Cross Bones Part 37

I turned to him.

And felt yet another rush of fear.

Jake's left hand was gripping the wheel hard. Too hard. His knuckles protruded like bony white k.n.o.bs. His face was pasty and his breath was coming in short, shallow gasps.

"Are you all right?"

The truck was losing speed, as though Jake couldn't keep his mind on both accelerating and steering.

Jake turned to me. One pupil was a speck, the other a vacant black hole.

I grabbed the wheel just as Jake collapsed forward onto it, his boot dropping full on the gas.

The truck lurched. The speedometer rose. Twenty. Twenty-two. Twenty-five.

My first reaction was panic. Naturally, that didn't slow the pickup.

My brain kicked in.

One-arming Jake against the seat back, I grabbed the wheel.

The truck continued gathering speed.

While steering with my left hand, I struggled to shift Jake's leg with my right. The leg was dead weight. I couldn't lift or jostle it sideways.

The truck was on a downslope and accelerating fast. Twenty-seven. Thirty.

I tried shoving Jake's leg. Kicking it with my heel.

My movements jerked the wheel. The truck swerved and a tire dropped onto the shoulder. I corrected. Gravel flew, and the truck hopped back up onto the pavement.

Trees were clipping by faster and faster. We hit thirty-five. I had to do something.

The Mount of Olives formed a sheer rock face on the left. Twenty yards up, I saw a recess fronted by a small clearing overgrown with brambles.

I fought the urge to spin the wheel. Not yet. Wait.

Please, G.o.d! Hold the traffic!

Now!

I swung the wheel left. The truck veered over the center line and careened on the rims of two wheels. Abandoning my attempts at steering, I wedged both hands under Jake's thigh and heaved upward. His boot lifted a few millimeters. The engine hitched and backed off.

The truck shattered a wooden guardrail, pitched sideways, and slid, spewing dirt and gravel. Brambles and cold, Cambrian rock closed in.

I yanked Jake toward me and down. Then I threw myself over him, arms covering our heads.

Branches clawed the side panels. Something popped against the windshield.

I heard a loud metallic crunch, felt a jolt, and Jake and I pitched into the wheel.

The engine cut off.

No voice called out. No bee b.u.mbled. No car whizzed past. Just the silence of the Mount and my own frenzied breathing.

For several heartbeats, I stayed motionless, feeling adrenaline making the rounds.

Finally, one bird threw out a tentative caw.

I sat up and checked Jake. His forehead had a lump the size of a bluepoint oyster. His eyelids looked mauve, and his skin felt clammy. He needed a doc. p.r.o.nto.

Could I move him?

Would the engine turn over?

Opening my door against the resistance of the brambles, I slid to the ground, and plowed my way around the truck.

Pull Jake out? Shove him sideways?

Jake was six-six and weighed 170. I was five-five and weighed, well, less.

Fighting vegetation, I yanked the driver's side door and stepped in. I was wriggling an arm under Jake's back when a vehicle slowed and left the pavement behind me. Gravel crunched as it rolled to a stop.

A Samaritan? A zealot?

Withdrawing my arm, I turned.

White Corolla. Two men in front.

The men looked at me through the windshield. I looked back.

The men conferred.

My gaze dropped to the license plate. White numbers, red background.

Relief flooded through me.

Both men got out. One wore a sport jacket and khakis. The other wore a pale blue shirt with black epaulettes, black shoulder patch, and black braided cord looping the armpit and running into the left breast pocket. A silver pin over the right pocket proclaimed in Hebrew what I a.s.sumed to be the cop's name.

"Shalom." The cop had a high forehead capped by a thin blond crew cut. He looked about thirty. I gave him two years until he started pricing hair plugs. The cop had a high forehead capped by a thin blond crew cut. He looked about thirty. I gave him two years until he started pricing hair plugs.

"Shalom," I replied. I replied.

"Geveret, HaKol beseder?" Madam, is everything all right? Madam, is everything all right?

"My friend needs medical attention," I said in English.

Crew Cut approached. His partner remained behind the open door of their vehicle, right hand c.o.c.ked at his hip.

Clawing free of the bushes I stepped away from the truck, non-threatening.

"And you would be?"

"Temperance Brennan. I'm a forensic anthropologist. American."

"Uh. Huh."

"The driver is Dr. Jacob Drum. He's an American archaeologist working here in Israel."

Jake made an odd gurgling sound in his throat. Crew Cut's gaze cut to him, and then to the remains of Jake's driver's side window.

Jake chose that moment to rejoin the conscious. Or perhaps he'd been awake and listening to the exchange. Bending forward, he retrieved his sungla.s.ses from among the pedals, slipped them on, and straightened.

Glancing from the cop to me and back, Jake slid to the pa.s.senger side to facilitate conversation.

The cop circled to him.

More shalom shaloms were exchanged.

"Are you injured, sir?"

"Just a b.u.mp." Jake's laugh was convincing. The blue point on his forehead was not.

"Shall I radio for an ambulance?"

"No need."

Crew Cut's face looked dubious. Perhaps it was the incongruity between the injury to Jake and the injury to Jake's window. Perhaps it was always that way. It had looked dubious upon its exit from the Corolla.

"Really," Jake said. "I'm fine."

I should have objected. I didn't.

"I must have hit a pothole, or dropped a wheel or something." Jake gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Dumb-a.s.s move."

Crew Cut glanced at the blacktop, then back at Jake.

"I'm excavating a site near Talpiot. Working with a crew from the Rockefeller Museum."

So Jake had heard me.

"Just showing the little lady around."

Little lady?

Crew Cut's mouth moved to say something, reconsidered, merely requested the usual papers.

Jake produced a U.S. pa.s.sport, an Israeli driver's license, and the truck's registration. I forked over my pa.s.sport.

Crew Cut studied each doc.u.ment. Then, "I'll be a moment." To Jake, "Please stay in your vehicle."

"Mind if I see if this piece of junk will start?"

"Don't move the vehicle."

While Crew Cut ran our names, Jake tried the ignition, again and again, with no luck. The wounded piece of junk had gone as far as it was going that day.

A semi rumbled by. A bus. An army Jeep. I watched each recede, its taillights growing smaller and closer together.

Jake slumped against the seat back and swallowed several times. I suspected he was feeling queasy.

Crew Cut returned and handed back our doc.u.ments. I checked the side mirror. The plainclothes cop was now slouched behind the wheel.

"Can I offer you a ride, Dr. Drum?"

"Yeah." Jake's bravado had evaporated. "Thanks."

We got out. Pointlessly, Jake locked the truck, then we followed Crew Cut and climbed into the Corolla's backseat.

The plainclothes cop eyed us, nodded. He wore silver-rimmed gla.s.ses on a tired face. Crew Cut introduced him as Sergeant Schenck.

"Where to?" Schenck asked.

Jake started to give directions to his apartment in Beit Hanina. I cut him off.

"A hospital."

"I'm fine," Jake protested. Weakly.

"Take us to an ER." My tone suggested not an inch of wiggle room.

"You're staying at the American Colony, Dr. Brennan?" Schenck.

The boys had been thorough.

"Yes."

Schenck made a U-turn onto the blacktop.

During the ride, Jake stayed awake, but grew pa.s.sive. At my request, Schenck radioed ahead to the ER.

When Schenck pulled up, two orderlies swept Jake from the car, strapped him to a gurney, and whisked him away for CTs or MRIs or whatever techno-wizardry is brought to bear in cases of head trauma.

Schenck and Crew Cut handed me a form. I signed. They sped off.

A nurse pumped me for information on Jake. I supplied what I could. I signed other forms. I learned I was at Hada.s.sah Hospital, on the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University, just a few minutes north of the Israel National Police Headquarters.

Paperwork completed, I took a seat in the waiting area, prepared for a long stay. I'd been there ten minutes when a tall man in aviator shades pushed through the double doors.