"Honestly, sir, I think it would be best if I handled it. He doesn't trust Americans. And I think he'd be more comfortable speaking in Korean."
Payne nodded, agreeing with everything she'd said. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to fill her in on the latest news about Trevor Schmidt, so he gave her a short list of questions that he and Jones had composed and asked her to look them over. Thirty seconds later she had them committed to memory. It was one of her strengths.
"Try to keep things conversational," he suggested as he tossed the list into the fire and watched it burn. "Use your rapport to open him up. Then, and only then, ask him the important stuff. We need some honest answers from him. No time for bullshit. Remember, the longer he thinks about a response, the less likely he'll tell the truth."
Kia nodded, then returned to Kim, who gave her a warm smile as she approached. Except for his long ponytail, he looked like her maternal grandfather, a man who'd died long before she was born. Otherwise, Kia's mother wouldn't have been allowed to marry an American.
"Sorry about that," she said in Korean. "My bosses were asking about you."
"And what did you tell them?"
"I told them you weren't a flight risk."
Kim laughed. "That much is true. If I didn't leave for this …" His voice trailed off.
"About that," she said, ignoring Payne's advice to take it slow. "Can you tell me what happened here? None of it makes any sense to me. The cave. The empty village. The fire."
"In the past we always left the soldiers alone and they left us alone. It was a mutual understanding, one that has gone on for decades. But this time, fate intervened."
She said nothing, hoping he would fill in the blanks.
"A few weeks ago, a village boy named Yong-Su came to me and asked about the screams from the cave. I told him about its past, hoping to scare the curiosity out of him. But my efforts failed. Last weekend he went to the cave on his own."
"What did he see?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But when he returned, he was covered in blood."
"His blood?"
"Someone else's."
Kia paused, memories of the cave flooding through her mind. Ten seconds were more than enough to make her nauseous. She couldn't imagine what Yong-Su must have felt when he walked into the cave, completely alone, no one there to protect him. It had to be traumatic.
Kim seemed to read her mind. "The boy came back unable to speak. His mother was crying, simply terrified, unsure of what to do. She cleaned him off and searched for injuries, but found none. Meanwhile the boy's father, an honorable man named Chung-Ho Park, ran from house to house, asking if anyone had seen what had happened. It didn't take long to figure it out. The boy had left a trail of blood everywhere he walked. We were able to follow it to the edge of the village and into the woods. Drip … drip … drip."
The sound of his voice and the look on his face told Kia that his emotions were starting to resurface. To keep him calm, she put her hand on his shoulder and rubbed it gently. Trying to comfort him. Hoping to keep him focused. Still, several seconds passed before he spoke again.
"I'm an old man with a long memory. I know what kind of evil goes on in that cave, so I told Chung-Ho that the village was no longer safe for him and his son. Much to my relief, he didn't question me. He just put his boy in their car and left. His wife and the rest of his family planned on following, but they never had a chance."
"Why not?"
"The soldiers came into town in waves, dressed in black and wearing masks. Some of them followed the blood to the boy's home, while others spread throughout the village. I heard angry voices punctuated by screams, but that's all I could distinguish. I was too worried about finding a place to hide to make out their words."
Kia sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.
"The first shot was the loudest. It sounded like a cannon, echoing through the town. Others soon followed, one after the other, coming in sporadic bursts like firecrackers. My house is the last one in the village, which gave me all the time I needed. After the first massacre, I'd built a small shelter under the floor of my house, just in case history repeated itself. I stayed down there for more than four days, barely eating or sleeping. Going to the bathroom in my own pants. When I could take it no more, I slipped into my backyard and listened. There were no sounds. I glanced out my front gate, but there was no movement. That's when I knew they were gone."
"Did you call the police?"
He waved his hands in disgust. "The police? Why would I call the police? They were in charge of the first massacre! To this day, half of my family is still somewhere in that cave, their bodies crammed behind a pile of rocks and left there to rot. It is such a disgrace to my family name, but there's nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I've tried."
He took a deep breath before continuing. "Did you know the size of a grave plot in this country is larger than the average amount of living space that our citizens have? That's right. The dead took up more room than the living. And the cost of all their burials? It would have been more than I could afford."
She nodded, finally beginning to understand his perspective.
"So I took matters into my own hands. First I went into the boy's house, but everyone was dead. His mother, his brother and sister, his aunt, his cousins. Everyone. Same with the rest of the village. Every single person and been shot and killed. Bodies just lying there in puddles of their own blood, the smell starting to build. So I walked back to my yard and built a fire. I threw in some pine needles and incense to cover the odor. Then one by one I loaded them into my wheelbarrow and did the proper thing. I freed their souls to the sky."
17
One of the guards found Fred Nasir's body near the tunnel entrance. His throat was slashed and he'd been left to die. Blood covered the wooden planks that lined the floor, dried by the desert heat that seeped in from the outside world.
From the looks of things, he'd been dead at least an hour.
Panicked, the guard sprinted down the steep slope, unlocked the metal gate that protected their site, and told Shari Shasmeen what had happened. Her face went pale when she heard the news. As project leader, it was her job to make all the important decisions-what they did, where they worked, and so on-and to take responsibility when things went wrong. And until then, she had accomplished it with remarkable ease. She had fifteen years' experience in the field and was recruited for her expertise. She was so gifted at her job that the project financier, the Arab who had hired her, was willing to overlook the fact that she was a woman-a remarkable concession in this part of the world.
But a murder? That was way beyond anything she was prepared to handle.
She was a religious archaeologist, not a detective.
Obviously this was a situation she couldn't handle on her own, not with all the politics involved. So she did the one thing she was told to do if there was ever a major problem.
She called her boss, Omar Abdul-Khaliq.
He answered the phone on the third ring, his voice as composed as ever.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
She explained everything-the delivery, the murder, her concerns. The entire time he said nothing. He just listened, occasionally taking notes.
"This is troubling indeed." He paused for a moment. "But it can be handled."
"Handled how?"
"You must listen to me and do exactly what I say."
She knew not to question him. So far he had proven his worth at every turn. Not only did he finance the project with his deep pockets, money his family had earned in the oil business, but he'd done a remarkable job of getting work permits from the Saudi government, a minor miracle since they were digging right down the street from the Great Mosque, and keeping the police away. Several times she wanted to ask him how that was possible, but she realized it was one of those questions better left unasked.