Chapter Two #2
“Treasure hunters worldwide researched the ring and speculated on where it could have gone. Most assumed that, once discovered, it was pocketed by someone in the allied forces and taken home as a gift for a loved one. Most wouldn't recognize it as a red diamond, since they’re so rare. They probably thought it was a ruby ring. The ring, which had a significant family history, had been taken by the Nazis in Morocco about eighty years ago and was last seen in a salt mine in Berchtesgaden. But you and Red saw it. A woman named Elena was wearing it, and you were tracking her from Austria to Morocco. And someone there presented the ring to Zayd. But that someone was not Elena because Elena was killed.”
Nomad rolled his lips in and took a slow, deep breath. His heart hammered against his sternum as he remembered that Red had been four steps from death that day. Four steps.
“The next stage of your mission was not outlined for me. I assume you were successful in accomplishing whatever you were tasked with.” She stilled, looked at him, and continued as if she already knew.
“Next, you left Marrakesh and headed for Rabat to catch a flight out of Morocco. Along the way, you were hit by a delivery truck, fought, and rescued Red. Is that the series of events in the broadest of strokes?”
“Yes.”
“You are a very tall man, Nomad. I’m on a team of very tall men.
When they’re all together, it seems perfectly normal to be so big.
I’m often startled when we are out in public, and the guys on my team stand head and shoulders above most.” She picked at her skirt.
“You know, I’ve been to Marrakesh, and I’ve stayed in the Medina where you had your riad.
As for lodging, it was magical and beautiful, but also very loud and lacking in privacy.
In the Medina, with its tight maze of roads, draped to keep the sun out, you would be noticed and remembered as being a giant in the midst of the tourist throng. ”
“I can’t say that I would disagree.” Nomad clasped his hands and dropped them between his knees, leaning forward. “Though I have found ways to camouflage my height, at least to some extent.”
“Walking along walls, standing next to the curtains in windows, leaning into the columns? That’s what my team does.”
“Exactly. Yes.”
“Still,” Lynx said and stopped. She was looking at his face, and a little frown formed on her lips.
She pushed into her toes, swiveling her chair back and forth.
“You want my help in finding the four men who attacked you and Red. You had contact with these men three times. First, in Austria, where you and Red attended the same ball. Second, at the site of the scaffold collapse in the Medina. And lastly, at the car accident. We would agree that they had marked you along the way.”
“Yes.”
“And they tracked your movements with enough precision that they were able to form a plan to stop you in a remote area and execute it. It seems reasonable that you would conclude that your height made you stand out and put a target on you.”
“It is reasonable, yes. Red was in a hijab and long robes in Morocco. There, she was a ghost.”
“And you spent the night elsewhere on your mission and rented a car to return to the Medina. Red dropped you at the Medina gate because you had parked a rental there.”
“Yes.” That was a mistake. He should have hired someone to return it for him. Or, in the very least, let Red take it back to the airport so no one would recognize him.
“Having been to the Medina, I know it’s a walled portion of the city that only has a few ways in. During the day, only pedestrians or motorbikes are allowed, so your rental car must have been at one of the gate entrances.”
“Correct.”
“It’s easy to see how paying a local to watch the gate for a giant of a man and then follow him about to gather information would be incredibly easy. After all, a minimum wage job in that area pays about $300 a month.”
Lynx pointed out what Nomad should have considered, even if he and Red had a good cover story.
“Or even have them duct tape a tracker to the undercarriage,” White added.
“Moving forward, you and Red had completed your assignment, and you were driving to Rabat.”
“Correct.”
“Done deal. Mission accomplished.”
“Well, we had done our part,” Nomad clarified.
“In the report White offered me, you identified the four men who attacked you as the same four men who had murdered tourists. You didn’t wish to bring them to the Moroccan authorities’ attention?” Lynx asked.
“We were told that Langley would be offering that information to the Moroccan government after we left the country.” He turned to look at White.
“That didn’t happen, did it, White?” Lynx asked.
“No. The men attacked Red and Nomad, so they are ours to find and deal with. We didn’t want the competition of the Moroccan government.”
“I think it would be a good idea if I understood your intent, here.” Lynx’s voice took on an edge. “Certainly, you are not going after these four for retribution.”
“I’ve been authorized to let you know that the forty-million-dollar payout wasn’t going to treasure hunters who would bank the money and have a lovely life. It was a group with other goals.”
Lynx turned back to Nomad. “They knew you didn’t have the ring.”
“Yes.”
“So they thought you had the money?”
“No.”
“They thought you were in league with Elena?”
“To someone on the outside looking in, it would certainly seem that way. Here’s where it gets a little complicated.
Red and I were not on the same mission in Austria.
We joined forces later, in Amsterdam. Before that, in Austria, Red and I had to intervene on Elena’s behalf.
The four would have seen Red and me on different occasions, protecting Elena’s movements.
America wanted Elena to succeed in returning the ring. ”
“That scenario amuses you,” Lynx said.
“In Vienna, these men had to be incredibly confused. I know I was, and I had at least half of the information.”
“You had yet to be introduced to Red at that point?” Lynx asked.
“I had seen Red on a previous assignment, but we did not speak.”
“I see,” Lynx said with a worried frown rippling momentarily on her brow.
And Nomad got the eerie feeling that she did see; that she saw entirely too much, like she could read the stories in the air that he exhaled. He found himself holding his breath.
He shouldn’t try to obfuscate anything.
This was why White brought him here, with her cloak-and-dagger attitude and her “wait until you see” mystery glint in her eyes.
“Bad guys want to do some big harm. They worked for about eight months to find the ring. Then the treasure was snatched from them just before they reached the goal. Move forward in time, and there was the accident; what did they want to happen there? What was their goal?”
“I presume to kill us so that we couldn’t identify them. They also probably meant to take any electronics that we had with us that might include their images. Perhaps use our biometrics while our bodies were still warm.”
“Did they get hold of your electronics?” Lynx asked.
“No, I was able to defang the dragon, move our things to their car, and use that vehicle to get Red to the hospital for stabilization before the CIA swooped in and managed us.”
“This was a second vehicle. One of them hit you with a truck.”
“That’s right. I believe that one man was in the delivery truck. Three men were in the car behind us. I had clocked the car at a distance. The roads where I was traveling weren’t wide.”
“You weren’t on the highway, taking the fastest route?” Lynx asked.
This was all in the reports they’d submitted.
It had been written up in the hot wash they’d endured.
Yet, Nomad understood that Lynx was fishing for a decent place to drop a line into the murky water of this manhunt.
“On the highway, there are guards in towers every few miles. They were watching all the license plates and tracking everyone. My understanding is that it has something to do with terrorism and moving illicit items. And too, ironically, there are a lot of traffic accidents in Morocco, and we were trying to keep ourselves out of that number. We didn’t want the government to be too aware of us as we were both using aliases and documentation that our institutions developed for our mission. ”
“Your vehicle was hit. You came to. You recognized the man at your door. Tell me about the fight.” Lynx had stopped blinking as she glued her gaze on his face.
“Red said she couldn’t feel her legs. I had briefly been unconscious and was forcing my brain into combat mode—observe, orient, decide, and act. Meanwhile, they were already at my door. They used a window-breaking tool to get into my side. I pretended to remain unconscious.”
“They had weapons?”
Nomad stopped. “I think not. I don’t remember dispatching any weapons, and we didn’t look like we could give them any trouble.”
“Did anyone pass you by? Other traffic?”
“No.”
“So you knew there would be no witnesses and no help. What happened next?” Lynx asked.
“After I punched the guy’s lights out through the broken window, I was able to get out. I saw the truck that hit us rammed into our engine. The truck driver was momentarily incapacitated by the accident. That left two for me to contend with at once.”
Nomad paused.
“I get that reliving this is going to be hard for you,” Lynx said softly. “I’m sorry for that.”
Nomad thought that she was speaking from personal experience with trauma and that these words held deep meaning and weren’t simply platitudes.
“At the time, could you see with both eyes?”
“Yes. I was in a great deal of pain. But I believe I had all my faculties. Though I believe I hallucinated part of the fight.”
She tipped her head. “The hallucination was visual? Auditory?”
“I would say possibly visual. Mostly sensory and olfactory.”
“Interesting. Can you tell me about your hallucination?”
“I punched this man’s jaw. I’ve broken jaws before, so I’m aware of the sound and the sensation. In my mind, this time, the jaw punch felt like a cartoon turned into a horror film. I remember being confused and wondering if he was the good guy, and I was taking him out.”
“Good guy?” White asked.
“I thought of vampires. It was the hallucination, as I was saying.”
“The cartoon sensation,” Lynx asked, “was it just that one punch or subsequent punches?”
“The guy was out. I didn’t punch him again.
I turned to the guy with the knife. Ah, yes, there was a weapon.
Funny how that just came to me. I didn’t punch again.
I was blocking and kicking, throwing, and I put the knife wielder into a stranglehold.
Then did the same with the driver, who had his arm in a cast and wasn’t really up for a fight.
When they were all out cold, I tied them up and left them on the side of the road. ”
“The hallucinations had stopped?” Lynx asked.
“It was a momentary thing. I shouldn’t have brought it up. The effects of the accident on my head.”
“I can’t imagine you being able to down four uninjured men. I’m so glad that you found it in you to persevere.” Lynx’s forehead was crisscrossed with concern lines.
Again, he was struck by the level of empathy in Lynx’s gaze and tone.
He knew she was a young woman in a dainty dress, but he was sure that she had survived something horrific.
And he wondered if Lynx had been CIA like Red, but had left for a safer gig at Iniquus, which was what White had hinted at in the car earlier.
“Red was injured,” Nomad said as if that in itself explained his superhuman capacity.
“I want to go back to the hallucination. Describe the sound to me.”
“Crunchy,” Nomad said, thinking they were veering off into the weeds.
“Interesting. I’ve punched my fair share of people in the jaw,” White said. “I never heard ‘crunchy’”
“No, well, perhaps I’m giving the punch a cartoonish image.”
“Based on the sensation?” Lynx asked.
“Exactly. It was the sensation of hitting a bag filled with aquarium gravel.”
“Tell me about that,” Lynx leaned forward.
“Small, brittle, hard. I’m not sure what you’re looking for here.”
Lynx offered up a sweet smile. “I like to ask questions and meander around a bit. We don’t have a direction, might as well enjoy the scenery.”
Nomad turned to White.
White, for the first time in a while, looked animated, juiced by Lynx’s questions. Though for the life of him, Nomad couldn’t understand why.
“Slowly, now,” Lynx said. “Close your eyes, go back to the fight. You are about to hallucinate as you punch the man in the jaw. You thought about vampires and good guys and aquarium gravel in a bag.”
“Odd but yes.”
“Do the thoughts ‘vampire’ and ‘good guy’ go together?”
“I believe so. I remember a flash of thinking that he was a vampire hunter out to save people, and here I was taking him down.”
“Did you think that before or after the punch?” Lynx asked.
Nomad stilled.
“Go slow. See it in your mind.”
He did as asked and was fairly confident when he said, “After.”
“And the reason was the olfactory hallucination you mentioned.”
“Quite. Yes. After I punched him, his mouth opened, and he exhaled garlic. It was an obnoxious amount of garlic.”
“As if he ate it as protection against vampires?” Lynx asked.
“I suppose that might make sense to a concussed mind, yes.”
“A vampire hunter,” Lynx’s voice trailed off, and her gaze moved to the ceiling.
“Crazy. I know,” Nomad said.
“Garlic.” Lynx held up her hand, stopping anyone from interrupting her thoughts.
She shook her head and scowled.
She scratched her lip. The cogs whirred.
Nomad thought Lynx had finally set her hook on something—fish or underwater debris? Sustenance or garbage?
When she focused on Nomad again, she asked, “You grew up in Europe, living in various countries as your parents worked at the embassies. The ring was last seen in a salt mine in Berchtesgaden. That’s in Germany. Were you ever in the area?”
“Yes, we went there as tourists when I was a boy.”
“And there were bats?” she asked.
Ah, maybe that’s why he’d hallucinated garlic. His subconscious had made a connection: vampire, bats, cave, ring. At least that mystery was solved.
“Yes, we weren’t allowed to go into certain sections of the salt mines on our tour because the bats were hibernating. Apparently, cool, stable temperatures just above zero degrees are optimal for them. Zero Celsius is about thirty-five Fahrenheit, which is good for bats. Mystery solved.”
White’s face drooped. Obviously, that vampire hallucination wasn’t going to take them where they’d wanted to go.
But Lynx was grinning. “You know what? I think that might be true. I need to make a phone call. Actually, two phone calls. I’ll put it on speaker so you can hear it. Will you give me a minute?”