Safe Passage

“Sure.” Scott hung up, then checked to make sure Skye was still sleeping. He closed the heavy kitchen door, activated the scrambler and called Rex.

The Bellona boss picked up on the first ring. “Hey, I was just about to call you. Bloody good hunch on Danko, old chap.”

“Meaning?” Scott spoke quietly.

“He’s linked with several offshore companies who’ve made a killing from this U.S. beef embargo. And get this, they’re companies Bellona has suspected of having financial ties to the Anubis group.”

Scott’s fingers tightened around his sat phone. “You’re kidding.” Heat pulsed through his veins. Images seared through his mind. The Anubis cell in the Thar that he’d been hunting. His blown-out knee when he’d gotten too close. “These links,” he said. “Anything proven?”

“Not yet. Working on it. But it appears we’re not the only ones interested in Danko. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is nosing around. These particular companies Danko is aligned with also happen to have a vested interest in seeing the North American produce market go down the tubes.”

He whistled softly. “You think Danko and these companies are tied somehow to the Rift Valley Fever and this whitefly thing?”

“Hell knows, but I’m joining the dots and it’s shaping up to be a pretty darned interesting picture, especially when you throw Dr. Van Rijn into the mix. If the whitefly get much further south, Danko and his bunch stand to make another killing from investment into the stock of U.S. competitors.”

“Danko must have gotten wind of the S.E.C. probe.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s split. Left town.”

Silence. “What about the wedding?”

“He left our doctor high and dry at the altar.”

“And where is she?”

Scott glanced at the kitchen door. Behind it the broken bride lay sleeping in front of the fire. He cleared his throat. “She’s still here.”

“You getting close?”

Too close.

“Close enough. She took it pretty bad, the whole wedding thing.”

Scott could hear the hesitation on the other end of the line. It wasn’t like him to get personal. Rex knew that. “Yes. Well, good…and keep me informed.”

“No worries. I’ve got my eye on her.” I’ve just got to keep my hands to myself.

Scott flipped the phone shut, shoved his feelings brusquely into a dark corner of his brain, ran through the cold facts. This possible Danko-Anubis tie threw everything into stark new light.

How was Skye connected?

He shoved open the kitchen door, limped slowly into the living room. Soft amber light glowed from the dying embers in the hearth. But the room was still a cocoon of warmth. Honey was having little doggy dreams at the foot of the sofa, her paws quivering in imaginary chase. Skye was curled like a child on the couch, dark hair soft across her face, blanket falling to the floor.

Scott lifted it to cover her properly. As he did, he caught the scent of his own soap. Then he caught something else.

A tattoo.

He stilled.

His baggy gray track pants had slipped low on her slim hips, exposing a tiny image on the smooth olive-toned skin near her hipbone. He bent closer.

His breath caught in his throat.

It was the stylized head of a jackal on the body of a man. Black and angular. Egyptian style. Bared teeth. Long, pointed snout. Ears like horns.

Anubis!

Scott’s heart thudded hard and quiet against his chest. This was too much to be coincidence.

Dr. Skye Van Rijn bore the ancient Egyptian symbol hijacked by La Sombra the mysterious mastermind behind the vast and growing shadowy Anubis organization. A group that had begun colluding with international organized crime.

But instead of a staff, the Anubis on her hip was depicted with a long, slim sword.

Scott gritted his teeth, yanked up the blanket, dropped it over her, spun around and grabbed the heavy iron fire poker.

He dropped to his haunches and jabbed the poker at the glowing logs. He thrust more fuel onto the rising flames, yanked the fire curtain shut, then slumped into the armchair beside the hearth.

He stared at the mysterious woman asleep on the sofa opposite him. Calm and innocent in repose. But who would she be when she woke?

One of La Sombra’s soldiers?

He flopped his head against the back of the chair, closed his eyes. Little was known about La Sombra apart from the code name given him when he trained under Castro’s regime on the Isle of Pines.

Authorities did not know his real name. Nor his nationality. And no one knew where The Shadow was based. It was believed he moved around, adopted different identities, and only those in his closest confidence knew it was he who called the shots. His cells, stationed around the world, were so tightly structured that none of the members knew who delivered the orders and who controlled whom.

La Sombra was the genius who’d stepped into the confusion created by the demise of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. He began to consolidate a loose net of international terrorist groups that were spawned during the 1960s and 1970s. Groups that were left retarded or disenfranchised and directionless with the collapse of the Soviet empire. No matter the religion or ideals of these various groups, La Sombra had reinstated a flow of funds and given them common cause, a reason to unite and cooperate in a massive international web…to fight what he called the American Evil, or Western Imperialism.