A Sulta's Ransom

by White, Loreth Anne

  Frustration nipped at him. “Oh, come on, Paige. If I wanted to get rid of you, I would have done it already.”

  Her mouth went flat.

  He blew out air in irritation “I thought you understood the scope of this. I thought you said you were innocent, that you wanted to help. Was that a lie?”

  She took another step back, her jaw lifting in defiance. “I mean it, Rafiq.”

  He felt himself tense. “Dammit, Paige, I told you what’s at stake here. If you don’t give us those codes—”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we hack in anyway, and Dr. Meyer and his team will get to work. All you do is cost us time—time it takes to save lives.”

  She blinked sharply. “Jan Meyer?”

  “You know him?”

  She went deathly pale. “I…he…my father…” She cleared her throat. “My father went to see Dr. Meyer in Brussels, just before my parents disappeared in the Congo. I was fifteen. I remember it well because my mother and father…they had a really big argument about it when he came back.” She swallowed, sat slowly on the chaise lounge where he’d tossed his tunic.

  “They never used to fight like that. They went into the jungle together, angry with each other. I…never saw them again. They never came back.”

  He took a step toward her, his interest piqued. “Do you know why your father went to see Meyer?”

  She shook her head.

  “I do.”

  Her eyes flared wide. “What!”

  “Meyer told us that your father went to Brussels to talk to him about the disease he’d discovered in the Blacklands bonobos. He wanted to meet Meyer in secret because he was contracted not to discuss his research, yet he felt the information was vital to the scientific community. He said it defied all current scientific thinking about prion diseases. But,” he said, “your father never showed up for their meeting the next day. He went back to the Congo.”

  She went sheet-pale.

  “Meyer thinks he either chickened out, or someone got to him.”

  “What do you mean, ‘got to him’?”

  He took another step toward her. “Your parents were being funded by Science Reach International at the time, the same company that funded your pet project, Paige. The same project you picked up from your father and mother. And don’t tell me you didn’t know that Science Reach is indirectly controlled by Nexus, and in turn by BioMed.” He paused, watching her eyes carefully. “Your father’s need to share with the international scientific community probably killed your parents.”

  She swayed slightly. “What did you say?”

  He hated doing this, but if she really didn’t know it, she needed to. “You heard me. These guys you work for don’t mess around. Now give me those codes, Paige, and we can stop them from hurting more people.”

  She sat open-mouthed, staring at him, disbelief in her eyes.

  “It was Meyer who helped us identify the pathogen, Paige. He pointed us to Nexus, to you—precisely because of that incident with your father all those years ago, and because he knew you had picked up your parents’ research.”

  Nausea rode up through her stomach. Her heart began to palpitate. Her hands felt sweaty. Science Reach International had actively recruited her right after she’d shown interest in obtaining her father’s work. They’d funded all her university studies, paid for her apartment, meals, books. And then Nexus had hired her to do research that could ultimately be marketed by BioMed. She could not even begin to digest the scope of what Rafiq had just said. It…would mean her entire life had been a farce—that she’d been manipulated since she was a child. That she and her parents had been owned by a corporation.

  Had her mother and father really been murdered?

  Had her mom and dad been trying to get out? Was that what the big fight had been about, the night before they vanished?

  She sniffed back the emotion threatening her eyes, and fear burned in her gut. She had to hold on to what little control she had left. Information was her only tradeable commodity right now. It was the only thing she had left to fight back at the world with.

  She looked up at Rafiq. “I will not give you my pass codes until you get me out of Hamn,” she said, clearly, crisply.

  “Paige—”

  She pulled her shoulders back. “You heard me.”

  He took another step toward her and she braced.

  “We have only ten days until—”

  “I have no reason to believe you, Rafiq. You won’t tell me anything about yourself. You owe me nothing. Why should I be so naive as to think you’ll get me out of the country because you promised?”

  He went rigid. Fire crackled in his eyes, and the muscles of his neck bunched tight. “Paige,” he growled.

  She tilted her chin.

  He stepped right up to her, his fists clenching at his sides.

  Her heart began to pound wildly, but she held herself steady.

  “I’ll give you two hours to collect your thoughts, Dr. Sterling.” His eyes skewered hers. “If you’re not going to help us, we have no need of you.” He held two fingers up in front of her face. “Two hours. That’s it.” He let the warning hang between them. “And if you don’t talk, I leave Na’jif without you.”

  She glowered back at him but fear clawed at her insides. He was bluffing. Had to be.

  He walked back to the desk, stopped, turned round. “And in ten days, after D-day, if you’re still alive, if you’ve survived the brutality of the Land Command, the FDS will send the might of the American military after you.”

  He gave her a slow, measured look. “Do you know what that means? Do you know what the new laws will do to a terrorist like you? You have committed treason, Paige.”

  “I have not. I’ve been used.”

  “Perhaps,” he said coldly. “But right at this minute, you have the ability to act fast and in doing so maybe save millions of innocent lives. But you choose not to, even knowing the consequences. How do you think that is going to go down in the States when word gets out? How do you think they will handle you when they find out you engineered the pathogen that’s killing President Elliot, one of the most beloved U.S. leaders in recent history? You’re going to be considered a murderer, Paige. An assassin.”

  She swallowed.

  Her throat burned, her eyes blurred. “I will help. I’ll do everything I possibly can.” Her voice had gone small. “Just please get me out of Hamn first, to a place where I am free to contact a U.S. embassy and find out if you are legitimate…and where I can find a lawyer.”

  He held up his fingers. “Two hours.”

  Paige locked herself in the bathroom, slumped onto the laundry basket and clutched the key she’d taken from the pocket of his tunic. She was numb. Confused. Frightened.

  Rafiq was putting the screws to her because her codes were obviously of vital importance to him—but he’d just shattered her identity, her purpose in life.

  Paige rocked back and forth on the basket, a blanket of despair settling cold and heavy over her shoulders. She tried to think it through—her parents’ research project in the Congo, the Science Reach funding, the argument over visiting Meyer. Her parents must have been afraid. She supposed it was feasible they had been killed because of what they knew. People were killed for lesser secrets. What her father had found had been earth-shattering. It went against the grain of all current scientific thinking on how prion illnesses were caused, and because of this, Paige had been able to isolate potential antidotes. This represented a fortune in technology and medicines.

  But who had done this to them? What person had ordered them dead?

  And what would they do if they knew she was still alive?

  She looked up, her eyes sore and dry. The sun was rising behind the mountains. She stood, went to the window. Beyond those purple ridges in the distance lay the Empty Quarter, a barren wasteland.

  Like her soul.

  Paige leaned out the window and peered down. There was a ridge, just a few inch
es wide, that ran along the wall under the window.

  What did she have to lose? A life in prison? Humiliation. Degradation. What would her parents do?

  She looked back up at the mountains, fingering the key in her hand. Freedom. There was freedom in death, wasn’t there? Because the chances she’d make it to those mountains and beyond was close to nil.

  It wasn’t in her to take her own life. She didn’t have the courage to do that. But she was prepared to die fighting for survival.

  But if she made it to those mountains, she could cross the border into Saudi Arabia. Maybe she could forget her name, who she was, what she’d done…maybe she could just disappear into the fabric of the desert.

  She was dead to the world anyway.

  She really did have nothing to lose.

  Chapter 8

  07:49 Charlie, Na’jif safe house, Friday, October 3

  Rafiq drummed his fingers on the desk. It had been more than two hours and she still hadn’t come out of the bathroom.

  He jerked to his feet, stormed into the living quarters, raised his fist and banged on the door. “Paige! Time’s up.”

  Silence. Unease skittered through him.

  “Paige! You’re trying my patience!”

  Nothing.

  “Paige?” He tried the brass handle. The door was locked.

  Damn. He braced himself and kicked the door. It splintered open and banged back with a crash.

  The bathroom was empty, a shutter swinging loosely in the breeze. His heart kicked against his chest. What the hell?

  He lunged for the window, leaned out, peered down, saw the crumbling parapet. She could not possibly have worked her way along that. She had to be somewhere in the apartment.

  He swiveled round, saw the folded piece of paper on the floor. He bent down, grabbed it, opened it. There were six lines written across the page consisting of a mix of letters and numerals, followed by a set of instructions.

  The pass codes.

  His eyes shot to the window and a hollowness filled his chest. Could she actually have gotten out there? No. They were three floors up. Maybe she just wanted him to believe she had. She could be hiding, waiting for an opportunity to slip out behind his back.

  He stormed out of the bathroom and down the tiled corridor, a wedge of disquiet driving into his chest. “Paige!”

  He got to the main bedroom and his heart stalled. The doors to the owner’s armoire hung open. A pile of clothing and scarves was scattered over the floor, as if she’d flung them out as she rummaged through them. He crouched down, touched the clothes. Men’s clothes.

  He lurched to his feet, stormed down the passage, yanked on the front door handle. It opened. It was unlocked. A sick sensation filled his gut.

  He dashed to the chaise lounge, checked his tunic pocket.

  The key was gone.

  He swore violently. How could he have been so stupid, so trusting? It was the damn woman. She was messing with his brain and his libido.

  He jerked his head up, marshalling his thoughts. She’d disguised herself as a man. She was going to try and escape Na’jif, make a run for it.

  Rafiq spun round, faced the parapet. He looked out over the city, tension bunching the muscles in his neck. The dawn sun was bursting over the mountains and hitting the tall turrets and the gold dome of the mosque.

  A muezzin began to chant. Dawn prayers. Every man who valued his life would be moving off the streets and into a designated place of worship at this very minute. If there were Land Command soldiers out there, if they saw her, dressed like a man…she’d never make it.

  If they captured her, discovered she was a woman under those clothes…Rafiq clenched his jaw. He spun on his heels, grabbed his tunic, flung his turban over his head, shoved his jambiya into his belt, and dashed down the narrow whitewashed steps three at a time.

  He charged into the stable area yelling for a horse.

  Stable hands still too young to be ordered to prayers scrambled barefoot in his wake. Rafiq grabbed one by the scruff of his tunic. “Did anyone come through here in the last hour? A young man?”

  The boy’s eyes went huge with fear.

  Rafiq tightened his grip. “Speak, boy! You see anyone?”

  The boy’s cheeks went red and he nodded.

  “Which way did sh…he go?”

  “He…he took a horse, sir. I…I unlocked the gate for him and let him out.”

  Rafiq’s eyes shot to the narrow covered alley that led down to the wrought iron gate. “Did you see which way he rode?”

  “To…to the city gates, sir. We ran after him for a while.”

  He dropped the boy. “Open that gate, now!” The kid scurried down the narrow alley. Rafiq grabbed the reins of an already saddled stallion out the hands of another lad, swung himself into the saddle and kicked his mount into action.

  His head was down and he was at a full gallop by the time he reached the end of the narrow corridor. He charged straight at the wrought iron-gate where the child fumbled the key with panicked hands.

  “Hurry!” he screamed in Arabic, showing no intention of slowing for what barred his way.

  The kid flung the gate open with a split second to spare. It clanged back against the whitewashed wall, chips of plaster flying.

  Rafiq barreled out into the street, his stallion’s hooves clattering over cobblestones. Chickens scattered out from under him in a squawking blizzard of white and brown feathers, and a goat bleated as it scampered for shelter. A woman screamed at him, waving her broom.

  He broke out of the narrow and shadowed road into a wide main street which was lit with the gold light of dawn. It was eerily quiet at this precise hour, the prayer hour. The only people moving along the sidewalks were women, who stopped dead and stared as he thundered past.

  He rode, his heart thudding with the rhythm of the hooves, knowing that each second he was out here he was risking an informant snitching on him, risking the wrath of the sultan’s Land Command, risking his life. But nothing in the world could have kept him from going after Paige. Never again would he allow Sadiq or his men to hurt a woman—especially one who was supposed to be in his care.

  He would die first. After he’d killed the bastard himself.

  He slapped at the horse and he cursed himself for having spoken to her so harshly, for causing her to flee. He’d only wanted to shake her into releasing the information. Sauvage had been clear—do what it takes.

  Now he had that information, and he’d lost her.

  And instead of immediately relaying the codes to Sauvage, he’d pursued her, knowing he might never come back. He could not have done otherwise. He’d acted on gut response. It was the way Rafiq had always lived—before he’d fled Hamn, and learned not to feel.

  But those barriers were broken now. He was back. And so was the full force of his fire.

  He reached the city gates, churned through them like a bat out of hell and thundered into the desert in a cloud of sand. He jerked the reins and his stallion reared to a stop.

  Rafiq scanned the rolling sands. There she was, a small plume of dust rising in the distance. It had to be her—making a beeline for the Asir—the only fool riding beyond the city walls at prayer hour.

  “Yaah!” he yelled, kicking at his horse. He charged into the sands, aiming for that faint cloud of dust blowing like spindrift in the wind.

  He began to close in on her, coming at her from an angle. She was still a speck in a rippled wasteland, and she rode as if she’d been born on a horse, bent low, robes flying out behind her.

  She looked backward, then kicked her horse faster, veered to the right. The woman had a death wish. What could he expect? She was a woman without options. He’d done that to her.

  “Yaaah!” He yelled again and urged the stallion to move even faster, hooves thudding hollow on the sand, dust boiling out behind him.

  He closed the gap, came up behind her, rode harder until he was level with her mount.

  His horse was panting har
d. His heart thudded in his chest. He leaned over, reached for her bridle, missed as she swerved sharply sideways. He caught himself. Hot damn, she was good.

  He swung his horse after her hers, galloped harder, both beasts snorting heavily now, heads nodding in unison as they raced side by side, spurred by each other. Sweat glistening. Dust sticking.

  “Stop, Paige!” he yelled.

  She kicked, rode even faster, robes flapping, turban flying loose from her hair. It streamed behind her, a pale gold beacon for the enemy to find.

  Damn. He had to end this now!

  He reined his horse, pulling the animal tight up against hers, adrenaline peaking in him, blood pounding through his veins. He hadn’t ridden like this since that night he’d ridden from Na’jif. The night he’d gone to the palace to find Sadiq with murder in his heart.

  He lunged for her saddle horn and swung himself onto the horse behind her, his stallion veering sharply away, still racing, riderless, a few yards to the side.

  Rafiq tried to reach round her to grab the reins and wrest control of the horse from her grip. But she jerked her elbow back into his ribs, punching air out of him, almost knocking him off the left flank of the horse.

  He struggled to correct his balance as she swung the animal to the right, trying to dislodge him further, but her horse stumbled under the suddenness of the movement throwing them both from the saddle.

  Rafiq grabbed her as they went down. They hit the sand with a thud, breath exploding from his chest as he bore the brunt of their fall. They rolled fast and hard in the dirt. He kept his arms wrapped tight around her as they tumbled to a stop in a tangle of cloth and sand.

  She squirmed instantly, trying to break his grip and scramble to her knees, but he wrestled her back to the ground and covered her body with his, holding her down.

  And finally she stilled, her face pushed sideways into the sand. She was panting hard, damp with perspiration, her heart thudding. He could feel it beat against his chest.