Bennie said, “You should have run our plates earlier.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kevin said. “But we thought we had a situation of hot pursuit. Your friend here is a legend. Detective Corey was one of the best and most successful and respected agents in the Anti-Terrorist Task Force.”
She glanced at Corey with a smile. “So he’s smarter than he looks?”
“Bingo.”
He recalculated his odds of getting laid, which remained slim to none.
“We’re all still talking about that case you had up here with that nut job at the Custer Hill Club,” Kevin said.
“Just another day of preventing nuclear Armageddon.”
Ahmed and Kevin laughed.
Then he said to Bennie, “Forget you heard that.”
She rolled her eyes.
Kevin asked, “Didn’t you work for the DSG for a while?”
“Still with them.” He added, “On leave.”
Kevin let him know, “You came to the right place to relax. Great fishing. And it’s bow season now.”
“Can’t wait to get mine out.”
“So, Officers, can you fill us in on what’s going on?” Bennie asked.
Kevin and Ahmed exchanged glances, then Ahmed said, “We were setting up a training facility in the woods. That’s all I can say. Please keep this to yourself—in the interest of national security.”
She gestured to Corey. “But do me a favor, Ahmed. Please tell the Legend here that it was Arabic I heard.”
Before Ahmed could reply, Kevin said something in what Corey recognized as Arabic.
Funny, coming from an Irishman.
Kevin said, “I’m learning the language. It’s just a training exercise. There are no terrorists in the woods. You can relax.”
Corey didn’t think he was getting the whole truth, and there was no reason why he should. But if he had to guess, this was more of a sting operation than a training exercise. In a week, or a month, or a year, there would be terrorists at that site, lured there by Ahmed or other Arab-Americans on the Task Force. He had a sudden nostalgia for the ATTF. He disliked the bureaucracy, the political correctness, and working with the FBI, but he missed the excitement. And the satisfaction of doing something important for the country.
But that train had left the station.
Bennie said to Kevin and Ahmed, “Well, thank you, Officers. But even if I’m safe, I’m going back to Philly tonight.”
Kevin assured her, “You’re safer here than in Philadelphia.”
Which was true.
Thousands of people died in Philly every year from boredom. But Corey kept that wisecrack to himself.
Kevin and Ahmed said good night and left.
He gestured to the sliders. “If you’d locked them when you got back in the house, we wouldn’t have been terrorized by terrorists.”
“They weren’t terrorists.”
“But they were terrifying.”
She smiled. “And apparently you’re a big deal.”
“No apparently about it.”
“I like a modest man.”
“Some men have a lot to be modest about. I don’t.” He looked at his watch. “You’re really going back tonight?”
“I wouldn’t sleep tonight anyway, after all that.” He sensed that they’d reached their good-byes sooner than either of them had wanted. He thought about offering to stay in touch, exchanging numbers and e-mails but decided to only stick out his hand, which she shook.
“Thank you,” she said. “And I’m seeing someone.”
“Figures. Nice meeting you, and have a good trip back to Philly. Tell Max I said good-bye.”
“Will do.”
“And lock the door after I leave.”
“Will do that, too.”
“Good night, Benedetta.”
He left the cabin.
He wished they could’ve gotten to know each other better, and he thought she felt the same way. He liked strong women, and she was one of the strongest yet.
They’d have made a good match.
He climbed into his Jeep and drove away.
Not a total loss, though.
He had her cell-phone number in his phone and she had his. So maybe one day he’d get a call or a text.
Or maybe someday he’d need a Philadelphia lawyer.
But, if not, they’d always have Lake Whatever.
J.A. JANCE AND ERIC VAN LUSTBADER
OF ALL THE TEAMS, THIS one may have had the most difficulty. Eric’s character, Braverman “Bravo” Shaw is an accomplished medieval scholar and cryptanalyst, a solid East Coast kind of guy. Judith’s character is all western, born one afternoon while she was watching the news in Tucson. Her favorite female newscaster was not on that day. She later learned that the new thirtysomething news director had decided that, at age fifty-three, the woman had to go. That’s when ex-newscaster, Ali Reynolds, was born.
Like their characters, both writers live and breathe from different sides of the country. Further complicating things was the fact that collaboration was foreign to both of them. Neither had much worked with someone else on a story.
They’re both loners.
Their styles are quite different.
Eventually, though, they realized that those differences were actually strengths. Eric wrote a first draft, then Judith took it from there. In the end, despite all the hurdles, these two were the first, among the eleven teams, to finish their story, five months ahead of the deadline.
Not bad for a couple of loners.
You’re going to enjoy learning about— Taking the Veil.
TAKING THE VEIL
BLACK HILLS, ARIZONA
1601
FRA IGNACIO WAS TIRED—EXHAUSTED, REALLY. He and his five fellow Jesuits had been on the run for the better part of a year. They had started in the Holy Land, where they had been sent on a secret mission by Pope Clement VIII to bring back to Rome the fabled Sudarium—the Veil of Saint Veronica—the cloth used to wipe the blood and sweat from the brow of Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion, imprinting his face on the fabric. He had been told that it had been unearthed in the Sinai by tomb raiders who had no idea of its significance to the Holy See, to the church itself.
Clement VIII had bought the holy relic from a merchant in the Levant. Fra Ignacio and his group had been dispatched from Rome to fetch it since the Holy Father trusted no one other than his beloved Jesuits to ensure that this Veronica, as it was sometimes called, was the genuine article as, over the years, any number of fakes had been foisted upon the Vatican.
He made contact with the merchant and the judicious biblical scholar, who had authenticated the Veronica for Clement VIII. He never saw the veil itself, for it was already housed in a quiverlike cylinder made of zinc, clad in three layers of copper, with a watertight seal at one end. Twelve days after arriving in the Levant, they made their way back to the ship Clement VIII had provided for them.