Chapter 1
Chapter One
Jack
Kharga Oasis, Egypt
The desert didn’t want him there, but it hadn’t quite killed him yet.
Jack Darby stepped out from the shaded ruin that passed for shelter, the air brittle and dry.
The first light of dawn crept over the horizon, casting a golden hue upon the sandstone walls of Qasr al-Ghueita.
The temple walls rose around him, half buried in deep sand drifts—columns chipped by time, a lintel etched with a name the sands had nearly devoured. Amun. Or what was left of him.
Even here, the cool morning breeze carried the scent of date palms and humanity in the oasis as it stirred—smoke rising from hearths, the distant bray of donkeys—the slow, remote life of a desert people untouched by the chaos of the outside world.
He sipped from his canteen, the water warm but refreshing. The tranquility of the morning was welcome. Here, amidst the ruins and the vastness of the desert, he could almost pretend the world was still whole, that someone hadn’t scribbled over it in broken promises and barbed wire.
That his heart hadn’t nearly bled out in the process.
He swigged again and spat onto the sand beside his booted feet, rinsing away the stale taste before the memories could rise.
The soft hum of an engine reached him. Then a slow-moving shadow stretched over the dunes, coming his way.
A biplane.
Jack’s gut tightened. No one flew over Kharga without a reason.
Goddammit.
He should have known it was a bad sign when the local boy, Fadi, hadn’t returned with supplies last night.
Fadi wasn’t always consistent with the food he brought—he’d substituted pigeon meat for chicken on more than one occasion—which Jack might’ve accepted if the pigeons didn’t taste like sandal.
But Fadi was punctual. Once a week, the boy would make his way up from the village with the supplies Jack requested.
Other than that, Jack didn’t see or speak to anyone.
The miserable police outpost stationed near the village was mostly symbolic, a leftover from when the Metropolitan Museum of Art had conducted excavations in the area.
Winlock’s team had moved out almost two years ago, though.
Now officials were happy to look the other way and leave Jack in peace in exchange for a few bank notes when they decided to remember he was still here.
As the biplane drew closer, Jack moved back into the makeshift shelter and knelt by a locked box below his cot. From it he removed his extra pistol—he always kept one at the holster at his waist anyway, mostly for snakes. He tucked the spare one under his waistband behind his back.
The noise from the engine grew deafening.
Whoever had come for him wasn’t trying to hide it, at least. So much for quiet regrets and dying in peace.
He left the shelter once again, stepping out into the lee of the temple wall. The biplane had landed nearby, propellors still spinning grit into the air. Both the pilot and the passenger were outfitted with goggles and aviator hats, giving Jack little insight into their identity.
For good measure, he pulled the pistol out from the holster at his waist.
Can’t hurt to be ready for anything.
The engine died, dispersing the scent of fuel in the air. Jack raised his chin, beard itchy. He kept it for convenience now, not like in the war, when it had been a disguise. Back then, he’d thought a beard could help him move around without being noticed.
In the time since, he’d learned the trick to not being found was picking a hiding place no one wanted to visit.
Which made the biplane’s arrival even more ominous.
The pilot remained in his seat but the passenger shifted, then climbed out from the aircraft. He jumped to the ground, landing in a low crouch, then stood to his full height—tall, thin, and disturbingly familiar.
As the man removed his goggles and cap, Jack’s empty hand clenched at his side. The face, a ghost from his past, once handsome, now lined with age.
Prescott Federline.
The man who’d stolen his sister, Alice. The father of the first woman Jack had really loved, and who’d been such a menace to them both that Kit had fled and crushed Jack’s heart.
And taken a good portion of Jack’s will to live.
Son of a bitch.
Prescott strode across the sand toward him, a perfectly straight smile at his mouth. His hair had turned white since the last time Jack had the misfortune of seeing him. But those ice-blue eyes? As cold and sharp as ever.
A cold, slick sweat broke out across the back of Jack’s neck, then he lifted his pistol, aiming it lazily. “Funny, I was just wondering what to use for target practice,” Jack said with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel.
Prescott wasn’t a man to falter in his steps, even at the threat of a pistol.
“Good to see you haven’t lost your flair for the theatrical, Darby.” He stopped a few feet from Jack and his eyes flicked lazily toward the temple behind him. “Still shacking up with desert fleas, I see.”
Jack gritted his teeth. How the hell did he find me? And why?
Deep down, he knew Prescott wasn’t here to kill him.
Prescott would have done that a long time ago if he’d wanted to. Part of the reason Jack had been so infuriated when Alice had started working for the man’s organization was that Jack had known it was Prescott’s way of controlling him. Of keeping him under his thumb.
So he’d put an ocean between Alice and himself. Not only to protect her but to minimize the influence Prescott could have on him.
It was the best lesson Kit had taught him when she’d fled from the United States and assumed a new identity.
Jack swallowed the lump rising in his throat.
Even though Prescott had aged considerably over the last twenty years, Jack still saw a reflection of Kit’s features in her father’s face.
The first woman he’d loved—and lost—wasn’t someone he wanted to remember now.
Kit’s death during the war had nearly destroyed him.
“What do you want?” Jack lowered the pistol but kept it in his hand.
“Is that the sort of welcome I get? Do you have any idea the trouble I went to find you?”
“If you were smart, you’d understand I don’t want to be found—and especially not by you. And, yet, here you are, defying logic as usual.”
Prescott released a chuckle. “Aren’t we beyond all this? It’s been twenty years, Jack.”
Jack narrowed his eyes at him. “My parents are dead because of you. No amount of time will ever undo that.”
Prescott sighed, pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his brow despite the cool morning temperature. The Kharga nights were damn near chilly. But during the day in February? Perfection.
“Jack—I’ve always been a busy man. I didn’t come here to waste my time on squabbles.”
Jack crossed his arms, vaguely aware of the sweat stains that would likely show under his armpits. “Then why are you here?”
Prescott folded his hands in front of him. “What else? I’m here about Alice. She’s missing.”
Missing?
Jack’s mouth went dry.
A dull ring started in his ears as Prescott went on.
“She’s been embedded with Leonard Woolley’s team at the Royal Tombs of Ur the last two years.
Her task was one of a sensitive nature. But about a month ago, she and another member of our organization went out on assignment to Baghdad and never returned. ”
Alice … in Iraq?
The idea that his younger sister had been on this side of the world—relatively close to him, for all intents and purposes—disturbed Jack in a way he didn’t know how to verbalize. And working with Leonard Woolley, a fellow archeologist Jack knew on a first-name basis.
But the truth was, what did he really know of Alice now? He’d spent more time out of her life than in it at this point. That thought made his chest ache.
He met Prescott’s gaze. “And what do you want from me?” Somehow, he doubted Prescott had come all this way to simply give him bad news.
“To find her. Of course.” Prescott gave him a thin-lipped smile. “She was in possession of information I need. Information we went to great trouble to obtain.”
Of course.
Jack glared. “And why not put your lackeys to the challenge? I don’t work for you, Prescott.”
“It goes without saying that my men are scouring the area for any trace of her. But, Jack, surely you have a vested interest in finding your own sister—don’t you?”
Something wasn’t adding up.
Prescott’s presence here wasn’t a sign of goodwill—it was a sign of desperation. That something had gone terribly wrong. Something out of Prescott’s control. If his vast network of informants and operatives couldn’t find Alice … Alice may not want to be found.
Or she was dead.
“What makes you think that I can find her when you can’t?”
“You’re her brother. You know how she thinks better than anyone. And you still have friends in British Intelligence—people who can help you move around out here. I’ve heard high praise of your exploits during the war and the mess that followed in Syria and Palestine.”
The idea that Prescott had been keeping an eye on him wasn’t surprising, but it didn’t disturb him any less.
He’d come here to get lost from the world—to spend his time chasing puzzles that didn’t need urgent solving, to show anyone who’d ever wanted him dead that he was no threat. He just wanted to be left alone.
And yet, Prescott still felt the need to track him.
He’d vowed never to work for Prescott. Not for money. Not for revenge.
But for Alice?
This was why he’d tried so hard to put distance between them.
And he knew Prescott. No such thing as one job. Not when there are favors to call in and lives to ruin.
Goose bumps pebbled on his arms, and he shook his head slowly. “I’m not your man. And I don’t know her anymore. Sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
He turned away, acid biting his throat as he started back toward the temple.
Nothing could compel him to help Prescott.
Nothing.
Prescott’s voice carried in the wind. “The other operative Alice vanished with?”
Against his better judgment, Jack glanced over his shoulder back at him.
Prescott gave a knowing smile. “It was Kit.”
Jack’s heart stilled. Kit. The only ghost worse than Prescott.
Cold spread through his chest like desert nightfall.
Now Prescott had his attention. And the man damn well knew it.