A coffee shop was opening its doors. Inside were a couple of people in 1800s costumes who worked for the western shows. No one seemed bothered by the young woman biker with the dirty face and the wild look in her eyes. She cleaned the dirt off her pudgy cheeks and her hands in the bathroom and when she came out, bought a large coffee and blueberry muffin. She felt better after a few sips of coffee. But she was still in shock over the destruction of her house.
It was no coincidence that the attack came within twenty-four hours of her internet fishing expedition.
She remembered the squared mouth and gapped front teeth of the leader as he prepared to destroy the first painting. He had deliberately exposed his face.
As impossible as it seemed, she had to accept the evidence of her own eyes.
This was not the first time the gapped-toothed man had violated her.
A glazed expression came to her eyes.
Someone was going to pay for this.
And she knew exactly who it would be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The river bed wasn’t quite the superhighway Rashid had described.
The pock-marked wash wound its way between lofty red cliffs and a steep rock-studded ridge. It was paved with loose stones for several miles before the old river bottom turned to sand and gravel. Calvin was eager to use the extra horsepower he had added to the DPV’s engine. When the wheels rolled onto the smoother surface, he kicked the vehicle up to a higher speed.
His lead foot almost caused a disaster.
The vehicle skittered around a blind curve. A boulder that had broken off from the cliffs lay directly in the buggy’s path. The rock was about six feet across and stuck out only a foot or so from the ground. It was shaped like an iceberg, with a sharp peak at the top that could have easily ripped through the vehicle’s underside.
The DPV was going too fast to stop. Calvin jerked the steering wheel in a half turn then yanked it back the other way to keep from smashing into an even bigger rock. The vehicle was top-heavy from the weight of equipment and passengers but somehow defied the laws of physics and stayed upright throughout the tight S-turn.
Calvin mashed the brake pedal and brought the vehicle to a halt. He glanced in his rear-view mirror. Hawkins and Abby were still perched on top of the submersible. They would have been thrown from the vehicle if Hawkins had not tied a nylon rope around the cargo rack for a hand hold.
“Sorry about the slalom run,” Calvin said. “Everyone okay back there?”
Hawkins rubbed his neck. “Nothing like whiplash to get the blood rushing. Yeah, I’m fine. How about you, Abby?”
Abby removed her baseball cap. Wild strands of hair dangled over her forehead. She swore with the gusto of an angry pirate and slapped the cap against her knee, sending up a cloud of dust that triggered a coughing fit.
Hawkins handed her a canteen. “I’ll translate Abby’s answer, Cal. She wants to say how happy she is to have ignored my advice and volunteered for this mission.”
Abby gulped down water and then thrust the canteen back.
“Screw you, Hawkins!”
Her abrupt answer triggered another round of coughing. Hawkins handed back the canteen and advised everyone to take a stretch. He slipped off the back of the vehicle, used the “do-rag” around his head to wipe the dust from his eyes and checked the bungee straps holding the submersible in place. Fido seemed happily nestled in its bed of plastic foam.
Hawkins craned his neck to examine the face of the hill across from the cliffs. It was around eighty feet high, rising at a forty-five degree angle from the river bed. He asked Calvin to keep an eye on the vehicle, giving an almost imperceptible jerk of his head toward Rashid who sat on the ground with his back to a tire, lighting a cigarette.
“Let’s go for a walk, Abby.”
Hawkins went to the base of the slope, wrapped his hands around a rocky knob, stuck his toe into a horizontal crack in the rock face and began to climb up the steep hill. The bolts that held his shattered left leg together worked well enough, but his joints tended toward stiffness, even in the dry Afghan climate. The cuts on his hand were healing but his palm was still tender.
He could have sent Calvin up the hill, but he didn’t want to admit to the slightest weakness, especially in front of Abby. He took his time, and although his progress was neither fast nor graceful, it was steady.
Abby had competition knotted into every strand of her DNA. She’d excelled in school sports, including traditional male ones like hockey, and had racked up an impressive record as an honor roll student. She continued to strive for first place as she blazed her way through Annapolis, and quickly advanced through the naval ranks after graduation. So it was natural for her to attempt to catch up with Hawkins and beat him to the top of the ridge.
She placed her right foot firmly on a rock outcropping, intending to use the hard muscles of her thigh to vault her body and outstretched arm closer to a hand-hold that was at the extreme end of her reach. She would have floated up the side of the steep hill like a milkweed seed if she had not glanced up at Hawkins.
His right leg and arms were strong, but the injuries to his left leg put him at a disadvantage. When his left foot slipped off a rock the stiffness in his leg prevented him from a quick save. He lost his footing, and dug his fingers into the gravel. Only a Herculean effort prevented him from slipping back down to Abby’s level.
She stopped climbing and held her breath as she watched Hawkins pull himself higher, remembering his steely determination when he was recovering from his physical and psychological wounds. There was no self-pity, but she had been hurt by his refusal to ask for her help. She realized later that what he really needed was not a helping hand, but understanding. When he’d unleashed his anger against the navy, she went on the defensive. After all, she was facing difficulties enough as a woman in the navy and didn’t need a husband attacking the institution that was going to be her life.
Only after their divorce and her decision to leave the navy could she admit to herself that she simply wasn’t there for him in his time of need. That’s why she wasn’t quitting on him now. She’d been kidding herself, saying that she had signed on to cure Matt of his obsession, but the real reason, despite her disclaimer on the flight from the U.S.A., was to expunge her guilt. She was in this mission to the very end.
She saw that Matt had almost reached the top of the ridge. She took a deep breath and began to climb.
Hawkins helped her up the last few feet. Abby puffed out her cheeks and leaned on his shoulder.
“You’re a hard act to follow.”
Hawkins knew the gesture and comment were subtle attempts to cloak his obvious physical limitations. He didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased, so he changed the subject.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” he said.
“That’s an understatement. It looks so….tortured.”
The satellite photos and the contour lines on the chart hadn’t done the surrounding countryside justice. The cool air was clear as fine crystal and as far as the eye could see, the landscape was creased and furrowed with ravines and gullies. In the distance, painfully sharp peaks raked the clear blue sky.
Abby said in an awestruck voice, “I think the chopper made a mistake and landed us on Mars.”
“We’re looking at what happens when continents collide. You get jumbled up pieces of tectonic crust separated by fault zones. The bedrock under Afghanistan is like a big jigsaw puzzle.”