Serpent of Moses

11



“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find one person on a flight manifest from a region with more flights per day than any other part of the world when you don’t even know what airline he’s traveling on?”

“I’m going with not very hard,” Esperanza said.

Her response was met with silence, and she imagined Jack’s friend nursing a feeling of righteous indignation.

“Well, you’re right,” Duckey said after a pause. “But that’s only because I know people.”

“Which is why I called you,” Espy said.

“Your lost archaeologist boarded a KLM flight in Milan on December fourteenth.”

“Which was a few days before he was supposed to meet Sturdivant in London,” Espy said.

“But this bird wasn’t going to London,” Duckey said. “For some reason, our friend purchased a one-way ticket to Tripoli.”

Espy’s brow furrowed. “Jack went to Libya?”

“After a brief stop in Amsterdam, where Jack had a stroopwaffel and a bourbon in the terminal.” Duckey paused and then added, “I don’t think much of the combination myself, but then I’ve never had a stroopwaffel.”

“You’re good,” Espy conceded.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Let me think a minute. . . . We know that Jack had something he was going to sell to Sturdivant for a lot of money. And the Jack we know wouldn’t pass up on the chance at a score that big. So why would he decide to change his plans and go to Libya?”

“I can’t answer that,” Duckey said. “But I do think you’re presuming too much. You’re assuming that Jack had in his possession whatever he was going to sell in London.”

“You’re right,” Espy said, stretching the words as she mulled over what Duckey was saying. Then she shook her head, as if ridding herself of Duckey’s attempt to make things more difficult than they already were. “But he told Sturdivant—”

“The point is that we can’t presume,” Duckey interrupted. Yet despite the pointed nature of his words, his voice was kind. “Unless I’m mistaken, he didn’t say that he had what Sturdivant wanted. All he said was that he was going to bring something to him.”

“Okay, let’s assume that Jack didn’t have in his possession the item he was going to sell to Sturdivant. How does that affect how we look for him?”

She asked the question more as a means of focusing their efforts than as any sort of minimization of her mistake, which was exactly how Duckey took it.

“It means that we have a few more variables to consider than we might otherwise have had,” he said. “Was Jack trying to procure whatever he was going to sell to the buyer in London, or did he get distracted by something else?”

“And any single variable you add makes everything that follows a whole lot more complicated.”

“Right.”

“Okay. So where does that leave us?”

“As near as I can tell, it leaves us with two places to investigate: Milan and Libya.” Without waiting for a response, he went on, “First, we could figure out what happened in Milan to make Jack buy that plane ticket. Whether that was a new lead in whatever he went to Italy for or something else entirely—we don’t know at this point.”

“And second?” Espy asked.

“Second would be to figure out what happened to Jack when he touched down in Tripoli. Because aside from his buying lunch in the terminal and then renting a car, his credit card is cold.”

Esperanza absorbed that and immediately began sifting through the data they had, along with the options Duckey had laid out. And what she kept running into was the large number of variables they had to consider, as well as actions they could take.

“I’m not sure where to start,” she said.

“You’re presuming again,” Duckey said.

“Am I?”

“You’re presuming we have to start anywhere.” He paused as if to make certain that she was on the same page. “After all, we can’t forget who we’re dealing with. This is a man who locked himself in his apartment every winter break at the university and didn’t talk to a single soul for a month. The way I see it, now that he’s not tied to the fine institution I still draw a paycheck from, I think he’s just substituted the world for his apartment.”

“So you don’t think there’s anything wrong.”

“I have no idea if anything’s wrong,” Duckey answered. “All we know is that Jack went to Libya and now he’s not answering his phone.”

Esperanza didn’t know what to say to that. She’d already pondered the possibility that she was worrying over nothing. Now one of Jack’s closest friends and a former CIA agent was intimating the same thing.

Duckey continued. “I’ll level with you, Espy. Knowing what I know about Jack, if I still worked at Langley and this came across my desk, I wouldn’t do a thing. Because the odds would suggest that the missing person would show up on his own.”

Espy sensed a but coming.

“But what I know about you—and Jack’s told me a lot—tells me that your hunch carries a lot of weight.”

Espy digested the compliment, then said, “Which means?”

“Which means you should work the Milan angle.”

“The Milan angle?”

“Listen,” he said. “You’re much better equipped than I am to handle all that highbrow stuff that goes on in a city like Milan. Obviously Jack would have been dealing with people who know a thing or two about ancient artifacts. That’s something I’m unprepared to dive into.”

Espy nodded, accepting his reasoning. Then something struck her. “You said the Milan angle. Usually you don’t say something like that unless there’s another angle that also needs investigating.”

“I’ll take Tripoli.”

“Excuse me?”

“I figure that’s more my kind of town.”

Esperanza could almost see Duckey’s shrug through the phone.

“I’m pretty good at finding a needle in a haystack,” Duckey said.

Espy had never met Jim Duckett in person, but she’d heard Jack speak of the man on many occasions. While she wouldn’t have called the feeling Jack held for the man reverence, it was something close. But she also knew that Duckey was retired—that his days of working in the field were well behind him.

“I’m not sitting this one out,” he said, understanding where her thoughts were headed. “Libya’s my kind of place. If Jack’s there, I’m the one who stands the best chance of finding him.”

Again, Espy had to rely on what she’d learned of the man during her association with Jack. He was ex-CIA, hardheaded, and loyal to a fault. She knew that her chances of talking Duckey out of stepping into the fray were next to none.

“Thank you” was all she could think to say.

“Think nothing of it,” Duckey said.