“Miss Temple,” Hellmut called out when he saw her, “so glad you could make it.” The heir apparent to the Wisser fortunes guided her by the elbow to his small group gathered around the taffrail at the stern of the ship. A waiter scurried up with a tray of Bloody Marys while Hellmut introduced her around. Is’al Nassir Mana extended his hand when he was introduced and she shook it, finding it warm and soft like his brown eyes. He spoke a few words and Shoshana thought of the teddy bear she loved to cuddle as a child. He did not match the stereotype she had created in her mind when she had studied his file.
Laughter and playful screams drifted up from the boarding platform as the first group of water-skiers took off, cutting across the wake of the Ferrari-powered ski boats. Shoshana was leaning against the rail, talking and smiling at Mana, actually enjoying the conversation when the high-pitched wail of four approaching jet skis demanded their attention. Lisl Wisser and Matt Pontowski were standing on the lead ski, cutting graceful arcs back and forth in a scissors pattern with another jet ski. Lisl was topless. “Ah, I see your friend from last night casts a wide net. But then, that is expected of a fighter pilot.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed, finding his Oxford accent pleasant, “save me from fighter pilots!” She noticed that Mana did not take his eyes off Lisl. Shoshana was wearing the wrong swimsuit.
Lisl set the style on board for most of the women who promptly went topless within minutes after her arrival. Two younger girls were sunbathing nude on the forward deck. Much to Shoshana’s confusion, Mana was following Lisl around like a puppy, captivated by the half-naked woman. According to Mana’s file, he preferred her type to Lisl’s. Could the file be wrong?
“Arabs like blonds,” Matt said, joining her. “But don’t worry, Lisl will throw him back.”
Shoshana didn’t like the American knowing she was trying to attract the Iraqi and reprimanded herself for being so obvious. Tall, fair, and muscular, Matt was certainly a contrast to Mana. Clothes hid Matt’s well-conditioned body and the muscles that rippled under his smooth skin when he walked or moved. She suspected he was very vain and spent hours working out in a weight room. You are probably something else in bed, she thought, disturbed by the man’s magnetism. She peeled down to her swimsuit, deciding to do some water skiing. “How long does she play with her prey?” Shoshana asked.
Matt liked the sound of her voice. “In this case, I’d guess about thirty minutes.” He gave her a thorough look. “Like your swimsuit,” he said, meaning it. “Perfect for water-skiing. Want to give it a try?”
Shoshana caught a playful change in his voice, almost as if he were shifting gears. She shrugged her shoulders and climbed down the boarding stairs to the floating dock to wait for her turn. Matt stood beside her carrying on a light banter. Within minutes, they were sitting on the edge of the float as the ski boat played out their towlines. Then they were up, gliding and skipping across the bright blue water. Matt would roar with laughter as he cut back and forth across the wake of the expensive towboat. Shoshana found she was enjoying herself immensely.
On a tight pass around the yacht, she noticed that Mana was standing alone at the rail. Suspecting that Lisl had found someone else to play with, Shoshana gave a cutting motion with her hand across her neck, signaling she wanted to drop off. The towboat slowed and she threw her rope clear and coated to a halt by the dock. “Enjoyed it!” Matt yelled as the boat accelerated away. Strange, Shoshana thought, he wasn’t coming on at all. He only wanted to play.
She climbed back up the ladder, sure she now had a clear shot at Mana. She knew how to soothe wounded male pride. He was watching her as she worked her way through some dancing couples. “Americans,” she fumed, joining him at the rail. “I can’t get rid of him.” The smile that lit Mana’s face told her she had hit a responsive chord.
“They can be persistent,” he said, still smiling.
Shoshana caught his last word and decided to play it. “I prefer them to be nonpersistent and nontoxic.”
Mana looked at her in surprise. The words had a special meaning for him.
Don’t stop now, she warned herself. “There I go talking shop,” she explained, laughing, enchanting him. “I work for a commercial insecticide company and I guess it comes out when I’m fighting off bugs.”
“So do I,” he said. “Well, in a manner of speaking.”
“Then that’s why you know the Wissers.” He only nodded. She pressed her opening. “Would you mind riding with me back to the port? Otherwise the American”—she cast a glance toward Matt who had finished skiing and was climbing the stairs—“will swarm all over me.”
“It would be my pleasure.” His formal way of speaking amused her.
Shoshana made sure they were engrossed in a conversation when they brushed past Matt so she could ignore him. Matt watched them leave. “Aced out by a fucking raghead,” he muttered. Then he laughed. “Well, it has to happen once every five hundred years.” He shook his head and went looking for Lisl. He found her sunbathing nude on the forward deck.
On the boat ride into the harbor, Shoshana sat close to Mana, their thighs touching, and kept him talking about himself. The young man waited with her as the black Mercedes, now driven by Habish, pulled up. “Would you be kind enough to join me for dinner tonight?” he asked, his English still formal.
“I’d love to.” She smiled at him. “I’m staying at the Atalaya Park.”
“Yes, I know. Shall I pick you up at eight o’clock?” Shoshana nodded in agreement. “Please wear the black dress.” He almost was blushing when he said it.
“If you wish.” She gave him a promising look as Habish pulled away.
“You wore the wrong swimsuit,” Habish growled. “You were going after the Arab, not the American.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she protested. “I am going to dinner with him.”
“That was luck. You attract Americans by being provocative at first and then becoming very reserved. They have a basic prudish streak in them. With Arabs, it’s show all the way. Get them panting and keep them that way.”
“But Mana was a perfect gentleman … reserved … polite …”
“That’s a protective disguise Arabs adopt when they travel. The perfect Western gentlemen. They revert to type when they are home and become egotistical, domineering bastards. Listen to me next time. You won’t have so much trouble.”
Shoshana sank back in the seat. She had much to learn.
Brigadier General Leo Cox ambled down a corridor of Arlington Hall Station, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s annex located three miles from the Pentagon. A sharklike grin split the cadaverous face of the Air Force one-star general when he stopped at the office door of his best Middle Eastern analyst, Lieutenant Colonel William G. Carroll. “Bill, you busy?”
The analyst glanced up from his work and immediately shot to his feet. Unlike many of the personnel assigned to Arlington Hall, Carroll liked Cox. When the general had been assigned to run Arlington Hall by the DIA he had swept through it like a vengeful banshee, clearing out the dead-wood, bringing in fresh talent, and changing it from a dead-end assignment into a top-notch analytical organization. Fools and paperpushers did not last long around Cox and he picked his key men with care. Carroll was one of the “spooks” whom Cox relied on and was far from being a deskbound paperpusher.
“Whose toes did I tread on this time, General?” Carroll knew that Cox liked to drop in on his subordinates unannounced, bypassing the chain of command. It was a habit that kept the higher-ranking milicrats, the military version of bureaucrats, in the DIA stirred up and their lower-ranking protégés afraid for their careers. The working troops loved it.