by Cindy Dees
She announced, “I need to speak to Fouad Sollem. I am an old friend and I come with news for him. Please let him know I’m here.”
The man stared at her, overlapping layers of dismay, shock and fury painted on his face. “Who are you?”
“Take me to Sollem.” Isabella had been extremely specific. Under no circumstances give her name before she got inside the main building. And, once inside, she wasn’t to tell anybody her full message short of speaking to Sollem himself.
The sudden dark inside the sprawling, heavy-walled house they took her to was blinding. She blinked, trying to clear the stars from her eyes, but it took several seconds for a wide hallway to resolve itself. Devoid of furniture, the walls and ceiling were built with elaborate Arabic arches and decorated with multi-colored mosaics in complex geometric shapes.
The second door on the right opened and a man in a white robe, much like her black one, stepped out. Definitely not Freddie. This man was too old by a dozen years or more.
“Who are you?” he asked brusquely.
She repeated her story.
“What is your name?”
“Sophie Giovanni. I grew up next door to the Sollem’s. Grandma Sollem babysat me for years. Is she still alive? I hope so. I’d love to see her again.”
“Stay here.” He retreated into his office
Like she was going anywhere, flanked by scowling guards? At least they were keeping their hands off her for the time being. She pulled her head scarf a little farther forward over her forehead as if it could protect her from them. Patience, sweetheart. Be calm. Relaxed. You’re the one doing Freddie a favor. He should be grateful to you. Brian’s remembered voice washed over her frayed nerves, calming them.
Soon, she thought in response. I’m coming back to you to collect on that future I want with you.
Several minutes elapsed.
Another man walked down the gallery toward her, his white, floor-length shirt billowing around a lean frame. In heavily accented English he announced, “You will to come with I.”
She nodded and followed him down the hall. He led her into a small parlor with a pair of giant sofas. He gestured to one of them. “Please to sit.”
In Bhoukari, she said politely, “If you’re more comfortable in your own tongue, I’m happy to practice my Bhoukari. Grandma Sollem taught it to me when I was very young. I must apologize, though, for my many mistakes marring your beautiful language.” Isabella had said to lay on the politeness thick. It would tend to invoke ingrained rules of hospitality, which were ironclad in this culture.
Indeed, the man seemed taken aback. “Would you like some tea?” he asked stiffly in Bhoukari.
“I’d love some. Hot. With orange slices.” That was how the locals drank it.
His eyebrows climbed even higher. He turned and left. She studied the walls. Then the ceiling. Then the Persian rug beneath her feet. Then the walls again. It wasn’t hard to act bored for the pair of cameras she spotted, one high in the corner, and the other peeking through a tile mosaic on the opposite wall. She loosened her head scarf, but did not remove it. She waited. And waited.
And still she waited. But finally, the door opened and several men came in. They wore authority with ease. These guys were a definite step up the pecking order around here.
The three men sat down opposite her on the other sofa. “Miss Giovanni, you will understand if we ask to see some identification?”
“Of course.” She dug in her purse and handed over her passport. The three men leaned close to peer at it together. A short, muttered conversation ensued, most of which she couldn’t hear.
“What is your message for Mr. Sollem?”
“Thank you so much for your hospitality. I know it’s most unusual to receive a guest in this way, particularly in such an isolated location.” She leaned on the buzz words, reminding them of their responsibility to play nice with her. “With all due respect, my message is for Mr. Sollem, and not for any of you. I will give it to him myself.”
The men scowled at that. One said, “Mr. Sollem is extremely busy. I am his close and trusted associate and will most faithfully relay your message.”
“It’s so kind of you to offer!” she exclaimed, all innocent exuberance. “But I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait until Freddie has a spare minute. My message for him is really important, but it’s between me and him.”
“It is not proper for an unmarried woman to speak alone to a married man,” one of the men announced.
Isabella had anticipated this one. Sophie replied smoothly, “Of course, I want a chaperone. After all, I have my reputation to protect, as well. I’ve known Grandma Sollem my whole life. I would be honored to have her act as our chaperone.”
The trio subsided again, muttering among themselves, then arose as one and left the room, frowning darkly. Round one to her. How many more layers of flunkies did she have to wade through? The Medusas had no idea. In fact, they were interested to find out, because it would give them insight into the structure of Sollem’s organization.
Another wait stretched out. How long had she been sitting here? She peeked at her watch. Nearly two hours. Brian must be back at the encampment by now.
Climbing the walls with impatience if she knew him.
Heart failure was starting to sound better than sitting here, watching Sophie’s signal blinking, minute after excruciating minute in the exact same position. She made it inside the main building easily enough. But now she seemed to be parked someplace. Probably being interviewed by various subordinates of Sollem’s while they tried to figure out who the hell she was and what she was doing there.
He was going to have an aneurysm any second. His head was going to explode and it wasn’t going to be pretty. All the things he should’ve said before she left crowded forward, taunting him. He should’ve told her she’d changed his life. Made him think of kids. Family vacations and long nights and lazy mornings in bed with her. Of forever. He should’ve had the courage to tell her he loved her, dammit! Now she was out there all alone, risking her life, very possibly about to die, and she didn’t know. A slow burn of acid ate at his stomach. How could he have sent her out there without her at least knowing that?
Vanessa reported from further down the ridge, “They’ve doubled up the patrols on the walls.”
Brian smiled grimly. He’d bet Sophie’s arrival had thrown a nasty monkey wrench into the works around the compound. Indeed, Misty had ventured a high flyover with a drone not too long ago, and activity in the compound was much higher than usual. Isabella was still doing head and weapon counts on the images to get a more accurate idea of the strength of Sollem’s organization. Sending in a long-lost childhood friend, an American woman at that, was a hell of a kick to Sollem’s hornet nest.
“When is something going to happen?” Brian groused.
“Patience, Rip,” Jack murmured. The colonel was on babysitting duty with him right now.
Brian rolled his eyes at the colonel. She had to be all right. She had to.
He blinked at the screen before him. Had Sophie’s signal just moved? It hadn’t been far, but he could swear it had. He replayed the video feed for the past few seconds. “Hot damn. We have movement.”
Sophie had all but dozed off when the door opened once more, jerking her to alertness. This time a procession of black-robed women entered, a broad, bent figure bringing up the rear. Sophie stared. The Medusas had thought the chances of her seeing Grandma Sollem were slim.
She leaped forward as the old woman sat down heavily, and knelt at the woman’s feet. “Grandma Sollem!” she exclaimed in genuine joy. “I so hoped to see you. You look well. How are you?”
“I am old. And you have grown up into a beautiful woman, little Sophie.” She took Sophie’s hand in hers, examining it critically. “What’s this? No husband? Why not? You American women are too independent. You do not understand a woman’s place is in the home, raising a family and serving her husband.”
Sophie smiled warmly. �
�I only recently found the right man.”
Grandma Sollem nodded her approval. “I would know you anywhere, child. The sweetness in your eyes has not changed at all.”
The old woman all but turned and looked into the camera in the corner when she said that. So. Grandma had been sent in here to verify her identity. Now that they knew she was, indeed, exactly who she said she was, what would they do with her?
“What brings you way out here to the end of the earth, child?”
They’d sent Grandma in to pump her for information, too, had they? She looked into the old woman’s shrewd eyes. “First and foremost, I came to thank you and your family for being so kind to me all those years ago. I never forgot you. And see, I still remember your language.” She smiled brightly. But then she let the smile fade and leaned forward. “I am worried about Freddie, Grandma. I had a…run-in…with my government over him. While I was in custody, I learned some things which may be valuable for him to know.”
There. That should send the folks on the other end of the cameras into a fine tizzy.
Grandma Sollem leaned back, startled, a calculating look in her eyes. Whoever said that women were weak and ignorant in this part of the world had never met Grandma Sollem. “You will stay for supper,” Grandma announced.
“Why thank you! I’d love to talk with you some more.”
After the meal, a pair of grim-looking men snagged her as she left the dining room. The other women skittered wide around this pair. Finally. Now she was getting somewhere.
One of the men took her firmly by the arm. Her instincts told her not to protest such treatment with these two. They took her through a maze of rooms and down a narrow flight of stairs into another hallway full of closed doors. They stopped in front of one and thrust her inside.
She stumbled as the door closed sharply behind her. She turned around. A woman stood there. Grim. Unsmiling. “You will undress.”
Brian huddled over the computer monitor with Isabella again. “She must have gone underground. The schematic shows her having just walked through that wall.”
Isabella nodded. “I concur. Let’s map her movements. It’ll give us some idea of how extensive the bunker is.”
He nodded, exultant. Sophie must have gotten past all their third degrees to be allowed underground like this. Phase One complete. Pride surged through him. Good girl. Now to find Freddie.
“Excuse me?” Sophie exclaimed in dismay.
“You will disrobe in front of me, or you will do it in front of them.” The woman jerked her head toward the hallway.
“What’s this all about?” Show just enough outrage to look like an innocent, but don’t push it too far, she heard Brian murmur.
“Security around the Leader is extremely tight. You did not expect to just stroll in off the street and see him, did you?”
Sophie frowned. “This is a heck of a note. Here I am risking my neck and doing him a favor, yet I’m the one who has to strip down.”
The woman shrugged, waiting.
Sophie stripped off the cumbersome black robe gladly. Beneath it, she wore western clothes—charcoal slacks and a gray cotton blouse. She kicked off her shoes and socks, took off her pants, and unbuttoned her shirt, handing it all over to the woman for inspection.
As the woman poked her hands down into the shoes, she said without looking up. “Everything.”
“Oh, honestly.” Sophie cringed mentally and reached behind herself for her bra hooks. No worries, sweetheart. She sees the same thing every time she takes a shower. Clinging to that thought, Sophie peeled off her underwear in mild distaste. But when the woman made her bend over and inspected her body cavities rather more thoroughly than the Medusas had anticipated, Sophie’d had enough.
“Look, enough is enough,” she declared in genuine outrage. “I came here to give Freddie a warning that could save his life. If he’s so damned suspicious of the kid next door, then I’ll just skip giving him the warning. I was trying to be a good neighbor, but I don’t have to put up with this.” She hadn’t spotted a camera and prayed there weren’t any, but the room was probably bugged. Whatever. She was annoyed, and not about to pretend otherwise. It all went along with her cover story, anyway.
The woman shoved her clothes across the table. “Get dressed.”
Sophie dressed quickly. The woman had taken the penknife from Sophie’s purse and her cell phone, but neither was any big loss. She had a hard ceramic blade in the heel of her shoe and there wasn’t a cell phone tower for a hundred miles in any direction.
“Come with me,” the woman said tonelessly.
Sophie followed her out into the hall. The grim men took over again. They led her down a narrow flight of stairs that looked like something out of an ancient pyramid. Both the tunnel and steps were roughly carved directly from the bedrock. It was steep and so tight her shoulders almost brushed the walls. The ceiling was only a few inches taller than her head.
“We have another stairwell,” Brian called out. “There’s a second level to this bunker system. And from the amount of time it’s taking her to move down it, I’d say we’re looking at something a couple stories underground.”
“Roger,” Jack replied. “I’ll relay that to the Teddy R. They’ll need to send the bunker-buster package and be prepared to make multiple strikes on the same target.”
Once she marked Freddie, how was Sophie going to find her way back up to the surface? What was probably the only stairwell into or out of the bunker would be closely guarded, and she couldn’t very well sneak up it. Sollem would have to let her go voluntarily, which narrowed her options considerably. His panic bubbled up very close to the surface. She wouldn’t know what to do! He had to get in there. Find her. Find a way out! Adrenaline screamed in his gut for action. He had to do something.
He could sneak away from the Medusas. Make his way down to the compound. Go in over the back wall. They knew which building held the stairwell to the bunker. He could infiltrate it. Make his way to Sophie.
He glanced around furtively.
“Don’t even think about it,” Scatalone rumbled behind him.
Brian whirled, startled.
“I know exactly what’s running through your mind, buddy. I’ll take you out before I let you blow this op. Sophie’s got it under control. If you go in there, you’ll only get her killed.”
Brian cursed violently under his breath. Scat was right. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Forty-two steps later, the steep tunnel flattened out before Sophie into a distinctly bunker-like hallway, low and carved out of red sandstone. They stopped in front of a plain wooden door. One of the men knocked. “The American is here, my Leader.”
A male voice from within said with sharp authority, “Enter.”
Sophie’s adrenaline spiked sky high.
The door opened before her.
Chapter 17
She stepped inside a spartan room, furnished like an efficiency apartment, with a kitchenette in one corner. One side of the room was taken up by a large table, and the wall beside it was covered with a giant map of the world. All that she noticed in a glance. But it was the man seated at the end of the table who captured her full attention. The moment she laid eyes on him, there wasn’t the slightest doubt in her mind she was looking at Freddie Sollem. Not only did she recognize the shape of his face, leaner now and morphed into adulthood. But his eyes…
Oh, yes. It was Freddie.
He wore power like a cloak, surrounding himself in folds of danger. She walked forward, half mesmerized by the charisma of the man before her.
“Sit,” he commanded sharply.
Her first impulse was to obey without question, but she checked herself. Laughed lightly. “I’m not a dog, Freddie. How are you? It has been a long time. You’re so grownup.”
He said nothing, just stared at her narrow-eyed. She took another step closer. He shifted in his seat, and for the first time, light from the small overhead fixture fell on his face. Sophie supp
ressed a gasp of dismay.
He knew.
His saber-sharp, aware eyes looked right through her. Without a shadow of a doubt, he knew exactly why she was here and what she was up to. It was creepy in the extreme. They all had terribly underestimated his intelligence. He wasn’t a step ahead of them, he was a mile ahead of them. Her thoughts raced in panicked circles. What to do? Step back and punt? Play out the original plan? Improvise? At a minimum, Freddie would have seen her abrupt fear by now. That was a dead giveaway, darn it.
The plan was to face this guy head on with the truth—or at least some of it. And she didn’t have time to think up anything else. “Freddie, you’re scaring me, glaring like that. What’s wrong?”
For the first time, he blinked. “You tell me, Sophie. What is so wrong that you would come all the way to this godforsaken corner of the world to speak to me so urgently?”
Take the offensive and knock him off balance. It has been a long time since he was confronted with a Western woman. He won’t expect you to treat him as an equal.
Thank you, Brian. She shifted into English and allowed the faintest hint of scorn to enter her voice. “Godforsaken? But don’t you tell your followers that God is firmly on your side?”
His black brows slammed together. He waved an imperious hand, and the two men who’d brought her here left the room. Outstanding. That would make her job a whole lot easier. “How dare you speak to me of God?”
She rolled her eyes and took a step forward. “Oh, puh-lease. It’s me. Sophie. The kid who scraped you up off the ground when you fell out of that tree and broke your collarbone. I’ve seen your mother pull down your pants and tan your bottom. Don’t get all huffy on me.”
For just a second, she saw a flash of the kid she used to know, the relaxed American with the quick sense of humor. But then the child disappeared, replaced by this menacing stranger. “What are you doing here?” he demanded in English.
She took another step forward and replied, “I had a little visit from Uncle Sam a couple months ago. They arrested me for having grown up beside you. Maybe you can tell me why they did that?”