Paradise Burning (37 page)

“
It was the truth.”

“
I lied. You are not plain, but your
beauty is of the kind appreciated only by men of good character. Or
men like myself who wish we might again become what we once
were.”

“
Oh, very pretty,” Mandy
mocked.

“
Your beauty is of the soul. Purity
shines from your eyes.” Karim eyed her sharply. “Pennington is your
lover, is he not? Have you ever been with any other
man?”

She should haul out the AirLite and shoot
him. Mandy heard herself admit a very small, “No.”

Satisfied, Karim nodded, raising his dark
brows to make his point.

“
Nadya is a good woman,” Mandy
persisted.

“
Nadya Semyonova, like you, is a woman
who causes a great deal of trouble.”

“
She was a good woman until you made
her into a . . . something else.”

Karim shrugged. “The Russian soul is not
easily destroyed. If she does not cause me more trouble, she will
be a good woman once again.”

Abruptly, the ex-major stood. The
lines, newly etched into the planes and angles of his face, somehow
made him all the more intriguing. They appealed to the mother in
every woman, as well as the lover.
Damn and
double damn, but she was in danger of liking the miserable
sinner
. Wasn’t it a little early for Stockholm
Syndrome?

“
Perhaps I tell you all this,” Karim
suggested softly but with peculiarly deadly emphasis, “because I do
not want to have another death on my conscience. I wish you to
understand I would take no pleasure in killing you, but I am a
soldier, and I must do what needs to be done. I work for people who
made it possible for me to come to this country, and I cannot leave
them until I have fulfilled my obligation. And I will do that,
because that is who and what I am.”

“
You could be a witness against them,”
Mandy urged. “You’d be protected . . . the FBI would find a spot in
the Witness Protection Program . . .”

“
Honor is at stake.”

“
Honor,” Mandy hooted. “What’s
honorable about being a pimp?” She gaped at her own audacity. She
couldn’t have said that. The Iranian seemed to swell to twice his
height. Onyx eyes turned to volcanic fire pits. Mandy was very glad
he was no longer carrying his weapons. “I’m sorry,” she babbled.
“That’s what you were trying to tell me, isn’t it? You . . . sort
of run things around here, but you don’t–uh–procure the
ah–customers.” It seemed a fine distinction, but evidently to
Shirazi it was a vital point.

After a long moment, the ex-Major responded
with a curt nod. Mandy still felt as if she were sharing the room
with a half-wild beast. Shirazi was a civilized, even cultured,
officer and gentleman. And yet . . . if he felt he had to, he would
kill her. His point was well made. And chilling.

Time to change the subject. Mandy repeated
her earlier question. “So what was important about the weather
report?”

“
We are not stupid. We know we are
being watched. I will, of course, demand surveillance be lifted,
but”—Karim shrugged—“we all know no one can be trusted. Yet in a
storm surveillance is difficult, particularly in a Florida storm.
Small planes and helicopters can’t fly. Lightning is non-stop, the
rain like a waterfall. A storm tonight, a bad one, is just what we
need.”

“
How long . . .?” Mandy couldn’t go on.
How long would he keep them? How long until he killed
them?

“
You will come with us, however far we
go. If you do not give me trouble, I will let you go. You are
sensible . . . for a woman. And, besides, there will be nothing you
can tell the police that they do not already know.”

“
And Peter?”

“
I have told you. I do not like
senseless murder. Do as you are told, and you will both go free.”
Karim checked his watch, swung on his heel with military precision
and left the room.

With a long sigh of relief, Mandy sank back
on the bed, resting her forehead on a black satin pillow with huge
white tassels. She only wished she believed him.

Almost ten minutes of swirling, elusive,
contradictory thoughts before she recalled she was still carrying
her cell phone and a gun. Should she take a chance on contacting
Doug Chalmers? Or was surveillance close enough the FBI had seen
them exit the van? Or at least close enough to figure out what had
happened when she and Peter turned up missing?

Blast it! Peter, Peter, where are you when I
need you?

While in the van, Mandy had managed to turn
off her cell so no incoming call would betray her. But when she
turned it back on, there might be only one chance to make a call
before she was caught. Fine. She’d play it safe and wait until
things got really dicey.

The FBI knew where they were. Or should soon
figure it out. At the moment her cell phone and gun were about as
useful as the two easily opened windows through which the sun shone
so brightly, heralding the arrival of another perfect day in
paradise.

Peter paced his windowless wooden cell. Seven
strides forward, seven back, his thoughts chaotic, frustrated.
Furious. How could he have let this happen? He should have sent
Mandy away.

As if he could have made her go.

They should have accepted Doug’s offer of a
safe house.

No argument there.

Just how dangerous was Karim Shirazi?

Oh, God, Mandy, where are you?

The door opened. A young Asian woman
scurried into the room, carrying a tray of food. Behind her,
filling the doorway stood a Persian prince, straight out of legend.
Even with his arms behind his back at parade rest and flecks of
gray visible in his black curly hair, his stance screamed
arrogant s.o.b
.

Well, hell
. The
bastard had to be Shirazi, the architect of all their misery.
“Where’s my wife?” Peter demanded.

The Iranian’s heavy black eyebrows rose in
Spock-like inquiry. “Wife? It would seem my information was not as
accurate as I could wish. No matter, this is better. I can be even
more certain you would not wish anything to happen to her.”

“
Where. Is. She?”

“
Not far, Mr. Pennington. A few doors
only. She is quite comfortable, I assure you. I have offered her
the privacy of my own room.”

Peter surged forward. The girl with the tray
squeaked. The major didn’t give an inch. His lips, in fact, turned
up in what was almost a smile. Reason prevailed. Peter ground to a
halt eighteen inches short of his goal.

“
Go ahead,” the Iranian purred. “You
can spend your time with us in ropes, perhaps even chains,” he
mused, “or you can remember your wife is alive, unharmed, and about
to be fed breakfast. As are you. The more readily you cooperate,
Mr. Pennington, the easier it will be for both of you.

“
Kai!” Karim snapped without taking his
eyes from Peter. A wave of his hand, and the young Thai laid her
tray on the bed, then swiftly fled the room.

“
Well, Mr. Pennington?” Karim
demanded.

Peter reminded himself he and Mandy had a lot
more years to live, a family to raise. He could not afford to
forget himself again. “I can’t deny you have the upper hand,” he
admitted, stepping back toward the bed, making a determined effort
to look suitably intimidated.

Karim lowered himself into an old straight
chair, which was the room’s only furniture other than the bed.
“Eat,” he commanded. “Then we have business.”

When Peter finished the last crumb of his
second croissant, drained the last drop of coffee, Shirazi produced
Peter’s cell phone. “It is time,” he said. “Your friends out there
will not, of course, be surprised. Undoubtedly, they saw us arrive,
have checked your house to make sure they were not mistaken, and
are now sitting by their phones waiting to hear our demands. So let
us make them happy.” Shirazi leaned forward, extended the
phone.

“
Tell them they are to be gone by
dusk,” he instructed. “It is very simple. We leave without trouble,
or your wife dies. They can gather an army if they wish, but at the
first hint of trouble, she dies. And if our escape fails, I
personally guarantee I will live long enough to take to you to hell
with me.”

The Iranian’s handsome, square-cut face was
as hard as a bronze mask. The dark, so civilized eyes of an Iranian
officer and gentleman met Peter’s, held for five heartbeats.

If he’s
bluffing
, Peter thought,
I
never want to play poker with him
.

The phone slapped down into Peter’s palm.
Blankly, he stared at it . . . then punched in the numbers for Doug
Chalmers.

Doug answered on the second ring.

Mandy was halfway through a croissant when
she heard the tapping. The distinct sound of fingernails on glass.
Nadya’s face peered in at the window on the east side of the house.
In a matter of moments Mandy was helping her climb over the
sill.

“
Is all right,” Nadya whispered, “he
not kill me.”

“
I wish I could say the same,” Mandy
returned, grateful that Nadya’s English had improved.

The two women sat side by side on the bed.
Nadya sighed, obviously searching her scant vocabulary for the
right words. “Karim is not bad man,” she said. “You must do as he
says. Then he let you go.”

“
You believe that?” Mandy
challenged.

Nadya looked down, her long blond hair
falling forward to obscure her face. “I must,” she murmured. “I
cannot believe he kill for people he not like. For country, yes.
For pigs, no.”

“
But you can’t just go on doing what
you’re doing,” Mandy protested.

Nadya raised her head, brushed the hair back
from her delicate heart-shaped face. Her blue eyes were misty.
“There is no choice. Even if I get away, I cannot go home.” Once
again she ducked her head, her voice fading until Mandy had to
strain to hear her. “It is wrong, I know, “but Karim is like . . .
like cocaine. I must have him. Where he goes, I go.”

Whither thou goest .
.
. While Mandy, Miss Proper Bostonian, had
refused.

Mandy closed her eyes, clutched a handful of
bedspread and hung on. She had to be rational . . . think of
Nadya’s problem, not her own. Say the right thing . . .

“
You know cocaine is bad, so why . .
.?” Mandy stumbled to a halt. Against addiction, words were futile.
“He’s Muslim,” she pointed out. “Even if he didn’t make you work as
. . . well, didn’t make you work . . . could you live like that? I
mean, if he took other wives.”

“
It does not matter. I love him. I
cannot . . . think?” Nadya tapped her head. “Picture . .
.?”

“
Imagine?” Mandy supplied.

“
Da.
” The same
vigorous nod of agreement Mandy had seen the first day they met. “I
cannot
imagine
life without
him. He is part of me.”

This was the moment to be wise, and Mandy
couldn’t think of a thing to say. She understood such love, even
when it made no sense. Love that defied reason, adversity, pain.
Love that refused to go away. Nadya’s attraction to Karim Shirazi
might not be sensible, but it was all too human.

So . . . it’s logical to assume the lover of
my enemy is not my friend. Therefore, the lover of my enemy does
not really want to be rescued.

Which effectively took Nadya Semyonova off
the list of friends. Leaving Mandy Armitage and Peter Pennington
far out on a thin limb. Without a net.

She had to face the harsh facts. Everything
was going to happen as Karim Shirazi decreed. Sometime after
nightfall they would be leaving. All of them—Peter, herself, Nadya,
the other girls, even the guards—putting their fate in the hands of
a man who had spent most of his life killing people.

And yet Mandy was inclined to believe he had
no taste for it. That he’d done what had to be done, but perhaps,
just perhaps, he could be tempted to the other side. What they
needed was something Karim Shirazi really wanted, wanted badly
enough to betray his employers . . .

Something besides Nadya, who was already
his.

The old house was silent. Incredibly, it
seemed as if everyone had gone to sleep. Even the guard outside
Mandy’s door had stopped shuffling his feet. Not so strange, she
supposed. This was probably the household’s customary sleep
period.

She peered out each window. Nothing.
Footsteps ought to reverberate on the vinyl floor of the hallway,
giving her plenty of warning . . .

Eyes on the door, Mandy inched her cell phone
out of her pocket. She should call Doug Chalmers, but his wasn’t
the number she punched in.

“
Claire?”

“
Mandy, is that you?” Claire Blue’s
voice burst from the cell phone like a warm embrace. Hot tears well
up in Mandy’s eyes. She’d thought she was holding up well. Guess
not. “Are you all right?” Claire demanded. “Doug called Brad twenty
minutes ago. Is it true? Are you at the old line shack?”

“
I’m fine,” Mandy responded
automatically. Physically, it was the truth. “Tired, but okay. They
didn’t search me for my phone. Probably they’re so blindly male
they just don’t consider me a threat. Or maybe they figured it
didn’t matter because the FBI was going to know we were here. What
could I tell them that they didn’t already know?”