скачать книгу бесплатно
I repeated the invective. “Do you want the job or not?”
He wanted it. He’d already admitted it was a dream come true.
“Only if the money is right.”
I let the silence drag on then countered with a salary that was way too low.
“No way. Up it another thirty percent and there’s room for discussion. I gotta go.”
“Don’t you hang up on me!”
Several beats went by.
“You still there?” he asked.
“I’m here,” I said grumpily. “I’ll split my bonus. But that means the project has to come in on time or I’ll be all over you.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“Go get a visa.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He disconnected.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm down.
He was still irksome as ever. Why after all this time was Damon Hernandez back in my life?
Someone up there must have it in for me.
Chapter 2
“Bye, Dad. I love you.”
“Be safe, little girl.”
My dad’s voice, the booming, authoritative voice, reduced to a whisper, now sounding lifeless; a mere echo of what it once had been. But at least he was talking. I blew him a kiss through the phone’s mouthpiece and disconnected.
If I accomplished only one thing in Tibet, it would be clearing his name. My dad would not have been involved in any type of plot to steal an artifact, especially a Buddha statue lent to a museum in the United States and on his watch. It was ludicrous.
I had a feeling this was going to be the trip of two lifetimes—mine and my dad’s.
Tossing my cell phone into my backpack, I navigated the crowded airline terminal and went in search of Damon. I hadn’t seen him at the gate’s boarding area. The final boarding announcements were now being made. Damon was still nowhere in sight. Please, God, don’t let him let me down.
There were a few passengers hovering around the counter when I reluctantly boarded the aircraft, none of them Damon. I flopped into the vacant seat next to Althea. The minute the seat belt sign went off, and the flight attendant announced it was safe to get up, I flew out of my uncomfortable coach seat and went in search of Damon. I got to the seat Whit had reserved for Damon, one over the wing with more legroom, and sufficiently far from me. I found a woman seated there.
Damn him! Now what was I going to do?
“Try first class. Those passengers are usually the first ones on,” Althea suggested when I returned. “You and I arrived late.”
I shot her a puzzled look. “What would he be doing there?”
The Tibetan government hadn’t sprung for expensive seats. We were a team, we sat together.
“Who knows?” Her expression indicated she was holding back.
Sauntering by a bewildered flight attendant, I whisked through the curtain separating coach from first and sashayed into the cabin.
“Miss,” the attendant called after me. “Miss, there’s a bathroom in the back.”
“I’m looking for a friend,” I tossed over my shoulder.
I stood at the back getting my bearings. No, impossible, that could not be Damon’s silver-streaked curls in 3B. That would not be him seated with his feet up on the recliner. On his tray table were a bottle of brand-name water and a plate of appetizers. Back in coach we still hadn’t seen anything looking remotely like food.
“Hey,” I said, presenting myself. “When did you get here?” I swiped a canapé off his plate and bit into it. “Not bad!”
“Phe,” Damon greeted me as if we were the best of friends. “How nice of you to visit.” He raised his water bottle in a jaunty salute. “Sorry I missed the briefing. Bad traffic on the expressway. I made the flight by the skin of my teeth. My seat was released. I had to plead, cajole but finally persuaded someone to upgrade me.”
Nothing had changed. He’d always had a problem with tardiness. I bit into the canapé wishing it was Damon’s head. He removed his feet from the recliner and gestured to the plate.
“Help yourself to as many as you would like.”
My stomach was growling, but I wouldn’t give Damon the satisfaction of cleaning up all of his leftovers. I’d humbled myself enough, practically begging him to take this job and then splitting my bonus with him. What was wrong with me? I needed my head examined.
“Come on back,” I invited, although it damn near choked me. “Althea and I can fill you in on the briefing.”
He made a production of yawning. I wanted to slap him. “Can’t it wait until after I nap?” He propped one leg over the other so that I could see his fancy slipper socks with the airline’s logo. “A nap will do us both some good. You’re starting to look a bit peaked, Phe.”
I shot him a look that could freeze water and sashayed off. I was up anyway, and needed to work off my frustration.
In the main cabin, the fancy word for coach, there wasn’t any sign of food or beverages being served. I wasn’t just ravenous now but thirsty, as well. Stopping by my row, I mouthed to Althea, “I’m taking a walk.”
“Might as well,” she answered in a too-loud voice, which meant music vibrated through the headphones she’d clamped on. “It’s going to be a bitch of a flight.”
“Flights,” I corrected. “We have a connection to face.”
Althea groaned, “Oh, God, I hate flying.”
My sentiments exactly but I wasn’t going to let something like that get in the way. The discomfort would be worth it if what I suspected was true. Maybe, just maybe, the father I loved more than life itself would finally be able to exorcise his demons and join the real world again.
My father, my inspiration, had undergone a tremendous personality change since he’d been fired from his museum curator’s job. He’d pushed me to be the best I could be, and instilled in me a sense of independence. It was at his insistence I pursued a career in art restoration, a field that required endless hours of intense concentration and tedious attention to detail. That repetition helped me with discipline.
Dad’s losing his job at the museum had been a major blow to his ego and psyche. It had changed the strong yet gentle man I knew into someone unrecognizable. Seeing what losing his job had done to him was so painful. Now those chronic bouts of depression had left him at times incapable of getting out of bed or taking care of basic everyday needs. His job, his art, his museum, his reputation had been everything to him.
I wanted my confident, loving dad back again. When Bhaisajyaguru had been reported missing, Dad had been vilified by the newspapers and branded as either incompetent or in cahoots with the thieves. My mission now was to make him whole again.
I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
We had five long hours to go before touching down in Frankfurt, then another long flight to Kathmandu and finally to Lhasa.
At the back galley, I paused. Flight attendants were pulling out beverage carts, and long lines were beginning to form at the lavatories. An attractive African-American attendant handed me a disposable cup filled with liquid.
“You look thirsty,” she said.
I thanked her, gulped the drink, and out of my peripheral vision noticed a passenger wending his way toward me. He loped down the aisle with purpose then stopped abruptly at the magazine rack, scanning the offerings. I finished my drink and set down my cup on the galley counter, considering what lay ahead.
The Buddha statue must already be uncrated, photographed and recorded by a registrar. It would need to be analyzed so that an exact date could be put to the piece. Materials would need to be tested to determine the best and safest way to treat, clean and restore the idol. But the actual hard work would begin once I’d decided how best to repair it. It would probably require endless retouching.
An elbow jostled me. Liquid spilled. No apology followed.
“Dang! Excuse you.”
I stepped aside. The same passenger who’d been scrutinizing the magazine rack whipped through the galley and made a U-turn up the far aisle.
Rudeness made my blood boil! Instinctively my hands went to the pocket of my cargo pants where I kept my wallet. No fancy purses for me. The wallet was gone, along with my money, credit cards and driver’s license. My passport and other important documents were in the knapsack under my seat.
Okay, he’d headed up the other aisle. I strode there with purpose, nudging several grumbling passengers aside.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Hey, what’s the problem? It’s not like you’re going anywhere faster than the rest of us,” a bespectacled man cried as I bumped into him.
“Miss,” a flight attendant called. “Is there something I can help you with? Are you looking for someone?”
Several passengers craned their necks. One of the flight attendants began trailing me. She probably thought I was deranged or a new breed of terrorist.
I spotted the man who’d stolen my stuff as he hurdled into the middle seat, closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. I leaned over the heavyset man occupying the aisle seat and held out my hand.
“You have something that’s mine. Give it up.”
The thief opened his eyes and grunted something in a foreign language.
“What’s going on?” the other occupant, a woman who was clearly terrified, asked, clutching her chest.
I had no time for explanations. My wallet had been there when I boarded the plane. I’d produced my driver’s license at the gate. My passport and plane ticket had been put back into my backpack after I’d checked in. I needed my money and I needed my ID, simple as that.
“Give me back my wallet,” I said, reaching across the obese man and grabbing a handful of the thief’s shirt. His eyes bugged out of his head and his neck jerked forward as I began to shake him.
“Turn it over, now.”
I’d garnered pretty much all of the attention of the passengers in the surrounding areas.
The pickpocket’s mouth worked. He made a gargling sound. The woman seated next to him’s left eye ticked. Petrified, she pressed her bony body against the wall.
I straddled the male passenger and stood in front of the thief, hemming him in. Behind me, bedlam broke out. I felt a hand tapping my shoulder.
“Miss, you need to calm down.”
Audible gasps followed as the surrounding people watched me shove a finger into the hollow of my accoster’s throat. His entire body jerked as he gasped for air and made a gurgling sound.
“I’ll stick my knee in your groin next,” I said, patting him down with my free hand. “Hand over my wallet.”
I felt a bulky object at his waistband. Victorious, I reached into his pants and retrieved my goods then waved my wallet above his head.
“As I suspected, you took something that’s not yours.”
“Take it easy, little lady,” a Southern voice growled from behind me. “You keep this up and we’ll need to restrain you.”
I glanced over my shoulder, spotting one of the pilots. I eased the pressure on the pickpocket’s windpipe.
“This man’s a thief. He stole my wallet,” I explained.
The thief held his throat, rasping. Guttural words came out in the strange foreign language.
“Is that so,” the pilot said, sounding as if he didn’t quite believe me.
I held up my wallet, doing a quick check to make sure that my money, credit cards, driver’s license and social security card were still in their respective compartments.
The pilot attempted to interrogate the man but the passenger didn’t respond. Orders were given to find a crew member proficient in Chinese.
“I want to press charges,” I said, as yet another flight attendant came racing up the aisle to the pilot’s assistance.
“We’ll call ahead and have the authorities meet the flight. These things take time, so you’ll probably miss your connection if you have one,” she answered.
I couldn’t afford to be delayed. Timing on this project was everything. I’d promised to have Maitreya, if that’s who the statue was, restored before Buddha’s Enlightenment Day. That festival drew every pilgrim from the far ends of the earth. It also helped fuel the Tibetan economy.
So although it went against everything I believed in to let the crook go free, what choice did I have? I didn’t have time for questions or filling out tedious paperwork. I could not afford to miss my connection. I had a deadline to meet. Missing my connection would cost me money.
And possibly my father’s sanity and his name.
But why had the pickpocket chosen me of all people to come after? I was dressed in cargo pants and hiking boots, not exactly an outfit that was a fashion statement or said I had money to burn.
Grumbling, I flounced by the still-gawking passengers. Their loud whispers followed me back to my row. A few even had the gumption to cheer.
“Way to go!”
“You’re some gutsy female.”
I grunted something and sank into my seat and quickly clamped on my headphones. Music would soothe the soul and make me forget how ravenous I was.
My pickpocket disappeared in Frankfurt and we finally made it to Lhasa, Tibet, without further incident.
After enduring immigration we collected our checked luggage and cleared customs. When we finally exited the Gonkar terminal, I looked around for our driver. Several Asian men held placards with names that were barely legible. There was no sign of a driver retained for just the Sutherland group.
“Xiong Jing, our project manager, said he’d arranged transportation for our group,” I said out loud. “But there doesn’t seem to be anyone here to meet us.”
I was tired, edgy and wound up from the ridiculous incident. I hadn’t gotten much sleep on the flight, not folded like a pretzel in those uncomfortable seats.
“I don’t see anyone waiting,” Damon said, coming up behind me.
