He reached instantly for the intercom, barked another order.
Within seconds his butler entered the room, and handed him Bella’s sling bag. Rummaging through it, Tariq removed the photo.
“Who else has seen this?” His words were clipped, ice cold.
“My colleagues at the Watchdog site. They ran a copy through the biometrics software, then they shredded it.”
“Shredded?”
“Hackers have been trying to get into the Watchdog system—we think it’s Etherington’s people. The photo is in my bag because I was going to give it back to you tonight. I started to tell you everything in the kitchen, but…” Her voice faded.
The fact they’d made love—that sex had distracted both of them—hung fresh and tangible between them.
“What are your colleagues’ names?”
She remained silent, unwilling to endanger Hurley, Scoob, Agnes.
He regarded her for several beats. Wind screamed louder, rising, falling, as it whipped through the ancient stone turrets, a banshee, a warning, a desperate cry for help thrown over the island. Then he held up the photo. “This,” he said quietly, “this cannot get out. No matter what.”
She swallowed.
“Now, tell me what proof you have that Sam Etherington is behind the STRIKE attempt to kill my brother.”
She flattened her mouth. She didn’t have the kind of proof he wanted, not yet—but if Tariq thought she had some kind of irrefutable evidence that Sam Etherington tried to kill his brother, if he wanted something badly enough from her, she had a negotiating tool. It might keep her alive.
“And where will that leave me, if I give my proof?”
“You’re never going to tell this story, Bella, so you might as well cooperate.”
“And just how do you plan to stop me from telling it?”
He vibrated with anger.
“Nikki can have nothing, I repeat, nothing to do with this! That is my brother’s wish. It’s my family’s wish. It’s something I will defend to the death.”
“Why?”
“Because Sam tried to kill her, and if he finds she’s alive, he will try again. And that, Bella, is why you’re not going anywhere, and why you’re not going to break this story. I will not allow my indiscretion, my failure to recognize you for what you are, to harm my family.”
She barely heard the rest of his words. So it was true—the senator had tried to murder his wife. This was going to change the face of the election, of U.S. politics. And if Etherington really was behind a black ops assassin squad operating on foreign soil without permission, it could change the face of international relations. This was monstrous. She had to get out of here, break this news.
“Why did the senator want his wife dead?” she asked quietly.
“He was having an affair. Nikki—Alexis—found out. She was going to sue for custody of the kids, expose Sam for what he was. But he was up for a Senate seat and firm on family values. He didn’t want this out, he didn’t want to lose his bid for the Senate, and he didn’t want to lose his kids, so he hired a hit man to run her off the bridge. Except the man he hired didn’t know Sam’s twins were in the backseat at the time, and they were killed instead of his wife. Sam then went about systematically destroying an innocent, intelligent, strong, beautiful physician—driving her into the depths of grief and despair. But she survived. She went to Africa under an assumed name and worked illegally as a nurse in a remote mission, and when she inadvertently crossed the border into Al Na’Jar while trying to save some orphans, she met Zakir. She is now married to my brother. She saw him into his blindness. She is his guiding light, his eyes, and he will do anything to protect her, to keep her from being dragged through that sordid past history. That is why we will never use Nikki to go after Sam. That is why we need your proof that he was behind Omair’s assassination attempt.”
Bella remained silent, energy pulsing through her body at this revelation.
He swung round abruptly, marched toward the door.
“This is not just about your family, Tariq!” she called after him.
Slowly, he turned.
“It’s a story the U.S. electorate needs to know,” she said. “My country is going to the polls in a few months and in all likelihood are going to put a very sick man into power. If Etherington tried to have Omair killed, he also likely conspired to murder Travis Johnson, Althea Winston and their innocent five-year-old daughter. The reason I came up here tonight was to return your photo, confess everything and ask for your cooperation, your side of the story. Please, Tariq, talk to me, tell me what you know. Tell me why you think Etherington might be colluding with operatives from the same terrorist organization that almost killed your brother—help me tell that story. We can work together.”
He stared at her in disgust.
“You’re a cheap thief and a liar. You slept with me for your own gain. Like some muckraker, some bottom-feeder, you came here under false pretences to blow apart my life, to drag my brother’s wife back into the worst nightmare of her past.” He raised his hooked hand, pointed it at her. “What makes it worse, what makes me sick, is I fell for you. I enabled you.”
Tears burned into in her eyes. She glowered at him, shivering from cold and stress.
“You deceived me, too, Tariq. You made love to me under an alias, too.”
He glowered at her. Then said, “Tell me what proof you have on Sam, then maybe we can talk.”
“How can I trust you’ll let me go if I do?”
His mouth flattened, his scars more vicious, sinister. “You can’t.”
“Then I can’t tell you.”
Grabbing her bag, he turned his back on her, rapped hard once on the door.
The lock turned and the door opened.
“I’m not a muckraker!” she yelled suddenly behind him. He stilled, hand on door handle. But this time he did not turn to face her.
“I gambled everything on this story because I’m a damn good reporter! I saw the potential of this, I dug up the clues—and the truth now needs to be told in the interests of national security! I almost got killed for this story. Others did die. And I feel responsible for their deaths. I owe this to them, too!”
She felt spent suddenly. “It’s all I have… I need this story, Tariq. And you have no damn right to call me a bottom-feeder. I don’t have royal coffers, a family, an army that can bail me out. I don’t have a job. I don’t have anyone—I’ve got only myself.”
She saw the muscles across his back tighten.
“One thing you don’t do, Bella, is threaten my family,” he said without looking at her. Then he stepped out the door.
She rushed up to him. “Where are you going!”
His bodyguard moved in, blocked her, said in French, “You’re staying in the pool room.”
The door thucked shut. The lock turned.
She rattled the handle. “You can’t keep me prisoner!” She banged. Silence. Just the mournful wail of the wind. “You can’t lock me up in here!”
Bella turned, cursed and slid down the door to the floor. Tears burned and spilled silent and angry down her face. She’d lost him.
She had no phone, no way of contacting anyone. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her tell her story.
Everything she’d fought for these past months was gone.
Perhaps even her life.
Chapter 9
Tariq punched in Omair’s number, agitated by the violence he’d felt toward Bella. He’d wanted to punish her for not being Amelie, for not being the woman he’d been falling in love with. For daring him to hope, when all she wanted was to destroy him with a story. And still, he didn’t know if what she’d just revealed back in the pool room was the real truth. For all he knew she could still be working with MagMo, pulling the wool over his eyes.
He’d been a bloody fool. He’d allowed her to blind him, seduce him, so thoroughly she could steal from his wallet right under his nose, and find a photo of Nikki. His own stupid
ity and carelessness had almost cost Nikki her anonymity, her freedom from her past, and put his family at risk.
“Tariq,” Omair said crisply as he answered. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for the last two hours. There is no Amelie Chenard. She’s an imposter, a journalist from D.C. Her real name is Bella DiCaprio.”
Tariq’s fist tightened around the phone. “Is it true, can you verify her ID?”
“You know?”
“She confessed. We need to talk about her claims, but first, tell me what you have on her. I want to be sure.”
“Bella DiCaprio worked with the Washington Daily until she was laid off some months ago. She’d been covering stories on you ever since the blast at JFK. She was on site when it happened, with a photographer named Derek Jones who shot what became that famous photo of you racing from the burning jet with Julie in your arms.”
Tariq closed his eyes.
I covered your life, your history, your background, Tariq. I felt like I knew you…
He tried to take a slow breath.
“According to my investigator, DiCaprio was born in Chicago, abandoned by an unknown mother at an inner-city hospital and finally adopted out of the system at the age of three.”
So it was true.
“Italian-American mother and father, five biological sons.”
Everything I said about my boyfriend, my family…that was all me. That part was true…
“She studied at Chicago University, majored in journalism and political studies, worked at several smaller newspapers before taking her job with the Daily. After she was laid off she started a blog with a group called Watchdog. Filed a police report about an attack last month. Then she went missing.”
“And showed up here,” Tariq finished.
So everything she’d said about herself in the pool room was honest. Real. And that mattered to him on a level he wasn’t willing to articulate to himself, or truly acknowledge. Not now.
Tariq told Omair what Bella had claimed about Sam Etherington, STRIKE, Raber, Johnson and his wife, Althea.
“She said Sam Etherington is behind the attempt to kill you. Which means he’s also behind the attempt to kill Faith.”
“And you say she has proof?”
“She says she does, but she’s not giving it.”
“We need to force her.” Omair’s words were sharp. “I’ll do it. I’ll leave at once by jet for Paris, then helo to Ile-en-Mer. I’ll bring some men. Keep her locked up, don’t say a thing to her until I get there, understand?”
A raw protective instinct rose unexpected and powerful in Tariq. Omair was a skilled—and sometimes lethal—interrogator. He was known in certain circles for his ability to make anyone talk, but some of his methods turned Tariq’s stomach. He didn’t want Omair anywhere near her—especially since what he was going to say next could seal Bella’s fate when it came to his brothers.
“There’s more,” he said quietly. “She knows Nikki is Alexis.”
Silence swelled between them.
“How?” Omair said.
“She found a family photo in my wallet and recognized Alexis from an old medical convention photo. Bella had her colleagues run it through facial-recognition software.”
Another beat of silence. Then a sharp curse in Arabic.
“Nikki has to stay out of this.”
“I fear Nikki is central to all of this,” Tariq said quietly. “Think about it, Omair. If Sam was behind the STRIKE order to assassinate you, then it’s Sam who is in collusion with MagMo. And who in MagMo wants the entire Al Arif family dead? The Moor. Why on earth would Sam help The Moor—he’s a terrorist, an enemy of the United States.”
“Because The Moor must have something in turn that will destroy Sam,” Omair said quietly.
“Exactly,” Tariq said. “It has to be. I think The Moor has somehow found out about Nikki, and he’s using her existence to blackmail the next president of the United States into helping him. And if that’s true, then Sam already knows where Nikki is.”
“Then why hasn’t he acted? Why hasn’t he come after Nikki already?”
“Maybe he is coming after her. Maybe that’s where this collusion is going. The one thing The Moor wants most is control over our kingdom and our oil. If he’s managed to blackmail Sam into promising U.S. military backing of a coup in Al Na’Jar once he’s in the White House, we’re toast. And then, when The Moor takes control of our kingdom, Sam gets the oil deal and Middle Eastern allies he’s been promising in his campaign—”
“And Nikki and Zakir are killed in the coup,” Omair said. “Sam’s problem is gone. His ex-wife dies as do any potential allegations of murder, or potential for further blackmail.”
“Exactly,” said Tariq. “The Moor already thinks you and I are both dead. Zakir and Nikki—they’re his last target. And this is all about her.”
Omair inhaled deeply on the other end of the line, then said, “Listen, Tariq, if Bella really does have irrefutable proof Sam used STRIKE to try and kill me, and that he conspired to have Johnson and his family murdered, we can use that proof to nail him without ever involving Nikki. We can stop this before it even touches her. We have to get that information. Hold her securely until I get there.”
“And then?” Tariq’s voice was cold.
“Then when she’s given us the proof, she’s free to go. Sam will no longer be a threat to Nikki if he’s behind bars for murder.”
“And what do you think is going to happen when you finally let Bella free and she goes to the police, tells them we forcibly confined her, interrogated her?”
Very quietly, Omair said, “We have diplomatic immunity, Tariq. And you’ll come home, of course, lay low in Al Na’Jar.”
Tariq cursed bitterly.
“Look, whatever has happened between you two, remember this. She got into your house, into your head, into your bed and into your wallet, for a reason. A story. To expose our family, and profit from it. She’s an opportunist, and a devious one.”
Tariq raked his hand over his hair and turned to stare at the rain shimmering down the black windows in his office. Outside the night was icy cold, blustery.
“Hold her until I get there,” Omair reiterated. “I’m on my way.”
“No,” Tariq insisted quietly, but firmly. “This has to end. All of it. We’ll use Bella in another way. I’ll talk to her, get her to cooperate with me. I’ll tell her that she’s free to go and break her story, taking Sam down with whatever proof she claims she has. But I will request she leave the Nikki-Alexis angle out. And I’ll tell her why—I’ll let her know what terrible hell Nikki has been through to get where she is, to simply survive. In exchange I let Bella reveal my whereabouts, the fact I’m alive. She can run my photo, use my comments. And I give her what we know about STRIKE, from your and Faith’s angle, without revealing names.”
“The Moor will come after you.”
“Then let him. I’ll be waiting.”
Silence.
“And if she doesn’t agree? If she reneges—how can you be sure she’ll keep her word?”
“She’s a decent person, Omair. I feel she’ll agree. And if we don’t go this route, if we don’t try and manage what we can of the story, someone else will expose Nikki, eventually. Already three people have seen that photo—”
“Who!”
“Bella’s colleagues from Watchdog.”
“What are their names?” His tone was clipped, cold. Tariq knew the sound well—his brother was in soldier mode, assassin mode.
“I don’t know their names, and you can’t do anything about it, Omair—it’s already out of our control. Bella said hackers had been trying to get into the Watchdog servers. If they did, the information about Nikki could be in anyone’s hands by now. I’m going to call Zakir. He needs to prepare Nikki, just in case. Meanwhile I’m going to talk to Bella.”
“Tariq,” Omair warned darkly. “Do not talk to her until I arrive. Do you understand—”
Ta
riq hung up, a new kind of anger humming through his veins. Not only had Bella betrayed him, she’d now driven a wedge between him and his brothers.
*
Hurley blinked through the hot blood leaking into his eyes. The gash on his head was bleeding badly. He’d lost track of time. The warehouse was dark, cold. His breathing was shallow and he struggled to take in air through his crushed nose. Blood pooled in his throat, gagging him. His ribs felt as though they’d been broken. On the other side of the warehouse Agnes was strapped to a metal chair, hands tied behind her back, head slumped forward. Her red-framed cat-eye glasses lay crushed at her bare feet. Blood trickled down her leg where her skin had been sliced repeatedly with a razor.
A tall, dark-skinned man in a ski mask held a Taser against the translucent skin at Agnes’s throat. But this time she remained limp, no longer responsive. Fear roared through Hurley’s chest.
“One last time,” the man said, as he pressed the Taser into her neck. “Where is she? Where did Bella DiCaprio take those photos of Tariq Al Arif?”
Agnes moaned, muttering something.
No, Agnes, no! The words screamed to come out of Hurley, but he couldn’t voice them. Not this time. He didn’t want them to hurt Agnes any more than they already had. At the same time, he knew the minute she gave them what they wanted, it would be over for both of them. It was up to Bella now. If she could break the story before these men found and stopped her—if she could expose Sam Etherington before he got into power…it might at least be worth something.
The man fired the Taser into Agnes neck, and her body spasmed as she screamed.
“Bastards!” he spluttered through broken lips trying to lunge forward in his chair, wire cutting into his bound wrists. “Leave her al—”
A crack blew through the back of his skull as the man behind struck him with an iron bar. Hurley felt his head crush inward as light and pain sparked through his eyes. His world went black.
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