'Everything's in place,' said Evan, swinging his legs out on to the floor under the sheet, 'and I'm sure this garishly-civilized establishment can accommodate a wake-up call. “Rest is a weapon,” I read that once. Battles have been won and lost more through sleep and the lack of sleep than firepower… If you'll modestly look away, I'll grab a towel from what I assume is the largest bathroom in Bahrain over there, and find myself another bed.'
'We can't leave this room except to leave the house.'
'Why not?'
'Those are the arrangements. The Emir doesn't care for his cousin's young wife; therefore, the defilement caused by your person is restricted to her quarters. There are guards outside to enforce the order.'
'I don't believe this!'
'I didn't make up the rules, I simply got you a place to stay.'
His eyes closing, Kendrick rolled back on the bed and over to the far side, holding up the sheet to negotiate the distance. 'All right, Miss Cairo. Unless you want to keep slipping off that silly-looking couch or fall flat on your face on the floor, here's your siesta pad. Before you relent, two things: Don't snore, and make sure I'm up by eight-thirty.'
Twenty agonizing minutes later, unable to keep her eyes open and having fallen off the chaise-lounge twice, Khalehla crept into the bed.
The incredible happened, incredible because neither expected it, nor was it sought, nor had either remotely considered the possibility. Two frightened, exhausted people felt each other's presence and, more asleep than awake, drew closer, at first touching, then slowly, haltingly, reaching, finally holding, grasping at each other; swollen, parted lips seeking, searching, desperately needing the moist contact that promised release from their fears. They made love in a burst of frenzy—not as strangers imitating animals, but as a man and a woman who had communicated, and somehow knew that there had to be a touch of warmth, of comfort, in a world gone mad.
'I suppose I should say I'm sorry,' said Evan, his head on the pillows, his chest heaving as if he were swallowing his last breaths of air.
'Please don't,' said Khalehla quietly. 'I'm not sorry. Sometimes… sometimes we all need to be reminded that we're part of the human race. Weren't those your words?'
'In a different context, I think.'
'Not really. Not when you really think about it… Go to sleep, Evan Kendrick. I won't say your name again.'
'What does that mean?'
'Go to sleep.'
Three hours later, nearly to the minute, Khalehla got out of the bed, picked up her clothes from the white carpet and, glancing at the unconscious American, quietly dressed. She wrote a note on a sheet of royal stationery and placed it on the bedside table next to the phone. She then went to the dressing table, opened a drawer and removed Kendrick's possessions, including the gun, the knife, the watch and his money belt. She put everything on the floor by the bed except the half-used pack of American cigarettes, which she crushed and shoved into her pocket. She crossed to the door and silently let herself out.
'Ismah!' she whispered to the uniformed Bahrainian guard, telling him in a single word to heed her orders. 'He is to be awakened at precisely eight-thirty. I myself will contact this royal house to see that it is done. Do you understand?'
'Iwah, iwah!' replied the guard, stiff-necked and nodding his head in obedience.
'There may be a phone call for him, asking for “the visitor”. It's to be intercepted, the information written down, placed in an envelope and pushed under the door. I'll clear it with the authorities. They're just names and telephone numbers of people doing business with his firm. Understood?'
'Iwah, iwah!'
'Good.' Khalehla gently, pointedly placed Bahrainian diners worth fifty American dollars into the guard's pocket. He was hers for a lifetime, or at least for five hours. She walked down the ornate curved staircase to the enormous foyer and the carved front door, which was opened by another guard bowing obsequiously. She went out on the bustling pavement, where robes and dark business suits rushed in both directions, and looked for a public telephone. She saw one on the corner and moved quickly towards it.
