Covenant by Dean Crawford Page B

thought you’d be better off down in Eilat?”
    Griffiths let his gaze return to his newspaper.
    “I like the architecture here. What do you want?”
    “I want you to be honest with me,” Ethan replied. “You’re not on holiday, you’ve been working. You’ve got dirt under your nails, which suggests to me that you’ve only recently finished an excavation, probably worked through the night to complete it.” Griffiths looked back up as Ethan went on. “I represent a collector, and I think that you’ve happened upon a specimen that he may be interested in.”
    Griffiths shook his head. “As I said, I work privately.”
    “Whatever you’ve been offered, he’ll beat.”
    “I doubt that.”
    “So you have found something then.”
    Griffiths sighed as though tired of the game already. “Who are you representing?”
    “That’s not important,” Ethan replied smoothly. “What is important is that they are willing to pay handsomely for the specimen.”
    Griffiths shook his head again.
    “You know nothing of what we’ve found, you don’t know where it is and you have no idea of its value, yet you’re sitting here trying to cut a deal with me over it.”
    Ethan leaned back in his chair, taking a sip of his drink. “Alien fossils are hard to come by.”
    Griffith’s squint vanished completely and hard gray eyes bored into Ethan’s.
    “How did you—”
    “We have people,” Ethan cut across him, forestalling his question.
    “Who’s we ?” Griffiths asked, glancing at Rachel.
    Ethan gestured around the square.
    “We’d like to see the remains before making a bid. If they live up to expectation, then I’m sure that you’ll find our offer to be extremely generous.”
    Griffiths stared at Ethan for a long moment, apparently unable to weigh up whether he was being played or had just walked into the deal of a lifetime. Ethan pushed harder. “Come on, you know that you’re sitting on a fortune. Why reserve it for one client when an auction would be far more lucrative. It’s not like we’re in Montana: you’re not going to be arrested for theft as long as nobody knows about what you’ve found.”
    “My client is reliable and I am not greedy,” Griffiths said.
    “I’m sure,” Ethan agreed, “but money is money and these remains are going to be in high demand if you open them up to the market.”
    “You want me to make you bid against others for it?” Griffiths muttered. “Why would you do that instead of pushing for a bargain here and now?”
    “Because we would win. Price is not an object, Mr. Griffiths. It is the quality of the specimen that counts.”
    Griffith’s eyes narrowed.
    “And if the remains are of sufficient quality and I was willing to sell?”
    Ethan took a breath.
    “Five million dollars, delivered in bonds or wire transfer. Anything you want.”
    Griffiths promptly got up from his seat.
    “Not even close, Mr. Warner. My client has already paid a deposit greater than that.”
    Damn. “A deposit? So he has seen the remains, in person?”
    “Not yet,” Griffiths replied, shoving his newspaper under his arm. “But images were sent.”
    “May I see them? It will affect our offer.”
    “Client confidentiality,” Griffiths muttered as he turned away. “And your offer was shit.”
    Ethan stood as Griffiths walked away, ignoring Rachel’s dismayed expression.
    “You’re not a trained paleontologist,” he said. The fossil hunter kept walking. “Which makes me wonder, how did you know where to look to find such a magnificent specimen? It’s almost as if someone else had to find it for you.”
    Griffiths slowed, standing for a moment with his back to Ethan before turning and looking at him. “What do you mean?”
    Ethan was no longer smiling, and spoke loudly enough for people at other tables to hear him. “Doesn’t it make you wonder, who it was who found the remains and what happened to them?”
    Griffiths looked about anxiously and then paced back toward the table,