Sudden Deception (A Jill Oliver Thriller) (15 page)

***

The pain in her heart tugged. Why is there a picture of David’s father, of all people, on the floor where David was supposed to be? Especially since it was halfway around the world from Texas? Jill had known David’s dad had some international contracts, given that he was in the oil and gas pipeline business. Jill was back in the tunnels but could not pull up the file on exactly what David’s dad did in that industry. He was always vague about it. She knew this couldn’t be a coincidence, as there was no such thing as coincidences, not to this degree anyway. Just as Jill was about to pull up another memory file, the lights of Kushka appeared and guided their descent on the rough hilly road. Mohammed kept looking back at her, his dark eyes concerned. Jill’s eyes looked dead. It was all she could do to stop from letting go when she said to Mohammed, “Vodka?”

Before they crossed into the light of the village, Mohammed turned a sharp right, then up a side road to a shanty. A light indicated someone lived in the tin walls held up by two pieces of slanting lumber. Mohammed came back with a bottle of white fire. As he passed the bottle, Jill tried to give a half-baked smile. She placed the warm bottle inside her jacket. With utter despair and not so much as a care, a question entered her brain. I wonder where I will be able to sleep? The memory of the hotel room made her cringe.

As if reading her mind, Mohammed pulled up to the dress shop. He motioned for her to get out of the car. “Come,” he said with a smile. She looked down at the abaya crumpled on the backseat. The void streets decided for her. She gathered the abaya into a ball and exited the car. It was too late to wake up the old man and his wife, but she needed to get the newspaper translated.

Mohammed unlocked the door and they entered the gloomy shop. Dead air hit hard. She followed him through the forest of clothes to the back of the shop. He opened a door to a makeshift office with a small cot in the corner. Lighting a candle that was on the desk, he pointed to the cot. His kind grin outlined the word khalas, and he softly closed the door.

The quaint room comforted Jill, for at last she was alone and somehow for the first time on the trip, she felt safe. The brief comfort dissipated when she thought of the notebook and when she thought of David. The candle flickered on the firewater as she placed it on the desk, as if enticing herself to drink. She moved the pile of folded clothes stacked on the small cot and spread the abaya out. There was no pillow and at this point she didn’t care.

Bitterness hit her stomach when she leaned over and grabbed the bottle. She took a deep breath, unscrewed the cap, and chugged down a gulp of hot hell. She almost gagged at the taste but forced it down anyway. And then another chug. The candle lit up the room and Jill pulled out the newspaper and notebook from her pocket. She picked up the bottle and put it back down. She felt exhausted all of a sudden and laid down on the spindly cot, boots still on. She held up the newspaper article and studied it. The shadow of the candle danced in the background as she looked at the picture of David’s father. The delight on his face was notable. She put the paper beside her on the bed and placed David’s notebook on its side so she could look at her picture, hoping to somehow feel closer to him. Hoping he was okay. The face in front of Jill began to blur. As her body became heavy she read the words below her picture:

Remembering our honeymoon, Love Jill ....

She didn’t notice the extra dot when she faded into the night.

02:40 Zulu Time—KUSHKA, AFGHANISTAN

Sitting around a fire I see my grandparents swaying. Their eyes are closed and the hum of meditation fills my ears. My grandmother sits holding the small leather pouch. Beside her is my mother. My body begins to sway as the hums pitch changes.

The sound of movement in the other room woke Jill. Startled, she bolted upright, nearly knocking over the vodka. The candle was out now and a sliver of light yawned through the window. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she spotted the clock on the nearby desk. 07:10. Jill laid back down, realizing it was nothing but the old man shuffling around the shop, and stared up at the stained ceiling. She thought of David’s notebook and yearned for hers. She always had the best revelations in the morning.

“I have to get my stuff back and I need to get out of this hellhole,” she told herself out loud. “What the hell am I going to do?” Her body posture was one of despair. Lying on the bed defeated, Jill really didn’t know where she was going to go or what she would do next. She needed to jot down her vision. “Again, my family,” she whispered. “But why? And why did the hum pitch change?”

Depression crept in now. She had slept all night clutching the notebook. She held it up in front of her. Suspended in the air, the cover fell open and she saw herself again. Opening the cover up all the way she tried to focus her tired eyes on what she read. As she studied the words written below her photo, she blinked. Then hope filled her soul. She could not believe the joy that began to infiltrate her being. Suddenly, she sat straight up and opened the makeshift curtain that hung above the bed. Light splashed clarity to the page. She couldn’t breathe. In awe, Jill again examined the notebook and reread what was written below her photograph. It was still there, the words were still there! I never wrote this. I never wrote this. David must be alive! She gasped and said to fill the void in the air, “David is in Hamburg, Germany.”

Looking back at the notebook, Jill’s finger traced the words. David must have written this, but the handwriting was not his. She assumed he had disguised it. But why would he need to do that? Uncontrollably excited for the first time since leaving home behind, Jill heard a rooster crow good morning … and it actually felt good.

Thoughts gushed in when she thought of Hamburg. David often joked that their trip to Hamburg was their honeymoon. In actual fact it was a short assignment where he had to interview the ambassador for a story he was doing on the capture of Al Qaeda members with connections to 9/11. It was shortly after they got married and Jill had some time off, so she joined him on the trip. Even though the trip was brief, it was one of her favorite memories. Hamburg was breathtakingly beautiful. She remembered when they sat on the patio at the harbor by the river Elbe as the red sun set. How they laughed and chatted as newlyweds often do. They didn’t leave the hotel much when David wasn’t working. They just lounged and loved.

She regained what composure she could and creaked open the door. Hoping not to see anyone but the old man, she gazed into the store. He was sweeping the floor as the sun started to peek through the hung dresses in the window.

“Good morning,” Jill said and he turned and nodded. His acceptance relieved her.

Jill walked towards him. She pulled out one thousand US dollars and said to him, “Need to go to Kabul.” He looked at the money and then at Jill, and nodded. Mohammed must have reported that she was safe to be around. But safety is all in how you present it, she thought to herself. She held out the newspaper and asked him to have his wife read it.

“La La, no” the old man said. “Gone to town far, to sister.” Disappointed, Jill realized that she would have to wait to find out more about the newspaper article. She must get to Kabul airport and then to Hamburg. The article can wait, she decided as she stuffed it into her jacket pocket and turned back into the small room.

Out of the blue, Jill thought about Zayed and wondered if there was anything she should do. She didn’t even know his real name to contact his family. To make arrangements for his body. After all, it was the right thing to do. That’s not feasible, she calculated fast in her head. Not feasible at all, she tried to negotiate with herself.

Jill thought of her notebook and precious but limited possessions back at the hotel. She needed her laptop and most importantly her numbers. After the discovery of David’s notebook, she knew he had to be in danger. She had decided the night before that she would have to find a quiet place with her numbers, and she was damn determined to remote view. Screw you, Matthew McGregor. The cot squeaked as she sat down on it. She sat in silence and thought about the guarded villa, wondering again what the watchman was guarding at a seemingly vacant site. Perhaps she could have Mohammed drive her past the hotel and see if anything looked suspicious …

Nope, she couldn’t forgive herself if he got hurt. She’d go herself, and now was a good time. After all, it was daytime with plenty of light to expose anything dangerous. She stood up and walked over to the window, brushed aside the curtain, and tried to get a feel for Kushka.

“Those Russian voices at the café, the Chechen Mafia in Doha, the Russian newspaper article with Stan Brown. What do they have to do with David?” Dust drifted past her nose when she dropped the curtain and it flounced closed. She needed her numbers, and she needed her notebook—she needed David. And there was only one answer. She must go back to the hotel. One plus one equals two. The calculation was over.

Pulling the wrinkled abaya off the small cot, she pulled it over her head, covered her face again, adjusted, and strode into the stuffed shop. The shrunken man was still sweeping and when he noticed her he smiled.

“Mohammed coming, he coming.”

Jill said, “No problem. Hotel, where hotel?” Jill walked towards the door. The old man shuffled over to Jill, looked at her eyes through the burka, then looked out the door window. After a series of lefts, rights, and roundabouts in broken English and hand gestures, Jill seemed to have a fair understanding of where her hotel was. She explained as best she could to have Mohammed wait for her at the dress shop and tinkled out the shop door.

Am I being dumb? Jill asked herself. I am in disguise so I should be able to get into the room. Somehow. She continued trying to reason herself forward. What will I do at the hotel? That was the only question tapping annoyingly on Jill’s left lobe. Zayed had the only key and I am sure he probably didn’t use our real names at check-in. She turned left, and then into a back alley, then right. She couldn’t imagine that they cleared her things out yet and it was obvious the room didn’t get a daily cleaning service. She would have to break in or ask for the key.

After twenty minutes, Jill made a last scheduled left, and on her right ,about a hundred meters further up, was the hotel. Jill stopped and began her scan. There wasn’t much to see on the street. An old, bony man sat on a chair mumbling to himself while looking at the ground. Across from the hotel was a large field and a small wooden structure. Someone could be hiding in it, Jill surmised, and she kept her eye on it as she approached the hotel. Again, she glanced back to it then back to the hotel. As she came closer to the structure, she could see a man lying inside. Jill’s pace slowed, as she tried to distinguish any recognition. He didn’t move as she walked by so she stopped for a split second and stared in his direction. What was he doing? The wooden structure looked like a giant covered bed with a bright blue mattress that was squashed under the man. He was sleeping. Was this his home? Jill decided he was not a threat, and continued slowly up the steps and into the hotel. When she entered, Jill determined it was not a hotel at all, but a makeshift office building that had been converted. That’s probably why it only had two rooms with a toilet.

She walked past the unaware clerks, and down the hall towards her room. Why haven’t they noticed me? she wondered. A fast right and she nearly mowed down the small Indian houseboy before she noticed his belt of keys. “Yalla yalla,” Jill yelled at the houseboy. She had heard this phrase in Abu Dhabi where a robed woman was trying to get the attention of her children in the airport. He watched as Jill lifted her hand palm up and touched her fingers together twice then pointed to the door mimicking Zayed. “Key,” she said abruptly as if he were her slave. The small houseboy trembled ever so slightly while he thumbed through his lanyard of keys. He unlocked the door, bowed slightly, and his head bobbled when he cupped his hands behind his back and backed away.

Inside, the room looked the same. But somehow it seemed dirtier with the daylight beaming through the window.

Zayed had taken his pack, but the large black duffel was still on the bed. She rummaged inside the geocache only to find a map and nothing more. She didn’t recall Zayed taking the grenades. Zayed. She pushed him to the back recesses of her brain, quickly grabbed her carry-on, and glanced inside at her personal treasures. All clear. She left the hotel.

09:11 Zulu Time—ON ROUTE TO KABUL AFGHANISTAN

The journey to Kabul was a quiet one since Mohammed didn’t speak much English. For Jill, it seemed easier than going to Kushka. The security guards accepted cash from Mohammed and still waved them through even without the presents of vodka. As there was no air conditioning in the car, they sweated in harmony.

The clock on the dash said 13:41. Jill wondered if it was correct. She glanced over at her carry-on and thought of David. Dancing thoughts darted in all directions. She reached in and pulled out her notebook and began to review her notes. Why Hamburg David? Did his big story have something to do with those 9/11 terrorists? Jill knew Hamburg was a thoroughfare for terrorist safe houses. At this point that was all she knew.

She stared out of the window then back at the notes, then returned her gaze to the view out the window. Jill’s foot tapped when she tried the tunnels, but this time nothing. Her hand sank back into the carry-on and she pulled out the old tattered pouch, paused, and eyed Mohammed, who was studying the road. Looking back at the notebook, she opened it to a blank page dated several days before and placed it on the seat. Where is David? Jill projected. Untying the pouch, Jill juggled the clay numbers on her lap. “Where is David?” she whispered loud enough that Mohammed took a shy glance through the rear-view mirror back at her and then hastily back at the road.

She hummed inwardly, then stared straight at the numbers, moving them zombie-like on her lap. Jill could feel herself entering the vortex of peace. If she thought of McGregor, she did not know it. She was determined to overcome her fear, overcome her anxiety of facing him again. After what seemed to be many miles flying past, Jill wrote the number 2762 and then after a few more miles her hand began to scribble. She began to write phonetically what she heard, what she tasted. Then she wrote how she felt. Hum. She was in stage three now as the scratch of the pen on the paper was frantically sketching.

The car lurched to the right when an old pickup truck roared past, bringing Jill back to this location, the unconscious to the conscious. It was called bi-location. A moment when the viewer is at two places at once. Like being unstuck in time without going anywhere.

She blinked. Mohammed was doing his best in the rattletrap to get them to Kabul. She adjusted herself and looked down at the notebook. She examined what she had just drawn. It was something she had seen before. It was a star. Not just any star. Scribbled in black ink before her eyes was the Star of David. Beside her sketch she read the words: Wood. Cold. Pretty. Doom. Then she saw something strange. Underneath Jill had written the word “Orchana.”

***

The airport looked even grimmer than she had remembered from only two days before. It was almost midnight now. She thanked Mohammed. She had wrapped the gun in a plastic bag and when she got out she motioned Mohammed to open the trunk. As she placed the gun down, she opened the bag only slightly and gestured Mohammed to look. His only word was “Shokran. Thank you.” He blushed then sheepishly smiled, got back into the car, and rattled away.

Upon entering the airport, she found a bathroom and gratefully removed the hot abaya. Jill felt more at ease not having to think about sticking out like a sore thumb in upper rubber boot Afghanistan.

The check-in clerk advised her that although the next flight was in less than one hour, it was going to take over twelve hours to get out of Kabul to Hamburg. Even more troubling was the fact that she was headed to Baku in Azerbaijan, both places she had never been to before. Jill questioned the clerk further to find out where Azerbaijan was. Through broken English the clerk explained that it was on the other side of Iran, near the Caspian Sea. She made a mental note to learn more about that part of Eastern Europe. Jill looked at her tickets and confirmed what the clerk had attempted to tell her. After Azerbaijan was a two-hour stop in Vienna, Austria, and then on to Germany some twelve hours later.