13
They landed in golden sand, Kathryn and the Sheikh dropping not far from each other. Immediately Kathryn snapped off the chute-straps and frantically pulled the billowing fabric in towards her, looking up into the skies as she did it. Had the F-16s seen them jump? Were they circling in for the kill? Would they be gunned down in the desert sand? Blown to bits beneath the pale blue skies of Arabia?
In the distance she saw the Sheikh gathering his chute and scanning the skies as well, and she almost smiled when she saw how alert and focused he was. He thought the same way she did. Always ready. Always watching.
For a moment a sensation of safety washed over her, a feeling of warmth and security. She’d always worked alone, but now she felt like she was a part of a team. Like she had a partner. Someone she could . . . trust?
She pushed away the thought even as it completed itself. She couldn’t trust anyone right now, least of all a man she barely knew. Focus, she told herself. Think.
“Over here!” came his shout from the distance, and she looked to see the Sheikh waving both arms. He stood on top of a sand dune, his tall frame making him look like a statue mounted on a hill.
“Um, yeah, I see you,” Kathryn said, almost laughing when she realized the skies were clear and the danger seemed to have passed. “There’s nothing else around. Yes, I see you. You can stop waving both arms like a weirdo.”
She looked down at herself. They’d managed to grab their clothes before running to the chopper, which meant she was in red harem pants and a black tank top. She squinted up towards the sun and then down at her creamy white skin. She was gonna burn in like ten minutes if she didn’t figure something out. One glance at the white synthetic fabric of the parachute and she knew what needed to happen.
By the time the Sheikh walked over to her, Kathryn had already ripped the chute along one of the seams and begun to fashion herself a robe that would cover her from head to toe. Then she looked at her toes. Shit, she was barefoot. She’d have to bag her feet.
“Want me to make you some shoes as well while I’m at it?” she asked casually when the Sheikh walked up in his thousand-dollar fitted black trousers, Egyptian cotton half-sleeve shirt, and no shoes. “White nylon bag-shaped slip-ons are in vogue this time of year, I believe.”
“Yes, please,” said the Sheikh, raising his eyebrows and then breaking into a smile as he glanced at her toes and then shook his head. “Though we will not be walking far.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and waved it at her. “I shall call a taxi.”
He started to dial, but Kathryn snatched the phone from his hand and turned it off. “They found you in a brothel in Habeetha, and then in the goddamn skies. Turning on your phone and GPS might be a tad reckless, don’t you think?”
The Sheikh calmly took his phone back from Kathryn, raising an eyebrow and turning it back on. “Firstly, they found us, not just me. Remember, we still don’t know who the target was in those two attacks.”
“We don’t even know who the attackers were, now that you mention it,” Kathryn snapped. She was hot and uncomfortable. Already she could feel her arms tingle from sunburn. This goddamn robe better work, or else she’d turn into a lobster by sundown. “But it’s a good bet that turning on your phone pretty much gave away our location.”
The Sheikh put the phone to his ear, his expression calm, like he really was calling a taxi. Of course, there was nothing but rolling sand dunes in every direction, and Kathryn might have appreciated the beauty if not for the rising panic that came from the realization that every direction looked the same, and it was no wonder people got turned around and lost in the desert.
“So then you do have some idea who tried to kill us,” Hyder said as he waited for whoever was on the other end to pick up.
“I just told you I didn’t,” snapped Kathryn. “Russians dressed like Islamic militia. American F-16s shooting down a helicopter without warning over international airspace. It doesn’t add up. Just doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, you appear to believe that our enemies, whoever they are, can track my cell phone. That is not technology available to everyone.”
“Actually, it is. And yet you insist on checking your goddamn voicemail, pretty much sending out a beacon telling everyone that we’re alive and defenseless in the middle of the goddamn desert!” Kathryn shouted. She shook her head and took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to lose it, but it was so hot. Soooo hot!
She stayed quiet and kept working at putting together their makeshift robes and shoes. She didn’t have much to work with—just the fabric and synthetic rope—but it was enough. It was only when she tied her new bag-shoes around her ankles and rose to her feet that she noticed the Sheikh speaking on the phone softly but authoritatively in Arabic.
“Two hours,” he said, turning off the phone and smiling. He looked her up and down. “Very nice. Where are my shoes?”
“You can stay barefoot, I decided. Burn your royal piggies for all I care,” Kathryn said, folding her arms over her parachute-fabric tunic and adjusting her head-covering so she could see.
“Just as well. Our taxi will be here in two hours,” the Sheikh grunted, looking her up and down again. “And you look ridiculous, by the way.”
Kathryn didn’t answer. She stood there in her bag and took deep breaths of the hot, dry air. Two hours for a taxi? What, another helicopter? How long would that stay in the air?
The Sheikh was scanning the skies once again when she glanced over at him. His jaw was tight, his expression grave. Was he looking for signs of more fighter planes? No, they’d hear the jets before they saw them, so it wasn’t that. Then she saw the emotion in the man’s eyes, and she blinked and took a breath.
“I’m sorry about your pilot,” she said softly, stepping forward and touching his arm. She could feel the tension in his body, the emotion surging through his frame. “If we get the chance, I’d like to meet his family and tell them how brave he was, how he saved our lives by diverting the attention of those F-16s. I’d like to tell them myself. Was he married? Did he have children?”
The Sheikh turned to her, and he looked almost puzzled, like he wasn’t sure if she was being genuine or not. Then he blinked and shook his head. “I appreciate the sentiment. But the man had no family. The men in my closest service do not take wives. Many of them are orphans too.”
Kathryn cocked her head and squinted up at the Sheikh. He smiled and shrugged. “I find that the fewer people a man has to care about, the more trustworthy he becomes. It is much harder to blackmail or threaten a man who has no leverage points, no weaknesses, no one that can be taken hostage.”
Kathryn snorted and shook her head. She understood exactly what he was saying, and that saddened her. She also knew that after this brief moment of mourning and gratitude, the Sheikh would put this out of his mind. This was the world she lived in as well: One of the reasons the CIA had picked her was precisely because she didn’t have anyone in her life she gave a damn about. No one that could be used as leverage. No choke points. No weaknesses.
No love.
“Who did you call?” she said, trying to change the topic as she felt emotion swell in her breast. She wasn’t sure if she was upset about the brave pilot who’d sacrificed himself for his king, or if she was shaken by the commonalities between the Sheikh and herself. Clearly they had things in common, things from the past. There were so many questions she needed to ask—so many that it seemed almost hopeless to even begin. What was his connection to Benson and Mel? Why was his half-sister living under an assumed name as the wife of a Russian politician? Why did he seem completely nonchalant about using his phone when he was paranoid enough to only employ men who didn’t have any loyalties other than to their king and Sheikh?
“All my phones have a scrambler algorithm built into their signal,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “I have a lot of different phones, and I cycle through them, destroying them after a few uses. Even if some agency is tracking this phone, the scrambler algorithm would make it look like the signal was coming from some random part of the world, anywhere from Iceland to South Africa. Impossible to track.”
“Wow. Now that is some high-level paranoia. You really know how to turn a girl on, don’t ya?” Kathryn said. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Ah, now there is that Alabama accent!” the Sheikh said, grinning wide. “I love the speech of the American south. Birmingham, is it? The land of iron mines and the Vulcan.”
“You know about the Vulcan of Alabama?” Kathryn said, laughing as she thought of the landmark statue of the god Vulcan, perched on a hill, watching over the city of Birmingham, Alabama.
“I am the Vulcan of Alabama!” proclaimed the Sheikh, taking a knee and striking a heroic pose in the sand, raising one arm in a classic Greek-god stance and jutting his jaw out as Kathryn laughed and clapped her hands.
“Very nice. And if you don’t cover up, you’re going to be as red as the Vulcan too,” Kathryn said, holding up the parachute-robe she’d made for him.
“This is my damned desert. I cannot burn,” the Sheikh said obstinately, ripping off his shirt and stretching his muscular arms and chest, turning toward the sun and looking right at it with eyes closed.
Kathryn gasped silently when she saw the beautiful bronze of his smooth skin, the way the thick slabs of muscle on his chest connected with the cut ridges of his abdomen, veins crisscrossing his lean lower stomach, disappearing into his low-hanging silk trousers. For a moment he did look like a god of old, standing there in that heroic pose, challenging the sun itself.
“Suit yourself,” she said finally, dropping the long rectangle of white fabric she’d torn from the chute. “But last time I checked, brown skin burns just as well as white skin.”
The Sheikh sighed and nodded, frowning as he wrapped the synthetic white fabric around his body, covering his head and tying the ends neatly so they stayed put. “At least I know how to wear it. Your look like you are going to an American Halloween party dressed like the ghost of Christmas future.”
“Boo,” said Kathryn, looking down at the billowing robe in dismay. He was right. The cloth was sliding all over the place. She tried to pull the corners in, but a gust of hot desert wind pulled them back like those mischievous gods were trying to disrobe her right there.
“Here,” said the Sheikh, stepping close and grabbing some of the parachute cord from the ground. “Come here. Stand still.”
Without hesitation the Sheikh pulled Kathryn close, reaching around her and sliding the cord around her waist, pulling the makeshift robe in around her breasts. He glanced down at her cleavage as he tied the cord firmly around her waist, and Kathryn felt the heat pass between the two of them as they stood close for that moment.
“Remember why we are both here,” said the Sheikh, the words coming out softly, almost under his breath, like he was speaking to himself as much as to her. He looked into her eyes, and that electricity flowed through her as he leaned in.
Then, under the blazing desert sun, beneath the clear blue skies, amidst the sea of shining gold sand, he kissed her. Once again, he kissed her.