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After the Athens affair and her subsequent release from the elite forces, she’d continued her training.
Now, due to circumstances out of her immediate control, she was on the verge of stealing from a museum the priceless copper scroll the Jordanians were so proud of.
Her jaw hardened. If she had to steal every last item in the museum, she would—anything to get Eli back alive.
She pulled the file from her satchel, glanced toward the room’s entrance and then bent to stick the file into the little keyed lock. She fiddled with the lock until she tripped the mechanism, and the lock clicked open.
Jasmine tested the case top by lifting it several inches and then easing it back down. One down, several more to go. She’d work them a few at a time. When she had all the locks disengaged, she’d take the scroll and walk out of the museum or leave with the Jordanian film crew.
She cringed at the thought of waiting for the crew to head home. They could be there well into the night, filming take after take until they perfected the sequences.
No, she’d head out as soon as she could. She had a deadline she would not miss—could not miss—if she wanted to see Eli again.
Jasmine jimmied the locks on a few more of the displays and then returned to where the crew was staging the next scene with Sadie McClain.
In the shadow of a statue, one of Sadie’s bodyguards shifted, his eyes narrowing. He wore a baseball cap, making it difficult to see his face.
Something about the way he held himself, the line of his jaw and the dark stubble on his chin struck a chord of memory in Jasmine. A shiver of awareness washed over her. She hurried past him without making eye contact.
When she looked back, the space where he’d been standing was empty.
Jasmine shook off a feeling of déjà vu and stood near the Jordanian camera crew, interpreting when needed but basically remaining quiet and out of the way.
With the preparations for the big scene complete, the camera crews stood ready for the director to shout action.
All other personnel were to move out of the line of sight of the cameras. This gave Jasmine the opportunity to slip back into the room with the copper scroll. When she heard the director shout, “Action,” Jasmine went to work quickly and efficiently, lifting the tops off the glass cases one at a time, wrapping each piece of the copper scroll in a soft swatch of fabric she’d brought in her satchel, handling them carefully so as not to break the fragile copper.
Jasmine placed each piece inside a box she’d designed specifically for transporting the delicate scroll. Once all the pieces were stored, she closed the box and slid it into her satchel.
Taking the extra time, she returned all the tops of the glass cases to their original positions so they wouldn’t draw attention until a museum employee just happened to notice the cases were empty. That should buy her time to get the items out of the museum and out of Jordan before anyone became suspicious.
With her satchel tucked against her side, Jasmine hurried out of the room. At that moment, the director yelled, “Cut!” He motioned to the film crews and gave orders to the American and Jordanian cameramen.
Some of the Jordanians looked around for their interpreter.
Ready to get the hell out of the museum, Jasmine had no choice but to approach the cameramen and provide the necessary translation for the director. All the while, her hand rested on her satchel, anxiety mounting. The longer she stayed in the museum, the greater the chance of someone discovering the copper scroll was missing.
Short of racing out of the building and drawing attention to herself, she remained, forcing a calm expression on her face when inside she was ready to scream. A life depended on her getting out of the museum and delivering the scroll—Eli’s life.
Ace Hammerson—Hammer back in his Navy days—thought he recognized the interpreter as soon as she’d stepped through the museum doors with the Jordanian camera crew. The more he studied her, the more he was convinced it was her.
Jasmine.
The woman with whom he’d spent an amazing week in Athens. A week he could never forget.
Had it really been four years?
Granted, she looked different from the last time he’d seen her. She’d changed. Her dark hair peeked out from beneath the black scarf she wore over her head and draped around her shoulders. Her curves were hidden beneath a long black tunic and black trousers. Her face was a little thinner, but those full, rosy lips and her eyes gave her away. There was no mistaking the moss green irises that had captivated him from the first time he’d met her at an outdoor café in the Monastiraki district of Athens.
He'd come to Antica Café on a recommendation from a buddy who’d been there a year earlier. The place had been packed, with no empty tables left. Tired and hungry after the twenty-hour journey from San Diego to Athens, he’d just wanted to eat, find his hotel and crash.
Rather than look for a less crowded café, he’d looked for an empty seat. A beautiful woman sat in a far corner, a book in her hand, enjoying a cup of expresso. Ace had approached, hoping she wouldn’t blow him off, and asked if she spoke English.
She’d looked up at him with those amazing green eyes and smiled. In that moment, he’d felt a stirring combination of lust, longing and... strangely...homecoming wash over him. It could have been exhaustion, but more than hunger made him want to join this woman at her table.
She spoke English with a charming accent he couldn’t place as either Greek or Arabic. When he’d asked if he could share her table, she’d tilted her head and stared at him with slightly narrowed eyes before finally agreeing with a relaxed smile.
That had been the beginning of the most incredible week of his life. His only regret was that he’d had to go back to work after that week. Before he’d had time to look her up, based on the phone number she’d given him, he’d deployed for several months to Afghanistan, where the mission had been so secret, they’d gone incommunicado to avoid any leaks.
