LITMIR.BIZ

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was their father…and then, last night, Avery had turned up at Cam’s Turtle Creek triplex.

      Avery hadn’t wasted time on preliminaries. He’d explained that his oil contracts negotiator in the sultanate of Baslaam hadn’t reported in for almost a week and was unreachable by cell phone or satellite computer.

      Cam had listened, expressionless. Eventually Avery fell silent. Cam still said nothing, though by then he knew what had brought his father to him.

      Moments crawled by. Avery grew red-faced. “Goddammit to hell, Cameron, you know what I’m asking.”

      “Sorry, Father,” Cam said tonelessly. “You’ll have to tell me.”

      For a second, Cam figured Avery was going to walk out. Instead, he took a deep breath.

      “I want you to fly to Baslaam and see what the hell’s going on. Whatever your fee is, I’ll double it.”

      Cam had tucked his hands in the pockets of his trousers, leaned back against the railing of the wraparound terrace that looked out on the city.

      “I don’t want your money,” he said quietly.

      “Then what do you want?”

      I want you to beg, Cam had thought. But the damnable code of honor drummed into him by the Army, by Special Forces, by the Agency and maybe even by his own convictions, kept him from saying the words.

      This was his father. His blood.

      Which was why, less than eighteen hours later, he deplaned into a desert heat so fierce it slammed into him like a fist.

      A small man in a white suit hurried toward him.

      “Welcome to Baslaam, Mr. Knight. I am Salah Adair, the sultan’s personal aide.”

      “Mr. Adair. Good to meet you.” Cam waited a couple of seconds, then made a show of looking around. “Isn’t the rep from Knight Industries with you?”

      “Ah.” Adair smiled brightly. “He has undertaken a survey beyond the Blue Mountains. Did he not notify you of his plans?”

      Cam returned the bright smile. The negotiator was an attorney. He wouldn’t have recognized signs of oil from signs for a neighborhood gas station.

      “I’m sure he notified my father. He must have forgotten to tell me.”

      Adair led him to a black limo, part of a mixed convoy of old Jeeps and new Hummers. All the vehicles held soldiers bristling with weapons.

      “The sultan sent an escort in your honor,” Adair said smoothly.

      The hell it was. No escort would involve so many armed men. And where were all the regular citizens of Baslaam? The paved road that led into town was empty. As the only road in a country trying to claw its way into a semblance of the twenty-first century, it should have been crowded with traffic.

      “The sultan has arranged a feast,” Adair said with an oily smile. “You will taste many delicacies, Mr. Knight. Of the palate…and of the flesh.”

      “Great,” Cam said, repressing a shudder. This part of the world, delicacies of the palate could make a man’s stomach roll. As for delicacies of the flesh…he preferred to choose his own bed-mates, not have them chosen for him.

      Something was wrong in Baslaam. Very wrong, and dangerous as hell. He had to keep alert. That meant no strange foods. No booze. No women.

      Definitely, no women.

      Where were all the women?

      Leanna wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d been locked in this all but airless, filthy cell. Two days, maybe two and a half—and in all that time, she’d yet to see a female face.

      She kept hoping she would because a woman would surely listen to her. Help her escape from this hellhole.

      That was right, wasn’t it?

      It had to be.

      Leanna eyed what little water remained in the bucket she’d been given that morning. If she drank it, would they give her more? Her throat was parched from the heat, though the worst of it was over. She had no watch—the men who’d kidnapped her had torn it from her wrist—but the blazing eye of the sun had begun its descent behind the mountains. She knew because the shadows in her squalid prison were growing longer.

      That was the good news.

      The bad was that the darkness would bring out the centipedes and the spiders. Dinner plates with legs, was what they were.

      Leanna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, told herself not to think ahead. There were worse things than centipedes and spiders waiting for her tonight. One of her guards spoke just enough English to have told her so. Remembering the way he’d laughed still made her shudder.

      Tonight, she would be taken to the man who’d bought her. The king or chief or whatever he was called of this horrible place. The bugs, the heat, the taunts of her captors would all seem like pleasant memories.

      “The Great Asaad will have you tonight,” the guard had said, and his gap-toothed grin and obscene hand gesture had guaranteed she understood exactly what that meant.

      Leanna began to shake. Quickly she wrapped her arms around herself, willed the trembling to stop. Showing her fear would be a huge mistake. It was just that it was hard to imagine how this could have happened. One minute she’d been rehearsing Swan Lake with the rest of the corps on the stage of a tired but beautiful old theater in Ankara. The next, she’d stepped out a side door for a break, been grabbed and tossed in the back of a stinking van…

      The door swung open. Two enormous men, their hands the size of hams, stepped into the cell. One stabbed his thumb upright in the air and mumbled something she assumed meant she was to go with them.

      She wanted to fall to the floor. She wanted to scream. Instead, she stood tall and glared at her captors. Whatever came next, she’d face it with as much courage as she could manage.

      “Where are you taking me?”

      She could see that she’d surprised them. Why not? She’d surprised herself.

      “You will come.”

      The giant’s English was guttural but clear. Leanna put her hands on her hips.

      “The hell I will!”

      The men lumbered toward her. When they clamped their meaty paws around her arms, she dug her heels into the vermin-infested straw that covered the floor but it didn’t do much good. They simply lifted her to her toes and dragged her between them.

      Still, she fought. They were strong but so was she. Years spent en pointe and at the barre had toughened her muscles. She had a terrific high kick, too. It had once earned her a spot in a Las Vegas chorus line and she put it to good use now.

      She got the Talking Giant right where he lived.

      He doubled over in pain. His partner found that vastly amusing but before Leanna could give him the same treatment, he twisted her arm high behind her back, jammed his ugly face into hers and snarled something she couldn’t understand.

      She didn’t have to. Between the stink of his breath and the spray of his spittle, the message was clear.

      Still, why would that stop her? She knew what came next. Talking Giant had told her this morning, though she’d already suspected. Two other girls from the troupe had been kidnapped with her. One, same as Leanna, had assumed they’d been taken for ransom but the other had quickly eliminated that possibility.

      “They’re slavers,” she’d whispered in horror. “They’re going to sell us.”

      Slave traders? In this century? Leanna would have laughed, but the girl added that she’d seen a news report on the white slave trade on television.

      “But who would they sell us to?” the first girl said.

      “To

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