Undercover Sultan

And found himself in a hotel bedroom lighted only by a night-light. She was standing by the bed. A red velour bedspread covered it. She was tossing two red velour pillows onto the floor as he entered. He watched as she tore the bedspread down to the foot of the bed, dragged back the sheets.

Her black leather skirt was slit up both sides, and revealed black lace covering a neatly rounded rump as she bent and twisted, intent on her work.

He could appreciate such insouciant dedication to business, and only regretted that he could not share it. He wanted to get the hell out of here.

But he couldn’t help smiling. He crossed towards the outer door as she straightened. “I wish I could stay,” he murmured, “but unfortunately…”

“Shhh!” she commanded. She now had the bed looking completely ruined, and pushed him out of her way as she crossed to the window. She dragged it shut and turned the little locking mechanism, then drew the curtains.

“Right,” she said. “Now, look—Henri will think you’re my client.”

“Henri?”

“Downstairs, on the desk,” she supplied impatiently. “Can you—” She looked at him, taking in his clothes fully for the first time. “My God, you look like a cat burglar!” she exclaimed.

He was dressed entirely in snug-fitting black that outlined his body almost as closely as Lycra. Mariel blinked at the muscled chest, the powerful thighs, the firm biceps….

He cocked one eyebrow. “I am a cat burglar,” he said dryly.

“I have to go down the front way, and there’s no time to show you the service entrance. You’ll just have to come out with me. Henri will think you are my client who doesn’t want to be recognized, so he won’t be surprised if you go straight out the door.”

“And then what?”

“My car is in the next street. Can I drop you, or shall we go our separate ways?”

She was so cool! Haroun reached to touch her chin, and laughed with pure admiration. “I don’t think I can leave you,” he said. “Let us change our minds and at least make use of the bed before we part.”

His words made her lips twitch into an involuntary smile. It was quite true that sex was in the air between them. How could it not be, when danger had chased so closely at their heels? For those who are truly alive, their bodies and spirits cried, a near escape from death is best celebrated through sex.

Mariel could almost have given in, too. He was so handsome, and when he was laughing he was pretty well irresistible. And she had fallen half in love just with his photo. But—

“You are ridiculous,” she said sternly, though she knew he wasn’t serious. “Anyway, we’ve been incredibly lucky so far and our luck would be sure to turn if we abused it like that.”

He was eyeing her with a grin that melted her. “I certainly don’t want the luck I’ve been having tonight to change. If we make love now, it will abandon me? You are sure of it? I think it could only improve. And perhaps it would even be wise to wait here until the search is given up.”

“No, let’s get out of here,” Mariel said, ignoring most of the speech. “We can’t be sure Michel doesn’t know about that fire escape.”

He was aware of a reluctance to leave her. He justified this with the conviction that she might be able to tell him something about Verdun that he didn’t know.

“All right. We head for your car. Where is it, exactly? What make and colour?”

She told him in an undervoice as she opened the door and led him out into the hall. He went down the stairs lightly at her side, his lithe black shape melting in and out of the shadows. She could believe he was a cat burglar, but what had he wanted from Michel? Was it possible he was stealing secrets from Michel and selling them?

Henri was too savvy to take any formal notice of the sudden appearance of Emma’s “client,” and Mariel only threw him a smile and a twinkling wave before following the stranger out into the street.

Her car was two streets away, and there was plenty of pedestrian traffic under the neon signs. Mariel walked quickly, her high-heeled boots clicking on the pavement with little erotic snaps. She resisted the impulse to look over her shoulder to be sure the stranger was following, and instead tried to concentrate on looking like a woman on the job. She slipped her fingers into the little slash pockets of her micromini and let her hips swing in invitation. She kept wanting to laugh, and she couldn’t tell whether it was the effect danger had on her, or the stranger.

At the corner she turned to cross the street and risked a glance back. Two women were offering their wares to him, jointly and severally, and they didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. Her smile died as a totally unfamiliar jealous rage swept through her.

She had whirled instinctively, ready to charge back towards the cosy little group, almost before she realized it. Then she took a deep, surprised breath. She had never been jealous before, and here she was, furiously proprietal about a man whose photograph she had first seen less than an hour ago! Was she going crazy?

Maybe it was just the effect of the danger. Danger heightened the emotions, she had always heard that. But still she stood glaring down the street as he smiled his regrets and passed the hungry hookers by. One of them glanced up and saw Mariel staring, saw that the man was following her, and started screaming at her in very pungent street French.

“Get off my beat, putain!”

“Va-t’en, vache!” Mariel called back, partly for the hell of it, and partly to stay in character in case anyone was watching.

Perhaps a little too much in character. The two hookers erupted with fury at her show of defiance and took after her. Fortunately the light had changed. Mariel ran across the busy street, followed by the cat burglar, who was followed by the two enraged women.

People in cars began to honk encouragement as the drama unfolded in front of them. And on the opposite side of the street, a block behind, she saw Michel’s gunman turn the corner, take one look in their direction, and instantly join the chase.

Maybe she should have sacrificed a little of the character of her part, Mariel reflected. No one ever ran the four-minute mile in three-inch stilettos, she was pretty sure of that.

The cat burglar caught up with her, grabbed her arm and kept running. This caused the hookers to scream like wounded banshees, but a glance showed her they at least were losing interest in the chase. Maybe she had crossed the frontier of their territory now.

The man with the gun, which he was now obviously holding in the pocket of his sweats, wasn’t losing interest. He was pounding along, barely a block behind.

Fortunately, her car was around the next corner. Breathless, Mariel could only point wildly to the right as they approached the next street. The cat burglar understood and, keeping his grip on her arm, half dragged her into the turn.

Her car was halfway along the narrow, dark street. Mariel reached for her backpack, then gave vent to a breathless screech.

“What?” said the stranger.

“My bag!” she panted. “I left—my bag—no—no—keys!”

“Where?”

“In the—office,” Mariel croaked.

Luck, she had called it? Where was the luck in escaping if Michel knew who had been there?

Three

They had slowed their steps, but now they heard the sounds of running footsteps behind them, and the stranger grabbed her arm again and set off across the street at an angle. She just saw the shadow of the mouth of the alley before they were in it.

It was pitch-dark, and their entry was the trigger for some frantic scuffling near some piles of refuse. Mariel hoped it wasn’t rats.

The cat burglar seemed to have eyes as good as his namesake, because he led her safely through the alley past all impediments before her own eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. When they got to the other end a glance behind showed them the gunman framed at the entrance. A moment later they heard clanging and cursing, so his eyes weren’t as good as the stranger’s, either.

They crossed another narrow street and plunged into another laneway. They were in a very old part of the city, the walls all worn, dark brick, the streets twisting and narrow. But the other, though he wasn’t gaining, managed to stick on their tail.

Mariel was panting heavily when the stranger dragged her into another narrow opening. Now she could hear a pounding like thunder. The drum of doom, she thought a moment later. Because this time the lane led into a cramped courtyard, and there was no other exit.

“Oh my God!” Mariel panted. “Is there a fire esc—”

A sound from the stranger silenced her. He was staring around in the darkness, and now pressed his finger lightly to her lips. “This way,” he whispered in her ear.

It was only then that she saw the little group of teenage boys clustered around a doorway, deep in shadow, murmuring amongst themselves. The stranger’s confident hand clasped her wrist and drew her in that direction. Before Mariel had time to wonder, the door opened a crack, pushed from the inside, and music came pounding out.