Dazzle - The Complete Unabridged Trilogy

by Judith Gould

  Everywhere, signs of destruction met his eyes: shattered glass, gaping walls, spent shell casings, smashed furnishings, and smouldering upholstery. The fires were spreading even more swiftly than any of them had anticipated, fed as they were by the sumptuous fabrics, acres of carpeting, and walls sheathed in exotic woods. Even the normally fireproof marble walls and floors could not contain them: too many flammable building materials had been used. The Almoayyeds were going to have quite a spectacular ruin on their hands.

  He crossed from the foyer into the first of the three huge adjoining rooms—the fifty-foot-long oval library—shielding his face from the heat with his forearm. The windows were completely blown out, frames and all. The gently curving ceiling-high bookshelves tilted into the room at crazy angles, and fires were everywhere. Piles of burning books, scorched tulipwood tables, and overturned chairs gave evidence of a recent explosion. Two blackened bodies were sprawled on the floor.

  He nodded to himself: So this was the explosion he'd heard when he was coming down the stairs—a firebomb.

  Still shielding his face from the heat, he crossed into the next room, a green-velvet-lined screening room with a semicircle of green velvet armchairs facing a huge movie screen. He let his arm drop. It was cooler in here, and miraculously, the room was untouched: the destruction had stopped just outside its door. But it wouldn't remain that way for long.

  He stopped for a moment, turned around, and stared back at the burning library beyond. He frowned thoughtfully. There was nothing in there except burning books, ruined furnishings, and fires raging everywhere, but he trusted his instinct and returned to the library. He crept across the velvet carpeting, flattening himself against the wall. His eyes flickered around the huge room. One second passed. Two. He jumped back as a section of bookshelf tumbled over with a crash, and a wild shower of sparks exploded to the ceiling. No, there was nothing. He must have imagined whatever it was that had caught his attention.

  He was about to curse the waste of precious seconds and head back into the screening room when a click froze him in his tracks. Little chills lifted the hair at his neck. He knew that sound only too well—a gun's hammer.

  'Slowly put your weapon down,' a voice hissed harshly, and something hard and menacing poked him brutally in the spine. 'This is no time to try any tricks.'

  He bent over and laid his automatic on the floor then slowly straightened back up.

  'Kick it away from you.'

  He gave the weapon a nudge with the toe of his boot, and it spun across the marble.

  'Raise your arms above your head and turn around slowly.' The gun barrel left his back and he turned.

  He and the two men behind him stared at one another.

  'Khalid!' Najib said with a flood of relief. 'Hamid! Am I ever glad to see you!'

  Khalid lowered his automatic, exchanging grins with Hamid.

  Najib let his hands drop. 'You've both got to get out,' he told them urgently. 'The helicopter will pick us up from the roof. In only minutes, the whole palace is going to blow. Listen—does either of you know where Abdullah is?'

  'Ah, the traitorous triumvirate!' It was Abdullah's voice. 'I am right here, to your left.'

  The three of them froze.

  A section of the tilting, burning bookcase had swung outward, and Abdullah and Ghazi stepped soundlessly out from a concealed reading room. Both were armed with semi-automatics, aimed right at them.

  The timer digits were down to 7:56.

  Najib heard the ear-splitting groan of a collapsing bookcase at the far end of the blazing library, and he stared in morbid fascination as a giant section of ceiling-high shelves tipped away from the wall in slow motion and toppled inward, dumping tons of burning volumes to the floor. All around, the other shelves were swaying precariously.

  He pulled his gaze back to Abdullah. If his half-uncle had even heard the crash, he gave no evidence of it. The madman was in another world entirely, a world where he was omnipotent and the fears of ordinary mortals mattered not at all. His messianic eyes had been on Khalid, and now they slid back to Najib, the triumph in them merged with feral cunning. 'As soon as the attack started, I suspected that the three of you were behind it,' he was saying, 'and now it is proven. How convenient that you are all together. It will make punishing you for your treachery so much easier. You swore an oath to me, all three of you!' His eyebrows arched into a dark V, and he laughed crazily. 'For breaking it, you will now die!'

  'This is the last flight!' Dani shouted at Daliah. He threw his helmet aside and his hair whipped in the prop wash. 'Get in!'

  Daliah's eyes darted around. No one was trying to hold off the terrorists in the palace any longer; of the five commandos who had been doing that, four had already been ferried to the jet. Now the single one who had remained had joined them at the helicopter. Besides him, she counted herself, Dani, Schmarya, the Israeli captain, and the helicopter pilot. Everyone else had already been flown out to the runway. She looked back at her father. 'But what about Najib?' she yelled.

  Dani's expression was fierce. 'Young lady,' he roared, 'if you don't hurry, there won't be time to come back and get him!'

  Without another word, she ducked into the vibrating little cabin. In less than ten seconds the rest of them had piled in behind her and the helicopter rose heavily and made a tight, sweeping turn. Below, the palace shrank in size and seemed to tilt. Fires were sprouting from every wing and every floor now, and then, suddenly, she saw that a new wall of flames was beginning to race toward the spot where the explosives had been planted.

  Daliah shut her eyes, willing Najib to be safe. Please don't die. Please come back to me.

  Then they were over the compound walls and the palace was behind them. It was a mere half-minute up-and-down hop. The runway was already coming up and the chopper descended. She could feel the shudder as the skids hit the concrete, and she opened her eyes. The men piled out, and she climbed into the front seat beside the pilot.

  Dani leaned into the cabin. 'Take good care of her!' he yelled to the pilot.

  Then the helicopter rose once more.

  At the pipeline, the timer flashed down to four and a half minutes.

  Najib could sense the standoff drawing to a close. His eyes flicked from Abdullah and Ghazi, twenty feet in front of him, to Khalid and Hamid at his sides. He was trying to determine the exact moment when he should dive for cover. If he moved too soon, he would force Abdullah or Ghazi to pump him full of bullets. And if he moved too late, he would be shot anyway. No matter what he did, it seemed he was doomed.

  He wanted to scream at them to hurry.

  What were they waiting for? Squeeze the triggers! Get it over with! Shoot. Shoot! What's keeping—

  And then his sideways glance caught Khalid's split-second nod, and he threw himself to the floor. The four automatic rifles blazed blue fire, and prolonged bursts of bullets crisscrossed over his head. Roars exploded in his ears, the vibrations of smashing bullets thundering and ricocheting all around him.

  He saw Ghazi being thrown backward in a grotesque dance of death, his chest bursting into a splatter of crimson fragments. He seemed to hang suspended in midair, and then slowly collapsed.

  The weapon flew from Abdullah's hands as his body, bursting blood from his belly, jerked and spun in a 360-degree turn. He stood hunched over, his wild eyes wide with surprise, and then staggered in short, wobbly steps.

  As suddenly as it had started, the gunfire ceased. The crackling of the flames seemed inordinately loud. Najib thrilled as he realized he was unharmed. Behind him, he heard two heavy thuds of falling bodies and the clattering of weapons hitting marble.

  Slowly he turned.

  Khalid and Hamid had fallen across one another to form a human cross, their features frozen with the contortions of their last agony. Their eyes were wide and blank. Najib didn't need to feel their pulses. There was nothing he could do for them.

  Sickened, he stumbled to his feet.

  'Najib! No!' Abdu
llah's voice was an incredulous screech. 'You can't be alive! You have to be dead!'

  'No, it's you who are going to be dead!' Nagib shouted. 'You're leaking blood all over.'

  Abdullah stared down at his belly and staggered backward in horror. His demonic eyes were wide as he gingerly touched a stomach wound that was steadily pumping out blood. Disbelievingly he raised his dripping red hand to his eyes. 'I'm shot!' he moaned, jerking his face back from his hand as if it were a viper. 'I'm going to die!'

  'Not soon enough!' Najib said grimly.

  'Najib!' Abdullah's voice became shrill. 'You can fly me out! To Riyadh—'

  'No!' roared Najib. 'Never! It is time you were flung into the fires of hell, where you belong!'

  'Help me, Najib!' Abdullah pleaded. 'I'm your half-uncle! We're family! You must—'

  'I must nothing. Now at least the world will be that much safer and saner!'

  Madness flared in Abdullah's eyes. 'You fool! Do you think I have not prepared for this day? I have trained others to follow in my footsteps, to continue where I have left off.' He roared with insane laughter, his mortal wound momentarily forgotten. 'My people are in every country of the Middle East! I have had legions to choose from, and I have chosen well!'

  'Ah, but you won't be here to see how good they really are, will you?' Najib taunted.

  At that moment another of the blazing bookcases creaked and came crashing down. It landed thunderously between the two of them, and a wall of fire shot up to the ceiling, driving Najib backward. Through the curtain of fire he could see Abdullah as a hellish staggering shadow. His mad shouting rose even above the roar of the furious flames.

  'You will die, Najib! All of you will die! The girl! Her family! All of you! The orders have already gone out! My people will see to it!'

  'You lie!' Najib bellowed. Oh, for the love of Allah, it couldn't be true! 'Even at the point of death you lie!'

  Abdullah shrilled with laughter. 'You will never know for certain, though, will you?' His laughter rose and swirled and howled. 'You never even knew it was I who shot Iffat, and not the Jews, did you?'

  'You?'

  'I had plans for you, and I knew that by blaming the Jews I would have your loyalty!'

  Najib staggered, overwhelmed by the revelation. All those years he had been fanning his hatred for Daliah's family and the Jews, and all the while it had been Abdullah who was the cold-blooded murderer.

  Najib was filled with a killing rage. For an instant an overpowering urge to dive through the fire and finish Abdullah off with his bare hands seized him.

  Then: You're an idiot, he told himself. Abdullah is finished, and if you don't get out of this funeral pyre and back up to the roof, you'll be finished too.

  He hesitated for a mere millisecond, then turned and raced out into the foyer. He sped up the stairs to the mezzanine and plunged down the endless halls, past blazing rooms, heading for the stairs, racing the clock to the roof.

  He didn't need a watch—his heartbeats were countdown enough: 1:04 . . . 1:03 . . . 1:02 . . . 1:01 . . .

  'One more minute!' the helicopter pilot shouted. 'We might not even have that long. The place looks like it's ready to go up at any moment!'

  Daliah looked down. She was on her knees, grimly clutching the sides of the open door for dear life as she leaned out over the edge of the helicopter into space. They were hovering twenty feet above the palace roof, and the rotors whipped the oily black smoke around in a swirling tornado. It seemed that orange flames were shooting up everywhere, grabbing for them. The roar of the fire had even drowned out the ear-splitting clamour of the helicopter.

  'Do you see anything?' the pilot shouted.

  Daliah did not reply. Her burning eyes were frantically searching the rooftop for Najib. Of course he's not there. No one is still alive down there.

  'Sorry, lady!' the pilot yelled. 'We gotta go! The heat's too intense for the rotor to bite!'

  'No!' Daliah shouted. 'He's alive! I know he is! We can't just leave him here to burn! I'd rather die first!'

  'Hey, you're forgetting something, aren't you?' he shouted. 'It's my ass too! We gotta go! Now!'

  'There he is!' she screamed excitedly. 'I saw him!'

  'Where?'

  'There! Down by . . .' She pointed and then scowled. 'Damn it! The smoke's hidden him!'

  'Lady—'

  'There! See him?' She pointed to their right. The pilot craned his neck and squinted. Sure enough, between breaks in the smoke he could see a lone figure waving both arms above him.

  'Well?' Daliah shouted. 'What are you waiting for? Let's set down and get him!'

  'We can't set down,' the pilot insisted. 'The roof won't support us!'

  'So what do we do?'

  'There's a rope behind your seat. Toss it down to him. It's already attached.'

  Daliah ducked back inside, scrambled over the seat and found it. She heaved it out the open door.

  'Hang on!' the pilot shouted, and nosed the chopper toward the spot where they had last seen Najib.

  Daliah leaned out again. Where was he? Surely the smoke wasn't that thick. He had to be there.

  And there he was! Dashing toward the rope just as the roof directly under his feet began to buckle, crack, and—

  She stared down in openmouthed horror.

  It was caving in!

  'Najib!' she screamed as she saw him lunge for the rope.

  For a horrible split second she saw him outlined against an enormous gaping hole of yellow, and then there was a tremendous roar, as if all the fires of hell had burst through the earth. The helicopter surged skyward and sped away from the palace.

  Daliah squeezed her eyes shut. Too late! Oh, Najib, Najib . . .

  When the helicopter landed at the edge of the runway, she was still weeping, refusing to open her eyes. As the rotor clatter slowed, she could hear the screaming engines of the waiting jet. Somehow it no longer seemed important that she had escaped. She wished she had died in the conflagration with him. At least then they would be forever together.

  Gentle hands prised her grip loose from the doorframe, and a soft, familiar voice was saying, 'Daliah! Daliah! Everything's all right now, my love. Daliah! Look at me, my darling.'

  Her heart stopped. She was hearing things. She—

  Strong arms engulfed her, and she slowly opened her eyes. The camouflage grease on his face had been supplemented by head-to-toe soot, and his hair and eyebrows were seared and frizzled, giving him the appearance of an electrocuted mad scientist.

  Her pulse raced and her heart kicked in. He had caught hold of the rope! She let out a shout of joy. He was alive! And to prove it to herself, she threw her arms around him.

  'We'd better hurry,' the helicopter pilot's voice intruded. 'The jet's ready to take off.' Daliah pulled her head away from Najib's and looked over at the sleek silver plane. The pilot was right. The jet was straining and shuddering, the brakes barely holding it in place.

  Chapter 28

  He was in the lair of the dragons.

  The torrent of flames roared like a million bellowing beasts, and the boiling light was brighter than a thousand exploding suns. Lithe figures of gold leapt and dervishes danced around Abdullah, their flowing veils fluttering and billowing and surging in parodies of lovers' embraces.

  He heard the roar of the flames as a choir, and through the fiery garments of the twisting, writhing dancers he caught glimpses of a golden staircase, and beyond that, behind the clouds of camphor steam from the boiling fountain, he caught tantalizing glimpses of towering gold doors.

  They were the golden gates to Paradise.

  He was in ecstasy.

  The Exordium sang in his mind with a heavenly chant. In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Creation, the Compassionate, the Merciful, King of Judgment Day!

  Oblivious of the heat, he stretched out his hands, welcoming the flickering tongues of gold fire to dance along his sleeves. Slowly, arms extended, h
e staggered toward the golden staircase to Paradise. He was filled with glory and exquisite pain, awash with the climax of multitudinous orgasms. He could feel the fires of holiness cleansing his boiling blood, shooting up his legs in ravenous greed.

  And then the sky was rent asunder, the stars scattered, the oceans rolled together, and the dragons all around turned on him and roared.

  Abdullah screamed in madness as his flesh melted from his bones like dripping wax. In that ghastly split second before death he knew that he'd been tricked. This was not the way to eternal Paradise!

  On this, his Judgment Day, Allah had flung him into the cauldron of eternal hell.

  They had almost reached the boarding stairs when the plastique exploded and the palace blew asunder. For an instant the night flashed and became day. Najib flung Daliah to the ground and shielded her with his body. The shockwave came in a roll and rocked the jet above them. A brief sandstorm whipped and lashed.

  The heat wave that immediately followed felt hotter than the noonday sun. Debris rained for half a mile all around, and the pipeline across the sands ignited, creating a crackling curtain of fire as far as the eye could see.

  Slowly, Daliah crawled to her knees and looked around. The palace was gone.

  And then Najib was helping her to her feet and they were scrambling the last few steps to safety.

  Chapter 29

  The engines changed pitch as the 727-100 nosed down through shreds of white cloud on its final approach to Newark International. The thirteen-hour flight from Tel Aviv was nearly over. It had been unlike any flight Daliah had ever taken— and she grinned at the thought that this was a life-style to which she could become very easily and very, very quickly accustomed. She and Najib had spent most of the flight in the big luxurious bed in the aft cabin. What better way was there to while away all those thousands of miles than by making love and sleeping?