her cigarette in the sand. “It must be very strange for you.”
“What’s that?”
“An all-American girl like you, working for Zizi al-Bakari.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Nadia, but I’m hardly an all-American girl. I spent most of my childhood in Europe. When I went back to America to go to college, I felt terribly out of place. It took me a long time to adjust.”
“It doesn’t bother you working for a Saudi?”
“Why should it?”
“Because many people in your country blame us for the attacks on 9/11.”
“I don’t happen to be one of them,” Sarah said, then she recited the lines that Gabriel had given her in Surrey. “Osama chose Saudis to carry out the attacks so he could drive a wedge between your country and ours. He’s declared war on the House of Saud as well as America. We’re allies in the fight against al-Qaeda, not adversaries.”
“The Saudi intelligence services have warned my father repeatedly that he is a target of the terrorists because of his close relationship with the Royal Family. That’s why we have such stringent security.” She gestured toward the bodyguards. “That’s why we have to bring gorillas to the beach instead of two nice-looking boys.”
She rolled over onto her stomach, exposing her back to the warm sun. Sarah closed her eyes and drifted into a hazy dream-filled sleep. She woke an hour later to find their once-secluded spot surrounded by other people. Rafiq and Sharuki were now seated directly behind them. Nadia appeared to be sleeping. “I’m hot,” she murmured to the bodyguards. “I’m going for a swim.” When Rafiq started to get to his feet, Sarah motioned for him to stay. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
She walked slowly into the water, until the waves began breaking over her waist, then plunged beneath the surface and kicked hard several times until she was past the rough surf. When she broke through the surface again, Yaakov was floating next to her.
“How long are you planning to stay in Saint Bart’s?”
“I don’t know. They never tell me anything.”
“Are you safe?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“Have you seen anyone who could be bin Shafiq?”
She shook her head.
“We’re here with you, Sarah. All of us. Now swim away from me and don’t look back. If they ask about me, tell them I was flirting with you.”
And with that he disappeared beneath the surface and was gone. Sarah went back to the beach and laid down on a towel next to Nadia.
“Who was that man you were talking to?” she asked.
Sarah felt her heart give a sideways lurch. She managed to answer calmly. “I don’t know,” she said, “but he was hitting on me right in front of his girlfriend.”
“What do you expect? He’s a Jew.”
“How can you tell?”
“Trust me, I can tell. Never talk to strangers, Sarah. Especially Jews.”
SARAH WAS in her cabin dressing for dinner when she heard the whine of the Sikorsky’s engine. She fastened the pearls around her neck and hurried up to the afterdeck, where she found Zizi seated on a couch in the cool evening air, dressed in a pair of fashionably cut faded blue jeans and a white pullover. “We’re going to the island for dinner tonight,” he said. “Nadia and I are taking the last helicopter. You’ll come with us.”
They boarded the Sikorsky twenty minutes later. As they floated over the harbor, the lights of Gustavia glowed softly against the gathering darkness. They passed over the ridge of steep hills behind the port and descended toward the airfield, where the others were waiting at the end of the tarmac, clustered around a convoy of gleaming black Toyota Land Cruisers.
With Zizi safely in place, the convoy set out toward the airport exit. On the opposite side of the road, in the parking lot of the island’s main shopping center, Sarah briefly glimpsed Yossi and Rimona sitting astride a motor scooter. She leaned forward and looked over at Zizi, who was seated next to his daughter.
“Where are we going?”
“We’ve commandeered a restaurant in Gustavia for dinner. But first we’re going to a villa on the other side of the island for drinks.”
“Have you commandeered the villa, too?”
Zizi laughed. “Actually it’s being rented by a business associate of ours.”
A cell phone shrieked. It was answered on the first ring by Hassan, who handed it to Zizi after ascertaining the identity of the caller. Sarah looked out her window. They were speeding now along the Baie de Saint-Jean. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the headlights of the last Land Cruiser trailing close behind them. An image formed in her mind: Yossi at the helm of his scooter, with Rimona clinging to his waist. She dropped the image into an imaginary shredder and made it go away.
The convoy slowed suddenly as they entered the busy little beach town of Saint-Jean. There were shops and restaurants on both sides of the narrow road and sunburned pedestrians weaving haphazardly through the sluggish traffic. Jean-Michel swore softly as a man and a woman on a motorbike squirted past through a narrow opening in the traffic jam.
On the other side of the village the traffic thinned suddenly, and the road climbed the cliffs along the edge of the bay. They rounded a hairpin turn and for an instant the sea lay below them, mercury-colored in the light of the newly risen moon. The next town was Lorient, less glamorous than Saint-Jean and far less crowded: a tidy shopping center, a shuttered gas station, a beauty salon that served local women, a burger stand that catered to shirtless boys who rode motorcycles. Seated alone at a chrome-topped table, dressed in khaki shorts and sandals, was Gabriel.
Zizi closed his cell phone with a loud snap and handed it over his shoulder without looking to Hassan. Nadia was holding a strand of her own hair and inspecting the ends for damage. “There’s a decent nightclub in Gustavia,” she said absently. “Maybe we can go dancing after dinner.” Sarah made no reply and looked out the window again. They passed a cemetery with aboveground gravesites and started up a steep hill. Jean-Michel down-shifted and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Halfway up the grade the road bent sharply to the left. As the Land Cruiser swerved, Sarah was thrust against Nadia’s body. Her bare skin felt feverish from the sun.
A moment later they were heading onto a narrow windswept point. Near the end of the point the convoy slowed suddenly and turned through a security gate, into the forecourt of a large white villa ablaze with light. Sarah glanced over her shoulder as the iron gate began to close automatically. A motor scooter sped past, ridden by a man with khaki shorts and sandals, then disappeared. The door of the Land Cruiser opened. Sarah climbed out.
HE STOOD in the entranceway, next to a fair-haired woman of early middle age, and greeted each member of Zizi’s large entourage as they came filing up the flagstone steps. He was tall, with the broad square shoulders of a swimmer and narrow hips. His hair was dark and tightly curled. He wore a pale-blue Lacoste sweater and white trousers. The sleeves of the sweater were pulled down to his wrists, and his right hand was thrust into his pocket. Zizi took Sarah by the arm and made the introduction.
“This is Sarah Bancroft, the new chief of my art department. Sarah, this is Alain al-Nasser. Alain runs a venture capital firm for us in Montreal.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Sarah.”
Fluent English, lightly accented. Hand firmly in the pocket. He nodded at the woman.
“My wife, Sophie.”
“
The woman extended her hand. Sarah shook it, then held out her own hand to Alain al-Nasser, but he looked quickly away and threw his arms elaborately around Wazir bin Talal. Sarah went inside the villa. It was large and airy with one side open to a large outdoor terrace. There was a turquoise swimming pool, and beyond the pool only the darkening sea. A table had been laid with drinks and snacks. Sarah searched in vain for a bottle of wine and settled for papaya juice instead.
