22
Nightshade, came the word as the Sheikh strained his neck in ecstasy and buried his hands in Kathryn’s thick hair. Operation Nightshade.
Now he understood that he’d indeed been hypnotized in a subtle, almost unrecognizable way. But it hadn’t been complete, and he hadn’t let his guard down all the way. Hypnotism was not truth serum, and after years of keeping secrets and manufacturing the truth based on who he was dealing with, Hyder’s answers to Kathryn’s questions had been a strange mix of reality and fiction, designed to both confuse and illuminate.
“Kathryn,” he muttered as he caressed her hair and bucked his hips as she moved up and down on him. “Ya Allah, Kathryn. I want to tell you the truth. I want to tell you everything.”
The words came out slurred and broken, obscured by his grunts and the sound of her lips sliding back and forth on his smooth, glistening shaft. Tears ran down the sides of his face as he twisted and turned under her touch, and as he looked down at the woman with him, he couldn’t help but think back to that last question his sister had asked when she returned after that fateful meeting with Yuri Gorka, where she’d decided that this was a man she could indeed love, a man she could believe in, a man who would understand her, be worthy of her:
“And when are you going to choose a woman who will join Operation Nightshade?” she’d asked.
“I am working on it,” he’d replied curtly. “I am working on it.”
And I am still working on it, am I not, he thought as he grimaced in pleasure as she sucked him so hard he thought he’d pass out. Even though I have found her, I am still working on it. There are so many layers to unravel, so many chasms to bridge, so many lies to overcome. For years I have been focused on this goal of ours, this childish dream of a brother and sister, a dream of saving the world by influencing American, Russian, and Saudi policy all at once . . . and doing it without sacrificing our individual needs and wants. Is it possible? Or are we truly just children, naïve and foolish with too much time and money at our disposal? What have we changed so far?
A lot, he decided as he thought about it. Many supporters of terrorism are behind bars or dead because of you. And Nishaani is on her way to becoming a player in Russian politics, a woman loved by the people, a woman who could rise on the swell of public opinion if the stars line up right. Yes, they had indeed achieved a lot, and in a way this thing was only just beginning. Operation Nightshade was the long game, he reminded himself. The game that would be played their entire lives.
And what is the point of life without love, came the disjointed thought as he looked down at Kathryn and pulled her off him, bringing her in for a fierce kiss that carried with it all his thoughts, all his fears, every dream, every ambition. It was a kiss that carried all his love, and he damned well knew it.
“Hyder,” she gasped as she broke the kiss for a gulp of air before succumbing to him again. “Oh, Hyder.”
“I love you,” he muttered, kissing her again and flipping her so she was beneath him. He rubbed her between her legs, spreading her with his fingers, his cock straining as its tip teased her wetness. He pushed in a few inches and waited, looking into her eyes and smiling wide. “I love you, in truth and in lies, in the real world and in this fiction we have created,” he muttered. “Ya Allah, I love you, no matter how impossible it seems.”
Kathryn cocked her head and looked up at him, but then he was inside her, pushing every inch of himself into her warm vagina, and her eyes rolled up in her head as she opened her mouth in raw ecstasy.
“I don’t care if it’s impossible,” she groaned as she spread her thighs and then closed her legs around him, pulling him in as he drove and pumped. “It’s happening. Oh, God, it’s happening.”
She screamed as he came inside her, his hips pushing in one last time as her legs held him there. Hyder felt his balls seize up and deliver his load, massive bursts of semen spurting deep into her valley as they declared their love like it was their last day on Earth, as if they were two people who knew they were living a fiction, pretending in a way, acting out what they so desperately wanted to be true.
When they were done he rolled off her and pulled her close, the two of them panting in the darkness, their eyes wild and alert, their hair matted and wet, their bodies hot and shining.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“For what?” he said.
“For you to tell me everything. You said that, didn’t you?”
The Sheikh chuckled and pulled her close, kissing her mussed hair and then her lips. “I was delirious. I did not know what I was saying. And perhaps you did not know what you were hearing.”
“Oh, right. OK. If that’s the way you want to play it, so be it. But I know that everything you told me while under hypnosis wasn’t true. Some of it was true. Some of it was a lie. Some of it was a lie you’ve told so long that you believe it’s true.”
The Sheikh closed his eyes and fought the urge to let it all out, to tell her everything, things he’d told no one else. But he knew he had to wait. He had to let things play out. Wild declarations of love aside, it was still too early. In a way, this was still the first date, was it not?
And so he stayed silent and closed his eyes, and through the dark silence he heard the sound of what was coming.
“What the hell,” Kathryn whispered, sitting bolt upright and grabbing her robe. “No. It can’t be. Please tell me that sound is one of your helicopters, and not . . . oh, God, I know that engine. It's a Blackhawk chopper!”
She howled in frustration, and the Sheikh grabbed her arm and pulled her from the tent just as they heard the first rattle of the chopper’s short-range artillery break through the roar of its engines.