to the eastern edge of Syria where it bordered Jordan. “There is an underground Roman aqueduct not far from here. Hidden for more than fifteen centuries until it was found by an archaeologist twenty years ago. It’s a tunnel that runs under the border. Another similar tunnel was found more than a hundred years ago by T. E. Lawrence, but the discovery was forgotten when World War I broke out. A half dozen years or so ago, it was found again and the Kurds were able to use it as an entry point into Syria from Turkey before the Syrian military caught on and blew up all the known entry and exit points, destroying an aqueduct that had survived nearly two millennia.
“The Jordan-Syrian aqueduct is over a hundred miles long, and some sections have been destroyed, but overall, it remains intact, and the site my friend worked was associated with that complex. A town that benefited from the water supplied by the aqueduct. Not as grand as Petra, but a permanent settlement in the desert with underground aqueducts providing precious water.”
His finger traced what she assumed was the route of the aqueduct, then paused. He zoomed in and in and in until they had a pristine view that offered crystal clarity enough to identify vehicles on the few roads that crisscrossed the desert landscape.
“No signs of illicit digging,” he said with satisfaction.
“How often do you check?” Diana asked.
He cleared his throat and said, “Once a week since I first learned Rabi was missing. At first…I was hoping to find him. Later…well, it was all I could do for him. For his legacy. Monitor his life’s work. A few colleagues and I have shared this task, but I’m afraid they can’t continue.” He held Diana’s gaze. “If something happens to me, I need someone I trust to watch over this site and several others.”
And then she knew what this meeting was really about.
“I’m sure you have a grad student in mind for this. Faridah or Hana?”
“Both would be good choices, but neither of them are currently working for Friday Morning Valkyries.”
Diana’s stomach dropped. “You know?”
“It was the reason I agreed to work with you.”
His words sent her mind spinning. Of course Freya hadn’t told her. She was former CIA and had no qualms lying or omitting and twisting the truth. But Morgan? Diana didn’t think the woman knew how to lie.
How wrong she’d been.
Did it change anything beyond lessening her fondness for her secret employers? Not really.
She was nothing better or worse than a spy and a liar herself. She could hardly judge others, especially those involved with putting her in this situation.
“You trust me with this information?” she asked.
“I do. The first weeks…those were a test. You passed.”
Her throat clogged. That might be the highest praise she’d ever received. He’d probably seen her background check—she’d expect nothing less given what he was trusting her with.
It was nothing, and it was everything. A watcher. Remote, but still, at the first sign of trouble, she could alert…someone.
The legacy of a dead man being watched over by a friend and colleague, and passed on to her in the event of the worst happening.
She met Fahd’s gaze. “Why now? It’s been years since your friend disappeared.”
He took in a slow, even breath, his chest rising, inflating his frame. His beard was more gray than brown. The lines of his face were deeply etched into his skin. He’d been aged by decades in the field, but he was still young, in his fifties, a decade or more from retirement.
“The winds are shifting. I need to look outside my local circle.”
She was about as far out of his local circle as one could get.
“You will do this for me? If I’m unable?”
She nodded. “I hope I never need to take up the mantle.”
“My wife and children share your hope.” He paused. “I’m trusting that you and the Friday Morning Valkyries will know the right thing to do. This site must be protected at all costs.” He turned to his computer. “We’ll start with the coordinates of the five most important sites. You must memorize them. Do not write them down.”
She nodded. She was particularly skilled at memorizing. It was her secret weapon.
Chapter Eleven
Unknown region in the desert, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
September
On the screen, Diana watched in horror as her friend and colleague was tortured and questioned. Tears spilled down her cheeks as he refused to give up the coordinates to vulnerable sites in Syria and Jordan.
They went with tried and true waterboarding, and Diana found herself holding her breath and suffocating along with the brilliant professor.
It wasn’t lost on her that if they knew she had the information they were after, she’d be next. She could know the same agony. She couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t break immediately.
She felt sick at the idea she might find out very soon exactly what it would take for her to break.
In the end, it wasn’t Fahd who broke under torture, it was his tormentor who unintentionally brought the scene to a close. His torturer set aside waterboarding in favor of death by a thousand cuts, and in a strange, horrific way, it gave Fahd the upper hand when he was careless with the knife. Seeing an opportunity, Fahd pressed forward, into the blade, then twisted his body. It was over before the torturer knew what had happened. Fahd had opened the artery in his arm. Blood spewed from the wound and into the face of his killer. Drowning him in much the same way he’d worked to drown Fahd.
Diana sobbed as she watched Dr. Fahd Yousef die. He’d been a good man. A powerful force for archaeology in the region. A brilliant scholar.
And, briefly, a friend.
“When did this happen?” she asked Harun.
Her captor smirked. “After your botched rescue by the Americans.”
Was this her fault? Or had they planned to go after Fahd from the start?
“Why show me this?” She could guess, but might as well make him spell it out.
“So you know what awaits you if you don’t tell us where to dig.”
Where to dig.
She’d known this was coming, but hadn’t expected it in this way. They wanted all the sites. Open season on the entire history and prehistory of Jordan.
Just Jordan? Or did they believe she knew Syrian site locations too?
She kept her features still and was thankful for the awful lesson of learning to hide her pain for the last eighteen months. “Come across as a cold bitch and fly under the radar” had been her motto since leaving the hospital. It hadn’t failed her yet.
She’d known since she was twelve that she was blessed with a particularly cold resting bitch face. It had served her well.
Salim hadn’t been put off by it. Fahd had respected it.
Would Harun see through it to the terror that shook her very core?
“Fahd Yousef was a crackpot zealot for a dying cause,” she said.
“Yet you cried when he died. Held your breath as he was drowning.”
“That’s because what you showed me was horrible. You’d have to be inhuman not to react.” She pierced him with her stare, her meaning clear.
Harun gave her a feral smile. “I will enjoy breaking you.”
She shivered at that. Did he intend to rape her? “Violate my body, and I won’t help you.”
“You speak as if you have a choice.”
The spot on her arm where the tracker was implanted began to itch again. She did have a choice. But if she called for a rescue now, it would be a failure. She had no new intel except the death of Dr. Yousef. And his body had probably been found already.
The SEAL team who’d risked everything to rescue her would be none too pleased to be called back two days later with nothing more to show for a successful rescue. And if it wasn’t successful…her life was forfeit. There would be no more chances.
She had made her choice and had to see it through.
But to do that, she had to violate the first thing Fahd had asked of her. She had to give up a site. She had to become the thing she despised.
She would take on the role of looter who dug up artifacts to support the Islamic State.
Chapter Twelve
Chris paced the small observation deck. The noise of activity on the flight deck below helped to wrap him in a feeling of isolation in this place where the vessel itself was vast, but there was no privacy in outdoor spaces or areas with enough room to burn restless energy with pacing.
The gym was full of sailors and airmen of all ranks. Too public.
It had been a while since he’d done a stint on an aircraft carrier, and the last time had been with the SEAL platoon that included guys he’d served with for years. They’d been close. Some of his best friends in the world. Now two of those men were dead and one was fucking his soon-to-be ex-wife.
He was still friends with a few of them, but they were either at Coronado still serving with the wife fucker or retired.
There was no one here who knew him. No one who knew what it meant for him to have a hostage turn on him.
Damn, he’d give anything to be able to call Xavier right now.
But if he did that, if he let anyone know he was struggling with this now, he’d be pulled from the op. Pulled from the carrier. Possibly pulled from the teams all together.
Unfit to serve.
That was what Pam had said in their final argument. That he was too fucked in the head to be her husband. To serve his country. It didn’t matter to her that he’d done the work with the special forces shrink. She viewed him as broken, and nothing he did could change that.
So she’d found a SEAL who wasn’t messed up.
She was wrong. He’d known it then. But what did he know now?
Had he shut down in the wadi? Had he single-handedly blown the op?
Had there been anything he could have done to change the outcome?
And knowing that Diana Edwards seemed to think she could give them intel on the supposedly dead Makram Rafiq, did he still regret the failed rescue?
As far as he could tell, about half the team was pissed at Edwards, and the other half were on board for a shot at Rafiq.
All he knew was he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman. He was in awe of her bravery and pissed as hell at her recklessness.
Haunted by her cold control and fearless sacrifice.
“What’s going on with you, Flyte?”
Chris turned to see Fallon, eyes hidden behind aviators, his mouth a flat line. Chris didn’t know the man well enough to know if this was his normal greeting, but it didn’t mesh with the lieutenant commander he’d gotten to know over the last few weeks.
