Bumford lay there like a gutted fish.
“Nod if you understand.”
When he still didn’t move, Linc prompted him by yanking his chin up and down. Bumford’s eyelids fluttered as the first wave of terror ebbed, and he nodded vigorously.
When Linc pulled his hand away, Bumford whimpered, “Who are you?”
“Keep your voice down,” Linda said. “We’re here about Alana Shepard, Mike Duncan, and Greg Chaffee.”
“Who are you?” Bumford repeated. “I don’t recognize you. You aren’t part of this group.”
When Linda reached across him, Bumford seemed to try to burrow into the ground. She straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose and curled one of the spectacles’s arms around his ear where it had dislodged. “We’re friends. We need to talk to you about the other members of your team.”
“They aren’t here.”
“What is this guy, an idiot savant?” Linc asked.
“Professor Bumford,” Linda opened again, as smoothly as she could, “we’re here to ask you a few questions. We’re part of an American search-and-rescue team.”
“Like the military?”
“Strictly contract civilians, but people in Washington thought your mission important enough to hire us.”
“It’s a waste of time,” Bumford said, regaining a little of his equilibrium, and his arrogance.
“Why do you say that?”
“You do know who I am, yes?”
Linda knew he was fishing for a little recognition to prime his ego. “You’re Emile Bumford, one of the world’s foremost experts on the Ottoman Empire.”
“Then you must know I needn’t explain my opinions. You may take them as fact. This expedition for the State Department is a complete waste of time.”
“Then why in the hell did you come?” Linc asked.
Bumford didn’t answer right away, and Linda saw the furtive look in his eye. “Don’
t lie,” she cautioned.
With a sigh Bumford said, “I lost my tenure because of an affair with a student, and I’m now in the middle of a divorce. My soon-to-be-ex-wife’s lawyer is treating my wallet like a piñata, and I didn’t make that much teaching in the first place. Add that to the fact that I haven’t published a book in ten years, and you figure it out.”
“Money.”
“The State Department is paying me five hundred dollars a day. I need it.”
“That’s why you’re out here sitting on your butt even though the rest of your team is missing. You’re just racking up your per diem.” There was neither denial nor shame in Bumford’s expression.
Linda wanted to slap his smug face but instead said as calmly as she could, “Well, it’s time you start earning your money. Tell me exactly why you think this trip is a waste of time.”
“Do you know the story of Suleiman Al-Jama we were told—about how he befriended an American sailor and had a change of heart concerning his jihad against the West?”
“We’ve heard it,” Linda said.
“I don’t believe it. Not for a second. I’ve studied everything Al-Jama ever wrote. It’s almost as if I know the man. He wouldn’t change. None of the Barbary corsairs would. They made too much money waging war against European shipping.”
“I thought Al-Jama fought for ideological reasons, not monetary gain,” Linc countered.
“Al-Jama was a man like any other. I’m certain he would’ve been tempted by the riches that raiding provided. He might have started off wanting to kill infidels for the sake of killing them, but in some of his later writings he talks about the ‘rewards’ he accumulated. His word, not mine.”