“My father says he is in your debt.” Lana’s English was heavily accented but clear — an unexpected benefit.
“How do you feel, Lana?” Quinn asked. Her father held on and began thumping Quinn on the back.
“I am still sore, but now my father is here—” she broke down; it took her a few seconds to regroup. “We are waiting for the doctor to discharge me.”
Lana’s father finally released Quinn. He nodded along with Lana’s words, although the man clearly had no idea what she was saying. The other three patients, glad of the distraction, watched until the woman in the next bed turned to the door. Quinn followed her gaze and the nurse entered, accompanied by a dark-skinned man with a heavy beard, dressed in a white lab coat. A stethoscope dangled from his neck.
Lana stiffened and gripped her father’s hand. He stroked her hair. The girl looked terrified. The doctor pulled the chart from the foot of the bed and spoke to Lana’s father for a few minutes. The father nodded his understanding, and the doctor left.
The nurse began to pull the privacy curtains. “Mr. Quinnborne, Lana needs to get dressed.”
He waited outside in the corridor with her father. The nurse reappeared, pushing Lana in a wheelchair. Quinn guessed the staff had contributed the clothes, because her cut-off jeans and white cotton top were two or three sizes too large. Lana’s face, drawn and thin, accentuated big doe-eyes framed with long, black lashes. With her neck, face, and left arm still bandaged she looked frail and defenseless. Why would someone hurt this little girl? The thought made Quinn’s blood boil.
He and Lana’s father followed the wheelchair. When they were in the elevator, Quinn spoke to the nurse. “I wonder, could you ask her father if I could get a ride to Jerusalem?”
She looked puzzled. Probably trying to understand how a British policeman found himself in Eilat without transport. She spoke to Lana’s father, who turned and grabbed Quinn’s hand in both of his.
“Yes, yes, okay, yes,” he said, clearly at the limit of his English language proficiency.
Quinn and Lana waited in the lobby with the nurse while her father collected the car. Finally, a banged-up, white, two-door Datsun pulled up at the front door. The father leaned across, opened the passenger door, and flipped the seat forward. As Quinn squeezed in back, a sharp spring jutting from a tear in the seat fabric dug into his thigh and ripped his trousers. This heap of junk made a good getaway vehicle, but he dreaded the prospect of a four-hour drive with his knees folded into his belly.
The nurse helped Lana into the passenger seat and stood in front of the hospital, waving, as they pulled away.
Once they were out of Eilat, Quinn stopped checking the road, satisfied the blue suits didn’t know where he was. Lana’s hand trembled as she brushed a few stray hairs from her face. Quinn could hardly believe she was sixteen; twelve seemed closer to the mark.
“Lana?” She turned in her seat. Hollow cheeks and dark rings under her huge brown eyes betrayed the stress she’d been under. She glanced at his face before her gaze shyly wandered to the side window.
“Do you know a man called Ghazi?” he asked.
She held his gaze for a moment and shook her head. The answer surprised him, but he sensed the girl was telling the truth.
He came at the problem from a different direction. “Lana, where is Adiba?”
“In Jerusalem. At home.” She turned to her father and asked him a question. He answered with a few gruff grunts.
“Father says she is at home.”
Quinn looked in the driving mirror, and Lana’s father gave a shake of his head. Quinn acknowledged with a small nod.
Okay, he doesn’t want to upset her any more. Adiba disappeared after Lana, so, if the girl hadn’t seen her sister that ruled out his idea that Ghazi had used Lana as bait.
Quinn tried another tack. “When did you meet Nazar Eudon?” he asked.
“I don’t know Nazar Eudon.”
She didn’t look at him, but he was sure she told the truth. Lana didn’t know who Nazar was, but she had recognized his face.
“The man you saw on the TV, in the hospital. You became upset when you saw him, remember?”
Her eyes stretched wide and tears welled so quickly that Quinn immediately regretted asking, but he needed to understand if Nazar was involved with Adiba’s abduction. Sisters abducted within a week of each other — even in the Middle East, surely that wasn’t normal.
Lana spoke rapid-fire to her father. He barked back at her, the car swerved as his concentration wavered from the road. Quinn waited through their heated conversation, trying to gather what he could from tone of voice.
Finally, Lana turned again. “My father says you may not ask these things. It is not civilized for a man to speak of such matters with a girl.”
Lana’s father caught Quinn’s eye in the driving mirror.
“No!” he barked.
“Please tell your father I’m sorry for offending you and him.”
She spoke to her father, who continued to glare at Quinn, his face fixed and angry.
Quinn stewed for ten minutes, frustrated, but stymied. He couldn’t mention Nazar again, and he couldn’t figure out how Lana connected with Abdul and Ghazi. Maybe when they arrived in Jerusalem he’d have another chance. He got out his phone and powered it on, then pulled a piece of hotel notepaper from his wallet and punched in the number.
“Mr. Eudon’s office.”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Eudon, please.”
“Hello, Mr. Quinnborne, this is Keisha. What may I do for you?”
“Ah, you recognized my voice… do you have any news on Abdul or Adiba?”
“No, nothing,” Keisha said.
When Quinn spoke his daughter’s name, Lana’s father started to talk loudly, in Arabic. Quinn put a finger in his ear to block the noise.
“I’ve moved from the Dan hotel. Please take a note of this number? It’s my cell.” He began to recite the number, but she cut him off.
“I have the number, detective. Thank you. Is there anything else?”
“No, just… call if you have any news about Abdul, and again I apologize for upsetting Mr. Eudon.” Quinn hated groveling, but friends were scarce. He turned the phone off to save battery and shifted in the seat. His left leg had already gone to sleep.
Chapter 25
When she finished speaking to Quinn, Keisha knocked on Nazar’s cabin door. They were en route from New York to Phoenix. Nazar intended to meet the professor and learn first-hand about the problem with the virginbots.
“Come.” He lounged on his bed, scrolling through the news on a tablet computer. The world was in chaos. Even the launch of his ethanol plant, the solution to the world’s energy crisis, had been pushed off the front page by the G20 attack.
“I received a call from Inspector Quinnborne.”
Nazar wrinkled his nose.
“He’s still looking for Abdul and Adiba.”
“Where is he?”
“He didn’t say, but he’s checked out of the Dan, so he may be leaving Eilat.”
“Sit,” he said and patted the bed.
She sat close and pressed a bare leg against Nazar’s.
“Perhaps this brute can help in our dealings with the terrorists.” Nazar absently stroked her naked thigh with the back of his hand. Keisha recognized the distant look in his eyes: he was planning, running scenarios, weighing options. Nazar was a brilliant man. She waited, watching her leader, her muse.
After two hours driving, cramped and hot, Lana delighted Quinn when she asked for a bathroom break. They pulled into a gas station, and Quinn extracted himself from the car like a cork from a bottle. Stiff-legged with dark saddlebags of sweat soaked through his shirt’s underarms, he limped to the restroom and cleaned grime from his face. With no A/C they’d been driving with windows open. He toweled off and switched on his phone. Keisha had left a message: “Mr. Quinnborne, I need to speak with you urgently.”