“Who is it?” Jake repeated.
“Sara Jones.”
“Just some random American?”
“Not exactly. She’s the younger sister of United States Senator, from the great state of Texas, James Halsey.” He said the man’s last name as if it should mean something to Jake.
“So, this senator can’t hire someone to bring back little sis? Aren’t all senators rich?”
“Most are,” Rob said. “But the Halsey family goes back a long way in Texas. Before it was a state. We’re talking super rich.”
“Still…”
“They’ve sent two of the best private detectives in the country to try to find Sara Halsey Jones. Neither has been heard from since.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps she paid off the detectives.”
“That’s the problem, though. She has no money. She’s a thirty-five-year-old historian and mathematician on a leave of absence from Rice University, where she is a full professor. She was last seen studying the writings of the Greek historian Polybius in Athens.”
“Great,” Jake said. “I’m not well liked in Athens.”
“That’s all right. We don’t think she’s still there. Her last passage through any customs was into Rome a month ago.”
Jake considered this man’s proposition. After leaving the Agency years ago, Jake had started his own security consulting business, taking on jobs mostly in Europe. He rarely took on missing persons cases. His jobs were usually much more complicated than that. But what choice did he really have? He could stay in a Tunisian jail and hang or get shot for having killing a useless pile of human DNA, or take off to Italy to find some poor rich girl. He also knew that jobs rarely turned out as easy as they first seemed. After all, the U.S. state department was not accustomed to calling in favors like this with marginally friendly countries without having to give up something in return. He imagined money had probably changed hands from Texas to Tunis, and Jake would never know the truth of that play.
“What kind of choice do I have?” Jake asked the cultural affairs officer. “But maybe I don’t need a break like this.”
“Your friends in high places would disagree.” The tall, gaunt man left it like that, saying without really saying anything. But Jake knew that the Agency director and perhaps his old friend Toni Contardo had something to do with this deal.
“Fine. When can you get me out of here?”
“They’re willing to pay you quite a bit to find Ms. Jones.”
“That’s not my hesitation,” Jake said. Although he could use some walking around cash, he had plenty hiding around Europe in various bank accounts. “I’ll take what they want to give me, but I won’t drag some mid-30s tree hugger yelling and screaming all the way back to Texas. If she wants to go back that’s fine, but I won’t force her.”
The state department man raised his hands palm out. “I understand. So, let’s go.”
Jake looked at himself down to his bare feet. “Just like that?”
“Yep. I’ll do my best to get your personal belongings back, including your passport, credit cards and cash.”
Jake shook his head. “Don’t bother. I had about fifty Euros worth of Tunisian dinars, which have probably deflated to nothing in the past week.”
“But you’ll need your passport.”
That’s how Jake knew the Agency was somehow involved with this whole matter. Jake had used a fake passport from one of his old Agency personas, which had been flagged when the Tunisian authorities inquired about him. He hadn’t used his real civilian passport in at least five years.
“You’re right, of course,” Jake said, appeasing the man. “Please get that for me.”
Smiling, the man pulled Jake’s passport from inside his pocket and handed it to him, along with a Visa card that was insignificant. There was perhaps a thousand dollars of available credit and Jake only used it for rental cars and hotels. Totally untraceable to the real Jake Adams.
With no grace or pleasure, Jake strolled out of the cell and Draconian prison just a few miles from ancient Carthage, wondering if anything had really changed in this region since the last Punic War.
3
A black Ford Expedition with tinted windows slowed along a quiet Georgetown street lined with tony restaurants peopled by the rich and powerful and influence peddlers of America. The SUV pulled up in front of a Greek café and stopped at the curb. The driver, wearing the requisite black suit and hat, looked into the rearview mirror at the man in the back seat — a man with a suit worth more than the driver made in a month.
Senator James Halsey was on his cell phone with an important campaign investor. Not that Halsey needed anyone’s money. He was an old money Texas billionaire, his family earning every penny in cotton, cattle, oil and shipping. No, Halsey let his donors think they had some influence with him. But he was beholden to no one. And that’s the way he liked it. Yet, there were times like this, with his sister going off the reservation, or something, where even money didn’t seem to be a great advantage.
Halsey clicked off his phone and started for the door handle.
“Sir,” the driver said. “Please wait for our men to check out the restaurant.”
Halsey always forgot the security protocols. In Texas on his sprawling fifty-thousand acre ranch, he could throw on a pair of jeans and a Stetson, strap his vintage 1847 .44 caliber Colt Walker to his right hip, and ride his favorite horse for hours until his backside was chafed. All with nobody to babysit him. He watched as two large men with visible bulges in their suits where they held their guns, came back out the front door of the Greek restaurant and nodded for the senator to come out.
“Thanks for the reminder, Steve,” the senator said to his driver. With some embarrassment for all the attention, Halsey hurried out of the car and into the restaurant.
Seeing the pretty woman with long dark curly hair in the far corner booth, far enough away from any other patrons to be heard by anyone, Halsey smiled and approached her. This would be their third meeting in the past three weeks — ever since Halsey discovered his sister missing somewhere in Europe. He only knew that her first name was Maria, and that she had great influence in the U.S. government. But he suspected she had worked at one time with the Agency or the FBI. She had that feel about her. As a member of the foreign relations committee, Halsey had been briefed enough times by people like Maria to know she could probably kill him before he even had a chance to retrieve his little concealed .380 auto from inside his jacket.
He took a seat across from this beautiful woman, noticing she was sipping a glass of white wine. She had to be at least in her mid-forties, Halsey guessed, but could easily pass for a decade younger. Very elegant. If he wasn’t more or less happily married, he might make a run for her.
“What’s the word?” Halsey asked her.
“First, you must try this wine,” Maria said. “Here, take a sip. It’s a Dafni from Crete. Very nice.” She held the glass for him.
Reluctantly he took the glass and sipped. It was good. He handed the glass back to her and motioned for the waiter to bring him a glass.
“Very good,” he said. “I’ve never been to Crete. Is it nice this time of year?”
“Crete is nice any time of year.”
That was their code phrase, meaning all was well and on schedule. Halsey glanced around the room and waited for his glass of wine to be set down in front of him. He sipped it and then told the waiter to bring the bottle.
“So you have someone who can help me find my sister,” Halsey said.
She smiled. “I like working with Texans. You get right to the point.” Maria hesitated long enough to take another drink, but her eyes surveyed the man across from her as well as the entire restaurant. “Yes. It took some influence, but we were able to get him out of prison in Tunisia. Thank you for your help with that.”