Once in Paris (14 page)

She frowned slightly at his tone. “I felt rather sorry for him, if you must know.”

His eyes looked like black splinters of heat. “How interesting. Then we married for no real purpose, I gather?”

She'd almost forgotten that. They had married to save her from Sabon, who'd turned out to be no threat to her or any other woman, and they'd consummated the relationship for the same reason. Annulment was strictly out now unless they both wanted to lie about the intimacy of their relationship. It would take a divorce, and that would take time.

She looked into Pierce's black eyes and blushed, seeing all over again the heat and passion of his expression in that most intimate of encounters.

He averted his own gaze. He didn't want to
remember. He was going to put the whole episode behind him. They'd go home, stop Brauer and his little plot, and then they'd get a divorce, quietly, and Brianne would go to college. It would be easy. Right now, he had to put first things first.

“We need to move,” Pierce told his security chief.

All three of them wore the flowing garments and turbans. In the guise, Brianne looked amazingly like a young boy. Her skin was very fair, but Arabs had mixed complexions. She wouldn't stand out too much, especially in the company of Pierce and Tate, both of whom were darker than she.

They made their way slowly into the main part of Qawi's small capital city, trying to blend in with the populace. It would have been impossible in a small village, where everyone knew his neighbor. But this was a port city, and there were always crowds from other parts of the Middle East moving along the docks. They didn't attract much attention once they were near the moored ships. The one thing Brianne did notice was the poverty. Philippe had been right when he said that his country had none of
the modern appearance of other Middle Eastern countries.

They wandered down the row of disreputable freighters until Tate saw one that he recognized.

“I know this tub, and its captain,” he said quietly. “Stay here. I'll go aboard and see if he's willing to give us berths.”

“Can you trust him?” Pierce asked.

Tate shrugged. “You can't trust anyone this far from home, but he's honest enough if he's paid well. I won't be long.”

He went aboard the ship, holding on to the rope lines as he passed crewmen coming down the gangplank.

“So that's the elusive Mr. Winthrop,” Brianne said. It was the first chance she and Pierce had been given to talk since their confinement. She was uncomfortable with him now.

“Yes. He's impressive, isn't he?”

She nodded. She couldn't quite look at him. She was confused and embarrassed, even a little shy.

He moved in front of her and tilted her face up to his. The expression in her green eyes made him feel guilty. He remembered that he'd called her by his late wife's name, and so must
she. It was there, in the faint accusation that shadowed her gaze.

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly. “I wanted to spare you Sabon. But I'd already told you that it was too soon for me.”

“Two years,” she replied. “Most people would start to heal by then.”

“She was my life,” he said through his teeth, dropping his hand.

“I know that. She still is.” She moved away from him. “I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know, except that now I'm not raw material for a virginal sacrifice anymore,” she added coldly.

He hated knowing that. He'd done what he had to; he'd protected her from Sabon. She acted as if he'd hurt her deliberately.

“Wasn't the point of the thing to spare you Sabon's advances?” he asked.

“Yes, and you did,” she agreed, refusing to tell him the truth about any of it. She kept her back to him, her arms folded defensively over her chest. “No harm done.”

That's what she thought. He looked at her and ached all over. For a brief encounter, it was devastating. He'd thought of nothing else since they'd taken him from her cell. He wanted her.

The thought shocked him. Yes. He wanted her! But how could he, when his heart still belonged to Margo?

She wasn't looking at him. Her gaze had gone to the freighter, a rusted old hulk with several foreign-looking men aboard. It was a dangerous step they were taking, to trust their safety to the captain of that ship. But if they didn't go on the freighter, sooner or later their identities would be discovered and Sabon would have them back in his clutches. She wasn't really afraid for herself, because she knew too much about Sabon. But she was afraid for Pierce and his friend. Their treatment would be unpleasant, especially after Winthrop had shot some of Sabon's mercenaries. Their friends would want revenge.

She wondered what they'd do if they were recaptured, and decided that she'd face each minute by itself, slowly, and not try to swallow the entire situation in a gulp. Most of all, she couldn't give in to fear. Only courage would see them through the rest of this ordeal. She had to be strong, for everyone's sake. That included not arguing with Pierce about something he couldn't help. He'd been gallant, doing something he hadn't really wanted to do, for
what he thought was for her sake. She knew that to him, it must have felt like adultery. How could she blame him because he couldn't return her love? It wasn't his fault that he loved Margo and still considered himself bound to her by invisible bonds. It wasn't fair to make him feel guilty because of something he couldn't help.

She turned back to him, her eyes wide and sad and apologetic. “I'm sorry,” she said before she lost her nerve. “You did what you could to protect me, and I'm grateful.”

He was surprised at her change of attitude. He stared down at her intently, curiously.

She forced a smile to her lips. “There's absolutely nothing to worry about now,” she assured him. “I'm on the pill, and thanks to you, Philippe Sabon won't ever be a threat to me again. We don't owe each other a thing. We're quits.”

That was only half true, but why bother him with something that might never happen? If it did…well, she could lose herself somewhere in the world and he'd never have to know.

“Quits?” he asked, and his voice had roughened.

“We'll get out of this,” she said with conviction. “When we do, I'll go away to college
and you can get a quiet divorce. No one even has to know that we were ever married.”

This was moving too fast. He wanted to slow down, to look back, to think about this muddle they were in. She was running for the border and he hadn't even looked at the evidence yet. He scowled and searched for the right words to express what he was feeling.

But before he could speak, there was a movement aboard the ship and he saw Tate Winthrop coming down the gangplank, grinning from ear to ear.

“Comrades,” he told his companions, “we have friends in the strangest places, it seems!”

He gestured over his shoulder at the man coming down the gangplank. It was a tall, strangely familiar man. When he got closer, Brianne recognized him. It was Mufti, one of her captors!

M
ufti grinned at Brianne. “You are surprised, yes?”

“I am surprised, yes!” she parroted. “What are you doing here?”

“I am spying for the government of Salid,” he told her, with a flash of yellowed teeth.

“That's the neighboring country that this attack is going to be blamed on,” Tate informed her. “We have to get Mufti out because he's just become our star witness.” He didn't tell her the rest of the story, that Mufti had been captured and almost assassinated by one of Tate's men before he threw himself on their mercy and told them who he was and why he
was in the compound. His story, easily verified with the appropriate authorities in Salid via shortwave, panned out and Mufti became an unexpected ally. Tate had sent him ahead to find the captain of this boat and make the travel arrangements.

Tate spotted the captain coming quickly down the gangplank. He excused himself and went to meet the man. There was a brief conversation and the captain ran back up onto the ship, shouting orders and waving his hands.

“He just had a shortwave call. Sabon's mercenaries are on their way here,” Tate said quickly. “The captain says he can't possibly sail today, anyway. He'll wait for us tomorrow, but we have to find a place to lie low for the night.”

“Where?” Pierce asked, glowering as he looked around them at the busy port. “Even in this garb, we're not going to look like natives. We can't just book into a hotel and blend in.”

“That wasn't what I had in mind,” Tate told him. He motioned to his companions. “Mufti has relatives near here, in a tiny village that's off the beaten track. I've got an idea.”

 

Two hours later, Brianne was sweating and calling Tate vicious names in her mind as she
toiled to milk a cow in a makeshift stable of adobe and straw a few miles out of town in a village that looked as if it had remained unchanged since the first century
A.D.
The men were busily pitching hay and cleaning stalls. Mufti, his graying hair covered by the same wound cloth as his companions, was carrying sacks of grain from a dilapidated truck into the stable. They weren't getting paid for all this labor, but they were going to have a place to sleep—on the clean hay in the loft.

Brianne's derriere was still smarting from the camel ride to this isolated village where Mufti had led them. It was the last place Sabon and his men would think to find them. No doubt he was still scouring the seaport, looking for them. All they had to do was stay hidden for the night and sneak back into town and onto the boat in the morning.

Presuming that they weren't discovered first.

As Brianne struggled with her first attempt at milking, Sabon's quiet words about the plight of his people came back to her. She looked around at the primitive way the people in these outlying areas lived and felt guilty for her silk dresses and leather sandals back home. The
poorest family in America lived ten times better than this, she thought. The women looked much older than their chronological ages. The wear and tear on them from this sort of existence was obvious.

The men were stooped and malnourished, and most of the young women were bearing babies on their backs as they went about their chores. The lack of proper clothing was painfully obvious. Some of the young children had the trademark bloated little bellies that denoted lack of adequate food. The older ones drew water from a deep well with a metal pail, which, according to one of the women—Mufti translated for them—had been a gift from the West. This village had its own metal pail and didn't have to use the animal skin bag that most villages did.

Brianne marveled at the pleasure such a trivial thing gave to these poor people. She marveled as well at their acceptance of the lives they led. No one seemed to complain or blame anyone for the poverty that was so obvious. Nor did they seem to mind that just across the border in a rich neighboring country was a city modern enough to compete with any in Europe. Many villagers had gone there, she learned,
only to return with crushed hopes of finding prosperity. People who lived under primitive conditions had no computer or literacy skills to better themselves in a city. The very lack of education defeated them in the end, just as Sabon had said.

The village was composed of Muslims, and the simple sincerity of their daily prayers was touching to her. Time seemed to slow down, almost to stop. She could imagine people having lived here in this same manner a thousand, two thousand years before. She felt a connection from past to present, as if she were touching history.

“You look very pensive,” Pierce said as he paused with a sack of grain over one shoulder.

“I was looking at the past,” she replied with a faint smile. “Isn't it amazing how little change there's been? These people have nothing, yet they seem to be happy in spite of their lack of worldly possessions.”

“Their sense of values hasn't been distorted by materialism,” he replied. He lifted his head and looked around them. “Clean air, no time clocks dictating a use for every minute of the day, no real crime, no drugs or blatant violence.” He met her eyes and smiled. “There's
a lot to be said for living close to nature in small groups where everyone knows everyone else.”

“There's a lot of disease, though, and a real lack of health care and educational facilities.”

He scowled. “Where did you learn that?”

“From Philippe Sabon,” she replied. “He said that education was the only hope these people have to escape the poverty.”

“He's right.” His eyes narrowed. “I hope you haven't let him influence you.”

“He may be misguided, and he's dead wrong in the way he's going about it, but I think he does care about his people and wants to help them.”

He stared at her intently. “Why aren't you afraid of him?”

She picked at a loose strand of fiber in the basket she was holding. “He isn't what he seems,” she said finally. “And I'd bet even money that a good bit of what's going on here is Kurt's doing.”

“Your stepfather?” He moved a step closer, towering over her. “Why do you think that?”

She searched his black eyes. “Mr. Sabon could have done anything to me, or to you. But he gave orders that we weren't to be harmed.
He told me that the attack on his people was supposed to be a mock one. But those were real bombs and bullets, weren't they?”

“Yes,” Pierce replied coldly. “Mufti's cousin said that the body count was terrible.”

She grimaced. “Dear Lord!”

Pierce was still puzzled. “Do you mean that Sabon didn't know it was going to be for real?”

“That's exactly what I mean. At least, that's what he said, and I think he was sincere. His grandmother was born in this country and lived here all her life. He has relatives here. Mufti will tell you about the things he's done for his people that the outside world doesn't know about. Does it make sense that he'd kill so many of his countrymen, even to trick another country into sending protection for his oil wells?”

That was a question Pierce didn't want to face. His picture of the monster Sabon was changing before his eyes. “No,” he said finally.

“What if Kurt hired the mercenaries and sent them in himself, on Philippe's order but with different instructions than he told Philippe he was giving them?”

Pierce's brow furrowed. “Kurt will be lucky if he lives to tell about it, if that was the case.”

She nodded. “Exactly. But Kurt's in Washington. He has Philippe in a very tricky spot. He can say anything he likes to his senator friend. Philippe can't defend himself. Suppose Kurt tells them in Washington that Philippe is a madman who's trying to start a war with his neighbors? Suppose he tells them that Philippe is behind a military coup here and is trying to take over the government and set himself up as dictator?”

Pierce's eyes widened. “Good God, Kurt's not that crazy!”

“He stands to lose everything he owns already,” she replied. “Philippe has made some veiled threats about backing out of the deal. Kurt may be looking for a way to cut Philippe out of the loop and take over the oil wells for himself. If he can provoke intervention by accusing Philippe of leading a military coup here, he could claim that with his partner Philippe discredited, he owns the mineral rights outright. The government would be in too much turmoil to assert itself. Kurt could walk right in, take his place with the oil consortium, and clean up. Philippe would be in prison or dead. And Kurt would be rich.”

Pierce ran a hand through his wavy black hair. “Brianne, that's a lot of ifs.”

“I know. But it makes sense, doesn't it?”

“It makes too damned much sense.” He whistled through his teeth. “God Almighty, what a mess!”

“For everyone, if we don't get back in time to stop it,” she told him. “And if the mercenaries are Kurt's, and he's dictating their actions, they won't take any prisoners. If they find us, they'll kill us all, and Philippe will be blamed for it.”

He was more worried at that moment than he could ever remember being. Brianne was very astute for someone of her tender years, and she made sense. He'd placed Sabon behind everything. But Sabon had too much to lose by killing his own people. Kurt wouldn't hesitate. His past record spoke for itself. He was unscrupulous and he had no sense of honor or morality.

“He'll kill Philippe, too,” Brianne added suddenly.

“He'll have to. He knows too much.” Pierce stuck his fists on his hips and stared into space, thinking. “We can't get out of here tonight. Even by boat, it's going to take a while to reach Miami. Kurt will probably have some of his
mercenaries waiting there, expecting us, even if they don't discover how we're going to get to the States. They'll be watching the airports and the marinas.”

“Can't your Mr. Winthrop steal a plane?”

He smiled gently. “If there was one to steal, yes. There isn't exactly a major airport around here.”

She looked around them and nodded resignedly. “Mufti knows more about this than anybody. Mufti can put Kurt in jail, if we can get him back to D.C. alive to tell his story.”

“We'll do it,” Pierce told her. “Somehow.”

She drew her eyes down to his broad chest and wished that she could curl up in those hard arms and let him cradle her while she slept. She was sleepy and worn-out from the ordeal of the past two days.

“Tired?” he asked.

She nodded. “But I can make it.” She bit her lower lip. “Pierce, I don't suppose we could tell Philippe?”

“How would we get to him?” he asked reasonably, irritated by her protective attitude toward their captor. “Besides, he kidnapped us.”

“I guess so. But he was doing what he thought would save his country.”

“That doesn't make him innocent.”

She stared into her basket. “He could have killed us. He didn't.”

He moved closer. His big, lean hand tilted her face up to his and he looked straight into her eyes. “Tell me what changed your mind about him.”

She sighed. “I can't. But something terrible happened to him. He isn't what he seems. If you knew, you'd feel the same pity for him that I do.”

He didn't like her having secrets from him, especially secrets that involved another man. He was jealous. He would never have believed himself capable of such an emotion, but there it was.

His eyes went over her lithe young body. He remembered how sweet it had been to look at her and touch her back in Nassau by the pool. He remembered the secret sounds of her voice in ecstasy as he moved against her sensually in the room where they'd been held captive. He wanted her again, wanted her with every cell of his body.

She was feeling something similar. The scent of him was familiar, arousing. She forgot her resentments, her unhappiness at being Margo's
stand-in. She forgot everything except the pleasure he could give her. She wanted it. She moved a little closer, so that they were almost touching, so that she could feel the heat from his body.

“These people are Muslim,” he whispered huskily, stiffening at the proximity that was making his head spin. “They don't accept suggestive behavior in public.”

She stared at his mouth. Her breathing was quick and ragged. “I know that.”

“Then why are you looking at my mouth?”

“Because I want to kiss you,” she said in a soft, shaky tone.

He didn't answer her. He was on fire, and he hadn't even touched her. He clenched his fists. “We can't.”

“We're married,” she said miserably.

“I know that, but we won't be alone, even tonight,” he said through his teeth. “There isn't any way in hell that I can have you here.”

She felt the heat pulsing in her lower body, like a living thing. She shivered with the memory of the pleasure they'd shared and wanted it until it was like a sickness.

“Damn,” she whispered brokenly.

“And double damn,” he agreed fervently.
His eyes narrowed, glittered. “I want you, too. I ache to have you!”