A Perilous Eden

by Heather Graham

  But then one of the men saluted Ali as he stepped ashore with an agility rare for a man his age. Amber’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

  Michael’s fingers tugged at her again. “Come on, Amber, we’re here. The Island of the Damned.”

  She struggled to her feet, and he pushed her toward the rail. He leaped onto the dock ahead of her, then reached and swung her down. Her wet shirt dripped onto the dock, then Michael pointed ahead of them. “Our home,” he said.

  She looked in the direction he pointed, and chills seized her.

  Ali’s place was a fortress, built into the mountain, carved from the rock. It stood there, part of the landscape, barely discernible until you looked for it.

  Michael shoved her forward. “There’s a car waiting,” he told her.

  And there was. Ali Abdul awaited them in a Jeep. Michael pushed Amber along the dock until they reached the dirt road, where she climbed into the vehicle at his prodding.

  Khazar sat beside her, pinning her between himself and Michael.

  She looked straight ahead, and the Jeep roared to life. It took them down a long path to a door made of steel. Ali turned and looked at her. “Rock Fortress. It was built hundreds of years ago by the Spanish conquistadores. They brought the natives they could not subdue here, along with captured pirates and Englishmen, and they kept them in dungeons, or hanged them from the rocks when they tired of them.” He smiled. “It became a training ground for revolutionaries. We are close to the countries who are often … not in accord with the United States. Now it is ours. Its history is fascinating. You must take time to hear about it.”

  Amber didn’t answer him. Strands of wet hair lay plastered against her face, but she didn’t bother to move them.

  When the Jeep came to a stop Michael dragged her out on his side. The four of them started toward the steel door, which opened soundlessly. They entered a large room, where Michael spoke to Abdul in Arabic. The man replied, and then Michael led her down a long hallway to the right, stopping in front of a door at the far end. He opened it and thrust her inside.

  She found herself in a simple bedroom, with a bed against one wall and a dresser against another. There was also a lock on the door.

  Michael moved past her to throw open a second door. “The bathroom,” he told her briefly. She was looking longingly at the door through which they had come. “Don’t even think about it,” he told her, then strode to it himself and walked out. She heard a key twist in the lock, and she raced toward the door, jerking on the knob. The door was solidly locked.

  There wasn’t even a window in the room.

  She hurried into the bathroom. There was an old-fashioned tub, a sink and a toilet. But no window. Panic filled her. She had never felt so closed in. She hurried to the bedroom and slammed against the door. It didn’t budge. She bit her lip and sank to the floor in despair.

  It seemed like hours later when she heard the key in the door. She leaped up and backed away from it. The backs of her knees brushed the bed, and she sat down abruptly. The door opened.

  Khazar had come with a tray of food. He walked into the room, letting the door fall shut but not locking it. He walked over to the dresser, staring at Amber, who watched him warily, afraid of the look in his eyes. He set down the tray, turned and looked at her, adjusting the band of his watch. For the longest time he stared at her. Then he started walking toward her. “You’re wet. You must be cold and uncomfortable. We will find some things for you to wear.”

  Amber stood up as he neared her. Screaming, she lunged for the door, but he caught her and flung her back. He stood still for a moment, then pulled something from his pocket. Amber stared in horror as she realized it was a switchblade.

  The door burst open. Michael stood there, looking first at Khazar, then at Amber. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded in English.

  “Nothing is going on,” Khazar said. He smiled at Amber. “I was going to cut her apple for her.”

  He turned and brushed past Michael, who stood there for several long moments, staring after Khazar. Finally he came into the room, closing the door and carefully locking it from the inside. He looked at Amber. “Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head.

  He wanted to say more, she thought, but he didn’t. He pulled off his sneakers and headed for the bathroom. A moment later Amber heard the shower.

  She hesitated, thinking. She didn’t want to meet up with Khazar again, and she did want to escape. Michael usually had a gun on him. But if he was in the shower, then for once his gun wasn’t with him.

  She silently opened the door to the bathroom, where a plastic curtain had been drawn around the old-fashioned tub.

  Michael’s clothing lay on the floor. His cutoffs were still damp from his dip in the ocean hours before; so were her own things. Damp and salty and stiff. She silently lifted the shorts. He must have a gun somewhere. Unless he had dived in with it and lost it. No, he wouldn’t have done that.

  She lifted his shirt. The gun was there, beneath it.

  Wet hands fell on her shoulders. She screamed as she was lifted and set beneath the steady spray of the water. As he whirled her around to face him, the shower thundered over her face, her clothing. He held her close and spoke swiftly. “Amber, I will get you out of here—if you give me half a chance.”

  The water was hot, but she was shivering. There was something so fierce and passionate about his words. There was so much tension in him as he drew her to him. “But you’ve got to stop. I’m doing my best to keep you away from Khazar and the others, and you’re making it almost impossible.” He spoke softly, against the cacophony of the water, and he had looked around before he spoke. She inhaled, realizing that he thought the room was bugged. She choked on the water, wheezed and coughed. He reached behind her and turned off the water, then stood naked. For her part, she was soaked and dripping. “Take your clothes off,” he told her.

  “I—”

  “I’m not sleeping with you like that.”

  “Then don’t sleep with me.”

  “Never mind. I’ll take them off for you.”

  He would do it; she knew that now. She had learned that he fought every battle he threatened, so she stared at him in stony silence, then drew the sodden shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor of the tub. Then she stepped out of the skirt. He was still staring at her, his nearness unbearable.

  “And the rest,” he told her.

  She was shaking, furious, afraid. His flesh was but an inch away. Rivulets of water dripped silently down the bronze ridges of his muscles and the expanse of his chest. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the hook to her bra, and he turned her around and released it. She could feel him behind her. She wanted to pretend that this was all a horrible nightmare. He felt so familiar. She wanted to believe that she could throw herself into his arms, and that he would protect her, care for her. Worse, she wanted to make love with him as they had made love before. The kind of lovemaking that made her forget there was a world around her.

  No! But she slipped out of the lace bikini panties, then stepped from the tub, wringing out her hair. He didn’t stop her as she grabbed one of the thin white towels.

  He stepped out of the tub, too, and reached for the second towel. Amber fled, but she heard his movements as he wrung out their clothing and hung it in the bathroom.

  Amber sat wrapped in her towel at the foot of the bed, looking at her hands. Michael came into the room, dropped his towel and slid into the bed, pulling the covers over him. She wondered briefly where he had put the gun.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “Don’t go for it again, Amber. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I want you to die,” she told him softly.

  “I may oblige you,” he said. “You should eat.”

  She glanced at the tray on the dresser. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Suit yourself.” He rolled over, turning his back to her. After a few minutes of silence, she stood; s
he was going to find the gun.

  He wasn’t asleep. His voice came out of the darkness. “If you’re not hungry, come to bed. If you make one more move for that gun, I’ll tie you to this bed. Understand?”

  She understood all too clearly. With the towel still wrapped around her, she crawled under the covers. For endless hours she stared into the night.

  Then she slept.

  She woke with the scent of him rich in her nostrils. For long moments, it seemed right. They had made love; they had fallen asleep. It was nice to sleep together. They hadn’t had that chance aboard the Alexandria.

  She opened her eyes and discovered that she had dislodged her towel during the night. She was curled against him, her chin resting on his chest, her breasts pressed tight to his side, her leg flung over him. Her thigh lay against something that was hard and hot and growing.

  She inhaled sharply. They hadn’t made love and fallen asleep together—he was a member of the Death Squad, and she had somehow ended up against him during the night. And she was still provocatively pressed against him, with his ardor rising rapidly.

  She sprang away from him, then realized that he had been awake, that he had watched her. Color suffused her cheeks, and she started to leap up, but she couldn’t find the towel to cover herself. She didn’t know if it was better to be naked and away from him, or blanketed but next to him.

  “Good morning,” he told her and solved the dilemma by crawling over her and out of bed. He pulled open a dresser drawer and took out clean clothing, jeans and a cotton shirt. He dressed, then dug into the drawer again and tossed her a long-sleeved shirt with huge long tails. “Put it on,” he told her.

  She did so, quickly. She buttoned the buttons, watching his back as he slid a belt through his jeans. “How long do you intend to keep me here?” she demanded.

  “With any luck, you’ll be out very soon.”

  “And the senator?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  “And why the hell should I do that?” she asked bitterly.

  He exhaled slowly. “Because you have no choice.” He walked into the bathroom, slammed the door, then emerged a moment later. He picked up her untouched dinner tray, unlocked the door and left.

  Amber hugged her knees to her chest. She’d lain beside him for two nights and he hadn’t really touched her, not even after the way they had awakened this morning. Maybe the idea of rape was anathema to him, but that still didn’t make him a decent man.

  She couldn’t trust him. He was one of them.

  She stood and wandered into the bathroom. She was scrubbing her face at the sink when she heard the door open again. She hurried out, afraid, her heart pounding. It was Michael, and despite herself, she was relieved. He’d come back with a tray. There were a coffeepot and two cups, along with rolls and butter and jam. He set the tray on the dresser and poured coffee for both of them. He offered her a cup, and she walked over and accepted it. He buttered her a roll, then handed that to her, too.

  Amazingly, a dry half smile came to her features. “What, no jelly?”

  He arched a brow and reached for the roll. “Hand it back.”

  He added jelly to the roll. She was famished, and when he handed her the roll, she wolfed it down, then sipped her coffee and wandered to the bed with it, sitting primly on the edge. “What’s going to happen to me, Michael?”

  “You’ll be home in no time.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re part of the Death Squad. You’re going to make some preposterous demand on the U.S. government, and when they don’t comply, you’re going to start killing hostages.”

  “It won’t come to that.”

  He was lying. She knew she’d hit it right. Right on the head.

  “You’re a liar.”

  He walked slowly to her and took the cup from her hand. A scream welled in her throat as he threaded his fingers through her hair, forcing her back on the bed and following her down. His lips touched her ear, his whisper so low that she barely heard his words. “It won’t come to that if you don’t make it come to that. Stay quiet. And for God’s sake, don’t let them know who you are. If they knew you were Larkspur’s daughter, you could be first on the chopping block.”

  He pushed himself away from her, rose and left the room. She heard the key twist in the lock.

  An hour later she had company. A man she thought was called Mohammed came to the door. By then her borrowed Mexican clothing was just about dry, and she felt fairly decent, except for the fact that she was barefoot. Still, when the door opened, she found herself cowering against the wall.

  “Ali will speak with you now,” he told her.

  Her heart thundered. Did he suspect something? What did he want to speak to her about? Mohammed watched her gravely. “He means you no harm, and neither do I.”

  She followed Mohammed out of the room and down the hallway. She wondered again where Ian Daldrin might be, but there seemed little she could do to discover his whereabouts.

  She was surprised when Mohammed led her through the large, sparsely furnished central room and toward the back of the complex. They came to a door, and he opened it for her. It led outside to a grotto in the rocks, with benches and fountains and hanging orchids in many varieties and colors. The mountains rose up on either side, but Amber noted that there were several trails in the foliage that led higher, and one that led down—to the beach?

  “Sit, please,” Ali said. He was in his burnoose and sunglasses, and he seated himself at a round concrete garden table. There was a bottle of mineral water before him, along with a tray of cheese and fresh fruit. He indicated that she should sit across from him. “Miss … Amber, join me. I’m afraid my tastes are spartan—wine is forbidden in my religion—but you are welcome to what you would like.”

  “I don’t care for wine.”

  Mohammed had remained standing. Ali gestured, and the man stepped forward and poured a glass of the mineral water for Amber. She sipped it, watching Ali uneasily.

  “You live in Washington?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know Mr. Adams. I’m very sorry that you are so disappointed in him.”

  “He’s a terrorist.”

  “He’s a warrior for justice.”

  Amber was surprised at how calm she felt. She knew that he had ordered many cold-blooded executions, yet, curiously, she felt that he was—at the least—a fanatic with true beliefs. He would only hurt her if he felt it was truly necessary for his goals. She smiled when she faced him. “Ali, I am sorry. I cannot see that the murder of innocents can be war for justice.”

  “Because you come from a different world. Because you have never had to fight for the land of your fathers. You have not seen the raw and brutal terror in some Central American lands when the new rebels fight the old rebels, and the dictators order the deaths of thousands. I have done what is necessary to prove that I am a force that must be heard.”

  Amber shook her head. “What you do is murder. And you order other men to do murder. You order them to die themselves.”

  “And they will sit at the right hand of Allah.”

  “It isn’t necessary! And it isn’t so simple. I happen to know a large number of Muslims, and they don’t—”

  She broke off, because he was staring at her intently.

  “How do you come to know so many of my religion?”

  Because she was her father’s daughter, she thought fleetingly. She had traveled with him as a child to many Middle East countries, and she had been seated at endless dinners with diplomats and ambassadors. “I went to school with a number of Turkish children,” she lied. Then she found herself facing him again. “And we got on very well together! They were kind and gentle people.”

  “Americanized,” came a voice from behind Amber. She swung around. Khazar had come into the garden from one of the trails. He
wore an automatic rifle over his shoulder and began to speak to his father in Arabic. Ali seemed troubled by his son’s appearance. He answered in English, looking at Amber. “I enjoy hearing about the lives of others.” He waved his hand in the air. Khazar cast Amber a cold glance, then turned and left them.

  Ali leaned forward. “You like Washington?”

  She nodded. “I love it. I love the cherry blossoms in the spring, and the parks and the monuments. And the Smithsonian—”

  “Yes, yes, I would love to see the Smithsonian. I receive the magazine—”

  “You what?”

  “Well, not here, of course!” Ali laughed. “It is sent to me in France. I read the articles. I imagine that I can see the vast displays, the spaceships, the animals. I would most like, I think, to see the Museum of the American People.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  He went on to tell her about his first trip to a museum in Cairo when he had been a boy, and how the endless rooms of mummies had terrified, then fascinated him. He talked with vigor and a thirst for knowledge that startled and somewhat seduced her. When he had finished, she realized that she had eaten a handful of grapes and an orange and a few large chunks of cheese.

  Then Mohammed interrupted him courteously, and Ali sighed. “I have enjoyed our conversation. I hope that you will be returned to Washington soon enough.”

  He rose, and Mohammed nodded, indicating that he would return her to her room.

  Ali was already walking away. She called out to him. “Please! Wait!” He turned. “Please, just let us go. The senator and me. And I know you must be holding other Americans. The government can’t help us, you must understand that. There are courts of law—”

  “I’m sorry. I see what my destiny demands of me, and I must follow it.” He hesitated. “I have seen that more clothes have been brought to your room.” He hesitated again. “I heard your screams the other night, but it is not right for one man to interfere with another man and his woman. Unless it is a lie. Unless Michael has made this up, and there is nothing between you. I can have you taken from him.”