Iris Johansen - Eight Days To Live

“You told him about the Cira dreams.”

“And you resent it. Tough. I’ve been tiptoeing around the subject for a long time. Those dreams are too closely founded on historical fact not to be accepted on some level. It’s time you came to terms with them.” She paused. “And I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m finding it curious that both the Cira dreams and the ones you’ve had recently have a bond with these Judas coins. It’s as if there’s a kind of reaching out… Oh, I don’t know. Just think about it. Don’t reject it because you don’t want to believe that you could be a little less than totally grounded in reality. What the hell is reality anyway?”

“You’re real. Joe is real. I’m real. I’m working on accepting all this other eerie crap, but I have trouble when it applies to me.”

“Keep working on it.”

“I will. I promise.” She changed the subject. “Will you take care of Lina? She’s going to be as upset as you when she finds out we left her. I don’t want her leaving the Run and setting off on her own toting that AK-47. By now Millet and Roland know she’s been doing the translation for us. They mustn’t get their hands on her.”

“I’ll see what I can do. But she seems to be very determined.” She added ruefully, “If I stand in her way, she may turn that AK-47 on me.”

“She won’t do that.” Jane hesitated. “She’s… solid, Eve. She’s abrupt and sometimes rude, but I feel as if she’s-” She tried to put her thoughts into words. “She’s a survivor, but she doesn’t know how to enjoy that survival. She hardly ever smiles. I want to-”

“Help her,” Eve finished. “Another lost puppy, Jane?”

“Tiger, maybe.”

“Good comparison. Tigers are beautiful, and Lina is exceptional.” She added, “I like survivors. I feel a kinship for them. I’ll see that your Lina doesn’t run afoul of Millet.”

“Thank you. I have to board the plane now. I’ll call you from Israel.” She hung up.

Eve slowly turned away as she pressed the disconnect. Jane had better call me from Israel, she thought grimly. She was getting tired of staying behind and watching Joe and now Jane go off into heaven knew what danger. She wasn’t going to put up with it for much longer.

“They’ve gone.” Lina stood in the doorway, her hands clenched at her sides. “Jock just called me. I told Jane what she needed, then she left me.”

“We seem to be in the same boat,” Eve said. “I just spoke to Jane, and she was all apologies, but it all came down to the fact that I wasn’t wanted.”

“She had no right . They burned my home. I had the right to go after them.”

“She was very clear that wasn’t the purpose of the trip.”

“Purpose? It doesn’t matter. One thing will lead to another. Millet and Roland will go after them.”

That was what Eve feared. “Then we have to hope we’ll be able to join her before it’s over.”

“ ‘Hope’?” Lina’s eyes were blazing. “I’m not going to wait here and hope. I’m going to go after those bastards. I don’t need anyone to help me.”

This was just what Jane was afraid would happen, Eve thought. And she had left Eve with the task of dissuading this angry woman from doing what she thought was her right.

And it was her right. She was protecting her way of life and avenging the loss of her home. Eve was in perfect agreement with her. She would have felt the same.

“Jane was mistaken. She took it upon herself to try to protect both of us.” She stared Lina in the eye. “That’s Jane’s way. She can’t help herself, but it was wrong of her arbitrarily to try to run your life.” She shook her head. “And mine. But we’ll have to reclaim them. Together.”

“You have nothing to do with my life.” Lina was gazing at her warily. “And you mean nothing to me.”

“But you came here with Jane and the others because you could see that you’d be more effective if you had a backup. Isn’t that true?”

“Partly.”

“I’m a very good backup, Lina. Suppose we team up and see what we can do about getting Millet?”

“I don’t need you. You’d get in my way.”

She shook her head. “You’ve heard Jane talk about Joe Quinn. He’s with the CIA in Rome right now. We could join him there.”

“The CIA,” Lina repeated. “I knew someone once who worked with them. He got me out of Afghanistan. They can help… if they want to do it.”

“Joe will make sure that they want to do it.”

“When would we go?”

“As soon as I contact Joe and make arrangements. Perhaps tomorrow morning?”

Lina thought about it. “I guess I can wait until then.” Her gaze narrowed on Eve’s face. “You’re not fooling me? You’re being honest?”

“I’m being honest. I admit I’m like Jane in that I tend to be overprotective, and I understand her reasons. But it’s time I stopped letting her run the show.” She was feeling an overpowering relief at the decision. It had been completely uncharacteristic of her to have been so patient when she had only wanted to dive in and help Jane. “Yes, I think going to Joe would definitely be for the best.” She smiled. “You help me. I’ll help you. And Joe will help both of us. We can’t lose.” She got to her feet. “Now let me go and call Joe. It will take a little persuading to make him see we should leave here. Joe is very protective, too.”

“But it will happen?” Lina asked. “Men like to have it all their own way.”

“So do we. It’s all a balance, Lina.” But that had never been Lina’s experience, Eve realized. “Joe is very special. It will be fine.”

“If you say so.” Lina turned away. “But I trust you to tell me if you have a problem with him.”

She chuckled. “I always have problems with him. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what makes our life together a challenge.”

Lina shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I hope you will someday. Now go away, and I’ll make the arrangements. Then I have to do some work on my reconstruction and go and talk to MacDuff about our plans. He’ll probably be as dead set against them as Jane would be. Too bad. Will you join me for dinner later?”

Lina hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Yes. I think I’d like that very much.”

“Good.” She pulled out her phone. “It will probably be just the two of us. MacDuff isn’t going to be in a sociable mood. He likes control and he’s lost Jane and is about to lose both of us. There’s not much left to protect but this grand pile of boulders he calls a castle.”

“HOW DID SHE TAKE IT?” Caleb asked, as Jane got on the plane. “Or need I ask?”

“She resented my leaving her behind.” Jane sat down and opened her laptop. “I don’t blame her. I’d feel the same way. She did say she’d take care of Lina.” Her voice was absent as she gazed down at the screen. “I think I’ve found the map I need. Oxford University did a study in 1997 for the Church of England. They did all kinds of topography and historical data searches to create a map that would show Israel and Syria as they were at the time of Christ.” She pointed to two areas north of Jerusalem. “Both these areas have low hills, and the one closer to Jerusalem looks like it might possibly have a flatter sunken field adjoining it. The fields from which potters took their clay were basically rock and silt with high iron content that were windblown or brought in and deposited by rivers or glaciers. I don’t see any riverbed, but it could still be Hadar’s Field of Blood.”

“It’s pretty flimsy.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” She pointed to a wall that enclosed the southwest side of Jerusalem. “But look at this.” She did an overlay of ancient Jerusalem with a modern-day map. “This is a thematic soil content map of the area that Oxford did at the same time. Do you see that heavy clay content in the valley of Hamman? That’s the supposed Field of Blood, where the tour guides take the tourists. The clay content looks the same in that area north of the city.”