Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1)

by Rosie Pike

  Chloe nodded, desperately searching the video icons for anything that didn't seem right. She was just about to call it a night and admit that she had panicked when something caught her eye.

  She tapped Tariq on the shoulder, pointing at the video feed for camera number seven – the one aimed directly at the stairs that led to the master bedroom. "Look!" she whispered under her breath, tapping the icon so that it resized. "Look at the dark patch on the stairs. Is that a person?"

  Tariq studied the screen carefully, looking at what Chloe thought she'd seen. He was about to turn away, about to dismiss it entirely when the dark patch moved. "You're right," he hissed, and both watched as a man holding a gun crept slowly and silently up the stairs. "Shit. You need to hide."

  Tariq gently tugged at Chloe's arm, pulling her back towards the bed, and he padded over as quickly and quietly as a hunting lion, dropping to his knees and sticking his arm under the heavy mattress.

  "What are you doing?" Chloe asked, bemused.

  Tariq didn't reply – at least not to her question – when he turned his head. "Is there anywhere you can hide?"

  "Um…" Chloe thought, racking her brain for an idea. She slapped her head. "Oh my God, how could I possibly be so stupid!"

  "What is it?" Tariq whispered urgently, getting to his feet holding something dark in his hands.

  "Is that…" Chloe began uncertainly. "Is that a gun? It is. Where did you get that?"

  "Now," Tariq said firmly, "isn't the time for questions. You were saying there was somewhere to hide?"

  Chloe nodded her head vigorously in response, unable to take her eyes off the handgun in Tariq's hands. "Yes. There's a panic room next to the bathroom. I don't know how I forgot."

  "Let's go," Tariq ordered insistently, grabbing Chloe by the shoulder protectively. "Show me where it is." Chloe walked over to the bathroom and put her hands on the wallpapered walls, feeling them up – looking for something.

  "What are you doing?" Tariq hissed. "We don't have time…"

  "Give me a second," Chloe whispered back in an irritated tone of voice. "I've got it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. She pulled the false section of wall back and exposed a black metal vault. "I need your thumbprint," she whispered, grabbing Tariq's hand and pressing against the fingerprint reader. The vault bleeped once, and the door clicked open. "Come on, get in," she begged urgently, clambering in herself before grabbing Tariq's arm and trying to pull him in behind her.

  "I'm not coming in, Chloe," Tariq said firmly. "Call for help." Before she could protest, he pushed the door closed and it beeped once again.

  Inside the panic room, Chloe beat her fist against the hard metal door in anger, fear and frustration. "What the hell are you doing?" she yelled as loud as she could, screaming at the top of her voice. Outside of the metal chamber, Tariq could barely hear her. She whirled around, looking for a button to unlock the door – single-minded in her determination to get Tariq in there with her, to get him to safety. She spied a big red button and smashed the base of her fist down on it hard, only for an error message to come up on a small screen inside the vault.

  Error: Emergency Procedure Activated

  Lock time: 59:37 remaining

  There was nothing she could do – no way of getting out, and no way of helping the beautiful man on the other side of the door. Dark thoughts began to enter Chloe's mind. What if the reason he hadn't entered the vault with her was because he was in on the plan? But she dismissed them as quickly as the traitorous thoughts entered her mind – she knew for a fact that a man who had looked as shattered as Tariq had the night before upon learning the truth about his family couldn't possibly be capable of betraying her.

  Chloe turned around again, looking for anything that could change her situation. She looked at the small control terminal in front of her, a terminal which had two screens – the one with the countdown timer on it, and one that was currently dark. She pressed a button next to the one that was switched off, and it sprang to life.

  Chloe was presented with a series of options:

  Open outside line

  Contact emergency services

  Emergency override

  Cameras

  Testing

  Her finger briefly hovered over the second option, but before she pressed it, she had a change of heart and tapped the third. This time, the screen that was called up simply required a passcode that she didn't have. She hissed an angry sigh of frustration and tapped the back button.

  Chloe was just about to call the police when she had a thought. At the end of the day, she was an employee of the Kingsland Group – and if there was one thing that her years of training had drilled into her, time and time again, it was that one of her primary jobs was to protect the Group, the hotel, and the client from reputational damage – in that order. She stayed her trembling finger, knowing that if she called the police, then all of this would go straight to the media. Not knowing whether she was willing to risk all that – at least not yet, she played her wild card: option number one.

  Chloe dialed Rachel's number on the touchscreen, the number that she knew by heart and prayed that someone on the other line would pick up. With trembling hands, she picked up the landline style handset and prayed that someone would answer on the other end.

  Expecting to wake Rachel up from a deep sleep, Chloe was astounded to find out that her boss sounded wide awake. "Chloe? What's wrong?" Rachel barked into the phone, desperate for information.

  "Rachel – there's a man with a gun in Tariq's suite."

  "Get to the panic room, now," Rachel ordered without a second's hesitation. "You'll be safe there."

  "I'm in it, Rachel. But –."

  "But what, Chloe?" Rachel asked, bustling, busy sounds evident in the background.

  "But Tariq isn't. I don't know what he's doing." Chloe sobbed into the phone.

  "Stay strong, Chloe," Rachel replied, the explosive news that one of her clients could be in mortal danger not seeming to have flustered the endlessly impressive woman one iota. "I need you to do something for me."

  Chloe took a deep breath, steeling herself, and replied, "Okay. What you need me to do?"

  "Are you next to the control terminal?"

  "Yes. That's what I'm calling you from."

  "Good," Rachel replied. "I need to know what's going on out there. Can you go to the security feed?"

  Chloe did so, tapping away on the terminal until a rather less advanced version of the interface she'd seen on the iPad popped up. "I've got it," she said. "What do you need to see?"

  "Find Tariq," Rachel ordered urgently, and then broke off, as though she was muffling the handset and barking orders elsewhere into the room. "I need to know where he is."

  Chloe searched the video feeds, desperately looking for him. "He's not –? I don’t know where he is…" she trailed off helplessly. She stared at the camera pointed at the bedroom, saw that the doors were still locked closed, though shuddering with powerful blows from the other side, and knew that Tariq must inevitably be in the room. "Aha – I've got him. He's crouching on the floor by the bed. Rachel –?"

  "What is it Chloe?"

  "He's got a gun."

  Rachel didn't seem surprised in the slightest at this momentous piece of information. "Good. I'm sure he can handle himself. Chloe, I've got men on their way to you now – they won't be long, they were in the hotel the whole time."

  "Hurry," Chloe whispered.

  24

  I’m sure he can handle himself?

  Chloe wondered what exactly Rachel had meant by that. She sure seemed to know a lot more about what was going on than she was letting on. She decided to ignore it – it didn't matter. Not yet, anyway.

  Chloe kept her eyes trained on the prone form of Tariq lying on his stomach by the bed in the grainy black-and-white video footage. She could just about make him out, but she knew that that was only because of the way the contrast on the computer monitor was set up – in reality, he'd be almost impossible t
o spot in the darkness of the bedroom.

  On the monitor on the left-hand side, Chloe set up another camera view, this time of the assailant on the stairs. He was battering against the lock of the presidential suite's bedroom doors with the butt of his gun, and she could see them rattle and shake in their frames. She had a birds eye view of what was going on, but had never felt more powerless. In the bottom right-hand corner of both screens she saw the countdown timer, now showing 57:33. She'd be locked in the panic room for at least another hour, with no way of getting out, and no way of helping the man whose bed she'd just been sharing. It was infuriating.

  Suddenly, in her peripheral vision, Chloe saw a flash on the left-hand monitor, and milliseconds later heard a muffled thud ripple through the heavy metal lined walls of the vault. Holy shit! Whoever had been trying to batter down the doors had just given up trying to do with brute strength, and decided to fire the gun at the lock instead. She watched as he stood back, took aim, and fired again, and this time she saw something fly off the bedroom door, and her stomach clenched in terror.

  This was it, she was about to see Tariq die, and there was nothing she could do about it. She wanted to close her eyes, hide from the inevitable, but couldn't – she was drawn to the screens.

  The unknown assailant lifted his leg and kicked the door powerfully. This time, unhindered by whatever was left of the lock, it swung open on its hinges. Chloe half expected Tariq to stand up and start shooting, but in her video feed, he just stayed perfectly still. In fact, she was almost going to doubt that the dark outline on the floor by the bed was actually him. Was a chance he'd made it out of room somehow? Could he possibly be hiding in the bathroom – the only place the cameras didn't cover?

  No. Chloe knew that was just false hope talking. She knew exactly where Tariq was, and exactly what was about to happen. She looked down at the screens and noticed a translucent icon in the bottom left corner that she hadn't noticed before – it looked like a speaker with a cross going through it.

  Was there sound?

  Chloe tapped the icon hesitantly, half of her unwilling to listen to what was sure to be Tariq's grisly death, but the other, more composed half knowing that she might be able to pick up on what was going on in the bedroom better – maybe she'd be able to feed the information back to Rachel and whomever her boss she was sending to help them. She heard an audible click as speakers recessed somewhere in the panic room turned on.

  To start with, all she heard was muffled breathing, and she watched as the assailant swung his handgun first right, then left urgently, looking for his targets. She heard him mutter something under his breath in confusion and perhaps even anger as he realized that there was no one in the room. It sounded like: "not possible!"

  More muffled, heavy breathing ensued as the intruder walked into the bedroom, weapon held professionally out in front of him with a double-handed grip. He covered the room in sections, never appearing to drop his guard, even for an instant. Chloe watched as the man walked towards the ensuite bathroom and flicked on the light to confirm it was empty, and then, fascinated, as he noticed the opening on the wall opposite in the glow of the bathroom light. She realized with morbid curiosity that she was watching him figure out where she herself was hiding...

  She heard him swearing in Arabic over the speakers as he noticed the panic room, watched as he raised his weapon and fired three times into the heavy metal door. She ducked, cringing in fear as the harsh sound of the bullets rang around the small metal room, and held that position for a couple of seconds before realizing that the bullets must simply have rebounded off the other side – and that she was reacting to the sound coming from the speakers, anway.

  Shit. What the hell is Tariq doing?

  He quickly answered that question for her.

  While Chloe was cowering, she hadn't noticed as Tariq’s dark figure had stealthily picked itself up the floor while Khalid had distracted himself fruitlessly shooting at the panic room door, hadn't noticed as he assumed a firing position – shoulders set, wide stance, double grip. But she noticed when he spoke.

  "What are you doing here, Khalid?" Tariq asked in a calm, low voice that promised death, or worse, to anyone who crossed him in that moment.

  The intruder froze, and Chloe froze along with him. Khalid? Of course…

  "Don't move." Tariq said, and Khalid either didn't dare, or else – Chloe thought in terror – was merely biding time before he made his move.

  "So you've got me." Khalid said calmly. "What are you going to do?"

  "Why are you here?" Tariq again asked, equally unruffled. Chloe's heart was racing, and she had no idea how he could be so relaxed when she was the one safe inside a metal box.

  "You know why." Khalid answered. "Your father has had enough, Tariq."

  "So he wants to put me down?" Tariq asked. "That's going a bit far, even for him, isn't it?"

  "You're a traitor, Tariq." Khalid sneered. "Why are you trying to protect this dissident piece of scum? You're no better than he is."

  "But tell me, Khalid." Tariq asked reasonably. "Why should he die? If you think about it, he's making some quite understandable suggestions, isn't he?"

  Chloe couldn't understand why Tariq was prompting Khalid with these questions. Why not just shoot the man while he had the chance, or at least tie him up? Wasn't he just leaving himself open to an attack? Why take the risk?

  It didn't seem to make any sense.

  Khalid spat, and Chloe watched with revulsion as the thick glob of saliva sailed down onto the floor. "It's not his place to tell us how to rule the country, boy, and it's about time you realized that. Your father has bigger plans than you, or even the king, can understand…"

  "Boy?" Tariq chuckled. "I'm your age, Khalid. Let's not make out as though you're a wise old man, eh?"

  Chloe saw the barrel of Khalid's gun flicker as though he was about to spin round. "Oh no you don't!" Tariq said, just in time, moving a couple of paces towards his prisoner in the blink of an eye and placing the barrel against Khalid's skull. "Drop the gun."

  “Or what, you'll kill me?" Khalid sneered. "You don't have it in you."

  "Don't I?" Tariq said in a dangerous tone of voice. "You just snuck into my bedroom in the dead of night, planning to kill me, and you're calling me the coward?"

  "You don't understand how the world is run. You're naive, boy." Khalid reiterated. "What is it that you want – the King to give up the throne? Do you want us all to be out on the streets? Your father won't let that happen."

  "Is that so?" Tariq asked. "And here I was thinking my father was a reformer…"

  Chloe watched with interest as Tariq laid his elaborate little verbal trap.

  She'd spent a few minutes wondering why he was playing with his prisoner, and why he wasn't more interested in making sure that Khalid gave up the gun – and she finally thought that she had figured out the reason.

  It was brilliant, really – Tariq was pumping Khalid for information. And it seemed to be working…

  Allowing them to keep hold of the gun seemed to be lulling him into a false sense of security, making the arrogant, ambitious interior ministry colonel believe that he was still in control of the situation, even if it went against all the evidence.

  "Pah!" Khalid spat. "You're more of an idiot than I thought. Your father is the one who sent me here in the first place – to watch you. He's far more powerful than you give him credit for. What do you think the endgame is here? Even if you kill me, do you think that your father will just give up? No – your life is over, Tariq – whatever happens here."

  "Perhaps that's so." Tariq agreed. "But look up."

  "Look up?" Khalid asked, bemused. "What the hell are you saying?"

  "It's not that hard, Khalid. I want you to smile for the camera."

  Khalid went utterly still, as though he was trapped in his worst nightmare. "Camera?" He uttered slowly. "No – you're lying. There can't be."

  "Look up." Tariq repeated. "You're a fool, Khali
d. You always have been, always will be. Your mouth is too big, and your brain too small."

  Chloe watched with fascination as Khalid slowly raised his head so that his eyes were staring directly at the camera – and in turn, directly at her. Her own eyes were locked intently on the two camera monitors. In the other monitor, the one trained on the stairs, Chloe saw the next plot twist in this version of reality television– four heavily armed men in black battle dress uniforms climbing the stairs with rifles trained intently in front of them.

  She clenched her fist in satisfaction, grinning to herself with relief. It was almost over.

  "Fuck!" Khalid shouted, and in the grainy camera feed Chloe correctly see spittle flecks shooting out of his mouth and covering the lens.

  "Now drop the gun, Khalid. I'm not a vindictive man, we can work something out."

  "Fuck you, Tariq." Khalid screamed, spinning and raising his gun in one movement to point it out Tariq. He was fast, so fast that Chloe could barely see him in the camera feed, and she screamed in unison, clapping her hands to her mouth. Surely he hadn't made it this far only to fall at the final hurdle?

  If Khalid was fast, though, Tariq was faster. Chloe heard a single shot ring out, saw a flash of bright white light as the camera feed adjusted, and then saw Khalid full to the ground, dropping the gun which Tariq promptly kicked away.

  And then there were shouts, men running into the room with rifles trained.

  "Don't shoot!" Tariq shouted. "My name is Prince Tariq, and I need that man alive. Who are you gentlemen?" He asked, rather more calmly.

  Two of the men had slung their rifles over their shoulders and were attending to the injured Khalid – one binding his wrists with a plastic zip tie, the other pressing a bandage dressing to his shoulder, which Chloe could see had borne the brunt of Tariq’s well aimed gunshot.

  Another of the men stepped forward and saluted crisply. "Sorry for the intrusion, sir – we'd have called ahead, but we heard you were in a spot of bother. We're here on behalf of the Kingsland Group. Looks like you've handled yourself quite capably, though – we'd love to have more clients like you." He said in a crisp British accent. "What would you like us to do with the prisoner, sir?"