‘Christ. Sorry about that,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘The serviettes —’
‘Oh, that’s okay. Wasn’t your fault,’ she said with an American accent, straightening her sarong. ‘Say,’ she said, smiling, ‘is that a phone in your pocket, or is this my lucky day?’
Kalas looked down at himself, following her eye line, and saw the ridiculous bulge in his pants. His face flushed hot with embarrassment and he glanced up, expecting to see the woman’s back as she walked away from him disgusted. The last thing he expected to see was a room key swinging from her finger.
Skye Reinhardt woke with the sunrise and stretched languidly between the cool linen sheets. Her clothes on the floor were like stepping stones to the bed. The man beside her breathing regularly in sleep was a stranger, or at least had been until mid afternoon of the previous day. They’d shared each other’s passion and it felt to her more like an adventure than a one-night stand.
Skye wanted to shout and punch the air. The plan she’d laid out for herself back home in the States was working better than she could ever have hoped for. The cloying, stultifying life that had threatened to claim her just as it had her parents in the West Virginia town, working as they had at the local university riding out the seventies in a fug of marijuana haze, she’d driven into the earth as surely as one would grind a cockroach under heel. As soon as she’d earned her degrees, Skye had joined the CIA as a researcher. It had taken three years for the overseas posting to come up and she had grabbed it. The Philippines. Skye would have preferred Europe — Paris, in particular — but anywhere would do as long as it was far away from West Virginia.
Skye propped herself up on an elbow and looked at the man beside her. He said he was thirty-eight. She was twenty-eight. A good age spread. His name was Jeff and he was nice-looking without being pretty; a bit short maybe, but he kept himself in reasonable shape, and still had all his hair.
The researcher had been hoping something like this — an opportunity for excitement — would present itself. Her heart had beat fast, drumming on her rib cage when she’d seen the three men at the pool. She’d recognised two of them. Not this man beside her, not Jeff, but the other two. She’d recognised them because their pictures were on the Most Wanted board — the dartboard, they called it — beside the water cooler. ‘If you see these men, do not approach!’ warned the line that headed the list of instructions about what exactly should be done. It was a big world out there and Skye never gave a moment’s thought to the possibility that she would see these men anywhere but on the dartboard. The black and white photos of the men were just two out of more than twenty pinned up on the wall. Skye had seen these photos at least three times a day since she’d arrived at the Manila bureau at the start of her twelve-month stay. But they were just part of the general background noise of the place.
And then she’d seen them at the hotel on her day off. In the flesh. Was it them? No, it couldn’t be, could it? She didn’t know who they were — their names. Nor had she known what they’d done to deserve a place on the dartboard. They were just photos, not real people. What were the chances that they’d turn up in Manila and that she, of all people in this crazy, violent city, would spot them having a drink by her favourite pool?
‘Tahiti sounds nice,’ said the man beside her in his sleep, a smile on his lips.
Skye looked at the ceiling, and traced the movement of the slowly turning fan with her finger. This was her big chance. Of course, she had completely ignored the command that these people should not be approached. But then Jeff wasn’t one of them, one of the photos, she reminded herself. So there was a loophole if she ever needed one. The two men had left and she hadn’t known what to do next. Follow them? She wasn’t a Halle Berry type, she was a political scientist, an academic, a researcher. What was she going to do? Bail them up with a textbook? But she had to do something. Did she work for the goddam CIA or not?
The man rolled over to face her. He was still asleep, but only just. She felt his hand brush her thigh and an electric shock ran through her. The danger was a thrill. His hand came back, moved up her leg, over the concave curve of her stomach and cupped her breast. She willed her nipple not to respond, but it ignored her, firming like gooseflesh and a warmth glowed in a spot below her belly.
She had walked to the bar in order to get a better look at the man who’d remained behind. Perhaps if she got closer, she’d recognise him? And then chance had intervened and an opportunity to meet him had presented itself. Literally. She smiled at the memory of the moment — Jeff’s embarrassment — and at her own impulse to go for it, every spy movie she’d ever seen providing her with the appropriate, pre-packaged cues: use your assets, girlfriend.
After amazing sex, dinner, a night on the town and more amazing sex, Skye was lost. What should the next move be? Of course, she knew what she wouldn’t do — tell her boss who she’d seen, and what she’d done. No. Not until she’d worked this through and come up with something concrete. At the very least, she told herself, she could sneak a look at his passport and jot down the details. Jeff was under her spell and that was a certainty. Skye had always had that effect on men, and this time she’d use it for the good of her country.
Skye looked at Jeff again. He was kind of sweet in a suburban sort of way, and his Australian accent was cute. Maybe she’d imagined those other two — her subconscious had just willed them to be bad guys. Jeff certainly didn’t seem like a terrorist. He was a money guy, an accountant, she remembered him telling her. And a wealthy one if the way he splashed around the cash was any indication.
‘Morning, honey. Thanks for staying,’ he said in a sleepy voice, eyes still closed.
How unusual, thought Skye, a man who didn’t order a taxi after he came.
‘That’s okay,’ said Skye, the words spilling out of her mouth of their own accord, in a husky voice that surprised her.
He rolled her on top of him in an unexpected burst of strength. ‘I thought you were still asleep,’ she said. Skye felt his organ warm and pulsing against her thigh. She reached down and held him. He was hard and damp from the previous night.
‘Fooled you,’ he said. She moved to accept him and, as he entered her, the intense pleasure of it surprised her and caused her to cry out. She breathed deeply, trying to control the power of the feeling between her legs before it engulfed her completely.
Ramallah, West Bank, Israel
On a rooftop a good kilometre away, Lieutenant Colonel David Baruch watched the skirmish unfold on portable monitors, together with several other army brass and a bunch of pimply technicians. The picture on it was presented in luminous black and white: infrared. Occasional flashes flared the screen white, overwhelming its ability to present any picture at all for a few hanging seconds, indicating that a massive explosion had occurred. Baruch’s ears confirmed the fact a second or so later as the sound boomed and echoed around the stone and concrete houses like a clap of thunder following the flash. Overhead, two AW-1W Super Cobras prowled the skies, hunting for a clear line of fire for their twenty-millimetre cannons, but failing to find one.
The Palestinians had chosen to make their stand in the middle of a residential area, and neither pilot wanted to unleash their devastating firepower on innocent men, women and children. So they circled, looking menacing, but in this conflict no more than expensive bystanders. Baruch made the call and the gunships retired. The situation would have to be resolved by ground forces.