Eight Days to Live (17 page)

She pulled out the chamois pouch. “This was stuffed in the back of her jewelry box. Most of the jewelry in it was costume. She probably kept the good stuff in a safe.”

“Or a safety-deposit box.”

“Well, this was pushed in the back. I don’t believe its jewelry.” She opened the strings and emptied the contents on the table.

Two coins.

Small, silver, edges worn and chipped, incredibly old.

Jane frowned. “What are they?”

“I may be able to help a little but not much,” Caleb said. “My uncle was a collector, and he left me his collection when he died. But it was never my cup of tea.” He picked up one of the coins. “Old. Coined somewhere in the Middle East about
A.D
. 5. Pretty common. I saw quite a few in my uncle’s collection. I wouldn’t think it would be worth much.”

“Maybe that’s why she kept it with her costume jewelry.” She frowned. “But why keep it at all? Even her costume pieces looked as if they were good quality and worth something.”

He shrugged. “Maybe sentimental value? We’ll have to find out.”

“If it’s worth finding out. Perhaps I just grabbed the wrong items to—”

Jock knocked on the door and entered. “Venable said that it was probably too late for him to do anything, but he’d explore the situation. He wasn’t pleased that we hadn’t told him we had a lead on Weismann.” He glanced at the coins on the table. “What are those?”

“Coins she found in Adah Ziller’s room,” Caleb said. “Very old. Also, we came up with airline tickets to Syria, a safety-deposit box in Zurich, and a leather book that we can’t read because it’s in Arabic. Now you’re completely caught up.”

“Thank you,” Jock said dryly. “For what it’s worth.” He turned to Jane. “We can’t be sure the police won’t trace us back here. We were a little too visible. I vote for not waiting until later to move. I think we should pack up and get out of here.”

“So do I.” Jane turned and strode toward the suitcases she’d set against the far wall. “How long will it take us to get to Zurich?”

“Six hours or so,” Caleb said. “Perhaps a little longer since we have to stop and have Lina translate that book.”

“Lina? She’s the one who does your translating?”

“Lina Alsouk. Yes, she’s very good.”

“But is she fast? Can we get to Zurich before the close of the banking day?”

“Maybe. We’ll work something out.”

“That sounds a little too casual to me,” Jane said. “If you’ll recall, I’m on something of a deadline.” She shook her head as she realized what she had said. “Deadline. Dead end. There are so many phrases that have to do with death. They couldn’t be more descriptive, could they?”

“No,” Jock said. “But not ones I like to use in your case.” He headed for the door. “I’ll pack and meet you downstairs in the lobby. Which car are we using?”

“The BMW,” Caleb said. “It’s not a rental and can’t be traced.”

“What?”

Caleb shrugged. “I’m a hunter. It’s convenient for me to keep a car at several cities in Europe. Paris is one of them. The license-plate numbers are phony, and I have an extra set in the boot.”

“Then I didn’t need to throw mud on those plates at Adah Ziller’s place,” Jock said dryly.

“No, but I didn’t have time to tell you at the time,” Caleb said. “We were in a bit of a hurry.”

“We’re still in a hurry,” Jane said. “I don’t want to have to hang around and wait until the bank opens tomorrow morning.”

“Then you won’t have to do it. I told you that we’ll work it out,” Caleb said. “I’ll go down and gas up the car for the trip.”

Day Four

LINA ALSOUK LIVED IN A SMALL
picture-postcard cottage in the foothills of the Alps. The scenery was spectacular, the house cozy, and the woman kneeling in the vegetable garden was probably the most beautiful woman Jane had ever seen. Though like the scenery, that beauty was entirely natural and owed nothing to artifice. Lina Alsouk was in her late twenties, with short, dark, curly hair and huge brown eyes that glowed in her thin, tanned face. She had perfect features but wore no makeup and her hair was very simply styled. She was dressed in jeans and a navy sweatshirt that were worn and shabby with use.

“It’s about time, Caleb,” she said as she wiped her dirty hands on the towel she picked up from the ground beside her. “You tell me to make myself ready, then you take hours to get here.” Her English was perfect, with only a hint of an accent. “You’re taking me for granted. I should have told you to take your business elsewhere.”

“But I’m such a good customer,” Caleb said as he got out of the car and strolled toward her. “And you never know when you might need a customer like me. How are you, Lina?”

She shrugged. “Well, enough. And you?”

“Better than when I last saw you.” He glanced at Jane, who was getting out of the car. “I had a very successful hunt recently.”

“The man you were hunting when I first met you?” When he nodded, she smiled brilliantly. “That is good. I’m happy for you.” She turned to Jane. “You are Jane MacGuire? Caleb told me about you. I will try to help.”

“Lina Alsouk, Jane MacGuire,” Caleb waved at Gavin, who was coming toward them. “And this is Jock Gavin.”

Lina smiled and nodded. “I am pleased to meet any friend of Caleb’s.”

“Well, he doesn’t exactly consider himself my friend,” Caleb said. “But he’s definitely Jane’s friend.”

“Yes.” Jock held out his hand to Lina. “May I help you up?”

She shook her head. “I’m dirty.”

“So am I.” He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “It just doesn’t show.” He smiled. “And I like the feel of earth on my hands. I had a garden of my own until recently. Gardening is very healing, isn’t it?” He looked at the rows. “Vegetables. I planted mostly flowers.”

“I like to make sure I’m totally independent here. I can eat tomatoes; flowers aren’t nearly as digestible.” She tore her gaze away from him and turned to Caleb. “Where is this book I’m supposed to translate?”

“I have it.” Jane took the leather book out of her purse. “It looks like some kind of journal. I don’t know if any of the information will be pertinent. I think I could make out a few of the dates. Some of the earlier entries appear to be over five years old.”

“I can’t touch it yet. I have to wash my hands.” She turned toward the front door. “Come in.”

The interior of the cottage was one huge room with an adjoining kitchen. The furniture was sparse, comfortable, but very simple.

Lina went to the stainless-steel sink and began to wash her hands. “I’d offer you a cup of tea, but Caleb said you were going to be in a hurry.”

“We are,” Jane said. “Thank you.” She handed her the towel on the hook by the sink. “I’d appreciate your doing it as quickly as possible.”

She nodded as she took the book. “I’ll do what I can.” She took her laptop and a pad and pencil from the desk and sat down in a chair at the kitchen table. She started to flip through the book. “I usually do a scan first. Just to pull out the main content. Is that all right?”

Jane nodded. “Whatever. Maybe you can tell us enough to know if we can use any of it.”

She flipped back to the first page. “Adah Ziller. It is a journal of sorts. But it spans years and is very spotty. It starts when she was a schoolgirl in Syria. It seems to skip several years and continues when she was at the university in England.” She flipped more pages. “It’s pretty disjointed. It’s going to take some time.”

“How much time?”

She shrugged. “Six, eight hours minimum.” She saw Jane frown, and said, “Do you want accuracy or guesswork? I don’t do guesswork.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “I guess I’m impatient. There are reasons.”

“There are reasons for everything. I’ll get it done as quickly as I can.”

“I know you will,” Caleb said. “We can’t wait for it. As it is, we won’t be in Zurich before nearly five. We’ll come back and pick it up.” He turned to Jane. “If you’ll trust the book out of your hands?”

Jane hesitated.

“You can trust her,” Caleb said. “I guarantee it. No matter what’s in that book, she’ll forget it as soon as she makes the translation.”

“That’s not what I was worrying about. I don’t even know if this translation is any more than Adah Ziller’s bedroom antics.” She looked at Lina. “But the woman who wrote this was murdered. There may be people who are interested in it as much as we are.”

“We weren’t followed, Jane,” Caleb said. “I made sure of it.”

“I’m glad you’re sure. But I’m not sure of anything,” Jane said. “Except that she has to be warned.”

Lina smiled faintly. “Thank you. Some of my clients haven’t been that considerate. But I can take care of myself. After I left Afghanistan, I made very sure of that.” She leaned forward and opened the ledger. “Now get out of here and let me work. I want to get through with this so that I can get back to my garden before dark. I need to finish putting in my tomatoes.”

“I could help when we come back to pick up the translation,” Jock offered.

She shook her head. “I like to do things on my own. I don’t need anyone. Go away.”

“Whatever you say,” Jock said as he turned toward the door. “I’ll ask you again when I come back.”

She didn’t answer. She was already making notes on her pad.

“I’ll call you when we start back from Zurich,” Caleb said.

She nodded absently.

They weren’t even there for her, Jane thought, as she left the cottage. The woman’s concentration was so intense that she had closed out everything but that handwriting on the page.

“She’ll get it done,” Caleb said as he opened the car door for her. “Lina is brilliant. She’ll get every phrase right.”

“I’m not doubting her ability. You wouldn’t deal with anyone who couldn’t do the job.” She looked around the hillside, then down to the valley. Majestic mountains plunged into the crystal
blue lake, and only a few farmhouses dotted the landscape. “It’s just that it’s so isolated here. She’s very vulnerable.”

“And you’re worried about us coming back and finding her with no head.” The words were blunt and brutal.

She flinched. “I’m worried about anyone I come in contact with.”

“Well, she’s not as vulnerable as you might think. She has an AK-47 in the pantry of that cozy kitchen, and she knows how to use it. She’s trained in martial arts, and she’s not bad with a knife. You’ll notice her cottage is on a hill, approachable only from one direction, and she can see anyone coming. If she hadn’t been expecting me, she wouldn’t have been in that garden when we drove up.”

“She’s still isolated.”

“She likes it like that,” Jock said suddenly. “No one too close.”

Caleb glanced back at him as he started the car. “You appear to understand her. Gardener to gardener?”

Jock didn’t answer as he gazed back at the cottage. “How did she get that AK-47? You can’t buy them on every street corner.”

“I gave it to her. That’s what she asked me to give her instead of cash for the first job she did for me. The AK-47, a Glock, and lessons on how to use both of them. I didn’t teach her martial arts or how to use a knife. She must have made a deal with someone else for that.”

“And how long ago was that first job she did for you?” Jane asked.

“Nine years. She’d just been smuggled out of Afghanistan and was trying to start a new life.”

“With an AK-47?” Jane asked dryly.

“She thought it might be necessary. She was probably right. Considering her background, I wasn’t going to try to talk her out
of it.” Caleb lifted his shoulders. “Not that I would have made the attempt anyway. It was her business.”

“What was her background?” Jock asked. “Afghanistan?”

“She belonged to a very traditional Afghan family. She was permitted to go to a very good private school when she was a child, and she showed signs of brilliance. But her father took her out of school when she was twelve, and he began to hunt for a husband for her. With those looks, she was a prize. He arranged a marriage for her to a wealthy businessman when she was thirteen. He was old enough to be her grandfather and a sadistic bastard. He wanted a son from her, and she couldn’t conceive. He’d fly into tantrums and beat her unmercifully. She had to be taken to the hospital twice.” His lips twisted. “But even then her own family wouldn’t interfere. She belonged to her husband, and he could do anything he wished to her. She ran away when she was eighteen, but her husband found her and claimed she had been unfaithful. He wanted her stoned.”

“Good God. I thought the Afghans were becoming more moderate,” Jane said.

“As long as it’s not behind closed doors. It could very well have happened. But this time her brother stepped up to the plate and arranged for an ex-CIA friend to smuggle Lina out of the country. That’s as far as he’d go because he feared family disapproval.”

“So she was totally alone,” Jock said.

“John Garrett, the man who smuggled her out of Afghanistan, gave her enough money to go back to school and got her false ID papers to keep her safe.”

“Why did she need false ID?”

“Her husband died of a heart attack shortly after she left Kabul. His family blamed his death on her and swore to avenge him.”

“She hadn’t been through enough?” Jane shook her head. “I
think I would have wanted to have an AK-47, too. But I wouldn’t have let those bastards drive me into hiding in the mountains.”

“She’s not hiding. She stopped doing that after she finished her schooling.”

“And learned how to fire an AK-47?” Jock added.

“When she left Afghanistan, she had very little formal education but an enormous determination to survive. Now she speaks and writes twelve languages fluently, including Japanese and Arabic. Translating was a career that she could do on her own terms if she became good enough. She’s accurate, nonjudgmental, and completely confidential.”

“Perfect for you,” Jane said.

“Perfect for a lot of people in this wicked world.” He slanted her a glance. “Including you at present.”

She nodded. “You said she wasn’t hiding any longer?”

“When she came here, she bought the property under her own name. If anyone was searching for her, she wanted to make sure that they knew she wasn’t afraid and was ready for them.”