Evidence_Under Fire 02-Trust Me, page 1
Trust Me
Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Grant
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 9781944571511
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Cover design by Rachel Grant
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This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
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All rights reserved.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Taken hostage by terrorists, an archaeologist must risk everything when a SEAL attempts to rescue her too soon…
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Archaeologist Diana Edwards is on a mission to uncover the link between artifact trafficking and terrorism. Just when she’s making progress, she’s kidnapped and forced to work for the very people she’s trying to stop. The nightmare deepens when she discovers the man who arranged her abduction is a terrorist everyone believes to be dead. A team of SEALs is sent in to save her, forcing her to make an impossible choice if she wants to stop looted artifacts from being used to fund brutal attacks across the globe.
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Navy SEAL Chris Flyte has one job to do, but the hostage won’t cooperate, endangering him and everyone on his team. After he completes the mission and Diana is safely on American soil, her story of abduction and being forced to dig becomes suspect. But when she shows up on his doorstep saying she’s seen one of her abductors, Chris has to wonder if the archaeologist is lying, or if a terrorist has followed her home.
Contents
Books By Rachel Grant
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Epilogue
Excerpt: The Buried Hours by R.S. Grant
Flashpoint Series
Fiona Carver Series
About the Author
Books By Rachel Grant
Evidence: Under Fire
Before the Storm: One Hot Night (prequel)
Into the Storm
Trust Me
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Evidence
Concrete Evidence
Body of Evidence
Withholding Evidence
Night Owl
Incriminating Evidence
Covert Evidence
Cold Evidence
Poison Evidence
Silent Evidence
Winter Hawk
Tainted Evidence
Broken Falcon
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Fiona Carver
Dangerous Ground
Crash Site
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Flashpoint
Tinderbox
Catalyst
Firestorm
Inferno
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Romantic Mystery
Grave Danger
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Paranormal Romance
Midnight Sun
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Writing as R.S. Grant
The Buried Hours
23.2-a
This one is for Annika Martin
Thank you for the years of friendship, support, brainstorming, plotting world domination, and belly laughs.
Chapter One
Amman, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
September
The man stalking her was tall and slender and barely trying to hide his pursuit. Diana took a winding path through the souk, increasing her pace by slow degrees. She didn’t want him to guess she’d spotted him until she could tuck into a service corridor and get the drop on him.
Seeing an opening, she ducked into the narrow gap between the colorfully draped stalls and wove between boxes and baskets filled with the overflow of stock.
She should have skipped the weekly visit to the Friday market when her security detail had been unable to meet her this morning, but this was the final market day of the summer season and therefore her last chance to talk to Bibi.
Her last chance to get a line on the Nabataean artifacts that were being stolen from sites in Jordan and Syria.
Diana hurried through the narrow alleyway between the rows of stalls. The aroma from the food court made her belly rumble. She should have eaten breakfast this morning, but she’d been looking forward to shawarma from her favorite food vendor. Knowing this was her last chance to have the best shawarma in Jordan until the market reopened in May left her feeling bereft.
Not that there was any guarantee she would be here next May, but she liked to think she would. Fieldwork had wrapped up ten days ago, and her grad students were ready to delve into analysis and conservation, which meant she had no reason to remain in Jordan much longer. But there was a good chance the university would invite her to return in the spring to prep for another field season—especially if she could deliver more grant money earmarked for excavation.
Plus, there was her work for Friday Morning Valkyries—a group that worked to stop artifact trafficking—that could resume upon her return. Of course, it was probably due to the FMV work that she was being followed, but she couldn’t walk away now. Bibi was ready to talk. She knew it.
She needed to get to Bibi’s stall before her pursuer caught up with her.
Was she being paranoid? It was a busy marketplace. Was it possible the guy was just another tourist?
She tucked herself behind a stack of boxes and quickly exchanged her red eşarp—a Turkish-style head covering—to a sky-blue Al-Amira two-piece veil. The Al-Amira was a close-fitting cap combined with a tubelike scarf, which changed the shape of her profile, but the cotton fabric was hotter against her skin than the lighter silk eşarp had been, making her wish the change wasn’t necessary.
Her white skin marked her as a foreigner, but there were plenty of tourists here, so she didn’t have to worry about standing out. She just needed to throw off the man following her.
If there was a man following her.
She always made it a point to vary her route through the market, never going directly to Bibi’s stall. She carried more than one kind of headscarf for just this reason. This, however, was the first time she’d had to make the switch in fifteen straight weeks of coming to this market. Naturally, it occurred on the day when she didn’t have the usual hired bodyguard following at a safe distance.
Unless the guy following her was her new guard?
No. Not possible. She’d had several different guards over the last fifteen weeks, and each time she’d been introduced to them first so she’d recognize them in the crowd and wouldn’t do exactly what she was trying to do now—lose the tail.
She squared her shoulders and cut through a gap in the tents, entering the public market again in a different row and far down the aisle from where she’d started.
Music filled the air as the sun shone bright. The aroma of food was stronger this close to the food court and stage where a band was playing. Much as she wanted to get her shawarma, she needed to keep moving. Talk to Bibi. Find out what she could about the antiquities deals that went down in the shadow market, then get back in her car and return to her apartment in the city.
Once home, she’d send Morgan and Freya—the founders of Friday Morning Valkyries—her final report. FMV had been unofficially dubbed the Monuments Women when it was formed two years before the US Army reactivated the famed World War II military unit known as the Monuments Men. But that unit, now called the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab, and
CHML was an active military unit that focused on protecting, removing, or restoring artifacts when sites and museums faced imminent danger from weather or war, while FMV was a government contractor doing the covert work of tracing the supply chain once the artifacts disappeared.
The work being covert was key. Almost no one in Jordan knew Diana was a Friday Morning Valkyrie in addition to working with Dr. Fahd Yousef to run the dig on the Nabataean site in the desert.
In this instance, the name Diana’s clandestine bosses had chosen was apt, as she always went to the Friday market early in the day. In Norse mythology, Valkyries guided the souls of the dead to Valhalla. Diana’s job was only slightly different—she sought to transport the objects of the dead to their rightful owners. In this instance, the people of Jordan or Syria.
In Syria’s case, any artifacts recovered would be protected by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, until such a time as they could be safely returned to the government.
After nearly four months in Jordan, however, Diana had only found one solid lead on the antiquities black market, and today was her last chance to get Bibi to talk.
Her cell phone buzzed, and she checked the screen. Morgan. Given that it was nearing noon in Amman, it was before five a.m. in Washington, DC, where Morgan lived. Diana couldn’t think of a single happy reason Dr. Morgan Adler would be calling at a time that was ungodly early for her.
Diana tucked herself between stalls again and answered. “What’s going on?”
“I was just notified your security detail sent you a cancellation and didn’t meet you outside the souk.”
“Yeah. I messaged them when no one showed and was told the guard was sick and they were scrambling to find someone to replace him. I guess he was too sick to call in ahead of time.”
“You’re in the souk now?”
“Yes. And I think someone is following me. But it’s not anyone from the security company. I’d recognize them.”
“You need to get out of there. Now. The security company had you down as a cancel for the day. No one got sick. Whoever told you that was lying.”
Alarm shot through Diana’s system. “And they called you, not me?”
“They’re supposed to send automated texts confirming cancellations to both of us. I’m thinking someone found a way to spoof your phone number, so it looked like it went to you. But they didn’t know about the automatic text to me. I called them because I knew you wouldn’t cancel. Not when it’s the last market day of the season. They’re sending someone now, but…”
“I’m leaving,” Diana said, stepping back into the central walkway.
“Stay on the phone with me. Tell me what you see,” Morgan said. “I’m linking to the security company. They’ll be able to hear too.”
“The crowd is getting thicker now that the band has started playing,” Diana said. “I’m weaving my way toward the central aisle. I’ll exit at the main gate where the most people are clustered.”
“You said you’re being followed. Can you describe him?”
She wanted to close her eyes to aid her memory in picturing the man, but she didn’t dare. “Brown male. Maybe six-two or three in height. Thin. Wearing traditional, male, light-colored dishdasha. Head covering is a white gutrah.”
Except for the taller-than-average height, those words could describe no fewer than half the men in the market. She supposed that was the point.
As she spoke, she wove through the groups of people milling about, aiming toward the larger groups. Safety in numbers, right?
The route to the exit would go right past Bibi’s booth. She considered skirting it and going down a different aisle, but she needed speed now.
Who had intercepted her call to the security company, and how had they managed that?
She reached the stall, which was usually stocked with trinkets for tourists—cheap artifact replicas that would fit in a carry-on airline bag—but she saw instead brightly colored fabrics, headscarves of different styles and colors.
Bibi’s booth was gone.
What had happened to the woman? Did the black-market suppliers of real artifacts catch on to Diana’s interest in Bibi’s wares?
She relayed the information to Morgan as she hurried past the stall.
Morgan responded with welcome news. “The security team is just a few minutes out.”
She told Morgan where her car was parked, at least a ten-minute walk from the souk. It might be a five-minute run for someone who didn’t have metal pins in her right ankle, but Diana was not that person. As it was, the fast walk had triggered her limp, but she didn’t let the pain slow her down.
“They’re sending two cars—one to the market and one to your car. Stay in the middle of the crowd instead of leaving the market. The streets might be quiet.”
“The crowd in front of the stage is growing. Maybe I should go there?”
But if she was in real danger, was she endangering innocent bystanders?
She paused in indecision until the choice was taken from her by a sharp scream, followed by a shout. “Diana!”
She turned to see Bibi in the grip of the tall man in the dishdasha. He held a knife to the woman’s throat.
“Run, and Bibi dies,” the man said. His English had a Jordanian accent.
Diana met Bibi’s gaze. The woman’s deep brown eyes were wide with terror.
Bibi’s job on market days was to lure tourist buyers into the underground antiquities market with low-end but very real artifacts she had in the back of her stall. She even packaged the goods with the replicas to aid the tourists in getting the items through customs.
A small but not insignificant percentage of those buyers got their first taste of the illicit trade and wanted something more valuable. A true treasure they could only show to certain associates and friends with a whispered “It’s the real deal, but we pretend it’s fake because the purchase might not have been entirely legal.”
Bibi identified the big game who hungered for rarer and older artifacts and passed their names on to the dealers, who then worked the clients over and sold pieces of Middle Eastern heritage and history to vain foreigners.
The people who supplied Bibi with her wares got their artifacts by stealing from sites, both known and unknown, across the region. Some were stolen from Petra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Westerners knew of Petra from its role in the third Indiana Jones movie, or more recently in the second Transformers movie, in which the filmmakers placed the World Heritage Site in Egypt.
American tourists who purchased artifacts from Bibi were not getting trinkets from a movie set, and it wasn’t a harmless crime because there were plenty of artifacts to go around—an argument Diana had heard from more than one dealer. No, these days, the looting of famous sites like Petra and lesser-known sites throughout the Middle East served one primary purpose: funding terrorism.
Bibi was a small but important cog in the system. Diana had approached her with the ruse of having artifacts to sell in an attempt to infiltrate the supply network. Taking out the suppliers would be far more effective than recovering artifacts one at a time after they’d been sold and illegally imported into the US. Only if they took out the supply line would they be able to stop millions upon millions of dollars from flowing into terrorist pockets and thereby funding attacks throughout the world.
Diana was a hidden soldier in the War on Terror. Her plan had been ambitious, and now…it had failed.
She’d killed Bibi and probably herself.
“I’m sorry, Morgan,” she whispered into the phone.
“Diana don’t do this. Stall. A security team is on the way.”
“He’s got a knife to Bibi’s throat.”
Morgan cursed loud and long. In a different situation, Diana would be impressed with the woman’s creativity. “How long ago was your subdermal tracker replaced?”
Diana kept her gaze fixed on Bibi as she did the math. “Three weeks, two days.”
“Good. So there’s no recent cut to identify where it is under your skin. If they take you, don’t trigger it until you know you’re at your final destination. Once triggered, it only lasts four hours.”
