Canyon of the Sphinx (44 page)

“She says you can’t have Marcus,”
he said to the woman. “But she said she’ll pay whatever you want for me.”

The woman didn’t look pleased. In
fact, she looked rather angry. “Whatever I want…?” she ripped the phone from
Christopher’s hand. “Dr. Trent? Do you know who this is?”

Kathlyn heard the voice. It was
angry, and strained, but she recognized it. Her stomach fell to her knees.

 “Jensen,” she muttered. “Are you
kidding me right now? What in the hell are you doing?”

“Shut up, bitch,” Jensen snarled.
“You listen to me. For once, you goddamn listen to me.”

“Okay, okay,” Kathlyn tried to
keep cool. “What is it that I can do for you?”

“You can give me ten million
bucks for your lover,” Jensen said sarcastically.

 Kathlyn didn’t hesitate. “Fine.
Whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him.”

Her answer forced Jensen to calm
down. Kathlyn was being submissive and she could sense that she was in control.
She walked away from Christopher, still seated on the floor where had been
dumped two hours before. She wouldn’t let him up. The cell phone was crunched
up against her ear as she spoke.

“You know, you really are a piece
of work,” she said after a moment. “It’s not enough that you have Marcus
Burton. Now you have to have this guy, too?”

From the corner of her eye,
Kathlyn could see Otis, Larry and Andy approaching her. They had heard her
shriek Christopher’s name. Confronted with their concerned expressions, Kathlyn
kept her equanimity. Christopher’s life depended on it.

“Dr. Murphy is a friend to both
me and my husband,” she said. “I hear what you’re implying, but it’s simply not
true. He’s a good friend. Whatever beef you have, it’s with me, Jensen. If it’s
me you want, then let Chris go. I’ll switch places with him.”

“I don’t want you,” Jensen said
distastefully. “I just want you to pay for everything you’ve done to me.”

“And what have I done to you?”

Jensen’s agitation returned. “You
made a fool of me. You, who has everything. Why couldn’t you have just stayed
in Egypt where you belonged? Everything would have worked out and there would
have been no trial. You brought that on yourself. It didn’t have to be like
that. You made me look like an idiot!”

Kathlyn listened carefully. The
woman on the other end of the phone was not the woman she had briefly come to
know in Egypt. She was brittle and disturbed.  She wasn’t making a lot of
sense, but Kathlyn knew, somewhat, what she meant. She didn’t want to negotiate
with her. She just wanted Christopher back in one piece. Knowing the lengths
that Jensen was willing to go to in order to extract money from her boggled the
mind.

“Just tell me what you want for
him,” Kathlyn said, struggling not to lose her composure. “If you really want
ten million dollars, it will take me some time to get it. You’re going to have
to give me a few days.”

“No deal,” Jensen snarled. “I
want it by tomorrow or your boy toy gets a bullet through the brain.”

“Jensen, I can’t get it by
tomorrow,” Kathlyn said evenly. “Listen to me; I can get it, but I need some
time. Send Christopher back and I swear I’ll have it for you in three days.
I’ll deliver it myself.”

“How stupid do you think I am?”
Jensen said. “Big blond boy stays with me until I have the money. And I don’t
want it delivered to me; I want it wired to a Cayman Account. I’ll call you
with the account number later.”

“Fine,” Kathlyn could see there
was no way to get Christopher back before the money was transferred. “Let me
talk to him before you hang up.”

Jensen didn’t even say anything.
The next voice Kathlyn heard was Christopher’s.

“Kathlyn?”

She suddenly felt very, very
guilty. “God, Chris, I am so sorry,” she said quietly. “This is the same woman…
well, it doesn’t matter. Just know that she has it out for me and you got
caught in the crossfire. You heard her demands, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” he said. His tone turned
hard. “Kathlyn, don’t give her anything.”

“Shut up, will you?” Kathlyn
snapped without force. “She’s crazy. I don’t know what she’ll do to you. I’m
just so sorry you got sucked into this.”

“It wasn’t your fault. She wanted
Marcus. Looks like she hired…”

The phone suddenly shut off.
Kathlyn shouted his name a couple of times before ending the call on her end.
She was so angry that she could scream. After a moment, that was exactly what
she did.

***

Marcus and the others came back
around midnight. Kathlyn, Otis, Larry and Andy were standing out in the center
of the camp, circled around a huge bonfire that the incoming workers had seen
for miles. The four of them had purposely built it up for two reasons; one, so
the search party could see where the camp was and two, to get their attention
in the hope they would return sooner.

 When Kathlyn saw her husband,
she went right to him. Neither one of them said a word; Marcus just put his
arms around her and she fell against him, absorbing his strength. They took
tremendous comfort from each other and no spoken sentiment was necessary. Tony
stood beside them.

“We didn’t find him,” he said
grimly. “Looks like they may have.…”

Kathlyn cut him off. “He called.
He’s being held hostage by Jensen. She wants ten million dollars or she’s going
to kill him.”

Marcus and Tony couldn’t hide
their shock. They looked at her as if she had grown two heads.

“Are you
serious
?” Tony
asked. “When did he call?”

“Just after sunset,” she replied.
“We tried to reach you on the cell phone and the radio, but nothing was going
through. Nobody’s communication device seemed to work; yours, Marcus’, Debra
Jo’s, Mark’s, Adam’s... it was like a nightmare. That’s why we built the
bonfire, so you would see it and know there was trouble.”

Tony was speechless for a moment,
absorbing the latest news. Marcus sighed heavily, feeling angry and sickened
even more than he already did.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he
kissed her forehead. “She’s really got it out for you, hasn’t she?”

Kathlyn shrugged. “I don’t really
know if that’s the case anymore. She wants something, but not me. When Chris
called, he initially said she wanted to trade him for you. I told her no way
and volunteered to switch places with Chris. But that’s not what she wanted.
She just wants to hurt me, I guess. She thinks the way to do that is to extort
money from me. God only knows what would have happened if she abducted you.”

“But I don’t understand,” Marcus
said. “Murphy’s a big guy. And he’s tough; I ought to know. How could tiny
little Jensen abduct him all by herself?”

Tony interjected. “She didn’t.
She had to have help. Even if she had knocked him unconscious on her own, she
couldn’t have lugged him miles through the jungle by herself.”

“But what help did she have?”

At that moment, Kathlyn recalled
part of the conversation with Christopher. “Right before we got cut off, he
said that she had ‘hired’… and that’s where it ended. That she had ‘hired’…”

Tony and Marcus looked at each
other. “There you have it,” Tony said with certainty. “She either brought hired
thugs with her or she hired some out of the local population. There’s no way
she could have done this on her own, and people around here are always looking
to make a dollar, legal or otherwise.”

Their gaze inevitably drifted out
over the camp and the native workers securing equipment for the night. Without
Christopher there to helm the operations, it was a semi-disorderly and
unbalanced process. Adam and Kimberly did their best, but they were clearly
shaken.

“Do you think it was one of
them?” Kathlyn asked hesitantly. “I’d really hate to think that, but people do
strange things when money is involved.”

A strange gleam suddenly came to
Tony’s eye. “How did Dr. Murphy’s call come through?”

“On my cell phone.”

“So your phone worked? I thought
you said that you couldn’t reach any of us.”

“I couldn’t,” she cocked her
head. “But this call came through. Do you think that means something?”

“It’s possible,” Tony said.
“There’s a relay station close to that little town to the south of us, where
you spent time in that clinic.”

Kathlyn shuddered. “Don’t remind
me.”

“The point is, there is a relay
station there. If someone were calling from this area, perhaps near the town,
then the relay would pick it up.”

Kathlyn looked thoughtful, as did
Marcus. But Tony looked positively brooding. Marcus noticed his expression, his
brilliant blue eyes eerily reflecting the light of the bonfire.

 “What are you thinking?” Marcus
asked.

 After a moment, Tony shook his
head. “That’s a quiet little town down there. But if you really think about it,
it’s quite possible that Jensen is holed up there, somewhere. Her ex-boyfriend
said she had it out for Kathlyn, so what better place to get next to her
without being noticed? I’ve been concentrating so much on being on the
defensive that it never occurred to me to go on the offensive. Maybe I should
do some night reconnaissance.”

Kathlyn looked puzzled. “What are
you talking about, being defensive and all that? Tony, how do you know about
Mike Sutton? You weren’t at the trial.”

Marcus and Tony passed glances.
It was Marcus who spoke. “Mike Sutton contacted Jobe after the trial was over
and told him that Jensen had skipped town. He was afraid that she might come
after you. Jobe called President Leeves, who in turn contacted the Embassy in
Cairo. They sent Tony to watch over you.”

She could have gotten righteously
angry over the fact that they had kept security issues from her, but she
couldn’t muster the strength. All she could manage was a weak shrug. “I thought
only matters of national security warranted the protection of the military.”

“When you’re a friend of the
President of the United States, he can do anything he wants to make sure you’re
safe,” Tony said. “I’m sure he pulled a few strings and had you declared a
national treasure or something like that. You’re like the Washington Monument
and, as a Marine, I am obliged to protect you.”

Kathlyn still didn’t understand
it and Marcus didn’t question him further. He was just glad he was there.

 “Tell us what else Chris said
when he called,” Marcus said to her.

It was the first time Kathlyn had
heard him call Christopher something other than ‘Murphy’ or ‘that guy’. Kathlyn
thought a moment, watching sparks from the bonfire dance into the night sky.

 “He sounded okay,” she said. “He
told me they wanted to make a trade; you for him. I said no way. I said I’d
just pay the ransom, whatever it was. I’m not going to let Jensen play little
games with me any longer. Whatever she wants, I’ll just give it to her and hope
she goes away. So she said she wanted ten million dollars by tomorrow or she’d
kill him. I said I couldn’t get it that fast. I told her she had to give me at
least three days. She said she’d call me back with a Cayman account number.”

Marcus still had his arms wrapped
around her. “That’s very noble, but I don’t think this is about the money any
longer. It’s about controlling you. She’ll never go away if you give her the
money.”

“But she’ll kill Chris.”

“No, she won’t,” Tony snapped
softly. “Not if I can help it. This bitch isn’t going to get the best of you,
or any of us. She thinks she’s playing games; I can guarantee you that she just
entered the big leagues and I’m going to strike her ass out.”

Those were strong words coming
from Tony. The man was perpetually sunny and congenial, not a mean bone in his
body. So often, they saw the softer side of him. It was rare when the military
side came out. But it was out in full bloom now.

“What are you going to do?”
Kathlyn asked him.

He continued to stare at the fire
as if hypnotized. It was, in truth, semi-frightening. He was becoming one
hundred percent Marine before their eyes, bred and trained for battle. This was
his arena and he would not fail. After a moment, he looked at the two of them.

“I’m going to make a couple of
phone calls myself,” he said, moving back towards the cabins. “I’ll let you
know.”

They watched him go, slipping
silently into the night. Marcus had nothing but confidence. Kathlyn had nothing
but apprehension.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

Kathlyn was sound asleep when the
phone woke her. Lying on her stomach with her cell phone, on vibrate, against
her belly, she was instantly awake. The liquid display showed that it was a
Private call. Certain it was Jensen again, she climbed off the mattress she
shared with her snoring husband and crept outside.

She hit the green ‘Answer’ button
right before the call went to voicemail.