Chapter 20

Stefan kept his manner relaxed, but inside he was berating himself. There was no purpose in confiding in Nicki, no matter how easy it was to say what he honestly felt. She would be leaving shortly after their return to O?ros, and he knew that information shared was power lost. Somehow, he had lost power with Nicki, in telling her about his past. He should probably care more about that than he did, but in this case, he didn't mind so much. Empowering Nicki Clark had its advantages.

Not that Nicki realized it yet. She chattered on as their food arrived and turned the talk quickly to the images she'd captured on her video blog. In fact, her manner was overly lively, almost agitated, and he glanced at her hands as she reached for her sparkling water.

They trembled. Was she really that nervous around him?

His own heart gave a strange, sideways thud—then Nicki's bright words pulled him out of his reverie. "Out of curiosity, what happens if we do find Ari and he's legitimately some sort of criminal?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's face it. He showed up on a foreign shore with no passport, no identity, possibly out of his mind. He got arrested, let's say, and put in this work camp place, with or without monster guards. The crown prince of O?ros, mind you, cooped up by Turkish officials like a common vagrant, despite a countries-wide search for any scrap of information about him…"

Stefan quirked a smile. "It would pose an interesting political challenge."

"Beyond that," she waved her spoon. "What do we do, point and shout, ‘Oh, by Zeus's lightning bolt, it's the prince!'? I don't think so."

"If we have positive visual identification, we'll try to extract him immediately. If that task is beyond the abilities of the men we've brought, then it will become an escalated effort. Obviously, if we can avoid such an escalation, that would be ideal."

"Obviously," Nicki said wryly.

"If we don't have positive visual identification, or if the identification isn't of Ari proper, but his remains, or more fragments of his clothing or the airplane, then it becomes more difficult. The burden of proof will be on us, and we can't act with speed or any sort of stealth. The Turkish government will be made aware of our efforts, and it could become an international incident."

"None of that sounds ideal, either."

He grimaced. "It most definitely does not."

"So, let's consider it from the other direction. Ari is alive and relatively healthy, simply imprisoned. Maybe he knows who he is, maybe he's afraid of sharing that information, for fear he'll be killed. After all, he's been rotting in there a long time."

Stefan pursed his lips. "You might want to avoid the term ‘rotting' as you consider relaying this story to the queen."

Nicki winced. "Fair enough," she said. "He's been a guest of the Turkish officials in Ala?ati for nearly a year. He's been biding his time, hoping for an out, and if he sees any friendly faces from O?ros, he can shout out, draw attention somehow. Then it could all be explained away as a misunderstanding."

"True, if he's lucid enough to engage in such a subterfuge. But it still relies on us getting close enough for him to see us. Which is a more challenging issue."

"Not so challenging." Nicki swiveled her head to peer at the mountainside. "There are new ruins up there, and ruins mean dollars, once they're cleared enough for tourists to pay to go gawk at them. You can bet they're moving heaven and more importantly, earth to get that to happen, especially with the windsurfing competition coming up. We're in high season, and that's potentially thousands of tourist dollars a week that could be going to the city's coffers. If the thing isn't open already, it will be soon. And that's exactly where you'd think they might be keeping the imprisoned vagrants."

"So?"

"So, what better way to promote the new archaeological wonder of Ala?ati than to have it as part of my video blog tour of the expo? It's the latest and greatest development for the city, it's got the wow factor with those vistas from the mountainside, and it's being overseen, I'm sure, by Omir. So, he'll get all the acclaim his heart desires if we promote it. As long as it's anywhere close to being ready, it's a no-lose situation for him. And once we're there, maybe we can see how we can break into the asylum-prison place, or whatever it is. Easy peasy."

"I suspect it will be anything but." Nevertheless, Stefan couldn't discount her words entirely. He needed more information—and he needed his men to gather it. He signaled to the server for their check and considered Nicki anew. "These are good ideas. Logical. It's helpful."

The smile she flashed him confirmed his earlier concern. It wasn't that Nicki was starved for attention. She was brash and active, always ready for the next challenge. She sought attention and she got it. But she didn't get attention for certain things—her mind, her logic, her discernment. Maybe that bothered her more than she realized.

They walked leisurely back to the boat, the camera over Stefan's shoulder. As he'd expected, his men were waiting for him when he returned—all of them.

Even better, the two he'd assigned to the park had more information.

"Possibly a sighting. It was too long ago to be certain," Tamas said, in English for Nicki's benefit. "A full year."

"So quite close to the crash event."

"Very close," Tamas said. "But he was here, closer to the city than we'd expected. And the woman who spoke with us knew it was June, because it was the beginning of the tourist season. She said his manner was definitely that of a falling-down drunk man. He'd been beaten up pretty badly, but though he staggered around, he didn't have any broken bones that she recalled. He was big and strong, and she and her children stayed away from him. The next morning, the trucks came, and everyone hid—but not this man. He simply watched them pull up. When they approached him, guns drawn, he cowered down, covering his head with his hands." Tamas grimaced. "He seemed crazy to this woman. And the account fits what we've heard elsewhere."

Stefan said nothing for a long minute. "This was June," he commented finally. "He'd been missing for maybe two weeks then, nothing more. How had he not been found by a search team? Was he disfigured?"

"We don't think so," Tamas shook his head. "The woman recognized him from the picture. Said his nose was out of joint and there was old, dried blood in his hair, but the eyes were right, the hair and the height and weight."

"It's enough to go on," Stefan said. To think that Ari could have been here all this time, as Nicki had put it well—rotting in a Turkish detainment center, forced to work by hauling rocks and dirt away from a monument while his own family lived in luxury not a half-day away.

The queen wouldn't be the only one who'd have difficulty accepting that reality.

"We need to get into that asylum," he said. He turned to Tamas. "Find out everything you can about it. Who owns it, what it's officially being used for. Ask our contacts if there are any known unofficial uses for it we should be aware of. The squatters know it as a work camp, but what other theories are out there? We need to be prepared for them all."

Tamas nodded. "We'll have satellite imagery of the site and the adjacent ruins later tonight, as close as we can get to it. We'll also scout out methods of ingress and egress, who visits and for how long, what deliveries, etc. There will be a way in."

"There will." Stefan turned to Nicki. "And now, we have to get ready for a party. Be sure to pack whatever you need into an overnight bag as well. As tourists go, we're giving Ala?ati the full treatment."