by C. J. Miller
In the closet were a few other outfits. The largest was a gardener outfit complete with hat to protect the head and neck from the sun. She grabbed it.
When she stepped out of the closet, she didn’t see Harris. Where had he gone?
He appeared around a corner. “I thought it was better if I didn’t wait in plain sight,” he whispered.
“Good idea.”
“That’s a good look for you,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. The housekeeper uniform was meant to differentiate the staff from guests and the clothes were stain proof, the fabric easy to wash, coarse and unappealing. The high neck and length of the uniform covered her dress.
She handed Harris the gardener’s outfit. “Not feminine and it should fit.” Harris quickly tugged it on over his clothes.
“It will be difficult to explain why a gardener is inside,” Harris said.
“Maybe you can say you came inside for extra tools or towels.” She shrugged. “It was the largest masculine outfit in the closet.”
“Let’s aim to not be seen,” Harris said, pulling the hat low over his eyes.
On the left were stairs leading to the emir’s private quarters. She pointed to them, and she and Harris scaled them as quietly as possible. The creaking of the steps had her flinching. Laila paused for a minute to see if anyone would appear to investigate the noise. No movement. They continued to the second floor.
When she was younger, she, her cousins and her brothers would play hide-and-seek in this part of the house until the housekeepers chased them away. Exploring the compound had been a childhood game, and her father’s security team and household staff had been endlessly patient when Laila would attempt to go somewhere she wasn’t allowed. Her game exploring had taught her the compound inside and out.
The hallway was empty and with any luck, most of the staff were cleaning rooms other than the emir’s quarters or working outside. The door at the end of the corridor opened into Mikhail’s living quarters. Laila held the entryway doorknob in her hand. She turned it slowly, opened the door and peered into the hallway.
She could feel Harris behind her. He wasn’t touching her, but he was close, the heat of his body radiating into hers. She should have removed her dress first before putting on the housekeeping uniform. This was nerve-racking work, and she was too warm.
Seeing no one in the hall, she stepped out and kept her head down. Mikhail’s office was ahead on the left. She gestured to Harris to wait and tried the door herself.
It was locked.
She walked back to the service entry where Harris was standing. “It’s locked.”
“I’ll get us in,” Harris said.
He hurried to the door, and Laila stayed close to him, looking left and right for anyone to approach. He removed a small tool set from his pocket and withdrew two thin pieces of metal. He inserted them into the door, and turned them left and right.
Sweat broke out on her back. If they were discovered, they were in serious trouble. Her disguise might fool someone from a distance, but Mikhail would recognize her and jail them both. He was obsessive about his privacy. “Hurry,” she whispered, knowing he was doing his best.
“I’ve almost got it.”
Male voices floated down the hallway.
Laila grabbed Harris’s arm in alarm, terror rocketing through her. The service entry was too far away. They’d be seen. Would they be overlooked? What if it was someone who had worked for Mikhail long enough to know that they didn’t belong?
A closet two doors away was their best option. Praying it was empty enough for two people to jam inside, she opened the door and shoved Harris in first. She climbed into the closet with him.
Her ankle twisted on something, and she fell against him, sending objects clattering. Harris’s hands gripped her shoulders to steady her, and they went stock-still. She couldn’t see, and if she moved, she risked knocking over more items and creating a racket.
The male voices continued to get louder. Had they heard the commotion she and Harris had made?
Laila closed her eyes and tried to place the voices. One might have been Mikhail’s. It sounded muffled through the door, and she couldn’t be sure. The other, she couldn’t place. He didn’t have a Qamsarian accent.
“The last delivery went without issue,” the unidentified man was saying. “I was pleased your team managed the work with competence.”
Mikhail snorted. “You expected something less? My people are trained and capable. Let me get you the documents, and then I must return to my commitment. I didn’t expect you so soon, and if I’m gone too long on state business, my bride will have questions.”
Laila could feel the rise and fall of Harris’s chest, his hard body pressed to hers. As much as she needed distance to breathe and cool off, she dared not move for fear something else would shift and tumble to the ground, bringing Mikhail to investigate.
Her brother sounded annoyed. As the emir, his days were filled with making decisions, giving and receiving advice, and fielding questions. An interruption to his wedding should be expected, at least in part. Who was Mikhail talking to and what important state matter had drawn him away?
Laila heard a door open, likely the door to Mikhail’s office. The voices became too soft to hear what they were discussing.
“Is he talking to Al-Adel?” Harris asked in a whisper.
Fear flickered in her stomach. “I don’t know what he sounds like.”
“The accent isn’t Qamsarian. It could be Al-Adel or one of his Holy Light Brotherhood cronies,” Harris said.
Her calf was pressing into something, and Laila tried to lift her foot and find a clear space on the floor.
“Hey, hey, watch your knee,” Harris said, turning his hips.
She blushed in the dark. She’d forgotten how close her body was to Harris’s. How delicate their position. “I’m sorry. I was trying to find a better way to stand than this.”
She moved and hit something on the floor. It made a noise that probably sounded a hundred times louder to her than it did to Mikhail, if he’d heard it at all.
“If we had been a minute sooner, our bug would be in place, and we could have heard what they are talking about,” Harris said, moving his arms, keeping them around her, but giving her a place to shift.
“They might meet again,” she said.
“Maybe. It sounded like they were concluding a transaction.”
Was he unaffected being this close to her? How long would they be trapped in here? The closet was stuffy, and her double layers were making her too hot. She suddenly felt light-headed. “I need to take off my dress,” she said.
“What?” he asked, incredulity injected into the drawn out word.
“I’m wearing two dresses. I’m sweltering. Between that, the zero air flow and you pressed against me, it’s like an oven in here.” It had taken her thirty seconds to get the dress on, and now she felt like a bungling fool trying to remove it. The rough cloth stuck to the fabric of her dress, pulling both when she tried to draw it over her head.
“I got a quick view of what’s in here before it went dark. We don’t have much room to maneuver. Let me help. If you pass out, we’ll have more problems.”
Harris knelt and his head was by her breasts and then between her legs. She couldn’t see anything, which heightened her awareness of him. Moving could create more noise. She stayed still and tried to think about other things, boring things.
He was shifting items slowly, carefully, and his hand brushed her legs. Torrents of heat rippled up her body. This was a slow, sensuous torture. Her body was overreacting to him. Her inexperience with men was causing this disaster.
Most women would be indifferent to a man touching their leg in an innocent way. Most women wouldn’t care about a man kneeling in front of her. But for Laila, every aspect of the experience was new and exhilarating.
Like that kiss, the kiss that still burned on her lips. Harris couldn’t have known what he was doing was making
her hot and achy. He’d think it was the stuffiness, the clothes and the closeness. But it was him. Her body responding to him. She couldn’t stop it.
His hands touched her side, perhaps feeling his way in the dark. Then his hands were on her arms, and he was pulling the dress free of her. Though he couldn’t see her, Laila scrambled to ensure her gown was in place, everything covered. The housekeeper’s head scarf had come off, and she searched for the fabric until she found it, her hand brushing Harris’s.
The sparks of heat jolted her.
“You’re cute when you’re flustered,” he whispered.
“How do you know I’m flustered?”
“Your breathing,” he said. “Short, shallow breaths. Do you feel better without the two dresses?” he asked.
“Yes. I don’t know how the staff works in those things. They are heavy and hot.”
“They probably don’t double up on their clothes while they work,” Harris said.
Of course they didn’t. “They also don’t work in a two-by-two enclosed space pressed up against another person.” The verbal reminder she was thigh to thigh with him vibrated in the air with hot dark tension.
“This is a compromising situation. The second time I’ve found myself with you in my arms, alone and in the dark,” he said.
The kiss. It was on his mind. “It will sound like we’re making excuses, but it’s the circumstances. We’re not planning to be together like this.” She wasn’t. No scheming on her part to be alone with him.
“I’d like to say I’m smooth enough to manipulate the situation to get you alone like this, but I can’t lie. Ending up this way is pure accident.” His hand touched the side of her face, and she leaned against it, letting his fingers caress her cheek. The sensual slide of his hand delivered an important message.
He wanted to kiss her.
A moment later, his hand cupped her chin, and his mouth found hers in the dark, tasting, touching and moving slow. As if they weren’t trapped in a closet in the emir’s personal quarters in danger of being discovered.
Her pulse hummed with excitement, and she shifted, bringing her hips closer to his. The telltale reaction of his lower half gave away that he liked this kiss. He was in to her. If he was playing a part, the kiss would have been all technique, no physical reaction. Or is this what a kiss did to a woman? Tricked her into believing it had emotional impact when it didn’t?
His hands slipped around her, resting on her lower back.
He broke the kiss, and his body tensed. The sound of a door opening had her heartbeat escalating for a different reason. Neither of them moved.
The male voices they’d heard earlier were speaking in hushed tones and moving away from them.
Another few minutes passed. Her neck hurt from the strange angle she was holding it, and her left leg had started to go to sleep. She dared not move.
“I think they’re gone,” Harris said.
After several awkward shifts, he reached the door and cracked it open, peering out into the hallway. Laila worked to put the housekeeping dress over her clothes. She straightened the cloth. Harris had left the tiny closet.
When she pulled herself together, she found him slipping inside the emir’s office. He had jimmied the lock that quickly.
She followed him inside, closing the door behind her. Harris positioned the bug on a bookshelf behind the emir’s desk. It would give a view of the emir’s computer and any guests he had in his office.
“You’re sure your brother wouldn’t permit video or audio in his office?” Harris said, looking up and around the room for surveillance devices.
“He treats his private quarters as just that. Private. He doesn’t allow his security to monitor the area the way they do with most of the rest of the compound.” At least her mother had mentioned that to her when she was explaining Mikhail’s remodeling. Harris set up the second device to monitor the doorway.
With a swift nod Harris gestured for her to follow him, and they vacated the emir’s office, locking the door behind them. Laila and Harris fled for the relative safety of the housekeeping stairwell.
Chapter 5
Though he was cutting it close, Harris would be on time for his meeting in the souk with his asset, the same man who had stopped him previously to ask about the leather shoes he was carrying. Missing a potentially important conversation between Mikhail and someone in his office upped Harris’s determination to catch Ahmad Al-Adel and the emir in the commission of a crime. He would do what was necessary to find Al-Adel and then alert his FBI team to apprehend him, striking a devastating blow to the Holy Light Brotherhood.
Harris planned to review the pictures of Al-Adel’s known associates. He’d been fixating on Al-Adel, but the terrorist could have sent someone as his representative, a trusted associate or a family member involved in the Holy Light Brotherhood. If he was planning to attend the wedding, Al-Adel wouldn’t travel alone, and spotting someone with known ties to Al-Adel might help Harris figure out if and when the terrorist leader would appear in Qamsar.
Outward appearances could be changed, but Harris had a knack for remembering faces. Some faces played on his mind long and heavy, like a certain beautiful, off-limits woman he’d kissed—twice—in the past twenty-four hours. He’d almost wanted her to stop him, to tell him that she wasn’t interested in kissing anyone but her future husband. But once she was in his arms, rationalizations and realism evaporated.
He’d been tempted, if only for a moment, to take it further. To invite her to his room. To see where their physical relationship would go if left unchecked.
He’d squashed that line of thought in a hurry. Kissing her was one thing. Taking her to his room crossed another, more serious line. It would compromise their cover and her reputation with her family. Even with her as a willing partner, his conscience would have gotten the better of him.
She’d made it clear what she wanted for her future. Laila was waiting for the right man, a man she would marry. She was conflicted about her views of relationships, the differences between Qamsarian and American culture drastic and having an effect on her beliefs. Harris hadn’t intended the kiss to place her in a regrettable situation.
The idea of Laila finding a husband nagged at him. Maybe he was worried about her making good decisions when it came to men. She didn’t have dating experience, and that could mean her suitors would take advantage of her. Harris felt responsible for her, even though when this mission was over, he needed to let her go. She was only in his life for a short time.
To get to the souk, he’d had to use the emir’s car service again. He’d rather have driven himself, and save the time it would take to ditch the driver and ensure he wasn’t being followed.
The market was busier than it had been during his previous visit. Harris strolled along the shops and bought another bottle of perfume. He purchased water from a teenager selling bottles from a cooler filled with ice. He wasn’t followed. He doubled back several times to be certain and followed FBI protocol to ensure he wasn’t being tracked.
The meeting place was an outdoor grill. He was to order the grilled chicken platter and take his dish around the side of the building as if looking for a quiet place to eat. He located the grill, and after paying for his meal, he circled the building. The chicken held little appeal, slipping in the grease on the plate, but he enjoyed his thirst-quenching bottle of water.
He sat against the tan stucco wall and sipped his drink. A black van with tinted windows and rust around the wheel wells pulled up in front of him. Harris rose to his feet. Two men got out of the van and stood in front of him. Neither were the man he’d met in the souk earlier. “Get in the van.”
He wasn’t expecting this type of meeting. He’d thought they would stay in the souk and talk. But he went along with it. He climbed inside the van, and before he sat on the bench seats, the van lurched forward. A cloth was tied around his eyes and rope around his hands.
“Is this necessary?” he asked. He didn’t like
not knowing where he was going, and he hated his arms being secured.
No one spoke.
If anyone had witnessed this exchange and reported it to the police or the emir, it would raise questions. Unless this wasn’t his asset, and someone had uncovered the plan and taken advantage.
Harris didn’t have a weapon. He hadn’t acquired one or figured out how to get it inside the emir’s compound yet. His cell phone was tucked in his pants with the GPS activated and sending a signal to the CIA. If he went missing, they’d know where to look. Unless he was killed and his body ditched before the CIA could send help.
But if these guys wanted to hurt him, they would have at least taken his phone.
The van stopped, and the side door was jerked open. The blindfold was removed from his face, and his hands were untied. His eyes adjusted to the bright light of the sun, and he squinted and tried to orient himself.
He was led to a run-down motel across the street from where the van had parked and to the second floor. His escorts stopped in front of a room with a rusted red door and missing numbers, and pushed it open.
Inside the man he’d noticed watching him at the emir’s compound was waiting. Not the man he was expecting. Why hadn’t the CIA told him he was meeting someone new? Or meeting someone who was also working the operation on the inside? It was another way the CIA was different, and it wasn’t a difference he liked. He preferred to work on a team where the members were forthcoming about their plans and agendas. He didn’t know how his mother had dealt with that ambiguity throughout her career.
The men who had escorted Harris to the motel left. The room had two single beds, worn and dirty carpet, and scarred furniture.
“I can see from your reaction, you recognize me,” the man said, standing from the plastic chair where he’d been sitting.