Sean climbed into the Suburban and slammed the door. “Has hell frozen over?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” his oldest brother said. “I’m not happy to be working with you either.”

“Glad we agree for once. Have your Men in Black drive me home.”

Jace Quinn, suited like the assholes in front, nodded to the driver watching in the rearview mirror. The Suburban bumped off the curb and smoothly ran a red light, the glow washing Jace’s tense profile in soft rose hues. “I need you to identify something.” His tone was low. Not because of the goons in front. Because he was embarrassed to ask for help.

Sean was the youngest of five Black Irish boys from the South Side. His older brothers, aged a year apart, had dominated their rough neighborhood growing up. They were collectively responsible for the state football championship trophies the high school still proudly displayed, and each had signed up for multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And then there was Sean. Seven years younger than the Pack. Uninterested in team sports. Skeptical of the patriotic dogma masking the blundering greed for oil that had given rise to Al-Qaeda and ISIS. But his worst faults in the Quinn family’s eyes? His archaeology and fine arts degrees. Conserving and restoring art for a living. Devouring opera and classical literature in his downtime.

Yeah, it was all fun and games bashing baby brother’s sissy lifestyle until they needed his expertise. Sean thumbed the road behind him. “I live in the opposite direction.”

“I’m not fucking around here, Sean.” Jace inhaled like he was about to go off on a rant, then glanced at the men in front and exhaled, jaw tight. “We think another avenue opened up and artifacts are being smuggled in through O’Hare. I just need you to authenticate something so we can begin tracing it to ISIL operations.”

“Newsflash: you and I were a disaster working in the same organization.”

“Knock off the histrionics. You quit because I made you look bad.”

Because you took all the credit for work I did. Sean shook his head mutely, staring ahead.

“Besides, the contract anthropologist works normal hours. I want to tag this smuggler tonight, red-handed.”

Ah, yes. No human on earth was more dangerous than Jason Robert Quinn with something to prove. That explained this mini kidnapping. Jace, a former SEAL, was still incensed at being hired at the bottom of the FBI operations hierarchy. In a nod to Lady Irony, special agents were required to have a college degree. Given Jace’s military expertise, the Chicago field office was piloting a new associate program, fast-tracking vets like Jace into SA positions while they attended night school, but at the moment Jace was still humping along as a lowly special agent associate.

Both the driver and Crew Cut stayed silent. If either of them were in charge, they’d have done the talking, which meant this late-night espionage trip was Jace’s idea and probably not even sanctioned by the FBI. “Shouldn’t you three have a special agent supervising you?”

His brother cuffed him, which wasn’t uncommon. Crew Cut chuckled a nasty sound. Sean rubbed his head, hardly registering the blow as much as the double sting to his pride. First: he hated his baby brother role. He was twenty-nine and a magna cum laude, for fuck’s sake, and yet here he was, speeding toward O’Hare against his will. And second: he hated his need to matter in some tiny way to his superhero brother. Despite protesting, he was going along with this mission with all the starch of a wet noodle. Why not admit it? He was intrigued to use his intellect to assist the FBI again, and treacherous baby brother puffed with pride at being chosen for the ride-along.

“What’s the situation?” he asked quietly.

Jace reached into a briefcase at his feet and withdrew a thick manila file. “We received a tip from the subcontracting company that supplies O’Hare’s janitors and baggage handlers. They believe one of the nightshift custodians is smuggling in small items stowed beneath seats. My men are interrogating him at the TSA office right now, but he’s one big ‘I don’t know.’ Which is where you come in.”

The file landed on Sean’s lap. He turned on the overhead and leafed through the pages slowly. The top report confirmed what most Americans already knew: ISIS, or ISIL, as the government referred to them, smuggled Syrian and Iraqi antiquities to the West in an ongoing effort to pay for weapons and recruiting. Whereas ISIS had previously contracted with diggers and levied a twenty percent tax on their sales, the report showed an alarming new trend: they’d assumed a corporate-like control over all aspects of the digs, equipment, dealers, and middlemen. Even more disturbing, the group had become experts on the values of certain relics and targeted those biblical sites for excavation.

“This item you want me to inspect,” Sean said, scanning pictures of previously captured contraband, “do you know the country of origin?”

“No, but the plane arrived this evening from Frankfurt.”

Sean checked his watch. Most of O’Hare would be dead quiet. The nightshift custodians were probably sparser and less supervised, and undoubtedly could take a lot longer cleaning cabins than their dayshift counterparts. “Conflict antiquities headed for the West are usually smuggled through Turkey or Lebanon,” he said.

“We know. Now we need to know value, origin, and whether the piece has ever had any legitimate paperwork.”

“Provenance,” Sean corrected, leafing through more pictures of mosaic tiles, clay jars, and jewelry the FBI now possessed. He closed the file and watched the night speed by. Intrigue pumped a second wind into him. A potentially priceless artifact… Quite a different ending to what had been a disastrous evening. “Did you trace me through my cell phone?”

“When I didn’t find you tucked in your bed on a Saturday night? Yes.”

Thank God the Suburban hadn’t arrived five minutes earlier.

“Why were you out barhopping? You don’t even drink.” Oddly enough, Jace looked like he was interested in the answer.

“I wasn’t barhopping.” I’d finally gotten up the courage to ask out a coworker. Until I saw the look on her face.

Jace arched a brow. “Trolling to get laid?”

A snort from Crew Cut in front. Sean handed the file back without answering. A right cross, left hook combo would instantly dislocate both their jaws. Sean visualized the exact degree of torso twist, the power of his delivery, the crack of bones. He had a shelf jam-packed with martial arts and kickboxing awards; he could pull this off. But then Mom’s birthday dinner at the Quinn house next week would be a bitch. Not to mention being arrested on federal felony assault charges.

“ETA five minutes,” the driver said.

Sean breathed in slowly, centering his chi. “How long will this take?”

“Dunno.”

“Ballpark it, Jace,” he snapped. “I have a shitload of work in the morning.”

“It’s Sunday, stupid.”

“The billionaire waiting for his art doesn’t care.”

His brother folded his arms, his expression falsely sympathetic. “Aw, cleaning paintings for a living. Sure sucks to be you.”

If only Jace possessed the skill of properly motivating people. One microscopic gesture of appreciation would go so much further than being a Quinn bully. Sean stared out the window, rapidly tap-tapping the side of his thumb on his thigh.

“Fuck you, too,” his brother murmured.

Sean grinned without looking over. So the former SEAL, decorated war veteran, dickhead of a brother still remembered Morse code. Long ago, that shared skill had changed their relationship. One of the few times Sean had captured his hero brother’s respect. Emphasis on long ago.

* * *

The two-way mirror provided a perfect view of the stark and brightly lit observation room. The plaque on the door read Federal Inspection Station Holding Cell. Inside, a task force from TSA, FBI, ICE, and CPD ringed the perimeter, each in a threatening arms-crossed, legs-spread stance. Jace sat across from the custodian, barking out questions that were answered in broken-English, but stubbornly repetitive “I don’t knows.”

On the other side of the mirror Sean fisted his hands in his pockets, awaiting the arrival of the smuggled item. Evidently it had been taken through a TSA screening machine to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. Which was sharp foresight, given the plane had landed after a ten-hour overseas flight and the passengers were long gone. Sean glanced at his watch. Almost one. He had to be at work at eight. The epically humiliating evening at Teenie’s Martinis seemed like days ago, although the woman’s perfume had transferred onto him, so the essence of his remorse filled his every breath. My kingdom for a shower.

He leaned against the small conference table and wearily tuned back in to the interrogation, which was going nowhere. What had been established was that the man, Ahmet Asuman, was a green card immigrant from Turkey. He’d worked as a third-shift custodian for four years and had a clean employee record. He didn’t know who’d taped the item to the bottom of seat 23A, he didn’t know anyone in Germany, and he didn’t know what was in the package. He’d found it when his vacuum bumped a hard object. It sounded legit to Sean, but Jace leaned over the table, getting all up in Asuman’s face.

“If we pull security tape for every day you’ve worked, will we see you holding other packages that your vacuum has bumped?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s a yes or no question, Mr. Asuman. Have you found items before?”

Sweat sheened Asuman’s forehead. His black eyes were wide and wild as he cast about the room for his answer. “Maybe. One, two times?”

“What did you do with the packages?”

The custodian scanned the formidable task force surrounding him and swallowed convulsively. “Threw them out.”

“The security tapes will show that?”

“No. At home I throw them out.”

Jace nodded affably, like he’d expected this answer. Sean stiffened at the casual body language. You had to know Jace to recognize nothing about him was affable right now.

“When were these one or two times?” Jace asked.

“I don’t know.”

Jace pointed to a TSA official. “Start pulling security tapes and have them sent to my office.” He also nodded at Crew Cut, who walked out with the officer. Sean grinned despite himself at Jace’s gravitas. If only Asuman or the officials in there realized this interrogation was being conducted by the FBI’s version of a grunt.

Seconds later, Sean’s door opened and a TSA officer walked in with a package wrapped in brown parcel paper and thick string. Strands of duct tape dangled from the sides. “No trace of explosives. Couldn’t distinguish what it was in the x-ray. To be honest, it looks like junk.”

The gloved guard placed it on the table and Sean knocked on the mirror. When Jace got out of his chair several officers clustered toward the door, too. Sean pulled disposable latex gloves from a wall dispenser box, snapped them on, and took a seat, not bothering to look up as the group trooped in. His brother sank into the seat next to him and handed over a sizeable Swiss Army knife.

Sean snipped the strings, heart beating faster at the possibilities within. He gently unwrapped the package and pulled away the padded cotton. His breath stilled. “It’s…it’s a cuneiform tablet.”

Jace twitched impatiently. “Speak English.”

Sean pointed at the wedge shapes etched in the ancient clay. “These are some of the earliest forms of writing that archeologists have found.” He rummaged through his recollection. “The text could be Akkadian.”

“What does it say?”

Sean shook his head. “I’m only slightly familiar with Mesopotamian anthropology. It could be a letter or an inventory list… Maybe part of a diary.” He studied the beautiful piece. “I can’t tell you its value, either.”

“Okay. The bureau can scour eBay and art auction sites for similar items.”

Using both hands, Sean gently picked up the tablet, as heavy as a dictionary. Underneath, littering the cotton wrapping, were grains of sand. “Freshly plucked from its ancient home,” he murmured. “If I had to hazard a guess, this came from the biblical city of Mari. In Syria. There’s incredible looting going on in that region, and they’re known for having thousands of tablets on all aspects of their lives.” He glanced up at Jace hovering beside him. “And if I’m right, then we’re looking at around three thousand BC.”

A couple of officials whistled under their breaths. Sean rewrapped the cotton around the plundered artifact, his adrenalin waning. Watching the news clip of ISIS decimating the Temple of Bel in Palmyra, a biblical site so precious to all cultures, he’d wanted to weep. Such powerlessness in the face of mass desecration. Which was worse: ripping an ancient culture from the ground both as psychological warfare and to buy weapons, or bombing the site to smithereens because it was pagan to fundamentalist Islamic beliefs?

Sean refolded the brown wrapping. “Sorry I can’t tell you more.”

His brother clapped his shoulder and squeezed, a gesture so unfamiliar that Sean flinched. Jace let go like he’d been burned. “No worries, little brother.”

“Get the FBI to rehire me,” Sean blurted. “I’ll consult on this smuggling operation.” In the silence that followed, he prayed for the ground to swallow him up. Seriously, could he sound more like a five-year-old wanting to join the big boys? Pick me, Jace, pick me. Memories of that particular plea rose to the surface. The agony when it never happened. Sean tried to channel his earlier reluctance for getting into the Suburban. It was so much safer not caring what you meant to other people. But that dignified guy had been replaced by a pathetic spectacle burning for a crumb of Jace’s respect.

His brother stood, the deliberation on his face crystal clear: his visceral need to solve complex cases and impress the brass warring with working alongside a brother whose oddities baffled him. “How else could you help?”

Sean motioned to Asuman, slumped dejectedly in his chair. “Whoever he’s selling the tablet to will have a lot more artifacts. I can go in as a buyer.”

“Too dangerous.”

“I’m a fourth-degree black belt.”

Jace picked up the package. “Yeah, I can see handing Mom that bit of logic when the bad guys show up with AK-47s.”

Sean shot up, tipping his chair. The police officer behind him jumped aside. “Sorry.” Sean snatched the chair and shoved it under the table. Why couldn’t he just shut up? These guys were getting the full spectacle of the pathetic Quinn family dynamics. Up next: whining and clinging to Jace’s leg. Yeah. It’d happened. Chicago’s Air and Water Show, age eight. Sean still hadn’t gotten over the humiliation.

He straightened his shoulders and reached deep for a reasonable tone. “You’ll need someone who knows the worth of the pieces. The lingo. The condition. I can consult through an earpiece if you don’t want me near the dealer.” He closed with motivation too enticing for Jace to ignore: “You know my expertise will make you look good. And I could potentially help disrupt a terrorist supply chain.” Pick me, Jace.

His brother exhaled loudly. “Fine.” He didn’t look over. “I’ll pull some strings. Don’t fuck this up.” He nodded to the driver. “Take him home.”