slowly. “Go for the entire jackpot? It’s very appealing. Providing you have a plan?” When Joe just looked at him, he said, “You don’t have a plan.”
“Not yet.” Joe went back to flipping through the photos on Gideon’s phone. He added absently, “I’ll get there. We have all day. But the first order of business is that we’ve both got to memorize this floor plan. Now tell me about Dobran and his drug addiction. He obviously has to keep it under control, or he wouldn’t be this successful. What does he use?”
“Opium pipe. He started off on pills, but after he came back to Cairo, he found himself an antique pipe that I’m sure made him feel like a caliph. But you’re right, he keeps control. He likes money too much to do anything else. Sebak said he locks himself in his suite at night and goes into never-never land. But during business hours, he’s not a user.”
“That could be bad or good. Do you know his typical schedule? We need him coherent but not troublesome…”
* * *
Robaku
2:45 P.M.
“You’ve got your red voodoo markers in place,” Jill said as she handed Eve a bottle of water. “Don’t argue. Drink it and take a deep breath. You’ve been racing nonstop all day.” She tilted her head critically as she gazed back at the reconstruction. “Now he looks more like a ghoul than ever. Does it bother you?”
“No.” Eve took a drink of water and leaned back. “That’s a necessary process that leads to a successful conclusion. Why should it bother me?”
“You said you weren’t looking forward to working on a man like Varak. Just checking.” She made a face. “And I suppose I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. It’s my damned curiosity again. I’m glad that he’s not putting his mojo on you.”
“If he were, it would be because I let him. If evil lingers, it could be because we invite it into our minds.” She took another drink of water and looked directly into the skull’s gaping eyes. She hadn’t realized until this moment that she had not done that since she had started working. Well, why should she? she thought defensively. She’d been doing depth measurements. It wasn’t because she’d been afraid. “The trick is to concentrate on the work and not give in to imagination.” She was speaking as much to herself as to Jill. “I’ve probably blown Varak’s mystique out of all proportion because of what I’ve learned from reading and hearing about him.” And the horrible nightmares. The machete glittering in the darkness of the schoolroom. She forced herself to keep her gaze on the skull. “Do you realize I don’t even know what he looks like? That’s not a bad thing since I avoid it anyway. But I only saw a couple photos of him on Google, and none of them were close-ups. I wasn’t interested in him, only the children. I just got a vague impression that he was very big and had dark hair. Then when I came here and saw what he’d done in that schoolroom, I didn’t want to look at him. He’s not even a human being to me any longer. He’s a Hitler or Bin Laden.”
“Close,” Jill said. “But you have to add a little Jeffrey Dahmer to be exact.”
“You should know.” She tore her gaze from the skull. “I’m sure you’ve researched him ad nauseam, just as you did me.”
“As much as I could. He was a big part of the story of what happened here in Maldara, and I had to try to understand him.” Her lips twisted. “I never succeeded. I felt like one of those FBI profilers trying to see into the mind of a serial killer. There has to come a time when there is no answer but the fact that Varak was a monster.” She paused. “But I think you should know about Varak. Because he didn’t look like a monster. He was quite good-looking in a Slavic kind of way, and he’s over six-five and very powerfully built. Strong. Exceptionally strong, and he liked to break things…and people.” She moistened her lips. “And everyone around him sensed that he did, and it gave him power over them. He loved power from the day he was born. He searched for it in violence, sex, money, or anything else that gave him the same thrill.”
“You seem to know him better than you thought you did,” Eve said slowly.