Paradise Burning (8 page)

So not terrorism, but something else . .
.

A woman with long blond hair and flowing
dress and a middle-eastern male of military bearing? In Golden
Beach, that mecca for tourists and retirees from the mid-West and
the Northeast, it was like finding two sleek leopards in a field of
white fuzzy sheep.

The man was gone now. Disappeared into the
dense stand of trees lining the road beyond the gate. Not wanting
to attract further attention, Mandy turned the car with precise
care, then slunk back toward civilization, each moment expecting
shotgun pellets to rain down from some avenging god of privacy.

Okay, so she was a coward, accustomed to
doing her sleuthing via computer. She fully deserved to be called
Mouse.

And yet . . . it was fascinating. Had she
found a mystery, a bit of a challenge to keep her wits sharp? Or
had she discovered that lightning really could strike
twice—terrorist had returned to Golden Beach?

To allow a woman to drive was against
the law’s of nature. As his feet thumped the hard-packed dirt road
back to the old house in the woods, Karim Shirazi no longer
bothered to restrain his disgust. Women did not belong behind the
wheel. Look at the female at the gate—driving down a private road
clearly marked, “Private, No Trespassing.” Indeed, women were
fools. She’d sat there, staring at him. At a
man
. Like some low-class whore in a
marketplace.

Had she no shame, no fear? Did she think a
few steel bars would stop him if he chose to challenge her? To ask
why she could not read? Why she was sitting there, making no effort
to run away?

Perhaps—Karim’s scowl lightened, grew
speculative—perhaps she was looking for a job. He had not been rude
like the American female—he had not stopped and stared—but he had
looked. And, no, she would not do. Too old, too . . . ordinary. And
any woman who could drive a car was much too independent for his
purposes.

So what was the American female doing there?
Invading his territory? Was she lost? Or merely snoopy. If the
latter, he would have to check into it, find out who she was.
Security—that’s what they paid him for. And Karim Shirazi was good
at his job.

“
Have you heard anything about a safe
house on the other side of the river?” Although Mandy’s tone was
casual, she kept a sharp eye on Peter’s profile as he accelerated
into the fast-moving traffic on I-75.

Peter didn’t so much as blink at the odd
question. “If I’d heard about it, it wouldn’t be very safe, now
would it?”

“
Well, it’s the only reasonable
explanation I can think of for the man I saw over there this
morning.”

“
How so?” Peter’s response reflected
her own attitude, calm and cryptic, but Mandy knew she’d caught his
full attention.

“
He was Middle Eastern, possibly
Iranian. Unlike anyone I’ve seen in Golden Beach. Like a lighthouse
pulsing with energy in a sea of pale-faced senior
citizens.”

“
How the hell could you tell if he was
Iranian?”

“
Well . . . I spent a week there once.
At least I think that’s where I was. No one ever told me.” That got
a reaction, Mandy noted with satisfaction as Peter’s knuckles
whitened around the wheel.

“
Jeff would never let you anywhere near
Iran.”

“
It was mother actually. Daddy was in
Argentina at the time.”

“
Shit!” Though ejected through tightly
clenched teeth, the word echoed satisfactorily between them. Peter,
angry on her behalf, was a novel experience.

“
Are you sure it was Iran?” Peter
prodded. “Not even Eleanor . . . I mean the damned country’s on the
Interdict list.” Peter’s unfinished thought confirmed what neither
was ready to say aloud: it was within the realm of possibility that
Eleanor Kingsley had placed AKA’s reputation and profit margin not
only above the laws of the U. S. but above the welfare of her only
child.

“
I assumed that’s why we went the long
way round,” Mandy agreed calmly. “I read enough Cyrillic to know I
was switched from Aeroflot to a chartered LearJet in
Tashkent.”

“
Tashkent. You mean the Russians were
in on it too?”

“
The Uzbeks. The Russians are history
in that part of the world, remember?”

“
You must have been some place in what
used to be Soviet Central Asia, Mouse.” Peter Pennington at his
most positive. And patronizing. “Baikonur, maybe. Not
Iran.”

“
I’ve been to Baikonur, Peter. And
Samarkand. And Cairo. Believe me, the men were totally
different.”

“
You noticed?”

“
I noticed.” What did he think she was?
A nun? Just because she lived like one . . . “When the men look
like they just stepped out of illustrations in some ancient and
exotic Persian text,” Mandy purred, “believe me, I know I’m not in
Kansas.”

“
It must have been a great
week.”

“
Oh, it was,” Mandy confirmed, matching
Peter’s sarcasm. “They threw this black tent-like veil over me the
minute I got off the plane. Every time I sat at the keyboard, I had
to hold the damn veil in place with my teeth. And when I wasn’t
working, I was in this really ugly tin shack with three women who
didn’t speak a word of English. I mean, you’d think they could have
at least provided the comforts of a
harim
—a little cool tile, a fountain, gardens,
maybe a eunuch or two . . .”

Peter cut her fantasy short. “Did it ever
occur to you they were probably trying to protect you? Keep people
from knowing you were American? Or maybe just shielding you from
all those men you had to work with? Those sinfully exotic types who
might consider an unveiled woman fair game?”

Peter’s jaw tightened. Even in profile Mandy
recognized his mulish look at its most intransigent. Her breath
hissed out between her teeth. “No, I never thought of that,” she
murmured. And she hadn’t. She’d been so angry at having her
international adventure turned into solitary confinement that all
she had thought of was finishing the job and going home.

“
I still can’t believe Eleanor let you
go to Iran.”

“
Danny was down with the flu, and I was
the only other person who could handle this particular assignment.
When I guessed where I was, I assumed it was a case of the enemy of
my enemy is my friend. This was several years ago—before the nuke
problem sent things downhill. I figured we were probably giving
Iran one of those off-the-record, under-the-table helping hands. I
mean”—Mandy shot Peter an anxious glance—“I don’t think even
Eleanor would involve AKA in something treasonable.”

For an awful moment silence hung between
them, then Peter gave an abrupt shake of his head. “You’re right,
she wouldn’t. It was probably one of those left-handed government
things. God knows I did enough of them myself.”

Mandy scowled at the Florida scenery zipping
by outside the car window. She had to say it, even if it sounded
absurd. “Peter?”

“
Um?”

“
You don’t think I stumbled onto a
terrorist cell, do you? I mean, an eight-foot security fence with
barbed wire is pretty extreme.”

“
Too obvious.” Peter, always so sure of
himself.

“
Right.” Mandy heaved a
sigh.

Peter, driving a steady seventy in the left
lane, passed an eighteen-wheeler. “Okay, I admit your Iranian is
definitely weird—we’ll need to check it out—but at the moment I
have to brief you on the interview.”

“
You’ve located a brothel,” Mandy
ventured. “Oh, goody.”

Peter winced. “Not quite, but the power of
your perspicacity constantly amazes me.”

“
On second thought, I’d be a fifth
wheel in a whorehouse. Really cramp your style.”

Peter exited the interstate, braking at the
stoplight that marked the road into the heart of Manatee Bay. What
aspect of the truth was least likely to keep Mandy from making a
fast exit and calling a taxi to take her home? “You’re my
protection, Mouse. If I went alone, the ladies might figure I was
out for more than an interview.”

“
You’re actually
interviewing hookers?
”

“
You got a problem with that?” Silence.
“Look, Mouse, I figured if I was going to investigate forced
prostitution, I had to have first-hand knowledge of the whole
field, so I made a few calls . . .”

“
You set up dates with whores,” Mandy
stated flatly.

“
Sort of,” Peter mumbled. “I paid them
twice the going rate just to talk.” He shot Mandy a quick look.
“Just talk, Mouse. They seemed happy enough to have an hour’s rest,
but . . . I suspect one of the girls is spinning me the tale she
thought an author wanted to hear, or maybe her story is the
standard issue she feeds her johns. And the other girl . .
.”

Peter stumbled to a halt. How could he tell
Mandy the other girl hadn’t wanted to talk at all? That she’d taken
one look at him and developed a sudden enthusiasm for her job?
“She–uh–didn’t work out. She wasn’t much of a talker.” Maybe he
should explain that she was stoned. Which had the distinct
advantage of being the truth.

“
More into action, right?”

“
I declined,” Peter ground out.
“Politely, of course. Anyway, I decided I needed to change my
approach. Maybe arrange a nice lunch, have a female accompany me .
. . you know . . . someone who might be able to negotiate the maze
and separate truth from fiction.”

And provide protection for the great Peter
Pennington. If Mandy weren’t so annoyed, and just a wee bit
possessive—okay, jealous—she might get a good laugh out of this.
Amanda Armitage of the Boston Brahmin Kingsleys was about to have
lunch with a hooker. Eleanor would have a fit.

“
How many?” she demanded.

“
Today? Three. The girl off the
streets, a dancer from a topless club, and a girl from an Escort
Service who’ll probably be as mad as you are that I invited a
ho.”

A topless dancer, a girl from an Escort
Service, and a street whore. For a moment Mandy pictured a hidden
camera video with tape she could send back to
headquarters
. Look, mom, it’s me!
She turned her face toward the passenger window to hide a
grin. “I’m not mad. Just . . . a bit surprised,” she told Peter,
making a valiant stab at nonchalance. “Actually, it’s considerably
more interesting than hovering over the interlibrary computer
screen with the reference librarian.”

Mandy didn’t question how Peter was able to
produce the key for a spacious apartment above a downtown
restaurant whose food quality was attested to by the number of
lunch-hour patrons standing in line out on the street. Adventures
of this nature took plenty of know-how and bundles of cash, and
Peter Pennington had an ample supply of both.

As they went through an anonymous door to the
left of the restaurant’s plate glass window and trudged up an
equally bland staircase, Mandy wondered what they would find at the
top. Somehow she had gotten the impression that living above a
business had gone out with black and white movies. Then again, what
did a girl raised in a brownstone across the street from Harvard
Yard and a sprawling estate in the Massachusetts countryside know
about the real world?

Peter turned the key in the lock, threw
open the door. “
Voilà
,
Madame.” He waved her in ahead of him.

Ah . . . nice
.
Comfortable furniture in bright Florida colors. Ivy drooped from
white plastic pots hanging in front of two large southern windows.
An eclectic collection of posters splashed against cheerful yellow
walls in a surprisingly attractive mismatch of angles and colors.
At the far end of the room a dining table with a daffodil yellow
tablecloth was set for five. A centerpiece of fresh flowers—yellow,
gold, and white—hovered next to a cheeseboard barely visible under
a pristine white napkin. Two bottles of wine jutted up from a
silver bucket filled with ice.

Once again, Peter Pennington at his adept and
tasteful best. The apartment was attractive, but not so elegant it
might intimidate the women who had been invited to lunch. It also
provided privacy far beyond anything offered by a restaurant or a
hotel suite. Mandy choked over a vision of a parade of hookers
wandering into the luxurious lobby of Manatee Bay’s internationally
famous waterfront resort hotel. She had to give Peter credit.
Although some of his plans tended toward the Machiavellian, this
time he had demonstrated sensitivity as well as good taste.

He’d even remembered to bring along
protection. Namely, a wife.

Was this, perhaps, why he had recalled that
he had one? How many interviews had he planned?

Oh-oh
. Mandy
stared at the pass-through into the kitchen. The empty, foodless
kitchen. “I see why you brought me,” she quipped. “Lunch for five
on the count of three. Sorry, I left my magic wand at
home.”

Peter took his time getting his
state-of-the-art recorder out of its case. He had always enjoyed
bandying words with his Mandy Mouse. Flashing insights and ideas,
humorous one-liners, irreverent comments on everything from the
latest international debacle to why Danny and Lisa had never made
it legal. Brilliant words, silly words . . . sometimes just
treasured moments of nothing more than the companionable silence of
two people who were so perfectly attuned they didn’t need to fill
the void with static.