breath hot and sweet pouring into her. And he was right She craved the next breath. She did not want to die at twenty.
Thirty
“We’re going to need all the firepower we can get,” Sam said.
“Aye. As long as it shoots rubber bullets, right?” Aussie was his guy in Fiji.
“I know it sounds strange, but it will actually give us an advantage.”
“I’ve got to live here after you leave, you know.”
“I understand. I want to move on this thing. What if we come in three days?”
“No way. Huge mistake. It’s going to take me more time than that unless you want to throw rocks. I can see them settling in, but I’ve got to get the boat in place. Half the heat I have is still coming. It’ll be a bloody miracle if it’s in place in a week and a half.”
“Then do it in a week. It’s important. Anna Wade is bouncing off the floor.”
“Do you think she’d bounce off my floor?”
“Very funny.”
“We’ll try, but do not arrive before we can move. The longer you’re in this backwater, the more attention you draw.”
“Okay. A week. Precise arrival time by e-mail.”
“You got it.”
“Keep your phone on.”
Jill was tapping him on the shoulder. “I’m worried. Grady has a boyfriend of sorts. She’s been talking to him.”
“And?”
“It isn’t good. She said she was going to school.”
“Oh, no.”
“You know the alarm went off this afternoon and we never really found out why.”
“Come on.” Sam grabbed his cell phone and punched Jill’s home number as he ran to the heavy steel door, shoving it open as fast as it would move. They sprinted through the waiting room into the parking lot and jumped into Blue Hades. “No answer.”
“Jack,” Jill said on her cell. “You’ve gotta move. Something’s wrong inside.” A pause. “Break her door down, shower or no shower.”
“Good move,” Sam said.
“Jack said she’s been in her bedroom for a while. The shower’s been running.”
Sam figured he could dodge traffic at eighty miles an hour; they were in front of the house in eight minutes. There was an ambulance siren sounding in the distance. Sam hit the door with a flying kick, knocking it off its hinges. They burst through into the living room and ran to the bedroom. Grady was on the bed, white and dry like chalk. Jack was hunched over her, breathing into her lungs. An ambulance pulled up, and Sam took over the breathing while Jill checked her pulse.
“She has a heartbeat. Feels strong and normal. Maybe a little slow.”
Sam breathed in her lungs and stared at eyes that were strange with something he’d never seen. She was utterly still; no part of her moved.
“A drug.”
Jack ran out the door, and came back with four guys and one woman, all in blue suits. Immediately they were on her with a stethoscope. Sam kept pushing air into her lungs.
“She said there was soup on the table,” Jack said. “Jill, did you leave soup?”
“No soup. None.”
“A drug,” Sam said. “Must be.”
“BVM,” the lead man said. “We’ll take it,” he said, putting an airway down her throat with a squeeze bag fitted atop. “She looks like somebody gave her sux,” the woman said. “Let’s go with Versed as soon as we get the IV in her.”
“Pump every last ounce out of her stomach and ask questions later,” Jill said.
They had her on a gurney and out the door in seconds. The bedroom window had been broken out and the torn curtains moved in the gentle breeze; the sheer white shreds and the blackness behind were a grim prop for someone’s death feast.
Sam pulled Jack aside. “What happened?”
“I went to the door and knocked. There was this huge crash. I went in and somebody had gone through the window. She looked dead but her heart was beating. So I did the CPR with the mouth-to-mouth thing. It seemed to help, but she didn’t breathe on her own. I called an ambulance in between breaths, which was tough, and I knew you’d be along any minute.”
“Any idea who went out the window?”
“Not a clue.”
“Didn’t the other guys see?”
“No way. They heard something and came around, but they didn’t know what they were looking for and it was dark.”
“You would think they’d have seen something.”
“Yeah. You would.”
Samir summoned Michelle into his workroom, pondering the complications in his life.
“Leona will come back next month. I have never had an office as such but I will get an office in Beirut and a spacious apartment nearby. It will be yours if that pleases you.”
“It does. I know I cannot be here when your wife is here.”
“If I were Muslim I might have more than one wife, but I am supposedly Christian Maronite. On the subject of having one wife, Leona is very religious.” Samir chuckled.
“You are looking so well, but you know we’re running out of oil.”
“I know. And life is hell without it. There is a difference between what we took from the lab and what you get in the mail. If only we knew what it was.”
“There is something I must tell you.”
“Yes?”
“Please believe me that I am growing attached to you.”
“Yes?” Samir suddenly had a bad feeling.
“I was not in Quatram when I came to the Middle East. I couldn’t get in. I was seeing lawyers in France about my boy and working as a masseuse when I was summoned to the offices of Grace Technologies. I gave a massage to DuShane Chellis. It was a good job and I came regularly.”
“So did he, I should think. Go on.”
“You do not have to be crass.”
Samir chuckled before she continued.
“I think it was a very odd relationship he had with his assistant Benoit. She is the sister of his wife. Very odd. Anyway, I told them about my son and that I was seeing lawyers. To tell you the short version, they got me into Quatram through the general and they promised I could get my son out of the country if I could entice you to hire me.”
“You are working for Chellis?”
“I am telling you what I am not supposed to tell you, so I guess I am working for you. But my son’s life is at stake.”
Samir nodded, keeping his face neutral. “Go on.”
“They said it would be easy to win your favor if I did exactly as they said. For massage I was to use the blue-tinged oil that I now use on you.”
