He took her hands in his. “Paige,” he said, looking deep into her eyes, “I want to set a date with you.”
Confusion rippled through her features. “I…I don’t understand.”
“What are you doing on Tuesday night?”
Her eyes grew grave. “That’s in two days.”
“That’s right.”
She closed her eyes, and her features went tight.
A sense of uneasiness, foreboding, whispered through him. “Paige? I want to go on a date with you. I want to see you, properly, once we’ve gotten out of here.”
She couldn’t do this. She simply could not set a date and a time that would force her to sit and watch the hands of a clock while she waited…and waited…and waited…with the horrific realization growing inside her like a cancer that someone she cared about would not be coming back to her. Ever. Like that night in the Congo—the night that had changed the rest of her life.
She’d stared at the hands on the watch her dad had given her for her fifteenth birthday only three weeks earlier, waiting for her parents to return to camp. They’d gone into the Blacklands after the bonobo troop, and they were late. They’d missed supper. Darkness had fallen. She’d watched the seconds tick past on her watch, and with each miniscule movement of that hand, the fear they were not coming back had burrowed deeper.
She’d sat up like that until dawn leaked into the sky, and still they weren’t home. She’d known then that the jungle had swallowed them forever, that she was now completely alone, save for five Congolese porters who spoke no English, in the darkest most unexplored place on the African continent.
When the sun rose and the little hands had moved right around the face of her watch, four of the guides were gone with most of the supplies, including the radio.
If it hadn’t been for that one man who’d stayed behind… Paige blinked back her emotion. It had taken the two of them over two weeks to find civilization and when she’d come out of that jungle, she’d been thin, sick with dysentery, covered in leeches and forever changed. She still had memories of that time she would never speak about to anyone.
The Science Reach people had been completely shocked that she’d survived. In retrospect, knowing what Rafiq had told her, maybe they hadn’t intended her to make it.
She didn’t like to think about that time, but it had made her who she was. Independent. A realist. Someone who wasn’t going to wait with hope in her heart.
Hope was a useless commodity. It was better to be prepared. Just like she’d believed in the Nexus mandate, that it was better to create the viruses and have the antidotes ready, prepared, before the enemy came at you.
“Paige,” he said, his voice going deeper, his hands tightening around hers. “A dinner date, you know? Candles, music…” His voice faded.
“What if we don’t make it, Rafiq?”
“We will make it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve made it out of far, far worse. And I believe. You have got to believe, Paige.”
She stared into his eyes. Believe what? That everything will just end happily ever after? That I won’t be indicted? That you will come back and take over Hamn without major incident and be back in time for dinner? Who are you kidding, Rafiq? Yourself or me?
“Rafiq…” she chose her words very carefully. “You said you’d return to Hamn.”
His brows lowered. “And I will.”
“Then how can you make a date? You can’t make promises now. I can’t make promises. If you survive a battle with Sadiq, you will have a duty to your people. And I have an antidote to make, a justice system to face, an entire life to put right. Our future—our lives—do not belong to us right now.”
Ferocity flashed in his eyes. “It’s not like I’m asking you to map out your entire life.”
“I can’t.” She pulled her hands free. “I can’t make promises I can’t keep, and neither should you. I can’t sit and wait—”
His mouth flattened into a harsh line. He jerked round, strode over to the camels, began to pack the bags.
—for someone I love to come home.
Her stomach was a ball of pain. Her mouth and throat were dry, and her eyes burned. She watched his muscles ripple under his T-shirt as he hefted the bags onto the camels and secured them to the saddles. Oh God, what have I just done?
“Rafiq?” She desperately wanted him to understand—that she would give so much to be with him on that date, to believe that D-day would pass, that the clock would tick quietly past midnight into a new day. And the world would wake, just as it had the day before, oblivious to the narrow escape—that there actually could be a future for them.
“Rafiq!”
He ignored her. He flung his tunic over his head, cinched it at the waist, shoved his scimitar into his belt and wrapped his turban deftly over his face. The man she’d made love to disappeared in front of her eyes, morphing once again into some mysterious and lethal Arabian ninja.
“Rafiq, please, I need you to understand!”
But he’d shut her out.
Her heart plummeted. She pulled her hands through her hair, desolation emptying into her like smoke into a black void.
What had she just thrown away?
05:45 Charlie, Venturion Tower, Manhattan, Sunday,
October 5
Samuel Killinger stood at the head of the table and addressed his board via a plasma screen. “I’ve just received word from our Nexus team that a full-scale revolution is breaking out in Hamn. The rightful heir to the kingdom has apparently returned, and the majority of Hamnians are seeing this as some sort of sign to take up arms and rise against the monarchy. The place is about to spiral out of control.”
“We’re evacuating the compound?”
“As we speak. We’ve initiated emergency procedures and are destroying any biological material that might implicate us should the country fall. But this will not, and I repeat, not, impact our plans. This is just one of the risks that comes hand in hand with the benefits of doing business in a country like Hamn. It’s nothing we’re not prepared to handle.”
He paused. “And the pathogen is ready be released at a moment’s notice. The antidote stockpiles are in place offshore, and you all have vials of your own. We’re good to go.”
He leaned forward, hands on the table. “I trust that the next time we meet, it will be to watch President Elliot resign—” he smiled “—in eight days. Good night, gentlemen.”
Killinger closed the meeting and retired to his office. He was going to forget his hit man and Dr. Sterling for now. If they were still alive, they were going to be ensnared in civil unrest for God knew how long.
By the time things leveled out in Hamn—if ever—Grayson Forbes would be the new U.S. President and nothing would—could—touch him.
Or Olivia.
The Nexus compound would no longer exist. The labs and computer system would have been destroyed. And his assassin, if he found his way out alive, could never be linked to him.
And if—just if—Dr. Paige Sterling was still alive and rattling around somewhere in that archaic country, she was going to be of no use to anyone. Any information that eventually came out of her was going to be too little—and too late.
06:02 Charlie, Asir Mountains, Sunday, October 5
A precipitous trail unfurled below them, dry, hot and twisting between large sand-gold boulders and rocks. Even at this early hour the fierceness of the sun was unrelenting.
Rafiq halted his camel, wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead, lifted his binoculars and surveyed the terrain below. There were troops massing on both sides of the Hamni and the Saudi border now.
He scanned slowly toward the south, to where monstrous coils of black razor wire ran the length of the desert down to the coast—the Yemeni border.
He moved his scopes along the length of the wire. There was mobilization on the Yemeni front, too. He could detect movement in the watchtowers that punctuated the coi
ls of wire.
He lowered his scopes. It looked as if Hamn’s not-so-friendly neighbors could smell trouble brewing in the country, and it was making them nervous. He could use this to divert attention from himself and Paige when they made a run for the coast tonight.
He raised the scopes to his eyes again. There was a blur of fine sand blowing low across the plains. Could be signs of a sandstorm coming. He could use that, too. If it picked up, it could get brutal, but it would hide their approach.
“We need to get down there,” he said, pointing to the black strip of razor wire which could be seen from their vantage point. “That’s the Yemeni front. We wait over there.” He pointed to a rise of dunes about three hundred yards out from the Yemeni border. “We lie low behind that ridge until nightfall. Then we make a run for the ocean about three miles that way.”
“How? They’ll see us.”
“I’ll figure that out when we get there,” he said, his words clipped. He nudged his camel forward without looking at her. If he did, her eyes would suck him in again. He didn’t want that. He wanted his head clear. He wasn’t going to think about anything other than getting her out and onto that boat tonight.
And then he’d show her who stuck to his promises.
“Rafiq, wait…please.”
He stopped. But he refused to turn around.
“Rafiq, please, look at me.”
He didn’t. The muscles in his neck bunched tight.
“I…I need to explain…I’m just—”
“Just what!” He whirled round to face her. “Incapable of faith? Can you not find it in yourself to trust me?”
She recoiled visibly. “This…this is not about trust.”
“Damn right, it is.”
“No, it’s not! It’s…it’s because I learned the hard way what waiting for someone can do to you—waiting and waiting for someone you love who’s never coming back. I just can’t do it.” Emotion ripped through her voice, driving it higher. “I can’t set myself up to be let down again.”
Someone you love? Rafiq’s eyes began to burn. In this short life-and-death time together, she’d developed feelings for him as strong as his were for her. And she was too damn afraid to admit it, to accept it, to embrace it. That’s what this was about.
“Paige,” he said gently, turning his camel about and bringing it up against hers. “This is about trust. It’s about letting go and having absolute faith in someone else, in believing that they will be there for you—if you let them.”
Her eyes swam with moisture and she began to shake. Paige knew he was asking her to have faith in him. But faith had damn near destroyed her as a kid. And it was useless in her line of work. She dealt with facts. And the fact she might never see Rafiq after today was a very real possibility.
He might not even survive.
Besides, even if he did, he had a path to take that was very different from hers. If he managed to reclaim his country, he was going to have to think long and hard about what kind of woman—or women—he needed by his side, and what message his choice would send to his subjects and his international allies. She might not fit the bill.
She might just be indicted. Labeled a criminal. Sent to prison.
So why set herself up for emotional destruction? She’d never indulged in fairy tales and dreams of princesses and knights and warrior kings in exotic lands. Why now?
He reached for her hand. “You’re afraid, Paige. I think you actually have a pathological fear of commitment.”
So what if she did? The knowledge didn’t make her any more able to handle it. She pulled her hand away.
Hurt welled in his eyes. “Paige, we have something special here.” He paused, his eyes watching hers. “I’ve never been with a woman in the way I was with you. You do know that, don’t you?”
A ball swelled in her throat. She did know it. “It was the stress, the adrenaline, Rafiq. Humans do these things under those kinds of situations. It’s a purely physiological response.”
He reeled visibly.
She looked away. “Humans do odd things under pressure. They…say things they might regret later.”
His eyes crackled with anger. “I do not play games, Dr. Sterling,” he growled. “I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. I’ve had plenty women in my life but never have I misled a single one of them about my intentions. Ever! And only twice in my life have I loved. Both times it happened fast.” He waited her for to look back into his eyes. “And it looks like both times I get to lose.”
He whirled his camel round in a cloud of dust.
Paige watched him go down the mountain, feeling as if she’d just been punched.
Chapter 15
07:15 Charlie, Asir Mountains, Sunday, October 5
Rafiq swore violently as he negotiated the steep trail, passionate anger and emotions roiling inside him. He clenched his teeth as his camel slipped sideways. He righted the animal.
He was going to have to hold his passion in check, at least until Paige was safe. But there was no way he could lock his feelings away again. The genie was out of the bottle. All he could do was ride his passions out, control them the way he would a belligerent camel.
And deal with her later.
07:16 Charlie, Hamn border triangle, Sunday, October 5
Hot wind whipped the assassin’s robes as he scanned the Asir Mountains through binoculars. He was waiting down near the Saudi border where the Hamnian army expected Rafiq to cross. And he knew for certain the woman—his target—was with Rafiq. The hunter had told them so. But they’d lost them in the monsoon last night, and the trigger-happy militia fools had shot the hunter dead before they could use his dogs to resume the trace in the morning.
So the troops had come down here, to the border, instead. To wait for them.
He slowly panned the southern escarpment. If it were him, that’s where he’d cross, in the south where the Hamnians least expected him to. And from there he’d head through Yemen down to the Gulf of Aden, which was free of Hamnian navy patrols. He studied the terrain inch by inch, the glare making his pale eyes hurt.
Then he saw something—a quick glint of sunlight on metal.
He stilled, stared intently at the spot, his eyes watering, the wind irritating.
He concentrated on closing out physical sensation.
Through his scopes he saw a wisp of dust separate from the dun-colored mountain terrain and eddy up the flanks in the rising wind. Was that human movement? He couldn’t be sure, his eyes were beginning to blur.
He lowered the binoculars, rubbed his eyes, put his shades back on. The glint and the wisp of dust could have been anything—the sun on a shard of old glass, an animal making a kill.
But his gut told him different.
He was done with these military fools. Their purpose had been served. He covered his face with his turban, sidled to the outskirts of the troops, and slipped off into the sand-filled wind.
He had a job to finish, a call to place to Manhattan, and a check to collect.
19:37 Charlie, Hamn-Yemen border, Sunday, October 5
The sandstorm blew fierce, and it blew for hours, carrying sand from miles across the Rub Al-Khali and lashing it at the troops huddling along the fronts. It tore at armored vehicles, wobbled jeeps, jammed weapons with grit and forced fine yellow grains into the pores of any bit of skin left exposed.
Paige huddled against Rafiq as sand piled up on them in back-eddy drifts. For the first time, she was truly grateful for the chador. But even under the tent of fabric, sand caked her lashes and filled her mouth with grit.
Rafiq had set the camels free in the foothills, taking only the weapons and water. They’d hunched over and run low, right into the grating teeth of the wind, until they’d reached a ridge of dunes. No one had seen them, and they’d been pressed up against the leeward side of the dunes, a wave of sand howling over their heads since noon.
It was now dark. Her joints were stiff, her muscles ached, her lips were dry and cracked, and the c
onstant moaning in the wind was making her feel edgy.
She’d lost track of time once darkness had fallen, and she had no idea what hour it was when the wind finally began to abate.
Rafiq lifted his head and shook sand from his tunic. She moved slowly, blinking, her eyes sore and watering. While wind still rushed over the plain with a soft rustling hiss, it was now protected and calm in the lee of their dune, and the terrible moaning had stopped. She shook out her chador, and saw that the sky above was clear.
Rafiq pushed a canteen of water into her hands and Paige drank gratefully, each swallow painful against the rawness in her throat. She wiped her mouth, the movement scratching sand across her sensitive skin. She winced, handed the canteen back to him.
He took a sip, replaced the cap. “Wait here.” His words were clipped. He was still angry with her.
“Where are you going?” she whispered nervously.
“I need to get close to that watchtower on the other side of this ridge before the wind dies completely. The sand will provide some cover.”
Her chest tightened. “What if they see you?”
He hesitated. “If I’m not back in thirty minutes, do not wait. No matter what’s happening, get low and run down to the sea.” He pushed his satellite phone into her hands. “Here. It’s got a clock. It’s got GPS. They’ll know where you are. When you get down to the estuary, press 99. That will give them the signal you’re ready for evacuation.”
Panic nipped at her. “Rafiq—”
“You’ll be fine.”
She grabbed his hand, held him back. “Rafiq, do you see what you’re doing?” she whispered urgently. “You’re preparing for not coming back. See?” Her eyes felt hot. “All that stuff about faith and trust—it’s bogus.”
He was quiet for a second. “Do you always have to be so goddamn logical, Dr. Sterling?”
“Practical,” she hissed at him. “Realistic.”
“Irritating,” he growled, leaning close to her, his breath brushing over her lips. “And I’ll tell you what’s not practical—having this argument now.”
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