Koba turned to Lucy and held out his hand. Lucy placed half of the wad of cash in it.
“Tell him he’ll get the other half when we get there,” she instructed Zara.
Zara conveyed Lucy’s condition and the man grunted.
The old woman was still wailing when they stepped outside. Koba insisted on driving and Zara reluctantly got into the back seat. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she told Lucy as she closed the door. “$50 a day is not worth getting killed for.”
“Nobody’s going to get killed,” Lucy returned. “And just think, if the book is there and the woman is willing to sell it to me, you’ll be famous for helping to discover a treasured ancient relic.”
“If you say so,” Zara replied nervously.
Lucy, not so sure of her assertion as she tried to seem, fingered the P96 in her jacket po
