A Price Above Rubies

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six

"Is he dead?" Yildiz asks, the syringe shaking in her hand.

Hilal adjusts her clothing, trying to stop her own trembling more for her sister's sake than her own. Yildiz looks on the verge of hysteria and screaming is not going to help the situation they are in. 

Hilal scrambles off the bed and pries her sister's fingers loose from around the syringe trying to see what she used to stab Colonel Stavros with. "Give me...No. It's anesthesia. We're okay. Just tie him up." 

Yakup insisted they needed the colonel alive to make sure he answered for his crimes and could give them the names of the other officers involved. 

It had come close, Hilal thinks with a shudder. Dinner with the colonel had turned into an invitation to the apartment he kept so his wife wouldn't find out about his activities. Hilal had to agree if she had any hope of finding any of the documents they needed. Unlike Yildiz, it wouldn't be enough to snap pictures. Hilal had to find the proof they needed and then run to Colonel Dario who Alcon insisted was the only man they could trust. For his eyes only, Alcon had said. 

Alcon is on his way once Hilal has called him. She doesn't want to leave Yildiz alone with the colonel but Hilal needs to hurry if she's to give Colonel Dario the information before any of Colonel Stavros's associates are alerted and have a chance to escape. 

She reaches up along the bed posts to make sure the knots they made are tight enough. 

Yildiz has learned about sailor's knots from Yakup. The two of them like to take Hilal and Leon out on the water with them sometimes with the children. Yildiz assures her the knots will hold. 

She notices his pants are undone and gives Hilal a worried look. Hilal doesn't meet her sister's gaze. It had come close, but no. Yildiz had stopped him in time. 

"Leon doesn't need to know about it," Hilal says giving her sister a warning look.

Yildiz lifts her hands in surrender. After Maxim Otrav, if anyone would understand, she would. 

Hilal looks down at her wrist watch, a gift Acelya picked out for her for Hilal's last birthday. "I need to go. He should be out for a while still and Alcon will be here any minute." Hilal hands Yildiz her medical bag. "If anything goes wrong don't hesitate to use anything in here. Scalpels, needles, anything. Never mind what Yakup says about needing him alive. You do what you need to to protect yourself even if that means killing him." Hilal hugs her sister, holds her bag containing the folder with the info for Colonel Dario and rushes out the door. 

She tries to make sure she's not followed while she drives to the military headquarters. As she makes her way through the entrance after giving her name Helen Kostas to see Colonel Dario, the guard asks her to wait while he gets the receptionist to call Colonel Dario. 

She suddenly recognizes one of the prison guards who has had a few shifts at the same time she did. Hilal fears if he sees her here he might warn whomever else he might be working for. Hilal quickly ducks behind the wall that leads down another corridor.

"Um, Miss?" the guard at the entrance calls out when he no longer sees her.

Hilal bites her lip and risks a peek. The guard looks at her in question. "Shh!" she urges with a finger to her lips. "Old boyfriend," she lies. 

The guard rolls his eyes but doesn't give her position away. A few seconds later Hilal watches the prison guard turn down the opposite hall and she comes out. 

"Colonel Dario says you can go on in," the guard says with an amused snort. 

Hilal gives him a bright grateful smile. 

"Nurse Kostas, you wanted to see me?" Colonel Dario stands up at his desk when she enters and waits until the door closes behind her before speaking again. "You have information on Lieutenant Akis?" he asks, his voice low. 

Hilal nods. "I know where he's being held, and the other prisoners being held illegally by the GJD. Who runs the prisons, where the other compounds are, access codes and who in the Greek government have given their support to the organization. All here." 

Colonel Dario stares at her and then the thick folder she's laid on his desk.. "How did you get all this?"

"Colonel Stepanov. He runs the prison where Lieutenant Akis and others are being held right now. We've managed to overtake it but we need your help to free them without the other compounds being alerted before those men in those prisons can be overtaken as well."

"Jesus...but...that doesn't answer my question. That's who you got it from, now, forgive me young miss, but from what I know of Colonel Stavros he wouldn't give up all this information freely." He's looking back and forth from her to the papers on his desk.

Hilal swallows hard. "No, he didn't."

His eyes study her. "Well, you look like you can fit in my pocket so I'm going to assume you had help subduing the colonel?"

Hilal purses her lips. She may not look tough but it's on the tip of her tongue to throw in his face how she helped win the war! 

Alcon assured her they could trust this man so Hilal let's him in on their plan. He sits back and she feels a smug satisfaction at the admiration in his gaze now. 

Colonel Dario lifts the handset of the phone on his desk and asks to speak to the head of the Department of Justice. Hilal can only hear his side of the conversation but when he hangs up it sounds he has gotten the go ahead to bring in the leaders of each compound and release the men being held. 

Hilal falls against the backrest of the chair in relief. She gets to her feet as a surge of excitement moves through her, but the movement causes a wave diziness to grip her and she sways. 

"Are you alright?" he reaches out in time before she goes over and studies her closely after she's she's steady. His eyes move over her face and down the length of her body and Hilal curses the few buttons of her coat that are straining against her middle. 

"Good grief, Miss. Are you with child?"

She scowls at him. "What does that matter? Send your men. Go on now." Her shooing motion makes him blink in surprise in that way that men usually did when they discovered that women were also capable of giving orders. 

He calls a few guards to come with him to follow Hilal back to Colonel Stavros's apartment to arrest him personally and sends out more of his troops to locate the other prisons and apprehend the leaders there and liberate the men being held. 

Hilal's heart freezes when she hears Colonel Dario swear once he's broken down the door with his men and entered the apartment. Hilal rushes in to find Alcon on the ground. "He's dead," the colonel says sadly Hilal knows they must have been close. Yildiz is gone. Colonel Stavros is also missing.

"He has her," Hilal chokes out. "He's taken my sister."