by Gail Dayton
"How can I help you, sir?" she asked, offering him the good chair.
She stayed behind her desk, feeling the need for all the authority, bogus or not, she could get. No wonder Rudi occasionally felt the need to slip free now and again, with this guy pulling the strings. Big brother intimidated her, and she didn't intimidate easily.
"Please, call me Ibrahim." He flashed a smile that was a pale imitation of Rudi's megawatt grin. "Our family name is often difficult for those who do not speak Arabic."
"All right." She laced her fingers together in the precise center of her desk. "Ibrahim. How can I help you?"
"I wanted to pay this visit to point out a number of things to you."
"I see." The man made her want to grind her teeth, and he hadn't even reached his point yet.
"My brother Rashid appears to harbor some affection toward you. I thought it best if I made it clear that nothing could come of such an attachment. Our culture makes it difficult for a Western woman to adapt, and—"
"Hold it right there, Ibrahim." Ellen knew steam had to be coming from her ears. Ibrahim looked a little steamed himself by her interruption, but he would be grateful when she explained. She had to control her tendency toward smart-mouthing with this one, however.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be rude, but your, urn, clarification is coming a little late."
"Oh?" He steepled his fingers. Rudi had learned "arrogant" from one of the best.
"Your brother proposed to me two days ago."
"I see."
Ellen knew she shouldn't enjoy watching the man deflate as much as she did. "Don't worry, sir. I turned him down." She told him the good news quickly, to make up for that guilty enjoyment.
"You did?" Ibrahim looked astonished and relieved at the same time. Then he studied her with renewed appraisal. "Perhaps you are wiser than I thought."
Ellen rose to escort him out, before she strangled him with his power tie. "Did you ever think that maybe Rudi—Rashid is old enough to know his own mind by now? If you keep trying to push him into being somebody he's not, you might wind up pushing him away altogether."
Ibrahim glared at her, a thing he must have perfected sometime in his past. "Rashid is my brother, and by your own words, no concern of yours. Your opinions are not wanted."
"Sure." She offered her hand. "Good luck."
He scowled another moment, as if unsure whether her words meant something more than they appeared to. Then he shook her hand and departed.
The next Monday, Campanello came into Ellen's office. "Sheffield, we need you."
Ellen immediately went on her guard. Her boss never came to her, never said those words in that tone of voice unless he wanted something from her he didn't think he would get. "For what?"
"Prince Rashid's on the lam again."
"And what business is that of mine?" She took pride in the fact that her voice sounded cool even as her heart did panicky acrobatics.
"Okay, I know you resigned from the Qarif job." Campanello started up with that pitiful tone, the one that would make her agree to almost anything just to get him to stop it. "But I really need you, Sheffield. I got the big guy sitting in my office about to blow a gasket. He's convinced you plotted something with baby brother. Maybe he thinks you've got him tucked up your sleeve or something, but he's giving me all kinds of grief."
"This is my problem because…?" Her heart was still bouncing off all her other internal organs, churning things up in there until her entire abdominal cavity felt tied in knots.
"Come on, Ellen. Please." He shut her office door. "You want me to beg? Is that what you want? I'm already begging. You want I should get down on my knees?" Vic Campanello started down slowly to his creaky, forty-year-old, ex-cop knees. He truly was desperate.
"Damn it, Vic, don't do this to me. Get up." Ellen stomped around her desk and hauled him back upright. "You manipulative weasel. If I didn't like you so much, I'd hate you."
"I'm sorry, Ellen." He held on to her hand, watching her closely with those knowing cop's eyes. He'd learned to read her too well, back when they'd been partners, before he bought the business and hired her away from the police department with a big title and puny salary. "I know this hurts you, and you know I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to. I'll keep your involvement as limited as possible. You pinpoint, we'll reel him in. I won't ask you to be the bait."
"It wouldn't work anyway." She shook her head as she lifted her gray suit jacket off the coatrack and slipped it on. "I have a bad feeling about this one, partner. He's not going to be easy to find."
"Then I hope your intuition is wrong. Because two more of those terrorists were spotted in town over the weekend."
Fear drew its icy finger down her spine, stopping her heart in midflip. Rudi had picked a terrible time to skip.
Nine
It took a good half hour to calm Ibrahim down and convince him that Ellen had had nothing to do with Rudi's disappearance. Finally they got the story out of him. During a Sunday-afternoon visit to Bloomingdale's in full Arabic dress, Rudi's bodyguards had gotten a few paces away in the crowd of shoppers. When they'd caught up with him, they'd discovered another man behind the kaffiyeh.
After some confused dashing around, Frank had realized that Rudi had borrowed a trick from a movie and paid three or four men to come into the store, dressed in kaffiyeh and djellaba, and act as decoys. By the time the bodyguards had caught on, Rudi had vanished.
Over the next forty-eight hours Ellen and Campanello learned that Rudi had gathered several thousand dollars in cash during the past week, and that he had not left New York by air, train, or bus. Nor had he rented a car.
Time wore on. They visited one hotel after another—fancy expensive ones, middle-class ordinary ones, even fleabags. No one recognized Rudi from his picture.
By the time the second week rolled around, Ellen was firmly convinced Rudi was no longer in New York. She didn't think he'd left the country, but she had no logical reason for either belief. She called Buckingham again and again, talking to Rudi's sister-in-law, to Annabelle, the mayor, the bodyguards, to anyone Rudi might have contacted. But none of them knew anything.
The terrorists had vanished as completely as Rudi, as if they had shown themselves merely in order to inform their prey of their presence. Now Ibrahim and his bodyguards wasted half their time looking over their shoulders, and the other half worrying about the family hidden in Buckingham.
Late in the fourth week of the search, Ellen stared at her computer screen, her eyes burning, unable to read anything displayed there. She blinked, and the words became momentarily clear, then blurred again. It wasn't late, only about eight o'clock. Her eyes shouldn't be so tired.
She swiped the back of her hand across one eye, and it came away wet. Her cheeks were wet, too. Both of them.
Because you're crying, you idiot. Don't be so surprised. The fear and worry she'd been denying surged up like a tidal wave and dragged her under. Unable to fight it any longer, Ellen folded her arms on her desk, laid her head on them and cried like a terrified child.
What if her search led the terrorists to Rudi? What if they had no clue at all where he might be, but her poking and probing told them where to look? Maybe she should stop the searching, just let him go. He had a right to live the life he chose.
But what if she stopped looking and they found him anyway? What if they found him before she did? Rudi was alone. He would make a perfect target for these terrorists, these cowards who had threatened the family members of Qarif's ruler, hoping to force him to accede to their demands.
An image flashed into her mind of a body falling. She thrust it away. Another image followed, one she couldn't banish as easily, one that had haunted her for more than a month. In it, Rudi laughed, head back and teeth flashing, his whole body caught up in his laughter, full of life and his joy in living it.
This time, when the pain and longing swept over her, Ellen gave up. She couldn't fight it anymore. She was in love with
Rudi. Hopelessly, desperately lost in love.
She'd thrown away her chance at happiness. He was lost to her. But the thought of the world without Rudi in it somewhere hurt so badly, it had shown her how deep she'd fallen. She had to find him because he had to live. The terrorists could not find him first.
It was not an option. Rudi needed protection, no matter how much he resented the presence of bodyguards.
He had been gone almost a month. Even living frugally, he would be running out of the money he'd taken with him. Ibrahim had told them that on all his previous disappearances, Rudi had returned to the fold when his money ran out. Ibrahim remained confident Rudi would do so again this time. The huge amount of cash Rudi had taken with him had been Ibrahim's primary concern because it would allow for a longer absence. Ellen, however, believed that this exit was different. She was convinced that Rudi had no intention of coming back, not any time soon.
She dialed into a new database and put in her request. Rudi would have to find employment if he wanted to live on his own. He might even try to find work in one of the fields for which he'd been trained. She left her search running and headed home for another night of sleepless ceiling-staring.
The weekend played havoc with Ellen's search and her peace of mind. No one was in at any of the offices or search companies she called. Rudi remained missing. Finally, Monday morning, she got her hands on the documents she wanted, the names of all the pipeline and drilling companies nationwide.
There were hundreds of them, but not the thousands she'd feared. Ellen picked up the phone and began to call, beginning with those closest to New York, asking if they'd hired any new engineers in the past month, making up lies to explain her questions. If a human resources department proved reluctant, she'd change her voice and make up new lies when she called back.
Another week was half over when a helpful assistant to the assistant personnel director for a pipeline company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told Ellen that a Mr. Rudolph al Mukhtar had started work there only two weeks before. Al Mukhtar was in the list of Rudi's names. Ellen wasn't positive, but it was the best clue she had to Rudi's whereabouts. The only clue.
She thanked the assistant politely as she noted the name and address of the company on a sticky pad, then hung up the phone. Ellen snatched up her purse and headed out the door, barely remembering to remove her headset before it ripped itself off her head.
"Tell Campanello I have a lead," she said to Jan as she hurried past. "I'll call him when I know something."
At her apartment, Ellen packed a small bag, making sure all her permits were in order to check her weapons onto the plane, both the big SIG-Sauer automatic and the smaller Colt revolver. Her phone rang while she was packing, but she let her boss curse at her answering machine. She was going to Tulsa no matter what he said. Letting him rant directly would only make his blood pressure worse.
She had to wait an hour at Kennedy for a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth, which would connect her with a puddle jumper to Tulsa, arriving at 10:00 p.m.
By the time she arrived, she was exhausted. Ellen checked in to a motel not far from Rudi's possible new employer.
Patience at an end, she called directory assistance, but Mr. al Mukhtar's new phone number was unlisted. Even if she had the number, she couldn't call. What would she say?
Rudi, I was a fool.
To which he would say, "And your point is?" He would say, "Too late. You had your chance." Or maybe he'd say, "No, you were right. I only wanted your body. Don't bother me anymore." Or he might damn her for betraying him again and vanish. Again.
She wanted to find him right now, see with her own eyes that he was all right, know that this Rudolph in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was her own Rudi and not someone else's. But she had nowhere to begin except his work, where he wouldn't be until morning.
Ellen forced herself to shower and pick at a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich from room service. Then she lay down in the big empty motel-room bed and stared at the crack of neon-pink light seeping through the curtains.
By six o'clock she thought she might have slept two hours with all her tossing and turning. Further pursuit of sleep seemed futile, so she got out of bed, dressed and was in her rental car in the lot across the street from Rudi's possible place of business by seven o'clock. As the hour got closer to eight, the building parking lot filled up with people coming in to work: tall, lean men with weathered cowboy faces, young pretty women in brightly colored suits, balding men in wire-frame glasses and pen-filled pockets.
Then an electric shock ran through Ellen as she recognized the walk, the short, dark curls of the man striding into the building. It was Rudi. She'd know that back, that backside anywhere, whether draped in charcoal worsted wool as it was now, or in nothing at all.
Heat rushed her at that errant thought. She was here to protect Rudi, not jump his bones, she reminded herself. The reminder made her pick up her phone.
"Campanello," he said when Jan rang her through.
"I found him," Ellen said.
"Where?"
"Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gainfully employed with the Atcheson Pipeline Company."
"Don't tell me you're in Oklahoma."
"Okay, I won't tell you."
"Shut up, Sheffield. Does he know you've made him?"
"No." Ellen slid the seat back in her car, wanting to close her eyes for five minutes. But she didn't dare.
"Okay, I'll have a team there by tonight."
"Vic…"
"Yeah?"
Ellen sighed, not sure what she'd wanted to say. "Never mind."
"Don't give me that. You called me Vic. You always got somethin' to say when you call me Vic instead of boss, so you might as well just spit it out."
"I'm worried what will happen if we just swoop in and scoop him up. This isn't like all those other times his brother told us about. Most of those times he was probably at his place in New Mexico, but he can't go there to get away anymore, can he? He never used a different name before, never got an actual job."
"What are you saying, Sheffield? You think he's going to bolt if he spots you?"
She took a deep breath. "I don't know. Maybe. If he doesn't run the minute he sees us, then sometime after he's pulled back in, he'll vanish again. And the next time he runs, he'll be more careful, he'll plan better. Next time, we might not find him."
"Next time, it might not be our job to find him."
"True."
"Big brother's paying our bill."
"Also true. But can't we just watch him here in Tulsa? You could talk Ibrahim into leaving him alone. Rudi's not hurting anything. He's just working for this pipeline company."
"Sheffield, you met the guy. Do you really think anybody can talk big brother into anything?"
"You're right. Stupid idea." She slumped lower in her seat.
"Okay, okay. I'll try. I owe you. No guarantees. And I'm sending Frank and Tom out on the next flight. You can't watch him twenty-four seven." Campanello paused. "Ellen, I'll wait till tomorrow to tell big brother you found him, if you want, if you got something to straighten out with the guy."
"Thanks, Vic. I appreciate the thought, but don't bother." She wiped away a stray tear. "There's nothing to straighten out."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
About mid morning Ellen got a coffee from the bakery in the strip mall where she was parked and sat on the hood of the rental to drink it. At lunchtime she saw Rudi appear among a small knot of people, laughing and talking to a pretty red-haired woman in the group as they all walked to a car and got in together. Ellen ground her teeth against the wave of jealous pain besetting her and managed to get her car started in time to follow them to a Mexican restaurant several blocks away. They all went inside, the woman virtually attached to Rudi's side.
What did you expect? You threw him back.
Ellen told her conscience to shut up as she parked in the store lot adjoining the restaurant. No suspicious vehicles followed, either to the restaurant or back aga
in, but still Ellen waited until Rudi had returned inside the office building before driving up to the take-out window of the Burger Doodle on the corner. She hoped Frank and Tom would arrive soon. Her sleepless nights were beginning to catch up with her.
Ellen woke with a start to someone rapping on her car window.
A plump woman with a face younger than her steel-gray hair peered in at her. "Are you okay?" she shouted through the window. "Can I get you some help?"
A frantic look at the clock told Ellen it was a few minutes after five. Panic set in. She got out of the car and scanned the building entrance across the way.
"I'm fine." She spared a quick smile for the wonderful woman who'd awakened her. "I just fell asleep. Stayed up too late last night."
"If you're sure…" The woman turned away.
"I was just waiting for someone." Ellen walked to the curb, trying to see the whole parking lot. Decorative shrubbery blocked much of her view.
People streamed out of the building, heading to their vehicles, lining up at the drive waiting to exit onto the busy street. Ellen spotted the redhead climbing into a pickup, alone. Good.
She started across the street, running through a short gap in traffic to the center turning lane. Waiting for a break in the westbound traffic, Ellen saw Rudi leave the building. He walked down the steps and along the sidewalk to the side of the building as cars and pickups whizzed by between them. Twice she started to cross, only to be thwarted. Rudi got farther and farther away.
Finally the light changed at the corner, and she darted across, swerving between cars pulling onto the street. She saw a blue panel van sitting alongside the low hedge separating the parking lot from the sidewalk and glanced in the front window as she pushed her way between the bushes.
Two men, clean shaven, black hair, dark complexions, wearing blue work shirts. She cataloged them automatically in her mental files, still her practice after three years away from the police force. Her primary focus remained on Rudi.
