the stars long enough to catch Jack’s eye. “Then all the charges are dropped and you’re gallivanting around the globe as if nothing happened.”
Jack absorbed that and, after a time, grunted an admission to the general accuracy of Templeton’s recounting of events.
“I wouldn’t say gallivanting.”
Templeton shrugged.
“Suddenly you were in a cave in Libya trying to steal something from me,” he said. “Call it whatever you want.”
“Fair enough,” Jack said.
“Do you know that the Australian government has a Freedom of Information Department that’s a lot like the American one?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, well, they do. And do you know what I found when I submitted a request for the records involving your case?”
“That they were going to charge you an enormous processing fee?”
“That no such records exist.” Templeton let that hang there a moment before continuing. “It didn’t matter that I could show them news articles that talked about the killings. Or pictures of you in handcuffs. As far as the Australian government was concerned, you were never there.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe they’re just bad at keeping records? Besides, why should you care about what I do with my spare time?”
Jack was growing used to the long pauses in his conversations with the Englishman, but there was something different about the one that followed his question. He could sense the iciness coming from Templeton’s direction, could feel that he’d said something that had changed the man’s mood as if flipping a switch. And he could tell that the new emotional state was not one he wanted Templeton to act on.
“Let’s just say that I’ve always been intrigued by puzzles,” Templeton answered.
And with that, he closed his eyes and didn’t speak again.
Imolene had to give the shopkeeper credit. The Yugo had lasted far longer than he would have thought possible, carrying him well past Al Bayda and toward Tripoli. He’d chosen to retain the vehicle when, in stopping in Al Bayda to check in with those who knew most of what went on in the city, he’d learned that two men matching Templeton’s and Hawthorne’s description had passed through there, ostensibly aiming toward the capital. And so Imolene had decided to hang on to the Yugo rather than use up precious time in finding a different vehicle. He was also lower on funds than he liked, and until he caught up to his quarry, he had to make his money stretch.
In Tripoli, the tracking had become much more difficult. It took Imolene some time to conclude it was because the pair had not stopped within the city. That was the only explanation he could come up with that would explain their absence from any of the places Templeton may have gone to procure supplies, or from the notice of those charged with monitoring the city’s ingress and egress of outsiders.
He had not gone all in on the idea. In a city as large as Tripoli, Imolene thought it possible that Templeton and Hawthorne had arrived two days ago and not left, that they’d holed up somewhere. But something had told the Egyptian that was not the case, and when he’d followed that belief he was rewarded to learn about a brief stop in a village thirty kilometers outside the capital by men who could only have been his quarry. Interestingly, a local merchant had told Imolene that one of the men seemed bound and unable to get out of the jeep they’d driven into the village. This told Imolene that whatever Templeton’s objective, it in some way involved Jack Hawthorne, and that the American was not entirely sold on his role.
It also told Imolene that Templeton and Hawthorne could be caught. He thought it unlikely that they could retain their lead when one man had to act as the other’s jailer.
The difficulty was in tracking them. If they remained in Libya, they would be hard enough to locate. But with both Egypt and Tunisia bordering the country, both relatively simple boundaries to cross, Imolene had a good deal more ground to cover. Of only one thing was he certain. As long as Templeton insisted on dragging the American around, they would not be able to leave the region.
Were Imolene faced with such a choice, the decision would have been obvious. He would have killed the American and left his body in the desert. He wondered why Templeton did not do the same. Or if he lacked the steel to kill a man, he could have found someplace