Let’s start over.
First gear. Good. It got her through the gate.
She pushed buttons randomly until the gate closed and the door to a garage bay opened. Then she pulled in, gawking at the selection of sport and luxury vehicles. She closed the garage door. The lights came on automatically.
She sat motionless and listened, but could hear no car stopping in front of the house, no bullets hitting the garage door behind them. A reprieve. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, wanting to stay that way forever.
But she had to get out of here, away from Karim before he came to. A glance at him confirmed that he wasn’t even close to that yet.
She stepped out of the car, shaking from the chase and maybe a little with hunger. Something red caught her eye in the side mirror and she realized her clothes were bloody. From Karim. She had to find something to wear before she went out onto the street. A disguise wouldn’t have been a bad idea, in any case. Just so the assassins wouldn’t recognize her if they ran into each other. She needed one of those burqas local women wore, the black dress that made them virtually indistinguishable from each other.
A week ago she would have sworn that nothing and nobody could make her wear one of those things. Two days in this country and she was already begging to put on the veil.
Could be there was something like that in Aziz’s palace. Not a burqa, specifically—he’d told her he wasn’t married and none of his sisters lived with him—but even a black sheet would do. Karim had black sheets—the brief flashback to when she’d been in his bedroom raised her core temperature a few degrees so she pushed that particular memory away.
So she was a little attracted to him. So what? He was an attractive man. Tall and wide-shouldered. That scar of his only made him look fiercer. But he wasn’t for her. For one, he was Aziz’s brother. That made it all strange somehow. Plus, by tomorrow this time, she’d be home.
The only contact she planned to have with Karim was when she helped her child write letters to his uncle in a couple of years. Family was important. She was going to allow contact, she’d decided at one point. Making her daughter or son wait eighteen years for the truth didn’t seem right. But she was going to take precautions. She didn’t see going on vacations together in their future.
She cast a glance at him. He was sleeping, the dashboard propping up his head, in what looked like an extremely uncomfortable position. He seemed a little less intimidating in this pose. She pulled the key from the ignition and looked at the key ring. If Karim had the remote to Aziz’s gate, it stood to reason that he would also have the key to Aziz’s house.
She could help him in and make him comfortable. Could look at his wound and, if needed, even call for help if she found a phone book and the number for the ambulance. If she could figure out the listing in Arabic. Hopefully there was a symbol of a red cross or something along those lines next to it. In a country where illiteracy was a major problem, surely they would think of something like that.
She would find herself something to cover up with, call an ambulance and book it out of here before anyone arrived. Seemed like the perfect plan.
She walked around, dragged him out of the car and stood him upright. He wasn’t completely unconscious, not so much that he was dead weight. But his movements needed firm direction and a lot of encouragement. She nudged him to the stairs, propping him against the wall while she tried the keys one by one. She hit the jackpot on the sixth try, went into some sort of an entrance room, swore at the blinking red light on the state-of-the-art security system—a flat-screen monitor built into the wall.
Of course, a palace would be secured. She was lucky she wasn’t sitting neck deep in Rottweilers and security guards.
“Wake up. We need the code.” She shook Karim, inhaling the pleasant,
First gear. Good. It got her through the gate.
She pushed buttons randomly until the gate closed and the door to a garage bay opened. Then she pulled in, gawking at the selection of sport and luxury vehicles. She closed the garage door. The lights came on automatically.
She sat motionless and listened, but could hear no car stopping in front of the house, no bullets hitting the garage door behind them. A reprieve. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, wanting to stay that way forever.
But she had to get out of here, away from Karim before he came to. A glance at him confirmed that he wasn’t even close to that yet.
She stepped out of the car, shaking from the chase and maybe a little with hunger. Something red caught her eye in the side mirror and she realized her clothes were bloody. From Karim. She had to find something to wear before she went out onto the street. A disguise wouldn’t have been a bad idea, in any case. Just so the assassins wouldn’t recognize her if they ran into each other. She needed one of those burqas local women wore, the black dress that made them virtually indistinguishable from each other.
A week ago she would have sworn that nothing and nobody could make her wear one of those things. Two days in this country and she was already begging to put on the veil.
Could be there was something like that in Aziz’s palace. Not a burqa, specifically—he’d told her he wasn’t married and none of his sisters lived with him—but even a black sheet would do. Karim had black sheets—the brief flashback to when she’d been in his bedroom raised her core temperature a few degrees so she pushed that particular memory away.
So she was a little attracted to him. So what? He was an attractive man. Tall and wide-shouldered. That scar of his only made him look fiercer. But he wasn’t for her. For one, he was Aziz’s brother. That made it all strange somehow. Plus, by tomorrow this time, she’d be home.
The only contact she planned to have with Karim was when she helped her child write letters to his uncle in a couple of years. Family was important. She was going to allow contact, she’d decided at one point. Making her daughter or son wait eighteen years for the truth didn’t seem right. But she was going to take precautions. She didn’t see going on vacations together in their future.
She cast a glance at him. He was sleeping, the dashboard propping up his head, in what looked like an extremely uncomfortable position. He seemed a little less intimidating in this pose. She pulled the key from the ignition and looked at the key ring. If Karim had the remote to Aziz’s gate, it stood to reason that he would also have the key to Aziz’s house.
She could help him in and make him comfortable. Could look at his wound and, if needed, even call for help if she found a phone book and the number for the ambulance. If she could figure out the listing in Arabic. Hopefully there was a symbol of a red cross or something along those lines next to it. In a country where illiteracy was a major problem, surely they would think of something like that.
She would find herself something to cover up with, call an ambulance and book it out of here before anyone arrived. Seemed like the perfect plan.
She walked around, dragged him out of the car and stood him upright. He wasn’t completely unconscious, not so much that he was dead weight. But his movements needed firm direction and a lot of encouragement. She nudged him to the stairs, propping him against the wall while she tried the keys one by one. She hit the jackpot on the sixth try, went into some sort of an entrance room, swore at the blinking red light on the state-of-the-art security system—a flat-screen monitor built into the wall.
Of course, a palace would be secured. She was lucky she wasn’t sitting neck deep in Rottweilers and security guards.
“Wake up. We need the code.” She shook Karim, inhaling the pleasant,
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