Chapter 10
Jasmine paced the garage floor with her phone pressed to her ear as it rang. “We need more information,” she murmured aloud. “We can’t wait for Swede to search the internet to find who is in competition with Demopoulos.”
“Moya lyubov, yak spravy?” he answered on the first ring.
She answered in Ukrainian, “I am well.”
“Did you get it?” he asked.
“We did,” she said. “It all went according to your plan.”
He chuckled. “I understand you had some plans of your own. My source said the dealer had to do very little for you to win that game.”
“Then luck must have been on my side.”
“He also said that Demopoulos’s people are looking for the Italian heiress Francesca and her bodyguard. They’re questioning all involved, including all the players.”
Jasmine’s gaze went to Ace and Fearghas.
“If you’re not out of Athens, you might want to get out quickly,” Dmytro warned. “If my casino source is discovered, he might be forced to point me out. I sent my wife and daughter to Switzerland on vacation. They left on the last commercial flight out of Athens.”
“I’m so sorry, Dmytro. I didn’t mean to bring this down on you and your family,” Jasmine said. “And, though I hate to ask, I need one more favor from you, Dmytro.”
“It is okay,” he said. “I understand. My wife and daughter agreed that it is more important that you get your son back. Now, what is it you need me to do?”
“Athanasios Demopoulos was on an archeological dig a couple of years ago with a man named Louis Bertolli or Bertolini. I need to know if he’s as interested in the copper scroll as Demopoulos.”
“Do you think this man might be the one who took your son?”
“Maybe. And if he is, Demopoulos knows I’ll be taking that scroll to trade for my boy.”
“He’ll try to intercept you before you can make that trade,” Dmytro concluded. “I’ll see what I can find out before I leave to join my family.”
“I thought you said your family left on the last flight out?”
Dmytro snorted. “Who said I was flying commercial? I have my own helicopter and earned my pilot’s license years ago.”
Jasmine shook her head. “You are a man of many talents, Dmytro. I’m proud to call you my friend.”
“You are a good person, Jasmine. You don’t deserve to lose your son. If there’s anything else I can do to help, I will.”
Jasmine’s heart swelled with her love for this man and his family. “Thank you.”
“It’s not safe in Athens,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest with the Greek crime organization.”
“Get out as soon as you can,” he said and ended the call.
Jasmine slid her cell phone into her pocket and met Ace’s gaze. “Demopoulos is looking for Francesca and you.” Her gaze shifted to Fearghas. “He’s also looking for the players at the game for questioning. My contact sent his wife and daughter on vacation to Switzerland to keep them safe. He will ask around about Louis Bertolli and see what he can learn, but then he’s leaving Athens as well.”
Ace nodded. “With Demopoulos’s people out looking for us, there’s no use in trying to get out of Athens until we know where we’re going.”
“You might as well get comfortable,” Fearghas said. “You can shower, sleep and eat. My refrigerator is stocked.”
“This is where you live?” Jasmine asked, looking around the garage.
Fearghas smiled. “My living quarters are upstairs. The garage is a good cover. No one knows that there’s an apartment above it. You both are more than welcome to make yourselves at home.”
“I don’t know if I could sleep,” Jasmine said, “but it would be nice to take a shower.”
Fearghas led them up a set of rusty-looking stairs to an ugly metal door. He produced a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and held it open for them to enter.
Jasmine stepped into what appeared to be a closet or very small office with a metal desk and an old metal chair.
Fearghas stepped in behind them and pulled the door closed,
“I don’t understand,” Jasmine said, looking around the small, cramped room.
Fearghas grinned. “Hold on.” He locked the door from the inside, then squeezed around Jasmine and Ace. He grabbed the string hanging from the ceiling and pulled it once. The light switched on. He pulled it a second time, and a panel on the wall slid to the side, exposing the room beyond.
Fearghas stepped to the side and waved an arm. “Welcome to my humble abode.”
The contrast between the garage below and the room in front of her left Jasmine speechless.
Ace grinned and stepped into the room. “I never expected this.”
“Precisely,” Fearghas said. “It’s my own little oasis. Only I and a few select people know of its existence.”
“Are you hiding from someone?” Jasmine asked.
Fearghas shrugged. “When you’re in the freelance security business, you never know who you’re going make an enemy of.”
Jasmine’s lips tightened. “Or who will do anything to get you to do their dirty work for them.”
Fearghas nodded. “I like doing my jobs and then disappearing. If I want to be found, I make myself findable. Just not here. This is my safe house.”
“What about the workers who helped build this,” Ace asked. “Aren’t you afraid they’ll reveal your location?”
“For the first year or so after I left the SAS, this is what I did.” He spread his arms wide, encompassing the room and all its décor.
“You did this?” Jasmine asked, nodding at the tile on the floor.
“You’d be amazed at what you can find on the internet. If I didn’t know how to do something, I learned by watching videos. Once I had this place the way I wanted it, I ran out of things to do. That’s when I picked up freelance work.”
He led them across the living room with its cool, marble tile floor and thick shag area rugs. A large sectional sofa in bomber-jacket brown leather faced a gas fireplace with a television mounted on the wall.
The living area opened into a dining room and then a kitchen with shining appliances and granite countertops.
Two doors led off the main living area. Fearghas crossed to the first and flung the door open. “This is the guest bedroom with its own bathroom and shower.”
Jasmine leaned in to find a queen-sized bed with a white duvet and fluffy white pillows and tasteful modern paintings adorning the walls.
“You’ll be the first guests to use this room,” Fearghas said with a smile.
He moved to the next door and pushed open the door. “And this is my room. You’re welcome to use the bathroom in this room as well.
Jasmine peeked in to see a sitting area equipped with a desk against one wall. Over the desk was an array of monitors attached to the wall. “You work in here?”
“I do.” He walked to the desk and tapped the keyboard. The monitors sprang to life, displaying different angles of the building, from outside the garage where they’d entered to inside the garage and what appeared to be the back of the building. “I work here, but I can also monitor everything inside and outside the building. If I want to check the status, I just tap the keyboard.”
Jasmine wondered what kind of freelance work he’d done to warrant the security setup he’d installed.
Fearghas tipped his head toward an open door on the far side of the sitting room. “The bathroom is on the right, the bedroom on the left.” He glanced at Ace, his gaze sweeping him from head to toe. “You and I are about the same size. You’ll find clothes in the bedroom closet. Feel free to choose whatever you want.”
Ace nodded. “Thanks.”
Fearghas glanced at Jasmine. “You might find something in my closet as well.”
Jasmine cocked an eyebrow. “I doubt it.”
Fearghas’s lips twisted. “A former lady friend left some of her belongings here. You might find something to fit among them.”
“Won’t she be unhappy that some of her things are missing?”
Fearghas looked away. “She won’t be back. I just haven’t had time to box up her things and donate them.”
Jasmine suspected there was more to the story than Fearghas was willing to share, and she wasn’t going to push him to explain. He’d already done so much to help them, placing himself at risk. “Thanks.”
“There’s plenty of food in the refrigerator, fresh towels in both bathrooms and clean sheets on the guest bed. You can fight over who gets the bed and who gets the couch, although the couch is quite comfortable. I’ve slept on it a number of times.” He backed out of his bedroom. “I’m going to step out for a while.” He started to turn away, stopped and frowned. “One other thing. Please, follow me.”
He led the way into the guest bedroom and opened the closet. He pointed to where a string hung down close to a light bulb on the ceiling. “If this building is compromised,” he grabbed the string and pulled. Instead of turning on the light bulb, a folding staircase descended.
“This is an escape hatch that leads into the attic,” he said. “There’s a door that opens onto the roof. You can climb down the trellis on the back of the building. If the building is surrounded, there are only three feet between this building and the next to the left. You can jump across to that building and keep going for another four buildings. When you come to the fourth, there’s a ladder on the side of that building that’ll get you almost all the way to the ground. You’ll have to drop eight feet from the end of the ladder.”
“And you know this because…?” Ace prompted.
Fearghas grinned. “I’ve tested the options. You never know when you need a quick escape route.”
Jasmine shook her head. “You thought of everything.”
“I doubt that. But hopefully, I’ve thought of enough to get out of here alive should someone want to get to me badly enough.”
“It’s good to know we have options,” Ace said.
“Hopefully, we won’t have to exercise those options.” Fearghas strode out into the living area. “As I said, I’m going to step out. Help yourself to anything you need.”
“Fearghas,” Jasmine held out her hand, “thank you for everything. Especially for getting us out of the compound when you did.”
He shook her hand. “My pleasure. Like I said, I owed Hank. I would not be alive today if not for that man.”
They followed Fearghas to the sliding door that led to the garage below. He pressed a button on the wall, and the door slid open. “I should be back in two hours.”
“And if you’re not?” Jasmine asked.
He met and held her gaze. “You might consider using the escape hatch and getting out of Athens.”
A shiver of apprehension slithered down Jasmine’s spine. She wrapped her arms around her middle and nodded. “Understood.”
Fearghas stepped into the closet-sized fake office, and the door slid closed between them.
Ace walked into Fearghas’s bedroom.
“What are you doing?” Jasmine asked, following him through the door.
“These monitors blinked off as Fearghas was telling us about the clothes in the closets. I just wanted to see if the camera has motion sensors.” He nodded to the monitors. “The garage interior monitor was on. Apparently, they come on when there’s motion.”
Jasmine watched the monitor that displayed the garage interior. Fearghas descended the stairs into the garage. He touched a button on the wall, and the overhead door opened. He mounted his motorcycle and drove out, then the overhead door closed behind him. Another monitor blinked to life as Fearghas exited the garage, turned left onto the road in front of the garage and sped away.
“I don’t know about you, but all these security and alternate escape hatches have me spooked,” Ace said.
Jasmine nodded. “At least we can check the monitors periodically to see if anyone’s near the building.”
The monitors blinked off.
Jasmine left Ace’s sitting room and walked out into the living area. “Do you want to eat first or shower?”
“Let’s grab some food,” Ace answered.
“Sounds good,” Jasmine said, her stomach rumbling. “After I shower, I want to try to rest for a little while. We don’t know what will happen next or where we’ll be tomorrow morning.
Ace led the way to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Inside, they found deli meat and cheese.
Jasmine located a loaf of bread on a shelf.
Ace found glasses in a cabinet and a bottle of red wine. He worked on opening the bottle while Jasmine made sandwiches and carried them to the dining table.
Ace brought two glasses of wine and sat next to Jasmine.
To Jasmine, it was all surreal. Playing house when the world seemed to be on fire around them.
Jasmine lifted her glass. “To getting Eli back.”
“To Eli,” Ace said and touched his glass to hers.
After taking a sip, Jasmine set her glass on the table and lifted her sandwich. “Thank you for being there for me. I don’t think I’d have been able to get into the compound, retrieve the scroll and back out without your help.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
Ace stared into her eyes. “I’m not. I’m glad I was in that museum when I was and that I recognized you.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes while Jasmine mustered the courage to ask him what was burning in her mind. “Did you ever think about that crazy week we spent here in Athens?”
He’d taken his last bite of his sandwich when she asked the question. He spent a moment or two chewing, then swallowed and met her gaze. “I thought about it all the time. I tried to look you up.”
She frowned. “You did?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“When?”
“I was deployed as soon as I returned to my duty station. I couldn’t call for a couple of months because we were on a mission, incommunicado. When I finally was able to call, the phone number you gave me didn’t work.”
“That would explain why I couldn’t get in touch with you,” she said. “I tried calling, but I got no answer.”
He shook his head. “We had to leave our phones behind.”
Jasmine’s chest tightened. “I thought you didn’t want to answer,” she said. “That week went by so fast, and we never talked about the future.”
“When we got back from our mission and your number was disconnected, I wondered if what we had was only a dream.”
She smiled sadly. “When I left the military, I had to turn in my cell phone and get a new one.”
“Maybe it was a dream. Now, you have another life. A son.”
Jasmine opened her mouth to tell him that Eli was his son, but before she could, Ace set his glass on the table and stood.
“I’m going to get a shower,” he said and carried his plate to the sink. “Leave your dishes in the sink. I’ll take care of them after I shower.”
Jasmine stood and carried her plate with the half-eaten sandwich to the sink, bumping shoulders with Ace as he turned.
“Sorry,” he said and stepped back to allow her to place her plate in the sink.
Before he could walk away, she blurted, “I hate leaving dishes in the sink. It won’t take long to clean up. I’ll wash if you’ll dry.”
He hesitated, then grabbed the dish towel hanging on a hook.
Glad she’d keep close to him for a little longer, Jasmine scraped the sandwich into the garbage can at the end of the counter and filled the sink with warm, soapy water. She washed the two plates and glasses, rinsed them and then handed them to Ace one by one. They finished all too soon.
“You can have Fearghas’s shower. I’ll shower in the guest bedroom,” Ace said, his voice gruff.
She took the towel from his hands and reached around him to hang it on the hook, her arm circling him in the process.
Ace turned to face her and pulled her into his arms.
Jasmine couldn’t resist what her body and soul craved...his touch...his arms around her. She leaned into him. “I missed you.”
His arms tightened around her, pressing her body closer. “I missed you, too.”
She leaned her head back and stared up into his eyes. “Do we miss what we had, or did we build it up in our minds to be greater than it was?”
Ace shook his head. “All I know is that it was the best week of my life, and I didn’t want it to end.”
“When you didn’t return my phone calls, I thought it meant nothing to you,” she said.
“I couldn’t,” he said. “I was deployed.”
“I know that now.”
“I tried to call you when I got back,” he said. “I tried looking you up. It was then I realized I didn’t know all that much about you. You didn’t tell me you were in the Israeli military.”
She grimaced. “Most men were intimidated when I told them I was Sayeret Matkal. We were in Athens. I was on vacation. I wanted you to stay.”
“I wouldn’t have walked away.”
“I didn’t know that. I wasn’t willing to risk it.” She leaned her forehead against his chest. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
He rested his cheek against her temple. “I looked for you. I even came back to Athens, hoping I’d run into you.”
“You did?” She raised her head, her eyes wide, tears welling, blurring her vision.
He nodded.
“Every time I returned to Athens, I ate at our café. I walked along the steps of the Parthenon near sundown, wishing you were there.” She laid her cheek against his chest. “Perhaps our timing was off. Maybe it is now,” she whispered.
“Or maybe not.” Ace tipped her chin up and claimed her lips in a kiss that was everything and more than what Jasmine had remembered and dreamed of. If it was wrong to think of her own desires when her son was missing, Jasmine didn’t care. She was where she’d always wanted to be. In the arms of the man she’d fallen in love with four years ago and had never stopped loving since.
Her hands crept up his chest and locked behind his neck, deepening the kiss.
When he came up for air, Ace said, “I could do this all night.”
Jasmine bit down on her tongue to keep from saying, I could do this for the rest of my life. She still thought their timing was off, but she wasn’t going to question the gift they’d been given.
He kissed her again, his tongue sweeping over hers in a long and languid caress. When he broke away, he drew a deep breath and slowly released it. “Where do we go from here?”
She smiled, took his hand and led him into the guest bathroom, where she turned on the water in the shower.
Jasmine faced Ace and shrugged off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor. Her fingers rose to the buttons on her blouse only to be brushed aside by Ace’s hands.
Had she read him wrong? Did he not want to make love to her? Was he going to stop her from stripping naked in front of him? Her heart sank to the pit of her belly.
Ace cupped her cheeks between his palms and kissed her hard and fast. Then he reached for the buttons on her shirt and slipped them free.
Jasmine’s heart soared. It was going to happen. They were going to make love again. After four long years of dreaming about him, Ace was back in her life.