Tina’s grin grew. “Did I tell you I was totally psyched about that?”
“I believe you did mention it.” Lourds couldn’t help being happy for her. He’d spent three years with her as a doctoral student, and he’d watched her grow in so many ways. She had truly come into her own. He took pride in her. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”
“You should try schlepping burgers.” Tina sat across from Lourds. She held her forefinger and thumb a fraction of an inch apart. “I’m going to take a little break.” She sighed. “This is killing my ankles. And I will love being back in front of a class.”
“You’re a natural. You’ll do splendidly.”
“I saw you pop into my class last Tuesday.”
“Really? I thought I was being covert.”
“Kind of hard to miss the hat.” Tina picked up the hat brim and let it flop back down onto the table.
Lourds grinned ruefully. “I suppose it is.”
“Checking me out?”
“Not your ability. You’re an excellent teacher. But I didn’t want to push you under with the increased workload and cause you to sink before you’d truly gotten started.”
“Not me. I’m unsinkable.”
“That’s what I gathered.”
“So tell me...”
“What?”
“Why are you going to Afghanistan?”
Lourds hesitated. After enduring Dean Wither’s reaction, he didn’t know what to expect. “Do you remember me mentioning Professor Layla Teneen?”
“Mentioning? Please. You only talk about that woman all the time.”
“Well, we’ve been in contact a lot since I met her last June.”
“You’ve flown out there five times in the past eight months. House sitter when you’re gone, remember?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s the deal?”
“I have never met a woman like her in my life.”
Tina blinked and looked astonished. “You’re in love with her?”
Lourds nodded. “Emphatically so. She’s beautiful, intelligent, giving, independent, self-aware. During these months I’ve been away from Layla, I’ve been thinking about her more and more. I can’t stop. It’s like a disease, or an aberration.”
Tina laughed. “Yeah, love can be like that. I can remember when I met Joey, couldn’t stop thinking about him.” Joey was her significant other, and they had been together since high school. Tina had told Lourds the story a number of times. “Still can’t, actually.” She focused on Lourds. “So, how in love are you? Obviously enough to go see her for Valentine’s Day. Which, may I remind you, is named after Saint Valentine, a Christian martyr, and not one presumably embraced by someone of Islamic faith.”
“I hadn’t actually thought about that. I thought all women loved Valentine’s Day.”
“It’s not genetic, though you’d think it might be. So is she excited that you’re coming?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“If it’s a surprise and Valentine’s Day is a Western holiday, she might not be expecting you.”
“She isn’t. If she was, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
“Well, it might be a really big surprise.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a surprise. This is Valentine’s Day. If she’s not expecting you, but she does know that this is Valentine’s Day, she could be expecting something else when she sees you.”
“You mean, like this?” Lourds took out the ring box and popped it open. The fluorescent lights sparkled from the diamond’s facets.
“Wow!” Tina snatched the ring and looked at it more closely. “Look at the size of that sucker!”
Lourds chuckled. “A doctorate in linguistics and that’s the best you can come up with?” But he hoped Layla was equally impressed.
11
39 Miles Southwest of Herat
Herat Province
Afghanistan
February 13, 2013
“Are you sure we should be out here this late, Professor Glukov? It’s dark, and digging around inside this cave seems dangerous.”
“Trust me, Evan. This will only be dangerous if opium traffickers show up.” Boris took his hat off and wiped the sweat from his forehead. He had once again overdressed for the cave climate, but it was colder outside the cave, and it was a long way to the tent.
The Afghanistan winters could be cold and cruel, especially with the unfettered wind sweeping through the mountains, but it was not as bad as Russia, where the snow sat in piles and the river froze. Here, the snow came, and most of the time, it simply melted and ran away down the mountain.
“Opium traffickers?” Evan Foley looked at Boris curiously, then got a little paranoid and flashed his light around the passageway.
“Never mind. It is a joke.” Boris tried to brush the memory away, but he could still remember that night in the cave where he and Lourds had nearly gotten killed. It wasn’t a joke, and the memory had suddenly come back full force