By the time Heinrich returned, five minutes later, Aidan was sure that he’d summoned the cops, who were going to arrest him for Carlucci’s murder. Or that one of the men in the lobby was going to come over and demand whatever it was Carlucci was supposed to have, or strong-arm Aidan out of the hotel. With Liam gone, Aidan would be on his own. Sweat was pooling under the arms of his suit and across his forehead. He struggled to keep channeling Blake Chennault.
Heinrich held the passport up, looked at Aidan, looked down again, then up again. “Thank you for waiting, Mister Carlucci.” He took a plastic card from a stack, typed a few keys into his keyboard, and then swiped the card through a slot. “Here you go, sir.”
The Indian woman was checking in the Tunisian who’d been on his cell phone. She was apparently having a problem with his reservation, and said, “Heinrich, can you help me here?”
While Heinrich’s head was turned away, Aidan slid the passport across the counter and pocketed it. He took the elevator to the 18th floor, where the doors opened on a hallway that reminded him of luxury hotels where he’d stayed with Blake. The carpet was plush, patterned like an Oriental rug, and light came from a cove just beneath the ceiling. At the far end of the hall was a housekeeping cart, but otherwise the hallway was empty.
He didn’t see Liam, so he walked over to room 1801 and pulled the key card from his pocket. Without a sound, Liam was beside him. “That’s creepy,” Aidan said. “The way you move around so quietly.”
“Put these on,” Liam said, handing him a pair of thin rubber gloves, the type nurses use. Aidan wondered if Liam had lifted them from the maid’s cart.
“You’re always prepared,” Aidan said. “Were you a boy scout?”
“Navy SEAL.” Liam took the card and slid it into the door. He put his finger to his lips and very slowly pushed the door open.
It looked like Carlucci had left in a hurry. The mahogany-framed king-sized bed was unmade, a pair of Brooks Brothers pajamas strewn over the covers. The top of the credenza was covered in a messy pile of newspaper sections, the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.
Ornate Arabic scrollwork decorated the bed, the bureau and the nightstand. On one wall hung a portrait of a Tuareg man in the traditional blue robes, silhouetted against golden sand dunes.
“Start packing Carlucci’s suitcase,” Liam whispered, pointing to the open roll-on bag on a small luggage stand by the closet. “Everything goes in the bag. Leave nothing behind.” He began a systematic search of the room.
Aidan wiggled his hands into the plastic gloves and got started. He didn’t ask what Liam was looking for; he just did what he was told. Blake had traveled a lot for work, and they’d taken a fair number of pleasure trips as well, so Aidan was a fast and experienced packer, even though his heart was racing at about double its normal pace.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liam bend to the floor, the leather vest slipping aside to show a tantalizing glimpse of flat, tanned skin, and it was like an electric shock to Aidan’s groin. He nearly moaned out loud with longing. Just to touch that skin again. To be held in those arms.
Aidan folded Carlucci’s slacks carefully, maintaining the creases, though the man would never wear them again. He saw Liam bent over the bedside telephone, taking it apart, his shorts stretched taught against his round ass. Aidan licked his lips and tried to concentrate on packing.
“Thought so,” Liam said, holding up the phone’s entrails. “Bugged. Somebody knew Carlucci was meeting me at the bar.”
“Which means they know who you are.”
“And they know we’re here, if they’re paying attention. Which means we need to get out of here as fast as possible.”
Liam put the phone back together, replacing the bug. They passed each other often, never touching, as Aidan folded Carlucci’s clothes, slid the shoes into their cloth bags, wrapped up the complimentary toiletries from the bathroom. It took him under ten minutes, but the time felt like it was going so slowly—and he worried that hotel security would burst through the door any minute.
Aidan admired Liam’s economy of movement. Everything he did was deliberate and careful. He seemed hyper aware of the space around him, and despite his size and musculature his moves were precise. He didn’t drop anything, bump into the furniture, or second guess himself. Aidan felt butterflies in his stomach. Was it the tension of the situation, or the memory of the handsome man’s hands on him? He didn’t know.
In addition to the roll-aboard bag, Carlucci had a leather portfolio filled with papers and maps. Aidan slid the newspapers into the portfolio and zipped it. He picked both pieces up as Liam gave the room one more pass, and then carefully opened the door.
Liam held a small mirror out through a crack, manipulating it left, right, up and down. Aidan hovered behind him, wanting nothing more than to be in his arms again. Heat rose from Liam’s body and Aidan wondered if they would ever embrace or kiss again.
Once assured, Liam opened the door wider and did one more visual check before giving Aidan an all-clear sign and stepping into the hallway.
Liam slipped the door to Carlucci’s room closed. He peeled off his rubber gloves, and Aidan did the same. “Now, we get out of here,” Liam said. “Casually. Not attracting attention.”
They were heading for the elevator when they heard the chime that indicated it was coming to a stop on 18. “Change of plans,” Liam said, and he grabbed Aidan’s arm and moved him down the hall to the exit stairs. With his hip, he eased the door open.
“Eighteen floors?” Aidan said as they entered the stairwell.
Behind them, Aidan heard excited conversation in Arabic, and a quick glance over his shoulder revealed Heinrich, the desk clerk, and two uniformed police.
5 – Silver Knife
Liam body-checked the door to keep it from slamming behind them. They waited there for a moment, until Liam was sure they hadn’t attracted any notice, then he took the suitcase from Aidan, leaving him the portfolio, and started down the stairs fluidly, moving almost without effort.
After about ten flights, Aidan found himself toiling. “Can you move faster?” Liam asked from below. “I want to get away from this hotel.”
“Working on it,” Aidan panted.
Finally, they reached the ground level. “Give me your jacket and tie,” Liam demanded as they stood just inside the door to the ground floor. Despite the circumstances, as he peeled off his jacket and undid his tie, Aidan wished he could strip even further down, get naked with Liam right there in the cinderblock stairwell.
As Liam folded the jacket and tie and stuffed them into the top of Carlucci’s roll-on bag, he said, “Open your collar and roll up your sleeves.” Aidan did as he was told as Liam repeated his mirror trick with the fire door.
Liam handed Aidan his sunglasses and said, “Put these on top of your head. Then walk next to me.”
He opened the door, and Aidan followed him out. Each step on the marble floor sounded as loud as a rifle shot, and Aidan couldn’t believe they wouldn’t attract attention. They were at the far end of the lobby, and he could see another pair of uniformed policemen at the front desk, talking to the Indian woman who had been working with Heinrich.
“Slowly,” Liam said. “We’re just two guests having a conversation. Keep your face turned toward me.”
He put his arm around Aidan’s shoulder and laughed. Aidan felt the heat of Liam’s skin radiating through his body, felt his dick stiffening once again in his navy suit pants. He said something mindless, and they walked across the lobby to the front doors. One of the policemen looked at them, then turned back to the Indian woman. The bellman called over a cab and held the door open.
Liam ushered Aidan in and then followed. He gave the cab driver Aidan’s address. “I’m going to drop you at your place, and then I’ll get out of your hair,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone you know me, or say anything about what we did today.”
“Are you going back to that little house behind th
e bar?”
“Don’t come looking for me,” he said. “It’s not safe for you.”
“Liam. If someone knew Carlucci was going to meet you, isn’t it likely he knows who you are and where you live?”
“Fuck.”
“Come to my apartment. You can figure out what to do from there.”
“All right.” He leaned forward and spoke in Arabic to the driver. When he came back to Aidan, he said, “I’m going to need some stuff from my place, and we’ve got to move fast. I want to know if somebody’s watching me already.”
The ride was bumpy, the driver taking curves so rapidly that Aidan was tossed against Liam, and he reveled in the brief moments their bodies touched. If this was all he was going to get, he was going to enjoy it. The heat of Liam’s bare leg against Aidan’s suit pants; Aidan’s hand brushing the leather vest, the tip of his index finger grazing Liam’s smooth, tanned chest. He wanted to close his eyes and savor every bit of contact, inhaling Liam’s lavender scent, now overlaid with a musk of sweat. He stole a glance at Liam’s dick, which was semi-hard under the thin fabric of his cotton shorts.
A few minutes later, the driver pulled the cab over in front of a shop selling elaborate metalwork. “Wait here,” Liam said. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, go directly to the American Embassy and give Carlucci’s luggage to a guy named Louis Fleck. Got that?”
Aidan nodded. Liam spoke to the driver in Arabic again, and then got out of the cab. Aidan tried to watch where Liam was going, but his whole body language changed as he walked, and despite his height, he melded into the crowd.
Aidan stared into the window of the shop. Elaborate silver trays and swords lined the front, along with an array of knives. He said to the driver, “You speak English?”
“Non, Monsieur. Arabe ou Francais.”
“Attendez-moi, s’il vous plait,” Aidan said, asking him to wait, and the driver nodded.
Aidan looked around before he got out of the cab. No snipers appeared perched on any of the low rooftops, so he scurried into the shop. The proprietor was a fat old man wearing an embroidered cap. “A knife,” Aidan said, pointing to the display in the window. “Small.” He motioned with his hands to simulate the opening of a switchblade.
The old man got up and shuffled to the display. Aidan kept looking out to the window, expecting to see Liam rushing to the cab in a rain of bullets. His raised adrenaline level made him twitchy; he couldn’t stop shuffling from foot to foot. The old man pulled a selection of knives from the window, and one caught Aidan’s eye. It was a simple silver case, with a delicate scrollwork of Arabic lettering on the hilt. It popped open easily, exposing a wickedly sharp blade.
Aidan took a quick glance to the street. No menacing characters had appeared near the cab.
The knife held six blades in total, a kind of Arabic version of a Swiss Army Knife. Aidan had had one of those for years, so he knew how they worked. “I’ll take it,” he said. “How much?”
While the man figured the price, Aidan took one more look outside. Still clear.
Aidan splayed out some paper money, and the old man took a few bills. Aidan thanked him, pocketed the knife, and stepped to the door.
Trying to calm his heart, he did what he thought Liam would do. He looked left, right, up and down. All seemed clear, so he ducked back into the cab.
He looked at his watch. It had been nearly ten minutes, and Liam still had not returned. He scanned the passing crowd for the big bodyguard and couldn’t see anyone his size, anyone who was so conspicuously American. He kept switching his glance between the street and his watch, waiting for the seconds to count down, until he saw two soldiers approach, carrying rifles.
6 – Liam’s House
Through years of practice, Liam McCullough had trained himself to blend into his surroundings. After he climbed out of the cab, he pulled a red chechia, the round felt cap Tunisian men wore, from his pocket. He put it on his head and donned his dark sunglasses, and his whole body language changed.
With his tanned skin, his Tunisian-made cargo shorts and leather vest, he no longer looked quite as American, though his height, unusual among Tunisians, still made him stand out. But with his posture relaxed, he appeared a few inches shorter than he was.
He moved slowly down the street, keeping pace behind a pair of men wearing long white cloaks. His eyes swiveled from right to left and back again as he surveyed the area around him. It was possible that whoever shot Charles Carlucci only knew his destination, not Liam’s name or address, and he’d be able to get into his house easily and without surveillance.
But things were rarely that simple in North Africa. Since the first time he’d come to Tunisia, nearly ten years before, as part of a SEAL operation, Liam had accepted that Murphy’s law applied to all dealings with the Arab world. If something could go wrong, it would.
He couldn’t forgive himself for mistaking Aidan for Carlucci. If he’d been more alert, he might have seen the sniper, might have protected his client. That was his job, after all. Protection.
A block from his house, he caught sight of the first policeman. The man lounged against a wall, his rifle hanging from his shoulder. He might be taking a cigarette break; or he might be watching for Liam.
There was another on the opposite corner. Unlikely that two policemen would take a break across from each other. And even more unlikely that two more would have chosen to take a break at the next cross street.
Liam focused on his pulse rate, willing it to slow. He turned the corner, not attracting any notice from the police. They were watching his doorway, not watching for him. Big mistake on their part.
Their second mistake was not watching the Bar Mamounia. The police disdained the bar for its reputation among a certain kind of men—the kind who occasionally found their way across the courtyard and into Liam’s bed.
Liam’s experience as a SEAL had taught him to keep his emotions closed. When he was in the military, he hadn’t been able to be open about his sexuality, so he’d learned only to approach men who wanted what he did—a quick release. If a man expressed interest in more, Liam disappeared.
There was no one watching the entrance to the Bar Mamounia, so Liam crossed the street, willing himself not to rush, and entered the cool darkness, the beads hardly rustling as he passed through them. The bartender looked up, nodded, and went back to his crossword puzzle. The usual drunks were occupying the shady corners of the bar, skinny older men who didn’t care about the bar’s reputation as long as they could get alcohol there, and Liam walked past them nonchalantly. He was nearly to the courtyard when he heard his name called, and the corners of his mouth turned down.
“Liam! Liam! Why you not love me anymore?” the young man said in Arabic.
Abdullah was a skinny, dark-skinned Tunisian in his early twenties who painted kohl around his eyes and wore American-style tank tops, often with misspellings. Today’s read University of Princeton. “Not now, Abdullah.”
“Why not? You found someone you like better?”
In a quick move, Liam had his hand over Abdullah’s mouth. Why had he ever agreed to take the idiot to bed? It had been one night, but Abdullah had not let it go. “I’m busy now, Abdullah. I don’t have time to talk to you or to mess around with you. Do you understand?”
Abdullah’s eyes gleamed as he nodded. Liam removed his hand, and the Tunisian began to speak—until he saw the look in Liam’s eyes, and he stopped in mid-word. “Tomorrow, I will buy you a drink,” Liam said. “You understand? Tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow,” Abdullah said. He tagged along behind Liam as the American moved toward the courtyard.
“Stay here, Abdullah,” Liam said.
“I come to your house,” Abdullah said. “I make you feel good.”
Liam looked at the bartender, who called out to the Tunisian. With a pout, Abdullah turned and stomped over to the bar. Liam paused at the two French doors that led to the courtyard. From there he could see no one on the roof of his hou
se, no one in the corners of the yard. He stepped outside, and keeping to the sides of the building, made his way through a narrow alley to the front.
From his vantage point, back against the stucco wall, he could see the officers watching the front door. The bright sun had already begun to sink from its zenith, so he was fully in shadow, the rough wall digging into the part of his back unshielded by the leather vest.
The policemen hadn’t moved, and the sand in front of the door, which Liam always groomed after leaving, was undisturbed, which meant no one had gotten into the house.
He returned to the rear of the building, where a door led out to the courtyard and his makeshift shower. He always kept this door locked, too. Holding his breath, he slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open.
He waited at the side of the door for a long moment, getting a sense of the house, but there was no one in the living room, and he stepped inside. After a quick survey of the other rooms, he grabbed a duffle and began to pack.
He moved quickly, not knowing how much time he had, thinking as he worked. Why were the police watching for him? Did they think he was a suspect—or were they working with whoever had killed Carlucci? Who was responsible for the shooting? Why? And who was trying to implicate him? What had Carlucci been carrying—and why was it so important, so deadly?
Then there was the teacher from Philadelphia. Liam hated to rope in civilians, but he hadn’t had any choice; things were moving too quickly, and in unexpected directions. He’d get back to the teacher’s apartment, make some calls, and figure out his next move.
He froze, listening, as loud voices shouted in Arabic outside his front door. Someone in authority had shown up, and was demanding to know if this was Liam’s house.
Damn. Had to get out fast. He grabbed his duffle and hurried out of the bedroom as he heard the sound of his front door splintering.
Three Wrong Turns in the Desert Page 3
