Page 90 of Afraid to Hope

“Thank you.” Natasha pulled her organizer from her tote and unrolled it, then extracted her inspection gloves and stood over the remains.Hello. I’m going to take a look at you. I’ll be gentle.

Her body trembled with reverence as her gloved fingers came into contact with the first bone—a femur. She inspected it first, turning it over in her hands, looking for any indication of tampering, then placed it on the covered table. Next, Natasha chose the partial cranium and mandible fragments, each with several attached teeth. Female. The cranium’s parietal sutures were closed, confirming the female had been an adult when she died. She placed them on the table, above the femur.

“How much is there?” Bane asked, taking photos while she examined the remains.

Natasha didn’t look up but continued her inspection. “Not much, but what is here is invaluable. The human body has two hundred and six bones. Only a fraction of those were found.” There was enough of the pelvic girdle—the ilium, ischium, and pubis were fused—to reconfirm theHomo sapienswas female and that she had reached adulthoodwhen she died. Natasha scrutinized theiliumcarefully.Perforations and post-birth ossification marring the largest segment of the girdle were evidence the woman had given birth. She placed the bones of the pelvic girdle between the cranium and the right femur and continued to add other bones—several ribs, the right patella, fragments of both humeri and the right tibia, vertebrae, and more—forming an incomplete skeleton. “I wish there was more time to examine her.”

“With this few? Like what?” Bane asked.

“Her health. Possibly how she died. But we’re not here for that. It would have been incredible to have been present when she was found. There were other clues there.” Natasha continued positioning the remains of the ancient woman, making sure none of the bones or fragments were duplicates or were from another individual. “That’s all of them.”

Bane took another series of photos.

Natasha worked in tandem with the lab technician to process the remains through the large machine, rewrapping them meticulously afterward, and placing them into a wood crate with thick insulation. Gwafa’s men stood around impatiently by the open hangar overhead door, waiting to load the cargo plane.

“Well?” Bane craned his neck over her shoulder to look at the information appearing on the screen.

“Truly remarkable,” she whispered. “It matches the readout Gwafa gave me.”

“This is it?” he asked, helping to nest the remains in the heavily padded crate.

“Yes. This is it.”

Commotion and shouting pulled Natasha and Bane’s attention away from what they were doing. Men in full combat gear stormed through the open overhead, rifles and guns drawn, the lettering on their tactical vests either identifying them as the Moroccan police or INTERPOL.

“Aw, fuck.” Bane glanced around quickly and yanked Natasha behind a stack of crates off to the side of the action where they’d hopefully be out of the path of the fighting and stray bullets. He pushed her to the ground. “Stay low.”

Natasha rolled and faced up, reaching under her skirt and pulling their guns from her compression shorts, handing Bane his.

“Thanks,” he said gruffly, releasing the safety. “Now stay down. We’re safer staying hidden.” He partially covered her with his body, and they watched from under the pallet of crates.

Guns flashed and boomed. Bullets flew everywhere, slugging into the walls and the splintering crates. Gwafa’s men were undisciplined and inaccurate, shooting often, missing completely. The police and INTERPOL combatants measured their return of fire, striking their targets. Gwafa pulled a gun from his hip, only to take a bullet above his knee. He went down; his scream could be heard above the loud gunfight.

There was no mistaking the sound of another bullet tearing into the flesh of another man. He dropped next to Gwafa, blood flowing from below his ribs. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the acrid gun smoke.

The pile of guns, knives, and makeshift weapons grew as Gwafa and his colleagues were apprehended, cuffed, and searched. The man who’d tried to take Bane’s camera earlier made an attempt to run. The largest of the INTERPOL team, who matched Bane in size, brought the gun butt down on his head, and he collapsed to the floor, eyes closed.

“Fucker,” the man growled in English.

Natasha’s heart pounded. An American. That surprised her even though the contractors making up an INTERPOL team could be from anywhere. She kept her gun trained on the action.

“Drop your guns. Hands behind you,” he ordered Natasha and Bane in rough Arabic, kicking their pieces out of their reach once they’d complied, then safetying and securing them in his vest. His helmet, goggles, multicam, and beard obscured his face and made him frighteningly ominous.

Natasha did as she was told. The knives tucked into her boots bit into her ankles and feet. She turned her head to Bane, who spoke quietly to her in French. “American special ops. Breathe, sweetheart. We’ll figure this out.”

“No talking,” he warned Bane in Arabic, tapping his gun against one of the hard protectors covering his knees to drive his point home. “You, belly to the floor, hands behind your back,” he barked at the lab technician. “Now.”

The man nodded to two of the others with him who were dressed similarly and switched to English. “Cuff the lab boy and put him with the other network lackeys, then go help load everything up on the plane except that box,” he said, pointing to theHomo sapiens.“I need your cuffs, Fury.”

“Reaper,” Fury said, tossing the large man the cuffs, then escorting the stumbling lab technician between himself and the other man.

Only Natasha, Bane, and Reaper remained in the large room with theHomo sapiens.He squatted between them and lowered his voice so that it didn’t carry outside to where Gwafa and his man were being loaded into a large truck by the DSGN. “I know you understand everything I’m saying to you. Emmet Cantrell sends his regards. I’m going to slip the cuffs on you but not close them. I’m sorry that your positions aren’t comfortable, but you need to remain as you are for your safety until the Moroccan police get these men out of here. Got it?”

Both of them gave Reaper brief nods, and he left them where they were.

Natasha’s neck was cramping, and the muscles of her back were throbbing.

“Hang in there. I know this is a bitch. We’ll be out of here in no time flat.”

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