Treasure of Eden Read online

  He looks familiar Jaime tried not to stare directly at him. Does he work in our headquarters, or have I seen him at the hospital?

  The rest of the passengers, all soldiers, having been given the go-ahead from the flight engineer, gladly unhooked their safety belts. Most of them grabbed gear from under the seats and made ready to deplane.

  The man in the backseat stood seconds after Jaime did, grabbed his large backpack–and a second one, tear shaped as well. The two packs together stopped Jaime in her tracks.

  This was the guy from the smoking pavilion.

  Was he following her? It wasn’t unheard of for a civilian contractor to travel by Sherpa, but he had run onto the plane at the last minute. If he was following her, knowing she was going on leave, it was likely he’d been expecting her to take the larger, vastly more comfortable C-140 later in the morning with the rest of the leave group. The Sherpa would have thrown him for a loop.

  This guy had barely made it onto her plane.

  What should she do? This was where she was supposed to pick up her “package,” her assignment, before traveling on. But the origin of this package was what the Army would call close-hold. No one’s business. Especially not Mr. Sling-Bag.

  Maybe she was imagining things. If he went through the terminal and continued on to another destination, she’d know she was overreacting.

  Jaime let him deplane first, as she removed her body armor and Kevlar. He was still looking sick to his stomach, but he went down the steps and headed out with the other soldiers across the tarmac for the single-story cement building that served as a terminal.

  The other soldiers then moved on about their business.

  The nervous contractor waited just outside the entrance to the terminal’s passenger holding area, trying in vain to look nonchalant as he watched Jaime deplane.

  Oh, shit.

  She couldn’t believe this was happening. She had no time to deal with Mr. Sling-Bag. But, more than that, she was not psychologically ready to deal with the thought that her current mission might be important enough that she already had a tail.

  Furthermore, as an Eden Operative she would normally have all sorts of great devices for communication and for dealing with situations such as this one. Of necessity, she’d left those toys in Germany when she deployed. If something happened to her, or her duffels were searched, she couldn’t afford for the equipment to be discovered. Consequently she only had one “drop cloth,” which was an Operative’s equivalent of a can of Mace. Should she use it now?

  This entire thought process occurred as Jaime walked down the steps of the Sherpa. By the time she reached the tarmac, she had made her decision.

  The contractor would have identified himself to her if he were on her team. And no one else’s team was supposed to know about her pickup.

  Instead of turning right and heading straight into the passenger holding area, Jaime turned left and followed a sign for the MCT, or “Movement Control Team.” The MCT consisted of a handful of COSCOM soldiers–her people–who coordinated the movement of people and supplies through Tallil. She decided to use a brief visit to her soldiers as an excuse to see if anyone followed her.

  She rounded the corner to their office. It was closed, with a sign on the door saying: “Back in 10 minutes.”

  Now what?

  Jaime spied a series of five latrines lined up behind an eight-foot-high wall of concrete slabs known as Texas barriers. She turned and walked down the row of latrines, noting that each stall displayed a green code indicating it was vacant.

  She made a quick decision and entered the last one, and waited silently. As she listened for her tail, she pulled a purse pack of tissues from her small duffel and tore it open. In the center of the tissues was another sealed pack. She grabbed and opened it, removing the slightly damp cloth.

  After a minute, she heard someone approach. Was it him?

  Whoever it was stopped at the first latrine and opened the door–but apparently didn’t go in. The footsteps went to the second door, and a pause as the door opened and shut again. Then the third. It had to be him–and he had to be looking for her.

  Jaime took the third pause as the opportunity to emerge from her latrine. It was the contractor, and it was clear she’d surprised him. He quickly tried to look as though he were waiting for a stall to become available.

  “Hey,” Jaime said, holding her latrine door open for him. “You’d better use this one; it’s the only one with paper!” She smiled and waited to see how far he’d go not to blow his cover. He approached the open stall door.

  As the contractor passed her, Jaime grabbed him from behind, reaching around to put the cloth from inside the Kleenex packet tightly over his nose and mouth. Then she held on as the drug began to work.

  As he went limp, she dragged him into the latrine, letting the door fall shut behind them.

  She sat him on the seat. He slumped to one side, and she positioned him so that he wouldn’t fall forward.

  Jaime took one brief moment to look at the contractor in the shadowy light. He was short, maybe five foot four. His hair was cropped, but not an Army cut. He was balding in back. His nose was thin and beaklike, and he wore glasses with black rims. He didn’t have his bags on him. The ID on his lanyard identified him as Raymond Maynard, a civilian working for Army Material Command. It made no sense.

  Time was short. Jaime quickly exited the latrine. As she did, another soldier was coming up. They nodded briefly as he opened the first door.

  She hoped it would be a while before there were five latrine users at a time.

  Jaime spotted the contractor’s bags on the path by the Texas barrier. She surreptitiously picked them up and threw them behind the latrines.

  She wasn’t worried about the health of the contractor. The drug on the cloth was a great improvement over Terris knockout drugs. The man would sleep for forty minutes if no one found him, and then wake up only slightly confused. Even if someone found him, they wouldn’t be able to rouse him enough to give any helpful information for another half hour or so.

  God willing, Jaime, the package, and the Sherpa would be well on the way to Kuwait by then.

  She turned and headed back to the passenger holding area.

  Jaime entered the waiting area to find two people: a young soldier sleeping on his duffel and a distinguished-looking woman who appeared to be in her late sixties, vibrant and healthy. She was a little taller than Jaime and had the physique of a lifelong swimmer.

  The woman watched with calm curiosity as Jaime approached.

  “You’ve journeyed well?” Jaime held out her hand to shake as she waited for the code phrase that would confirm this woman as the economist she was supposed to meet.

  “Exceedingly well.” The woman’s smile was warm and genuine as she stood and took Jaime’s offered hand in a firm grip.

  “I’m your final guide,” was the chaplain’s reply as she returned the smile and shouldered the woman’s backpack. Jaime motioned that they should proceed out the door and toward the aircraft. She noted that the woman she knew to be Dr. Andrea Farmer was carrying the Kevlar and protective vest required for the flight, so all things seemed in order for the next phase of their journey: the military hop to Ali Ah Salem Air Base in Kuwait followed by a civilian flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

  As the two women crossed the windswept tarmac, a safe enough distance from others to afford some privacy, Dr. Farmer asked lightly, “So we’re leaving our unexpected companion behind?”

  Jaime continued looking straight ahead, but her shoulders relaxed a bit as she said, “That’s certainly my hope.”

  “Thanks for watching out for me,” was the older woman’s simple reply. “Do you suppose we’re in the clear now?”

  I thought we were in the clear before! Jaime thought to herself, but she replied, “We’ll be alert, but I think we’re traveling alone. Dr. Farmer, are you sure you want to continue?”

  “Please, it’s Andrea. And if the mission wasn’t
important, I wouldn’t be here. One unexpected companion is certainly not enough to stop me!”

  The other passengers had now caught up with them. The two finished the approach in silence. As soon as everyone had stowed their gear and seated themselves, the flight engineer went into his safety briefing. As he explained the requirement for low-altitude flight until they crossed the Kuwait border, Jaime glanced back at the now empty seat where the contractor had been.

  Why would anyone care that she was escorting an economist to the World Economic Forum in Davos?

  Within two days, this entire mission would be over and Jaime would be on true leave. The first part required her to get Dr. Farmer–Andrea–to her meeting in Davos. Once Jaime was on the ground in Germany, she’d have her “toys,” as well as communication with other Operatives. In Davos itself, a whole team of Operatives was already in place. Although Jaime didn’t know the entire plan, it occurred to her that the simple fact that a team was required meant whatever meeting Andrea Farmer was planning to attend was probably not on the printed schedule and the situation was likely dangerous.

  Still, two days. How hard could it be? As the Sherpa rolled down the runway, Jaime closed her eyes and imagined taking the remainder of her leave to actually relax, maybe in Davos, maybe somewhere else.

  She gave only a short glance to the latrine trailer as the plane headed off into the clear sky.

  January 24, 2007, 8:24 a.m.

  (3 days, 1 hour, 6 minutes until end of auction)

  Steigenberger Hotelrestaurant

  Davos, Switzerland

  * * *

  The dollar hit a fourteen-year low against the pound and also weakened versus the euro. J. Aldrich Woodbury rattled his Wall Street Journal with irritation and folded it back to examine the financial headlines more closely. It was no surprise. Just ten days earlier the Financial Times Group had unequivocally announced that the euro had displaced the dollar on the bond market. But that didn’t make it any less annoying.

  A waiter stopped by the businessman’s breakfast table with a fresh pot of coffee, but he waved him off. Aldi, as only his family and oldest friends were permitted to call him, was not interested in coffee or croissants.

  Breakfast is for wimps. He wasn’t interested in the rustic wooden crossbeams and the padded bench seat in the private nook he occupied. He took for granted the solitude he purchased by reserving this dining room, which was normally open only for evening meals, and the waiter whose sole purpose this morning was to see to his needs. And he couldn’t be less interested in any of the amenities the Hotel Belvédère, or even the city of Davos for that matter, had to offer.

  J. Aldrich Woodbury had one and only one passion. It was currency. Not finances and economics in general. Not the simple massing of wealth into bigger and bigger piles. No, his treasure was currency, the ebb and flow of power in the world financial markets based upon whose currency was strongest, or perceived to be the strongest, and what served as a hard currency backing that system.

  And today, Woodbury’s attention was on the U.S. dollar.

  Dammit! It’s dropping quicker than I thought.

  For years, the U.S. dollar had been the standard unit of currency for the international markets of gold and oil, and it was the most widely held reserve currency across the globe. But the recent rise of the euro and American blunders in foreign trade and the domestic mortgage market left the dollar falling in actual value as well as global respect and trust.

  J. Aldrich Woodbury, banker, financier, and behind-the-scenes advisor to many key policy makers in D.C., had foreseen all this. Given the choice, he would have preferred to keep the dollar in its preeminent position. But that was a dangerous dream that would only lead to personal financial disaster.

  So, as he saw it, there were two choices. Either watch the markets closely, and be ready to respond quickly when the bottom dropped out, or give the system a push and ride on top of the wave.

  Woodbury did not like waiting, and he refused to let his financial future be decided by others, whereas the fact that he was about to decide the financial futures of millions of ordinary people didn’t faze him at all.

  He withdrew his BlackBerry from the inside pocket of his black wool suit, and punched a few buttons to look at the closing numbers from the Asian markets.

  It’s time! He flicked the instrument onto vibrate and returned it to its hiding place. It’s time to take action — no more wait and see.

  He stood, reaching into his pant pocket to find whatever change was rattling with his keys and threw it on the table for the waiter. It was three U.S. quarters.

  Spend it quick. He folded the paper under his arm and headed back for his room. Soon it will be worthless.

  January 24, 2007, 9:10 a.m.

  (3 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes until end of auction)

  Geneva, Switzerland

  * * *

  Frank McMillan paced his office, trying not to shout into the phone.

  What do you mean, you lost her in Tallil?

  Maynard’s voice was more annoyed than apologetic. “When she got off the plane, I followed her to the latrines. She was waiting for me. She knocked me out with some sort of inhalant.”

  “So…where is she?” Frank’s anger was barely controlled.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, she got back on the plane, or I don’t know, she stayed in Tallil and went somewhere on the ground from there?”

  “I…don’t…know.”

  Nothing in Maynard’s records indicated the man was inept. But by God!

  “So you’ve lost Jaime Richards. After all these months of watching her, she finally moves, and you lose her on her first stop.”

  “Um, yes, but…”

  “And now she can ID you.”

  “Well, yes.”

  Frank was livid. Jaime Richards was moving, possibly inside Iraq, and he’d lost her.

  He wanted to explode, but he still needed information from Maynard.

  “Find…out…if…she…got…on…the…goddamned…plane.”

  “I tried,” said the undercover agent. “But they wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Did you show identification?”

  “Yes. Of course!”

  Everything Frank McMillan had accomplished that day, everything that was under control, vanished. The fact that a chaplain had realized she had a tail–and had taken him down–was the final proof Frank needed to convince him she was more than a chaplain, proof she was doing something that necessitated knocking someone out.

  What if she was heading back to wherever she’d been for the last three years? What if this was his big chance, the one he’d been waiting for?

  His teeth were clenched as he said, “You will call me within fifteen minutes and inform me of the location of Jaime Richards.”

  As Frank spoke, a petite Frenchwoman with thick, straight black hair, who was an associate on the Terrorism Task Force, came into his office carrying papers. Normally he was pleased to see her, as she managed to make office attire look stylish and had a charming accent. Frank had no time for liaisons, but she made the prospect enticing. Today he cursed himself for not closing his door as he finished the conversation. As she handed him a memo, she said, “Richards. Is that the chaplain you’ve been watching?”

  “Jaime Lynn Richards, yes,” Frank answered.

  “She’s probably heading for Davos by now. She’s on the invited list for the World Economic Forum. She even has reservations at the Steigenberger Belvédère, where most of the key players stay.” The woman gave a small shrug. “Means she must know someone.”

  Frank looked at her like she’d somehow dropped from heaven. “Sylvie, how long have you known this?”

  “Since we got the list,” she said offhandedly. “I thought you’d seen it.”

  “You’re an angel,” he said.

  “You’re easily impressed,” she answered, as she headed back down the hall.

  Enough with the waiting and watching.
The pieces were all coming together. After the debacle in Tallil, Frank was done with trusting subordinates to handle Richards. It was time for another meeting, just the two of them.

  A meeting Jaime Richards would never forget.

  January 24, 3:30 p.m.

  (2 days, 18 hours, 0 minutes until end of auction)

  Frankfurt, Germany

  * * *

  Jaime strode from the terminal into the large building that housed the airport parking garage. She and Dr. Farmer had made it, as scheduled, from Iraq through Kuwait and into Germany. Jaime was now officially on leave from the Army–and she was on her own, to get Andrea Farmer to Davos by nightfall.

  It had been an unusually warm winter in Europe, although the air had a refreshing bite to it, and Jaime pulled her jacket closed and zipped it up.

  Jaime glanced at the parking lot information she’d just gotten as a text message, which gave her the level, row, and space number of the car that went with the key she had been handed by a gentleman in the greeting area. She was more than pleased to arrive at the designated space to find a titanium gray four-door sedan with heated leather seats and high-end stereo speakers. She opened the trunk and threw in her duffel and Andrea’s small suitcase. Then Jaime found and unzipped the black nylon carryall that contained clothing she kept at the ready at her place in Hochspeyer, which had been picked up and placed into the car’s trunk for her use. From it, she removed an even smaller satchel. She looked through it quickly as she and Andrea headed for the front seat. Jaime made certain her passport and international driver’s license were easily accessible, then got out her trusty handheld, issued to every Eden Operative, and gave a sigh of relief to have her Eden lifeline in her pocket once again.

  As Jaime turned on the car, the GPS blinked awake in the dashboard and a pleasant male voice announced it was programmed to guide the car to the Steigenberger Belvédère in Davos.

  “Hey, thanks, Rupert,” she said, then smiled toward Andrea and explained that she always named her talking GPSs. “I find giving him a name makes it friendlier,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go ahead and check in.” She put the earpiece into her ear.