That was weird. Shouldnt a break-in alarm a hotel employee at least a little bit? And the woman didnt ask if anything was stolen or if Katy was okay. Katy replied, I really would prefer to speak to the manager myself.
That is not possible, mademoiselle. The womans voice shot up by at least half an octave, and now definite alarm rang in her tone.
Katy blinked. Had the operator just called her mademoiselle on purpose? She replayed the sentence in her head. That was definitely a special emphasis the woman had placed on the word. What in the world was going on here? She could understand the hotel not wanting to involve the police. Especially with the city under martial law. But why was the operator running interference on her at least speaking to the manager?
I swear to you, mademoiselle, no harm will come to you in this hotel.
There it was again. That heavy emphasis on the word mademoiselle. And real desperation coursed through the operators voice now.
Uh, okay. I believe you. I will leave it in your hands to report this to the manager and the authorities.
Katy frowned through the womans gushing thank-you. Whats your name?
I am Hanah.
Thank you for your help, Hanah.
You are welcome. And thank you.
Katy hung up the phone, roundly confused. The hotel operator had left her this note? Clearly if Hanah wasnt the author, the woman was at least aware of its existence. Why would someone in the hotel feel obliged to warn her about treachery in the palace?
Speaking of which, she had some homework to do. She checked the window latch again and carefully locked the door behind her as she stepped out into the hall. Hopefully there was no law against women going to a mens floor to visit in this backward country. She made her way downstairs and knocked on Don Fords door. He opened it immediately. A group of six men from the team were seated on the floor, a large picnic spread out on a cloth between them. It looked as if they were having a great time. A pang at being excluded stabbed her gut.
What can I do for you, Katy? Don asked.
Do you have a copy of the Geneva Conventions with you?
Which one?
The one pertaining to treatment of prisoners of war, she answered.
Do you want all one hundred and forty-three articles plus annexes or one part in particular? Did you run into a problem today?
Again her internal alarm bells went off, shouting at her not to answer that question. I just want to read up on a few things, she answered with what she hoped was casual ease.
Ill get it. Ford went across the room to dig in a big leather satchel.
One of the other men looked up at her slyly. Howd it go working with Larry?
She smiled pleasantly and said without missing a beat, He was an absolute dear. Im so glad Don paired me up with him.
Everyone gawked in surprise and she bit back a grin. There. Let them chew on that. Nothing like killing em with kindness.
Ford held out a sheaf of papers about sixty pages thick. There you go. Holler if you have any questions about what it means.
As if after growing up in her family she couldnt read legalese and make sense of it? She smiled politely and said smoothly, Thanks. Ill be sure to ask if anything comes up thats beyond me.
Good ole Don blinked rapidly a couple times, as if hed just remembered who she was. A little red around the gills, he showed her to the door and wished her good-night.
She fumbled loudly at her door for long enough to let someone climb out her window. She entered her room cautiously, gun-shy at the idea of accidentally surprising an intruder. But all was as shed left it.
She settled on her bed to look for a loophole in the document Ford had given her. Nada. The only thing the document had to say about treatment of heads of state as prisoners was that they should be afforded quarters fitting to their station. Big freaking lot of good that would do Nikolas.
And then she ran across the bit about prisoners of war withholding their identities from their captors. Failure to identify oneself truthfully negated ones right to full protection under the Geneva Convention. Great. Nikolas could tell the Army who he was, get a great room for a night and then get killed. Or he could not tell them and be subject to abuse or even torture. Hed have to continue to be Akbar Mulwami for the time being. It was flimsy protection, but he didnt have any other options.
As for telling her boss who Nikolas was, something in her gut said the fewer people who knew Prisoner 1806s secret, the better.
While she rinsed out her abaya, she debated whether or not to sleep with the window closed and opted not to let the mysterious note intimidate her into being miserable. She lay down on top of the sheets and let the evenings cool breeze waft over her, carrying that faint, lovely smell of orange blossoms again. A siren sounded in the distance, a distinctive up-down-up-down wail. A few vehicles rumbled past, rattling on the cobblestones. How a night this peaceful and quiet should follow so closely after the violence shed seen on television just two days ago was hard to fathom. Grateful for the lack of mortars and explosions, she fell asleep.
And dreamed of a handsome prince with golden eyes carrying her off to an enchanted palace and making love to her all night long.
Nick lay on the cold stone shelf that was his bed for long hours after the American left, nurturing the tiny spark of hope shed ignited deep within him. If he had an ally on the outside, maybe, just maybe, he might get out of this alive. And then he might get a chance to set this mess aright, to make up for everything hed failed to do before.
But first things first. He had to get out of here. And that wasnt in the cards for him. Eventually his face would heal, the swelling would go down and then hed be recognized. He was a dead man walking.
The problem with being locked up in a silent, dim cell like this was it gave a guy plenty of time to think. Hed spent the last two days in this black hole damning himself to hell and back for neglecting his duty for so many years. For much of his thirty-four years, hed jetted all over the world, living as fast and playing as hard as he could, running away from the responsibilities that came with his familys wealth and position. Hell, just running away from his family.
He bitterly regretted now never having spent time with his father after college, never trying to talk to him about how he ran his country, about his vision for Baraq. Lord knew, Baraq had been his fathers passion in life. To the exclusion of all elseincluding his wife, whod eventually left, and his only son, whom hed mostly ignored.
Nick knew far too little of his Ramsey legacy. But he did know hed failed that legacy. For thirty generationsalmost a thousand yearsdominion over these lands had passed from father to son in an unbroken line. And he was going to break the chain. He would go down in history as the last Ramsey. The one who failed. Spectacularly. The thought galled him.
His father might have been a bad parent, but in the clarity that came with staring death in the face, he admitted to himself that hed also been a bad son. And obviously the Army believed he was going to be a bad king or else they wouldnt have overthrown him before he could prove them wrong. Not only had he failed the Ramsey dynasty, hed failed himself.
His remaining life span could no doubt be measured in days rather than weeks or years. Surely someone would recognize him soon. And then the Ramsey line would end.
Unless
The idea was preposterous. The American aid worker would never go for it. It wasnt fair to ask her such a thing. He barely knew her, for goodness sake! He had no right to put an innocent young womans life at risk any more than he already had.
But what other choice did he have?
He couldnt sit by and watch his family disappear without a trace. He couldnt leave his countrymen with no hope at all of continuing Baraqs proud heritage, which was so closely tied to his familys. If there was even a chance of salvaging the line, he had to try.
He wrestled through the night with his misgivings, examining his idea from every angle, analyzing its chances for success, anticipating the pitfalls and planning how to get around them. And his idea was full of holes. Huge, gaping craters. Starting with the fact that it all hinged on the American woman.
But after a long, sleepless night, he finally came to a single conclusion. He had no choice. He must try.
Chapter 4
The worst of Katys jet lag was gone when the first call to morning prayer broadcast across the city at dawn. She went over to her French door and, leaning on the jamb, gazed out across Akuba as sunrise bathed the white metropolis in vivid peach hues. Ox-drawn carts laden with fresh produce lumbered by on the street below, and veiled women met the carts at their front doors, bartering in quick Arabic and filling woven bags with food in a ritual as ancient as the city itself.
Gold onion turrets and the tall needles of minarets marked mosques. Tapering white steeples marked the Christian edifices on the skyline as the sun broke over the horizon and morning burst upon the city at her feet. The first shopkeepers slid back grates from the fronts of their shops and spread out blankets on the sidewalk, arranging their wares for sale. Brass and woven goods, tobacco and spices, piles of fruit, loaves of bread, small electronics and racks of CDs and DVDs emerged to line the margins of the street. The blend of old and new was oddly representative of the city itself.
With the reality of a new day came insidious doubt that shed actually found Nikolas Ramsey yesterday. Maybe the guy just looked like the king and was hoping to parlay that into some sort of negotiated release. Time to go see if her imagination had been playing tricks on her or not. She had dozens of prisoners to see today, but somehow shed make time to pay a return visit to him. She donned her mostly dry abaya and managed to get her scarf tied around her head and the veil across her face with the help of the tiny mirror in the corner of her room.
Too nervous to eat much more than a single, delicious honey cake, she hiked up the killer hill to Il Leone, and the climb sucked every bit as bad as shed expected it to. Nobody needed stair-climbers in this town! Her abaya clung to her sweaty skin, and the silk veil clung to her face in the most annoying fashion when she and Larry finally staggered into the palace courtyard, huffing like racehorses. More like broken-down, asthmatic horses ready for the glue factory.
Throughout the morning a number of the prisoners asked her under their breath and with some urgency whether thered been any word on King Nikolas. Did she know if he was alive or dead, and where? Did Nikolas, despite his playboy ways, engender loyalty in his troops? Or were they simply being questioned hard about him by the Army?
It ran against her grain to lie, but it wasnt as though she had any choice. She shrugged and told the men she hadnt heard anything and that InterAid was not supposed to get involved in such matters. Right.
Many of the prisoners were in bad shape. Most of their injuries could have come from the rigors of combat, but she suspected that many of them had actually come from beatings administered during their initial interrogations. The soldiers controlling the palace were rude to her and arrogant enough to set her teeth on edge. It was easy to dislike this bunch of thugs whod taken over Baraq. They might have legitimate reasons for what theyd done, but their methods left a great deal to be desired.
Moving from prisoner to prisoner within the palace, it didnt take Katy long to figure out that the coup had been planned for some time prior to Nicks fathers death. Hed died a lingering death of heart disease, apparently, and the Army had waited only for the poor man to stop breathing to seize the kingdom. Larry commented to her that the former Ramsey king had been so popular that no coup against him would have worked anyway. Not so with the younger Ramsey. Everyone she came across, both rebel and royalist, agreed that Nikolas was a complete stranger to them.
It was midafternoon before she was able to make her way back to Prisoner 1806 without it seeming unnatural. But finally she stood in front of the iron-banded door once more.
Her guard escort today was named Riki. He was a gregarious youth who swore he was eighteen, but shed put his age at closer to fourteen. He was a distinct departure from yesterdays surly escort, and for that she was grateful.
Ill be with this prisoner for a while, she informed the boy.
Riki shrugged and reached for the door. She waited impatiently while he fumbled with the rusty lock. Finally it creaked open and she stepped inside.
The prisoner was sitting up when she entered, one foot propped up on the ledge and his arm resting across his knee. Their gazes met and locked, their shared secret hanging heavy in the air between them like the scents of cinnamon and curry that hung over the city. She hadnt imagined a thing. It was all real. The aristocracy cloaking him, the impatience of a man used to getting his way. The sheer royalty of the man. He was the king.
She stepped farther into the cell. His expression was warm, an intimate caress that pierced her robes to touch her skin in the most disturbing fashion. Katy actually felt herself flush under her veil. Even in heavy gloom, wearing a ruined uniform, his face as battered as a prizefighters, he oozed magnetismheck, outright sex appeal. How could anybody mistake him for a common soldier? But then, maybe it took a woman to sense it. And the Baraqi Army was notably lacking in women in its ranks.
She waited for the heavy door to lock behind her before she spoke. How are you today?
My nose feels much better. Thanks for the bandage.
His gaze seemed to strip the robe right off her. Instead of feeling safely swathed in shapeless yards of cloth, she felt exposed. Naked.
And how are you today? he asked, his voice mellow and intimate.
She frowned. She could really do without this whole turn-on-the-charm thing. It was incredibly effectiveand distracting. Fine, thank you.
Have a seat. He scooted over to make room for her on the crude ledge. So. What did you find out about protecting my identity?
She shook her head regretfully. The Geneva Convention is clear. You have to tell the Army your name or else forfeit protection under the Convention.
He asked soberly, Are you required to notify them that I no longer have Geneva Convention status?
It doesnt say specifically that I have to.
So what the Army doesnt know wont hurt it. Until they figure out who I am and that Ive broken the rules, Im safe.
She glanced around at the dank stone walls and replied drily, Im not sure Id call this safe.
Hey, its safer than flying around a Formula One race course at two hundred miles per hour.
She snorted. Not in my book.