Sasha Returns

by David Lender

  Sasha Returns

  SASHA DEL MIRA SERIES, #2

  A SHORT STORY BY

  David Lender

  Copyright

  Published by Brindle Publishing

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, companies, institutions, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph copyright © jayfish

  Copyright © 2012 by David T. Lender

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact dlender@davidlender.net.

  ISBN: 978-0-9853672-1-3

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also by David Lender

  About the Author

  Sasha Returns

  For Zac

  Also by David Lender

  Trojan Horse

  Trojan Horse is the first Sasha Del Mira story, a love story built around a thriller about a Wall Streeter who falls in love with an exotic spy and then teams up with her to stop a Muslim terrorist plot to cripple the world’s oil capacity.

  Purchase Trojan Horse

  The Gravy Train

  The Gravy Train is the story of a novice investment banker who helps an aging Chairman try to buy his company back from bankruptcy, pitted against ruthless Wall Street sharks who want to carve it up for themselves.

  Purchase The Gravy Train

  Bull Street

  Bull Street is the story of a naïve, young Wall Streeter who gives a jaded billionaire the chance for redemption, as they team up to bring down an insider trading ring before they wind up in jail or dead.

  Purchase Bull Street

  Vaccine Nation

  Vaccine Nation is the story of an award-winning documentary filmmaker who is handed whistleblower evidence regarding the national vaccination program and then races to expose it before a megalomaniacal drug company CEO can have her killed.

  Purchase Vaccine Nation

  Arab Summer

  Arab Summer is the third installment in the Sasha Del Mira series, a sequel to Trojan Horse. Sasha and Daniel have married and retired, living in Switzerland. When Daniel is murdered, Sasha comes out of retirement to avenge his death and help Tom Goddard and the CIA stop an Islamic fundamentalist plan to topple the Saudi regime and use its oil riches to hold the West hostage.

  Purchase Arab Summer

  Rudiger

  A SHORT STORY

  Rudiger is the story of a fugitive financier living under an alias in the Caribbean who enlists the help of a lawyer from the US Attorney’s Office to retrieve $50 million in bearer bonds from a safe deposit box in New York.

  Purchase Rudiger

  About the Author

  David Lender is the bestselling author of thrillers based on his over 25-year career as a Wall Street investment banker. He draws on an insider’s knowledge from his career in mergers and acquisitions with Merrill Lynch, Rothschild and Bank of America for the international settings, obsessively driven personalities and real-world financial intrigues of his novels. His characters range from David Baldacci–like corporate power brokers to Elmore Leonard–esque misfits and scam artists. His plots reveal the egos and ruthlessness that motivate the players in the business world, as well as the inner workings of the most powerful of our financial institutions and corporations. More background on David and his writing can be found at www.davidlender.net.

  Sasha Returns

  Twenty-two years ago. Sasha awoke to a sound she thought came from the hallway. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 8:00 p.m. She’d gone to bed ridiculously early, an hour ago, exhausted, having gotten no sleep the previous night. No wonder; she could still hardly believe what had happened, what she’d done. She climbed out of bed and walked to the latticed window that overlooked the courtyard in the center of the women’s quarters. This side of the Royal Palace was unfamiliar to her: smaller rooms for the less favored wives or concubines of the Saudi royal family. Not territory she’d seen in her three years here as the “favorite,” the Friday night concubine to Ibrahim, the eldest son of Prince Yassar, cousin to King Abad and the most powerful member of Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers.

  Now, after the events of the last 24 hours, this room was more a hideout than living quarters, a way-station until Yassar figured out what to do with her. What to do with her after she’d pointed a 9mm Beretta Cheetah, called Ibrahim, “Pig,” and shot him dead in a bed still thick with the scent from their sexual exertions.

  At the window, Sasha’s hair tickled the base of her spine as it swished from the stream of air from the overhead air-conditioning vent. She heard a dull thud and then a motor winding down, realized the air-conditioning cut off. She turned and saw the digital readout on the clock was out. Odd. She’d never experienced a power outage at the Royal Palace before. When she looked back out onto the courtyard, she saw the landscape lights still illuminated, the lights in the latticed windows on the other side of the women’s quarters still lit. She glanced back to see a rectangle of light spewing into the room from under the door.

  Now she felt rising alarm. Move. She darted across the room to the door, took position beside it and listened. Nothing. She reached for the door handle. It wouldn’t budge. Locked from the outside? That must have been the sound that awakened her. She pressed her back flat against the wall. Think. What now?

  She got her answer when the door flew open, light from the hall blazing into the room. The door slammed into the wall with a crash and three men dressed in black rushed in, the first with a gun in his hand.

  Sasha’s muscles tensed, ready. She inhaled, held it, felt her heart thumping. She lunged, launched a kidney kick with all her force into the last man. “Ahhh!” he yelled, and collapsed. Sasha went at the second man, who turned as she hit him flush in the chest with a front kick and he went down. She faced the first man, who now held the gun outstretched in his hand. She heard a pop, felt a stab of pain in her chest, and then everything went black.

  #

  Sasha awakened with a piercing headache, her mind fuzzy. She tried to reach up to rub the pain in the center of her chest and realized her hands were bound in front of her. She took stock of her surroundings: lying on her side on something cushioned, feeling a rocking motion. Riding in a car. Her mouth tasted like metal and garlic. Sedative dart.

  Who was behind this? It had to be Nibmar, the first of Yassar’s four wives and Ibrahim’s mother. Who else could have the access and power within the Royal Palace to do this? Or motive? Yes. Nibmar. Sasha imagined Nibmar’s eyes as on the first day she met her. Sasha had seen the steel in them as Nibmar had ordered Sasha to stand at attention in front of her, then had her aides strip Sasha naked. Nibmar stood like a little Napoleon in front of Sasha in a Chanel dress, her prominent nose and pointed chin elevated. Her dark Arab skin was creamy, her daily facials evident. Her British-tutored English was refined on her tongue. The haughty Valide Sultana, ruler of the women’s quarters in the Royal Palace, asserting herself. A Saudi mother willing to do anything to assure the comfort and pleasure of her fine Saudi sons. Sasha was now sure those cold eyes showed blood hatred.

  She passed out again.

  This time when she came to she felt cold. They must be heading into the desert far from Riyadh. She looked around. The car was driving fast. She could see a
glow, probably from the dashboard instrument panel. She thought she might be in a large SUV, back in the third seat. Her head was clearer now, and she glanced to the side, not wanting to move to allow anyone to know she was awake. In the reflection of the window she saw a man in the seat in front of her, another reflected in the window on the other side. She rolled her head an inch at a time, saw a third man in the middle of the second seat. Probably two in the front. Five to one. And she was half out of it, only starting to get her wits back. But she had the element of surprise. Still, that hardly evened the odds. She checked the binding on her hands. Plastic electrical connector straps, almost impossible to cut without a knife or tools. She felt groggy but refused to let herself give in to sleep again.

  Sasha moved her feet, finding they weren’t bound. They must have been in a hurry when moving her from the Royal Palace to have neglected that. She listened; no one was talking. She felt with her hands, and sensed the coarse fabric of an abaya, the black robe that Saudi women wore in public in Saudi Arabia. She inched her hands up to her face, put the plastic strap in her mouth and started gnawing with her front teeth. At first she thought it was hopeless, but realized soon that she was making progress. The plastic was thick and tough, but chewing through it was doable.

  Now she heard someone speaking in Arabic.

  “How much farther,” a voice said.

  A laugh.

  Another voice, “Kareem, you donkey, you sound like my son. ‘When will we get there, papa?’”

  More laughs.

  Then a female voice, harsh, said, “Stop your foolishness!” It was Nibmar. “We are a half hour away. Prepare yourselves.”

  Another voice from the front, calmer, “Check your weapons, but keep your cool. We expect no problems, but you must be on your guard.” Ali’s voice. Nibmar’s only other child, a son two years younger than Ibrahim, always in his older brother’s shadow, a nothing.

  Sasha now chewed furiously on the plastic binding strip.

  Nibmar said, “When we arrive I will do the talking. We will meet with the man called Khalid in northeastern Buraida at a building next to a mosque he is hiding in. The sheik will not be present. Nor will his right hand men, Abdul and Waleed, with whom we previously dealt. We understand the sheik has fled to the Yemen, taking Abdul and Waleed with him, following an attempt on the sheik’s life and the assassinations of many of his other top lieutenants last night. Khalid has been elevated in the al-Mujari’s chain of command and will direct its activities from their headquarters in Buraida while the sheik, Abdul and Waleed are absent. As such we are dealing with someone who can make decisions. Expect Khalid to be surrounded by heavily armed guards. No mistakes, no sudden movements, or you’ll be dead.” She paused, as if for emphasis. “Remember, you knew the dangers involved when you agreed to this. Don’t fail. I do not relish the prospect of my son or me being killed in the crossfire if one of you panics. After we hand over the whore, you will wait while Ali and I discuss our business with Khalid.”

  One of the men asked, “What if we can’t deliver the woman? Will you still meet with him?”

  “What are you talking about?” Nibmar said, sounding impatient.

  “What if the woman is dead?”

  Nibmar said, “Even in that event we’ll have our meeting. The whore is not essential to our business, only a sweetener for his men and him to enjoy before they dispose of her. Any more questions?”

  No one responded.

  “Very well. After we conduct our business, we return directly to Riyadh and you forget this ever happened, or bear the consequences. The other half of your money will be delivered in cash to your homes tomorrow. We will contact you when we need your services again.”

  Sasha felt her stomach involuntarily tighten. She didn’t know Khalid, but had met Abdul and Waleed many times. The young fools who pumped Ibrahim full of their fundamentalist Islamic rhetoric for years, ultimately recruiting him to the terrorist organization, al-Mujari. And Nibmar doing some secret business with them, and now with this new man, Khalid. It seemed inconceivable, given the al-Mujari’s stated goal of toppling the Saudi royal regime. Sasha’s heart started pounding. What was going on?

  She feared it had something to do with Yassar, that he was still in danger. That thought made her cringe. Since he’d brought her here from Switzerland at 16 years old to become the concubine—”companion,” as Yassar had put it—to Ibrahim, she’d developed a father-daughter bond with Yassar.

  It was an unlikely transition after the betrayal she’d felt at the hands of a man she’d come to trust as a confidant over the many years he’d visited her guardian’s estate. A man who listened and offered the wisdom of his gentle soul when she asked for advice, instead of preaching to her as if she was a child.

  The same man she’d sat with, rigid with fear and anger, on a Saudi royal family Learjet headed to Riyadh that day three years ago. Sasha had looked Yassar in the eye across the aisle on the Learjet, pleading with her eyes, then finally speaking up, demanding, “Why?”

  He’d looked up from his Koran and stared back in silence, his drooping eyes blinking, his demeanor calm as ever.

  Now Sasha thought of the subsequent months, her anger at Yassar’s betrayal subsiding until she was ready to accept Yassar back into her heart. He again became a steadying presence in her life, schooling her in Islam, helping her with her Arabic, unlocking for her the mysteries of Saudi culture.

  She reflected on last night. She’d done the unthinkable—killed Ibrahim—then after escaping, returned to Yassar and explained, played the tape Tom, her CIA handler, had given her in which Ibrahim agreed to do the unthinkable himself—kill Yassar and be installed by the al-Mujari as their puppet ruler after they’d overthrown the Saudi regime. Her ensuing exchange with Yassar was heated, cathartic, ending in reconciliation and a sense of fulfillment that made everything that had gone before in her life seem just.

  Afterwards, Yassar concealed Sasha beneath a traditional black abaya and hijav veil and headscarf, then brought her to the room in the women’s quarters. They took seats across from each other in the sitting area, Yassar’s graying head hanging, anguish still showing on his face. They remained silent for a few minutes, both emotionally exhausted.

  Finally he looked up and said, “I’m not as blind as I have appeared, my dear.”

  Sasha saw tears welled in his eyes; it brought a lump to her throat. She waited for Yassar to continue, allowed him the space to speak in his own time.

  “You remember our little pact?”

  Sasha nodded.

  “You were to have been Ibraham’s gyroscope, his ethical rudder—”

  The words burned in Sasha’s heart.

  “—and I was to listen to you, adapt to what was happening and intervene when necessary. Well, you did your part, but I failed with mine.”

  Tears came to Sasha’s eyes. She started to rise from her chair to go to him, but he put his hand out to stop her.

  “Even though it didn’t seem like it, I was listening, I did see it when Abdul and Waleed attempted to pollute his mind. I made a conscious decision to stand back, to rely upon the values I had instilled in him with his Muslim upbringing, with the example of my loyalty to Saudi Arabia, and the lessons of the scriptures I had taught him as guides to keep him on the righteous path.”

  Sasha opened her mouth to tell him not to torment himself, but she was too choked with emotion for words.

  “I made that decision out of love for Ibrahim as his father. Just as I did when he was a child learning to walk, I knew that his new freedom would allow him to take his first steps into his own life, into independence. I relied upon Ibrahim to make the right choices, knowing that I must accept the consequences if he made the wrong ones.”

  “You couldn’t have foreseen that the al-Mujari’s fanatical Shiite message could so overpower Ibrahim. Could twist him against his own father.”

  “With a father’s love, I had to accept that outcome as a possibility without withdrawin
g that love. I had to be steadfast in my belief in Ibrahim, that I had taught him well, that he would see the al-Mujari’s message as designed to set Muslim brother against brother, and in turn against any unenlightened nonbelievers, a perversion of all we Muslims stand for, both Sunnis and Shiites.”

  With that Yassar stood up. He looked out the window up at the sky, as if seeking guidance. After a moment he turned to Sasha and said, “I failed. He made the wrong choice. You made the right one and intervened. And now I must figure out how to assure your safety.”

  “Nibmar,” Sasha said. “She’ll never understand, never forgive.”

  “Perhaps not,” Yassar said, thumbing an eyebrow. “But that is a matter for me to consider after I’ve had some sleep.” He walked to her, leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Until tomorrow,” he said, and left the room.

  Now, rocking with the motion of the vehicle, Sasha wondered what Yassar would do when he awakened to the realization she was gone.

  Sasha concentrated. She had a half-hour to chew through the plastic binding. As she worked her teeth, she worked her situation over in her mind. The vehicle had three seats, likely a civilian van or some form of military vehicle. Whatever it was, it must have a rear door that she could open from the inside. That would be her escape route.

  A moment later the vehicle slowed, felt like it was exiting the highway, then slowed more. The vehicle stopped, turned and accelerated again, moving slower than on the highway, bumping on an uneven side road. She raised her hands to her mouth and started grinding at the bonds again, now making progress.