The Command полностью

“We are the crew, love,” Ina shouted at him. She got loud after she had a couple of drinks, but it was a happy, rollicking loud. “Part of it anyway. So what do you do to keep the money rolling in?”

Harry said they worked in one of the ministries over on the mainland. Ina asked why they were drinking scotch if they were from Saudi. They laughed. Harry said, “We drink for the benefits, not for the evil. No one’s perfect. Are you perfect, Ina?”

“Lord love you, far from it.”

“Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, does not expect perfection. He is forgiving and merciful. Tomorrow I will repent. As for now,” he snapped his fingers and held up the empty bottle, “I will find the joy that life offers me. This is the wisdom of the poets, not the prophets.” He added something long and rhythmic. The others listened, then raised their glasses. Poetry, Cobie assumed, and couldn’t help being impressed even though she hadn’t understood it. “So, what about you?” he asked her.

“What about me, what?”

“What do you do on this ship? It’s a navy ship, you said?”

“That’s right. I fix the engines.” Might as well make it simple.

“Now, that’s interesting. That’s something I’d like to see, someone who looks like you fixing an engine. Are you married, Cobie? Do you have a boyfriend on the ship?”

She said she didn’t, and this seemed to be the right answer as far as he was concerned. The food came, platters of sweet things, dates, cakes, pastries, chocolate. She caught the Russian women looking. Now they looked envious. Not of the men. Of the chocolate. “Do you know them?” she asked Harry.

“Who? Them? That is Masha and Viktoria. They’re here every night.”

“They live here? At the hotel?”

“Them? They’re whores,” he said, giving her a funny look, as if it was obvious. And looking again, maybe it was. But then what did that tell him about the three of them?

He asked if she wanted to dance. He was even better than the Italian, and she started to enjoy herself. The vodka and wine were getting to her, but she was having fun. He stepped back and did a whirling step like in Fiddler on the Roof. He wasn’t actually bad-looking, with the dark hair and the black mustache and beard.

They danced until she had to quit, then sat close, panting, hot. He put his face next to hers, and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. She was turning her chin, trying to angle it so he could, when he muttered into her ear, “Shall I get a room?”

“Shall you what? I’m sorry — the band’s so loud.”

“Shall I get a room? For you, and your friends? I’ll send a man to the desk.”

She started guffawing. Ina squinted at her. “I don’t think so,” she said. Masha and Viktoria were leaving, two men helping them up to teeter off on those spiky heels.

“No? I thought you wouldn’t.”

“Thanks for the offer, but no thanks,” she said, brushing her hair back. Whoa! The room was blurring at the edges. She rattled the ice and crunched some in her teeth. To cool off.

“Then let’s go for a ride.”

“A ride?”

“Sure. We’ll go see the Bahrain fort. It’s a knockout by moonlight. We can leave your friends here.”

She said she didn’t think she ought to go alone. He said great idea, why didn’t they all go? And it didn’t take much persuading. When they looked around for the waiter Harry said it was taken care of, they shouldn’t worry about it.

She stopped dead when she saw the car. It was a block long, and glossy black. The driver was holding the door for them. She’d never been in a car like this. Ina muttered, “My Lord, he’s a prince for sure.” They looked at each other, and Ina pulled her in to whisper, “They’ve got guns.”

“What?”

“I don’t know about Harry, but I felt it dancing with Ajeel. He’s either carrying a gun, or he’s got a stiffie in a bloody weird place.”

“A bodyguard?”

“I think they’re both bodyguards.”

“Then who is he? Really?”

Lourdes looked scared. They traded glances, daring each other. Finally they got in.

The night wasn’t dark, it was wonderful. The highway lights blurred, and the lights of the city sank away as they sped along a coast road, then turned inland. The open fields were deserted under the rising moon. Ajeel and Jamaal didn’t say much, but Harry talked a blue streak, telling them they should come here for the Friday bazaar, it was more colorful and truly Arabic than anything in Manama City. The girls fell silent, and Cobie felt a little scared: Where were they going? Why were the other guys so quiet? Were they a rich man’s guards, or was there something going on she didn’t know about? But just then, as she thought about asking who he really was, the limo slowed.