Zealot (16 page)

Slowly, his soapy hands circled upward, lathering her chest, spiraling up her breasts. Feeling a little devilish, he paid
special attention to the hollow between her breasts where he’d discovered she was so very ticklish. Laughing, she pulled away
from his slippery embrace. “Duncan, if you keep this up, I’ll never leave.”

“That’s the plan,” he said, running the soapy bar down her nose.

“No!” she protested, wiping the soap from her nose. “I have to get back to the hotel before six-thirty. Some of us have to
work today.”

Sadly, he knew she was right. While he could be content to dally in the shower with her all day, much more important matters—at
least in the grand scheme of things—awaited Maral. “Okay, Cinderella, you finish up here.” He handed her the soap. “I’ll start
some coffee, and we’ll get you back before you turn into a pumpkin. I promise.”

He slipped from the shower and grabbed a towel from a nearby bar. He buried his face in the thirsty terry cloth as he walked
from the bathroom toward the galley, then tousled it through his damp hair.

“Good morning, Mr. MacLeod.”

There, waiting patiently on his sofa in dark suit and Arab headdress, Farid. Assad and two more of Farid’s goons were ranged
about the barge, their pistols drawn and trained on MacLeod.

MacLeod, preserving his dignity, made no quick moves to hide his nakedness. Instead, he acted as if there was nothing out
of the ordinary in receiving groups of armed guests on the barge in his altogether. “You couldn’t have knocked?”

“You were otherwise engaged, I think,” Farid said with a look that, if he thought Farid actually capable of emotion, MacLeod
would have called a smirk. “Where is Dr. Amina?”

MacLeod called into the bathroom. “Cinderella, your ugly stepmother’s here.” The sound of the shower stopped with an abrupt
squeak. “I’d recommend the robe on the back of the door.” Chilly, MacLeod wrapped the towel casually around his waist.

“I’d recommend you gather the doctor’s things and take them to her, Mr. MacLeod,” Farid said calmly. ‘There is no need for
all of us to be shamed.”

“I don’t suppose you could wait on deck.”

“I’m afraid not.” Farid and his men watched MacLeod intently as he collected bits of Maral’s clothing from around the sofa
and delivered it to her in the bathroom. When MacLeod exited the bathroom, he closed the door soundly behind him.

“I was about to put on a pot of coffee. Interested?” Off the Arabs’ sullen silence, he gestured down at his towel-clad body,
“Look, Farid, it’s obvious I’m not armed here. Tell the boys to put the toys away and tell me what’s going on.”

“What’s going on is that we are in the midst of an international security crisis and you’re luring this woman away to play
your childish sex games.” Farid stood and faced MacLeod, nose to nose. “I could have you arrested for kidnapping a diplomat
of the Palestinian people, Mr. MacLeod, but I would rather avoid the unpleasant press that would generate. But I will if you
force my hand. Do we have an understanding?”

Something in Farid’s voice … “Whoa, back it up. What international security crisis? This is no longer about Hebron, is it?”
Farid seemed unwilling to give him any details, and MacLeod pressed him. “Tell me. If this involves Maral, I need to know.”
Still nothing. “I make a better ally than enemy, Farid,” and the look of warning in MacLeod’s eyes gave the Palestinian a
taste of what it might be like to go up against him.

Farid conceded and, with a gesture of his hand, told the others to put their weapons away. “A public bus exploded outside
Tel Aviv yesterday, killing four Israeli soldiers and a civilian bus driver. Someone worked very hard to make it look like
the work of the Jewish fundamentalists, but we have reason to believe it was the work of the terrorist organization Hamas.
And that the negotiations are the next target. We thought at first they had kidnapped Dr. Amina.”

“Hamas?” Maral stood in the doorway of the bathroom, clothed, her face full of shock. “That can’t be. We had their guarantee.
They agreed to the truce. They swore—”

“That was before Hebron,” Farid pointed out. “Everything’s changed.”

“No,” she breathed, unbelieving, and all the stress and worry she’d managed to leave somewhere between her hotel room and
the top of the Eiffel Tower came crashing back onto her shoulders, aging her beyond her years.

“Say your good-byes. We’re leaving now,” Farid commanded her.

MacLeod looked to Maral, who still seemed stunned by the revelation. He knew he should probably just back away and let Farid
do his job. Maral’s evening of adventure, their night of mutual pleasure and comfort had ended with the cold cruel dawn of
reality. Farid and his men would protect her. It’s what they were trained to do. But she just looked so lost. So all alone.
And if anything were to happen to her because he’d done nothing … Instead of backing away, MacLeod stepped in. “I’m going
with her.”

“Out of the question,” Farid said, taking Maral by the arm to guide her to the door.

“I don’t think you heard me,” MacLeod said, stepping in front of them, pulling Farid’s hand away from her. His voice was pleasant,
but carried a hard core of steel. “I said, I’m going with her.” Even in just a towel, he could be quite intimidating. “Farid,
you need me. If this is a Hamas threat, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“No.” Farid’s word was final. He started for the door again, gesturing Maral to follow.

“Last time, Farid,” MacLeod tried one more tack. “I stay with her, or I go to the press. What do you say?”

Farid glared at him, then inclined his head just a bit, acknowledging his defeat. “You have five minutes.”

MacLeod only needed four and half. As he emerged from the bathroom, dressed and ready to leave, he realized he’d walked into
the middle of a conflict of wills.

“I will not permit this behavior,” Farid was growling at Maral. MacLeod’s first instinct was to come to her aid, but then
with one look at the stern resolution on her face, he realized that when the war was with words, Maral had the situation well
in hand.

“I am not your wife, Farid, and I am not your daughter. You work for the delegation, and, therefore, you work for me. You
have no right to treat me any differently than you do the other delegates.”

“None of them behave as shamefully as you!”

“Bullshit!” Farid was floored by her use of such a crass Americanism. MacLeod could tell she’d done it just to watch him flinch.
“Halabi is a drunkard. Al-Sayyeed has a different whore to his room every night. Don’t tell me you don’t know,” she said over
his protests. “Your men are procuring them for him. And I’m sure all their security clearances are just impeccable, aren’t
they?” It was clear Farid would not allow himself to be bested by a woman, but he was having trouble figuring a way out of
this awkward situation. Maral, sensing this, moved in for the kill. “From now on, Farid, you treat me with the same courtesy
and respect you do the men, or you and I will be having a chat with the chairman about these breaches in al-Sayyeed’s security.
Do
we
have an understanding?”

Farid was not a man to shuffle or to hem and haw, even in defeat. He would stand his ground no matter what. His gaze was steady
and his voice firm as he said, “As you say, Doctor.” He glanced at MacLeod, well aware he’d heard what transpired. “You’re
ready.” It was not a question.

“After you.” MacLeod gestured toward the door, grabbing his long dark coat from the back of a chair. He took Maral’s arm and
wondered, as they followed Farid out of the barge, if the security chief knew just how much she was trembling.

From the air, Paris seemed to go on forever. As Avram watched through the airplane’s tiny window, the city grew larger and
larger. Descent was one of his favorite parts of flying—second only to the in-flight films. He loved the thrill of barely
controlled falling. Nothing between him and a burnt crater in the ground but the skill of a man unseen, unknown, yet entrusted
with the lives of hundreds of people. It was as close to life on the edge as he would allow himself.

He’d called Paris home for a couple of decades, six hundred years or so ago. He figured he’d called just about everywhere
home at one time or another. Wherever his people had been dispersed, it seemed he’d been there at least once in his travels.
A man wandering in search of his identity could cover a lot of territory in two thousand years. In Paris, he’d lived on a
piece of swampland known as the Marais. He’d opened a small shop—Avram ben Mordecai, Scribe—and made a pleasant life for himself
there in the Jewish Quarter. But only Jerusalem had ever truly been his home, and it wasn’t long before the urge to move on
had taken him on the road again.

With a few jolts and bumps, the E1 A1 jet touched down at Orly and Avram jockeyed to be among the first off as it taxied to
the jetway. He’d checked no baggage, only his government-issue roll-aboard and worn leather rucksack as carry-on, and he moved
briskly from the gate toward Immigration and Customs, looking like a young lawyer, or perhaps an accountant, in his conservative
suit. The lines at the Immigration kiosks were long, all the morning flights from overseas seemed to arrive at once, but Avram
bypassed them all and went instead to a small desk at the side of the throng. He pulled a diplomatic passport from his satchel,
clearly marked with the seal of Israel, and flashed it at the Immigration agent, who checked it cursorily to make sure the
photo matched the youthful man presenting it and waved him through.

Within minutes, he was out in the bright sunlight of Paris, squinting at the cars in the pickup lanes. He reached into his
satchel, pulled out his sunglasses. Better. A dark sedan pulled up at the curb alongside him, and the window slid smoothly
down. “Mordecai?” one of the two men inside asked. Avram nodded and hopped in the back.

“Welcome to Paris, Mordecai,” the driver said. “Took you long enough to get here.”

“Something came up,” Avram said, as they pulled away from the curb and out into airport traffic.

“Dr. Amina! Dr. Amina! What do you think are the chances the Hamas threat will disrupt the negotiations?” The lights from
the video cameras blinded her as she tried to make her way down the stairs to the driveway.

“Doctor! Do you think there’s any hope left for East Jerusalem?” An overzealous hand pushed forward a microphone that nearly
hit her in the face before it was deflected by Assad.

“Do you fear for your personal safety, Dr. Amina?” Assad and another security man hardly managed to get Maral through the
gauntlet of reporters and sound-bite specialists lying in wait outside the Hôtel Lutéstia and safely into one of the waiting
cars. The other delegates fared no better.

“ ‘Do I fear for my personal safely,’ “ Maral mocked once safely behind tinted glass with MacLeod. “Yes, I do—from them, the
damn vultures. As if this isn’t hard enough.”

“It’s okay,” MacLeod consoled her. “It’s over for now.”

She shook her head. “It’s never over—there’ll be just as many waiting on the other end.”

Normally the trip from the hotel to the anonymous French government building belonging to the Ministry of Education that had
been pressed into service for the negotiations would take ten minutes, even in the traffic-logged streets of Paris. For a
caravan of six limousines and their police escort, the trip took more like half an hour, creeping through the congested thoroughfares.
Every moment, Moral was on edge, and the security men alert for the slightest sound or motion out of the ordinary.

When they finally pulled up to the Ministry building, MacLeod could see that Moral had been right. Another throng of reporters,
TV journalists, and the morbidly curious waited outside. But on this end, thanks to an Israeli security detail with no qualms
about showing automatic weapons in public, the mobs were neatly contained behind strict lines of demarcation.

Moral explained with a wry smile. “They don’t have the same image problem we do. Let a Palestinian wave an Uzi in front of
Peter Jennings, and it would be a whole different ball game.” As MacLeod escorted Moral into the building, the same sorts
of questions were shouted at her, but across the barricade instead of directly in her face they no longer seemed like attacks
on her person. She smiled a polite “no comment” and moved inside.

Just inside the doors, a series of airport metal detectors were in place to protect the negotiations. Assad removed his gun
from his jacket and placed it on the scanner’s conveyor belt, passed through the detection gateway with no alarm, then retrieved
his weapon.

Maral placed her purse on the moving belt and walked through the gateway. She was startled when the alarm began to sound.

“Madame?” The attendant motioned her to step back and come through the machine again. Once again the sound of the alarm filled
the hallway. “I’m sorry, Madame,” the security officer said, motioning her off to the side, “but I must search you.”

Maral submitted stoically. It was all too common an occurrence. Searches, metal detectors, road blocks, suspicion. Her privacy
violated for little reason. She considered it one of the facts of her life as a Palestinian in an occupied land. MacLeod saw
Maral’s face blank as the security officer’s hands passed over her body.