Ahmad gave them a look of derision, then turned to Chloe. His gaze moved over the blue burqa that she wore. “Going somewhere, my bride?”
She refused to lower her eyes before him. “As you see.”
“I think not.” The purple mottling of rage suffused his face.
“There is only one way to stop me.”
“My pleasure,” he answered in a growl, then slapped a hand to the sheath on his belt. His knife flashed silver from hilt to curved tip as he drew it. Then he lunged forward.
Wade Benedict shouldered Chloe aside to face the bull-like charge. She whirled out of his way, coming up against the wall with her breath lodged in her throat. He had no weapon that she could see, no way to defend against that wickedly curved blade. She half expected to see him sliced open, but he sidestepped that first swiping blow. Circling Ahmad, he avoided the next slash with such smooth agility that he made it appear effortless. Swaying, leaping back from the plunging, roundhouse slices, he drew her stepbrother away from where Chloe stood. Then he skidded to a halt in a half crouch and whipped a hard arm behind his back. When he brought if forward again, a snub-nosed handgun was in his fist with the bore held rock-steady on Ahmad’s chest.
Chloe put a hand to her mouth to stifle the sharp cry that rose inside her. Her gaze was not on the weapon, however, but on the dark wetness that cut across the front of Wade Benedict’s black T-shirt, gleaming as it angled down to the waistband of his jeans.
Ahmad stopped. His eyes narrowed as he saw that his adversary was armed. Then his gaze fell to the evidence of injury. “This is interference that you are going to regret, American dog. I told you what would happen if you once more put your unclean hands on the woman who will be my wife.”
“Your wife?” A sardonic smile curled the American’s mouth. “Funny she didn’t want to stick around for the wedding.”
“Her desires make no difference.”
“Lord, but you have a lot to learn about women.”
“I know well how to treat bitches.”
“That explains it,” the American drawled. “Wrong breed.”
Ahmad shifted the knife in his hand, as if itching for a target. Voice uneven, he said, “You show your ignorance now, for she has proved what kind she is by enticing my sister’s husband with her evil wiles and woman’s body. She used him to heap shame on my house. She holds him in such thrall that he even obeyed when told to send for you.”
“No!” Treena cried.
The two men paid no attention. His gaze on Ahmad’s face, the American asked, “And you still mean to marry the lady? Money has a way of overcoming principles, doesn’t it?”
“So does revenge,” Ahmad answered on a growl. “I guessed the vice in her, but now I am sure of it. I watched this house as Ismael left it on the way to your hotel, watched you arrive with him. For this added betrayal, the man who should have been as my brother will die with the woman when I am master of both her and her wealth.”
“You needn’t hold it against him, since I was on my way anyhow.”
Even as Wade spoke, Treena released her grasp on her husband’s hand and started toward her brother. “No,” she said again.
“Don’t!” Agonized supplication sounded in Ismael voice. He reached out to catch her arm, but she avoided him.
Ahmad barely glanced at his sister. “Fear not. You will also be avenged.”
“I spit on your revenge,” she said in a voice that rang with fear and pride. “It was not my husband who helped Chloe deceive you, not his heart that wept tears for her future as your wife. I have been her accomplice and her savior. It was I who sent Ismael. It was I!”
Treena’s advance had brought her within a few feet of Ahmad. Now he lifted his head, straightened slowly from his fighter’s crouch to face his sister. His fingers gleamed white at the knuckles where they clenched his blade. “You,” he repeated as if he’d never heard the word before. Then his face contorted with terrible, murderous anguish.
Terror engulfed Chloe. She opened her mouth to call out, but no sound emerged. Time slowed to a crawl. As she stepped forward with her gaze fastened on her stepsister’s face, it was as if the air was as thick and viscous as oil. She saw Ahmad heave around and strike out in a sweeping, backhanded cut. The blade in his hand reflected a strange blue light in the dimness. It reached toward Treena. As it flashed past her throat, it left a red line in its wake.
Treena gave a bubbling sigh and lifted her hands to her neck. She began to fall like a marionette whose strings have been severed. Ismael caught her, stumbling to his knees as he eased her to the floor. A terrible cry left him as he covered his wife’s hands with his own, pressing, trying to hold back the liquid red flow. It could not be done.
Treena caught his wrist as she gazed up at him. She spoke in a mouthing of words without sound.
“Our daughters, yes,” Ismael said with strained comprehension in his voice. “To my mother. It will be done.”
Treena tried again to speak.
“Yes, this day, my heart, my adored one. His reprisal shall not touch them. I promise it.”
Treena didn’t hear the vow in her husband’s voice, or the love. Her valiant features went slack and her eyes began to glaze.
Ismael groaned, weaving where he knelt as he covered her eyes with his blood-red hand, smoothed down her slim shape to press his hand to her abdomen with its slight swell. Then he turned his head toward Ahmad. “You killed her,” he whispered. Then he said again as wild sorrow infiltrated his voice. “You killed my wife, your sister. You killed my son, your nephew. What kind of honor, what vengeance, is this?”
Ahmad did not answer, didn’t appear to hear for long seconds. He stood white-faced and slack-mouthed, staring at his sister on the floor with empty eyes. Then he whispered, almost to himself, “Her daughters. They are tainted as well.”
Wade spoke then, his voice like iron as he pointed the handgun at Ahmad. “Hands up. Now. Where I can see them.”
Ahmad shook his head like a boxer recovering from a knockout punch. As he looked at the American, recognition of his position came into his face, tightening the skin across the heavy bones. Slowly he obeyed the order, but the enmity in his face was frightening to see.
“Good. Now back up, nice and easy, until you’re inside the room behind you.”
It was a storeroom, and a good choice, Chloe thought as she fought the black horror that gripped her. The lock on her own room was broken, the largest chamber that Ahmad had taken as his own was more likely to have a weapon stashed away somewhere inside, and he could not be allowed near Treena’s daughters. With a dazed glance at Wade, she said, “The key…”
“Get it.”
Ahmad had it, of course, since he enjoyed control of all the rooms and their contents. She could smell his acrid sweat, nauseating and animalistic, as she moved closer to him. Fearful that he would try to grab her, she was careful not to block the firing path. She reached out from as far away as possible to snag the metal key ring from his belt, then waited until Wade motioned him into the storeroom.
“For this, you will surely die,” Ahmad said as he obeyed the gesture. “You cannot escape your fate, just as my sister could not escape hers. I will finish you and all your tribe.”
“You can try.”
Wade moved close enough to catch the door and slam it shut, keeping his shoulder against it. Chloe inserted the key in the old-fashioned lock and turned it. Then she stepped back as if her stepbrother might be able to reach through the solid wood.
“Go,” Wade said in low command as he nodded toward the doorway that led back into the hajra. “Move it.”
It was necessary; she could see that. Still, she couldn’t prevent herself from turning toward where Ismael still sat rocking his wife’s lifeless body as if nothing else existed in his world. Then she looked toward the far bedroom where the children still cried without end.
“You can’t help her,” Wade said, his voice rough with something that had the sound of understa
nding. “You can’t help any of them.”
She glanced at him, noting almost unconsciously the pale line around his mouth and the haunted pain that darkened his eyes. “I know,” she whispered, her own unbearable grief apparent in that soft acknowledgment.
“Then let’s get out of here while we still can.”
He gave her no opportunity to argue, but clamped an arm around her waist and swept her from the room. She didn’t resist but moved beside him from the house and out into the street.
The night had the sooty blackness of the hour after moonset. It didn’t seem to bother Wade. He paused long enough to search the area around him with a hard gaze, then started down the dusty street.
A yell rang out, followed by gunshots. Dust geysers kicked up just behind them. Wade whipped around to return the fire, even as they broke into a run.
“Ahmad must have had men with him earlier,” Chloe said, her voice jerky with her effort to keep up with Wade’s long strides.
“Good guess.” He caught her arm, increasing her pace, even as he fired again. “Had to have been a small detail or we’d have been goners by now.”
“Maybe only Zahir, a friend of his.” The random pattern of the rounds and apparent lack of pursuit made it seem likely.
“Yeah, we met.”
“He’ll release Ahmad.”
“Better than coming after us.”
The shots trailed to a halt, either from the discouragement Wade had offered or because they were out of range. As they reached the middle of the next block, he swung into a narrow, rutted alleyway that was bordered by mud walls overhung by palms and bougainvillea. Chloe could see a vehicle sitting in the dark at its far end. They raced toward it. Some fifty yards away, Wade pulled up and motioned to her to stay put. She nodded her understanding even as she fought to catch her breath. He approached the older model Volvo on a careful trajectory.
Abruptly something burst out of a mass of wild grape just beyond the car’s left fender. Wade Benedict hugged the wall, swinging his head in her direction as if to make certain she was doing the same. She shook her head, motioning toward the feral cat that had stopped to look back at him from under the car’s rear bumper. He made a low sound of disgust, then moved on again.
Chloe held her breath as she saw him bend to look in at the front window. She saw him stiffen. After a second, he opened the door and reached inside at an awkward angle to turn the key. She heard a click, but the ignition didn’t engage. He closed the door then walked quickly back to where she stood.
“What is it?”
“Dead. Driver and car.”
“I don’t…”
“My transport. The driver had instructions to wait for us. Now we don’t have to wonder why Ahmad was a little slow reaching the house.”
She pressed her lips together until they hurt, closing her eyes for a second. When she thought she could speak without her voice shaking, she asked, “What now?”
“Guess.” As he offered that laconic comment, he turned to put his back to the wall behind them as if he intended to hold it up.
“I have no idea. You said everything was arranged, that it would be easy, no problem.”
“The arrangements were for two days ago. I changed them over to this morning because you said that’s how long it would take on your end. You missed that deadline, too. So here we are.”
A chill moved over her. “You’re saying we’re on our own?”
“And on foot.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “You and I, the two of us.”
“You were expecting maybe the Green Berets and a Bell & Howell to zip you out to a waiting sub?”
“I don’t. I mean, I just thought this rescue, or whatever you want to call it, would have a support team.”
“So it did. Favors were called in and people paid off. There were a couple of places reserved in a truck convoy heading for the Pakistan border and on to the international airport at Rawalpindi. But that was then and this is now. They pulled out when you didn’t show.”
“Still you came when Treena sent for you?”
“I promised John.”
She turned bodily to stare at him through the screen over her eyes, half-afraid there was something more, something about his reasons that she didn’t know.
His eyelashes rested on top of his cheekbones and his hands pressed back against the wall behind him. She could hear his breathing, fast and shallow, as if against the bite of pain. Freeing a hand, she put out her fingers and touched the warm, sticky wetness at his waistline.
“Idiot,” she exclaimed. “You’re bleeding to death, and we stand here talking. What were you thinking?”
“That you have more to say for yourself now than when I first saw you,” he answered with the ghost of a laugh.
“As if it matters!” Reaching up under her burqa, she removed the long, veil-like scarf that covered her hair. She made a small tear with her teeth, then ripped the cloth in half and folded it into a long pad. Wrapping this into the remaining length, she freed her arms then pressed the makeshift bandage to Wade’s side, circling his waist with the free ends.
He grunted a little as she pulled them tight to knot them. “Very efficient.”
“I hope it does some good.”
“Can’t hurt. Thanks.”
His breath felt warm against the top of her head, even through her burqa, as she bent to check her handiwork in the dark. The mild and almost disinterested sound of his voice troubled her since it seemed to indicate that he was either light-headed from blood loss or drifting into a form of shock. “It’s nothing.” She slipped her arm around his waist with a brusque movement, then turned him toward the far end of the alley beyond the dark Volvo. “Come, we have to find shelter.”
“You have a plan?”
“I know where I may be able to find help, but it’s several blocks. Can you make it?” He was too tall for her to support very well, but he seemed able to stand well enough. As he shifted his arm that she’d draped over her shoulder, his fingers dangled against the swell of her breast.
“I can if you can.”
She thought there was humor in his voice, as if either her annoyance or her efforts to take up the slack in the rescue effort amused him in some way. There was nothing funny about it to her. She had to find medical attention for him, and soon.
Chloe guided the American past the Volvo without looking at it, then down one block and over another. From there, she veered into a path that led through the vegetable garden of an elderly couple she knew, then along the back side of a warehouse used to store sheep’s wool and lambskins. The two of them came out onto a boulevard lined with compounds whose big houses were crowded with shade and fruit trees and surrounded by fences. Some were of mud or stone, some of iron that had been installed during Victoria’s reign. It was an exclusive area, silent and aloof in its screened isolation, though jasmine vines and orange trees shared their scents with passersby.
Chloe’s progress slowed as she stumbled with Wade from one patch of shadow to another, stopping for every noise and every passing vehicle, investigating every cross street before venturing to the other side. The entire night began to seem surreal, as if she might also be in some form of shock. That she was now dependent on the man who leaned so heavily against her was so unbelievable that it was hard to grasp. She wasn’t sure where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there, had nothing with her except the clothes she wore. All she knew was that she had to keep walking, keep moving because to stop could mean the end of everything.
Ahead of them lay another wide intersection. At one time, there had been a working stoplight, but now it dangled uselessly on its wires so that crossing it could be a distinct hazard here where every man felt the right of way was his to take. She caught the gleam of headlights as she approached. Narrowing her eyes to peer behind them, she recognized a slow-moving patrol car.
She swung back the way they had come, glancing around in swift search of cover. T
here was none, at least nothing that they could reach in time. The nearest alley was a block back behind them; a tall iron fence set on a low wall of stone blocked off the closest screen of shrubbery. Still, she had to do something fast.
There was only one reason for a man and woman to be seen on the streets together in violation of curfew. It was prohibited and incredibly lewd, but more acceptable to male officialdom than a man and woman unrelated and unmarried being caught alone together at night.
Dragging Wade into a patch of deep shadow, she pushed him into place with his back to the fence. She snatched up the hem of her burqa and skirt beneath, raising them to her waist as she plastered herself against him from her breasts to her knees. Galvanized by the rumble of the patrol car’s engine coming closer, she lifted her arms behind his head and applied pressure until he bent and hid his beardless face in the folds of blue cloth that draped against her neck.
Brightness from the headlights struck the fence rails beside them. The car stopped at the cross street and did not move on, as if the occupants had spotted them. This was the moment of greatest danger, when the police must decide whether to stop and punish a prostitute apparently servicing a client in this quiet neighborhood or move on and leave them in peace. It could go either way, for this was a respectable and affluent area where such things were not done, but it was also possible that the man enjoying her might be a resident of some influence. With a low moan of fear, Chloe moved against the man she held, desperately grinding her hips.
Then she felt him shift his feet to a wider, lower stance. He lifted one arm around her waist to support her and reached with the other hand to clasp her hip. He kneaded it as if in appreciation for the firm, resilient flesh, then smoothed down along her leg until he could lift her knee and settle the naked softness at the juncture of her thighs more completely over his groin.
Wade Page 8
