Intimate Knowledge (9 page)

Each grin, every exchange they had, cemented what she knew for fact now. She loved him. And he loved her.

Nothing else mattered.

As she finished turning another slow circle she jolted when she realised Saul had come to stand only a few paces behind her.

She smiled wryly at him.

“Still a bit jumpy, I suppose.” She chuckled and moved slightly in the soft earth. “My tent faced this way, so when I climbed out of it I would have been about here.”

Closing her eyes, she tried to mentally recreate that evening. Holding her hands out, she indicated the direction, then turned until the memory felt right again.

“I walked in this direction. Slowly. Carefully. Even with my shoes on I worried I’d trip and fall.”

“No flashlight?” Saul interrupted in a low tone, curious but clearly not wanting to derail her train of thought.

Jennifer shook her head, tried to keep her eyes unfocused as she walked with measured steps, remembering every moment as best as she could.

“I had it in my pocket, just in case. When I’d listened outside my tent I could hear something. Scraping, a man’s grunt now and then. I knew someone was out here and didn’t want to attract undue attention.”

A few times she paused, searching around the trees, seeking a similar setting to the one she recalled from that night. She’d been leaning against a large tree with flaky bark. She could bring forth the mental picture of the tableau, but there in the light of morning everything looked so similar, it was hard to judge.

“I couldn’t have come too much further,” she insisted, half to herself, half to Saul. “Time is different, of course, compared to being in the dark, the middle of the night. But it has to be around here somewhere.”

Saul waited, patient and silent. Jennifer moved back and forth a bit, looking at different angles and checking for a tree that resonated with her memory. Many of the trees nearby her were too thin. She’d hugged hers, she remembered that, but her arms hadn’t been able to close around the trunk.

As she moved, she spotted a group of trees that seemed to fit what she recalled.

“Maybe there.” She pointed and hurried over.

Saul followed.

Jennifer moved from one to the next, frowning in deep thought. She swivelled her head left and right, trying to find which direction she would have seen the man.

“He was on a very faint downward slope,” she finally said again. “It could have just been the dark and my imagination, but I think we should try over there.”

She pointed to where her best guess was, hoping she wasn’t leading them both on a wild goose chase. It also hadn’t escaped her notice that despite his protests they hadn’t been followed, Saul frequently surveyed their surroundings, his gaze clearly tracking for signs they’d been discovered or were being watched.

They’d gone on an incredibly round about, circular route in the car, doubling back, parking in shopping centres and stopping for petrol no less than three times while Saul bought snacks and drinks neither needed while he checked no one followed them. Paranoid hadn’t even come close to the measures he’d taken to ensure their safety.

Jennifer couldn’t believe anyone could possibly have traced them—her faith in Saul ran soul-deep. She felt safe with him, in his care.

They both bent over, searching the ground for signs of recently turned earth.

“Over here, maybe,” Saul called out after a few minutes.

They’d split up, each taking different quadrants to cover the ground faster. Jennifer hurried over to where he knelt. The soil had clearly been recently overturned, but the area was smaller than she recalled. Frowning, she kept silent.

Saul removed a small hand trowel from his backpack and dug into the soft earth. Jennifer knelt beside him, her heart racing. The soil moved with ease, not having had time to compact. Within a few minutes Jennifer heard the dull thud as the blade hit what she assumed was the buried box. Saul dropped the tool and they both worked quickly with their hands to scrape away the last of the dirt, uncovering a prettily carved wooden box.

Wiping his hands on his jeans, Saul sat back and let her pick the box up.

Jennifer brushed the remaining earth from it, turning the object from side to side to admire the intricacies of the carvings. Vines wove around the outer edges, large ivy leaves and what looked like lotus flowers bloomed here and there. A delicate scene of a large lake with weeping willow, small birds in the sky and lilies covered the lid.

The box was beautiful, old and had been well maintained. Someone had loved this item, waxing it and keeping it pretty.

The thought he might return for it—perhaps soon—had her looking up and scanning their surroundings, nervous for the first time that day.

“I’m watching our backs,” Saul said.

He rested his palm on her shoulder. The warmth of his touch comforted her.

“He can’t have meant to leave this here for long,” she replied. “This is gorgeous and has evidently been cherished for a number of years. Maybe we should go back to the car before we look inside?”

“Nah, it will only take us a minute. Besides, I don’t want to take this back with us to London without knowing what it is. Depending on how dangerous it is we might want to leave it here, or rebury it somewhere else. I don’t like working in the dark, I prefer to know what I’m involved in.”

Jennifer nodded, seeing his point. She looked down at the box, ran the tips of her fingers over the gorgeous carvings, admiring it for a moment longer. Forgetting to breathe for the moment, anticipation rode her hard. Would there be jewels hidden within? Diamonds? Gold bullion? Every treasure-hunting daydream flittered through her mind.

Gathering her courage, she drew in a quick breath. Before she could change her mind, she cracked the lid open.

Disappointment deflated her mood instantly. Jennifer hadn’t realised how ramrod straight her spine had been until crushing defeat had her slumping.

Papers, photographs and a few bundles of cash were neatly nestled inside the box.

“You were hoping for the crown jewels?” Saul commented, the fondness clear in his tone. “Weren’t you? Gold? Gems maybe?”

“At the very least,” she agreed. “Diamonds, winning Lotto tickets or long-lost gold bars or Spanish coins, maybe. What use are photos or maybe a couple thousand pounds of cash to me?”

Jennifer sat the box on the grass and picked up the neatly stacked piles of money and set them to the side.

Saul reached down and gathered a dozen or so pictures, studying them with a thoughtful look on his face.

Jennifer sifted through the remaining papers.

“Well here’s something at least,” she said.

Hidden down the bottom of the box underneath everything was a thin plastic key card—plain white with no markings except a barcode running along one edge—and a small USB memory stick.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Saul tore his gaze away from the photos and they exchanged glances. He took a brief look at the memory stick, then placed it carefully in the small coin pocket in his jeans.

Jennifer figured that other than her purse it was the safest place for it—better, in fact, since the chances of anyone taking the stick out of Saul’s pocket was less than an attacker taking her purse.

While Saul scrutinised the key card, she turned her attention back to the photos. At first she flipped through the twelve or so prints, wanting to get an idea of what they were. Shots of stairwells, cement quads and a fire escape emergency exit had her scratching her head.

What the hell?

Two of the pictures had a woman partially in them. In one the tall, slender brunette had her back to the camera as she strode down a corridor towards what looked like a basement or storage room. With a knee-length, belted coat, long, loose curls falling down her back and knee-high boots it was almost impossible to say anything other than she was slender, Caucasian and had a wealth of warm brown hair.

In the other picture the frame was focused on an escalator going up a level. Long, plain white walls with embedded spotlights could have been inside any office building in the entirety of London. Indeed, Jennifer would have hazarded a guess that the people mover and building photographed could have been from anywhere in the whole world.

What made it noteworthy to her, however, was the dark-haired woman in what appeared to be the same coat stood amongst a group of people riding the escalator up to a higher floor. Her face was in profile and indistinct. Jennifer peered closely but could not make out anything that would help identify the woman.

“Do you think she’s a target? Could this be a hit?” Jennifer’s mind spun out of control as her imagination took over. “That would make the man I saw an assassin? Should we warn her?”

“Let’s see what’s on this memory stick first, babe,” Saul replied.

Jennifer turned her head to look up at him. His grin was warm, indulgent. She had the strong suspicion he was trying hard to not laugh at her.

“These look like surveillance pictures to me,” he continued. Flipping through them, he spread them out on the grass before her.

“See here, the wall of windows beside the escalator? That would be the perfect ambush place. A single shot—it wouldn’t even have to be accurate or hit its intended target—would break all these planes. The sound of it would be phenomenal, like an avalanche of crashing glass, falling to these tiles. Also, it could be heard for miles around. Panic would ensue. People would run madly. A few more shots, just the mere sound of gunfire at this stage, would herd people wherever you wanted them—out onto the street or farther into the building, depending on the placement of who and where the bullets struck. Then here, this photo? This long corridor could easily be isolated. It’s impossible to tell whether they need entrance to this area or whether they want to attack someone here, but look at these cameras here and here. See how they’re a newer model than these here by the lifts? I bet that’s important, possibly even the point of what our mystery man wanted to convey.”

The clipped, rapid tone of Saul’s voice mesmerised her. He sounded so professional, analysing the photos and spotting things she hadn’t seen or had merely taken for granted. The way he’d described the various scenarios that could unfold so simply took her breath away.

It was a side of him she’d never seen.

Jennifer didn’t know how she felt about that. Calmed that Saul could obviously predict what might occur, but also saddened that this doubtlessly came from experience. That he’d made such plans many times before, or had helped carry such missions out.

“…I don’t recognise the building though. These pictures are all so generic. It might not even be here in London. I can think of many places worldwide that would fit this modern architecture. And without date stamps these pictures could be five, even ten years old.”

“They mightn’t be relevant to anything,” Jennifer pointed out. “As you say, these pictures might be old, out of date or even unusable for whatever purpose the man had. If he needed them he wouldn’t bury them, right?”

“But if there was no value to them, Vincent and his mate wouldn’t have ambushed you at your flat, tried to kidnap or threaten you. No, there must be some purpose to them, something we’re not seeing.”

Saul’s furrowed his brow, deep in thought.

Jennifer remained silent, looking over the photos again, focusing on the smaller details in the hopes of spotting something useful. Her instinct said the pictures were based in London, but she couldn’t really spot anything conclusive to prove it so. There were no signs that she could see, so she couldn’t swear the predominant language was English. Neither were there shops or anything useful to act as a reference point.

Indeed, the few people in the photos mostly wore overcoats, scarves, beanies and cool-weather outerwear, and so give or take a decade it was impossible to firmly state anything other than it appeared modern.

“Okay, we need to read this memory stick,” Saul interrupted her thoughts as he collected the photos into a pile. “But I don’t have the capabilities to learn anything about this key card. I want to call in a marker from a colleague, on the quiet, not officially. Are you okay with that?”

“Do you trust this person?”

“To a high degree yes.” Saul shrugged when she looked at him, waiting for a fuller explanation. “I don’t trust him as much as I trust you, or myself. But he’s a mate, and more importantly he owes me a few favours. He’s discreet and a good guy. Unless he feels we’re doing something underhand or against the Agency, he’ll keep quiet about helping us out.”

“He’s from the Agency?” Jennifer’s interest piqued.

“One of our best analysts. The stuff he can do with encryptions and data mining is just unbelievable.”

“I’d love to see where you work. But wait…if we’re going in there why don’t we ask Preston?”

“There’s only so much I can ask of him without needing to bring it in officially,” Saul explained. “Getting him to search out a name of a man who attacked you, that’s one thing. If I brought this key card, the box, all if it to him, he’d need to officially ask one of the analysts, which would mean questions. No, this is better kept to ourselves for now, which means asking my mate personally and keeping it low key.”

“Okay.” Jennifer nodded, understanding his logic. “Let’s see, it should take us around three hours to drive back, maybe less since it’s Saturday. So let’s guess we’ll reach London around—”

“While I’ll happily give you a tour, babe, people are there every day and at all sorts of odd hours. We’re not your regular nine-to-five office, as I’m sure you know. I don’t want to go into the office.”

 “Oh.” Jenn frowned thoughtfully. “Well, what do we do, then?”

“We pray George is obsessed enough he owns almost all the equipment we need to read this key card and he’s intrigued by our conundrum,” Saul replied as he pulled out his mobile phone.

Jennifer packed the photos and bundles of cash neatly back into the box while Saul scrolled through his phone contacts. Selecting one, he then waited, turning the key card over in his free hand.

“George? Yeah, it’s Saul. How’s your weekend? Really? And after that, do you have plans this evening? I’ve got a bit of an issue that’s cropped up, something off the books. I was hoping to call in a favour or two and get you to look at a memory stick and key card for me. It should be straightforward, but I don’t want to mess it up or set off an internal encryption programme by mistake.”