At the Edge of the Sun (8 page)

“Woman?” Ian echoed hoarsely.

“The leader called her Maeve.”

“I don’t believe it,” Holly said.

“Believe it,” Ian said bitterly. “Women can be very deadly, and Maeve O’Connor is one of the worst. Flynn saw to that.”

The three of them turned to stare at him. “You want to
explain that, Andrews?” Randall inquired suddenly, his voice deceptively gentle.

“If I thought it would be of any use I would,” he replied. “But it won’t help you in the least, and it’s my business. So we’re heading for Beirut, are we? The whole bloody bunch of us?”

“The whole bloody bunch of us,” Holly verified. “Got any objections?”

“A thousand,” he said. “But I know none of you will listen. When do we fly out?”

“There’s a flight back to London first thing tomorrow,” said Randall. “I suggest we catch it and work from there. In the meantime we’d better get what sleep we can. I sure as hell hope you don’t snore, Andrews.”

“I’m sure he does,” Holly muttered under her breath to Maggie.

Ian raised his head, his piercing gaze stabbing into hers. “You’ll die wondering,” he said.

“Thank the Lord for small favors,” she said devoutly.

“Amen,” said Ian.

Maggie huddled down in the narrow bed, shivering. It seemed as if she’d never get warm again—the cold had penetrated to the very marrow of her bones.

She looked over at her sister’s sleeping figure in the twin bed. It had taken Holly close to forty-five minutes to properly clean and cream her flawless complexion, to brush and floss her perfect teeth, to arrange her flowing midnight hair so that the hard pillow the little hotel offered did no damage to the rippling curls. Maggie hadn’t minded. As long as Holly puttered around, humming under her breath, cursing Ian when she discovered she only had seven suitcases out of her original twelve, the longer Maggie could have the dubious protection of the light.

Not for anything would she confess to her sister that she was afraid of the dark. There were many reasons she couldn’t tell her, one of which was habit. She was used to
being considered the strong one. She didn’t want to admit to an irrational weakness at a time when Holly needed to count on that strength.

But most important of all, she didn’t want to tell Holly that the reason she feared the dark went back to a black night when she was sixteen years old and her stepfather had decided to forcibly initiate his infatuated stepdaughter into the joys of womanhood. Deke Robinson had been a drunken, uncaring bastard, but his daughter Holly had loved him, and there was no need to tarnish his memory any more than his own flamboyant acts had already.

But Holly’s beauty ritual had finally been completed, her cursing and humming had faded into silence, and she climbed into her own bed with a sigh, pulling the covers up around her silk-clad shoulders. Maggie had lain there, tense, waiting for her to extinguish the light, steeling herself against the darkness where banshees wailed over the bloody bodies that filled a shattered pub not ten miles away.

“Good night, Maggie,” she’d said, and curled up, leaving the dim light burning.

“Now this is more like it,” Holly said, her eyes sparkling in the blinding sunlight as she surveyed the bombed and pitted tarmac of the Beirut airport. The blackened carcasses of half a dozen bombed-out airplanes littered the runways. Not that it mattered—very few commercial flights flew in and out of Beirut nowadays. The one working runway could handle the traffic.

“More like what?” Maggie said. “It looks like a war zone.”

“Exactly. Everything’s been so damned civilized the last couple of days. I might as well have been on a modeling assignment.”

Ian turned to her with his omnipresent glare. “Lady,” he said in awful tones, “haven’t you been paying attention? There are seventeen dead in a pub in Northern Ireland.
Twenty-five dead in a bombed-out gambling club in London. This isn’t some damned fantasy, this is for real.”

Holly’s bright look faded. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I wasn’t thinking …”

“We can’t afford to have you not thinking,” he snapped. “It’s bad enough having you tagging along—at least keep your mouth shut if you can’t keep your brain active.”

“You rotten little pig,” Holly began amiably.

“Stop it, you two,” Maggie said, and there was a note of steel in her voice that silenced the two combatants. “Or you can both go back where you came from. How many times do I have to tell you that we can’t afford to waste our energies fighting among ourselves?”

Randall slid an arm around her waist, and she stiffened, glaring up at him. “How many times, Maggie dear?” he said softly.

She didn’t hesitate, pulling herself out of his unresisting arms. “Common civility is as far as we need to go,” she replied. “What next?”

“I’m going to see a man,” Ian announced. “Alone.”

“What man?” Maggie asked. “Don’t tell me you got his name from your wonderful informant. We keep walking into traps, Ian. Don’t you think it’s time to share the wealth, let us know who keeps giving you this magnificent information that almost gets us killed?”

“No.”

“Come on, Ian, don’t be a drag,” Holly said. “You owe us that much.”

“Lady, I owe you nothing. I’d be doing a hell of a lot better if I were on my own, without the three of you tagging after me.”

“You’d be dead in a pub in Northern Ireland,” Randall said flatly.

“Or Flynn would.”

Randall shrugged. “Maybe. Do what you have to do. We’ll be waiting. We might even tell you where.”

“Does Beirut have any hotels still standing?” Maggie asked.

“Not many,” Randall said. “And we’re not going there. We’ll be staying with a friend of mine in the Hosni section of Beirut. It’s on the outskirts of the city, as far away from the fighting as anyone could manage. At least it was a couple of weeks ago.”

“A couple of weeks ago?” Maggie echoed.

“Where do you think I’ve been for the last four months?”

“I hadn’t even thought about it,” Maggie lied.

“If I’d been in the States I would have been around you.”

“Not if I could help it.”

“Children, children,” Holly mocked. “I thought we weren’t going to fight any more?”

Randall’s mouth was a grim line. “Must be the air. I’ll draw you a map, Ian. You can find us if you try.”

Maggie sat down on the narrow, sagging bed that was nothing more than a cot. The cracked plaster walls were dark and waterstained, the tiny room wasn’t much bigger than her bathroom in New York, but for the moment it was away from Randall’s increasingly intrusive presence, and for that she was more than grateful. Even Holly’s idle chatter was driving her to the edge of madness, and the silence in the small room was heaven.

She coughed, trying to clear her lungs of the dust that lingered in the bright, dry air. It had been a hell of a drive. Randall’s friend Mabib had been waiting for them, his battered Peugeot barely running, and their journey through the destroyed city had been slow and depressing. Through the rubble and desolation Maggie could see the traces of what had once been the loveliest city in the Middle East, and she sank back against the ripped cushions of the car and shut her eyes, half listening to the desultory conversation between the men in the front seat.

“I hadn’t expected to see you so soon, my friend,” Mabib had said.

“I hadn’t expected to be back so soon,” Randall had answered. “I’d hoped to see you on more peaceful ground.”

“We don’t often get what we hope for. Where did your friend disappear to?”

“He wouldn’t say. We’re looking for a man, Mabib. An Irishman, medium height, medium build, reddish hair, blue eyes.”

“Flynn,” said Mabib.

“You know him?”

“I know of him. I had word that he arrived last night, and right now he’s somewhere outside the city, at one of the training camps. The terrorists of this world are an odd bunch, my friend. They wander the world like nomads, always finding a home at the trouble spots. Flynn’s on some crazy sort of sabbatical, teaching some of our more bloodthirsty patriots.”

“Can you help me find him?”

Mabib had shrugged. “Who knows? I will ask around. Your friend might not help matters. It would be better if you left it to me.”

“We’ll do that.”

Maggie had opened her mouth from the backseat to protest, then shut it again, not saying a word when they arrived at the sturdy little house that, despite damage, was still standing. She’d been quiet, almost apathetic when Mabib had led her to her room, and she sat there on her bed, wondering where her energy and pride had fled. She could only be grateful she had a room to herself, even one so tiny. The house itself was so small she was surprised she’d been allotted a private room. Thank heavens for small favors, she thought with a weary sigh, sinking back on the bed.

The door opened without the courtesy of a knock, and in the shifting dust motes and bright sunlight she could see a tall, narrow figure outlined there.

“What do you want, Randall?” She didn’t bother to move, to sit up, she lay there on the bed and summoned up a weak glare.

“Are you all right?” He moved into the room, shutting the door behind him, plunging the room back into shadows, and Maggie saw him drop his suitcase on the floor.

“What do you want?” she repeated. “And why did you bring your bag with you?”

“We’re sharing the room, Maggie. Mabib’s house can’t accommodate privacy—there are only three rooms with the roof still on. Mabib, his wife, and three children are in one, Holly and Ian, if he ever returns, are in the other.”

Maggie was off the narrow bed in a flash. “Forget it. Holly and I can share a room …”

He caught her by the door, his hand like a manacle around her arm. She had no choice but to halt, but she stared up at him, a defiant expression on her face.

Randall sighed. “Sit down, Maggie.”

“I don’t want to sit down, I want to—” She found herself sitting, with Randall leaning over her, doing his absolute best to intimidate her. She glared at him, ignoring her pounding heart and sweaty palms.

“We’re in a dangerous situation, madam,” he said, his voice harsh and clipped. “While we’re in Beirut this is no longer a democracy. I’ve lived here, I know what’s going on. For the duration of our stay I’m in charge, and we’re all going to do what I say. Two women in one room is asking for trouble. Everyone around knows we’re here, and I don’t care how good you are at taking care of yourself, when it comes right down to it you aren’t as strong as Ian. He’ll do a much better job taking care of Holly than you can.”

“If he returns,” Maggie snapped. “And if he doesn’t kill her himself.”

“He’ll return. Don’t let your pride endanger your sister’s life, Maggie. You’re too smart for that.”

“Do you really think I’m going to share this bed with you, Randall?”

A small grin lit his usually sober face. “You have before.”

“Forget it.”

“I’m not likely to do that. However, I imagine Mabib can find you some bedding for the floor.”

“Me?”

“You’re the one with objections to sharing the bed, not me,” he pointed out politely. “You can have the floor.”

“You bastard,” she began, when the door opened once more, and Holly stood there, her face pale in the shifting sunlight.

“Maggie, Randall,” she said, and her voice was shaky. “You’d better come.”

Randall rose swiftly, and Maggie watched the sudden, gentle concern with an odd feeling of jealousy. He’d never been that tender with her. “What is it, Holly?”

“Mabib’s had word. Ian’s been kidnapped.”

“Calm down,” Randall said flatly, and his prosaic voice snapped Holly out of her incipient hysteria. “Whoever has him, they’ll probably be willing to trade.”

Mabib had appeared in the door, and his dark face was creased with worry. “It’s a group calling themselves the Children of God, Randall. Apparently your friend was fool enough to go wandering up in the hills, looking for training camps. He ran into those bandits instead. They’ve got him, and they want an exchange.”

Randall nodded. “What terms?”

A sour smile lit Mabib’s face. “Five million dollars and freedom for all political prisoners in Syria.”

“What?” Holly shrieked.

Randall appeared singularly unmoved. “Don’t worry, Holly,” he said absently, and once more Maggie felt that start of jealousy. “They’ll bargain.”

“But five million dollars—”

“How organized are the Children of God, Mabib?” he asked. “I’m not familiar with that particular splinter group.”

“With reason, my friend. They’re the most pitiful of a pitiful bunch. They have no organization, no money, no plans, no power. They roam the hills outside Beirut like wild dogs, preying on anyone who falls in their way. I would think, since they haven’t killed your friend yet, that it will be a simple enough matter to get him back.”

“Five thousand, do you think?”

“No, no,” Mabib said. “Five hundred dollars will be more than enough.”

“What about the political prisoners?” Maggie spoke for the first time.

Randall’s blue-gray eyes touched her pale face briefly. “I imagine asking for political prisoners is merely a face-saving device.”

“Indeed, yes, miss,” Mabib assured her. “They’re bandits, nothing more. By asking for political prisoners they’re trying to ally themselves with the PLO in case anyone comes after them. Once they know they’re getting money they’ll drop all other demands.”

“But five hundred dollars?” Maggie said.

“We could bargain them down even lower, but I’m afraid they’d take it out on your friend before returning him,” Mabib said with a shrug. “You have enough cash on you?”

“I do,” Holly said, a glint of steel in her aquamarine eyes.

“That’s not necessary, Holly …” Randall began.

“Yes, it is,” Maggie interrupted him. “If I know my sister, and I do. Right, Holly?”

“Right, Maggie. I’m down to three suitcases, thanks to him and his high-and-mighty attitude. I want to be the one to bail him out of the mess he’s gotten himself into.”

“He won’t thank you for it,” Randall warned.

Holly grinned. “I sincerely hope not. I want it to drive him absolutely crazy.”