feet.
The thug could have another weapon, but that didn’t occur to Brent until after he began his charge. He cursed and was about to fire when the guy did something quite extraordinary:
He dropped his machine gun, raised his hands, and tore off his balaclava, revealing his short, black hair and chiseled jaw. If he was twenty-one, that was being generous.
“All right, don’t move,” Brent ordered in French.
The guy responded in French: “You’re meaningless to me.”
“You came here looking for her, didn’t you.”
As Brent neared the guy he suddenly raced to the wall—
“No, no, no!” screamed Brent as the thug simply threw himself off.
Brent darted to the wall and watched as the guy plummeted toward the mounds of weed-encrusted rocks below.
“Oh, man, Captain,” called Schleck over the network. “He’s on the ground. No movement yet.”
“Of course he’s not moving. He just took a god-damned nosedive off this castle.” Brent winced. Everybody back home had just heard him say that.
And he might as well have cued her. Major Dennison appeared in Brent’s HUD. “Captain, Voeckler reports from inside that Andrei Eskov was shot and killed. We’re not sure if the Green Brigade Transnational thought the Snow Maiden would be here, but I’m certain they were targeting her cousin for payback. You’re sitting in the middle of an international incident, and I want you out of there right now, lest the JSF be implicated in this mess.”
Brent was already heading toward the tower door. “Ma’am, you’ll get no argument from me. Would’ve been nice to take one of them alive — or at least question Eskov.”
“Just get to the airport.”
“Roger that.”
Brent shot out the lock on the tower door. Still locked. He fired again. Still locked. He swore. Dead bolt, maybe. “Schleck, I’m stuck up here. You see another way out?”
“Sir, the blueprints are available via your Cross-Com.”
“Schleck, I don’t want to think right now. Just find me a way out!”
FIVE
The Banyan Tree Seychelles was a five-star resort situated on the southwestern coastline of Mahe and offering breathtaking views of the Indian Ocean. Chopra had reserved one of the sixty pool villas perched on the hillsides. The brochure had described the rooms as combining contemporary, colonial, and plantation decor with sweeping ceilings; large, open verandas; and ethnic woven textiles, and every villa was equipped with all the modern conveniences.
Although Chopra hadn’t seen them yet, he’d read about the indigenous arts and crafts gallery, the spa, the health club, the library, the tennis courts, and the mountain-biking trails. Upon first glimpse, it was easy to see why this place was worthy of the young sheikh’s presence.
Within an hour of his arrival, Chopra met up with Harold Westerdale in the Banyan Tree’s La Varangue for an afternoon cocktail. The private investigator’s tropical-print shirt was soaked, his short, gray hair plastered to his head. The breeze had died off, and stepping onto the veranda was like stepping into a loaf of warm bread. Chopra took the bar stool beside the man and ordered a drink while staring out into the turquoise waters.
“It’s been a long search,” Chopra muttered.
“And we’ve had a lot of false leads,” the man grunted in return.
“But this time you’re certain.”
“I’ve already spoken to Warda. She knows you’re coming. She’s willing to meet with you.”
“You made contact?”
“I did.”
“You fool. They’ll run now. We’ll lose them.”
“No, she’s scheduled a meeting for later today.”
Chopra recoiled in confusion. “Why aren’t they scared? Why aren’t they running?
Westerdale pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dragged it across his brow. “I don’t know why they did this.”
“You should’ve asked.”
“It didn’t occur to me. I guess I was too shocked.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like this place. Bloody hot here! Maybe the heat has gotten to this family.”
Chopra shrugged.
Hussein Al Maktoum had three older sisters: Ara, Kalila, and Warda. Hussein’s father, it seemed, had kept having children until he’d produced a son. Warda was the oldest of the group, twenty-four now, and the woman with whom Westerdale had made contact. They, like their brother, had done a remarkable job of hiding themselves from the powers that be via a well-trained and well-paid staff.
So what had changed? Maybe they were running out of money? Or perhaps the young sheikh had just grown tired of hiding? That seemed more likely. Was he aware of the dangers of revealing himself, especially now? The Russians would want to capture him, influence him, take control of the oil. There was already a huge price on his head as the sole heir to Dubai.
The more Chopra thought about it, the more tense he became. “I need to meet with Warda right now.”
“They said no.”
“Because now they’re running, you fool. Why do I pay you? Where is she?”
“She said she would come down to my villa. We’ll wait for them. Do as they say. I trust them.”
Chopra stiffened in anger and glowered at his drink. He remembered an eighteen-year-old Warda arguing with her father over her extravagant spending on clothes and jewelry and her father’s grief over the massive phone bills she was incurring by calling friends all over the world, all the time, at all hours. Chopra smiled inwardly; the family had more money than they could ever spend in a thousand lifetimes, but her father had been trying to teach her responsibility, and it seemed that their world of lavish homes and exotic cars had made it nearly impossible to do that, unless he became much more of a disciplinarian. Nevertheless, Warda’s father was a push-over when it came to his daughters. They’d beg, and he’d give in.
Chopra took a sip of his drink and felt a little better.
Across the bar sat a lean woman with short, dark hair. She wore a low-cut sundress, and when he looked at her, she averted her gaze and checked her watch. Women that beautiful were always waiting for someone — a man twice as handsome as Chopra, no doubt. He sighed and took a longer pull on his drink.
It was nearly sundown when Warda arrived at Chopra’s villa. She was accompanied by a large black man whom she did not introduce and whose job was obvious. After exchanging a tearful hello, they sat on Chopra’s veranda and spoke for a few minutes about the war, the bombs, the loss of her parents, and Chopra expressed his most sincere condolences. The children had been smuggled out of the country during the first indication that missiles might be launched. Their parents had been trying to escape not long after, but the sheikh’s plane had been targeted by Iranian fighter jets and blown out of the sky.
Warda nodded and pulled back her long, black hair. She was a painfully beautiful woman, a flower who’d sprouted up from the heaps of debris that was now her country. “My father trusted you very much, which is why I agreed to this meeting. He once told me he loved you like a brother. He told me he had never met a man as smart or as loyal as you. He told me I should marry you.”
