Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  “You believe that?” Mandy challenged.

  Nadya looked down, her long blond hair falling forward to obscure her face. “I must,” she murmured. “I cannot believe he kill for people he not like. For country, yes. For pigs, no.”

  “But you can’t just go on doing what you’re doing,” Mandy protested.

  Nadya raised her head, brushed the hair back from her delicate heart-shaped face. Her blue eyes were misty. “There is no choice. Even if I get away, I cannot go home.” Once again she ducked her head, her voice fading until Mandy had to strain to hear her. “It is wrong, I know, “but Karim is like . . . like cocaine. I must have him. Where he goes, I go.”

  Whither thou goest . . . While Mandy, Miss Proper Bostonian, had refused.

  Mandy closed her eyes, clutched a handful of bedspread and hung on. She had to be rational . . . think of Nadya’s problem, not her own. Say the right thing . . .

  “You know cocaine is bad, so why . . .?” Mandy stumbled to a halt. Against addiction, words were futile. “He’s Muslim,” she pointed out. “Even if he didn’t make you work as . . . well, didn’t make you work . . . could you live like that? I mean, if he took other wives.”

  “It does not matter. I love him. I cannot . . . think?” Nadya tapped her head. “Picture . . .?”

  “Imagine?” Mandy supplied.

  “Da.” The same vigorous nod of agreement Mandy had seen the first day they met. “I cannot imagine life without him. He is part of me.”

  This was the moment to be wise, and Mandy couldn’t think of a thing to say. She understood such love, even when it made no sense. Love that defied reason, adversity, pain. Love that refused to go away. Nadya’s attraction to Karim Shirazi might not be sensible, but it was all too human.

  So . . . it’s logical to assume the lover of my enemy is not my friend. Therefore, the lover of my enemy does not really want to be rescued.

  Which effectively took Nadya Semyonova off the list of friends. Leaving Mandy Armitage and Peter Pennington far out on a thin limb. Without a net.

  She had to face the harsh facts. Everything was going to happen as Karim Shirazi decreed. Sometime after nightfall they would be leaving. All of them—Peter, herself, Nadya, the other girls, even the guards—putting their fate in the hands of a man who had spent most of his life killing people.

  And yet Mandy was inclined to believe he had no taste for it. That he’d done what had to be done, but perhaps, just perhaps, he could be tempted to the other side. What they needed was something Karim Shirazi really wanted, wanted badly enough to betray his employers . . .

  Something besides Nadya, who was already his.

  The old house was silent. Incredibly, it seemed as if everyone had gone to sleep. Even the guard outside Mandy’s door had stopped shuffling his feet. Not so strange, she supposed. This was probably the household’s customary sleep period.

  She peered out each window. Nothing. Footsteps ought to reverberate on the vinyl floor of the hallway, giving her plenty of warning . . .

  Eyes on the door, Mandy inched her cell phone out of her pocket. She should call Doug Chalmers, but his wasn’t the number she punched in.

  “Claire?”

  “Mandy, is that you?” Claire Blue’s voice burst from the cell phone like a warm embrace. Hot tears well up in Mandy’s eyes. She’d thought she was holding up well. Guess not. “Are you all right?” Claire demanded. “Doug called Brad twenty minutes ago. Is it true? Are you at the old line shack?”

  “I’m fine,” Mandy responded automatically. Physically, it was the truth. “Tired, but okay. They didn’t search me for my phone. Probably they’re so blindly male they just don’t consider me a threat. Or maybe they figured it didn’t matter because the FBI was going to know we were here. What could I tell them that they didn’t already know?”

  “That you’re alive.”

  “True, but that’s to their advantage, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll tell Doug you called. Is Peter with you?” After Mandy explained, Claire advised, “I think you should talk to Brad. He went over to your house . . . just had to check things out for himself. Maybe he can think of something that might be useful. Call him, okay?” Claire urged, adding her husband’s cell phone number.

  “So Shirazi wants to use the storm for cover,” Brad echoed a few minutes later. “Makes sense. Lousy visibility, and they’re onto the Interstate, mixed into traffic, and long gone before we can put anything into the air.”

  We. Mandy had to smile. Brad Blue would probably still think of himself as a government agent when he was ninety.

  “What about ground surveillance?” Mandy inquired. “There must some way . . .”

  “In the midst of nowhere in a storm with hostages at risk? Sorry, Mandy, but it’s going to be a tough scenario. Shirazi’s no slouch as a tactician. I’ll let Doug know you’re okay, that you’ve got your phone . . .”Brad switched from ex-federal agent to friend. “Hang in there, Mandy. We’ll find a way to keep track of you, I promise. You wouldn’t believe the techno gadgets they have these days.”

  Thanks, Brad,” Mandy said with feeling. “Bye.” With a sigh of relief, she tucked the phone deep into her pocket. Closing her eyes, which had been fixed on the door the whole time she talked, she allowed herself a few minutes of timeout. Tired, bone tired. Yet wide awake. Somehow she had to convince her overactive brain to join the rest of the household in sleep. Mandy eyed the bed with longing, but the thought of Karim Shirazi returning, finding her stretched out on his bed, vulnerable in sleep . . .

  She considered the narrow upright desk chair, the hard pine floor. If she wanted to live, she needed her wits about her. Like Nadya and the other girls, Mandy decided she wasn’t an advocate of death before dishonor. Gingerly, she lay down on the bed, using only the black and white bedspread for a cover. She snuggled into the mound of pillows, closed her eyes.

  Dear God, but she was tired . . .

  The sun was losing its battle against the encroaching gloom of the storm front when Karim Shirazi returned to his bedroom. Mandy’s eyes flew open, staring like a light-pinned rabbit, frozen for the kill. Easy, easy. Be reasonable. She didn’t know the time but was quite certain hours had passed. If her captor had found time for sleep, he had taken his rest elsewhere. Thank God.

  In Nadya’s room? Probably. The AKA portion of Mandy’s brain was certain Nadya was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The female portion of her brain said, Maybe not. Maybe it was worse. Maybe it was love.

  Mandy gathered her skittering thoughts and sat up straight, her back to the headboard. For some strange reason—since she was fully clothed except for her boots—she clutched the bedspread, pulling it up to her chin.

  Karim Shirazi, though six feet away at the end of the bed, seemed to tower above her. “You did not say Pennington was your husband.” The accusation was conversational. Mandy could not detect a threat.

  “We were separated for many years. We’ve only . . . we’ve been attempting some kind of reconciliation,” Mandy replied as evenly as she could. Conversation was important . . . possibly a matter of life and death. Karim was a soldier, but he was also a man. Or Nadya could not love him. Surely Stockholm Syndrome could work both ways. The more they talked, the better he got to know her, surely he couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . .

  Fat chance. Face it, girl, this man’s a pro.

  Karim nodded, accepting her explanation as if rocky love affairs were an everyday occurrence. Perhaps they were, Mandy thought. Though she still found his world a highly barren ground for love of any kind.

  The Iranian picked up the remote, flicked on the television. The local weather report was just coming on, precisely at its appointed time on the “eights” of the hour. So that’s why he was here.

  Severe thunderstorm warnings rolled down the screen. Followed by a description of what a severe storm entailed: lightning, hail, damaging winds, possible floods. The radar picture that followed was the worst Mandy had seen since coming to Florida.
Karim uttered something which sounded very much like an Iranian version of four-letter basic Anglo-Saxon. Translation unnecessary. He’d wanted a storm, but was getting more than he’d bargained for.

  Red and yellow splotches, with magenta accents, formed an almost solid line across the leading edge of a narrow swath of green as the storm front moved in from the northwest. It was already over Tampa, not more than ninety minutes away. No wonder Karim was upset. The time, Mandy noted, was three-twenty in the afternoon. Darkness would not arrive until shortly after six, so the fast-moving storm was going to beat the darkness to the old house in the woods. It was going to be short but nasty. Lots of lightning. Only brief rain. By the time Karim had planned to leave, the skies were likely to be cold and clear, stars bright, the moon rising to illuminate the secrets of the old house along the Calusa.

  Karim was frowning, obviously displeased by Mother Nature messing with his plans. He did not, however, admit to the slightest hint of worry. “Pennington made the phone call several hours ago,” he informed her. “All surveillance is to be gone by dusk. If our only cover is to be darkness, so be it.”

  “They agreed?”

  “They had no choice.”

  The part of Mandy’s brain that had been trained by Jeff Armitage and Eleanor Kingsley, scoffed. The brain that longed to be part of a more normal world assured her that Doug Chalmers would never allow them to be sacrificed.

  Truth was, things didn’t look good. If only she could be with Peter . . . but that was part of the psychological warfare, wasn’t it? Divide and conquer.

  There had to be a way out! She and Peter weren’t going to roll over for an arrogant Iranian who thought of women as commodities to be bought and sold. And used at will. There had to be some solution other than giving in, giving up. Waiting for the axe to fall. Life couldn’t stop here. Or two days, two weeks down the road.

  “Karim,” Mandy said, forcing his first name smoothly off her tongue, “you said your parents were part of the old regime. What happened to them?”

  He shrugged . . . hesitated. “They went into exile. First Paris. The last I heard, perhaps five years ago, they were part of the Persian community in Los Angeles.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to see them?”

  He looked up at the old cracked ceiling, bent his proud head, examined the high polish of his black boots. “Family is a good thing to have,” he conceded, raising unfathomable charcoal eyes to meet her gaze.

  Mandy swung her legs off the bed, slipped out from under the covers, straightened her clothing, hoping any telltale bulges would look like and extra pound or two. She brushed a hand over her hair, trying to restore it to some semblance of order.

  It was now or never.

  Repressing a shiver, Mandy looked up into the Iranian’s implacable—or was it assessing?—face. “Karim,” she inquired silkily, “what do you want more than anything else in the whole wide world?”

  The old house was coming to life. Soft footfalls in the hallway, the sound of water gushing through the plumbing. Alone now, Mandy sat at the desk, trying to beat back a rising sense of excitement. She’d cast her one and only die and could only hope it would come up the winning number. Karim Shirazi was a man who gave away his thoughts and feelings only when it suited him. There was no way to tell if she had found a chink in his professional honor. However bizarre his notion that he could retain honor while trafficking in women.

  Maybe, Mandy speculated, her exhilaration was nothing more than her body’s reaction to the change in air pressure as the intense storm approached. The electrical sparks charging her nervous system were responding to the electricity in the air. Whatever was going to happen, the crisis was nearly upon them. She had to be ready to meet it. Had to be alert, ready for anything. The storm was proving Karim Shirazi could not control all the elements in this drama. Nor would Doug Chalmers let his quarry slip away into the night. Live or die time was the next few hours.

  She shivered, glanced out the windows. The sky was several shades darker than it had been a half hour earlier when she had talked with Karim. She turned on the desk light. Much better. What primeval urge associated the dark with fear, with evil . . . with things that went bump in the night? The light, however, could not shut out the sudden low rumble of thunder. Mandy froze in her chair. The distant sound was like a signal for the curtain to go up. The final act had begun.

  She jumped as the door swung open and Nadya entered. “Is okay,” the Russian girl assured her, squeezing her hand. “No be afraid. I not let him hurt you.”

  Mandy managed a smile more intended to reassure Nadya than herself, then watched as the Russian girl retrieved a suitcase from under Karim’s bed and began to fill it with clothes from an old dresser. The thunder continued, growing closer, as Nadya turned to the small closet, neatly folding each item before adding it to the suitcase. Mandy wondered once again if Nadya was suffering from love or an unhealthy addiction. The Russian girl wanted the trafficking stopped, all the girls rescued. Yet she wanted Karim Shirazi alive and well. And free.

  Mandy scooted to one side as Nadya, finished with the suitcase, stuffed the decorative pillows from Karim’s bed into a couple of pillowcases. She then hauled a cardboard box out of the closet and began to empty the drawers of the desk. Idly, Mandy glanced out one of the north windows. The sky was as dark as if the sun had already set . . . except . . . Her eyes widened as the northern horizon seemed to bloom into a glowing cloud of white light, moving inexorably forward like some great electrical beast straight out of science fiction, intent on swallowing everything in its path.

  The thunder, still miles away, was no longer an occasional rumble but a continuous roar reverberating in different pitches of baritone and bass. The sound was as ceaseless as the lightning that caused it. She was reminded of old movies on the History channel, the sound of the great artillery barrage that preceded the D-day landings.

  Goosebumps rose on her arms. Not even kidnapping by four masked men nor Karim Shirazi’s threats had frightened her this badly. Primitive nonsense. It was just a storm, but unlike any she had ever experienced before. And it was coming straight at them.

  Mandy grabbed the remote, turned on the television. The Weather Channel was running a continuous scroll. Bright red. Warning residents in Calusa County of the storm’s danger, advising them to stay home, take cover. There was no radar picture. Evidently when things got this bad, pictures weren’t considered necessary. Maybe the forecasters thought it would be too frightening. Or maybe the radar had already been knocked out by the storm.

  “Bozhe moi!” Nadya was standing beside her, looking out the window, mouth open in horror.

  “Perhaps you should tell Karim how bad this looks,” Mandy suggested. With a swift nod, Nadya fled the room.

  Like a victim mesmerized by a cobra, Mandy couldn’t take her eyes off the rapidly approaching storm. It seemed like the wrath of God. Like staring death in the face. In spite of what everyone said about Florida thunderstorms, surely this one couldn’t be typical. There was no darkness now. Multi-branched streaks of white fire punctuated the continual glow. The artillery barrage had gone from distant roar to a constant series of sharp booms followed by rumbles that echoed as long and loud as a regiment of kettle drums. Any minute now the brunt of the storm would engulf them. One strike, and the old house would disintegrate. Retribution was at hand.

  Oh God, dear God, she really didn’t want to be alone. Here she was, a thoroughly modern woman, reduced to primitive terror. She had to get a grip. This house had survived years and years of Florida storms. Hurricanes. Floods. Tornados.

  She wanted Peter. Needed Peter. If they were going to die, they should be together. Together was where they belonged.

  A rush of wind howled around the eaves. A dull roar—more like a waterfall than thunder—could be heard. Coming closer . . . growing louder . . . louder. Rain swamped the house, pounding onto the roof like a thousand booted feet. An explosion of thunder rattled the windows, swiftly followed
by two more simultaneous blasts of lightning and the inevitable cacophony that followed. Mandy dove for the center of the bed and sat there, reduced to the fetal position, hugging her knees. Praying.

  The door swung open and the room was suddenly full of people. Peter hit the bed running, gathering Mandy into his arms. Karim set Nadya onto the desk, put his arms around her and held on. The two armed guards outside the still open door stood fast, but when Mandy opened one eye to look past Peter’s shoulder, their faces were visibly pale. It would appear, Mandy decided from the comforting, if dubious, safety of Peter’s embrace, that whatever one called one’s God, everyone present was beginning to suspect He was more than a little angry.

  “Are you all right, Mouse? Mouse!” Peter had his lips to her ear, trying to be heard above the raging storm outside.

  “Yes,” Mandy gasped, turning her head to breathe the words against his mouth.

  The storm stood still as their lips met and clung, their minds all too aware this kiss could be their last.

  “I’m so damn sorry, Mouse,” Peter groaned, his mouth once again finding its way to her ear. “I should have listened to Doug . . . shouldn’t have been so arrogant. Peter the Great, that’s me. Know-It-All of the Century.”

  The storm, which they had thought at its peak, continued to intensify. Mandy sucked in her breath as lightning cracked into the woods close to the house, leaving no doubt some venerable oak or pine had taken a direct hit. There was so much lightning the night was a single white sheet of light, one strike blending into the next in a continuing series of deadly electrical impulses. The thunder, Mandy thought, burrowing even tighter against Peter’s chest, was like being caught between the tympani and the cannons in a performance of the 1812 Overture. Impossible to be heard over it. But she had to try.

  She ran her fingers through Peter’s hair, pulled his ear down to her mouth. “I may have made a point with Karim,” she told him. “I’m not sure, but I’m hopeful.”