12
Kathryn pulled the blanket around her shoulders and looked out the other window of the helicopter, taking in the sight of rolling sand dunes dotted with the occasional oasis. The deafening whir of the chopper’s engines and blades made her feel like she was sinking into oblivion, and a strange peace came over her when she decided there was nothing to do but let go, to realize that nothing could possibly make sense again, to resign herself to the truth that she was in some kind of a dream or nightmare. Her life so far had been conspiracy and secrets, sinister plots and twisted plans. But this was too much. Did Benson and Mel know about the Gorka connection? Of course they did. Was that part of the plan, somehow? Or was it just the weirdest coincidence ever?
“You have not spoken for almost an hour,” the Sheikh said softly, and Kathryn whipped around at the sound of his voice. She’d almost forgotten he was there. She’d almost forgotten she was there!
“How would anyone know I was there, in Habeetha, in that brothel?” she said quietly. “Benson and Mel were the only ones who knew.”
The Sheikh glanced at her, rubbing his chin and tightening his jaw. “What makes you think you were the target?”
Kathryn snorted. “So the widow of a man I killed decides to assassinate her half-brother, just when I happen to be in the room with him?”
Hyder was silent for a moment. “What makes you think this was the first time she’s tried to kill me?” he asked softly.
She studied his expression. “When was the last time?”
“Two years ago.”
“How?”
“My men found a bomb attached to the underside of my Lamborghini,” the Sheikh said.
Kathryn thought for a moment. “That’s a two-seater car. With very low clearance off the ground. Notoriously sensitive to sand and dust. You drive that a lot around Sehaar?”
The Sheikh smiled and shook his head. “Not really. And your point is?”
Kathryn waved away his question. “How did your men find the bomb? They check the undercarriages of all your cars every day?”
“Of course not. But they do check every vehicle before it is driven. It is protocol.”
“So that bomb could have been placed there weeks before you found it. Perhaps months.”
“Perhaps,” said the Sheikh. “I still do not see your point.”
Kathryn continued to ignore him as her mind raced. “Was there another attempt?”
The Sheikh sighed. “Ya Allah. Now I am the one being interrogated. Yes, there was. A few years before we found the bomb, I was poisoned while on a trip to Europe.”
“Not very good poison, was it?” Kathryn said, raising an eyebrow. “You seem fine to me.”
The Sheikh laughed and ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “All right, Ms. Professional Assassin. Are we getting to your point?”
“My point is that the previous assassination attempts were personal, small scale, well-targeted, and careful. The poison could have killed only you. The bomb could have killed only you and perhaps one other person. There’s also a chance that the attempts were a message—that you can be gotten to.” Kathryn shook her head. “But this? Men in black swarming through a crowded brothel with automatic weapons? It doesn’t fit the pattern.”
Sheikh Hyder narrowed his eyes and turned away from her, glancing out the window. “Unless the pattern is of escalation, with the attempts becoming bolder and more reckless. You do not know my sister, Kathryn.” He sighed. “Even I do not know her anymore. It has been so long.”
Kathryn took a breath and turned the other way, glancing out the other window. No, she didn’t know Nisha Gorka. She’d seen her at that party—tall, slender, dark-haired and beautiful. High cheekbones and sand-colored eyes. Kathryn had wondered about her ethnicity, and now that she thought about it, perhaps there was a resemblance. But nothing in Yuri Gorka’s file had mentioned that Nisha was connected to Middle Eastern royalty. Had Mel hidden that from her?
Stop, Kathryn told herself. Don’t let the paranoia drive you insane. Sometimes the world of politics and espionage gets very small. People are connected in strange ways, and sometimes coincidence can seem like conspiracy. Remember your rules: Breathe. Listen. Observe and process. Trust no one but yourself.
No one but yourself.
She looked over towards the Sheikh, taking in the sight of his cut features, his chiseled jawline, his manicured stubble, those deep green eyes that were scanning the horizon as if he was watching for something. Quickly she looked away when the images of what they’d just shared came rushing back through the whir of the chopper’s blades: The way he’d kissed her. The way he’d touched her. The way he’d entered her. The way he’d made her come.
Then that strange peace washed over her once again. But this time it wasn’t a sense of resignation. It was feeling of excitement. Joy. Optimism. Butterflies.
Because she remembered her final rule. Her unbreakable rule: Finish the job. Always finish the job. And what was the job here?
Marry this man.
Now a sickness rose up in her, and she almost choked when she realized that it was those butterflies. It was a feeling she almost didn’t recognize, it had been so long. It felt like middle school, the feeling of a girl liking a boy so much she doesn’t know how to handle it.
Perhaps this isn’t a nightmare but a dream, she told herself. Not another tragedy but a fairytale. A story that for once doesn’t end in death but in life. New life. A new life for her. A new life for him. A new life . . . within her?
And again that choking feeling came back, and Kathryn almost burst into tears when she realized what she was thinking. A child? She’d never even considered the possibility. How could a woman like her, a cold-blooded killer, ever deserve to have a child? She’d shut down that part of her for so long she’d forgotten it existed. But it did. And it was waking up. Waking up because of him.
“Hyder,” she said softly, her voice trembling as she looked at him. She wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure if she should say anything. They’d been together a few hours, and already they knew so much about each other. So many secrets. “Hyder, listen. I—”
“Hahum qad ja’uu!,” the Sheikh shouted suddenly, leaning forward and grabbing his pilot’s arm. “Alan hu alwaqt.”
The pilot glanced to the left, and then Kathryn saw them: Two fighter planes, mere dots in the distance but coming in fast. Coming in hot.
“What the hell?” she muttered, squinting as they got closer. “Are those . . . F-16s?”
The Sheikh nodded. “American planes. There is a US Airforce Base in Qatar, on the border of Saudi Arabia, not so far from here.”
Kathryn blinked as the distant whine of the F-16 engines turned into a roar that seemed to shake the heavy chopper. The planes screamed past the helicopter, one on each side in perfect symmetry, flying past and starting to turn in the distance.
“Alan hu alwaqt!” shouted the pilot, turning and looking at the Sheikh, his eyes wide. “Afealha alan.”
Kathryn frowned when she saw the emotion in their pilot’s eyes, and she blinked and glanced at the Sheikh. “What did he say?”
“He says these planes are not here to negotiate. They are not here to ask us to land or to turn around. They are here to shoot us down,” the Sheikh said to her. Then to the pilot he spoke in Arabic, which brought another loud response from the pilot, who was vigorously shaking his head and pointing.
Kathryn glanced to where the pilot pointed, and she saw two parachutes strapped to the metal wall of the chopper. She frowned and looked at the pilot, who was staring at her and nodding fiercely.
“Yes, yes!” he shouted. “You must go. Sheikh and you. Take. Now. Go. I stay.”
“Lays baed!” the Sheikh barked out, his face red and peaked. “It is a mistake. Get me on a radio channel with the American pilots.”
The pilot tapped his headphones and gestured to the Sheikh, blabbering on in Arabic as the F-16s made their turns in the distance and pointed their noses back at the defenseless chopper perched against a backdrop of blue sky.
“He says the American pilots are radio-silent. And they are not pulling up alongside either, which they would do if they wanted to escort us out of this airspace or force us to land.” The Sheikh glanced at the little black dots in the distance. They’d circled again. They weren’t going to fly back past them. “Strap on that parachute, Kathryn. Do it now.”
Kathryn didn’t hesitate. She reached for the packs, tossing one to the Sheikh and quickly securing hers as she fought to keep the panic at bay. An overt assassination attempt by men speaking Russian, and now two American fighter planes about to shoot them down? What in God’s name was happening? Was there anyone not trying to kill them? What next? Canadian ninjas?
She tried to smile, a trick she’d learned to clam herself down when the anxiety of a situation threatened to break her. She’d never broken before, and she wasn’t going to now. She looked at the Sheikh and then at the pilot. There was no third parachute.
“Please,” he said in broken English, looking at her. “You understand. Three die or one dies. No other chance. You understand. I cannot land fast enough. They shoot us down before we land.”
Kathryn swallowed hard and nodded. Was it that obvious she was capable of such a cold calculation? She looked into the pilot’s eyes, tears clouding her vision as she nodded. Then she glanced at the Sheikh and took a breath.
The Sheikh said nothing. Then he leaned forward and kissed the pilot once on each cheek, kicked open the door, and pulled Kathryn out, the two of them tumbling into nothingness just as the scream of an incoming missile pierced the air above them.