Lea yawned and looked at her watch. “Is it nearly bedtime?”
Blankov offered a cold smile. “The traitor Julius Cronje thought his knowledge and my desire to access it was a more valuable commodity than the strength of my threat. He translated the first half of the symbols, and after proving himself he decided to make a counter offer. If I let his son go, he would translate the other half.”
Below, they heard a lion roaring and growling.
Kruger sipped his iced water and picked up his bush hat. “Julius tried to play fucking poker with me. With me! And you know why?” Before she could say anything, he said, “Because he didn’t take me or my threats seriously. He thought he was the one driving our little bargain, so I made sure he found out the hard way what happens when you try and play games with me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I killed his son.”
“Oh my God.”
Kruger said, “Needless to say we now have a full translation. What he wouldn’t do to save his own son’s life, he did to save his own.”
Lea felt deflated. They already knew what the symbols meant. “So you know where the King’s Tomb is located?”
“Yes,” Blankov said. “And now Julius must also pay for his treachery.”
Kruger set the hat on his head and his eyes disappeared into the brim’s shade. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. He turned and looked over the balcony. “How’s my baby?”
A man called up and told him the lion was in good form. “But a little hungry and restless, just as you ordered, boss.”
He turned to face Lea and Ryan. “Did you hear that? Just as I fucking ordered.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jessica Clark tightened her legs hard and flexed her hamstrings and quads. The Weston Gym in Downtown LA was quiet tonight, just the way she liked it. Outside in the street a police cruiser screeched past with sirens wailing and a news chopper was hovering over a building on the next block.
She stretched her calves now, pointed her feet to the ground and let go of the bars until she was hanging upside down. She brought her hands up to her face and started to crunch up until her face was parallel with her waist. Thirty reps was the usual, but today she was heading for fifty.
Thirty-five.
It hurt. The pain in her abdominal muscles was something else, but she knew better than to let it get to her.
Forty.
Burning around her torso as the lactic acid seeped into her muscles. Up she went, crunch and back down. The sweat ran from her forehead, trickling into her eyes on the way down and running into her ears and mouth when she crunched up.
Forty-five.
Crunch and back down.
That pussy Garcetti used to mock her for only being able to complete fifteen reps of these upside-down crunches. If he were here now she’d make him eat his shorts.
Fifty and she stopped, suspended upside down like a vampire bat. The blood rushed to her head and she glanced over at her zip hoodie and cell phone. She left it on silent in the gym, but she could see it was buzzing. Someone was ringing.
She reached up — the fifty-first crunch — and grabbed the bars. Slipping her legs out of the top of the bar she spun the right way up and her training shoes hit the gym’s carpet tiles with a gentle thud.
“Hello?”
“I didn’t realize you were into heavy breathing, Agent Cougar.”
“Fuck off, Garcetti.”
“And I thought you loved me.”
“You’ve got the personality of a sweat sock, why would I love you?”
“My manly physique?”
She laughed. “Garcetti, you have to unhook your top pants button before you sit down or your gut will make it fly off like a champagne cork and put someone’s eye out.”
She heard a wistful sigh. “So how many crunches you up to?”
“Seventy.” What was the harm?
“That’s impressive stuff, Jess.”
“Why are you bothering me, Tony?”
“I have a job for you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Any details?”
“There’s an international team of assholes running around the globe, hunting for treasure and ancient relics and generally poking their snouts in where they do not belong and the boss wants them deleted from the program, so to speak.”
“When you say boss, you mean who exactly?”
“The VP.”
“Got it.”
“Yeah,” she heard a cigarette light up. “Thing is, these assholes are causing problems and it’s time they got taken out. Faulkner was very clear about offering you total carte blanche in order for you to get rid of them. You can do whatever you want and there’ll be no questions asked.” He chuckled. “Hell, you might even get the Medal of Honor.”
“Only the President can award that decoration, pinhead.”
“Oops, my bad. I was getting ahead of myself. Anyway, that’s your head’s up, so get yourself ready or whatever the hell it is you do. I’ll call when I have more details, maybe even with a kill order.”
When Garcetti hung up on her, Jessica gave the phone a look of disgust and slipped it into her pocket. She showered and picked up her gym bag. Walked out to her car. It was dark and she was parked in a side street to dodge the fee.
Three men stepped out of the shadows.
She scanned them for all the usual stuff — who was the boss, who was the strongest, the weakest, the fastest, the slowest.
Then the top dog pulled out a .38 Special. “Gimme your wallet.”
She sighed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Hand it over, cupcake.”
Jessica sighed inwardly and glanced at the TAG Heuer Aquaracer on her wrist. She was already late and now this. She dropped her gym bag on the sidewalk and cussed.
He laughed. “What, am I inconveniencing you? Hand your fucking shit over.”
She pulled her purse from the bag and stepped into the man’s shadow. Handing it over to him, he moved almost sideways to keep the gun on her but out of her reach and then stretched his hand out to take the money.
She struck like a bolt of lightning.
Flicking the purse into his face, she darted her right hand forward and grabbed his wrist. Twisting it around hard so the thumb side rotated around clockwise until his palm was facing skyward. That was as far as the joint went without breaking, which she made happen next with ruthless force.
The wrist bones shattered and split. He screamed out in pain, but she was only on the starter course. The main meal was yet to be had and now she was hungry. In the confusion, she reached out and grabbed the gun by the silencer, pushing it up into his hand until the grip slipped out of his palm.
She went with the momentum of the disarming action and swiped the gun up away from his hand and into his face where the top of the barrel collided with his nose and smashed the upper lateral cartilage into a mushy pulp.
The other two guys flicked a look at one another and ran into the fight.
Jessica was already three moves ahead. She swivelled around on her right ankle and struck one of the men in the balls with a powerful flying side kick. He went down like a dead moose and cracked the back of his skull on the side of a garbage can.
The top dog spat a wad of blood and lunged toward her, working with the other remaining guy like a tag team.
Jessica rotated back toward top dog, lifting her right leg up and driving a hefty crescent kick into the side of his head. She heard his jaw break and thought she saw it dislocate a little in the direction of the blow. He was down and out, but she finished him with a chin strike and knocked him back into the pile of garbage cans where the other guy was still out cold.
The third guy raised his palms and started to step away from her, a tire iron in his right hand. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want any trouble.”