The Sheik's Safety (4 page)

For a moment she felt an infinite closeness to the man next to her and the people sleeping in their tents around them. And her heart ached for what they were, because she knew their world was slowly disappearing.

“Are you satisfied?” Saeed watched her closely.

“Is this the whole tribe?” She scanned the sleeping camp.

He shook his head. “It's our
fakhadh.
The closest of our family. There's not enough grazing to accom
modate a whole tribe living together. Our people number in the thousands.”

“And you're the boss?”

A small smile played on his lips. “The sheik rules by consensus. It's not as if I can blindly order people around and they'll follow me. When something needs to be done, I consult the elders, the heads of each
fakhadh.
I'm more the father of the tribe than a ruler. Same for the confederation.”

She gave him a questioning look.

“Fourteen of the eastern tribes are joined in a confederation. They chose me as their leader.”

“Do you live here?”

He shook his head. “I come as often as I can. Nasir stays with the
fakhadh.
Mostly I stay in Tihrin to take care of business. And do some politicking, of course. It's a necessary evil.”

She wondered if he liked the modern life of the city, or merely sacrificed his preferences for his people. She imagined his position required an awful lot of sacrifice. In that sense they were similar. Her job, on a much smaller scale than his, had its own restrictions on life. Being part of a top-secret military unit, off on some covert operation most of the time, did not leave time for normal relationships.

She had no friends outside the temporary teams she was put on from time to time. Any relationship with an outsider would have had to be based on lies,
and she couldn't stomach that. She could never reveal what she did for a living, where she went when she disappeared for months at a time.

For the most part, she didn't mind being lonely. Life was full of sacrifices no matter who you were or what you did. She glanced at Saeed. Bet he had to give up plenty. But he did have his
fakhadh.
She looked at the tents that surrounded them. His close family consisted of a hundred people. It was mind-boggling for someone like her who had nobody.

Okay, pity party over. Focus on the job.
“How about you let me try to protect you as best as I can? You can worry about what treaty you want to sign once you're on the throne.”

His voice had a hint of tired resignation in it when he spoke. “I have no intention of taking the throne,” he said.

 

S
AEED STARED AT THE DIVIDER
, knowing Dara was settling in to sleep on the other side, and felt the weight of his five years of widowhood for the first time. He had loved his wife, although it had not been a love match at the beginning. The marriage had been arranged by one of his uncles. Sheikhah had been a good wife and a good mother.

But he could not recall her drawing his thoughts and eyes as the American woman did. He was grateful for the divider. Whatever his eager body was tell
ing him, she was the wrong woman at the wrong time. But maybe when this was all settled, and Majid's attention was off him, he would seek another wife. Nasir had been singing the praises of the beauty of the daughters of Sheik Amrar long enough.

He tried to imagine for a moment what it would be like to have someone to turn to in the night again, but it was Dara Alexander's face that appeared in his mind.

And in his room.

Saeed sat up as she parted the divider and came in, her blankets tucked under a slender arm. He watched her set them up in front of the entrance flap with graceful movements, not six feet from him.

“What are you doing?”

“Guarding you.”

So he had failed to show her reason during their walk. He wasn't surprised. “It is not necessary.”

“Humor me.” Her hair had been let down, a silk frame to her captivating face.

“I do not want my men to find you here.” Surely she would at least be mindful of her honor.

She settled down, the soft light of the camp reflecting in her eyes. “Too late.”

He stared at her, hating that she was right. “You are an exceedingly stubborn woman.”

She grinned at him. “You'll get used to it.”

But he doubted he would ever get used to her at all.

“I've been thinking,” she said.

So have I,
he thought. But he wasn't about to share his thoughts with her.

“So the king is trying to have you killed?”

Her directness caught him by surprise. He said nothing.

“Does he know you don't want the throne?”

“He should. He is family. I owe him blood allegiance.”

“A lot of people wish to see you rule. It must make him nervous.”

“Western powers wish to see me rule. They did not see what I saw. My country lost enough men. I will not bring about another civil war.”

“Your own people are rising up.”

“They forget too soon.”

She lay down facing him and pulled the blanket over herself. “You never gave me an answer before. Will you let me protect you?”

And from the stubborn set of her beautiful eyes, he knew it was a rhetorical question. She would try to protect him whether he agreed to it or not. Those were her orders. She just wanted to know if she would have to do it the easy or the hard way.

Still, he owed her the truth. “It's out of the question, Miss Alexander.”

“Call me Dara.”

“Dara,” he said, not altogether comfortable with
it, not comfortable with the presence of the woman in his room at all.

If she were Bedu, he would have to marry her or face her family. “Do you have any brothers?”

“I'm an only child.”

“Your father?”

“Gone. I don't have any living male relatives so if you're thinking about trying to call someone to order me home, you'll have to come up with another plan.”

She didn't have anyone to protect her. That didn't seem right. A woman as beautiful as she definitely needed protection, whether it was the custom of her people or not.

“People will think you're my mistress,” he said, and felt a passing pang of guilt. He had ordered everyone but the servant from his tent to Nasir's, not trusting the stranger with his son and sisters. And his men
had
seen them—in his side of the tent, together.

It took her a long time to come up with a comeback. “I do my job, you stay alive. When I leave, they'll forget all about me.”

She was right. The talk she had caused all around the fires tonight would die down in a day or two. Everybody and his brother had a mistress—and sometimes they shared her. Majid had several. Saeed hardly knew anyone in the government who didn't. Majid's nephew flew in high-class prostitutes from Paris on alternating weekends to entertain at his parties.

But it was different with the Bedu. The old code of honor still held out here in the desert. And it mattered to him. He did not want his people to think he had abandoned the honor of his ancestors for the ways of the city.

He reached out and turned off the lamp. After a moment, once his eyes got used to the darkness, he could see the outline of her body in the moonlight that filtered through the loosely woven material of the tent.

She was lying on her side, motionless, guarding the flap.

He didn't want her there.

To be completely honest, he wanted her under him.

He was no better than the men whose loose morals and decadence he'd so often criticized.

He turned his back to her. “Tomorrow we leave for Tihrin,” he said, making up his mind. It would be easier to avoid her at the house. Thirty-seven rooms should be plenty enough for her to get lost in.

And with him gone, the camp should be safer.

Even more than the American woman with her bodyguard delusions, the strangers on the hill the day before worried him. They had gone by the time he and his men looped around to surprise them.

And tonight there had been an assassin in his own tent.

He had brought danger to his family. He would
leave his son and sisters in Nasir's protection, have them move farther into the desert. Hopefully he would draw the men who sought to harm him to the city.

 

K
ING
M
AJID LOOKED
over the inner courtyard from his office on the top floor of the palace. Soldiers guarded every entrance, their rifle barrels glinting in the moonlight. He turned at the sound of the door opening behind him.

“Assalamu alaikum.”
Jumaa bowed.

“Walaikum assalam.”
He returned the greeting, thinking for a moment of the irony of it, wishing peace, when they were here to plan war.

“I trust your journey was not difficult.” He motioned the prime minister to the leather couch and sat in his favorite armchair opposite him, his hand resting so the pistol hidden under the pillow was in easy reach. These days he trusted no one, not even the man he had handpicked three years ago then arranged to have elected.

That's why he was still king. His father Abdullah had been too trusting, and his uncle Ahmad before him. And look where it got them.

“Shukrah. With Allah's blessing we were successful,” the man said.

Majid nodded as he pointed to the low table laden with food. “Please, help yourself.” He poured a half a cup of coffee and handed it to the man, who drank
it and handed it back for a refill. They repeated the ritual two more times before Jumaa shook his cup from side to side to signal he had had enough, as custom dictated.

“How much do we have?”

Jurmaa met his eye and said, “Enough to carry out the first part of our plan. Another shipment is coming that should be big enough for the liberation.”

Majid nodded, and trusted that eventually the world would see it so, as liberation of lands that had belonged to his ancestors, not as the invasion of northern Yemen. But before that, to ensure the success of that heroic mission, the American Air Force base just on the other side of the Beharrainian-Saudi border had to be taken care of.

He couldn't risk having a U.S. force of any kind that close, a base for the rest the U.S. would send. And they would send troops, he was sure of that. They never could stop themselves from meddling in everybody's business, fancying themselves the policemen of the world.

They viewed all war in this section of the globe as destabilization of the region, a threat to their oil interests. They were scared of what would happen if the oil was finally controlled by the ones to whom it belonged.

He would get to that. First he would get back the lands that were his and restore his country to what it
always should have been. Then his neighbors would see his strength and accept him as leader against the foreign enemy.

“Is the army ready?” Jumaa asked.

“They are always ready. And now they have the appropriate weapons.”

They needed those, the latest technology, not the hand-me-downs Western powers had provided to support him in ending the civil war, in the hope of fat contracts. They wouldn't sell him weapons now. The relationship had soured. Did they think he would give so much control to them? He had gone to battle to regain the throne of his father and rule as a king was meant to rule, not to be a puppet for the West.

“I worry about the unrest.”

He stiffened at Jumaa's bad manners, to bring up something like that. “It's only that. Once the people understand our purpose they will unite behind us.” Did he not unite the country after the civil war?

“Of course.”

“You are taking care of the source of the recent difficulties as agreed?” He hoped Jumaa had news for him on that.

“We should hear from my men by the end of the day.”

Majid nodded. The betrayal angered him. But too many sources confirmed it for it not to be true. He could not look the other way. People under severe
torture rarely lied. In the end they all told everything. And they all died with one name on their lips. His cousin's.

He remembered their childhood, the time they'd spent in the desert together as young men, hunting with his uncle's prized falcons and salukis. They had been like brothers back then.

He was going to mourn Saeed when he died.

Dara scanned the side of the wadi, unease prickling her skin as Saeed drove, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel, his mind—judging from the intense expression on his face—already in Tihrin. She glanced at his rifle between them, opened her mouth to point out again how insane he was to leave her unarmed, then thought better of it. No sense in wasting even that little bit of energy on him. The man was convinced that the eight Bedu he had brought to escort them to Tihrin was more than sufficient protection.

At least she'd been able to talk him into leaving his great-grandfather's hallowed Remington behind for an AK-47. Sheik Saeed was pretty sentimental about certain things. It didn't surprise her. From what she'd seen so far, he was an old-fashioned guy.

She watched the ground in front of them out of habit, knowing it was useless. She was in the second vehicle. If somebody had thought to hide land mines
under the rocky, dry river bottom, the first SUV would be the one to get it. She should have warned the driver.

And just as she thought of him, the man beeped the horn in warning. Dara looked up, grabbed for Saeed's rifle, and had only time to point it out the window before the pickups came over the side of the wadi, sending a spray of bullets at the two-car convoy.

She took aim and returned fire. The other three men in the back of their car did the same. Saeed drove with one hand, holding a pistol out the window with the other.

His men in the SUV in front of them were shooting hard, too; looked like all five were still alive. Dara steadied the rifle and squeezed off one shot after the other. They should have brought more men and armed them better. But Saeed had wanted to leave as many fighters behind as he could to secure the camp.

The attackers, plenty of them, rode in four pickups—a half dozen armed men in the back of each. Looked like they weren't taking chances this time. They were trying to surround the two SUVs at the bottom of the wadi like hunting jackals, pursuing their prey.

The wind blew her veil in front of her face and she ripped it off. She had to see, damn it. She aimed systematically at the tires of the two vehicles on her
side. It took forever but she hit the two front tires of one. The pickup slowed but kept on coming, rubber slashing, metal throwing sparks on stones.

When it finally stopped, the men jumped off the back and chased them still, guns blazing. She didn't bother with them. They'd be out of firing range soon enough. She aimed at the next pickup, but her hands jerked as her seat got bumped.

She glanced back. The man behind her was slumped forward, blood running down his temple. Damn. She turned from him and took aim again, but she didn't seem to have any luck with the second pickup. Saeed was driving like a madman, the SUV jerking around. He tossed his empty handgun to the floor, held his hand out. She handed him back his rifle, grabbed the one the man behind her had dropped.

She had trouble taking aim, the SUV bouncing too much. She shot at the pickup's front right tire, hit the radiator. The billowing steam made it difficult to see the men behind the windshield. She aimed and squeezed the trigger, but her aim was thrown off again, this time by an explosion.

Damn. She stared at the SUV ahead of them going up in flames, the roof peeled back, not a man alive. One of the attackers had hit the gas tank. Saeed said something in Arabic. He maneuvered around the vehicle deftly, but it slowed him down. The remaining pickups were closing in.

She took aim again, hitting the driver this time. She could see the surprise on his face through the broken windshield. The vehicle slowed.

She turned away from them, took a quick check on the other side. One pickup still going there. From their SUV, only Saeed was firing. She looked back at the three bodies in the back, splattered with blood. They had been in a vulnerable spot, easily picked off through the back window.

Dara watched the men fire from the pickup that was closing the distance on their left. She had to get to the seat behind Saeed, couldn't hit anything from here.

She released her seat belt and climbed back, maneuvering the rifle, yanking her dress that had gotten snagged on the seat. Why the hell had she let herself be talked into dressing like a woman? She was here as a bodyguard, damn it. She had to be ready and unencumbered.

She made it to the back and half sat on a dead man's lap, feeling the wetness as his blood soaked through her clothes. She shut out everything but the men firing, took aim and watched as one of them tumbled to the sand from the back of the vehicle.

She squeezed off another shot, tossed the empty rifle out the window, and grabbed another one from the floor.

Pain bit into her left arm, just below the elbow. Blood bloomed on her dress at once. She swore.

“Are you hurt?” Saeed was looking at her in the rearview mirror.

She flexed her fingers. Everything moved. Flesh wound. It bled, but not enough to concern her. “Fine,” she said and continued shooting.

She got a tire just as Saeed got the driver. The pickup came to a halt but the men in the back were still firing.

“Get down,” Saeed yelled and slid lower in his own seat, focusing on getting them out of firing range as fast as possible.

She did as he asked, pulled the belt off the man next to her, grabbed her veil from the front seat and made a tourniquet for her arm. Any blood loss had a way of weakening the body, and she couldn't afford to be held back now.

Saeed was watching her in the rearview mirror. “I'm going to take a look at you.” He slowed the car.

“Don't even think about it. Whatever happens, do not stop.” She climbed to the front, held her arm out so he could see with his own eyes that there was nothing to worry about.

“Is it broken?” He didn't look any less worried.

She shook her head. “I'm fine.”

He stepped on the gas again, his voice clipped when he spoke. “You should not be here. I shouldn't have brought you.”

She wasn't in the mood for any chauvinistic
garbage. “Because women are weak?” she challenged him.

He looked at her for a long moment. “Women should be cherished.”

She stared back, unsure what to say to that.

Her father used to say women had to be toughened up to be fit for the military. He hadn't meant it disparagingly. He merely saw the difference between the sexes as a weakness. He was forever frustrated with her mother's inability to hold up under pressure, suck it up and stick it out.

She glanced at Saeed.
Cherished.
It fell so far outside the realm of her experience, she couldn't even picture it. Was he for real?

They drove on in silence for a while, Saeed focusing on the road while she mulled over the attack.

“How did they know we were coming?”

He shrugged. “They were probably watching the camp.”

“You could have sent men out to take care of that.” His carelessness surprised her.

“I wanted them to know I was leaving.” His voice was low and rough.

“To keep them away from your son?”

“From all my people.” He shook his head. “I thought I could protect you.”

“You did.”

“I expected a sole assassin. Or at worst, two or
three working together.” His mouth was set in a thin line, his expression dark. “I was ill-prepared and my guards have died for it. Only by the grace of Allah you're alive.”

She would have liked to think her shooting skills had something to do with that, too, but it didn't seem like the right time to argue with him. He looked to be in a bad enough mood already.

“If you agreed to work together with the U.S. government, your difficulties could be solved twice as fast and you could be back with Salah,” she said.

He turned his intense blue eyes to her. “Do not,” he said, his voice cold now, “use my son to try to manipulate me.”

“I'm sorry.” And she was. He obviously cared deeply for the boy.

“He'll be safe with Nasir,” he said, but she could hear the worry in his voice.

“I'm sure the tribe would give their lives for him.”

He nodded. “They would.”

“He looks a lot like you.”

He took a slow breath and his shoulders relaxed a little. “He's a brave little man. He learned to ride a camel when he was three.”

His deep fatherly love and pride, evident on his face and in his words, tugged at her heart. Snap out of it. She turned from him to scan the desert. She was here to guard the sheik, not to fall under his charm.

 

“I
S ANYTHING WRONG
?”

“I didn't expect a palace.” Dara eyed the marble floor and the priceless artwork on the walls, as Saeed gave orders to the servants.

“My father was once king,” he said to her when he was done with them.

“He sure was.” She stared at an ornately decorated golden bowl, the size of her kitchen sink back home, displayed on a carved pedestal.

And all of a sudden she felt a wide schism open between them. In the car, during the gunfight, for a few brief moments they were partners, teammates. There was nothing like walking into his palace to drive home the point that someday very soon he would be king. And she'd be… She'd be on the first flight to wherever the Colonel was sending her next.

“This way.” He showed her down the hall, walking tall and comfortable, barely sparing a glance for their surroundings while she gawked.
He
belonged here.

“The doctor will arrive shortly. The servants will help you clean up.” He stopped and waited for her to catch up with him.

Naturally. The servants. Who else?
She wondered what “help you clean up” meant. Was somebody going to come to wash behind her ears? That'd be interesting.

She was used to lack of privacy in her line of
work. It was a fact of life for women in the military—her shyness had worn off long ago. Whatever they would dish out for her she could take it. She was determined to follow the customs and blend in. She had to gain not only his cooperation but the entire household's if she was to guard him successfully.

They passed through a gorgeous gilded archway, more artwork gracing the hall on the other side. The palace was a far cry from the military housing where she had grown up. Where the hell was he taking her anyway? And then it occurred to her. She stopped. She was willing to follow his country's customs, but only to a point.

“To do my job effectively I need to be near you. I'm not going to…” She hesitated to say the word.

He raised a black eyebrow and waited.

“I will not be stashed away in some harem,” she said with righteous indignation. “This is the twenty-first century, for heaven's sake.”

A slow grin split his face, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Would that be a general dislike of harems or just mine?” His voice was way too smooth.

He was toying with her. She threw him a look that would have made veteran commando fighters back down.

It didn't faze him at all. “I don't suppose I could change your mind?”

Oh yeah, he probably thought he was good at the harem thing. She looked away. He probably was.

“Go pester your wives,” she said. “I'm here to do a job.”

“My wife has been dead for five years.” The smile slid off his face. “I never really had a harem. Sorry to disappoint.”

God, she was an idiot. Of course, he didn't have a wife. That's why his sisters were taking care of his son. She thought of her own childhood for a moment, her mother coming and going then leaving for good when she was twelve. She was glad Salah had his aunts.

“I'm sorry.”

His gaze was steady on her face. “Your apology is not necessary.”

But the light mood disappeared from between them. She wanted to say something to make up for her ill-spoken words, but for once, couldn't come up with anything. What did she know about loving and losing? Nothing. She had never allowed herself to risk falling in love.

When he moved forward, she followed him to a door made of hammered copper, bit her lip to keep from gasping when he opened it.

If it wasn't a harem, she didn't know what was.

The room had the look of a luxury spa, unreal in its sumptuousness like a movie set. Her two-bedroom condo in Baltimore, the place she called home in between assignments, was at least a couple of hundred square feet smaller.

Tiled columns reached to the fifteen-foot or so tall ceiling that was painted with a small geometric pattern in teal and gold. She gaped at the two separate sitting areas, one with an entertainment center, one surrounded by books—a corner library.

The canopy bed in the back was freckled with jewel-toned pillows, the carpet it stood on having the look of a priceless antique. Enough open space stretched between the sleeping and living areas to hold a dance party. Through an archway she could see into a smaller room, every surface tiled, a round pool sunk into the floor, a good ten feet in diameter.

The place was overwhelming. She lifted a hand to rub her temple, then winced at the pain in her arm. Fresh blood stained her sleeve.

She heard his sharp intake of breath. The next thing she knew, she was in his arms and they were on their way to the bed.

“You said it was a minor injury,” he said in a tight voice as he laid her gently on the brocade cover, a thunderstorm brewing in his eyes.

“It is, I've—”

He hooked two long fingers into the hole the bul
let had ripped and tore the material open. Her breath caught in her throat.

Somebody was knocking on the door. When Saeed called out, two women came in. He sent them away.

“Lie down,” he said, his face hard set.

“There's nothing wrong with me.”

She wasn't used to seeing him off balance. He had kept his cool during the fight, both at the oasis and in the wadi, fought off the assassin in the tent without breaking a sweat. She was starting to get the idea that he'd had considerable practice at skirmishes.