18
Kathryn watched the Sheikh sit cross-legged before her on the firm sand of the empty courtyard. The Hashimi had left them alone, seemingly without being asked to do so. It was like they could read minds.
Is that what I’m about to do, Kathryn wondered as she gathered her robes and went down on her knees before the Sheikh, this tall, muscular beast of a man whom she’d known two days though it felt like two years, maybe two decades.
Oh, God, this whole thing is a act of trust, a leap of faith, isn’t it, she thought when she saw the look in the Sheikh’s green eyes. He’s trusting himself to me even though he knows I can’t be trusted. And in return he’s asking . . . what is he asking of me?
“Marry me, become my Sheikha. Ask the right questions, and you will understand,” he’d told her. “Ask the right questions and you will understand.”
And then it hit her. Oh, God, he’s trusting himself to me in a way that he’s never trusted anyone, not even himself. He wants me to dig deep, to unearth things that perhaps have been buried so long they’re out of reach for him on his own. Things about his past that perhaps he doesn’t remember, doesn’t want to remember, can’t remember. In his own way, he’s asking me to help him understand himself, isn’t he? He’s asking me for help, though he may not even realize it!
Kathryn took a deep breath and exhaled. She looked into Hyder’s eyes and smiled, nodding once as if to acknowledge what they couldn’t say in words, that this was the ultimate exercise in trust, the ultimate leap of faith. Even the Sheikh didn’t know what would come from this, did he?
“Just relax and follow my breathing,” Kathryn said softly, inhaling and exhaling in a steady rhythm. “Just listen to my voice.”
She wouldn’t need a pendulum or any external device to take him under, she knew. He was receptive, and the environment was perfect. The sun was setting over the dunes, and the desert skies were bathed in purple, red, and orange. The crescent moon was already showing, bright and perfect, and the stars were making themselves known. The wind had softened to a warm breeze, and the Hashimi were nowhere to be seen or heard.
“My voice,” she said again, keeping her breathing steady, her eye contact fixed but relaxed, her voice strong but soft. “Just my voice. Nothing but my voice. My voice. My voice. My voice.”
She stayed with the flow for several minutes, and finally she saw the Sheikh’s eyelids flutter and his eyes lose focus. He was in that altered state of consciousness, that middle ground between waking life and the dream world, the subconscious state where he was open and vulnerable.
Oh, God, he’s really gone under, hasn’t he, Kathryn realized as she tried to stay calm. But it was hard, because she knew what it meant to have someone go under so easily and completely. It meant they trusted you. Perhaps it meant even more.
“Why do you trust me?” came the question, the words coming before even the thought, it seemed. “How can you trust me?”
The Sheikh slowly took a breath, closing his eyes briefly and opening them. “I trust you because I choose to trust you. Because it is worth the risk. You are worth the risk.”
“Worth the risk that if it comes to it, I might be faced with a choice of killing you or betraying my country?” Kathryn asked, using all her willpower to stay calm and not be affected by what the Sheikh had just said, by what it meant. What it meant to her.
“John Benson and Mel believe that if things work out, you will not need to make that choice,” said Hyder after a pause.
“If things work out. What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
Kathryn gulped and wondered for a moment if the Sheikh was really under or just playing. But the signs were right: dilated pupils, slightly unfocused eyes, calm replies that came without hesitation, without guile, but yet colored by his personality. He was still a king, after all.
“OK,” she said, breathing deep and nodding. “Let’s move on. How do you know Benson and Mel? You said you were an informant. Tell me about—”
“Operation Nightshade,” came the reply, this time after a moment’s hesitation. Then the Sheikh’s eyelids fluttered, as if he was fighting something. “Nishaani. Nisha. Ya Allah, what did we do!”
Kathryn frowned as she wondered yet again if she was being played. After all, the Sheikh had seemed awfully eager to volunteer for this interrogation. And hypnotism wasn’t foolproof, especially on someone who knew how it worked, how to counter it, how to . . . fake it?
No, she thought firmly as she remembered what the Sheikh had just said about her. “I choose to trust you,” he’d said. Trusting her was a choice he’d made, even though he knew she shouldn’t be trusted, she couldn’t be trusted.
“What did you do?” Kathryn asked softly as the sun set over the rolling dunes, casting them in the early shadows of nightfall. “What was Operation Nightshade?”
“Russia,” said Hyder. “Nishaani. Ya Allah, what did we do? She was so young. So ambitious. So ready to do good, so anxious to save the goddamn world. She was ready to do anything, to be anything. To be anyone.”
Kathryn frowned as she watched the torment on the Sheikh’s handsome brown face. There was something here, and for a moment Kathryn wondered if she even wanted to know.
“Tell me, Hyder,” she said softly. “Go on. I’m listening. What was Operation Nightshade?”
Suddenly the Sheikh grinned, his face twisting and his eyelids fluttering. “Ya Allah, you can guess, can you not? You are on the twin mission of Operation Nightshade.”
The blood rushed to her face and then drained so quick Kathryn almost passed out in the sand, but she managed to control herself even though she needed a moment for everything to stop spinning.
“Your sister . . .” she said slowly, “. . . she was asked to . . . to . . . seduce and marry Yuri Gorka? It was an intelligence operation? A government mission?”
The Sheikh nodded. “Yes.”
Kathryn frowned, her head still spinning. “But that must have been years ago. What was the objective of the mission?”
“Same as the objective of your mission. Control. Influence. Power.”
Kathryn nodded. “So Nishaani—Nisha—she was supposed to eventually kill Yuri Gorka? But why? Russia isn’t a kingdom with kings and queens and heirs. It at least pretends to have elections. What good would killing him do?” Kathryn snorted in disbelief and shook her head. “And anyway, the mission must have failed, since I was the one ordered to kill him in the end.”
The Sheikh shook his head. “Did it fail? No. Nishaani was never supposed to kill him. She was supposed to love him. To stand by his side. To rise with him.” He smiled. “Russian politics is very much like the old world of kings and queens. Yes, it is a democracy in name, which means that if a mayor or president dies in office, the next in command takes over. But in Yuri Gorka’s case, he was still just a candidate for mayor of Sevastopol. A well-loved candidate. A well-loved candidate who campaigned with his well-loved wife.” He paused and took a breath. “And it is by no means unusual for the spouse of a popular politician to run for office herself. Especially when she is doing it to fulfill the hopes and dreams of her dear, departed husband.”
“Nisha? Your sister? What are you saying? So Nisha Gorka will run for mayor on her dead husband’s ticket? That was the plan all along? A ten-year marriage that was a lie just to get—”
“The marriage was not a lie. I know my sister. She does not do things halfway. If she was focused on marrying a man, she would do it with all her energy. All her passion. All of her.”
Kathryn shook her head to try to get the knots out, but the tangled web of lies and betrayal hung heavy like a blanket. “So you’re saying she did in fact fall in love with him? That she didn’t want him dead? That maybe she’s gone rogue, that even though she’s going to run for mayor in place of her dead husband, the CIA can no longer be sure of her loyalty? And why was she loyal to the CIA anyway? Because she’s half American? Goddammit, Hyder! This is so damned twisted! Give me a clean kill any day!”
“Here I am,” said the Sheikh, holding his arms out wide and grinning. For a moment Kathryn was certain he wasn’t hypnotized, but his eyes still had that slightly glazed look that told her he was very much in that subconscious state. “Your clean kill. Take your shot, my assassin. Straight to the heart. I am yours. Take me now.”
Kathryn wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, to scream and smash things or curl up into a ball and whimper like a confused child. A part of her wanted to go to him right then, to kiss his full, dark red lips, to feel his strong hands pull her robes apart and press her breasts so hard she screamed. But she held her ground and kept going, kept talking, kept asking questions even though a part of her wanted to shut it all out and perhaps really live with the Hashimi for the rest of her life.
“Why, Hyder? Why did your sister—who must have been in her early twenties at the time—agree to something like that? What could have convinced her?” Kathryn asked.
“You mean who, not what,” said the Sheikh.
Kathryn frowned as a sense of dread crept through her, clawing at her insides as her mind squirmed and roiled like a snake in the sun. Who did she know who was capable of that kind of manipulation? Who did she know who could convince an ambitious, idealistic young woman to devote her life to serving her country by turning that life into a lie?
“Mel?” Kathryn asked hoarsely.
Hyder nodded slowly. “Her mother,” came his reply. “Her American mother.”