by Cat Johnson
“I’d appreciate it if we could keep all this information between us.”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes. “Of course, but mind if I ask why? What’s up, Coleman? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to be treated differently. It’s hard enough I’m tucked away in a van while you guys take fire.”
“Matt, none of us are totally safe ever, you included. The baddies could take out that van with one well-placed missile.”
“Thanks, Jimmy. I feel loads better now.” Matt laughed.
Jimmy ignored the interruption. “And you and your computer genius has given us advantages on every single mission. You’ve kept all of us alive more times than I can count.”
Matt let out a sigh. He knew what Jimmy said was true. It was just hard remembering it sometimes. “Thanks.”
Jimmy nodded and slid a different folder forward. “Now, back to business. You’re going to Dubai.”
That news brought Matt’s head up. “Dubai?”
“Yup. It seems as if our ally’s air base in Dubai is having issues with the guidance system you—ahem—didn’t invent and didn’t make millions from.” Jimmy winked at him. “Central wants you to go over there and give them a crash course. It should be quite an adventure. As a thank you for your special effort, the royal family has invited you to stay at one of their compounds.”
“Really?” Wow. Not only was Matt getting out of the van, he was doing it in style.
Jimmy tossed a folder across the desk. Matt glanced inside. It contained information about Al Minhad Air Base, operated by the United Arab Emirates Air Force, though the British Armed Forces had operations there, as did the Aussies.
“Yup. I suggest you brush up on local customs. You leave right after our training mission with the new boys.”
Matt grinned. It was going to be a very good week.
In a good mood after today’s developments, Matt didn’t even have the urge to check the dating site when he got home.
The last time he’d logged in and found a message from BabyGirl had pretty much cured his desire to ever go there again. The virus threat alone would have made him hit delete on Lisa’s message, but the subject line that read Need Computer Help had clinched it. He deleted it unopened. Just because he had money didn’t mean he enjoyed spending it on a bad date who only wanted him for his tech skills.
Research on Dubai kept Matt occupied for a solid hour. The royal family had their own website. Go figure. He was just reading about Sheikh Mohammed’s Internet City when a message from Sam popped up.
Sam_I_am: Hey, not much time. Wanted you to know I’m going deep under. Can’t talk for a while.
Shit. The last time a member of Zeta went deep undercover, they had to rescue him. They’d been a little late and he’d come back by way of the military hospital in Germany. And now Sam was going.
Computer_God: Watch your ass. Okay?
Sam_I_am: Will do, at least until I find someone else to watch it for me. Later.
Computer_God: Later.
At least this time, Matt didn’t have to be envious of Sam’s mission because he had a kick ass one of his own. Sam would be turning a little green with envy at Matt’s assignment if he knew about it. Being a guest in a royal compound while training some foreign techy how to use a computer program he’d invented—it was like winning the SpecOp lottery. Piece of cake.
Meanwhile, Sam was going deep undercover, headed into God only knew what kind of trouble. Matt sat back in his chair and blew out a long, slow breath, hoping whatever Sam’s assignment turned out to be, it didn’t cost Matt his friend.
Sam Foster had just closed the IM window with Zeta team’s comm guy, Matt Coleman, when Task Force Omega’s commander stepped up to the desk.
Commander Anderson smiled. “You ready, Foster?”
“Yes, sir.” She’d been preparing for this kind of an assignment her entire career in Special Operations.
Communications personnel on the various special task forces set in place after the terror attacks of September eleventh rarely got to see much hands-on action, let alone go deep undercover. But for once, rather than being tied to a computer, Sam was going in. Alone.
To say infiltrating without any team backup was frightening would be the understatement of the century, even though the assignment was in a supposed friendly zone. In the Gulf, friendly could become very unfriendly in the blink of an eye—especially for a woman. But Sam had been working as a female in a male-dominated world for a while now. She was ready.
Her commander cocked his head toward the door of his office. “Come on inside for a sec.”
Sam nodded.
For the first time in the six months she’d been Omega’s comm officer, Commander Anderson seemed to be treating her with kid gloves—treating her like a woman rather than a capable member of his team. She didn’t like it one bit. She’d fought to be equal her entire career in the service. What burned her ass and confused the entire equal-rights issue was that the reason she was going to Dubai undercover was because they needed a tech-savvy woman specifically for the assignment, and she fit the bill.
He led the way to his office and sat behind the desk. “Take a seat.”
She sat in the chair opposite her commander as he stared at her without speaking.
“Sir?” Nothing like silence from a superior officer to make a person nervous.
“Samantha…”
Now he was calling her by her full first name. Not good. “Yes, commander?”
He shook his head. “If you weren’t a woman I’d be slapping you on the back and sending you off without thinking twice about it.”
“I know, sir.” She kept her expression blank in the face of what she knew was sexist but true.
“But the fact is, you are a woman, and I’m sending you deep undercover into a damn harem in the middle of Dubai with no backup and without the knowledge of our allied forces in the region.”
That about covered it. She swallowed a nervous impulse to laugh. Now that he put it that way, it did sound pretty crazy, and damn scary.
Commander Anderson ran both hands over his face. “Maybe we need to bring someone over there into the loop, just to be safe—”
“No.” Sam shook her head. “The reason I’m going in is because we don’t know who we can trust. The transmissions I intercepted originated from somewhere within that compound. We don’t know who sent them. Yes, it could be a guard or a gardener…but for all we know, it could be the sheikh himself.”
Dubai was their ally. Yet someone from within one of the residences used regularly by the royal family had been contacting known terrorists. Central Command needed to find out who.
He drew in a deep breath. “I know, and if I was sending one of the others, I wouldn’t think twice about it.”
“Because they’re men and I’m a woman.” This song was starting to get pretty old. The commander could talk all he wanted, beat himself up until she left and got back again, but it wouldn’t change the facts. Sam had a vagina and not a penis, and that was why they needed her for this assignment.
“I feel like I’m pimping you out, Foster.” The commander looked as if he were in physical pain saying it. “It’s a harem. There’s a chance you may… The situation may arise…” He obviously found the thought so horrendous he couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I’m not a virgin, sir.” She wasn’t going into the harems of old. The ones with the silk veils and dancing girls and public baths. All of their sources and her research indicated this modern-day version was less harem and more Playboy Mansion. Young, pretty girls gathered by the royal family more as window dressing for their important guests.
He laughed. “Thanks, I hadn’t even considered that possibility.”
Sam wasn’t sure if she should feel insulted or flattered by his reaction to her declaration on the state of her virginity, or lack thereof. She decided to let it go. “What I’m saying, sir, is that I’ll do what I have to do, whatever that is, to get the job done. But
I’m smart and I’m well-trained, and I’ve even been told by a few people I’m clever. I will get the information we need and get out, hopefully with the virtue you’re concerned about intact.”
Okay, so maybe she was enjoying the blush on the commander’s face at her virtue comment. You couldn’t spend as many hours as she did in such close quarters with all these alpha males without getting a thick skin when it came to matters of sex. But in spite of being surrounded by prime beef all day every day, Sam never partook of any of her Omega teammates, nor would she.
Actually, she’d found herself fantasizing about a guy she’d never even met. Strange but true, her buddy Computer God had provided her with plenty of fantasies on the nights she’d whipped out her trusty vibrator. Her internet skills had even yielded an old photo of him for her to use for her mental imagery.
“Have you…ah, did you visit medical?”
Sam forced her mind back to her red-faced commander. “Yes, sir.”
“And did you get the…um…required implant?” He rushed through the end of the sentence.
She was glad he’d broken eye contact, because she felt herself start to blush too. Commander Anderson wasn’t that much older than herself, not old enough to be her father or anything. But he was her superior, which made it feel kind of like having a conversation about birth control with her father. That made this entire discussion far different than hearing the guys on the team tell dirty jokes or comment on the size of the waitress’s breasts at the local hangout.
Sam composed herself and answered. “Yes, sir. I did.”
She’d lost track of how many implants she’d had put inside her since joining the covert team—communications, tracking—but this was the first time she’d been ordered to get one designed for birth control. Another thing that made her unequal to her male teammates. Although she supposed medical would have handed them a box of condoms instead before they were sent into a harem.
Sam raised her gaze and found her commander watching her again. “Sir. It’s going to be fine. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, Foster.” He laughed, though it somehow sounded sad. “It’s the rest of the world I don’t trust.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
Chapter Three
The compound sometimes used by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed and his numerous family members and guests was impressive, to say the least.
Matt had been driven into the complex passed the horse-training facility. Arabs took the breeding and racing of their horses as seriously, if not more so, than Americans. Matt took a moment to digest the surreal reality that not too long ago he’d been at Jack and Jimmy Gordon’s family horse farm in Pigeon Hollow, and now he was here.
Sometimes his life was just plain strange. Maybe he’d get a tour of the barns and then he could email and tell the Gordons all about it.
The servant led Matt through what should be called a palace but was only one of many residences used by the royal family. The polite but quiet local man, who spoke more perfect English than half the guys on Zeta, escorted Matt through marble and stone hallways.
The first thing that struck Matt as he passed various security points was that the compound was well-outfitted with technology. Unlike some of the ops he’d worked on, there’d be no crawling on rooftops to set up temporary satellite communications, no running wires out of windows. Matt wouldn’t even have to work out of the usual cramped van. No way. Not on this trip. Not when you were the guest of a sheikh.
They ended the tour at the collection of rooms he’d be staying in during this assignment. Matt noticed the king-sized bed in the bedroom that opened onto a private balcony. He went outside to check out the view, but only after he’d finished drooling over the computer with the double flat-screen monitors in the living area.
His balcony overlooked a secluded garden decorated with fountains and exotic flowers. This was one hell of a setup, and Matt intended to enjoy every second of it.
The only regret he felt as he glanced at the silk-draped bed was that he had no one to share it with. He stepped from the scorching heat out on the terrace and back into the cooler air of the bedroom. Matt noticed an English version of the biography of Sheikh Mohammed had been left on the bedside table for his reading pleasure.
He walked passed that and into the living area. Not that he wasn’t interested in the life story of Dubai’s ruler, but he’d far rather get his hands on the computer. How sick would a video game look on that huge screen?
Too bad he couldn’t instant message Sam and brag about it.
Matt had arrived here mid-morning, but he needn’t have worried about not having anything to do for the day because there was an entire itinerary planned for him.
After his tour of the compound and the hour he was given to settle into his room, he was driven to the air base. There, he spent the rest of the day reviewing the guidance system with the personnel. That’s when he figured out the system wasn’t working even for him. It must have been installed wrong. He started the reinstallation, which would run all night. Matt left the tech guys with instructions to call him if anything funky happened and a promise to be back first thing in the morning.
Finally, Matt arrived back at his room exhausted from both the travel and a full day. He’d just walked in the door when a food tray arrived, served by none other than a girl dressed like the star of I Dream of Jeannie—bare belly, flowing pants, sheer scarves covering her face, the whole shebang. He’d have to snap a picture with his camera phone for the guys. If this was what waitresses looked like here in Dubai, it blew away those at Hooters back in the States. The guys would never frigging believe this.
“Um, thanks. You can just put it over there.”
She did as asked but didn’t leave after setting down the tray. Nor did she make a move to go after laying out the utensils, napkin and the plate of food on the table in front of a window in the room.
Matt said thank you one more time, first in English and then in her native language, wondering if maybe she didn’t understand him. He wasn’t the language expert like Trey. Matt knew enough Arabic to get by if he had to, but not much more.
The woman inclined her head in a bow “I am here to serve you.”
She’d surprised him with her careful English. He glanced at the table she’d laid out so nicely for him. “Yes, and you did it very well. Thank you.”
Still she didn’t leave. Maybe she was trained like the butlers in old movies and would stand there in case he needed more water or fresh ground pepper or something. Fine. She could stand and watch him eat if that was her job. He didn’t want her to get in trouble.
“So, nice weather today.” Feeling more than a bit self-conscious, he attempted some small talk.
Her response was a nod.
“It’s very beautiful here. It must be a nice place to work.” Even if she did have to dress like that.
Again, she nodded but didn’t speak.
Out of things to say, Matt ate his meal in silence.
When he had finished the last of the food, she cleared the table and loaded everything back onto the tray. With one final tip of her head, she headed for the door.
“Thanks, again,” Matt called at her back and then sighed with relief. With a nice full belly, he’d be very happy to get to bed. Maybe after a little computer time.
He stood, excited about his plan for the remainder of the evening, when he realized she’d handed the tray to someone in the hall and had come back in. She peered at him with big brown eyes that continued to dart down to stare at the floor.
Now what?
“The meal was excellent. Thank you, and please give my compliments to the chef. But I’m so full I don’t think I’ll want anything more to eat tonight. Thank you.”
“I am here to serve you.” She inclined her head again and didn’t move.
Okay. He got that, but dinner was over. Was she going to hang around until his breakfast tray arrived?
She finally raised her gaze to meet his. It
was the boldest move she’d made all night.
“I’m to serve you in there.” She pointed toward the bedroom door.
Matt’s heart skipped a beat. Holy shit. Was she a harem girl? Did they still exist? Apparently they did, because here she was, dressed like that, pointing toward the room with the giant bed. He swallowed and tried not to notice the large expanse of her exposed skin and the tempting curves that were so not covered by all that see-through fabric. Holy moly, were those her nipples showing through?
Wasn’t this ironic? Matt had spent all last weekend on dates from hell, hoping to get laid, and here he was on assignment with a harem girl and he wasn’t sure what to do with her.
Crap. He’d probably risk insulting his host if he rejected this more than generous gift.
The team trained that when immersed in a foreign culture you must go along with the local customs. So if they considered monkey brains a delicacy and fed that to him for dinner, he would have to eat monkey brains and tell them how good they tasted. But did it also mean that if he was handed a harem girl to service him, he was supposed to let her?
Why the hell was he having trouble convincing himself to take her up on her offer? This was what he’d wished for, kind of—to hook up with a hot chick on assignment like his teammates kept doing. But the other guys just happened to meet the girl of their dreams while on a mission. This seemed more like she was a hooker and Matt was the john, which made the sheikh the pimp in this scenario. Not good.
Matt looked her over again. Was she forced into this or did she do it willingly? Life for a woman in Saudi Arabia could be tough. Circumstances could make giving her body to strange men in exchange for plenty of food and a safe place to live the only option for this girl.
He couldn’t take advantage of her or her situation. Besides, he enjoyed the thrill of the chase, going out on a date and trying to hook up. Being handed a girl as a gift didn’t seem right.
Damn. How could he get out of this without single-handedly destroying international relations? “Um. I wouldn’t mind a back and maybe a foot massage. Could you do that? Give me a massage?”