Page 61 of Trust Me

She nodded.

“Please give your consent for the recording,” he gently nudged.

“Right. Yes. I, Dr. Diana Edwards, give permission for this interview to be recorded by Ian Boyd.”

And then they were off, speaking in a mix of English and Arabic as she relayed her early weeks in Jordan. She mentioned the Friday market only because it was where she’d been taken from, so she described it as one of her favorite things to do every weekend. Ian was familiar with that particular market, and at one point in his questioning, she wondered if he guessed her true reason for visiting the market regularly. After all, it was a known entry point for the underground antiquities market.

Mason was as bored as she expected him to be and never made a move to interrupt the discussion. Dennis, on the other hand, jumped in a few times with questions on the dig, his passion for the subject showing.

He was, in fact, a pet lover.

It wasn’t long before they reached the moment of her abduction, and she said nothing about the subdermal tracker, nor did she offer a reason the SEALs had learned of her abduction so quickly.

In a mix of Arabic and English, she described being brought to what had looked like a Bedouin camp that first afternoon. She described the tent in English and her first impression of it being a clever disguise. She described entering the tent and seeing a table laden with artifacts and the demand that she identify them and put a price on each.

After being walked through everything, she found her cool reserve and employed it to describe the slap that had rung her bell that first day. She’d received more blows in the following days and weeks, but that one had been the scariest with the great unknown before her.

Ian’s questions were probing but gentle. Mason was finally interested, no doubt eager for more salacious details. Dennis’s look had changed from cold businessman to paternal, and she didn’t mind it so much. At least he seemed to be acknowledging something horrible had happened to her, which had been missing from all their earlier communications.

She went on to describe the artifacts and that she’d initially believed that was what they’d wanted her for—to authenticate and value artifacts.

“What did you tell them?” Dennis asked. “How were you able to determine value?”

She couldn’t tell him about having studied what things went for in the black market thanks to Freya’s work to track the supply, so she shrugged. “I made it all up. I assigned dates at the oldest end of the range for everything, to increase its perceived value. I made it sound sellable even if it wasn’t a particularly unique or interesting piece. I figured they want money so I’d make everything sound precious, with the exception of the lamp that had been altered.”

“One was damaged?”

“Not damaged. Changed. Some artifact dealers will take an actual historic piece and add something to it to up the value. Like the James Ossuary, a burial box that supposedly bears the remains of Jesus’s brother. The inscription in that instance was unusual. Burial box inscriptions, in general, don’t include siblings’ names. It doesn’t mean the inscription is fake, added centuries or even millennia later, but given how unusual that is, it’s highly improbable that it is real.”

Dennis nodded. She bet he knew all about the famous box that some still believed to be authentic.

From there, she described a man showing up to speak with her and learning that she wasn’t there merely to authenticate, but that the camp was in the middle of a site, and she was expected to dig to provide them with more artifacts.

She didn’t describe Rafiq. Nor did she describe the attempted rape by Jamal. She had no need to feed Mason’s growing interest in the physical traumas she’d faced, and it wasn’t pertinent to the narrative she was feeding his father.

When it came to the showdown with the SEAL, she described the knife at her throat and feeling scared and trapped and left it at that.

She described the way station where she’d watched the video of Fahd’s murder in the briefest of terms, mentioning Fahd and her role in choosing the dig location not at all. She would leave it up to FMV, the CIA, and DIA if they wanted to share that information with the State Department. The rest of the story was mundane. She oversaw the looting of the site to stay alive.

She could see that Dennis wanted her to describe the artifacts she found, but he didn’t dare press for details given that she was describing her worst nightmare. It wouldn’t be seemly to ask about the goodies.

She was drained and exhausted when she got to the fight in the stairwell and eventual rescue. A glance at her watch showed only ninety minutes had passed since her arrival. She’d relived it all in that compressed time.

“And then I spent a month in the hospital in Landstuhl,” she added, skipping over all the questions that became interrogation with one simple sentence. She took a sip of her water and tried to think of what she could say to wrap up this interview. She had a headache and wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and forget everything she’d just described.

“I appreciate you sharing all this with us, Diana,” Dennis said. “But there is one area I feel like I need a better grip on before I meet with the State Department. You see, I’m certain they’re going to mention your false identification of the leader of the terrorist group as being Makram Rafiq, a man who has been dead for two years. That’s really going to be the major sticking point, and I find it quite…odd that you left that out of your story completely.”

Diana studied the other two men’s faces. Ian wasn’t surprised by Dennis’s words, but neither was he pleased by them. Mason, on the other hand, looked positively gleeful.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Diana’s stomach roiled, but she held back the nausea with sheer will as she crossed the ornate hotel lobby. She wasn’t entirely sure what Dennis Gardner’s plans were, but they couldn’t be good for her, not if he planned to throw her to the wolves with the State Department.

She didn’t think the situation could be any worse, until she spotted Chris on the bench seat outside the Edgar Bar in the hotel lobby. Clearly waiting for her.

“Are you following me?” She gripped the cane. She could beat him with it if she had to, but she figured she was safe enough in the busy lobby. SEALs generally couldn’t risk assaulting women in public.

“No. I was at FMV this morning. Morgan mentioned you’d be here and conveniently gave me the time of your meeting with Gardner. I figured I could offer you a ride home, since I didn’t give you a ride to your doctor’s appointment this morning.”

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