Chapter Thirteen
The bureaucratic man with the chilling smile appeared at her table again, and Laurel felt both that thrill of anxiety and the terrible feeling that this was becoming disturbingly commonplace. Sometimes he appeared just to remind her of what the mysterious “they” held over her. A part of her was becoming ridiculously used to his appearances as she tried to work on her article, and deep inside, she wanted to scream.
"We would like to thank you for your cooperation," he said pleasantly, sitting down without being invited.
"You know that's the last thing I want to hear," she said bluntly. "You cannot believe that I am happy to be doing this for you."
The man's smile remained unchanged, and a part of her wanted to check him for plugs, for an antennae, something that would confirm her idea that he was not a human at all.
"Oh, I am well aware of your feelings for us," he said smoothly. "You have made them very clear over our time together. However, I do want you to understand that you are doing a great deal of good, even if you don't see it."
"I was always taught that if someone says they are doing something for your own good and won't tell you what it is, you should duck," she retorted. "Come on. The less I see your face, the happier I am, so out with it."
There was an icy glitter in the man's eyes, something that hinted at a facade that was far less pleasant than even the one that he showed her on a regular basis.
"Walk very carefully, Miss Garibaldi. After all, should all of this come out, you are one of us, and sometime in the future, it might be better to have friends than people you have alienated out of needless malice and childish petulance."
There were a thousand things she could have said about that, but Laurel took a deep breath and nodded. He was right in a way. If all of this came out, Bassam and his people would have no choice but to look at her as a spy and one of these people...whoever they were.
When he saw that she had no further objections, the man nodded and got down to business.
"The sheikh might not have told you about this just yet, but he is going to be leaving the capitol for a little while. The trip is not a public-facing one, though knowing him, there will be time for the odd photo opportunity here and there. Instead, he will be touring some of the manufacturing plants that he and his compatriots own. He will be visiting some of the major food-producing farms in the region, and he will be seeing how things are run in his country essentially."
The man paused, his eyes on Laurel's face. She tensed. It felt like he was judging her even as he relayed this information, but she couldn't quite figure out what was going on. She had been his puppet, albeit reluctantly, for almost six weeks now. Her belly twinged with a slight pain, almost as if her body was reacting to this anxiety.
"We want you to find his itinerary for us," the man said. "We want to know where he is going and when."
Her eyes opened wide, and a chill crawled down her spine. "You're going to—"
"No," the man said. "Not at all. But we do want to know where his interests are, who he is spending time with. It is a matter of economics, Miss Garibaldi, not that I expect that you are very interested in that."
She had a vivid image in her head of herself lunging across the table at the man. And what? Smashing him over the head with her tea cup? Jabbing him in the face with her pen?
"Your part in this is minor and very safe," he said, and the fact that she was being reassured made her hackles rise even farther. "There is nothing to be concerned about. It is not our intention to hurt anyone.
"I will be in touch in a week. By that time, I expect you to have the sheikh's itinerary ready for me. Write it down if you have to, but ideally, you will memorize it so that you can tell it to me here."
He paused, his eyes searching hers. "Do you understand?"
"I do," she whispered. "I do."
"Good. Please be very aware, Miss Garibaldi. This is only a slight alteration of your role. We still have the documents that show us exactly what happened between you and Wilbur Owain. If you don't want those released to some very interested people..."
"I will do as you say," she repeated numbly.
That was apparently what he wanted to hear from her. He stood up with a courteous nod and walked away, disappearing into the traffic outside.
For a moment, Laurel couldn't think. Then she could, and her thoughts coalesced into one single idea. She was going to throw up.
She made it to the cafe's bathroom just in time, retching hard and holding herself as if she could keep her entire body together. Afterward, she rinsed her mouth out with cold water. The light in the bathroom was a cold blue, making her look dead. The dark circles under her eyes were nearly black, and she looked unbelievably haggard.
God, I look like I haven’t slept since Ben was born, she thought distantly, and then her conscious mind reasserted itself, screaming...
THEY ARE GOING TO KILL BASSAM.
He had said no one was going to get hurt. He had said there was nothing different about what they were doing. The man was a liar. She knew when to trust her gut, and her gut was telling her that Bassam was in danger. There were people out there who wanted to end his life, and they would try it. Perhaps they were clever and powerful, or perhaps they were incompetent, but Laurel knew enough about people to know that all bets were off when malice came into play like this. Powerful, strong people could fail. Incompetents could win the day.
She scrubbed her face hard, and when she stood up, Laurel could feel an iron resolve settle over her. No one was going to hurt Bassam. No one could convince her to hurt the man she loved. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of the world, where nothing mattered except the most important things. Nothing mattered but Ben and Bassam, not her, not what happened to her, and she would be damned if either of them came to harm.
Laurel packed up her things, feeling as if she was finally free. The air felt clearer, the sun and sky looked brighter. She wondered if this was what kamikaze pilots felt like before their final flights. She had made her decision.
She would be gone in just twenty-four hours.
***
Laurel wondered when she had started to think of the penthouse as home. When she ascended in the elevator and unlocked the door at the top of the skyscraper, she felt a sense of ease and safety. Someone had once told her that home was where you were totally accepted, and that was what she felt here.
Are you? asked a small voice. Are you really? If you were really accepted, couldn't you open your mouth, tell Bassam about—
She cut the thought off because it was not helping her right now. It was not serving her, and it would not help her do any of the things that she needed to get done over the next short while. When she checked the clock, she saw that Ben would be home in forty-five minutes or so. That might be cutting it close, but it would be fine.
Laurel thanked her lucky stars that she was good at picking up and simply going. It was an instinct that she had honed in the years before Ben was born. She had climbed to the top of her profession by being hungry for it, by being ready to go whenever and wherever they wanted her. There was a time when nearly everything that she owned could have fit in a single carry-on bag.
As she packed this time, however, she realized that over the past short while, she had picked up so many things. There were things that Ben had made for her, and of course there were all the things that Bassam had bought her. There was so much that belonged to her, that had turned her place in the penthouse into a home. There were even more things in the apartment that she and Ben shared when they were stateside. She made a note to write down the address for Bassam, in case there was anything that Ben wanted, and somehow, it was that thought more than any other that made her realize this was in fact real and it was truly happening.
Do not do it, she thought grimly to herself. Do not dare burst into tears. With tears come delay and questions, and you cannot afford either right now.
She blinked back tears, only a few escaping, and then she was able to get on with packing. When Laurel started moving again, she was able to detach herself from all of it. She could put on the cold veil that had served her so well when she was getting a hard story, when she was talking with someone who had just lost everything but still needed a voice.
By the time she was done, there was a bag full of essentials that was shoved at the back of her closet, along with a folder and a note that she could leave when tomorrow came. The problem was that after all that, there was nothing she could do until tomorrow. The time between now and then stretched out in front of her, both far too short and an eternity. Laurel thought that this must be what waiting for an execution was like.
Almost on cue, she heard the door open. For a moment, Laurel was struck by the urge to hide, to tell both her son and her lover that she was too ill to sit with them that night. It would have perhaps been the easiest thing to do. She straightened up, however. The pain that she felt seeing them and talking with them that night would be nothing compared to what it would be if she didn't. She was wise enough to know that at least.