It was cool. Air-conditioned cool and almost silent. Just a murmur of voices somewhere beyond the room.
Sahara opened her eyes and wasn’t surprised to find herself back in her hotel bedroom. The rich brocade canopy above the bed was unmistakable.
She stretched experimentally and her limbs were stiff and her body ached all over. “Ouch…” she murmured, letting the stretch go immediately.
“You are awake then. Good.”
“Jacqui?” Sahara sat up quickly, the ache forgotten. “Jacqui, where is Logan? What happened to him? They knocked me out—I was hysterical, I think Please, tell me!”
Jacqui got up from the divan and hurried over to the bed, her hand held out placatingly. “Shhh. It’s all right. Everything’s under control.”
Sahara sat back against the pillows, appalled at how weak she felt. “Just tell me,” she said dully.
Jacqui spread her fingertips on the counterpane at the edge of the bed, studying them. “Logan is in surgery,” she said softly. “One of the bullets nicked his lung. I don’t know about the other. Information is confused right now.”
“Can I see him after the surgery?”
Jacqui shook her head. “Zaram is in the area. We have to withdraw back to England at once, especially as retrieving the notebook was a failure. Leaving Spain will take the heat off Malik, maybe even draw Zaram back over the channel.” Jacqui smiled weakly. “I’m told the Seurat are much more efficient on familiar territory and London is home for them.”
“But what about Logan?”
Jacqui spread her fingertips again. “No one knows the outcome of the surgery yet. No matter how he comes through the operation, it will be some time before he’s fit to travel again. He will be moved to London as soon as they think it prudent but for now, he must stay here.”
“And me?” Sahara croaked. She couldn’t quite get her head around the news. It seemed so terrible.
Jacqui’s fingers were doing a dance on the countertop now. “You have to come back to London with us. Zaram knows you’re not Micky, so you can revert back to being yourself now, but…”
“What? What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Jacqui lifted her eyes to finally look at her directly. “Logan took one bullet in the back,” she said shortly. “He was protecting you, wasn’t he?”
Sahara nodded and felt hot tears slip from the corners of her eyes. “Yes.” The same cold dread squeezed her chest.
“That’s why they must get you back to London and then return you home. You’re a civilian, yet Zaram knows you’re involved in this operation. That makes you the Seurat’s weakest link and they know Zaram will try to take advantage of that weakness.”
“He’d come after me?” Sahara whispered. “But I would be worthless to him.”
“You would be leverage. He doesn’t have the notebook, and he doesn’t know that we don’t.”
Sahara wiped her wet cheeks. “I guess then I must go back to London.” Intellectually, she understood the need, but her heart cried out in protest.
Jacqui nodded. “They’ll be moving very, very soon. I’ve almost got you packed.” She straightened up, back to business. “You’ll want to take a shower, I’m sure.”
“Oh, a shower.” On any other day, it would have sounded heavenly. Right now she couldn’t raise any enthusiasm at all. She pushed the sheets aside and discovered she was still wearing the shirt and silk skirt she had worn to meet Malik. “Oh wow…” She looked up at Jacqui. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Nearly nine p.m.”
She slid out of the bed and brushed at the crumpled silk skirt distastefully. There was a spot of blood on it. Logan’s blood.
Her hand flicked at a lump in her pocket and she delved into it, puzzled. She felt the slim elongated shape and her heart skipped a bit.
“Oh, god, Jacqui.” She pulled the USB drive out and held it out to Jacqui on the flat of her hand. It was missing the cord that Malik had been swinging it with. He must have snapped it off and pushed the device into her pocket. All her attention had been taken up by Logan and she hadn’t noticed.
Jacqui paused, looking at the USB drive. “Is that…?”
Sahara nodded. “Malik gave it to me, after all.”
“After all?” Jacqui said quickly.
“He knew I wasn’t Micky, but he gave it to me anyway.”
“Why would he do that? He was very insistent. It had to be Micky or he wouldn’t hand it over.”
Sahara felt her mouth turn down. “I think Micky impressed him with her true colors.”
Jacqui gave a helpless, weak laugh. “Or you did.”
When they arrived back in London, Sahara was taken through what they euphemistically called “debriefing.” In reality, her mind was filleted and spread across petri dishes for them to examine from every conceivable angle.
She found herself relating every passing minute of her and Logan’s journey across Seville and every twist and turn that led them to the university and Malik. Not only did she repeat every word she and Logan had shared—especially those with Malik—but she found herself repeating the conversations over and over again. First for a panel of examiners that included Elias but then again for individuals, some who gave her only their first name.
She was kept in a small, comfortable but plain hotel-like windowless bedroom when she wasn’t spilling her guts. They kept her cut off from the world and the only way she could measure passing time was by the ebb and flow of her hunger and those times when sleep pressed in on her. But even then they insisted upon questioning her, despite her body trying to shut down and sleep.
Over a five day period, as near as she could judge, she went over and over the afternoon’s events, trying to maintain her cool and cooperate. On the fifth day, however, the door to her room unlocked and Celia stepped in.
“’Ello, Sahara.”
Sahara sat up on the bed. “So, you get to inspect the inside of my head this time.”
“They can be a bit intense, can’t they?” Celia lifted a hand toward the door. “Actually, we were wondering if you could ’elp us out a bit.” She reached into the breast pocket of her denim waistcoat and pulled out a photo. “There’s a woman walked into the public offices an hour ago. Sez she knows you. Wants to talk to you and won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Sahara glanced at the photo. “Tiffany! But what is she doing here? I’m not even sure where here is! How could she have found me here?”
Celia nodded. “That’s the name she gave. Tiffany. We were ’oping she’d tell you ’ow she found you. It’s a bit of a worry, y’see?”
Sahara studied her. “Yes, I imagine it might be. If I do this for you, will you do something for me?”
Celia glanced up at the corner of the room. She moved only her eyes to do it. “Like what?” she asked.
“When I figure that out,” Sahara said cautiously, “I’ll let you know. Can I speak to Tiffany now?”
Celia led Sahara to a plain door, turned the handle and pushed it open.
Tiffany was sitting at the metal table in the enclosed little room and when she saw Sahara, she jumped to her feet. Her eyes got very large. “Sahara?” she asked warily.
Sahara touched her hair self-consciously. “You’re not the only one who can change her hair color.”
Tiffany skirted around the table to hug her hard. “Oh, god, Sahara! What on earth are you mixed up in?”
“Long story. But, Tiff, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Tiffany shook her head. “That’s why I’m here. I need to take you somewhere.” She looked around the room. “Will they let me do that?”
Sahara stepped to the door and knocked on it. “I know someone who will.”
Celia unbuttoned her vest as they stepped out onto the busy inner London street and looked around. “Quickly,” she insisted, waving Tiffany and Sahara onto the pavement. She hurried them down the street. “Cork Street, y’said, right?”
“The surf shop there.”
Celia snorted. “I’ve lived in London all me bloomin’ life. First I knew there was a surf shop in Soho.”
Cork Street was five minutes away, at Celia’s pace. When they stepped inside the store, Sahara was assaulted with the smells of wax, incense, sand and salt and was instantly homesick. Tiffany, though, lifted a hand at the girl behind the counter, then hurried around the counter and through the back door into the office beyond. Sahara and Celia followed.
Curled up on an old vinyl kitchen chair, her head on her arm, was Angel. She was dressed in a sarong and flip-flops and a Billabong pro tee shirt, her hair in two pigtails. She was completely asleep.
“Bloody ’ell,” Celia said. Her expression was one of awe.
Tiffany shook Angel’s arm and she woke instantly. She saw Sahara and her face lit up in a way that made Sahara’s heart leap. “Sandy!” She threw herself at Sahara, wrapping her arms around and holding tight. She was trembling.
Sahara sank onto the chair Angel had been on and pulled the girl into her lap. Tears pricked hard at her eyes, as she looked up at Tiffany. “Angel found you in Newquay?”
“Yeah, how’d you guess?”
“I mentioned your name…in passing.” Sahara hugged Angel even harder. “Angel, did someone come for you at the school?”
Angel nodded.
“So you skipped out and went looking for Tiffany?”
“She was the only one I could think of who wasn’t part of Daddy’s business,” Angel said, speaking into Sahara’s throat. “Where is he, Sahara? Can you take me to him?”
Celia rubbed hard at her mouth and cleared her throat but didn’t speak.
Sahara looked up at her. “I’m calling in my favour.”
Celia nodded. “I think I can go you one better ’n that.” She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. “I ’ave to call this in, Sahara. I won’t risk bringin’ ’er in without massive ’elp.” She shook her head as she dialled. “They ain’t goin’ ta believe me.”
Once Tiffany and Angel had been safety escorted into the high-security headquarters for the Seurat, Celia pulled Sahara to one side and slid her out another door. “’urry,” she said. “’e won’t be there much longer.”
She led her down into a basement level, where it was cool and dim. The room she entered was glass at one end, showing another room beyond. There was a single light glowing on the other side of the glass and Elias stood with his back to the window, looking down at something on the table.
Celia pointed to a door next to the windows. “I’ll stay ‘ere.” She moved over to the desk that sat under the window, sat on it, hooked a metal chair closer with the toe of her sneakers and parked her feet on the seat.
Sahara stepped through the door to confront Elias and finally get some answers.
Elias had been part of a panel interview she had endured two days before but he had not been the Elias she knew. He had become one of the officials—distant, cool and cynical. Even though he had not been friendly before, there had been a large degree of empathy in his dealings with her and most especially with Logan. During the interview he had shown her no compassion at all.
Sahara was braced, now. He would not find her the bewildered, cooperative subject this time. She moved around to the other side of the table Elias was leaning over and he looked up at her approach. “You have to tell me what has happened to Logan,” she said.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said, his deep voice echoing in the chilly room.
“What is?”
“The last time I was standing over one of Zaram’s victims, Logan was on the other side of the table.”
Sahara looked down at the table. There was a half-unzipped body bag on it and she took another step closer to the table and saw Micky’s body. It has been autopsied, the black zigzag stitches vivid against the bloodless flesh. She stepped back again, uneasy. “Are you going to tell me where he is?”
Elias shook his head. “That’s not something you need to know.”
“Are you going to tell his daughter, then?”
Surprise scrambled across his face. “His daughter?”
“Angel’s here, at headquarters. Are you going to at least tell her if he’s alive, or are you too monstrous for that?”
“You can think of me as a monster if you want. It’s of no mind to me. But you should know that everything I’ve done is for a very good reason.”
“You have to let Logan go, after this. You know that, don’t you?”
Elias started to laugh. It was a silent thing that shook his chest and shoulders and made him smile. “Lady, you don’t seem to get it. It’s not me who’s holding Logan to his goddam job. It’s him. He thinks he wants to quit but he never will, because he knows he’s nothing without it. I just give him the excuses he needs to stay.”
It was far too close to some of the accusations that Sahara had thrown at Logan about his dedication to his work. Sahara shifted her feet awkwardly. “You’re wrong.”
“You so sure of that?” Elias crossed his arms and smiled at her. “Zaram just killed his wife. Oh, Logan may have pulled the trigger but Zaram was the one who put her there and Logan knows that. Logan has been chasing the guy for a decade. Now it’s personal. He’ll never quit. Especially not for a little beach bum piece of grunge like you, so just give up trying to fix things for everyone, okay? You’ve got no idea what’s going on here.”
“Are you going to tell me, then?”
“Your inclusion in this operation was by virtue of your similarity to Micky. The need for your services has passed now and so has your need to know any more details about this operation. That includes Logan’s condition. The less you know, the more comfortable I’ll be.”
“Why? Why?” This sort of ruthlessness defied logic, as far as she was concerned. It defied sensibility.
“You think I’m not aware of the relationship Logan had with you? Logan is one of my best operatives.” He scratched his chin, looking into midair. “No, I’d have to say he’s my best. Period.” Again, he looked back at Sahara. “I can’t afford to have one of my best running off to shack up on the beach with a pretty girl whenever his mood is down.”
She gasped. “How dare you! You were listening to us!”
He waved a hand at her. “Of course I wasn’t. But I’m not stupid. I can see what’s going on in front of me and I know Logan too well. He does this on a regular basis. Goes into a funk about the toilet bowl his personal life is circling and decides to do something about it. But you know what? He comes back. Every time.”
She was shaking so badly she knew she would be unable to hide it from him, so she didn’t bother. “You are a slime ball virus of a human being, Elias. How do you sleep at night?”
“I sleep just fine, thank you,” he said, completely unmoved. “I do lose sleep, though, when a man like Logan wants to walk away from the job. We invest millions of dollars training and coaching people like him to bring them to this level—the point where they finally become useful to an organization like ours. I have no intention of waving you under his nose and coaxing him into doing another bunk. He’ll just come back to us sooner or later. Why go through the hassle?”
She bit her lip. “Then he’s alive,” she concluded. “Or you would not be giving me this brush off.”
“Even if he died on the operating table, I’d still be telling you this. I’m doing you a favour, Sahara. I’m trying to explain that it doesn’t matter what you think of this relationship—for Logan it was just a fling. Go home. Don’t look back and don’t screw up the rest of your life mourning over what might have been, because it would never have worked out the same way as your fantasies paint it. Logan would have left you and come back to us. He always does.”
“You’re wrong,” Sahara said flatly. “You think you know Logan? You haven’t got a teeny little clue. I have no idea if Logan wants to be with me but that’s not the point. He wouldn’t leave this team to go to something better. Logan doesn’t work that way at all. If he was going to leave you and your team, Elias, it’s because you’ve screwed him over one time too many and you’ve lost his loyalty. You think I don’t know how you’ve been playing him for the last…for years? Making him think you can’t operate without him? Making him think he must stay, regardless of the cost to his personal life?”
The flesh below Elias’ eye began to tick. But his arms remained crossed and still. “Doesn’t matter, sweetheart. I’ve got control here. You’re going back to the States and if Logan pulls through, he stays with me and you’re never going to see him again.”
Sahara let go of her temper then. She indulged herself, knowing that Elias wasn’t going to do anything but march her out of the room and back to Ocean Beach. Over the years, her globetrotting friends had brought back to her store some of the choicest curses and she used all of them, giving Elias some of the vilest and most demeaning names and descriptions in her collection. She didn’t hesitate to pepper her language with the worst words she knew. Surfers rarely bothered controlling their tongues, so she knew them all and Elias deserved every one of them.
Finally, she stopped, her chest heaving and tears stinging her eyes. But she would not cry. Not in front of this man.
“I’ll see myself out,” she finished and left the room.
Celia was still sitting on the desk but she was flipping through a magazine. “’ey,” she said. “Done for the day, then?”
“Yes, I’m done,” Sahara told her, “and not just for the day.” She turned, intending to head for the room where she was being kept but turned back to Celia. “How do I check out of this place? And how to do I get to Heathrow from here?”