MacDuff shook his head. “Go get some sleep, Jane. There’s no need for you to go with us.”
“The hell there’s not. I’ve been along on practically every step of the journey since I first started having dreams of Cira. On some of those steps, I’ve actually made the decisions.” She stared him in the eye. “I have to be there to wrap up this part of it.”
“She’s right, you know,” Eve said quietly. “Don’t cheat her, MacDuff.”
He grimaced. “Aye, she’s right. But she’s also exhausted, and I’m feeling wildly grateful that she’s given me the prize I’ve been trying to win all these years. I thought I’d try to be gallant.”
“Bullshit,” Jane said. “Just tell me when we’re leaving for Edinburgh.”
“Two hours should do it. We all need to clean up, or they won’t even let us into that bank. After that, we have to pack Cira’s chest in a durable box that won’t fall apart during transport.” He smiled. “Then we’ll be on our way.”
“What about security?”
“You, MacDuff, and I will take Cira’s chest in the Toyota,” Jock said. “I’ve set up another car, a Range Rover, to follow us, driven by our man Angus Macauley, who will have three other guards in the car. None of the guards know that we’ve found Cira’s treasure, nor will anyone at the bank until we’re actually inside their doors. MacDuff will call the vice president of the bank when we’re twenty minutes away and request an immediate escort for an important transaction.” He made a face. “That should be no problem. MacDuff has all those bigwig types on his speed dial.”
“Satisfied?” MacDuff asked.
Jane nodded. “Very smart. Very discreet.”
“So can we do it without you?”
“Not a chance.”
MacDuff sighed. “So be it.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you use either that philosophic tone or words. It’s not at all like you.” Jane got to her feet. “It’s probably the last time I’ll be quite so demanding, MacDuff. We’re almost at the end of this particular road.”
“We are?” He tilted his head. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’ll miss you, Jane.”
She would miss him, too. As well as the journey, the puzzle, the search. Don’t think of it right now, she told herself. They still had a little more distance to travel on Cira’s path. She started up the hill toward her tent. “I’ll see you in two hours. Don’t you dare leave without me.”
DUBAI
11:05 A.M.
“I have to talk to you, Caleb,” Palik said curtly. “I’m in the lobby of your hotel. Do you want me to come to you or do you want to come down?”
“You can’t tell me what you need on the phone?”
“I could, but I’m not going to do it. I want to see your face when I talk to you. Though God knows if I’ll be able to tell anything from that, either.”
Palik was clearly upset, and Caleb didn’t like it. It took a good deal for him to lose his cool. “I’ll come down. Meet me in the bar.”
“Fine. I could use a drink.”
Not good, Caleb thought. Palik never used drugs and seldom drank. In his line of work, he regarded lack of control as hazardous.
And his expression was not encouraging when Caleb walked into the bar and dropped down on the red leather banquette across from him. It reflected he was both nervous and angry.
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m not sure. You tell me.” He stared Caleb in the eye. “I’ve been straight with you. I know you don’t trust anyone, but that’s how I operate. I don’t lie to you.” He paused. “And you don’t lie to me. That way, I can cover my ass for what’s coming.”
“You think I lied to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m hoping you didn’t, because I definitely don’t want to get on your bad side. But if you did, I’m here to tell you that I can’t work for you any longer.”
Caleb’s gaze narrowed on Palik’s face. “I can’t recall lying to you, though it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t capable of doing it if it was to my advantage. In what instance am I supposed to have lied to you?”
Palik didn’t speak, his hand clenching on the glass in front of him.
“Palik, I’m beginning to get impatient.”
“You said that you were through with Said Ben Kemal. That you had all the information you needed from him.”
Caleb nodded. “Yes, I did. So?”
“Did you decide you needed something more from him? Or were you annoyed at what he was doing to that kid?”
“No. Yes. And both issues were resolved. Why?”
“Because Ben Kemal was found in his apartment this morning gutted and with his throat cut.”
Caleb went still. “It couldn’t have happened to a more worthy victim. I take it that no one knows who committed the happy act?”
Palik shook his head. “The police think it might be a mob hit.”
“But you thought it might be me.”
“It occurred to me. You’re very clever. You could have made it look like anything you wanted.”
Caleb grimaced. “But gutting and slitting a throat? I’m surprised you’d think I’d be so crude. Why would I when I have other ways to make someone’s death look totally natural?”
“You didn’t do it?”
“I didn’t do it.”
Palik let out a relieved breath. “I had to be sure. My business is based on contacts, and if it got around that I’d set up Said Ben Kemal for a hit, everyone would run for the hills when they saw me coming.”
“No retirement palace in Morocco?” Caleb asked absently. His mind was moving quickly, trying to put the new piece into the puzzle. “Why do the police think it was a mob hit?”
“The gutting and slit throat isn’t enough?” He shrugged. “He was also missing his tongue. Mob retribution usually calls for a statement to indicate a snitch.”
Caleb stiffened. “And it didn’t occur to you that the only one who had received information from Ben Kemal lately was me? Which meant that someone found out that he’d told me everything he knew. It’s logical that person could be Santara or one of his men who was royally pissed off that Ben Kemal had talked. It’s the kind of example Santara would set.” He lowered his voice to lethal softness. “Just who did you tell about my little trip to see Ben Kemal?”
“No one,” Palik said flatly. “I’m a professional. I don’t make mistakes like that, Caleb. Maybe it was Ben Kemal himself.”
“Not possible. I gave him orders not to talk, and he wouldn’t disobey them.” That post suggestion he’d given him would have made it too excruciatingly painful, Caleb knew.
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
Caleb was inclined to believe him. That kind of indiscretion was unlikely in Palik. He was too sharp, and as he’d said, he was a professional. So Caleb either had to believe it had been a payoff or that Palik was innocent.
Yet there had to have been a leak.
“I swear it,” Palik said. “Not from anyone I dealt with and not from me. Find someone else to blame. Look in your own backyard.”
That was what Caleb was trying to do. His mind was going over every possibility, every person who had access to the information. There had to be some someone who—
“What about that kid, Ahmed, you sent out of the apartment that night?” Palik offered. “Though my latest report on him is that he’s scared shitless and is just trying to dig a deep hole for himself. I made sure no one knew where he was.”
“The boy didn’t know what was happening. Even if someone got to him, he wouldn’t know that I was after information from Ben Kemal. As you say, it was a statement, and he—”
He stopped, his entire body electrified as a thought occurred to him.
Look in your own backyard.
Holy shit!
He reached for his phone.
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
11:35 A.M.
“I can’t believe everything’s going so smoothly,” Jane murmured to Jock as she watched MacDuff and Nigel Tambry, the bank vice president, disappear into the vault area accompanied by two security guards. “Hey, you did good, Jock.”