Covenant (13 page)

“Ethan?” Rachel grabbed his arm, hauling him to a stop. “Where are we going?”

Ethan blinked, turning to look to where the woman was still standing beside the stall, her face turned toward him now, deeply tanned, middle-aged. A tourist, maybe a local or one of the countless European Jews who had returned to Israel after the diaspora.

Ethan shook himself and pointed down one of the myriad alleys toward a small square that buzzed gently with the conversation of tourists sitting outside cafés in the bright sunshine. A group of Israeli-Arabs smoked aromatic hookahs and bartered gifts from makeshift stalls, all under the watchful eye of heavily armed Israeli troops manning a checkpoint nearby.

Ethan negotiated his way between the tables outside one of the restaurants, moving toward a stocky man sitting with a newspaper and wearing a broad-rimmed hat. A glass half-filled with ruby-colored drink glistened before him on the table.

“William Griffiths?”

Ethan stood in front of the man, who made a show of finishing reading his sentence before squinting up at him from beneath the shelter of his hat.

“You are?”

“Ethan Warner, and this is Rachel Morgan.”

Bill Griffiths folded the newspaper he was holding and set it down on the table before lazily gesturing for them to join him. Ethan ordered drinks from a passing waitress, and regarded the man opposite him.

Griffiths looked every inch the outdoorsman, with a broad and thickly forested jaw, his shirt undone at the neck and the sleeves rolled up his chunky arms. His weather-beaten skin told of countless years spent toiling beneath the burning sun, as did what appeared to be a permanent squint. Dirt was encrusted under his fingernails, and his heavily creased shorts bore patches of recent dust and sand.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Warner?” he asked without apparent interest.

“I understand that you have something for sale?”

Griffiths squinted at Ethan behind the rim of his hat. “For sale?”

Ethan got down to business.

“I thought that it might be worthwhile me coming to you directly, rather than wandering around fossil markets looking for trinkets.”

Griffiths regarded Ethan and Rachel for several long moments, as though trying to size them up.

“I don’t deal. I work privately, and right now I’m on vacation.”

Ethan nodded as he glanced around at the square.

“Nice spot. You always take vacations in war zones? I thought you’d be better off down in Eilat?”

Griffiths let his gaze return to his newspaper.

“I like the architecture here. What do you want?”

“I want you to be honest with me,” Ethan replied. “You’re not on holiday, you’ve been working. You’ve got dirt under your nails, which suggests to me that you’ve only recently finished an excavation, probably worked through the night to complete it.” Griffiths looked back up as Ethan went on. “I represent a collector, and I think that you’ve happened upon a specimen that he may be interested in.”

Griffiths shook his head. “As I said, I work privately.”

“Whatever you’ve been offered, he’ll beat.”

“I doubt that.”

“So you
have
found something then.”

Griffiths sighed as though tired of the game already. “Who are you representing?”

“That’s not important,” Ethan replied smoothly. “What is important is that they are willing to pay handsomely for the specimen.”

Griffiths shook his head again.

“You know nothing of what we’ve found, you don’t know where it is and you have no idea of its value, yet you’re sitting here trying to cut a deal with me over it.”

Ethan leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his drink. “Alien fossils are hard to come by.”

Griffith’s squint vanished completely and hard gray eyes bored into Ethan’s.

“How did you—”

“We have people,” Ethan cut across him, forestalling his question.

“Who’s
we
?” Griffiths asked, glancing at Rachel.

Ethan gestured around the square.

“We’d like to see the remains before making a bid. If they live up to expectation, then I’m sure that you’ll find our offer to be
extremely
generous.”

Griffiths stared at Ethan for a long moment, apparently unable to weigh up whether he was being played or had just walked into the deal of a lifetime. Ethan pushed harder. “Come on, you know that you’re sitting on a fortune. Why reserve it for one client when an auction would be far more lucrative. It’s not like we’re in Montana: you’re not going to be arrested for theft as long as nobody knows about what you’ve found.”

“My client is reliable and I am not greedy,” Griffiths said.

“I’m sure,” Ethan agreed, “but money is money and these remains are going to be in high demand if you open them up to the market.”

“You want me to make you bid against others for it?” Griffiths muttered. “Why would you do that instead of pushing for a bargain here and now?”

“Because we would win. Price is not an object, Mr. Griffiths. It is the quality of the specimen that counts.”

Griffith’s eyes narrowed.

“And if the remains are of sufficient quality and I was willing to sell?”

Ethan took a breath.

“Five million dollars, delivered in bonds or wire transfer. Anything you want.”

Griffiths promptly got up from his seat.

“Not even close, Mr. Warner. My client has already paid a deposit greater than that.”

Damn.
“A deposit? So he has seen the remains, in person?”

“Not yet,” Griffiths replied, shoving his newspaper under his arm. “But images were sent.”

“May I see them? It will affect our offer.”

“Client confidentiality,” Griffiths muttered as he turned away. “And your offer was shit.”

Ethan stood as Griffiths walked away, ignoring Rachel’s dismayed expression.

“You’re not a trained paleontologist,” he said. The fossil hunter kept walking. “Which makes me wonder, how did you know where to look to find such a magnificent specimen? It’s almost as if someone else had to find it for you.”

Griffiths slowed, standing for a moment with his back to Ethan before turning and looking at him. “What do you mean?”

Ethan was no longer smiling, and spoke loudly enough for people at other tables to hear him. “Doesn’t it make you wonder, who it was who found the remains and what happened to them?”

Griffiths looked about anxiously and then paced back toward the table, muttering under his breath.

“They were found by a security company conducting trials in the Negev using explosives. They turned something up and called us in to examine the remains.”

“Wonder why they didn’t call scientists instead, or the police?” Ethan mused out loud. “How would ordinary soldiers have known that they were looking at ancient bones that had such value? It could have been a murder scene for all they knew.”

Griffith’s features creased with irritation. “I have no idea and it’s none of your business. Stay out of it.”

The dealer turned away, but Ethan carried on talking loudly.

“Pretty convenient, too, those explosives perfectly excavating the remains without damaging them.” Griffiths kept on walking, but Ethan managed to get one last sentence in before he was out of earshot. “Although if somebody else, a scientist, say, had found and excavated the specimen, I’d be wondering what on earth happened to them. Worried, even.”

Rachel watched the fossil hunter vanish beyond the milling tourists, and turned to Ethan.

“Brilliant work so far, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

“He knows something,” Ethan said.

“And he’s told us nothing.”

“Didn’t need him to,” Ethan said. “Just needed to plant a seed of doubt in his mind for now is all.”

“So now what?”

Ethan finished his drink and stood up.

“Now we go and find Lucy’s dig site.”

FIRST DISTRICT STATION
M STREET SW, WASHINGTON DC

L
opez leaned back in her chair as she watched Tyrell heft his way laboriously toward her between ranks of desks and computer terminals.

The station covered everything from New York Avenue in the north of First District right down to Buzzard Point and the old navy yard on the Anacostia River, which meant that Lopez got to see America in all its guises. From the immaculate White House down to the decrepit projects of East Side along the border with Maryland, America’s heart bared its soul. One hundred eighteen fatal homicides this year. Better than the last.

Tyrell’s phone began ringing before he’d even had the chance to sit down. She watched him pick it up wearily.

“Tyrell.” He paused, frowned, and sighed. “Be right there.”

Lopez looked at him as he set the phone down. “Problem?”

“We’ve been summoned,” he intoned deeply.

Lopez got up and followed him down a long corridor lined with partitioned offices. The Hall of the High and Mighty housed the district commander’s office. They turned at a door marked
Powell,
Tyrell knocking briefly before striding in.

“You beckoned?” he asked as Lopez closed the door behind them.

Captain Louis Grant Powell was a robustly built African American with a thick mustache that seemed to be trying to make up for his receding hairline. Lopez had often wondered why Powell, a long-service officer who had somehow never made it past the rank and file to the true upper echelons of the MPD, had never been promoted, despite bearing a name that made him sound like a confederate general.

“Sit down, Detectives.”

“Too kind.”

If Powell was ever amused by Tyrell’s laconic humor, Lopez never noticed it. It was a wonder he knew whom he was actually talking to, given that he had yet to look up from the file he was scrutinizing. The word in the locker room was that Powell was up for retirement and had invested in new real estate, down Tampa way. Lopez waited in silence with Tyrell, and was rewarded with a question as Powell looked up at her.

“The bust over on Potomac Gardens, what’s the score?”

“Alleged crack overdose, three victims locked themselves inside an abandoned property just off the projects.”

Powell closed his file and looked up at them both.

“Victims, alleged,” he echoed thoughtfully. “You sent the bodies down to the medical examiner’s office.”

Tyrell answered, saving Lopez from incriminating herself.

“I didn’t consider it likely that the victims were crack addicts.” Powell folded his hands under his chin expectantly, his jowls bulging as Tyrell went on. “I wanted the pathology before we wrote this one off.”

Captain Powell nodded briefly.

“Axel Cain at the Bureau, the MPD on site, and even the DEA consider it to be a closed case. They’ve acknowledged the discrepancies but see little point in referring it to the district attorney. I agree with them.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Lopez said carefully, “this isn’t a drug-related crime. Dr. Fry has confirmed that they didn’t die from crack.”

Powell smiled thinly at her, and looked at Tyrell.

“From what I’ve read, Surgeon Fry has been unable to determine the exact time of death, let alone the exact cause. Tyrell, this one’s dead in the water and I haven’t got the manpower or the time to allow either yourself or Lopez to run around the District on another wild-goose chase. The border with Maryland and Prince George’s has enough crack ’n’ meth addicts for the entire country. I’d lay down serious bucks that there’s another dozen stiffs out there waiting to be stumbled upon. This isn’t a priority case.”

Lopez watched as Tyrell sucked in his cheeks.

“Last time I looked, death under suspicious circumstances warranted our attention.”

“Not above greater needs,” Powell cautioned. “This country is still under a level-three terrorist alert, and I need officers and men to maintain a vigil against God knows who planning God knows what. This can be left to beat cops. If something comes up that they can’t handle, then I’ll send it back your way.”

Tyrell’s face twisted into the kind of smile that looked to Lopez as though he were trying to bend an iron bar with his lips.

“Local PD will take one look at those bodies and be glad to have swept them off the streets. I doubt a coroner would even glance at the paperwork before signing it off.”

“He probably didn’t,” Powell agreed.

“What?”
Lopez and Tyrell asked in perfect unison.

“Recorded a verdict of misadventure.”

“We’ve got a crime scene here and we’re going to shut the door on it?”

“The door, Tyrell, is already shut,” Powell insisted.

“What if this is just a small piece of a bigger picture?” Tyrell pushed. “Those people were moved there after they died. If you give me just—”

“Just what?” Powell asked. “A few hours, a few days, a few careers? We haven’t got the resources for this right now. People die, Tyrell, sometimes for no other reason than their own damned stupidity. Let it go.”

Lopez watched as Tyrell took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. Powell tossed the file into his out box with a flourish as Tyrell hauled himself out of the chair in disgust, walking across to the door and opening it. Lopez got up to follow him. The open corridor beckoned, but she could see that Tyrell couldn’t help himself as he turned back to look over his shoulder at the captain.