He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away, getting to her feet, staggering through soft sand toward the cliff where the switchback trail started.
“Kathleen!”
She kept walking. He lunged up and grabbed her arm. She spun around, furiously swinging her fist at his face. He gripped her wrist, halting her. Time was running out, and Sayeed spoke fast, knowing his only way forward was to regain a measure of her trust and get her back to camp, stat. But he was also sworn to absolute secrecy—the stakes of this mission were monumental. An army waited over the border for his signal. Everything hinged on him maintaining his cover. But he had to do it—he had to tell her everything and trust her with his secret if he wanted her trust in return.
“I’m not a terrorist, Kathleen—I’m not one of those men. My name is not Sayeed Ali.”
She stilled.
“I’m Rashid Al Barrah. I’m working undercover for the CIA.”
“I…don’t believe you.”
“Come over here, out of the wind.” Reluctantly, she allowed him to lead her into the lee of a large dune. She looked up at the shimmering ruins along the cliff as she sat down, the sun’s morning rays hitting the crumbling red stone turrets.
He couldn’t begin to imagine what Kathleen felt in discovering her sister was being held up there, in the bowels of the ancient castle, being forced to do terrible things. Rashid—for he could not think of himself as Sayeed right now—inhaled deeply, struggling with his own decision to bring her into the loop. If his cover was blown and she was captured, this information could hurt her. She’d be tortured.
Hell, if she was captured, she was going to die anyway, and these men were not going to be nice about it, no matter what she knew.
He had to tell her, and he had to keep her safe.
“I’m an FBI agent, Kathleen. Up until three years ago, I worked out of the Washington, D.C., field office—”
Her eyes flashed, and she glowered at him. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anything you say.”
“Will you just hear me out?”
She glanced away.
He moistened his lips. “The CIA asked if I’d go undercover to help take down this terrorist cell. It’s one of several cells under direct command of a man known only as The Moor. We don’t know yet where he lives, or who he is. But one leader in each cell gets his orders directly from The Moor, and Bakkar is that man in this particular cell. And while infiltrating this cell over a period of over two years, I learned through Bakkar that The Moor is orchestrating a massive biological suicide attack on major U.S. cities and the cities of U.S. allies around the globe. The plan is to inject a genetically modified form of Ebola Botou into the blood of forty volunteers at 1900 hours tonight. Those infected volunteers will then fly to major airport hubs around the world, spreading the virulent disease as they go. And once they land, they will continue visiting major population centers and transport systems until they succumb to the virus and die.” He checked his watch. He had to move faster.
“My instructions are to wait until they are injected,” he said. “Until everyone is in one place, then I will sound the alarm that will precipitate an attack. Special ops forces will bomb the hell out of the lab within sixty minutes of me sounding the alarm, killing the virus and volunteers before they can become infectious. A simultaneous raid will take place on Bakkar’s camp.”
She stared at him. “Jennie—she’s part of this?”
He nodded. “She was taken by the Maghreb Moors and was forced to continue the work started by a scientist who died on the job.”
Kathleen went sheet white. “Why would the CIA pick an FBI agent for this? Why you?”
She still wasn’t buying his story, and he couldn’t blame her. Rashid was going to have to go deeper and get personal. “Because I speak the local dialect fluently and am familiar with this region and the clan customs. In particular, I have specific insight into the minds of Bakkar and Marwan. I was born here, Kathleen. I share their blood.”
“Al Barrah,” she whispered. “You said Bakkar’s name was Al Barrah.”
“He’s my father. He banished me from his home when I was eleven, and he doesn’t yet know I am his son.”
“Why did he banish you?”
Rashid looked up at the sky. The sun was beating down, temperatures rising. The volunteers would be arriving soon. And he didn’t want to talk about his mother. Or his childhood. But he also needed to get Kathleen back to camp fast. “When I was eleven my uncle Marwan raped my mother,” he said. “My father—Bakkar—was incensed, and he blamed her, not Marwan. He burned my mother’s face with hot oil so no man would ever look at her again, then he banished her from his compound, sending her out in the desert to die. I fled after her, to help her. But first I cut my father’s face with his own jambiya.”
Kathleen stared at him, the image of Bakkar Al Barrah clawing back into her mind—the hideous scar across his face, the downturned eye. The genetic echoes in the features and builds of Marwan, Bakkar, Qasim. And yes, she could see those echoes now in Rashid.
“Did she survive? Did you manage to save your mother?”
“We walked and walked until we found a wadi where she collapsed. She’d developed an infection and gone blind. A small caravan of nomads found us. They had an old man with them who knew ancient medicine, herbs and things. He managed to halt my mother’s infection with a thick salve that kept sand out and with herbs that brought her fever down. They transported her on camel and took us into Morocco.” Rashid paused. Memories twisted his features, rage, hurt, pain glimmering through his eyes.
“What happened then?” she said softly.
“An international women’s rights organization learned of my mother’s plight and found a benefactor who funded medical treatment and plastic surgery in the States. My mother got well again but was terribly scarred both physically and emotionally, and she never regained her sight. We did however gain a new home, a new country. I grew up on the East Coast, and after a presentation at my school, I decided I wanted to be an FBI agent. I followed that dream, Kathleen. Now, here I am. Back where it all started.”
From the raw emotion in his eyes, Kathleen wanted to believe him. But she remained cautious. People could feign this stuff, especially terrorists and criminals. Then she remembered the tattoo. “Is it real—the tattoo? Are you all descended from the Sun Clan?”
Surprise showed in his face. “You know about the Sun Clan?”
“I’m an historian, Sayeed—”
“Rashid,” he corrected gently. “My name is Rashid. And yes, the tattoo is real. Just like what we shared in bed was real, Kathleen,” he said softly. “The man who lay with you was me. And when we get out of here, I want to see you again. I want to get to know you better.”
She rubbed her face, hiding her emotion. “I don’t know if I can believe you.”
He touched her. “When we raided your camp, I couldn’t let them kill you, Kathleen, even though I’d been instructed to allow some collateral damage if necessary. Saving you almost blew my cover, and if you don’t come back to camp with me now, it will be blown. Your sister and thousands of others will end up dying.”
“So the authorities knew—through you—that Jennie had been taken and was a part of this.”
“Yes. But we couldn’t pull her out earlier, not without alerting key players like Bakkar and Marwan and sending this all underground again. We had to wait until the last moment for maximum effect.”
She swore. “So that’s why I was stonewalled. Jennie’s just a pawn. Collateral damage. Do you even plan to take her out before you bomb the hell out of that place up there?”
“I won’t let her die.”
“But you were going to?”
“Kathleen—”
She lurched to her feet, panic, distaste, raking through her.
He got up, grabbed both her wrists. “I said I won’t let it happen. For you. I’m going to try and get both of you out of here, alive, understand?�
�
“How?”
“You heard that man outside the tent. Bakkar has ordered me to go up there and kill Jennie. It’s a test, I’m sure. One of many. But it’s going to work in our favor, Kathleen, because I persuaded Bakkar Jennie must live until the volunteers arrive at their destinations and there is proof the modified virus is airborne and working. This will enable me to take her out of the lab and get her into the desert before the raid. But you’ve got to help me. And you must also understand, and accept, the risks. We could all die.”
“I…I’ll do anything. Just tell me what.”
“Okay, the only way up there is via mule right now. That’s how I will go up tonight. And when we travel up there, we always take one of the young stable hands for the mules—I will try to disguise and pass you off as my stable hand. Bakkar said there will be a four-wheel-drive vehicle waiting up on the plateau, outside the castle, for me to use when I take Jennie from the lab to a designated holding place. It will be one of the vehicles that was used to transport some of the volunteers to the castle. It’s fairly easy to drive to the castle from the north, if you know where you are going. And, Kathleen, if we are truly lucky, we will get out before the raid. But one little mistake, one wrong word, one glance at the wrong time—and we die. Can you accept this?”
Shock, fear, the enormity of what was happening, stole Kathleen’s words. Rashid gently cupped the side of her face. “Kathleen, can you do this, for Jennie?”
She inhaled deeply, nodded. “I have to.” She paused. “Rashid, thank you.”
Hearing his real name uttered for the first time in almost three years did indescribable things to Rashid. He leaned forward and kissed her softly. He felt her tears against his cheek as he did. And he knew they were now a team. He also knew he’d found a woman he could love, forever if she’d let him. But first, he was going to have to earn that chance. He was going to have to make this raid happen and come out the other end, alive.
Rashid also knew he was not going to return for Bakkar and Marwan’s lives. Not if it could cost him a chance at a future with Kathleen. His redemption would come from saving her life and her sister’s now. He’d leave Bakkar and Marwan’s fates to the special ops forces. He was going to leave the past, the ancient code of justice, here in the desert where the history belonged.
Chapter 9
Rashid took the cord from his robe and tightly bound Kathleen’s wrists together in front of her. Doubt sifted into her eyes.
“Trust me, remember?” he said. “This is the only way we can realistically bring you back into camp. The sentries will be watching. Others will see us arriving. So we’ve got to hide in plain sight, okay? Can you follow my cues, Kathleen?”
She nodded.
He helped her onto her saddle and tied her wrists to the saddle horn.
“This is the story: You ran away from me. I chased you and am returning you to my quarters where you will do your wifely duty. I might have to be a little rough. Just remember, I’m doing what I can to save your life and Jennie’s life.”
She glanced up at the castle ruins on the cliff again, and her features turned resolute. “I understand.”
He tied Kathleen’s horse behind his, and they cantered toward the canyon, Kathleen struggling to stay neatly on her mount. Rashid swallowed an urge to go easy on her. But anyone could be watching now—he had to maintain the facade.
They entered the canyon. He slowed their pace as he scanned the rock faces for signs of the sentries, making sure Kathleen’s horse stayed behind him and that it looked obvious she was his prisoner. When he saw the first sentry step out of hiding, Rashid raised his hand in salute.
The man hesitated, then waved them on.
Rashid kicked up the pace and when they reached camp, he barreled into the enclosure at a full gallop with Kathleen grasping the saddle horn for dear life. Rashid’s heart sank as he saw Qasim near the stables.
Rashid rode right up to his tent and dismounted, but Qasim came hurrying over. “What are you doing, Sayeed?” he demanded, suspicion darkening his eyes. “Where have you been?”
“The bitch stabbed me and escaped.” Rashid showed his bloodied robes. “I went to get her back.”
Qasim stared at the blood, then Rashid’s face. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Ha, you were not good enough in bed for her!”
“Get out of my way!” Rashid pushed Qasim aside and started cutting through the rope that bound Kathleen’s wrists to the saddle. She looked rightfully and realistically terrified.
He dragged her down from the horse, and she fell hard to the ground. Rashid’s chest tightened with compassion. But he pushed her with his boot. “Get up!” he barked in English. “Get up and get into my tent!”
She struggled to her feet and stumbled into his quarters.
As Rashid drew the tent flap down, he heard murmurs and more laughter outside. His heart raced. His body was drenched with sweat. “I think we made it,” he whispered. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head, and he untied her wrists.
“What about you? Did I hurt you badly with the letter opener?”
“It’s a surface gouge—just bled a lot.”
“Can I look at it?”
“There’s no time.”
“Then make time,” she said, forcing a smile. “I really can’t afford to lose you now, Rashid.” Her gaze met his, and Rashid knew they really were a team now.
He only hoped they might live long enough to try and stay that way.
Kathleen dressed the wound she’d given him. And as she tended to him, her emotions were overpowering—a mix of deep kinship, affection, admiration. She thought of what he’d said about making love to her and seeing her once this was over. She told herself it was the stress, the adrenaline, talking. She needed to stay focused on the present, for Jennie.
Once she’d plastered more adhesive tape tightly over the cut, Rashid sat her down and began to smear brown boot polish onto her face. He then wound a turban carefully around her head leaving a very thin slit for her eyes. “It’ll be getting dark when we go up,” he said. “If you keep your head down and keep quiet this might work.”
He began smearing polish on the backs of her hands and wrists.
“How will we see where we’re going in the dark?”
“There’ll be a moon tonight, stars, and we will have headlamps.”
She nodded. He went to his desk, rummaged under some papers and removed a handgun. “Ever used one of these?”
“No.”
“I hope you don’t have to, but I want you to carry it just in case something happens to me.” He showed her how to reload it and where the safety was. Then he gave her a holster to tuck under the fabric at her waist.
“Before we leave, I’ll tell Bakkar that I’ve asked one of his men to guard you in my quarters.”
“What if he comes looking?”
“I suspect he will. He’ll want to kill you while I am gone, Kathleen. Remember, he thinks I am heading into the desert with Jennie to wait for news of the volunteers’ success. Theoretically, you will have been abandoned, and he’s going to want to tie up loose ends before they break camp and flee.”
“And when he finds I’m not here?”
“Best-case scenario, he’ll think you got away. He won’t know any different until this is over.”
“What if he radios up to the castle or something?”
“No radio communication is allowed from this camp. They don’t want to be picked up by scanners. We’ve strictly used human messengers.” Rashid stepped back and examined his handiwork. Then he smiled. “I think you’ll pass. You ready for this?”
“Let’s do it.”
He suddenly hugged her, just holding her tight for several beats, his reason for wanting to protect now fiercely personal—he wanted her in his future.
“Rashid, thank you,” she whispered. And when she pulled away, he saw tears in her eyes.
Chapter 10
Kathleen stood in t
he corner of a dark stone room as she watched the suicide volunteers emerging from the level-four biohazard protection area that had been built into the dungeons of the ancient castle. The men were coming through a door into another containment area that was behind a pane of glass. Rashid stood near, but not too close.
Then as the fortieth volunteer entered the containment area, Kathleen caught sight of Jennie coming through the door behind him.
Shock jolted through her.
Jennie was alive!
But she looked terrible—reed thin, pale, her eyes like dark holes. Immobilized with emotion, Kathleen stared at her sister, every molecule in her body screaming to bash through the glass, go help Jennie.
“Get your head down!” Rashid hissed quietly at her.
Kathleen lowered her head but kept Jennie fixed in her peripheral vision. Rashid had told her that once Jennie had injected the volunteers with the virus, they’d be brought up to this staging area. From here, they would leave for their destinations around the world.
The men would become contagious within fourteen hours but not show real symptoms for another twenty-one days. From then, death would be fast and terrible.
Kathleen saw Rashid reaching into the folds of his robe. She knew he was about to press the satellite alarm now that he’d seen all forty volunteers emerge.
Her heart kicked—they now had exactly sixty minutes to get out of the castle and race into the desert. And once they were out in the desert, when Rashid pressed the button a second time, a military chopper would fly toward the GPS coordinates being submitted by his beacon. The chopper would land and evacuate them as long as it was safe.
Having pressed the alarm, Rashid started to move to the locked door. On the other side of the glass, a guard also moved toward the door. But before the guard could unlock it, one of the volunteers began to stagger. Blood poured suddenly from his mouth, and his eyes turned red from bursting veins.
The guards spun around and stared in shock at the man. Another one of the volunteers also started to bleed and slumped to the ground. Then a few more. Panic hit. Men started running. And Kathleen saw Jennie in the corner, reaching for the dagger of one of the men who’d collapsed.
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