Moments later, the faint buzz of the aircraft cut through the silence. It was barely audible at first, then it turned into an earsplitting roar as the plane swept low over the parked cars, its inertial separators open to direct any salt powder away from its engines. Its undercarriage virtually skimmed the front car’s roof before touching down flawlessly. Zahed was already moving, clambering into the lead car as Steyl engaged the engines’ reverse thrust and braked hard up ahead.
The two SUVs accelerated heavily and chased after the aircraft. Less than seven hundred meters later, they were parked alongside it.
The transfer didn’t take long. With the plane’s turboprops still beating the air, the boxes of codices were loaded up first, stacked behind the backs of the two rear seats. Then it was the human cargo’s turn.
Reilly.
He was hustled up to the plane and dumped behind a partition at the very back of the cabin.
Still unconscious. But alive.
Which was how the Iranian wanted him.
Less than four minutes after touching down, the Cessna was airborne again. An hour and eleven minutes later, it was back on the ground at Diagoras. It didn’t spend more than twenty minutes on the tarmac. The handling agent who drove up to the plane was the same man that Steyl had dealt with when he’d first landed in Rhodes. He didn’t need to check the plane again. Zahed sat out the formalities silently huddled behind the partition, alongside the inert Reilly. Steyl filed his flight plan and signed the forms, got the all clear, and took off again.
Iranian airspace was less than three hours away.
Chapter 60
Sitting in the back of the Jandarma Humvee, Tess felt pulverized. After what had felt like an interminable run of horrors, she’d finally found something to feel good about. A crack of light had somehow found its way through the dark shroud that had been suffocating her since that fateful day in Jordan, but just as quickly as it had appeared, it was now gone again. All the elation, relief, and excitement—wiped out in a few minutes and replaced just as quickly with more foreboding and gloom.
She hated the helplessness, the sense of defeat, the fact that yet again, she and Reilly had been bested. Most of all, she dreaded finding out what had happened to him and couldn’t help but imagine the worst. The Iranian now had what he wanted. There was no reason for him to hang around. There was also no reason for him to show any restraint in whatever it was he had planned for Reilly.
The thought made her stomach turn.
The local police had shown up soon after the shoot-out, alerted by the gunshots. The Jandarma had swooped in shortly afterward. The Iranian and his thugs had taken away their dead crony’s body, but there was still plenty of evidence of the bloody shoot-out in the old woman’s house, all of which had only made the Jandarma officer angrier. Tess had sat there passively as he’d bawled her out for having left the hotel in Zelve without authorization, and she’d played dumb, saying she’d only been following Reilly’s lead. She also concentrated on keeping the old woman’s role in all this under wraps and made sure the woman understood to follow her lead and not mention the gospels the Iranian was after or the stash of troves in the underground crypt.
It seemed to be working. They were taking her and the old woman to the local police station for their own safety, as well as, undoubtedly, more questions. It hadn’t been a comfortable lie, since she knew that her only hope was with these local cops, but she didn’t think that added level of disclosure was relevant to their efforts. All she could do now was wait—and hope. Maybe they’d manage to lock down the country before the Iranian made it out. Maybe they’d get lucky and stop him at some roadblock. Maybe they’d catch him at some border crossing or at some local airfield.
She rubbed her eyes and tried to massage the worry out of her temples. The thoughts weren’t offering her much solace, not when all they were doing was conjuring up harrowing images of a bloody confrontation that ended in disaster for the man she loved.
“I’m sorry,” the old woman said, her soft-spoken words pulling Tess out of her swamp of despair.
“For what?”
“If I hadn’t sent my granddaughter … If I had stayed hidden … none of this would have happened.”
Tess shrugged. Of course, there was truth in her words. She and Reilly could well have been flying back to New York right now. But, she also knew, life didn’t work that way. Unintended consequences were part of its fabric, and there was little point in wallowing in regret.
“It’s not over yet,” Tess told her, trying to believe her own words.
The old woman brightened. “You think … ?”
“There’s always a chance. And Sean’s usually pretty good at spotting them.”
The old woman smiled. “I hope you’re right.”
Tess managed to give her back a half smile and tried to block out the gruesome worst-case scenarios that, she knew, were not only possible, but probable.
Chapter 61
Reilly woke with a start, flinching backward with a sudden intake of breath. An acrid smell was spearing his nostrils, an intensely vile odor that reminded him of rotting corpses. His eyes flared wide, and his vision snapped to attention and broke through the tarlike mire inside his skull.
The Iranian was right there, up close and personal, mere inches away from his face. His hand was hovering under Reilly’s nose, holding the small ampule there far longer than was necessary. The man was sweating and was blinking with nervous energy, and he seemed to be visibly enjoying the discomfort he was causing. Then he flicked the ammonia tab away and pulled back, giving Reilly a fuller view of his captor.
“You’re back,” the Iranian said. “Good. I really didn’t want you to miss this.”
Reilly didn’t know what he was talking about. There was a distinct lag between the words coming out of the Iranian’s mouth and his absorbing their meaning. They didn’t sound promising. His thoughts spun off to Tess and he looked around, worried he’d find her there too. He couldn’t see her anywhere.
“No, she’s not here,” the Iranian told him, as if reading his thoughts. “We didn’t have the time to go looking for her. But I’m sure I’ll bump into her again sometime. I’d like that.”
Reilly felt his blood boil, but he kept it hidden. There was no point in giving the Iranian the satisfaction of seeing him unsettled. Instead, he grinned and tried to say something, but felt his lips crack. He moistened them with his tongue, then said, “You know, that’s not a bad idea. She doesn’t have any gay friends.”
The Iranian’s hand flew up and punched Reilly across the cheek.
Reilly kept his head turned away for a moment to let the pain settle, then faced the Iranian again and managed a slight, lopsided grin. “My bad. Guess you haven’t come out of the closet yet, huh? Not to worry. It’ll be our little secret.”