“We’ve been ordered to take him out,” Benson said, tapping the picture and glancing up at her. He paused and swallowed, and Kathryn was suddenly alert and sharp again, taking in everything and processing it all in a split second. The words Benson used. The way he flinched when he spoke. He used the word “ordered,” which meant this wasn’t his idea. Was there more to this? Was there more to Benson? Was there more to . . .
“Sheikh Hyder of the Kingdom of Sehaar,” Benson continued, his voice clear and deep, as if he’d realized his slip and corrected himself. “And there’s a reason you haven’t heard of him. He’s taken great pains to be very low profile ever since he ascended to the throne of Sehaar.”
“And when was that?” Kathryn said, flipping through the binder and stopping at a page that summarized the timeline of Sehaar’s rulers. The page had a lot of blanks and question marks on it. How the hell did the CIA not know everything about this kingdom and this green-eyed king? They were an intelligence agency, weren’t they?
Benson smiled and rubbed his chin. “As you can see, we’re not entirely sure. The greatest intelligence organization in the world appears to be somewhat dumb when it comes to Sheikh Hyder and the kingdom of Sehaar.”
Kathryn frowned again as she quickly scanned the rest of the binder. She’d study it later, but already she could tell there wasn’t anything of much use in here. Part of the reason was certainly that Sehaar hadn’t been on the CIA’s radar in the past, and so they hadn’t allocated resources to gather too much intelligence on it. The U.S. was spread pretty thin these days when it came to spying on people. So many sketchy Arabs, so few spies . . . hah!
“There isn’t anything in here my ten-year-old niece couldn’t have found on the guy’s Facebook page,” she snorted, flipping the binder shut and finally taking a seat across from Benson.
“You don’t have a niece,” Benson said, smiling as he opened up a dark blue folder with the CIA’s logo emblazoned on the front. “You don’t have anyone, it seems. Never married. No children. No siblings. Parents deceased. Natural causes.”
“Cancer,” Kathryn said without missing a beat. “Hardly natural. But go on, Professor Benson. What else does my profile tell you?”
Benson tossed the folder aside and grinned, shaking his head. “You’re the one with the psychology background. You know damned well what your profile says about you.” He lost the smile, and that edge returned to his voice. “That’s why I asked for you. It has to be you. There’s no one else in the Company who can pull this off.” He took a breath, and his eyes broke contact for a moment before refocusing on her. “Maybe no one else in the world,” he muttered.
“Enough with blowing smoke up my ass, Sir,” Kathryn said, smiling from the corner of her mouth. “What’s the play here. You got a photograph of Hyder, which means you could have put a bullet in him if you wanted. And you called me, which means the play is a bit more complex than planting a bomb or faking a boat accident or whatever the hell else we do.”
Benson smiled again, taking a breath and leaning back. “We need to play the long game on this one, Krane.” He paused. “And if it works, it’ll be the last one for you.”
Kathryn blinked hard as she tried to read Benson’s expression. He was serious. Had Mel already said something to him? “What do you mean?” she asked, her throat feeling awfully tight. “Is this a suicide mission? Are we into that now?”
Benson smiled tightly and closed his eyes for a long moment. He shook his head and sighed before speaking. “Over the past few years,” he finally said, “I’ve watched several Sheikhs in the Middle East take American women as wives. And it’s worked exceedingly well for us.”
Kathryn waited for him to continue. Certainly she’d heard of several high-profile marriages between Sheikhs and American women over the past few years. But what the hell did that have to do with her? She waited for him to go on, but Benson stayed quiet. Again she saw him flinch, and she could tell he was uncomfortable. What the hell? This man had probably done, seen, and ordered things that would give a normal person insomnia for life, so why the hell was he was flinching and biting his lip?
“Go on,” she said finally, after waiting for what seemed like forever for Benson to finish.
But Benson stayed quiet. “You put it together, Krane,” he said finally, his voice almost a whisper.
Kathryn frowned as she held eye contact with the gray-haired Benson. Was he playing her too? Of course he was. Everyone in the CIA was a player. Everyone had their own game. Kathryn sure as hell did, didn’t she?
So Kathryn Krane blinked and looked away for a moment, allowing her mind to pull together the scanty information Benson had thrown at her. What had he said? The long game. If it works it’ll be your last. Sheikhs marrying American women and how that worked out very well for the CIA . . .
Oh, God, she thought as that tightness in her throat came back so quick she almost fainted. Oh, God, he can’t be serious. That’s insane, even for the CIA!
Kathryn swallowed hard and tried to gather herself. It took a moment, but finally she trusted herself to speak in complete sentences. “The long game,” she said slowly, her head shaking almost involuntarily as she looked into Benson’s eyes. “Are you asking me to . . . oh, God, I can’t even say it.” She swallowed again and took a breath. “You’re asking me to manipulate Sheikh Hyder into . . . . marrying me?! That’s it, isn’t it? You want Sehaar to become another Sheikdom with an Arab king and an American queen. A permanent, guaranteed ally of the United States.”
Benson stayed silent, and Kathryn saw color streak across his expressionless face. She was right so far, but he was waiting for more. She’d missed something, and when it hit her she had to close her eyes and focus all her willpower on the truth of what he was asking.
“But you also said you’ve been ordered to take Sheikh Hyder out,” she said slowly. “Which means you want me to marry the Sheikh and then . . . kill him.” She paused as everything came together in a rush. “Which would leave me as queen of Sehaar. The widowed Sheikha. The one and only ruler.” Now her eyes went wide and she knew the world had truly gone mad. The CIA had a long history of engineering coups and takeovers, rigging foreign elections and installing puppet governments to serve U.S. interests. But this . . . this was . . .
“Kathryn Krane,” Benson said quietly, pushing the black binder towards her again. “Are you ready to serve your country one last time, for the rest of your life?”
4
THREE DAYS LATER
THE KINGDOM OF HABEETHA (SIN CITY, ARABIA)
That black binder had been destroyed before Kathryn left London, but the photograph stayed clear in her memory. And when she saw him across the hall it was all she could do to not fall down, because her knees were actually shaking. How the hell was she going to do this? She’d had some very intimate encounters with targets before, but marriage? Marriage?!
Benson hadn’t been clear on exactly why Sheikh Hyder needed to be taken out. In fact he’d been very unclear on a lot of things. Certainly some of it was because the CIA really didn’t know that much about the Sheikh or his kingdom of Sehaar. But then why the urgency to kill the man?
“Because Hyder is a wild card. We just don’t know which way he leans. We’ve got reports that he’s ultra-orthodox and has sympathized with terrorist groups, perhaps even supported them in secret. We’ve also picked up sketchy intelligence that he’s a maverick Sheikh, a renegade king looking to expand his kingdom any way he can. The Saudis have conveyed some concern to our people. And if the Saudis are concerned about Hyder, then there’s probably something to it.”
Kathryn had looked closely at Benson when he’d said all that. She’d tried to read him. Clearly he wasn’t telling her everything, but then again, no one ever told the people on the ground everything. Some information might truly be classified. Some might be being withheld. Some might be outright lies. Everybody had their
games in this business, and those games were always changing.
So what’s my game this time, Kathryn had asked herself as she listened and nodded. Do I need to read between the lines here? Is Benson saying that part of my job is to find out more about Hyder, decide which side he’s truly on? Perhaps even bring him over to the right side? And if I can’t, then take him out? Was Benson himself pushing the limits of what he’d been ordered to do?
“There’s more to this,” Kathryn had said. “If you’re going to send me in so deep, you need to tell me more, Benson. Everything.”
Benson had frowned and touched his chin again. Once more that telltale twitch near his right eye. Then he nodded and went on.
“The kingdom of Sehaar is small, but in a strategically important place, bordering both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which are strong American allies. So Sehaar is in a crucial geographic location,” he’d said quietly. He’d paused a moment. “Then, of course, there’s the oil issue.”
“I thought oil was the only issue when it comes to us messing around in that part of the world,” Kathryn had said, not sure if she was being sarcastic or not. “Sehaar has oil? What a surprise. So what? Saudi Arabia is a hundred times the size of Sehaar, and we have a long-standing agreement with them. They guarantee us oil, and we guarantee them weapons and military support. That’s been the setup since after World War II, and nothing’s going to change that, is it?”
“Generally, no,” said Benson thoughtfully. “But one thing that could change is the price of oil. The younger Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia are all too aware that their kingdom has no industry other than oil. Their entire economy depends on the price of oil. They’ve been actively trying to encourage technology businesses to start up, hopefully creating a new set of jobs. But that will take years, maybe decades. Meanwhile, the price of oil is dropping as countries start moving to renewable energy and need less oil.”
“Supply and demand,” Kathryn had said, nodding and shaking her head at the same time. “As the world demands less oil, the price will naturally go down.”
“Unless the supply of oil also goes down,” Benson said. “Which is what Saudi Arabia might begin to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our experts believe that Saudi Arabia might simply pump less oil, thereby reducing the global supply, which would automatically cause the price to rise. Good for them. Bad for us.”
Kathryn had snorted. “So then we just tell them to pump more, don’t we? I assume we have some influence, yes?”
“Of course. And that political game is being played, Krane.” Benson had taken a breath as he spoke. “But the United States always needs an insurance policy. A backup plan.”
“And Sehaar and its oil is the backup plan? But Sehaar is tiny, isn’t it? How can it have enough oil to make a difference?”
“It’s the quality, not the quantity of Sehaar’s oil that makes a difference. Yes, they have deep oil wells and relatively vast reserves, but the oil that comes from Sehaar is naturally more refined than that from any other place on Earth. Very few impurities. Oil from Saudi Arabia has to be refined several times before it is usable, but the oil from Sehaar is so clean it can almost be pumped directly into barrels and shipped anywhere in the world. That makes Sehaari oil vastly more valuable.”
“And so we want control over the Sehaari oil fields,” Kathryn had said. “And the only solution is to take full control of Sehaar itself? With a puppet government, where I am the goddamn puppet? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds? What about negotiating with Hyder? Cutting a deal with him?”
“Firstly, that’s not reliable enough. Contracts can be broken. Deals can be forgotten,” Benson had said, shaking his head. Then he looked up at her, his face grave, as if he was telling her something even he wasn’t supposed to know. “And we have sources that say Saudi Arabia is actively trying to cut their own deal with Hyder. They want him to stop pumping his high-quality oil, which would give them more control over the supply and hence the price of oil.” He shook his head again. “My orders are clear, Krane. There’s no deal we can cut with Hyder that will give us the assurance we need. We need an iron-clad guarantee that Sehaari oil will always be available to us.”
“And I am that guarantee,” Kathryn said, closing her eyes as she let the madness wash through her. “Has anyone even tried to talk to Hyder? Our politicians? Anyone? Have you had a meeting with him?”
Benson had smiled. “I told you the Saudis are concerned about Hyder. Which means Saudi spies are watching Hyder . . . watching him to make sure he isn’t negotiating with the Americans behind their back. If an American senator or known CIA officer like myself is even in the same city as Sheikh Hyder, it’ll arouse suspicion.” Benson had snorted after saying that. “Of course, Hyder is a notorious recluse, so there’s no real danger of that happening. He only leaves his kingdom once a year, for ten days.”
Kathryn had frowned as that hazy image of Sheikh Hyder came back to her. A reclusive Sheikh of a small kingdom, but somehow both the Saudis and the Americans were “concerned” about him? What was going on here?
“Then just send some obscure, unknown CIA agent to meet him during that ten-day vacation of his. Wouldn’t that be the logical next step?” She’d trailed off when she realized she’d come full circle. “Oh, shit. I am that obscure, unknown CIA agent who’s going to meet him during that ten-day vacation. That’s what you’re trying to tell me, aren’t you. You were simply ordered to take out Sheikh Hyder, but you’ve come up with another plan. You want to—”
Benson cleared his throat and tapped on the desk, and Kathryn shut the hell up when she realized she was right and that she couldn’t say any more. Benson was playing his own game, and he was bringing her in on it. He was setting up the scenario, putting her into it, and basically trusting her to see how it played out. The rumors about Benson were right. He was a finesse guy. So she needed to read between the lines here.
Kathryn took a deep breath and shook her head, which was spinning, which meant shaking it didn’t help a damn. She looked down at the table, then up at Benson. His face was taut, but a moment later he broke a smile, and suddenly the two of them were laughing. It really was the only thing they could do. They’d both been in this business too long.
“So what’s the cover story?” Kathryn had finally said when they got a hold of themselves. “Earlier you said that I’d be working for Hyder. Which means you’ve got something set up. A job interview? Am I going to be his secretary? His shrink? English teacher? Yoga instructor?” She paused and shrugged, a chill running through her as she tried to make a joke of it. “His whore?”
And that chill had turned into a blazing heat when she saw Benson’s expression change. And when Benson finally explained the play to her, she knew for a fact that this would be the last one. It would be the last one because she wasn’t going to make it out alive.
“So I was right,” she told Benson when they were finally done and she got up to leave. “This is a goddamn suicide mission.”
And now, three days and one long flight later, as she stood there in red harem pants and a black tank top, lined up alongside nine other women dressed exactly the same, like this was an auction from the 1800s, Kathryn Krane looked down at herself and tried to hold back a strange sickness . . . strange because it was something she’d never felt before. Yes, there was that surge of adrenaline, but there was something else mixed in. Something dark, something deep, something . . . exciting. Goddamn exhilarating.
Oh, God, am I aroused, came the thought out of nowhere as she watched the tall, handsome Sheikh Hyder slowly walk down the line of women, stopping at each one and leaning in to say something. Already she could smell him, a clean musk of red oak and white sage that added to the strange aura that surrounded him. This man was different. This man was special. She could see it in the way he carried himself. The way he walked. The way his jaw was set tight and
determined. The way his green eyes were taking in everything around him with a lazy confidence.
Suddenly he turned and glanced at her, and the shock of the unexpected eye contact almost made her swoon. She blinked and looked away, biting her tongue in anger when she realized that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Was he already suspicious now? After all, this was a king who only left his kingdom ten days a year. And he spent those ten days in the Sheikdom of Habeetha, the city-state known as the Las Vegas of Arabia, home to the region’s most exclusive, well-regulated, above-board brothels. And this brothel was the most exclusive of the lot . . . this brothel in which Kathryn Krane stood, wearing red harem pants and a black tank top, her hair open and wild, her face painted and primed, her body stinking of so much perfume it made her sick one moment, wet the next.
“This Sheikh Hyder has some strange habits,” Benson had said. “Best we can tell, he’s never taken a woman back to his palace. He’s never been married, never been engaged, never even had any high-profile flings like so many Sheikhs do before settling down. No harems in his palace.”
“So he’s the mysterious, celibate monk-Sheikh?” Kathryn had asked, once again not sure if she was being sarcastic or not.
“Hardly,” Benson had said. “That ten-day vacation every year? He goes to Habeetha—Sin City, Arabia. He reserves the private penthouse in the most exclusive brothel. He asks for ten women, and—”
“Virgins, I presume?” Kathryn asked, rolling her eyes.
“Not exactly,” Benson had said, missing the sarcasm. “His only requirement is that they’ve never been . . . I mean, that they’ve never worked at a . . . never worked as . . .”
Kathryn raised an eyebrow. “You mean women who aren’t whores. Not until he pays them, at least.” She’d let out a breath. “Huh. That’s kind of interesting. And weird. So he takes this ten-day trip and has sex with ten different women who’ve never been prostitutes. Then he—”
Assassin for the Sheikh_A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel Page 2
