Paradise Burning (38 page)

“
That you’re alive.”

“
True, but that’s to their advantage,
isn’t it?”

“
I’ll tell Doug you called. Is Peter
with you?” After Mandy explained, Claire advised, “I think you
should talk to Brad. He went over to your house . . . just had to
check things out for himself. Maybe he can think of something that
might be useful. Call him, okay?” Claire urged, adding her
husband’s cell phone number.

“
So Shirazi wants to use the storm for
cover,” Brad echoed a few minutes later. “Makes sense. Lousy
visibility, and they’re onto the Interstate, mixed into traffic,
and long gone before we can put anything into the air.”

We
. Mandy had
to smile. Brad Blue would probably still think of himself as a
government agent when he was ninety.

“
What about ground surveillance?” Mandy
inquired. “There must some way . . .”

“
In the midst of nowhere in a storm
with hostages at risk? Sorry, Mandy, but it’s going to be a tough
scenario. Shirazi’s no slouch as a tactician. I’ll let Doug know
you’re okay, that you’ve got your phone . . .”Brad switched from
ex-federal agent to friend. “Hang in there, Mandy. We’ll find a way
to keep track of you, I promise. You wouldn’t believe the techno
gadgets they have these days.”

Thanks, Brad,” Mandy said with feeling.
“Bye.” With a sigh of relief, she tucked the phone deep into her
pocket. Closing her eyes, which had been fixed on the door the
whole time she talked, she allowed herself a few minutes of
timeout.
Tired, bone tired
.
Yet wide awake. Somehow she had to convince her overactive brain to
join the rest of the household in sleep. Mandy eyed the bed with
longing, but the thought of Karim Shirazi returning, finding her
stretched out on his bed, vulnerable in sleep . . .

She considered the narrow upright desk chair,
the hard pine floor. If she wanted to live, she needed her wits
about her. Like Nadya and the other girls, Mandy decided she wasn’t
an advocate of death before dishonor. Gingerly, she lay down on the
bed, using only the black and white bedspread for a cover. She
snuggled into the mound of pillows, closed her eyes.

Dear God, but she was tired . . .

The sun was losing its battle against
the encroaching gloom of the storm front when Karim Shirazi
returned to his bedroom. Mandy’s eyes flew open, staring like a
light-pinned rabbit, frozen for the kill.
Easy, easy. Be reasonable
. She didn’t know the
time but was quite certain hours had passed. If her captor had
found time for sleep, he had taken his rest elsewhere. Thank
God.

In Nadya’s room? Probably. The AKA
portion of Mandy’s brain was certain Nadya was suffering from
Stockholm Syndrome. The female portion of her brain said,
Maybe not
. Maybe it was worse. Maybe
it was love.

Mandy gathered her skittering thoughts and
sat up straight, her back to the headboard. For some strange
reason—since she was fully clothed except for her boots—she
clutched the bedspread, pulling it up to her chin.

Karim Shirazi, though six feet away at the
end of the bed, seemed to tower above her. “You did not say
Pennington was your husband.” The accusation was conversational.
Mandy could not detect a threat.

“
We were separated for many years.
We’ve only . . . we’ve been attempting some kind of
reconciliation,” Mandy replied as evenly as she could. Conversation
was important . . . possibly a matter of life and death. Karim was
a soldier, but he was also a man. Or Nadya could not love him.
Surely Stockholm Syndrome could work both ways. The more they
talked, the better he got to know her, surely he couldn’t . . .
wouldn’t . . .

Fat chance. Face it, girl, this man’s a
pro.

Karim nodded, accepting her explanation as if
rocky love affairs were an everyday occurrence. Perhaps they were,
Mandy thought. Though she still found his world a highly barren
ground for love of any kind.

The Iranian picked up the remote, flicked on
the television. The local weather report was just coming on,
precisely at its appointed time on the “eights” of the hour. So
that’s why he was here.

Severe thunderstorm warnings rolled down the
screen. Followed by a description of what a severe storm entailed:
lightning, hail, damaging winds, possible floods. The radar picture
that followed was the worst Mandy had seen since coming to Florida.
Karim uttered something which sounded very much like an Iranian
version of four-letter basic Anglo-Saxon. Translation unnecessary.
He’d wanted a storm, but was getting more than he’d bargained
for.

Red and yellow splotches, with magenta
accents, formed an almost solid line across the leading edge of a
narrow swath of green as the storm front moved in from the
northwest. It was already over Tampa, not more than ninety minutes
away. No wonder Karim was upset. The time, Mandy noted, was
three-twenty in the afternoon. Darkness would not arrive until
shortly after six, so the fast-moving storm was going to beat the
darkness to the old house in the woods. It was going to be short
but nasty. Lots of lightning. Only brief rain. By the time Karim
had planned to leave, the skies were likely to be cold and clear,
stars bright, the moon rising to illuminate the secrets of the old
house along the Calusa.

Karim was frowning, obviously displeased by
Mother Nature messing with his plans. He did not, however, admit to
the slightest hint of worry. “Pennington made the phone call
several hours ago,” he informed her. “All surveillance is to be
gone by dusk. If our only cover is to be darkness, so be it.”

“
They agreed?”

“
They had no choice.”

The part of Mandy’s brain that had been
trained by Jeff Armitage and Eleanor Kingsley, scoffed. The brain
that longed to be part of a more normal world assured her that Doug
Chalmers would never allow them to be sacrificed.

Truth was, things didn’t look good. If only
she could be with Peter . . . but that was part of the
psychological warfare, wasn’t it? Divide and conquer.

There had to be a way
out!
She and Peter weren’t going to roll over for an
arrogant Iranian who thought of women as commodities to be bought
and sold. And used at will. There had to be some solution other
than giving in, giving up. Waiting for the axe to fall. Life
couldn’t stop here. Or two days, two weeks down the
road.

“
Karim,” Mandy said, forcing his first
name smoothly off her tongue, “you said your parents were part of
the old regime. What happened to them?”

He shrugged . . . hesitated. “They went into
exile. First Paris. The last I heard, perhaps five years ago, they
were part of the Persian community in Los Angeles.”

“
Wouldn’t you like to see
them?”

He looked up at the old cracked ceiling, bent
his proud head, examined the high polish of his black boots.
“Family is a good thing to have,” he conceded, raising unfathomable
charcoal eyes to meet her gaze.

Mandy swung her legs off the bed, slipped out
from under the covers, straightened her clothing, hoping any
telltale bulges would look like and extra pound or two. She brushed
a hand over her hair, trying to restore it to some semblance of
order.

It was now or never.

Repressing a shiver, Mandy looked up into the
Iranian’s implacable—or was it assessing?—face. “Karim,” she
inquired silkily, “what do you want more than anything else in the
whole wide world?”

The old house was coming to life. Soft
footfalls in the hallway, the sound of water gushing through the
plumbing. Alone now, Mandy sat at the desk, trying to beat back a
rising sense of excitement. She’d cast her one and only die and
could only hope it would come up the winning number. Karim Shirazi
was a man who gave away his thoughts and feelings only when it
suited him. There was no way to tell if she had found a chink in
his professional honor. However bizarre his notion that he could
retain honor while trafficking in women.

Maybe, Mandy speculated, her exhilaration was
nothing more than her body’s reaction to the change in air pressure
as the intense storm approached. The electrical sparks charging her
nervous system were responding to the electricity in the air.
Whatever was going to happen, the crisis was nearly upon them. She
had to be ready to meet it. Had to be alert, ready for anything.
The storm was proving Karim Shirazi could not control all the
elements in this drama. Nor would Doug Chalmers let his quarry slip
away into the night. Live or die time was the next few hours.

She shivered, glanced out the windows. The
sky was several shades darker than it had been a half hour earlier
when she had talked with Karim. She turned on the desk light. Much
better. What primeval urge associated the dark with fear, with evil
. . . with things that went bump in the night? The light, however,
could not shut out the sudden low rumble of thunder. Mandy froze in
her chair. The distant sound was like a signal for the curtain to
go up. The final act had begun.

She jumped as the door swung open and Nadya
entered. “Is okay,” the Russian girl assured her, squeezing her
hand. “No be afraid. I not let him hurt you.”

Mandy managed a smile more intended to
reassure Nadya than herself, then watched as the Russian girl
retrieved a suitcase from under Karim’s bed and began to fill it
with clothes from an old dresser. The thunder continued, growing
closer, as Nadya turned to the small closet, neatly folding each
item before adding it to the suitcase. Mandy wondered once again if
Nadya was suffering from love or an unhealthy addiction. The
Russian girl wanted the trafficking stopped, all the girls rescued.
Yet she wanted Karim Shirazi alive and well. And free.

Mandy scooted to one side as Nadya, finished
with the suitcase, stuffed the decorative pillows from Karim’s bed
into a couple of pillowcases. She then hauled a cardboard box out
of the closet and began to empty the drawers of the desk. Idly,
Mandy glanced out one of the north windows. The sky was as dark as
if the sun had already set . . . except . . . Her eyes widened as
the northern horizon seemed to bloom into a glowing cloud of white
light, moving inexorably forward like some great electrical beast
straight out of science fiction, intent on swallowing everything in
its path.

The thunder, still miles away, was no longer
an occasional rumble but a continuous roar reverberating in
different pitches of baritone and bass. The sound was as ceaseless
as the lightning that caused it. She was reminded of old movies on
the History channel, the sound of the great artillery barrage that
preceded the D-day landings.

Goosebumps rose on her arms. Not even
kidnapping by four masked men nor Karim Shirazi’s threats had
frightened her this badly. Primitive nonsense. It was just a storm,
but unlike any she had ever experienced before. And it was coming
straight at them.

Mandy grabbed the remote, turned on the
television. The Weather Channel was running a continuous scroll.
Bright red. Warning residents in Calusa County of the storm’s
danger, advising them to stay home, take cover. There was no radar
picture. Evidently when things got this bad, pictures weren’t
considered necessary. Maybe the forecasters thought it would be too
frightening. Or maybe the radar had already been knocked out by the
storm.

“
Bozhe moi!
”
Nadya was standing beside her, looking out the window, mouth open
in horror.

“
Perhaps you should tell Karim how bad
this looks,” Mandy suggested. With a swift nod, Nadya fled the
room.

Like a victim mesmerized by a cobra, Mandy
couldn’t take her eyes off the rapidly approaching storm. It seemed
like the wrath of God. Like staring death in the face. In spite of
what everyone said about Florida thunderstorms, surely this one
couldn’t be typical. There was no darkness now. Multi-branched
streaks of white fire punctuated the continual glow. The artillery
barrage had gone from distant roar to a constant series of sharp
booms followed by rumbles that echoed as long and loud as a
regiment of kettle drums. Any minute now the brunt of the storm
would engulf them. One strike, and the old house would
disintegrate. Retribution was at hand.

Oh God, dear God, she really didn’t want to
be alone. Here she was, a thoroughly modern woman, reduced to
primitive terror. She had to get a grip. This house had survived
years and years of Florida storms. Hurricanes. Floods.
Tornados.

She wanted Peter. Needed Peter. If they were
going to die, they should be together. Together was where they
belonged.

A rush of wind howled around the eaves. A
dull roar—more like a waterfall than thunder—could be heard. Coming
closer . . . growing louder . . . louder. Rain swamped the house,
pounding onto the roof like a thousand booted feet. An explosion of
thunder rattled the windows, swiftly followed by two more
simultaneous blasts of lightning and the inevitable cacophony that
followed. Mandy dove for the center of the bed and sat there,
reduced to the fetal position, hugging her knees. Praying.

The door swung open and the room was suddenly
full of people. Peter hit the bed running, gathering Mandy into his
arms. Karim set Nadya onto the desk, put his arms around her and
held on. The two armed guards outside the still open door stood
fast, but when Mandy opened one eye to look past Peter’s shoulder,
their faces were visibly pale. It would appear, Mandy decided from
the comforting, if dubious, safety of Peter’s embrace, that
whatever one called one’s God, everyone present was beginning to
suspect He was more than a little angry.