Iris Johansen - Deadlock

He sighed as he turned to face her. "I told him that I'd be the one who'd take all the heat. Okay, shoot."

"He made you stay here because he wanted you to take care of me, didn't he?" Her hands clenched into fists. "And he didn't tell me. He just walked off and left me here without a word."

"As I said, Garrett likes to work alone."

"He took Pauley."

"He'd worry about you. Pauley wasn't going to do much, and he won't have to watch over him nonstop."

"He didn't say a word." She couldn't get over it. She felt as if he had betrayed her. Babin had been her enemy as well as Garrett's, and he had closed her out. He had gone to face Babin by himself.

And he might never come back.

"Sit down." Dardon was suddenly across the room, urging her to¬ward the kitchen chair. "You don't look so good."

She didn't feel so good. Her knees were shaking and she felt sick. "Stop coddling me. I'll be fine." She dropped down in the chair. When Garrett walked through that door, she'd be fine.

And then she'd kill him herself.

IT WAS ALMOST DAWN WHEN she heard the car stop. It was barely-audible, and she knew he had parked far away from the house.

A few minutes later he was quietly opening the front door.

"Too late," Dardon said. "I did my best, Garrett."

Garrett stood in the doorway, his gaze on Emily. "Good morning."

She wanted to run across the room and hold him. No, she wanted to hit him.

"You should put more clothes on," Garrett said. "It's a little chilly in here. "

She glanced down at the long tee shirt, which reached her thighs. "I have enough on. And I don't feel chilly. I feel decidedly warm."

Dardon gave a low whistle. "I just remembered that I should be on my way to meet that plane bringing Irana." He got to his feet and headed for the door. "I'm out of here."

"Irana?" Emily repeated. "Irana's coming here? Why?"

"I thought we might need her. We were told Babin has some deal¬ings with the Church, remember?"

"And you'd run that risk on 'might'?" she asked. "When were you going to tell me she was coming?"

"It was no secret. You were a little upset earlier, and I didn't want to disturb you."

"You're damn right. I am disturbed." She drew a deep breath. "But we'll go into that later. What about Babin?"

"Oh, he's still alive. Pauley is driving him to the airport in Moscow even as we speak. I drove Babin's car back here. He's going to stay at his house in Monte Carlo for a while. He told me he'd feel safer from Staunton if he was as far away from Russia as he could get. Though I think he was more eager to get away from me. He was a little worried that I refused to give him my word that I wouldn't go after him later." His lips tightened. "Which I will. He's just unfinished business. I only let him scoot out of here in case I found I needed more information from him later."

"He'll probably disappear anyway."

"Maybe. But I'll know where he is. I called Ferguson and asked him to have an agent trail him from the time he got off the plane in Paris. Could I have a cup of that coffee?"

"It's cold. Dardon and I have been sitting here for hours."

"I'll heat it up." He moved across the room and put the pot back on the burner. "And I'm sorry you've been worried. I hoped you'd sleep through the night."

"You could always have given me knockout drops," she said sar¬castically.

"That wouldn't have been honorable. I took advantage of the sit¬uation. I didn't create it." He gazed at her. "And I knew I'd eventually have to face you over this. I had to decide if it was worth it."

"Babin," she prompted.

"He was reluctant, but I eventually convinced him that he'd talk to me or never talk again." "Is he a middleman?"

"Yes, for Peter Joslyn, the big plastics industrialist." He took the pot off the burner and poured coffee into a cup. "Joslyn hired him when Nicholas Zelov came to Moscow with old Mikhail Zelov's book and three amulets and wanted to turn them into gold. Nicholas Zelov went to Bishop Dimitri and offered them to him, but somehow)slyn was pulled into the mix. Joslyn didn't want Zelov to know that e was involved so he used Babin as a go-between. He told Babin that e was to get the Book of Living and. the amulets, and in return Zelov as to receive a huge lump sum that would get him out of financial ouble and quarterly allowances from then on."

"The amulets were that important?"

"Very important."

"And there was a treasure hidden in the hammer?"

"According to Babin. He said it was all in the Book of Living. As ell as where the hammer was hidden away."

She shook her head. "What difference would that make when all lat happened almost a hundred years ago? Why wouldn't he have Hie back and retrieved it himself? Or why wouldn't the Communist wernment have discovered it in all that time?"

"Evidently they didn't."

"It's hard to believe that it could be safely hidden for nearly a cen-iry. Where?"

"In plain sight. With a collection of other farm equipment in a useum in Siberia. What could be safer?"

"Artifacts in museums aren't safe. I'd be out of a job if they were."

"This museum was different. It was called the People's Museum, he exhibit was a symbol of the workers' revolution. It was several iols artfully arranged, and over it flew the flag that had the hammer id sickle of the new Communist state. For decades it would have;en considered close to treason to disturb such a patriotic showcase, ibin said that Joslyn must have believed that it had remained undis-›vered, or he wouldn't have been willing to put out the kind of loney he did to buy the Book of Living and the amulets. Or to au-lorize him to hire Staunton to go after the hammer when they found it that the farm equipment exhibit had been sent on loan to that luseum in Afghanistan. He told Babin to keep the amulets in the safe in his office. He didn't want to have them in his possession since the} were stolen historical artifacts." He patted his jacket pocket. "We have them now. That makes three."

"Are they any different from the one we got from Nemid's safe?"

"Only minor differences in the scrolling of the gold around the picture."

"But did Joslyn take the Book of Living?" He nodded. "Joslyn has one book." "One?"

"Babin is a crook. Do you think he wouldn't make a photocopy of the book for himself before he let it out of his hands?" He reached into his jacket pocket. "By the way, he said that there was a map dated 1913 tucked in that Book of Living that he gave to Joslyn. He made a copy of that, too. That means Nemid's map was probably a very well done fake. Babin was very disappointed in most of the content of the book. He was only interested in the treasure that was in the hammer. He was likely thinking of doing a double cross, but when he found out that all the farm equipment had been sent on loan to the museum in Afghanistan, it complicated everything, and he felt out of his league." He pulled out a loose-leaf volume. "But he kept this copy in his office safe anyway. So we dropped in there and retrieved it before I sent him off to the airport."

She reached out and took the volume. "Russian."

"Yes, you'll have to trust me to translate." He gazed at her over the rim of his cup. "If you can."

"I think I can trust you in some areas," she said coolly. "But the hammer wasn't with the other farm equipment in that museum cellar in Afghanistan. So it has to be somewhere else, doesn't it?"

"So it would seem."

"And what was that amulet we found in Nemid's library?"

"A bribe. Babin said he left it up to Staunton how to get the ham¬mer from the museum in the fastest manner possible. The U.N. was to be the first to go into that area after the fighting. So Nemid commandeered your team to go in so that Staunton could raid your truck on the way back."