"I’d ask what a nice girl like you is doing in a place
like this," Gabriel told the brunette sitting at the bar
with her back to him. "But I already know exactly what
you’re doing."
The brunette spun, reaching for the revolver beside her
glass, but Gabriel grabbed her wrist before she could raise
it to draw a bead between his eyes.
"I also know you’re not a very nice girl," Gabriel
said, tightening his grip and meeting her furious gaze
without flinching.
The bar was a murky, nameless Moldovan hole-in-the-wall,
spitting distance from the Transdniestrian border. The angry
brunette was Dr. Fiona Rush, professor in Cambridge
University’s prestigious archeology department and
partner in Gabriel Hunt’s latest Eastern European
expedition. She had also been Gabriel’s lover, which
made it all the worse when she’d double crossed him
and run off with the legendary jewel-encrusted Cossack
dagger they’d come here to find. There were some who
claimed that the
kindjal was cursed, that it would
bring sorrow and strife to anyone who possessed it. After
everything he’d been through in the past few days,
Gabriel was inclined to agree.
When Gabriel grabbed Fiona’s wrist, all conversation
around them abruptly ceased. Several men nearby, taller even
than Gabriel and twice as wide, raised weapons and cold,
hostile glares and aimed both in Gabriel’s direction.
For a tense stretch of seconds, nothing happened. A
Romanian melody fought its way through the static on a cheap
transistor radio behind the bar. The ancient, toothless
bartender suddenly remembered something critical that needed
to be done right away in the storeroom in the back. Gabriel
silently tried to decide which of the armed men posed the
most serious threat and to measure where they were located
in relation to both the front and back doors. He did not let
go of Fiona’s wrist.
Fiona shook her head, offering a few curt words in Romanian.
The thugs pocketed their various weapons, some more
reluctantly than others. They all continued to stare at
Gabriel with undisguised hostility. It was clear it
wouldnโt take much for the weapons to reappear. Gabriel let
Fiona go, but stayed alert and wary.
"Have a drink," Fiona said, casually, as if she’d just
happened to run into an old friend. She took an extra glass
from the rack above the bar and poured a generous knock of
the rich Moldovan brandy known as
divin. "You must be
thirsty."
"I don’t want a drink," Gabriel said, pushing the
glass away. "I want the
kindjal."
"You’re not still cross about that, are you?" Fiona
smiled and topped off her own glass from the dusty bottle.
"Honestly, it was nothing personal."
"Did you think you could just cut me out and sell to the
highest bidder?" Gabriel asked. "That dagger is a
significant historical artifact. It should be on display in
a museum, not locked up by some rich collector. You of all
people ought to know that."
"You know what your problem is, Gabriel?" Fiona arched a
dark eyebrow. "You’re still laboring under this
charmingly anachronistic sense of right and wrong. This is
the 21st century. You need to be more..." She took a sip of
her
divin and looked up at Gabriel with the sultry
gaze that had gotten him into this trouble in the first
place. "More flexible."
"No more games, Fiona," Gabriel said. "I know you’re
planning on meeting your buyer in this bar, but I also know
you’re too smart to have the
kindjal on hand
for the negotiation. So where is it?"
"We could split the money," Fiona said, dropping a hand to
Gabriel’s thigh. "We can just claim the
kindjal
was stolen. That sort of thing happens all the time in this
part of the world. No one will ever be the wiser."
"Where is it?" Gabriel asked again, pushing her hand away.
"I’m asking nicely. Next time I ask, it won’t be
so nice."
"You really are going to be tedious about this, aren’t
you?" Fiona sighed and emptied her glass, but when she tried
for another refill, she found the bottle empty. "Fine,
I’ll take you to it. But first let’s have one
more drink, shall we? For old times sake."
She gestured to the bartender, who had tentatively crept
back to his post when it appeared there would be no violence
after all. Holding her glass up high, she called out
something in Romanian that caused the entire bar to turn her
way. Amazingly, the chilly scowls all melted into broad,
gap-toothed smiles. Glasses were raised all around and
suddenly Gabriel was surrounded by thick, strapping men
slapping him on the back and shaking his hand.
"What the hell did you say to them?" Gabriel asked,
searching for Fiona between the moving mountain range of
giant shoulders and flushed, grinning faces.
"I told them drinks were on you," Fiona said with a smirk as
the bartender obligingly opened a bottle of vodka and began
filling upraised glasses. "I also said that you were a big
American movie director from Hollywood looking for Moldavans
to cast in your new picture."
An enormous ox with a blond beard suddenly pulled Gabriel
into an aromatic bear hug as if he were a long lost brother.
Someone began singing a patriotic song loud and off key and
the ox enthusiastically joined in, slapping Gabriel’s
back so hard it nearly knocked him off his feet. Another
equally large but beardless thug tapped Gabriel on the
shoulder and began demonstrating a terrifyingly drunken
knife trick on the bar, weaving the blade back and forth
between fat sausage fingers.
Gabriel tried to keep Fiona in view, but she vanished
between two of the bar’s larger patrons.
Gabriel pressed far too many Moldovan
lei into the
astonished bartender’s hand and bulled his way through
the crowd toward the open back door. He was almost waylaid
by a pair of eager Moldavians clamoring for their free
drink, but he managed to break free and make it to the door.
When he burst through, he found himself in a narrow alley
barely wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. He heard
the clatter of horses’ hooves approaching. There was
only one street light in this remote village and, in
typical Moldovan fashion, it had been turned off to save
money. The only illumination came from the large, nearly
full moon behind swift-moving clouds.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he spotted Fiona’s
distinctive silhouette at the mouth of the alley and called
out her name. She turned toward him just as the moon slipped
out from behind the clouds, pale silvery light glinting off
the steel barrel of her pistol.
Gabriel dove for cover, tasting brick dust as a bullet
smashed into the wall inches from where his head had been.
He unholstered his Colt Peacemaker and risked a glance at
the mouth of the alley just in time to see a massive white
horse thunder into view. The rider reached effortlessly down
and grabbed Fiona’s narrow waist, hauling her up and
across the saddle. She let out a breathless shriek and
before Gabriel could blink, the horse, its rider and Fiona
were gone.
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