Free Shadow Zone by Iris Johansen, Roy Johansen

been wondering about that. We do have satellite phones and e-mail.”
    “I thought this warranted a personal visit. You recently dispatched an artifact recovered from this site. Is that correct?”
    Hannah and Melis exchanged a glance.
    “Yes,” Melis said. “It went out by helicopter this afternoon.”
    “Would you care to tell me what the object was?”
    “An artifact we recovered from the Marinth site. From a school.”
    “Describe it. In detail.”
    Melis frowned at Baker’s curt order but she continued. “It was part of a trellis, with inlaid colored jewels and crystals.”
    “Valuable?”
    “From a historical perspective, yes. It’s priceless. It fills in a major missing piece about the decline of this civilization. But the gems themselves are nothing spectacular. It’s not as if they’re diamonds and rubies. Most of them are colored quartz.”
    “That’s what brought you out here?” Hannah asked.
    Baker nodded. “Do you know where that artifact is now?”
    “The helicopter took it to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. From there, a cargo jet is flying it to a lab in Athens.” Melis checked her watch. “It’s on the plane now.”
    “Wrong,” Baker said. “Your artifact never made it onto the cargo plane.”
    Melis stiffened. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “The helicopter brought it to the airport, right on schedule. But sometime in the next ninety minutes, while the crate was waiting to clear Customs, it vanished.”
    “No!” Melis said.
    “Vanished?” Hannah said. “Nothing vanishes into thin air. Was it stolen?”
    “Probably. A Customs offcial’s body was found in the warehouse. But we suspect he may have actually helped with the hijacking.”
    “It can’t be gone. I need that piece.” Melis’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “It’s the culmination of everything I’ve been working toward for years.”
    “We’ll get it back,” Hannah said. She turned toward Baker. “And this still doesn’t explain why you’re here. Or even why you’re in this part of the world. What business does the intelligence community have with Melis’s artifact? What were you doing nosing around that cargo plane anyway?”
    “Are either of you familiar with Vincent Gadaire?” Baker asked.
    “Never heard of him,” Hannah said. “Should we have?”
    “He’s an arms merchant. He’s been getting rich selling high-tech weaponry to every side of every conflict in the past fifteen years. Governments have even used him in situations in which they don’t want to get their hands dirty.” Baker unzipped a tablet computer and filled the screen with a photo of a strikingly attractive couple entering what appeared to be a red-carpet gala. “This is Gadaire and his mistress, Anna Devareau. He sometimes refers to her as his wife, depending on the social situation.”
    Hannah studied the screen. “They look like supermodels at a movie premiere.”
    “This was at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. He occasionally finances films, which means that he often has every actor and filmmaker with a pet project cozying up to him.”
    Hannah studied the image of Gadaire and his girlfriend. Baker had chosen the picture wisely, she thought. It told her a lot about this couple, from their grace, easy confidence, and sheer power they had over the people around them. It was immediately apparent that they had a magnetism shared by many successful people she had known.
    “What does he have to do with us?” she asked.
    “That’s what I came out here to find out. We monitor his activities for a variety of reasons, and recently we got word that he’s taken an interest in your expedition.”
    “Marinth?” Melis asked. “As an investment?”
    “I doubt it. We’ve learned that at least three people have been murdered because of your lost city.”
    Hannah stared at him. “ Murdered? You think people have been killed because of what we’re doing out here? This is a historical expedition. As Melis