Ancient Danger: Mata Hari Suspense Series #3 Read online

Khalid said, “And third?”

  Bakari exhaled noisily. “I’ll leave that for later. Tell me how to save Rashida.”

  Khalid closed his eyes and a cold stillness filled the room. Color drained from his skin and ripples of dark energy crossed his expression as the tiny muscles of his face tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. Bakari looked at his watch and waited.

  Five minutes later the color of his son’s cheeks deepened and he opened his eyes. “There may be a way.”

  Bakari’s chest tightened and he leaned forward. “I will do anything to get it.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “My life is never easy.”

  6

  Chapter Six

  Venice

  Sadie spent the night tossing, turning and swearing. Her love for Sebastian pulled her one way, her need to be her own person pulled the other. Not a new conflict, but one that had come to a head at the charity ball. Some anniversary present! They’d planned to spend two romantic weeks together in Venice. And now… She wanted to punch him.

  Soft, pink pre-dawn light bled through her bedroom window. Someone knocked on her door. Could she pull the covers over her head and pretend she wasn’t there? She was too old for that crap. Dressed in a white cotton nightgown, she slid over to the door, looked through the spy hole to make sure it was him, then let him in.

  Sebastian, wearing ripped, faded-blue jeans, an open-collar white shirt and a blue cotton sports coat strode in. His long hair had been pulled back into a pony tail. He hadn’t shaved and the roughness of his stubble made her long to feel it against her body. Lines creased the edges of his blue eyes drooping with fatigue. She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept last night and that pleased her. The air between them electrified with unspoken emotion. They looked at each other for a full minute.

  Sebastian broke the silence. “Mijn liefje, I have so much I want to say and I don’t know where to begin or how to say it, so you’ll understand me. I love you Sadie, more than I have ever loved any woman before. I want you to be a part of my life…”

  She nodded. None of this was new.

  “But…”

  Sadie’s eyes welled with tears. But? Were they really doing this? Were they about to break up? She reached for his hand, hoping the connection would steady them.

  Light reflected from his soft blue eyes. “But,” he continued, “I want to protect you. It’s only natural.” The way his six-foot-five body towered above hers emphasized his words. He wanted to be her man, her protector.

  Sadie growled. She wanted him to be her lover. And sweet Jesus he was good at that. But she didn’t want this. “Why can’t you understand me? I’m trained to take care of myself, and I’ve done just fine on my own for thirty years.”

  His jaw tightened. “But do you want to be on your own?”

  That did it. A tear spilled from her right eye. “No honey, I want to be with you. But you have to respect who I am.”

  “You said you were done with fighting and all the fucking crap that surrounds the CIA, but the way you’re acting I’m not so sure. Last night…”

  “Last night?”

  “I saw the old Sadie back.”

  Her breath caught. He was right. She had stopped being a spook six months ago. Last night that world came back to her in an instant. A part of her that she had shut down came alive, fully alive, when she fought for her life. The thrill of living on the edge had surged through her veins. “I did what I had to do, nothing more.”

  “Just like a well-trained spy.”

  She couldn’t deny that and wasn’t about to apologize for it. “Do they know who the guy was?”

  Sebastian shook his head.

  “I contacted Jeremiah, but he hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

  “Jeremiah? Godverdomme. You said you were through with that life.” His cheeks reddened.

  “But that life may not be through with me.”

  “Sadie.” His breathing was loud and labored, as though controlling his feelings took every ounce of his energy.

  “Stop, and listen to me. Yes, I was furious with Jeremiah for not telling me everything about the Anubis op, but what employee doesn’t get mad at their boss? It was a misunderstanding and the whole need-to-know culture of the CIA sucks. Really sucks. But putting that aside…”

  “Aside?”

  She held up her hand to stop him from saying more. “I believe in the CIA and the work it does to keep America safe. And I…” She took a deep breath. “Miss the life.” She hadn’t fully realized it until she said it. But there it was.

  “Fuck.”

  “Besides, Jeremiah is my best source for information. I had to contact him. It’s a matter of personal safety and for all I know national security.”

  “I have Xander and Seamus at Interpol working on it.” Sebastian’s voice turned cool. “You must have known I would contact them.”

  She shook her head. Jeremiah had access to more databases than they did and perhaps even more important he had the unparalleled sharp mind of a master spy. There was no better analyst of information than Cole. She liked Sebastian’s friends, but they were no match for him.

  Sebastian grimaced. “I’m sorry if I wounded your pride by hiring extra security, but I believed it was necessary. I want you to be safe. That’s something you’ll have to learn to live with if you want to be with me. I can’t have anything happen to you.”

  Sadie rolled her eyes. “Those extra precautions could blow my cover and make me more vulnerable. Look, if you want to be with me, it’s got to be on my terms.”

  “Your terms?” His voice rose. “Your terms?” His face became so red she thought it would explode.

  Instead, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

  7

  Chapter Seven

  Amsterdam

  In the small room he called his chambers, Khalid rose to his feet. He waved his black wand in the air and listened for the sacred stillness to fill the room. His father sitting at the table in front of him, had asked him to find a way to save his daughter, Khalid’s sister. Exhaling, Khalid focused on the task.

  Or at least, he tried to. His mind slid off-center, trying to comprehend what had taken place in the last half hour. When he was a boy he’d dreamed of meeting his father. But now? The moment wasn’t anything like his dreams.

  He’d never imagined his father would turn out to be Bakari al-Sharif, the famous, international arms dealer. His mother had kept that knowledge from him.

  An Egyptian, power-hungry criminal. What the hell was he going to do with him? Khalid looked at the square built man who had the same chin and eyes as his own. He searched his face and body for more similarities, but nothing more seemed to connect them.

  The man was a stranger and should stay that way. Bakari’s violent nature oozed from his pores. Khalid could smell the vicious crimes he had committed to remain on top of his world.

  He didn’t need this man. Not now, not ever.

  The arcane blood of his mother’s family ran strong in him, the blood of the Egyptian adept, of sorcerers and psychics and healers. With practice he could perfect his skills. With practice he’d learn pure magic and become the most powerful man alive.

  His father had no place in that future. He was a mere mortal stuck in the tawdry rut of ordinary living. He said his mother chose to mate with him for his strength, but Khalid couldn’t see any strength to admire in the man’s eyes, or his mind. He may be worth millions, but he smelled of weaknesses and, after his death, he would be soon forgotten. While Khalid would be remembered forever.

  But for now, he would give his father what he wanted, his future in his hand.

  Khalid lifted his eyes to the heavens then turned them inwards. “Brothers of Darkness heed my call. Open my mind that I may hear you. Let me fly like a falcon through the darkness and merge into the light of the dawn. Let me know what I must know.” His hand, holding the black wand, trembled more than ever before. Perhaps he�
��d misjudged his father. The energy in the room thickened, and darkness pressed in on him until he gasped for breath. “Open thy portals and take your servants in.” Everything went black.

  A moment later he opened his eyes. His father still sat on the other side of the table, staring back at him with wide eyes. Sweat flowed down his olive-skinned face. But everything around them blurred. It was as if they existed in one moment and one space in time and their surroundings had faded into shadows. He swallowed, tasting bile in his spit.

  “Son, perhaps you shouldn’t do this.” Bakari said. Was that concern in his voice? Too little, too late old man.

  “I am in control,” said Khalid. But listening to his voice, he knew that the one in control came from beyond.

  “Your face has turned white; your eyes are glazed and darkened; you look… unwell. I’m worried for you,” Bakari said.

  Khalid laughed and listened to his thunderous voice echo in the small fetid space between them.

  “Your mother didn’t look like this when she told me my future. Nor did she call to the darkness. I fear you’re going beyond your capabilities…”

  “Yes.”

  “Places a man should not go.”

  “For you, Father, I will venture into the unknown. Together we can handle whatever lies in wait for us.”

  “No, Khalid. Listen to me. Your pride will push you too far. I know this. My pride let me do things I should never have done. You need to think about what you’re doing. It’s not too late for you. This is what your mother warned me about. She didn’t want you…”

  “Didn’t want me to do what?”

  Bakari’s dark-skinned face turned white. “To become a black wizard.”

  Khalid laughed again. “But don’t you see? I became one the day I killed her. The gods do not take kindly to matricide.”

  Bakari put his head in his hands. “My God, what have we done?”

  “You and my mother created a powerful man who fears no mortal.”

  “Khalid, listen to yourself. You are made of flesh and bones. You are not a god. Do not tempt the balance of the universe with your words.”

  “Daddy,” he said, “do you really think you can stop me?”

  “I’m begging you, on your mother’s grave, to think about what you’re doing.”

  A strong wave of energy bolted through Khalid’s body from the ground up to the top of his head. He gasped and listened as another voice spoke through him.

  “Destiny will not be denied. You both have debts to pay.” The voice spoke so deeply it made his insides shudder. “And you will pay them.”

  Bakari sat up. “I will pay any debt as long as I can save my daughter Rashida.”

  “There is an amulet, a sacred scarab that belonged to Tutankhamen. It has the power you seek.”

  “Where?” Bakari’s voice croaked.

  “It will soon be revealed in England.”

  “Can I get it?”

  “Yes, but it won’t be easy. There will be forces trying to stop you. You need to bring it back to Egypt where it belongs. It will help Rashida.”

  “And my son?”

  Silence filled the room.

  “My son?”

  “Is filled with so much darkness he doesn’t know he needs to fight it.”

  “Can the amulet help him too?”

  Khalid’s mouth opened wide. A rumbling sound like the roar of a wave crashing on the shore, drowned the room with its intensity. Then it stopped, and stillness filled the space again.

  “Khalid are you all right?” Bakari asked leaning towards him. The young man had turned whiter than a ghost and his body shook as if it couldn’t quite settle.

  Khalid blinked. “You have your answers, old man. Now, leave me alone.”

  8

  Chapter Eight

  Langley, Virginia

  As Sadie walked through the maze of cubicles to get to Jeremiah’s office, she avoided making eye contact with anyone. She didn’t want to chat… in case it softened her resolve. With her chin tilted up, she did her model’s walk.

  Confrontations had never been her thing. Her CIA shrink said her avoidance behavior was typical of a child with an alcoholic parent. Whatever. She’d rather skirt a fight than be in the middle of it, especially if it involved emotion.

  If only there’d been another way to get the information. Jeremiah, her former handler, wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to know over the phone. He’d insisted on seeing her. Coming back to the office sucked—big time.

  Even in her happiest days working for the CIA she dreaded entering this building. It wasn’t about dealing with the people who lived in the shadows, though they could be pretty weird; it was the clinical atmosphere of the business side of this life that irked her. Being a big organization it made sense that reports had to be written, read, sorted, stamped and filed. Some deleted. But the business of planning and cataloging acts of espionage, layered in lies and blood, was more like an elaborate dance of the seven veils than a telling of the truth. The elusiveness of it all bent reality. Nothing on the paper in this building resembled the truth.

  The air smelled dusty, like the ventilation system hadn’t been overhauled in a while. The smell of budget cuts. The CIA was a world in itself, housed in this building with decorated walls that attempted to normalize the operation as a business, but that was impossible. The deception that was its lifeblood corrupted the essence of the system. It was a place set on self-destruct, an institution sworn to protect the nation that could not protect itself. There were too many people with secrets; too many secrets. They had just made huge changes in its structure, but its intrinsic problem could never be addressed.

  Why had it taken a run-in with an arms-dealer to make this clear to her?

  Her stilettos clicked on the linoleum. There had always been spies, but fitting them into a bureaucratic engine as large as the CIA bothered her. Too many times the acquired knowledge backfired on the wrong people. They called it collateral damage. What a pile of crap. When her bosses had chosen to deceive her, to send her into an operation blindfolded, she had quit.

  But now she was back.

  Sadie considered the official motto of the CIA: The Work of a Nation. The Center of Intelligence. Oxymoron time. Clearly, they thought they could do more than they could. She’d been guilty of that, thinking that with her cover-girl face she could get any information they needed.

  Sadie preferred the company’s unofficial motto, the one she’d carried close to her heart during her work as a spook: “And you shall know the truth and it shall set you free.” Finding the truth took digging, and that’s what undercover agents did. That statement rang true in her head; or at least it had before the Anubis op. She balled her fists then released them; balled and released them again. When did this hallway grow so long?

  Jeremiah waved her in through his open door. Sadie didn’t hesitate.

  “I’m glad you came in, sugar,” he said in his southern drawl, as she clicked the door shut behind her.

  She sat in the chair opposite him. Everything looked the same as the last time she’d been there. Same six photos, in black frames, on the wall. Her eyes focused on the one of Jeremiah standing beside President Bill Clinton on a small boat, holding a downrigger, fishing rod in his hand. The photo had been signed: “Thanks for the memories… Bill.” The same chessboard with pieces in place sat to the right of his keyboard. It looked like a bold opening for the white team. Same computer screens buzzing, as information flowed through them like water in a river. Same Jeremiah Cole.

  He was an intense middle-aged man who held you prisoner with his charismatic gray eyes from the moment you arrived. He wore a Wall Street suit, but beneath it his perfectly, pressed cotton shirt was open at the collar. She’d never seen him wear a tie. His thin lips smiled at her slightly, but no real emotion. Did he have any feelings about how their relationship ended? An enigma of a man. The jagged scar that ran down his neck from below his left ear to his collar chilled her to the bon
e. This was a master spy with years of experience in the field. “I have the information you want,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you send it to me?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Sadie resisted the impulse to squirm under his gaze. “About what?”

  “I need you back.”

  Sadie’s eyebrows rose so high she could feel her pupils stretch. She opened her mouth and was about to say, “Not in this century,” when he held up his hand for her to stop.

  “Listen to me.”

  She shook her head. “Give me a break. You want to feed me more lies peppered with patriotic crap?”

  Jeremiah smiled. “Again, I’m sorry we didn’t tell you everything about Bakari al-Sharif. But I have orders to follow, and my orders were to tell you only what you needed to know. The complex relationship between the agency and that arms dealer wasn’t part of that.”

  “Since when did you follow all the rules?”

  He leaned back with a small smile. “Fair enough. I could have told you despite my orders. But I thought it best you didn’t know. In hind sight, it was a bad call on my part.”

  “Damn straight.” He didn’t look one bit remorseful. Lying to people he put in danger was just part of his job.

  “Giving you one objective made you more effective. The other stuff really didn’t matter. We wanted to take him down before he broke into the museum, and it had nothing to do with our former deals with him.”

  “And I didn’t succeed.”

  “Maybe not that time, but…”

  Her eyes widened. That time? “What the hell, Jeremiah?”

  “Bakari al-Sharif, code-name Anubis, is planning another raid.” His voice went low with suspense, as if he were an announcer on a wildlife documentary talking about a lion ready to pounce on its prey.

  “His daughter?”

  Jeremiah nodded. “Rashida’s health is failing.”

  “So he’s after more amulets to keep her alive?”