Omair had handled the interrogation of their injured prisoner and their captive had let slip that the severely wounded escapee—the man Tariq had shot in the shoulder—was Amal Ghaffar.
This news had left Tariq and Omair cold.
Amal Ghaffar’s father was the renowned billionaire industrialist Aban Ghaffar. Aban owned half of Manhattan and had helped steer and fund countless political campaigns. He also owned half of Dubai and had oil interests all over the Middle East. He was Arabic in origin and had been born in the Sahara.
“I’ll bet Aban Ghaffar put money into Sam’s campaign,” Tariq said as he watched the lights below. “I can see Aban using this influence, along with Nikki’s information, to blackmail Sam, to control the man most likely to take the most powerful office in the world come November. It would make Aban Ghaffar a quiet, global puppet master. And if in turn Sam used the U.S. military to back a MagMo-fuelled coup in our kingdom, supporting an alleged revolution for democracy, Aban would have our oil to use as a tool, too.”
“Sam’s not going to get into office, not now. Even if Bella never makes it back to the States, never manages to tell her story or use her proof, Nikki will come forward herself, and expose him. I’m impressed with Nikki—I never thought she’d do this. But she and Zakir agreed with you, Tariq. It all has to end here, even if it means reliving her past. We need a new era of peace, of safety for our families.”
As the helo skids lightly touched ground at Charles de Gaulle, Omair said to Tariq, “I’m sorry for pushing you on this, for insisting I interrogate Bella.”
Tariq gave a snort. “I don’t think I’ve heard you apologize before.”
Omair flashed a smile, teeth stark white against dark skin. “Not to you. But I can still hold it against you for allowing her to escape. That woman is determined.”
“And strong,” Tariq said, removing his headphones.
Then as the door was opened Omair added loudly above the sound of the rotors, “Faith says she will come forward, too. If you can find Bella, tell her she has our support, all of it. We will give her our full side of the story now!”
Tariq held his brother’s gaze. “You have good women, both of you,” he called out.
Omair grasped his shoulder. “Go find her! When Sam and Aban go down, we will all be safe again. Our country will be at peace. You and this reporter have made this possible now.”
Tariq jumped down out of the chopper, moving quickly over the tarmac toward the waiting royal jet, two bodyguards flanking him. Behind him Omair and his men took off in the helo. They were going to search all hospitals, circling out from Ile-en-Mer. Amal Ghaffar had been gravely injured and would be in dire need of professional medical care. Omair was betting they’d find him in one of the emergency centers. But they needed to move fast before he was relocated to a private facility.
Because if they could get Amal, they would have further leverage against his father, Aban.
Minutes later Tariq’s private jet taxied onto the runway. His pilot announced expected flight and arrival times—they would be at Dulles before Bella’s commercial flight was due to land.
Tariq would be there first, waiting.
*
While Bella waited for her flight, she found an airport store where she bought a pair of jeans, T-shirt, a jacket and a pair of shoes. She also bought large sunglasses and a black ball cap. After she’d changed in the washroom and scrubbed her face, she put on the new shades and pulled the bill of the cap low over her brow. She then located a pay phone and called Mitchell Blake, her old editor at the Washington Daily.
Bella spoke fast, her gaze riveted on the flight board as she told Blake that she had irrefutable proof that Senator Sam Etherington and his aide, Isaiah Gold, had colluded with known terrorists to use a black ops U.S. hit squad in an attempt to assassinate Al Arif royalty. Then they’d had people murdered in an attempted cover-up. Hurriedly she outlined the basics of her story.
“I’m heading back to the States now. I’m going to break this story on my Watchdog blog, but if I don’t make it back, Blake, if something happens to me, follow this story up.”
“Bella, are you—”
She hung up on him, hands shaking.
She’d omitted telling Blake that Sam Etherington’s wife was still alive, and married to King Zakir. She was going to break this story without dragging Zakir’s wife into it. For Tariq’s sake. For her own sense of self-worth.
With trembling fingers Bella wiped tears out from under her dark glasses, thinking of the hatred and disgust she’d seen in Tariq’s features as he’d looked down on her in the pool room and called her a muckraker, a bottom-feeder.
Now he was probably dead.
He’d never see that Bella DiCaprio had integrity.
She found and dialed the number for the FBI in D.C. She asked for the counterterrorism division.
Bella gave them her name, and informed them she had information that could threaten the security of the United States. She was transferred from one line to another and she imagined they were tracking her call, delaying her, recording the conversation. Checking her background. Whatever it was they did.
Her mouth went dry and her heart jackhammered as she waited. She shot another glance at the flight board—her plane had started boarding. Perspiration prickled over her lip.
Yet another agent came on the line, asking, again, the nature of her information and the threat. There was a crisp bite in his voice—they were taking her seriously now.
She rapidly outlined the details, yet again, and told them she had an audio recording that would prove Senator Sam Etherington’s guilt.
There was a long beat of silence, but when the agent spoke again, there was no change in his tone or tempo. “Do you have this proof on your person?”
“It’s in a safe place in the States, and to access it I will need an FBI escort from Dulles International. My life is in danger.”
“Can you tell us where this evidence is?”
“No, I can’t.”
“We’ll need to bring you in,” he said. “For questioning.”
She gave them the number of her flight and arrival time. The agent said FBI agents would be waiting at Dulles when she landed.
*
As her plane lifted off, Bella prayed she hadn’t made a mistake by contacting the FBI. But she was worried that her enemies might also be waiting. She needed protection to see this through to the end. Beyond exhausted, she fell into fitful sleep in her window seat, the seat beside her vacant. When she woke, they were still hours out from Dulles. She asked the flight attendant for some painkillers, pulled out her laptop and began to rough out her story—leaving Nikki out of it, leaving Tariq out of it. Focusing instead on STRIKE and Senator Sam Etherington. If she secured Scoob’s audio, that was all the proof she would need. She’d beat the Daily to the story even though she’d tipped them off—there was no way they could get all this verified before she broke it on her blog. Once it had aired, the rest of the world could scramble after it, and run with it.
She typed furiously. Writing helped alleviate her worry over Hurley, Agnes, Scoob. It stopped her from hurting over Tariq.
But she couldn’t erase from her mind that she’d brought danger—death—to his door.
Chapter 11
Jusef Al-Balawi pressed his balled-up shirt into Amal Ghaffar’s wound. His friend’s blood was warm on his fingers. In his other hand Jusef held a sat phone.
“He’s dying,” he yelled into the phone. “We need to take him to a hospital.”
The voice that responded was like ice. “No hospital. If he dies, he dies. But I’m not going to risk an investigation and have him take my empire down. Refuel the helicopter, get back in the air, fly south, over the Spanish border. If you need to refuel again in Spain, do so, but no doctor. Once you’ve crossed the Mediterranean and entered Morocco, you can find medical attention there, someone who won’t ask questions. Do not tell him who the patient is, or what happened.”
Sweat pearled on Jusef’s lip. “He won’t make it that long.”
“Look, you should have gone after the woman instead of wasting time flying off the island with a dying man. And you should have killed the sheik. Instead you save this idiot, let them escape. You might have cost me everything!”
“This is your son you’re talking about,” Jusef said. “I believed that was important to you, to everything you stand for. That is why I made this decision.”
“Your job is not to make decisions, or presumptions about me. Your job was to kill that woman before she destroys everything. The only thing I want is her dead.” The phone went silent.
Jusef stared at the phone, something calcifying around his heart. He ordered the pilot to refuel the chopper. They were going to Spain.
In Manhattan Aban Ghaffar placed a call to Isaiah Gold. He was burning with fury over the fact he might lose his son. Over the fact he’d lost sight of Bella DiCaprio. That Tariq Al Arif was still alive.
“She got away,” he said, very quietly, as soon as Isaiah answered. “I can’t have her story getting out. You need to help me find her.”
“I already have,” Isaiah said.
Aban’s grip tightened on his phone as his pulse quickened. “You’re better than I thought, Mr. Gold. Where is she?”
“I was just about to call you,” Isaiah said. “After she disappeared from the States we had her red-flagged in the system via Homeland Security in case she tried to reenter the country. Apparently she called the FBI from France, and when they ran her name though the database, our flag came up. The FBI agent called it in right away. My man in Homeland contacted me with the news.”
Aban was silent. “Do the feds know what she’s got?”
“They wouldn’t divulge what she’d told them, but I fear it’s serious—the agent who called it in is with the FBI’s counterterrorism division. They’re meeting her at the Dulles International. Her Air France flight lands at 3:15 p.m. She’ll be transported from there to the D.C. office.”
Aban smoothed a hand over his steel-gray hair. “This information is invaluable, Mr. Gold, for both of us.”
He hung up and immediately placed another call to one of his cell leaders in Washington.
“I have a job,” he said quietly. “You need to move fast.”
*
Tariq paced the arrivals area at Dulles International, watching the flight announcement board. Every now and then someone from the crowd would stare at him longer than was normal, and he’d remember his scarred face and clawed hand, his eye patch. He knew he must look frightening.
It cut him when a small child saw him and quickly grabbed his mother’s hand, hiding behind her skirt. But otherwise he didn’t think about it—he had no will to hide who he’d become. Not anymore.
Dr. Tariq Al Arif was back, fully, in the United States, and he didn’t care who saw, or what the media wrote about him. He was focused only on finding Bella, making things right with her, letting her know his family would help her tell her story and drag Sam Etherington into the pit of hell.
This is my life, Tariq, my job…I have no one else.
His heart torqued. He knew now why she was insecure, why she had such a need to prove her worth. She didn’t know where she’d come from, who her real parents were. That kind of thing could leave an insidious hole in the psyche, and Bella craved the one thing he had in abundance—blood family.
And he’d turned his back on them when he first moved into the abbey. She’d helped him see it, and shown him the route home.
Now it was his turn to help her.
And he was going to show Bella she did have family she could turn to for help, protection, finances—his.
Suddenly he noticed what looked like federal agents moving rapidly through the gates of the arrival area. His gaze shot to the flight board.
Her plane had just landed.
Tariq and his two men scanned the rest of the hall, looking for anyone else suspicious also moving. But there was no threat he could identify. Unless the feds were a threat themselves. If Sam was powerful enough to have used STRIKE in an attempt to kill Omair and Faith, he could also be using feds, or at the very least, feeding them false information about Bella. He wondered how they’d come to be here—called by Bella herself? Or tipped off?
Tariq and his bodyguards tried to follow the agents as they moved rapidly through the sliding doors, but they were held back by security. Through the glass doors Tariq could see the agents—two women, three men—moving toward the docking chute. He imagined they were going to board the plane before anyone disembarked, escort her in.
Tension fisted in his gut. Time ticked by. He paced. Then the doors reopened, and he saw her.
His breath stopped.
She was handcuffed and arguing with one of the female agents.
They led her out through the sliding doors. Crowds of travelers parted, stopping to stare, whisper.
He ordered his men to stand down and he pushed through the crowd toward her. “Bella!”
She turned, froze.
“Tariq?” Her voice was hoarse, her eyes huge, dark purple pools, her face bloodless. She had scratches on her cheek.
The agents tried to usher her forward, but she fought them as she stared at him. “Oh, God,” she said. “You’re alive—I…I thought they shot you.”
Tariq tried to go to her, to reach out for her. But one of the male agents slapped a hand on his arm, holding him back. Another agent’s hand went for his sidearm.
“Why is she handcuffed?” Tariq demanded of the agent, motioning to his own men to stay back. “Is she under arrest?”
“Please, step aside, sir.”
He held his ground.
“Is she under arrest?” he repeated. “If she’s under arrest she has a right to a lawyer.”
“Sir, I’m telling you to stand down, step back.” The man’s hand met the butt of the gun in his holster. The female agents started to lead Bella away.
“Tariq,” she called out over her shoulder, tears suddenly sheening over her face. “I’ll show you.” Her voice cracked. “That I have integrity.”
“Bella—”
But the agents ushered her forward and the crowd closed behind, swallowing them.
“Go get a vehicle!” he ordered his men.
Within minutes he had an airport limo and driver. He told the driver to take them to the FBI headquarters at the J. Edgar Hoover building on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a gamble, but Tariq figured they’d take her there first. If not, he’d find out where they were holding her. While they drove, he called a top D.C. lawyer who had handled work for the Al Arifs before and told him to meet him at FBI headquarters.
Traffic was beginning to back up. People laid on horns. The driver’s radio crackled.
“Congestion ahead,” his driver told him. Then as they rounded a corner on an incline, Tariq could see the stream of cars stretching ahead of him. He sat forward suddenly as he noted three black Suburbans with tinted windows driving in convoy, heading the same direction he was. It had to be the feds, with Bella.
A chopper thudded somewhere in the air high above.
Perspiration broke out over his torso. “That motorcade down there, can you reach them?”
The driver glanced back over his shoulder. “Are you crazy, can you see this traffic? We’re barely moving.”
“Keep your eye on the convoy, try and get close.” Tariq could feel it in his gut, it was them.
The traffic came to a snarling halt. Drivers started honking as a bus tried to budge into the stream. Tariq loosened the collar of his shirt. As long as he could see the motorcade, it was okay. Cars began to move again.
“Just stay on them,” he demanded.
The driver chuckled. “You got a hidden camera in back there? We gonna be in the movies or something?”
Tariq didn’t smile. His pulse was beginning to race—he had a bad feeling. He wound down his window, tried to see if he could spot the chopper. It gleamed hi
gh in the sky, and it was clearly hovering high over the stream of traffic. No markings on it that he could discern. Could be news chopper, doing traffic reports, weather. Could be anything.
He sat back, growing edgier as time ticked on and exhausts chugged fumes. The stream of vehicles began to move again. His men sat tense and silent at his side.
“Holy crap!” the driver said suddenly. “Do you guys see that?”
Tariq shot forward in his seat, peering through the windshield. Up ahead, a van had pulled into an intersection directly in front of the motorcade of Suburbans, cutting them off. Someone was emerging from the sunroof on top, his face obscured by a black balaclava—it looked like he was holding a shoulder rocket launcher!
Before Tariq could even register what was happening, the man fired his weapon. A flash of light, and the first Suburban blew into the air, smashing back against the one behind it, and landing on its side. Smoke began to billow black into the sky, tongues of orange flames licking up into it. Pedestrians were scattering. The assailant ducked back down into the van, and came up again. He fired again and this time his rocket exploded into the third SUV.
Ice coursed through Tariq’s veins.
He flung open his door, began to run down the road, dodging in and out of cars, sweat dripping off him, his hip burning. His men raced after them. Tariq could hear screams. The chopper was lowering, bystanders now rushing forward to help. Smoke filled the air, black and acrid.
Tariq couldn’t see what was happening with the attacker’s van through the smoke—it was obscuring the intersection. He shoved a pedestrian aside as he jumped onto the sidewalk, then he heard a third rocket being discharged. Another explosion.
His mind screamed. He ran harder, sweat pouring off him.
Sirens were coming now, wailing in the distance.
He moved with singular focus, forcing his damaged leg to work, making his arm work, his lungs burning. As he made his way down the road through the lines of cars he could hear more screaming, yelling. He could smell the fire now, burning his nostrils.
In the road, one of the FBI agents was crawling away from the twisted metal of a burning SUV wreck. The second blast had missed the middle SUV in the motorcade and torn through the paving. But the force of the blast had thrown the vehicle up and onto its roof, and fire was licking out from under the engine. The sirens grew louder as ambulances and fire engines tried to come closer through the gridlock of cars.
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