No Rules(83)
“God, Tyler, you make me crazy. But you shouldn’t have done that. I’ll be too weak to help with the rescue.”
“You don’t need to help.” But he was pleased that, even with her part in it basically over, she still felt involved with the mission. Truthfully, he’d have been disappointed if she hadn’t felt part of it, and he liked knowing they were thinking along the same lines, like partners.
She dried her hair again, then staggered into bed, curling against him. He tucked her close and slipped one hand around to cup her bare breast and press a kiss to the back of her neck. She made a satisfied sound and was asleep within minutes.
It was the last thing he remembered until his phone buzzed at four a.m. Instantly awake, he sat up in the dark and thumbed it on. “Yeah.”
“The store just had a visitor,” Avery said, her voice pitched so low he barely heard it. “One guy with a large box on a dolly. And get this—the guy had a cast on one arm, like maybe it was broken.”
His assailant with the knife. He was glad to know the crack he’d heard had done some damage, but he was surprised that he would be making the delivery to Mr. Atallah rather than tailing Donovan and Jess around Luxor. “Must be a small operation if this guy also does shipping and receiving.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Is he still there?”
“Yeah, he just got here ten minutes ago. We’re in position to move out as soon as he leaves. You want to hear something else strange? He drove up in one of those little electric cars.”
Eco-conscious kidnappers? Green might be in, but he wasn’t buying it. He blinked away the fog of sleep, forcing himself to think. “No noise. They’re silent.”
“You got it.”
“So no one would hear him coming and going.”
“That’s just the thing—it’s not a concern on this end. It’s dark, but the meat market is all lit up, getting ready to open. A delivery truck is idling outside the restaurant, and some guy’s donkey is raising a fuss about being hooked up to his cart. It’s not exactly quiet around here.”
“Huh.”
“Hey, gotta go. He’s coming out. We’ve got a car and a motor scooter, and we’ll do our best to tail him. Talk to you later.” She clicked off abruptly.
He put the phone down and found Jess sitting up, watching him in the dark. “Someone showed up?” she asked.
He nodded and filled her in. “I can’t figure why he has an electric car in a country with state-subsidized gas prices. It’s so odd, it must be significant.”
“Maybe he borrowed it and that’s all he had available to him. Or he works for a dealership.”
“I’d believe that if we were in Europe, or even the States. But I haven’t seen one electric vehicle since we’ve been in Egypt.”
They thought about it in silence for a moment with no further ideas. “So what happens next?”
“We find out where the guy goes and hope he returns to where the hostages are. If he doesn’t, then we take him and persuade him to tell us where they are.”
She didn’t ask how, and he didn’t volunteer to tell her. He was pretty sure she didn’t want to know. “What about when Mr. Atallah calls to say he has the vase? He’ll be expecting a million dollars.”
“Tell him it takes time to get the money.”
“But can we get it if we need to?”
He barked a laugh. “I have no idea. I’ve never asked my boss for a spur-of-the-moment expenditure of a million dollars for a highly illegal purchase that is most likely nonrefundable. I prefer to avoid that sort of problem if I can.”
She didn’t look like she wanted to accept that answer. She was like Wally, a planner, someone who liked to cover all the bases. He understood the need for strategic planning, but he preferred action. When events didn’t lead to action, he’d found he could often precipitate it anyway with a little push. He’d rather push Mr. Atallah than offer him a million dollars.
She let it go. “What can I do to help?”
He smiled, glad she wanted to be part of the team even while he doubted there was anything she could do to help prepare for an assault. “How much do you know about guns?”
Chapter Fifteen
They sat on the two chairs facing the TV, with the guns laid out on the small coffee table—two Glock 19 handguns and two AK-47’s. Mitch, Avery, and Kyle had the other three Glocks with them.
Jess declined to carry a “just in case” handgun and wouldn’t even touch the AK-47’s. That was fine with him. Frankly, he was surprised that a woman who wrote about cute talking animals for a living didn’t have a lecture ready about violence and guns. Since he didn’t relish the idea of her getting hysterical about it if the need to shoot arose unexpectedly, he asked, “You don’t object to us using these if we have to?”