Mary Sullivan - Always Emily

The penalty for smuggling artifacts out of the country was jail time. No questions asked. No leniency. No compassion. Too much had been stolen from these civilizations over the centuries. They’d been robbed blind.

If she denied ownership, they would think she was lying. If she tried to tell them she’d been set up, they would think she was lying.

There was no good outcome here. She was the most screwed piece of metaphorical toast on the face of the planet, and she knew whom to blame.

Jean-Marc. Her open apartment door. He’d retrieved the relic from his apartment down the hall and then had slipped back into her place long enough to stash it in her things so she would be caught with it as she left the country. Vindictive piece of decrepit crap.

I will ruin you. Yes, he had.

Rage filled her, and not just because of what he was doing to her, but because this precious article shouldn’t have been in his possession. Why was it, damn him?

The day she let Jean-Marc win was the day she rolled over and died. She had to get out of this airport and get the relic back where it belonged, with the people of the Sudan.

Think. Think!

What could she do?

Sweat dripping from her forehead burned her eyes. She grasped the hankie in her hand and ran it over her face. The man in front of her in the lineup hadn’t bathed recently, and the smell made her ill.

“Is something wrong, miss?” the guard asked, tone solicitous but eyes hard. “Are you nervous about your flight?”

She shook her head. “Sick.”

His brow furrowed. “If you are sick, you cannot fly.”

“Have to. Need to get home.” She wasn’t thinking clearly. The fever was messing with her brain. She had to get out of the airport, not onto a plane.

Her violin case and bag crept along the belt closer to the X-ray machine. They would question the prayer book. It wasn’t shaped like a paperback novel. It was flat and small—and oh so ancient and precious. She reached to take it back. The guard stopped her.

They would find the relic and send her to the closest prison, where she would rot for years. Nothing and no one would be able to help her. The thought turned her stomach.

And wasn’t that fortunate? She was desperate enough to try anything.

She glanced at the guard’s immaculate uniform and her reflection in the glossy surface of his spit-shined brown shoes. Vanity, you just might be my saving grace.

This past winter, she’d had a cold that had left her with a cough that wouldn’t quit. One day, it had been so bad she’d coughed so hard, she had ended up losing her breakfast.

The bag slid closer to the machine. The belt stopped abruptly. They questioned the man in front of her about an item in his carry-on luggage.

She took advantage of the lull and started to cough, covering her mouth with the hankie. She coughed harder, contracting her muscles to get them to obey.

Given the heat of the day, the unnatural fever and the sour scent of the man in front of her, it didn’t take much to get her stomach to cooperate.

Her breakfast rose into her mouth and—oops—her hankie slipped away from her lips. She vomited on the floor, leaning forward enough that she also hit the guard’s shoes.

“Hey!” he yelled and swore in Arabic.

Another guard joined them. “What’s wrong here?”

“She’s sick,” the first guard spat. “Disgusting.”

Good. Maybe they would let her turn around and walk out of here. She could get the relic back to where it belonged.

Her mouth tasted like hell. “Maybe I should return to my apartment and take a later flight.” She held her breath, willing the man to agree. He ignored her as though she were a gnat.

“Clean this up,” the second guard called to a janitor. Pointing at her, he said, “You come with us.”

Oh crap, oh crap. He took her past security to the offices. Scrap that thought. They were headed to a private interrogation room. She was in deep trouble.

The first guard had retrieved her knapsack and her violin case from the belt and carried them into the room. He dropped them onto the table and she reacted before she could think, yelling, “Hey, be careful. That violin is old.”

He paid no heed while the second guard took his time checking her passport and documents. “Why did you think you would be able to fly while you are so ill? Did you not consider the other passengers? They would not want to get sick.”

She wouldn’t lose her cool. There had to be a way out of this. “I didn’t feel this ill when I left my apartment. It came on suddenly.”

A firm knock sounded on the door.

“Come,” one of the men said.

A man Emily recognized stepped into the room—tall, handsome Dr. Damiri. Everyone on the dig used his services when they were ill. “Doctor! What are you doing here?”

“More to the point,” he said in his soft, sensible voice, “what are you doing here? I was in another lineup and saw you get ill.”

He turned to the guards and handed them his identification. “I am her doctor. May I check her out?”

The first guard scowled, but the second returned Damiri’s ID. “It’s okay. I know him. He is my sister’s doctor.”

Dr. Damiri felt Emily’s forehead. “High fever,” he murmured. He examined her throat, pressed on her stomach and asked endless questions, at the end of which, he pronounced, “Malaria.”

“What?” She hiccupped a tiny sob, playing the pity card, willing to do whatever it took to save her skin. Maybe they would let her go through without checking her bag. “But I just want to go home.”

To the guards, the doctor said, “It isn’t infectious. She can fly.”

To Emily, he instructed, “It won’t be a comfortable trip home, but you can make it. You will have fever. Chills. Great fatigue.” He smiled gently. “Maybe more vomiting.”

“My brain wants to pound out of my skull.”

“Yes, headache, too.” He wrote on a pad of paper he pulled from his briefcase. “In my estimation, you have uncomplicated malaria. There’s nothing you can do but ride it out. In America, go to your doctor and get a prescription for this medication and take it to prevent a reoccurrence.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. That’s all you can do.” He handed her a small vial of pills. “Take these.”

“What are they?”

“Anti-nausea tablets. I always carry them when I fly, but you need them today more than I do.”

With a wink, he was gone and she was alone with two unhappy guards and a stolen artifact in her luggage.

Emily stood, her brain so foggy she didn’t know whether to come or go. “I can return to my apartment and get better, and then take a different flight another day.”

For the second time, the guards ignored her suggestion.

“The doctor has cleared you to fly. You will go today.” He reached for her bag. No!

She retrieved her cosmetic bag, leaning close to breathe in his face. “I vomited. I have to brush my teeth before I get on the flight.”

Screwing up his nose, he waved her away.

In the washroom, she entered a stall and locked the door. The washroom might have cameras, but the stalls wouldn’t. After she pulled the prayer book out of the bag, she took a moment to examine it, a little beauty in good condition. The papyrus had yellowed with age and the tiny paintings had faded, but it had obviously been cared for and well-loved by its owner.

She dumped her small toiletry bottles out of the zipped plastic bag she’d stored them in, put the book into it, secured the edges together and stuffed it into her bra, protecting it from the sweat of her fever.

After using the toilet, she washed her hands and made a show of brushing her teeth carefully, because she needed to, but also in case they watched her. She chewed a mint from her makeup kit.