“Nothing yet,” Kilmer replied. “The Saudis are making up the difference from their spare capacity. As long as the output remains constant, the price of oil shouldn’t fluctuate much. But the second news breaks of the situation at Al Karak…” He raised his eyebrows plaintively. “…all bets are off.”
“Why don’t the Soviets just make that announcement?” Tyler asked in his hoarse voice.
“Because they’re offering the U.S. a deal,” Kilmer answered. “One that reached the president’s team through back channels early this morning. In exchange for the resumption of oil flow, the U.S. would concede all of Western Europe—in fact, the entire Eurasian continent. The way Dementyev sees it, the U.S. already controls the western half of the globe. He’s arguing for what he considers his fair share: the entire Eastern Hemisphere.”
“The man is demented,” Margaret muttered.
“What was the president’s response?” Janis asked.
“He sent a message back that he was considering the offer.” Kilmer patted his hands toward the floor to quiet the sudden murmurs. “Look, he’s only playing along to buy us time. Had he refused, the news would already be out.”
“How much time does that give us?” Janis pressed.
“The president requested two weeks. Dementyev countered with two days.”
“Two days?”
“Dementyev’s not dumb,” Kilmer said. “He suspects we have a team with extraordinary powers, one that could take out his Artificials, because, make no mistake, that’s what he has inside that oil facility. The surveillance system picked up some images before the system went black. We’re analyzing them to determine how many Artificials we’re dealing with and what they can do. The only thing for certain at this point is that they’re lethal.”
“Two days,” Janis repeated in an uncertain whisper.
“Two days,” Kilmer confirmed.
25
Despite a cold shower, Janis’s body burned with fatigue as she climbed onto the king-sized bed and slid her legs beneath the sheets. Margaret, who had showered first, was sitting with her back to a headboard carved into the shape of a royal crown, a thick book propped on her drawn-up knees. Nine years after sharing a bedroom in their childhood home in California, the sisters were roommates again.
“How can you keep your eyes open enough to read?” Janis asked, pulling a thick down pillow beneath the side of her head. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
Lunch had been followed by a four-hour training session, Agent Steel retrofitting what they’d been practicing for the last three months in preparation for the new campaign. Different actors, different facilities, different stakes. Different everything, basically. By the time they’d wrapped up, Janis’s brain felt like it had been dropped in a blender and set to frappe.
“I have an economics exam when we get back,” Margaret said without looking up.
“You’re studying?”
“Life back home doesn’t have a pause button, Janis.”
Janis propped herself on an elbow. “Are you being serious?”
“What do you mean am I serious?” Margaret pulled a pencil from above her ear and closed the book around it. “Champions or no, I still plan on earning my college degree. It’s called creating a diversity of opportunities.”
Janis was about to compliment her on being a mouthpiece for the Future Business Leaders of America when a knock sounded on the door. Margaret set the textbook between them and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I know you’re only a high school sophomore,” she said as she strode toward the door in a white silk robe, hair up in a towel, “but you should already be thinking about these things. Did you ever fill out that career map I gave you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Margaret opened the door a crack. “Yes?”
Janis sat up and was able to make out the blue uniform of a member of Agent Steel’s security team in the corridor. He didn’t look happy. “Gift from the prince,” he muttered.
Margaret opened the door enough to accept a burgundy-colored box before closing it again. Eyes alight, she raced to the bed, set the box on the folded duvet, and took the top off. From a bed of gold-colored tissue paper, Margaret lifted out a black dress and held it against herself.
“This is silk,” she breathed. “And look, the embroidery is silver. Real silver.” She ran her hand down the long sleeves.
“It’s called an abaya,” Janis said. “Women in Saudi Arabia have to wear them out in public. It’s designed to cover your ankles, wrists, collarbones … you know, the parts of a woman that drive men crazy.” Janis pointed to a scarf, whose black folds glistened beneath the overhead light. “That’s to cover the other erogenous part of your body: your hair.”
“Why is he giving me something to wear out?”
A small envelope fell from the unfurling head scarf. Janis saw it before Margaret did and scrambled across the bed, knocking Margaret’s economics book to the floor. With a lunge, she snatched the letter from the duvet.
“Hey, that was meant for me!”
“Doesn’t have your name on it,” Janis taunted. She knee-walked backward, freeing the card from the envelope. She’d forgotten how much fun it was to tease her sister. “‘My dearest Margaret,’” she read aloud. “Oops, guess it is for you.” She kept reading anyway, rotating her torso to remain beyond her sister’s reach. “‘Would you do me the exquisite honor’—ooh, exquisite—‘of being my guest for coffee and dessert this evening? Signed, Prince Khoggi’.”
Margaret snatched the letter away. As she read it silently, the angles of her face softened, her eyes taking on a dreamy look.
“Oh, come on,” Janis said.
“There’s nothing wrong with being wooed.”
“He’s a weirdo, Margaret. Anyone can see that.”
“He’s a royal prince.”
“Yeah, and Saudi Arabia has like ten thousand of them. They’re not exactly in short supply. Does this have anything to do with your and Kevin’s breakup?”
Margaret looked from the letter to the abaya and scarf.
“Oh, I don’t believe this,” Janis groaned, collapsing back onto the pillows. “The man’s fifty years old, probably older. I bet he has a dozen wives already, four dozen kids…”
“It’s just coffee.”
Janis craned her neck as Margaret disappeared into the bathroom with her gifts. “Reality check, sis. Our part of the compound is on lock down. Agent Steel doesn’t care who your wooer is. She’ll never let you out of here.”
“You missed the postscript,” Margaret called back.
“What postscript?” Janis reached over for the card that Margaret had set beside the spill of tissue. The message continued on the back. “P.S. The rope beside the dresser opens a hidden passage that leads to my carport. My heart aches until your arrival.”
Janis twisted toward the referenced rope. Gold and tasseled, it looked like one of the room’s many decorative features, easy to miss. She considered finding a pair of shears and cutting it down.
“You have a choice,” Margaret said from the bathroom. “Stay here harping about what a slobbering fool I’m being, or come with me, act as my chaperone. I’d prefer that actually.”
Janis could hear in Margaret’s tone that on the question of going out, her mind was made up. There was the royalty factor, for one. But Janis knew this was also her sister’s way of climbing back up the self-esteem ladder after Kevin, her boyfriend of four years, had bid her adieu. Never mind that the fate of nations hung in the balance. Margaret had never been dumped before.
Janis sighed. “You don’t suppose he’s got a spare abaya lying around.”
“You like?” Prince Khoggi yelled from the driver’s seat.
If Margaret answered, Janis couldn’t hear her from the back, but she doubted her sister had answered. Like Janis, she was too busy trying to keep the steady blast of wind from tearing her headdress away. Streamers of her sister’s scarf and brunette hair whipped around the passenger headres
t.
“Imported from Germany last week!” Khoggi caressed the steering wheel with his leather driving gloves.
Like he needs another Mercedes, Janis thought. The carport they’d met the prince in had been lined with them. Not to mention Jaguars, red Porsches, canary yellow Ferraris, and a pair of Rolls-Royce Silver Clouds. Janis had expected the prince to be disappointed to see his date bearing a chaperone. But if anything, the sight of the pair of them had enthused him even more.
Janis leaned forward. “Can you put the windows up?”
“Yes, yes, automatic windows!” Khoggi demonstrated by raising them up and down a few times and then left them lowered. “You like?”
Ugh. She sat back.
Prince Khoggi jerked the steering wheel as he weaved along a causeway toward downtown Riyadh. Brake lights shimmered red against a looming backdrop of white-lit buildings. Outside Janis’s window, the silhouettes of minarets and domes rose like mysteries. As ill-conceived as this outing was, Janis couldn’t help but marvel over the idea that only twenty-four hours earlier she had been in Gainesville, Florida. Now she was … here, on the other side of the world.
As she eyed the shadows of dunes that humped up around the city, she allowed the wonder to grow inside her. Yes, even the whole being-out-with-royalty thing had its strange charm.
When something rang, Janis looked around the car in confusion. Prince Khoggi reached for the console between his and Margaret’s seats and lifted a milk-carton-sized phone to his ear. Following several bursts of Arabic, Khoggi returned the phone to its holder.
“I take you to another restaurant!” he cried.
“I thought we were going to your brother’s place,” Margaret yelled back.
“Yes, yes, another brother!”
From the far lane, Khoggi zagged across the highway. Horns blared, brakes screamed. Janis thought she heard the thump of a collision. Khoggi went on smiling as he barreled down an off ramp. A few turns later, he pulled the Mercedes into a driveway that arced in front of a brightly lit building. As he rolled to a stop, the car doors shot open around them. Janis recoiled into a defensive posture.
Valets, she told herself, breathing again. Just parking valets. The young man at her door bowed and invited her from the car with an elegant sweep of his arm.
“Thanks.” Janis exited at the same time as Margaret, who was busily straightening her head scarf. Two of the valets returned to their podium while a third lingered beside the car, listening to Khoggi give instructions.
For the first time, suspicion curdled in Janis’s stomach. She touched her left wrist only now realizing her Champions watch was still sitting on the bedside table back in their room.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she whispered to Margaret.
“I don’t,” Margaret shot back.
The valet pocketed some bills and slipped into the driver’s seat. As the shiny car eased down the driveway, Khoggi shook out the legs of his flared trousers, the collar of his gaudy print shirt bouncing over a white disco jacket. Was she really afraid of this little man whose fashion sense amounted to Saturday Night Fever?
Maybe that’s exactly the kind of person you should fear, her intuition whispered back.
“Ah, my goddesses,” Khoggi sighed, offering them his arms.
Margaret accepted an elbow. Janis pretended her hands were too occupied with straightening her abaya. She probed Khoggi with her mind, pushing through the energy blasting off him.
Oh, gross.
She had stumbled into his fantasy center, apparently, because she was staring at a light-infused scene of the prince standing on tiptoes, brushing his whiskered lips around his sister’s ear.
Janis recoiled, wishing she could scrub the image from her brain.
The prince swept them past a doorman and into view of a dining room that was—Janis had to admit—pretty incredible. Beyond an Alhambra-style entrance, massive gold chandeliers dripped from a high ceiling. Palm trees arced from ornate pots. They crossed a small bridge, where clear water flowed along a marble aqueduct. In the dining room itself, men in business suits spoke in a passionate din, the smoke of a sweet-smelling tobacco hovering over their tables. The table Khoggi led them to had been ringed with gold bunting and set with porcelain tea cups and plates.
“I’ll sit there, thank you,” Janis said, slipping ahead of Khoggi and onto the cushioned bench beside her sister. As she climbed past red and gold pillows, she gestured for the prince to take the chair across from them.
Khoggi smiled and bowed. “As you wish.”
Hooking his sunglasses into the open collar of his shirt, he shouted something over his shoulder. The sinuous instrumental music playing over the dining room stopped. Moments later, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” pumped from the sound system. Next, Khoggi waved toward the bar until the bartender, a staid, elderly man, looked up from drying a glass. The man turned on the single television and changed the channel until they were all watching Nickelodeon.
“American entertainment!” Khoggi announced. “You like?”
“What’s next?” Janis groaned. “A visit from Ronald McDonald?”
Margaret side-kneed her beneath the table. “You’ll have to forgive my sister. She seems to have a problem with Saudi hospitality.” She gazed around the room. “I just love what your brother’s done here. It’s so classy.”
“I will tell him,” Khoggi said, beaming. “From the goddess’s lips.”
“But what I’d really love,” Margaret went on, “is to hear how you got to where you are today. Could you tell me about your business ventures? How you amassed your fortune?”
I should’ve known, Janis thought. The secret to his success. That’s what she’s after.
“I do not enjoy to talk about myself,” the prince said, tossing up a hand, “but for you, yes, I will talk. I come from big family. My father was the oil minister for many years. He is brother to the king.”
“So you’re the king’s … nephew?” Margaret asked, disappointment hollowing her voice.
“Yes, yes, he has many nephews. Easy to get lost among them. Easy to get lost among brothers, too. I was the last of eight sons born to my father and his third wife. By the time Khoggi come into the world, my father had already married fourth wife. He spend all his time with her.”
“That’s awful,” Margaret said.
Even Janis experienced a twinge of pity for the prince. She sat back as two tuxedoed waiters appeared, one bearing a pot of coffee, which he proceeded to pour out into their cups. The other waiter set a silver tray of desserts onto the center of the table. Janis looked over the delectables—chocolate-covered dates, triangles of syrupy baklava, almond cakes—reminding herself that she’d foresworn food and drink for the evening, in case Prince Khoggi was up to something.
“Of all my brothers and half-brothers, I was smallest,” he continued when the waiters had stepped quietly away. “How you say in English—runt? Yes, I was runt of family. But that make Khoggi want to work harder.”
Margaret sipped her coffee. “What kind of work?”
For the first time, Janis noticed that her sister’s eyes had shifted to a deeper shade of green. Margaret was using her powers to dissolve any resistance Prince Khoggi might be putting up. She wanted the unfiltered truth.
“Well, Saudi Arabia is kingdom of extremes. On one hand, we have oil wealth, yes? On other,” he said, turning up his opposite hand, “we are expected to live by very strict moral code. Ulema or religious scholars advise king. They forbid many things, alcohol, for example.”
“Well, what’s the bartender doing?” Janis asked.
Khoggi craned his neck. “Oh, he is just there for show.”
Margaret snapped her fingers. “What does that have to do with your wealth?”
“Ah, yes.” Khoggi’s dark eyes glazed ever so slightly as he turned back to Margaret. “Though the Kingdom can ban sinful things, they cannot eliminate the want for those things, you see?”
“Low suppl
y and high, inflexible demand,” Margaret said.
“Yes, yes, exactly. And Khoggi learned early that is where opportunity is richest.”
“And so you became, what?” Margaret asked. “A black market dealer?”
A hint of insult darkened Khoggi’s expression. “I became successful businessman.”
“If you’re so successful, why not fight for political freedom for your fellow citizens?” Janis asked. “Why not demand rights for women? I’m sure you have plenty of influence among the ruling class.”
“Yes, but why would I do that? The king allows the religious scholars their strict rules. In turn, the scholars give the royal family their legitimacy. Much tension between the two sides. But it is tension that creates lucrative spaces for people like me to operate. And not only in the Saudi Kingdom.” Janis stared at the opportunist through slitted eyes, wondering how much he would be confessing were it not for her sister’s abilities. Laughter brightened Khoggi’s face again. “I am very much champion of—how you say?—status quo.”
“All right,” Janis said, turning to Margaret. “Heard enough? Can we leave now?”
Before her sister could open her clenched jaw, a tall man appeared from a back room. He was wearing a brown suit and collarless shirt. Beneath thinning hair, his black eyebrows were nearly touching. Upon spotting them, he rushed forward, prompting Janis to summon her powers.
“My brother,” Khoggi explained, almost apologetically. The prince stood and faced him, palms held out in a sign of appeasement. “My dear, Hameed.”
His brother began to shout while gesturing overhead and toward the dry bar. “We Built This City” cut out mid song. The bartender hurried to snap off the television just as a kid was getting a bucket of green slime poured over his head.
“I take it Khoggi’s brother doesn’t share his passion for American entertainment,” Janis whispered.
Between his brother’s bursts of Arabic, Khoggi spoke softly, almost melodically. When Hameed jabbed a finger at their table, Janis sidled up beside Margaret, hoping her sister finally understood just how awful an idea it had been to come here. Save for the wait staff and a scattering of men in dark suits, the dining room had emptied out.
XGeneration (Book 4): Pressure Drop Page 18