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She fit the key into the lock and turned it. The lock clicked, and she was able to open the door.
A sound close by made her step through the door and close it most of the way. When she turned, she found a much smaller room than the master suite. This one had a single bed pushed up against the wall. She crossed to it and found her son’s favorite blanket that had gone missing with her son. She dropped to her knees and looked under the bed, praying her boy was hiding there like he did when he had bad dreams.
Eli wasn’t there.
As she rose to her feet, she swallowed hard to keep from sobbing aloud as she clutched the blanket to her chest. She felt the bed. The sheets were still warm.
Where was Eli?
A noise outside in the hallway made her tiptoe toward the door and wait beside it.
Footsteps came closer and stopped in front of the door.
A man carrying a rifle pushed the door open with the barrel of his weapon. When he stepped inside, Jasmine didn’t move until he was fully through the door. Then she jumped him from behind, slung the blanket over his head and face and shoved him hard. At the same time, she hooked a foot in front of him.
He fell to the floor. His rifle clattered free, sliding across the wooden floor out of his reach.
The man lay still, out cold.
Jasmine leaped onto his back, yanked the blanket free from his head and used it to tie the man’s hands behind his back. She made sure to pull the knot tight enough he couldn’t easily free himself.
She grabbed the sheet off the bed and used it to tie the man’s ankles. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was the man whose nose she’d broken.
Jasmine grabbed the gun, pointed it at the man and hesitated. She wasn’t there to kill anyone. She was there to free her son.
She left the room, closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Then, she removed the key from the lock and stuffed it into her pocket.
Then she turned, not knowing where to go. Her son had been in that room recently, or the bed would have been cool to the touch.
She continued down the corridor toward the back of the house and the sound of men shouting at each other.
A set of double doors was opened wide, leading out onto a tiled patio larger than all of Jasmine’s apartment back in Tel Aviv.
Two bodies lay at odd angles in front of the door. Both men were dead.
Jasmine squatted down behind the bodies and looked out at the open doors.
The gray light of dawn had just begun to lighten the darkness.
Three men stood close to each other at the far end of the patio.
The one in the middle made Jasmine’s heart pinch hard in her chest.
Ace.
Demopoulos stood on one side, leveling a gun at Ace.
The other man had to be Bertolli. He, too, held a gun pointed at Ace.
Ace held his backpack out over the railing, his face tight and angry.
“If you try to shoot me or come another step closer, I will drop the copper scroll over the cliff,” Ace said. “I’ve seen it. It’s delicate and will not survive the landing.”
Bertolli held out his hand. “No, no. Do not destroy it,” he said in English, heavily laced with his Italian accent. “The scroll is the key.” In his other hand, he held a pistol. “Give it to me. I am the only one who can decipher its message.”
“No, you must give it to me,” Demopoulos said, also in heavily accented English. “If you do not, I will have your lover killed.”
“I don’t believe you have her,” Ace said. “I want proof of life.”
