Free The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari by Sarah Black Page A

enemy fire, and here come the Horse-Lords over the horizon, and you’ve got your thumb on the button.”
    “Those days are long gone, Brightman.” John thought Gabriel looked pleased, though. Gabriel handed him a copy of a contract from his briefcase. “Sign this.” Messenger bag, John reminded himself, not briefcase.
    John looked down, read the document in his hand. Felt his mouth fall open. “Really?”
    Gabriel had his arms crossed over his chest. “Yes, absolutely.”
    The contract was for John’s services as mediator, to the tune of twenty thousand dollars. Plus expenses, transportation, and lodging. Plus legal fees, to be capped at fifty percent of the total fees. For one week. He reached into his messenger bag, brought out a pen, and signed the document. Gabriel took it from him, wrote across the bottom that General Mitchel wanted Brightman for his aide for the length of the op.
    “I’m going down to the business center to fax this. Brightman, we’re going to need a fax machine up here. Plus a scanner and printer. See if Painter will agree to let us set up coms before he gets here, okay? Tell him I’m sending him a contract for General Mitchel’s service.”
    John went to the window, looked out across the DC skyline. It looked the same, same traffic, same lights, like nothing had changed in the years since he’d worked here. He’d missed it. If he was being honest, he’d missed it a great deal, and now, standing at the window, he remembered the way he’d felt back then. Strong, capable, needed. He felt all of that right now, and he had Gabriel by his side? Standing here in a lemon-yellow silk and linen shirt picked out by an eighteen-year-old with an excellent eye for color? He could do anything. Twenty thousand for a week’s work? Hell, yes. And Painter was getting a bargain.
    Brightman stepped out of the room to call General Painter and came back in with an okay to set up secure coms. “He said get you whatever you need, sir. I can show you the files on the guys taken in Tunisia. Everything’s on paper for security. He’s sending them over by secure courier.”
    Gabriel came back into the room, loosened his tie. He unpacked their suits and hung everything in the closet, then unpacked the carry-on. Brightman excused himself, said he would get the gear they needed. Gabriel shook his head. “Just tell them at the desk what we need, have them send it up, and we’ll get secure sat phones tomorrow. If you go out now you’ll be stuck on the beltway until morning.”
    When Brightman left the room, Gabriel stepped over, slung his arm around John’s shoulder and reached down for a bit of neck to kiss. “He said yes and wanted to know when you’d turned into a fucking pirate.”
    “Why did you only get ten thousand?” John asked.
    “I didn’t. I wrote it so my services are legal services and the fees will go back to the firm, not to me. We could use ten thousand, keep the lights on a few more months. I need to do more research. I actually think this sort of consulting is worth a lot more, and I may have given him a low-ball figure.”
    “The files are all on paper for security, Gabriel. Remember when we used to put the most secure stuff on computers, so nobody in the office could look in the file cabinet?”
    “Hasn’t been that long ago.”
    “I wonder if things have changed that quickly in Tunisia?” John shook his head. “You remember when we were there last?”
    “The Bedu, right? Somebody was fucking with the food aid over near the border?”
    “Still Bedouin outside Tunis, as far as I know. I better do some catching up tonight.”
    “We can put off our date night until we get back. No such thing as too much prep for an op in the middle of Arab Spring.”
    “You sure?”
    Gabriel nodded. “It’s kind of fun watching you. Reminds me of back in the day.”
    John smiled at him. “Like back in the day, but better. Because you’re gonna be sleeping in my bed tonight, and you don’t