Bad Turn

by Zoe Sharp

I slammed the door shut, took a long breath, and walked forwards. The immediate shouts of denial and rage I’d been expecting did not come. I tried to keep my breathing steady, held my hands out to my sides where they could see them. The sleeves of the jacket rode up enough for the watch to be visible, too. I was hoping they’d take in the obvious signs and ignore the fact I didn’t look like anyone’s idea of wife to a billionaire.

  As I walked towards them, I saw their gaze begin to shift. I stopped. Their eyes were back on me instantly. The man with the assault rifle was the one doing all the talking. He was tall, with long dark hair, loosely tied back, that looked almost glossy. His beard and moustache were neatly trimmed. The other man was younger and clean-shaven. The RPG resting on his shoulder meant I couldn’t see his face clearly.

  “Who are you?” I demanded, putting on my best American accent. Good enough to fool non-native speakers, if not for long. “What do you want?”

  “Shut up and keep walking,” the man with the M4 said.

  I moved forwards again. The RPG, I saw now, was a Russian model. Old, but serviceable. It claimed a range of up to five hundred metres, but half the time you’d be lucky to hit anything at that distance, especially if the target was moving. A stationary helicopter, less than a hundred metres away, however, was pretty much a dead cert.

  The projectile had a no-delay detonator at the tip, which was normally covered by a safety cap. Otherwise, if you dropped it, or tripped, it was game over. The man holding the RPG had removed the safety cap and had his forefinger wrapped around the trigger. His aim had not wavered from the Sikorsky. There was an air of quivering excitement about him, as though he’d been given a fine new toy and couldn’t wait to play with it.

  Both men wore dark civilian clothing but carried military weapons. I didn’t recognise either. There was a chance they might have been part of the crew who made the attempt on Helena back on that rural road in New Jersey, but I’d no way to know for sure. The only one who’d got a look at me was dead. Certainly, neither man had posed as a waiter at the restaurant where the Kincaids attempted to celebrate their anniversary.

  I kept my steps slow, as if reluctant. Rather, I was trying to give Helena a chance to get clear and the others to fight their way through.

  As I edged closer, hands still outspread, the guy with the assault rifle said, “OK, do it.”

  I didn’t need to be told who he was talking to. I stepped sideways, into the RPG’s line of fire. The man moved left to open up a clear line to his target. I mirrored him. He began swearing at me in a language I didn’t understand but didn’t need to.

  The flight crew of the Sikorsky took the hint. I heard the doors clang open to the airframe as they bailed out and ran, stumbling, for the treeline.

  The man with the M4 dodged forwards and hit me with the stock of the gun. I’d been too focused on the RPG to mount a worthwhile defence. The blow smacked along the side of my jaw and sent me spinning, my vision crackling with stars.

  As soon as I was out of his way, the guy with the RPG fired. I felt the flare of gases blast across me. A second later, the Sikorsky exploded with a concussive whump and a fireball that erupted above the trees and sent a pall of black smoke into that clear blue sky.

  34

  The two men zip-tied my hands behind my back and hooded me. I acted as I hoped Helena would have done—scared but dignified.

  They hustled me from the site of the burning Sikorsky to some kind of small utility vehicle nearby. We drove only a short distance—the island wasn’t big enough to go far unless we did laps. I stumbled awkwardly as I was dragged across rocks and shingle, then dumped into the bottom of a boat. The ride over the lake was loud and rough enough for me to assume it was fast. I could still hear gunfire, growing fainter, as the island fell away behind us.

  I tried asking the classic question, “Where are you taking me?” only because it was expected. I got the stock of the M4 in my kidneys for doing so. After that, I kept quiet.

  It didn’t take long to reach the lakeshore. The island was towards the northeast corner of Lago Trasimeno, but I had no sense of where we’d landed. The two men were joined by others. They transferred me to the back of another vehicle, larger this time, and more luxurious. I could smell air freshener or carpet shampoo—the kind of slightly chemical odour you get in freshly valeted rental cars. I hoped that wasn’t to stop me picking up trace evidence of where I’d been.

  The engine gunned. It was something powerful and quiet. I guessed at a limo, by the space between the front and rear seats. They shoved me onto the floor and leaned what felt like the barrel of the assault rifle into my ribs to keep me there.

  As soon as we were moving, one of the men made a phone call. He hit a stored number and spoke only to say, in thickly accented English, “We have collected the package. We will meet as arranged.”

  Apart from that, none of them spoke, to each other or to me.

  I lay, half propped up against the rear seat, half on the floor, and concentrated on keeping my breathing steady, on trying to relax and be patient. Back when I used to eke out a living teaching self-defence, one of the things I had stressed to my students was to avoid at all costs being immobilised and taken from the point of abduction to a secondary location of their attacker’s choosing. That the risk doubled if they allowed that to happen. I told them to do everything they could to fight back, to attract attention, to get free. And yet, here I was, breaking all my own rules.

  But the further away we got from the island, the further away they got from Helena, and protecting my principal was my main—my only—priority.

  What came next, I’d deal with when I had to.

  I wasn’t too worried about the zip-ties. They were tight, but I wasn’t in danger of losing feeling in my hands unless I struggled. I knew I could get out of them when I needed to. No point in doing so yet, when all they’d do was cuff me with something I might not be able to deal with.

  Still, I could feel the sweat soaking into my shirt, trickling between my shoulder blades and around my waistband. My heart caused the blood to thunder in my ears. Attempting to rationalise the dangers was one thing. Ignoring their effects on my subconscious was quite another.

  The realisation made me angry and I clung to that, grateful for it.

  We drove for some distance on a mixture of roads from slow and twisting to long, open stretches. I reckoned we’d been travelling for between half an hour and three-quarters when the vehicle slowed almost to a halt and turned sharply off the road. I could tell by the change in sound that we were now inside a building. The exhaust note reverberated against the walls, rumbling more loudly as the doors rolled shut behind us.

  They dragged me out and up a couple of steps. Without my hands for balance, I tripped and almost fell. They hauled me up by my arms, their hands rough. I clenched my jaw hard under the hood, biting back the instinctive knot of panic that still rose up from deep in my psyche at having them touch me. I willed myself to be calm, not to lash out. There would be a time for that. It wasn’t now.

  The floor was hard underfoot, either wood or tile, and echoed with our footsteps as they hustled me through the building. Even through the hood, I could smell wax polish. So, a house or office rather than somewhere industrial.

  The hand on my arm twisted and pushed. I braced myself for a fall, only to land on something soft that gave under me. A sofa, I realised as my bound hands came into contact with what felt like velvet.

  “Stay!” someone ordered, as you would a dog. Their footsteps retreated. A door closed and there came the distinct sound of a key turning in a lock.

  I pushed myself further upright, flexing my arms to test the tie-wrap fully for the first time. No weakness there.

  Then, suddenly, I stilled.

  There’s something different about the atmosphere in an enclosed space like a room when there are two people in it. Some minute change in the vibrations, in the rhythm of your own breath. The echo of a heartbeat not my own.


  Either way, I could tell I was not alone.

  “Are you going to sit there in silence?” I demanded, remembering to maintain the accent. I pushed a touch of arrogance into my voice that I hoped would make me sound like an entitled daughter who’d grown into an equally entitled wife. “Or are you going to introduce yourself?”

  If I was wrong about my fellow occupant and he or she was no more than a figment of my over-stretched imagination, well, there would be no-one there to laugh at my mistake.

  But I heard a definite noise, then. A slither of clothing, perhaps arms unfolding, or chair upholstery resettling as weight was lifted from it.

  And I knew that I had not been mistaken.

  “You have nothing to say? I’m disappointed.” I paused. “And I’m starting to get bored.”

  No doubt about the sound this time. A grunt, or was it a stifled chuckle? Then slow footsteps, a measured tread.

  The hood came off without warning. Static plastered my hair to my face. I shook my head, blew the hair out of my eyes with a snort like one of Helena’s horses. The sudden light dazzled me and it took a moment to adjust.

  The man in front of me was the bearded man I’d last seen ordering the destruction of the helicopter without a second thought, it seemed, for the people still inside.

  He looked down at me, looming. I stared back up, refusing to play this game of intimidation by the rules. He was still in the dark clothing he’d worn on the island, perhaps further aiming to scare me. To scare Helena… I wondered briefly if it would have worked.

  “Mrs Kincaid,” he said, icily polite. “We have not, as you say, been introduced, but I am a long-time…associate of your family. My name is Khalid Hamzeh. I feel we know each other already.”

  A Syrian name.

  “Mr Hamzeh,” I responded, matching him tone for tone. “I’d offer to shake your hand but”—a shrug—“I find I don’t wish to.”

  He smiled then, almost in spite of himself, half-covered it by strolling to the armchair opposite. I made a quick visual catalogue of my surroundings in the time it took him to sit down. We were in a large room with an open fireplace at one end, surrounded by sofas, and a long formal dining table at the other. Everything was in shades of cream or white. It looked put together but not lived in. An upscale holiday let, perhaps, rather than someone’s home.

  “Why am I here?” I demanded then, still keeping that slightly imperious note in my voice that Helena carried so well. “What can you possibly hope to gain by this?”

  “At present? You are here as…insurance,” Hamzeh said. “And to ensure a little co-operation on the part of your husband.”

  “You must be aware that taking me will not make Eric more co-operative.”

  “Perhaps not, but he will at least be prepared to listen to what we have to say. Your presence will ensure we are able to discuss this matter in a…civilised manner.”

  I lifted my hands as much as I was able, behind my back. “You call this civilised?”

  “I hope you will forgive me if I leave things as they are, for the moment,” he said gravely. “I am not, by nature, a man who trusts easily. Particularly with those who have already shown themselves to be unworthy of that trust.”

  “Really?” I allowed my voice to drawl. “Well, trust is something that works both ways. And you have demonstrated quite clearly that you are not to be trusted.”

  He sat back, crossed his legs with a grace that was disconcerting. “You betray us and then seek to blame us for that betrayal?”

  I had the feeling of stepping out onto a crumbling ledge, of inching forward and expecting the path to disintegrate beneath my feet at any moment. I’d never been so unsure of my ground.

  “Betrayal is a strong word. Is that truly what my…husband, my father, have done?” It was hard to think of Kincaid and Orosco in those terms, much less to speak it, but if Hamzeh noticed any hesitation, he let it pass.

  “When someone gives me their word, I expect them to keep it, with or without a written contract. Anything else is a betrayal.”

  “Really?” I said, affecting a careless tone. “I was given to believe it was purely business.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You were ‘given to believe’?” he echoed sharply. “You feign ignorance, when I was given to believe that American women were so much more involved in the business of their husbands—mere housewives no longer. Not so?”

  What did I say to that? There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t damn me—in his eyes as much as my own.

  “Not always,” I said at last, and didn’t like the bitter taste the words left in my mouth.

  He rose abruptly from his chair and though he turned away from me before he spoke, I heard the disdain in his voice, even so.

  “How can an intelligent woman be so wilfully blind to the means behind the food that is put onto her table, or the clothes onto her body, or the roof over her head?”

  It was Helena’s life he described but I felt honour-bound to defend it.

  “I tried to get out from under,” I said steadily. “I failed.”

  “So now you simply accept your luxurious confinement, is that so?” he asked, stepping closer. “Like a caged bird content to sing for her supper. And what tune do you sing, Mrs Kincaid?”

  He reached out and touched my cheek with the backs of his fingers, eyes fixed on mine as he softly swiped the pad of his thumb across my lips.

  With a snarl, I snapped at him with my teeth, missed his flesh by a whisker.

  He took a hurried step back in reflex. A surprised bark of laughter left him when I might have expected a back-hander across the face instead.

  “I hoped to charm you into persuading your husband to reconsider his decision,” he admitted, rueful now. “But I do not suppose my efforts would have succeeded.”

  “No. They wouldn’t.”

  “A pity.” His voice was casual but something in his face gave away a fleeting intensity.

  “Why is this so important to you? Why not just find another supplier—one who is only too willing to accept your business?”

  He shook his head, a little smile playing around his lips as if amused by this display of naiveté on my part.

  “If it was a matter of nothing more than profit and loss, there was no reason for your husband to withdraw from our arrangement. It must have been a profitable exercise for him,” he said. “But…my country has become increasingly isolated. Doors that once were open to us are now closed.”

  “Hardly surprising, when you treat your own people so appallingly. Human rights are an abstract concept to you, aren’t they?”

  “You may not like our leader,” Hamzeh said. “You may not approve of his…actions, on occasion, but he keeps us strong.”

  “It is not a sign of strength to massacre and gas your own people.”

  “He keeps my country together,” he bit out. “You Americans and your allies! You play at being the world’s policemen, but you interfere in situations about which you know nothing—less than nothing. And chaos and death follow. Look at what has happened to Iraq. Look at Libya. And ask yourself, how much blood is on your hands?”

  I kept my head up, met his gaze without flinching, however much I recognised more than a grain of truth in his words. “Less, I suspect, than is on yours.”

  He waved a hand, dismissive. “In personal terms, perhaps. But here we both represent something bigger.”

  “I don’t represent anything,” I argued. “Today, you were prepared to kill my bodyguard, my pilots, and for what?”

  “Leaving behind no helicopter and no-one to fly it was a tactical decision. One your father, or your husband, would have made, also.”

  “I disagree.”

  His mouth twisted. “You have a sentimental view—it is a woman’s weakness.”

  “Really?” I let my voice drawl. “I’ve always found a certain level of compassion inspires greater loyalty, but no doubt you know your own people best.”

  “And yet your people,
” he returned, “allowed you to be taken without a fight, in order to save their own skin.”

  That was a little too close for comfort. Best not to go down that road.

  “Perhaps they know I’m a survivor.”

  “Perhaps so.” He nodded, as if his argument had just been won, pulled back his sleeve, revealing a flash of a battered stainless steel wristwatch. “I must leave you, Mrs Kincaid. It has been…instructive. You are certainly not as I expected.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes… I expected more of the rose, perhaps, and less of the thorns.”

  “Well, I guess you can’t have one without the other.”

  He moved to the door, knocked on it for whoever was outside to unlock it. While they did so he paused and glanced back, frowning. “I have spoken to your father often. I did not think his daughter would sound so…British.”

  Damn! I should have known I couldn’t keep up an American accent for long.

  But for that, at least, I could fall back on the truth.

  “Oh, yes,” I said airily. “I had an English nanny.”

  35

  I waited a second after the door closed behind him, then rolled onto my back on the cushions of the sofa, wriggling my hands under my backside and tucking my feet through so now at least my arms were in front of me.

  I got to my feet, stepping carefully to avoid making any noise on the polished tile, and prowled the room, looking for anything with a sharp edge or a point. They hadn’t even left me a pen. Scanning, I saw a row of three metal candlesticks on the mantelpiece. I lifted one down and dumped the chunky candle it supported into the fireplace. Sure enough, there was a short metal spike that held the candle in place. I moved to the sofa, wedged the candlestick between my knees and shoved the spike into the plastic ratchet mechanism that held the zip-ties closed. It took a couple of clumsy attempts before I was able to push the locking tab open and loosen the tie enough to slip my hands out.

  I rubbed my wrists as I looked around for anything else I could use as a slightly more discreet weapon. In a drawer of a side table I found an old-fashioned corkscrew. The T of the handle fitted neatly into my palm leaving maybe an inch and a half of curly metal protruding. Not perfect, but it would do. If I could get close enough to somebody, I knew I could blind, maim, or kill them with this. It was a comforting thought.