Protecting His Princess (16 page)

Laila sat behind Saafir and next to Harris in the passenger van. Her placement in that location was either Saafir’s or Harris’s design.

They visited two prisons, and Harris and Laila quickly learned the routine.

They returned to the vans to travel to the last jail of the day.

Saafir turned in his seat to face her. “This is one of the more difficult places we visit. Some call it the Cinder Block.”

Laila forced herself not to look at Harris. She’d almost forgotten the Cinder Block was the primary reason they’d come on this trip. Her stomach roiled with nerves, and her palms dampened.

How much worse could the Cinder Block be than the other prisons? Laila had heard rumors about it. She dreaded seeing the inside and hated that people lived within the run-down building.

As they climbed out of the vans, Saafir pulled Laila and Harris aside. He paused and waited for two women to pass. “This is the worst of the prisons we visit. The conditions will not be as good as the previous ones. As a whole, the prisoner population is angrier and more restless. They have not been tried or convicted of any crimes, and they are often foreigners without family in the area to take care of them. They rely on us, and the generosity of strangers for food and clothes. Language barriers and difficulties between religious groups and cultures cause riots, which leads to swift, violent responses by the guards. If anyone recognizes Laila, she will be in trouble.”

Harris’s shoulders tensed. “How do the prisoners treat you?”

“It took me months to earn a sliver of their respect. They know I’m the emir’s brother. They don’t talk much to me.”

Laila hoped for the same treatment. Ignoring her was better than attacking her.

“Please stay close and don’t let any of the prisoners’ comments upset you,” Saafir said.

If she and Harris had to stay close to Saafir, how would they talk to the American prisoner alone? For that matter, how would they find him? The building was huge, with few windows to the outside. The American spy could be anywhere inside.

Laila glanced at Harris to gauge his reaction, and he appeared unconcerned. She knew he felt otherwise. His mind was working overtime to find a way to meet their objective.

They walked toward the entrance to the prison. Harris stayed close to her side, never touching her, but near enough he could have slipped his arm over her shoulder if he’d wanted to. If they were in America, would he casually take her hand? Would he pull her close into the secure circle of his arms? Her imagination was running away with her.

They entered the prison, and the differences struck her immediately. The security at the Cinder Block was tighter. No cursory glance into their boxes. Their supplies were searched, containers opened and rifled through. No one in the group appeared fazed by the search.

A large, brutish-looking man entered the security area. He crossed his brawny arms over his barreled chest. “Contained here are the country’s most manipulative and unscrupulous criminals. Don’t attempt to fraternize with them. Don’t believe anything they tell you. They are born liars. The emir has granted access to this prison on a week-to-week basis. If we sense you are in danger or if your presence is a national security threat, that access will be denied permanently.”

Laila’s heart beat faster. If her and Harris’s intentions were discovered, Mikhail would revoke visiting privileges, and the entire prison population would suffer more than they were, because of their interference.

With shaking hands Laila helped load the remaining supplies onto dollies and carted them past the sliding metal gates to where the prisoners were housed. As it had been at the other sites, the group worked in pairs. Harris and Laila were teamed together. Saafir lingered nearby.

Without windows, the only light came from dangling bulbs in the center of the hallways. The thick, humid air smelled of earth and human waste. Laila tried to breathe through her mouth and not gag.

They stopped at each cell and spoke briefly to the inmates, keeping their conversation to determining what provisions were needed. They handed out blankets and toothpaste, books, magazines, packages of food and bottles of water.

Most of the men seemed broken and worn with an edge of rage that surrounded their being. Some offered only a glare in their direction. The security guards walked up and down the hallways, assault weapons strapped across their chests. At the leers and taunts from the prisoners, the guards swung their weapons toward the cells in warning.

“Do you see him?” Laila asked quietly as she opened another box of water bottles.

“Not yet.”

Other aid workers distributed goods to the prisoners, no one paying attention to Harris and Laila. The guards glanced in their direction, but their main focus seemed to be intimidating the prisoners.

“He could be housed away from the general population,” Harris said.

They couldn’t ask to see him. They didn’t know his name, and they wouldn’t have a reason to see him or to know he was in the Cinder Block.

Harris stiffened slightly, and Laila followed his gaze to the cell three away from where they were standing. Unlike the rest of the prisoners who sat against the walls in their filthy cells, laid on the floor on bed mats, or ignored her and Harris, this man was standing at the bars, gripping the metal in his hands, his face almost pressed between the slats.

His eyes held a wild and intense look.

Harris and Laila approached. Harris set his hand in front of Laila in a silent signal to stay back.

“You’re not Qamsarian,” he said to Harris.

Though his Arabic was flawless, the prisoner looked American. His nose was too small, his face flat and his hair cropped short. He wasn’t as scrawny as the other prisoners, and his clothes were matted with grime but not worn threadbare.

Laila took her time gathering supplies from the boxes, buying Harris precious moments to speak to the man. Was this the American spy? Would Harris speak to him and get the information he needed?

* * *

Harris’s gut tightened, his instincts telling him this man was the one he needed to speak with. This was the man they had been searching for. “Visitors to a new land,” Harris said in Russian.

The man didn’t respond.

“But you understand being a visitor. You don’t belong, and few know you are here,” Harris said.

Though the man didn’t look at him, he was listening. He understood.

“The best way to find success is to share the load,” Harris said.

To a black ops agent with no personal life, no identity, success and completing his mission would mean everything. Harris was staking his bets that to share the load, to tell what he knew about Al-Adel, the Holy Light Brotherhood and Mikhail’s involvement, he would find some satisfaction. If he believed he wasn’t getting out of the Cinder Block, talking to Harris would do some good. Harris could use the information the American had found to locate and stop Al-Adel.

Harris couldn’t linger by his cell much longer. He would draw the attention of the patrolling guards.

“You won’t have other trusted visitors like me,” Harris said, keeping his words low and in Russian. “Trusted” being the key word.

The man reached through the bars and took the items Laila had brought him. “Thank you,” he said to her in Arabic.

Harris waited a few beats to see if he would say anything else. Harris could feel the eyes of the guards on him, watching, staring. Was his voice carrying to them? He turned away from the cell and to the cart, ready to push it farther along. The man in the cell knew he had slim hopes of rescue. If he didn’t care for sharing information, Harris had no pull over him.

“He will be at the wedding. He has powerful allies. No one in the emir’s circle can be trusted,” the black ops agent said in Russian so quietly if Harris hadn’t been intently listening, he wouldn’t have heard him.

Had the American spy stumbled on to who could not be trusted? Or had he gotten close enough to make that person nervous, nervous enough that he was now serving a life sentence in the worst prison in Qamsar? Saafir? Was the American referencing the emir’s brother, a man who presented himself as working for the poor and powerless?

Harris took another book from the supplies box and brought it to the black ops agent. “Who can I trust?” Harris asked.

The man shifted his eyes to Laila and then back to Harris. “No one in the emir’s circle. They are all dirty.” Still in Russian.

Saafir? Mikhail’s aids? Laila’s mother? Aisha? Laila’s uncles? How many people in the royal family were involved with the Holy Light Brotherhood?

Was he insinuating Laila was involved? Harris could trust Laila, couldn’t he? The emir didn’t hold Laila in his confidence. She was a commodity to trade for favors from his friends. Then again Harris had believed Cassie could be trusted, and she had sold him out to his enemy, knowing her betrayal could kill him and his team.

One of the guards looked in their direction and changed course, coming closer.

The American didn’t share anymore of what he knew.

“I wish you the best. You have an ally in me,” Harris said.

The man looked over Harris’s shoulder and stepped away from the bars, taking his items to the back of his cell. The guards? Harris turned. Saafir was approaching.

“Everything okay here?” Saafir asked.

Harris nodded. “Fine.”

“Don’t linger. It makes the guards nervous,” Saafir said.

“Understood,” Harris said.

Laila pushed the dolly past, and Harris followed her to the next cell.

For the next three hours, Harris replayed the American spy’s words. Who else in the emir’s close circle was working with Al-Adel? Harris and the CIA had been following the emir, tracking his movements, but perhaps they had missed something—or someone—important. Did Al-Adel have someone on the inside, working with the emir, feeding the emir information?

Chapter 8

“W
hat did the American tell you?” Laila asked, the moment Harris stepped into her room that night from the balcony. She rushed to him and took his arms. Touching him had become second nature to her, an instinct that warred with the values she’d been raised with.

They’d returned to the compound after their visits to the prisons and had parted ways. Harris had texted her that he’d stop in for a visit when the coast was clear. “He told me others in the emir’s close circle are involved with Al-Adel.”

Not surprising. Mikhail surrounded himself with a group of trusted advisors and often included them in his decisions. To make an alliance with Al-Adel, even in secrecy, would have been difficult without some around him knowing about it.

“Did he say who?” Laila asked. How many people? If many were involved in working with Al-Adel, the more allies the terrorist had in the country, the easier it would be for him to hide within the country and at her brother’s wedding.

“No, he didn’t tell me who.”

Harris took a few more steps into the room and closed the balcony door behind him. This room was their sanctuary, the one place to be alone. Much nicer than lurking and hiding outdoors or trying to converse in public without anyone overhearing them.

Harris stared at her for a loaded moment.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Did something else happen?”

A wary expression entered his eyes. “Have you told your brother we know about the connection to the Holy Light Brotherhood?” Harris asked.

Laila took a step back. She felt as if he’d slapped her. His question sounded like an accusation. She hadn’t told her brother anything. Nothing to Mikhail, not a word to Saafir and heartbreaking silence to her mother. “I’ve been helping you.”

“I know.”

Doubt laced his words. As if she was doing this with another intention or lying to him. “I took a huge risk bringing you here. Why would I do that if I were planning to betray you? I could have refused your request.”

“We put you in an awful position. We’ve forced you to betray your family for your country.”

Insult squared her shoulders. She didn’t see this mission as betraying her family or her country. She was protecting them from Mikhail’s bad decision. “Do you hear yourself? I am doing this because, if the Holy Light Brotherhood is in Qamsar, I want them out. For the people who live here. For my family. I did not turn on my brother. I recognize he has problems, and I am not willing to allow his extremism to harm an entire country of people.” Anger heated her neck, flaming up her back. She’d done everything Harris had asked of her. How could he stand in front of her and speak this way?

Harris let his head fall into his hands. “I’m sorry, Laila. I had to ask.”

She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, tipping back her shoulders. He had hurt her. “No. You didn’t. If you think you can find someone else to do what I’ve done, then maybe you need to do that.”

Harris shook his head. “No other woman could do what you do. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

The woman from his past. Her betrayal haunted him. A prick of compassion let some of the air out of her anger. “I am not the woman who sold you out. I am Laila. I am a different woman. I’m loyal and true, and I don’t hurt people I care about.”

He lifted his head and met her gaze. “You don’t have a reason to care about me.”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don’t have a reason to care? What about our relationship makes you believe I don’t care?” The kisses they’d shared? The time they’d spent alone? The worry and concern she carried with her every moment they were apart?

He said nothing for several long seconds. “You’ve given me plenty of reason to trust and none to suspect you.”

“Will this be the last time I hear you draw comparisons between me and the faithless liar who broke your heart?” If he didn’t want to talk about their relationship, the least he could do is not accuse her of being an untrustworthy wretch.

“I won’t let those thoughts get the better of me again.”

But had he moved past the situation? Or had this woman broken him forever?

Harris kicked off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Forgiven.” When she spoke the word, she meant it, although she still wondered about his ability to trust. “Have you figured out how to get him out of the Cinder Block?” Laila asked.

“Not yet. I messaged what details I could recall about the prison to the team. Even when we were delivering items, no prisoners were allowed outside their cells.”

Laila sat on the bed next to Harris. “It was a strange day. I will never get those places and those people out of my mind.”

Harris’s hand stroked her back, and her skin tingled under his touch. “I shouldn’t have involved you. I could have gone without you.”

Laila reclined against the headboard and took his hand in hers, interlacing their fingers. “Saafir might have found it odd that you wanted to go without me. He might have questioned why you were so interested. But he knows I have a bleeding heart. He probably figured I put you up to making the donation and then asking if we could come along.”

Harris’s thumb moved across her finger. “I don’t want you to have nightmares about what you saw today.”

“If I’m haunted by what I saw today, that makes me human. Knowing it’s happening in my country is how I can help create positive changes.” Though she’d have to leave Qamsar as soon as Harris located Al-Adel, she would find a way to give back. Perhaps she could donate anonymously to Saafir’s organization, assuming it wasn’t a front for dealings with the Holy Light Brotherhood. “It’s awful for the people living the nightmare. I don’t think prison should be a luxury resort, but at least the accused should have a fair trial and be given a chance to defend themselves. If they are incarcerated, they should be treated like humans, not rabid animals locked in cages. For that matter I’ve seen animals treated better.”

Harris eyes glinted with amusement. “You sound like an American.”

She took it as a compliment. “I’ve lived in the States long enough that those American ideals have started to rub off.”

Harris’s gaze softened. “That’s good. I worried, after seeing your life here, about the difficulties of living in another place permanently.”

Since arriving in Qamsar, Laila hadn’t thought much about her early life here, about leaving her home country to further her education in the United States. In some ways, moving to America was returning to the life she’d built, one she was comfortable with—school and work. But it was also starting over. She would need to make new friends, establish new contacts, and because she’d need to hide from Mikhail’s vengeance and her countrymen’s anger, old friends would be out of reach. Starting over at a new school would be hard. She liked her classes, her professors and her classmates. She liked having her aunt and uncle close.

How would it feel to know she couldn’t return to Qamsar? She would no longer be safe or welcome in the country where she’d been raised. She’d be cut off from family, from weddings, from funerals and from visits. Her mother and Saafir would be with her, but thinking about how different their lives would be felt strangling.

It would be even more difficult for her mother, who was set in her ways, saturated and happy in the Qamsarian culture. American life would be better than the life she’d have in Qamsar, especially if her eldest son’s and daughter’s betrayals were discovered, or if she were married to a Holy Light Brotherhood terrorist. Those loyal to the emir could target Laila and her mother and deliver what they considered proper punishment. Or Mikhail could jail them in the Cinder Block. Or the country could revolt against the emir and his family, putting them all in jeopardy.

In America, Laila had seen how nervous Middle Easterners made some Americans. Though Laila had blended into the social scene, her mother, who’d wear traditional clothing as she always had, might be subjected to the fear and prejudice that surrounded the Middle Eastern community in some areas. Would that be taken into account when she was relocated? Bigger cities would make it easier to find acceptance.

“I’ll adjust. I want to be an American. I want to have a life with happiness, and I don’t think that happiness is waiting for me in an arranged marriage in Qamsar. Life won’t be perfect in America, and it may be some time before I’m comfortable and settled, but I’m resilient,” Laila said, touched he’d considered how she would feel about relocating.

“I know you are. It’s one of the reasons I knew you could handle this situation.”

The softness of his words and the closeness of his body sent a shimmer of excitement along her spine. He was paying her a compliment, and she basked in it. It was rare to receive compliments from a man. “One of the reasons? How else did you know?”

A bemused expression crossed his face. “We have a profile on you. We did our research before we approached you.”

Of course they did. But how did they find information about her, and how accurate was it? “What did the profile say about me?”

Harris grinned. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”

His evasive answer piqued her interest. “I do. Tell me.”

Harris hemmed and then decided to answer. “It said you were compassionate and idealistic. Both traits that worked to our advantage. You’d see the problem we were trying to address and want to help. It also said you were intelligent and strong, which was important to keep your cover. The part I liked best was the section that addressed your beauty, humor and sophistication.” His eyes glittered and he lifted a brow.

She laughed. “You’re joking about the last part.”

“It wasn’t in the profile. But it was the part I had sketched in my mind about you. I like to know everything I can about my partners.”

Beauty. Humor. Sophistication. Is that how he saw her? To think of herself in such a flattering light made her head swell. “You’re such a flirt.”

“No, I’m answering your question. But now answer one of mine. Tell me what about me made you agree to come here. Not the situation. Not the ethics. I know it was more than that.”

Her instincts had told her Harris could be trusted. “I didn’t have access to the information you had, so I didn’t have a profile or a folder about your life. But I had gotten to know you from the café. When you came in, you spoke to me. You didn’t talk on your phone while you ordered, and you didn’t ignore my answers to your questions.” That show of respect had meant something to her. “And not to put too fine a point on it, but you saved my life. If I had been closer to the car or if you hadn’t been at the café that night, I’d be dead.”

Harris nodded. “What about my charming good looks? Didn’t that sway you?” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She laughed out loud, and then remembered they were meeting in secret and put a filter on her volume. “I thought you were cute the first time I saw you.”

He groaned and rolled onto his back, covering his eyes with his forearm. “Cute? Cute is for puppies.”

She pried away his forearm and met his bright blue eyes. “No, cute is for American guys who are attractive. Cute is the first step to being interested in someone.”

“I’m listening,” he said, his tone urging her to continue.

“In addition to cute, I could trust you. You were smart and strong, and I felt safe with you. That meant the world to me in agreeing to help.” She hadn’t expected to develop feelings for him as anything more than an FBI agent pretending to be a man in love with her.

When they were no longer pretending to be in love, would they have feelings for each other? “If I’m going to live in America, I want to date more.”

“Dating? What we’re doing is not dating. If we were dating, I would take you out somewhere nice to eat dinner and listen to music. I would come up with interesting places you’d like to visit and then ask you to come along. I would bring you flowers and candy, and cook you dinner and dine with you by candlelight.”

Her mind tripped over the idea of Harris romancing her. It couldn’t happen in Qamsar, where their relationship was strictly controlled and monitored by watchful eyes in the compound. It could happen in America. If he stayed in touch. If she lived near him. If he stayed in a part of her life. Could those circumstances unfold?

If they weren’t dating, what were they doing? The second question was far safer than the first. “If we’re not dating, what do you call what’s happening between us?”

“I don’t have a word for it.”

Helpful. He’d flirted, he’d touched her, he’d visited her in secret and he’d kissed her. But those actions didn’t have a name. Without a name, she felt adrift in confusion. “This is new to me. I’m counting on you to give guidance.” She didn’t know how to navigate a relationship with a man. What she had seen from her mother and cousins wouldn’t apply to Harris. Her family hadn’t arranged their relationship, and Harris wouldn’t like her to pretend to be subservient.

His eyes were filled with emotions she couldn’t read. “I think it’s better if we don’t try to define it. That will put pressure on the both of us, and we don’t need any additional pressure in this situation. Looking for Al-Adel and trying to figure out who we can trust is a full-time job.”

Disappointment surged through her. Was he telling her that he wasn’t interested in committing to her? Had she expected him to? He was closing off the conversation, and she didn’t feel any clearer about their relationship. It existed in some undefined gray area, and insecurities rose in her chest. How much of their relationship and his emotions had she manufactured in her mind based on what she was feeling?

Harris looked around the room. “I wish I could take you somewhere. Somewhere not inside the compound, somewhere we wouldn’t be watched, and we could relax and have fun.”

“Aren’t we supposed to stay in the compound and look for you-know-who?” Laila asked, her head spinning at the idea of leaving the compound with Harris without a chaperone, sneaking off somewhere dark and sensual. A belly-dancing club. A private dinner in an upscale restaurant, where women dined in gowns and men wore suits.