They turned in beneath a shadowy form that proved to be an immense mud-walled tower, dark except for accent lights around its base. Gardens spread around it, she could smell the flowers, and spray irrigation hissed. The silent men in the dark suits trailed them as they strolled. Harry told them the history of what he called the Qual’at al Bahrain. The eleventh century. The sixteenth century. Portuguese. Arabs. English. Seven distinct and separate foundations under it, dating back five thousand years.
In its shadow he pulled her into a niche he must have known was there. Because one moment they were walking in the moonlight and the next they were alone together in the sudden dark.
When he lifted his face from hers she could hardly breathe. From the moonlight, from his powerful hands, the scent of his skin. A lot of cologne, but it didn’t seem effeminate. Quite the opposite … It was the first time she’d ever kissed a man with a beard. She shivered, both from fear and sudden desire.
“Let’s go to my apartment,” he said into her ear. “Let me show you how beautiful you are.”
“It sounds great, Harry. You seem like a nice guy….”
“All right, let’s go.”
“Cobie,” Lourdes hissed warningly.
She suddenly realized how vulnerable they were. It was romantic, but she had no idea where they were, other than that they were alone, with someone who seemed important but whom they really didn’t know and two armed men who’d never said much at all.
Maybe he felt that, too — that they’d trusted him too far. Because he said lightly, “No dice? I’m striking out here?”
“She’s right, we — have to get back to the ship.” Not the exact truth, but everybody knew sailors had to get back to their ship.
“Well, then. Shall I just drive you back?”
“That would be nice,” she said, exhaling. Feeling relieved. And at the same time, disappointed.
On the way back. Harry talked about how he had to be back in Riyadh in a day or two. She thought he was taking them back to the hotel. Maybe he had one more pass left in him. If he did, she didn’t know what she’d say. His skin felt so good, so warm, rough and smooth at the same time. Soon she’d be back on the ship. Back with grouchy old Bendt and the Porn King and bitchy Patryce. Back in her too-hot bunk under the intake, with two dozen other women crammed around her.
She pulled his face down to hers. And felt his hand slide under the sundress. She buried her face in his neck, starting to lose it as his fingers burrowed inward, found sweetness and began to probe and stroke until she arched against the seat and drew a long shuddering breath.
The next time she looked out they were back at the base, slowing for the gate. When she sat up and told him the guard wouldn’t let the car in without a sticker, he’d have to let them off here, he spoke to the driver and they stopped a few yards away. He waited as she pulled her dress down and got halfway put back together. Then bent forward and kissed her hand, then her cheek. “Good night, my sailor,” he said.
For a minute she wavered. His bringing her back meant she could trust him. She almost got back into the car. She was shivering, her legs almost gave way as she stood. “Good night,” she said, backing away.
The black car glided off. They stood looking after it until, after a little while, it blended with the night.
Aisha huddled, crushed among the bulks of armed men, nothing
Fortunately, she wouldn’t be first through the door, or even, probably, twentieth. The three panel trucks sat with engines and lights off near the Makarqah Quarter, the oldest part of town, where a truck was too wide to go. Others were circling around from the south, creeping through the sleeping streets until they, too, would be in position. Together, they held thirty of the SIS’s SWAT-equivalent Special Action Teams. The raid was timed for 0430. She tilted her wrist.
0415.
She shifted, trying to bump out room to breathe. Beside her she smelled Diehl’s heavy cigar funk. Across from her, the shadowed outline of an observer from the embassy.
