Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

"My suggestion? Tel Aviv, make contact with Noah Landau."

"To what end?"

"To be briefed on a terrorist training facility in the Wadi-as-Sirhan, Tabuk province, Saudi Arabia."

For the first time, Chace looked confused. "Why?"

"Because you need to destroy the camp."

"Alone?"

"Unless you can find some support, yes, alone."

"Well, support, that would take the challenge out of it."

The joke wasn't worth the courtesy laugh, and even if it had been, they didn't have the time.

"So how large is this camp, then?" She tried to force the smile again, and again it didn't convince.

"Sixty plus, half veterans, half raw, give or take another two dozen Palestinian recruits working on their martyrdom degrees. It's the HUM-AA faction, Tara, the same lot Salih was funding, the same lot Faud was inciting."

"The same lot that hit us here."

"Yes," Crocker said. "It's complicated and it's political, but the short form is this: that camp has to go. The Saudis won't touch it unless they get you. And Downing Street has decided that sacrificing one SIS officer to achieve that end is the most expedient way to do that."

"Box was going to give me to the Saudis?"

"Correct."

She looked away from him, out toward the fake skyline. "What were they waiting for? They could have taken me anytime today."

"They didn't receive authorization until half-nine," Crocker said. "Otherwise they'd have picked you up earlier."

Chace bit her lip, thinking. "Blind luck," she said.

"What?"

"I lost them at eight. Any later, I'd not have lost them at all."

"Blind luck," Crocker agreed. "You're going to need more of it. The only way out I see for you is to remove the Government's reason for rendering you to the Saudis in the first place. That's the camp."

She turned her head, studying him. The mask was slipping again, and he could read on her face the conflicting emotions at work: the anger and the fear. "And if I don't?"

"Then you'll be pursued."

"I could disappear."

"No, Tara. I've been ordered to list you AWOL if you don't report for work tomorrow. You'll be PNGed in the Service, you'll have no access to SIS or any of its assets. Further, I'll be directed to find you. As will the CIA and, most likely, the Mossad."

"I stay at liberty until this camp of yours is rolled up-"

"You'll still be a rogue SIS officer." Crocker shook his head. "No, you've got three choices, that's it. You can stay, and end up in the loving arms of Saudi Arabian justice. You can bolt, and spend your life running persona non grata. Or you can take the camp yourself. That's it."

Chace stared at him, and it seemed to Crocker that he'd never seen her like this, suddenly naked and vulnerable. The mask was gone, and the betrayal and hurt in her eyes made him feel that he'd failed her all the more.

"I've taken the liberty of sending a signal to Landau through channels," he added softly. "He'll expect you on Monday the twentieth."

She didn't say anything, didn't even acknowledge with a nod or a look, just stared at him.

There was a knock at the door and a voice, male and South London, called, "We're closing it up."

"We'll be right out," Crocker said.

"You were supposed to protect me," Chace said.

"I am protecting you," he snapped, stung. "If Weldon or C knew I was here, they'd roast me alive. They've tied my hands, Tara. This is all I can offer."

"I can't do this, Paul," she said softly. "Eighty men in that camp? I can't take them alone, there's no way I can do that. You need SAS for that, not me. Give me Lankford and Poole, I can make a go of it, but alone-"

"Lankford and Poole are out of it now. SIS is out of it. You're alone, Tara." He glared at her, repeating himself. "You're alone."

He'd hoped to spark her anger. It didn't come.

Instead, Chace looked away again.

"I've done everything I can, Tara," he added more gently.

She nodded, then rose from the chair, straightening her jacket. She checked her watch and he saw her making a calculation of some sort in her mind. Then she moved to the door.

"I trusted you, you bastard," Chace said to him without looking.

"You still can."

She whipped around, shouting at him, her cheeks flushed with heat and her eyes shining with fury. "You were supposed to protect me!"

"I am doing everything I can."

"Do more!" She spun back, yanked the door open. "You'll hear from me, one way or another. You'll hear from me."

He watched her start out, moved slowly to follow.

"Good luck," Crocker offered, and even he heard the weakness of the wish as he said it.

"Fuck you," she told him, and disappeared down the stairs.

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 17 September 0507 Local (GMT+3.00) Nia's hair had been soft and thick and had flowed over Sinan's stomach and thighs like a whisper, and where her skin had touched his a warmth had blossomed so gently, so different from the jagged heat of the desert that he'd heard himself gasp with the pleasure of it. She had put fingers to his lips, closing his mouth, silently urging him to stay silent, and her lips had grazed his throat, and then he had felt the other heat of her, the grip of her as she mounted him. The rush came all at once, flooding out of him, and it was only then, feeling his seed cooling on his belly, that he realized he was dreaming and forced himself awake.

Matteen snored on his cot, visible in the wash of predawn light seeping into the tent. From outside, Sinan could hear the steps of the sentry as he passed.

He shivered, feeling cold and ashamed, then threw back his blanket. The earth was hard beneath his feet, still warm from the radiation of the day. He pulled off his shirt, then found his canteen and spilled water onto the sleeve. He used the wet cloth to wipe himself clean, then set about changing, wishing for the first time in months that he could shower. With the Prince there had been hot and cold running water, bathrooms with marble and gold, and he had hated it. In the camp, the only water was for drinking.

He would have done anything to be clean then.

Matteen coughed in his sleep, rustling, and Sinan grabbed his boots and his Kalashnikov, slipping out of the tent. The sentry who had passed him by was on his way back and stopped at the sight of him, and Sinan raised his hand in greeting. The sentry nodded and continued on his rounds.

Standing, Sinan pulled on his boots, then made his way from beneath the canopy of camouflage netting, out into the wider base of the wadi. The walls of the little canyon were shallow here, and he scrambled up the side, then settled himself on the ground, sitting with his rifle across his lap. To the east, the sky was beginning to glow with the sunrise, and the stars were already beginning to fade.

He hated himself for the dream, for the weakness it exposed. It wasn't real, of course, it hadn't been real, but that his head would indulge his body while he slept, tease him with a dream of what he could not have, made him angry. At Nia, first, for making him think these thoughts, feel these things, and then at Abdul Aziz, for bringing her to the camp in the first place. But these faded, because he saw them for what they were.

Excuses.

This was nobody's problem but his own.

He had never considered taking a bride, had never thought it would even be a possibility. What man would give his sister or daughter to him, in this place? Abdul Aziz was known to have three wives of his own, all living in Jeddah, and Matteen had spoken of a bride who now lived in Pakistan, but most of the men here were single, wed only to their cause and their war. For a soldier to take a wife would be a cruelty, for he could never be with her, never protect her and provide for her.