Blink of an Eye (18 page)

She turned back to him. “Seth?”

Seth had reached the wall. She saw the red box on the wall and knew it was a fire alarm before he pulled it.

A shrill bell clanged to life. For a long moment the bustle of the room seemed to freeze. Seth spun around and yelled above the bell. “There's a bomb in the building set to go off in thirty seconds. Please exit immediately in an orderly fashion!”

Contradicting his own advice, Seth ran. “Out! Everyone out!”

Bedlam broke out. Seth raced for her, and a broken dam of people rushed for the door, set in motion by Seth's sprint. Screams joined the bell and Miriam fought the impulse to join them.

Seth reached her. “Hurry. Follow me!”

They ran for a side door with
Fire
stamped on its surface. The guards cut across the room, hampered by the flood of running bodies. Seth and Miriam reached the side door well ahead of the closest guard.

A gunshot sounded over their heads. “Freeze! Stop where you are!”

Whether the guard addressed the entire mob or her, Miriam didn't know. Whatever the case, the action refreshed the crowd's panic. New screams broke out, and the rush for the door became a stampede.

Seth and Miriam crashed through the fire door. Seth took five long steps toward the front of the building and slid to a stop. The street filled with people.

“Run!” Miriam panted.

He grabbed her hand. “This way!” They sprinted to an alley and then behind the building, where a couple dozen cars sat parked. Seth pulled up just around the corner, panting.

“What about your car?” Miriam asked.

He released her hand and bolted from car to car, grabbing at door handles and muttering through clenched teeth. “Come on! Come on!”

A male voice yelled around the corner, and Miriam stole a quick glance. A guard had exited the building and was running toward the alley.

“They're coming!”

“Try the cars! Find an unlocked car!”

This was his plan? “An unlocked car?”

“Unlocked!”

He ran to another car and yanked on the latch. Locked. He ran to another. “Come on. Help me!”

Miriam ran for a blue Mercury Sable and pulled on the handle. The door sprang open. She turned to tell him, but he was already racing for her.

“Get in!” He was whispering now. “On the floor.”

She clambered in and flattened herself on the front seat. She didn't know how he expected her to get on the floor—the steering wheel was in the way and . . .

A knee or a hand pushed into her back and she grunted.

“Sh!”

He was climbing over her. His full weight crushed her and she nearly yelled at him. But she quickly decided that he would never climb over her unless it was his only option. She gasped for air.

He eased the door closed. Silence smothered her. She pushed up on her elbows to give her lungs room to breathe. His body was dead weight.

“Don't move!” he whispered.

“You're
crushing
me!”

He was silent for a moment, as if considering this information.

“The guard's in the parking lot,” he whispered. “He'll see me if I get up.”

“You're . . . suffocating me.”

Another silence. Imagine: She wouldn't die by drowning at the hands of the mutawa, but by suffocating under the body of an American.

“Should I move?” he asked.

“Y-yes. Off my back.”

“What if he sees me?”

If he didn't move, she would die for sure. She swung her elbow back in self-defense. It landed in his ribs and he grunted.

Now he moved. His weight shifted from her back to her legs and she nearly cried out from the pain. At least she could breathe. His knees found the seat between her legs, and then his weight eased.

They remained motionless for a long minute, breathing hard. Then his body began to tremble, and it occurred to her that the poor man must be supporting himself in a strenuous position.

“Should I look?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He eased himself up.

“I think we're clear,” he finally said. He reached forward, shoved the passenger door open, and scrambled out over her, all elbows and knees again, apologizing with her every grunt.

He spilled out onto the gravel, sprang to his feet, and gave her a half smile as she struggled to sit. He scanned the lot and then ran back around to the driver's side. He climbed in and shut the door.

“Sorry. You okay?”

“No.”

He grinned sheepishly. “But you're alive.”

“Barely. There's no key.”

“Who needs keys?”

Evidently not Seth. It took him less than a minute to pull out three wires and press two together to start the car. Thirty seconds later they eased out of the alley and pulled onto the street. Behind them, lights from a number of fire trucks and police cars flashed. The Cougar was blocked in by two cars.

Seth sped down the street, smirking, leaving the chaos behind.

“Boy, that was close,” he said.

“Thanks to you.”

They drove a block in silence, Seth checking the mirrors every two seconds.

“Are you going to tell me why we ran?”

“They were going to turn you over to Hilal.”

“You're sure?”

“Pretty sure. Yes, I'm sure.”

“You saw that in the building, but you saw no way of escape once we got to the alley. So your gift has its limits.”

“It's sporadic. But I think it's gaining strength. I'm seeing more and I'm seeing longer.”

They turned onto a side street and then onto another. Still no sign of pursuit. Miriam began to relax.

“Now what?” she asked.

He looked at her for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time and then faced forward, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“Now we run, princess. Now we really run.”

chapter 16

h
ilal eyed the diplomats around the conference table, thinking that debating protocol while the woman and the American fled was a waste of time. The State Department's cooperation was critical now, but not at the expense of Miriam's disappearance. The fact that she had escaped him once infuriated him enough.

He closed his eyes. Seth Border had handed him an insult. The man's words ran circles through his head still. Stupid, flippant words that he should ignore. But he couldn't. Dealing with Seth Border was in some ways as important to him now as dealing with the sheik's daughter.

“. . . if it makes any difference to you, Mr. Sahban.”

Hilal looked at the man who addressed him. Peter Smaley, deputy to the secretary of state, was fortunately available, having been in Los Angeles with Iona Bergren on unrelated business. Bob Lord, the undersecretary for State Department affairs, sat beside them, waiting for his response. The only other person in the small conference room was Clive Masters, from their National Security Agency. Within a minute of the meeting's commencement, Hilal had judged them accurately. Smaley was here to administer the meeting and ensure that Saudi-American relations were not threatened by this event. Lord was here to play the antagonist—the individual-rights activist who would rather see a hundred Arabs die than one American. Iona, the woman, was the most knowledgeable of the Middle East's sensitivities, despite her gender. And Clive Masters was the killer here. Of them all, he was the only one who gave Hilal some pause.

“Forgive me, my mind was elsewhere,” he said. “Could you restate the question?”

“Bob has suggested that we withdraw and let them surface under a false sense of security,” Smaley said.

“I'm afraid this matter is too urgent for such tactics,” Hilal said. “I'm not sure you appreciate the difficulty this evasion puts my government in. You do not sit back and let a coup surface.”

Iona cleared her throat and leaned forward. She looked to be of Mediterranean descent, pretty, with olive skin and a rather large nose. He wouldn't mind making her acquaintance.

“You are saying that the princess confessed to being an integral component of a planned coup? Why would she confess this?”

“I believe she thought it would dissuade me from taking her home.”

“And you believe her?”

“I have no doubt.”

“Seems rather assuming,” Bob Lord said. “But if you know about the coup, I can't see why you need her to deal with it. Arrest the parties involved. We certainly don't need to bring in gunslingers to hunt down a couple of people who've done nothing more than run for their lives.”

“She has broken our laws, Mr. Lord. And your assumption that we can simply arrest the suspected parties in Saudi Arabia shows your ignorance of our society. Even if we did know who was behind the coup—”

“You said Sheik Abu Ali al-Asamm was behind it.”

“He is surely an accessory. But the coup would not come from him,” Hilal explained. “If arresting the sheik made any political sense, we would have done it twenty years ago. He's too powerful to arrest. We need his allegiance, not his head. We must expose the man among our own, and I am convinced the woman knows his identity.”

They were silent for a moment.

“You'll take the princess back and torture her for this information,” Lord said.

“Our government is at stake, Mr. Lord. We will do what we must. And if she can't be returned, then she must be . . . dealt with here.”

Lord just stared at him.

“I'm sorry, I don't understand how anything beyond her apprehension's in our interest,” Smaley said.

“It's in our interest because it effectively squashes this coup attempt,” Iona interjected, “even if it doesn't expose the parties involved.”

Hilal gave her a soft smile. “Precisely. It also gives my government leverage with Sheik Abu Ali al-Asamm.”

At the far end of the table, the NSA operative chuckled. He stared at Hilal with pale blue eyes and nodded. Clive Masters was no idiot. His hair was a sandy red and his skin was unusually fair—a strange sight with his gray-blue eyes. Disturbing, even. He would have to watch this man.

“Please explain,” Smaley said.

Hilal turned from Clive Masters. “The sheik will be distressed to learn that his daughter has been killed. Naturally, so will Prince Salman, her adopted father. We will approach the sheik and explain our suspicions that she was killed by the man whose marriage she fled. It may be in the sheik's interest to reveal that man's identity and look for favor with King Abdullah, which we will be pleased to extend.”

“So the woman's death renews an alliance with the sheik,” Lord said.

“Precisely.”

“You assume that the United States is interested in keeping your king in power at the price of an innocent woman's life.”

Iona turned to the deputy secretary. “The question is more accurately a matter of regional stability. I'm confident that the secretary would agree. Where Saudi Arabia goes, the Middle East goes. The United States can't afford a coup in Saudi Arabia. Period.”

“I wasn't aware that you were so partial to the House of Saud,” Lord said.

“Please,” Hilal said. “The next king of Saudi Arabia may not be as progressive in his thinking as King Abdullah. In fact, the reason we are here today is likely because some extremist considers the king too progressive to remain in power. Miriam is a pawn of those extreme elements. Dealing with her is not so different from dealing with a terrorist.”

“Terrorist?” Lord objected. “She's no Bin Laden. She's a refugee seeking political asylum. We have laws here too, Mr. Sahban.”

Iona still studied Hilal. “I am partial to the House of Saud only to the extent that the alternatives are less appealing,” she said. “I think that's the administration's policy as well. Moving Saudi Arabia into the twenty-first century is a tedious task, but as long as the movement's forward rather than backward, I support it. If a militant seized control of Saudi Arabia, a dozen neighbors would swing his way. So in some ways the minister makes a good point.”

She looked at Lord. “However unfair it may seem, the fate of your innocent princess may have more bearing on the fate of the region than you would guess. I'm not sure I'm ready to gamble the stability of the Middle East on the survival of one woman.”

Lord's face darkened a shade. “What are you suggesting? That we assassinate this woman?”

“I'm suggesting that we avoid a bloodbath in the Middle East, Bob. You may think of her as a refugee; I see her as a fugitive. We have an obligation to help our ally bring her to justice.”

“Justice in this country doesn't come at the end of a gun.”

“I don't recall mentioning a gun. I'm simply laying all of our cards on the table.”

Hilal couldn't have made a more convincing argument. As far as he was concerned, the discussion here was over. It was time to go after the couple. Regardless of what the Americans did or did not do, he would hunt them down. He could use the Americans' intelligence, of course. For that alone, perhaps this meeting was worth the time after all. But either way, he could not allow Miriam to remain a free woman. “And what about the American? Who is Seth?” Smaley asked.

“He's a student from Berkeley,” Iona said. “Mr. Masters?”