Paradise Burning (36 page)

He appeared to be in the main room of the old
cracker shack, but the contrast with the outside was startling.
Fresh, bright colors, upscale furnishings, an elegant bar at one
end of the room. Keeping the old façade must have been part of the
elaborate deception. Leaving this little cash cow in the woods was
going to cost them, Peter thought with grim satisfaction as he
obeyed another nasty prod and headed through a door on the far side
of the living area, then and down a hallway.

A guttural bark from his guard brought Peter
to a halt. The room they entered wasn’t much more than a closet. A
narrow bed, curtained shelves for clothes. No windows.
Accommodations for the hired help? For the cut-rate johns?

A click of the lock behind him, and Peter
realized he was alone.

Alone. He’d expected to be with Mandy. Was
certain he’d be with Mandy. Had to be with Mandy.

But he was alone. Mandy was somewhere else in
this brothel in the woods.

With Karim Shirazi.

Before he left the room, the Iranian’s
warning to Mandy was clear: “Pennington is in a room with no
windows and a very strong bolt. If you try to escape, we will kill
him.” As the door lock clicked into place, Mandy eyed the room’s
windows with a rush of resignation warring with frustration.
Outside, the sun was coming up, the birds sounding the arrival of
another perfectly beautiful Florida day. And here she was, a
prisoner in a corner room with two low first floor windows she
dared not go near.

Mandy’s knees suddenly gave way. She
sat down hard on the bed, closed her eyes, and shook.
Come on, girl, you’re an Armitage. Whatever they
throw at you, you can take it
. But she couldn’t help
wondering if that was pure bravado. Jeff and Eleanor had spent
their lives making sure their only child never got any closer to
covert ops than a computer keyboard. On more than a few occasions,
however—from Santiago, Chile, to Irkutsk, Siberia—she’d had to
think herself out of tricky situations. She’d been quite good at
it, actually. Mandy hadn’t mentioned those little problems in her
reports, fearing she’d never be allowed out of the AKA compound
again.

Her eyes snapped open, settled on a critical
survey of the room. It was obviously part of the original
structure, probably the primary bedroom. And now . . . now it
belonged to someone totally masculine, a neatness freak with a
military mindset. Even the polished maple desk, which sat in one
corner, was completely clear of any sign of use.

And yet . . . something about this room made
her uneasy. Mandy’s gaze drifted to the bed where she was sitting.
It was a double, with hand-carved headboard and posts that rose two
feet above the four corners of the bed. There was a black and white
bedspread of some satin-finish geometric print. And cushions . . .
piles of cushions in black and white and red spread out in almost
measured precision against the headboard and along the length of
the bed where it met the wall.

Dear God! She was in Karim Shirazi’s bedroom.
Sitting on his bed. Mandy shot to her feet. Calm, calm. She was
Amanda Armitage, not Mandy Mouse. Steady. Everything’s fine. Karim
just needs a place to put you, some place away from Peter. Divide
and conquer. He couldn’t care less about you personally. He thinks
you’re old and ugly . . .

Mandy took a deep breath, narrowed her
eyes at the bed, the array of cushions that looked as if they’d
strayed from a designer layout in
House
Beautiful
. What was it about men and the colors black,
white and red? That Karim Shirazi could have anything in common
with Peter Pennington was completely absurd.

Mandy’s attempt at calm reason wound down . .
. failed. Why was she standing poised in the middle of the floor
when there was nowhere to run? Gingerly, she sat back down on the
bed, trying not to think what scenes might have been played out
beneath this shining, sophisticated coverlet. She was still trying
to convince herself that being in Karim Shirazi’s bedroom meant
nothing when the door opened.

For the first time she got a really good look
at the man she’d glimpsed through the chain link fence two months
ago. He was wearing black jeans, a black tee, and—

Oh. My. God
. He
was beautiful. With the exception of Brad Blue, the Iranian was the
most strikingly handsome man she had ever seen. Totally masculine
from strong nose to proud bearing . . . but beautiful. Like a fully
mature version of Michelangelo’s
David
. For the first time Mandy understood why
men fell all over themselves for a stunningly gorgeous woman. That
there were certain urges it was hard to resist, no matter how
irrational.

So it’s a good thing you’re so resistible,
Mandy mocked herself, because Karim Shirazi most certainly
isn’t.

Ignoring his prisoner, the Iranian stalked
across the room, picked up a remote from the bedside table, flicked
on a small television set that hung on the wall. While its picture
warmed to life, Karim turned to look at her, arms across his broad
chest, feet at parade rest. “Silence is an admirable quality in a
woman,” he approved.

Mandy wasn’t about to admit his looks had
struck her dumb. She swallowed hard, ordered her hormones to be
quiet, her brain to stand at attention. “Where’s Peter?” she
demanded.

“
I told you. In a room with no windows
and a very large bolt. He is going nowhere. Nor will
you.”

The television burst into life. Karim
surprised her by switching to the Weather Channel.
Why on earth . . . ?

The milder temperatures Florida had been
enjoying for the last few days were about to end, said the dulcet
tones of the early morning forecaster. A strong cold front would
move into the region by late afternoon, bringing much-needed rain.
There would be thunderstorms, some possibly severe.

Karim smiled, punched the Off button. The
television faded to black.

So it was going to be a dark and stormy
night. So what? Mandy wondered. Why was her captor pleased by a
weather report? If she asked, would he tell her? Or just deepen
that superior, damn-his-gorgeous-melting-dark-eyes smile and get
his kicks out of leaving her curiosity unanswered?

“
What’s so important about the
weather?”

Karim shifted his arms, clasped his hands
behind his back. He rocked back on his heels, staring down the
strong plane of his nose from a sculptured face that might have
been an example of the best of ancient Persia, cradle of humanity.
Mandy stifled an awestruck juvenile desire to suck in her breath.
He ignored her question. Stuck on his own agenda, it was possible
he hadn’t even heard her.

“
I am not what you think I am,” Shirazi
said quietly, looking past her shoulder toward the array of pillows
on the bed. Naturally, he did not care to look at her, Mandy
thought. She was a mere female. Beneath his dignity. An old,
unattractive female at that.

Mandy willed her face to blank, her eyes to
wide and innocent. If Karim Shirazi wanted to talk, it could only
be in her best interest to listen.

“
When I was a child,” he said, “I lived
in Tehran and the Americans were our friends. Then . . .” He turned
and looked out the north window, as if he could see his life
projected on the shining glass. His face was harsh. Soulless. Or,
perhaps, Mandy wondered, simply lost.

“
Then—as everyone knows—my countrymen
seized the American Embassy. My parents were part of the old
regime, I had American friends . . . yet I was so sure the
revolution was right. The Ayatollah spoke the words of Allah
himself. I would defend my faith and my country with my
life.

As soon as I was old enough, I joined the
army, became an officer and a gentleman. So eager . . . so very
young. I went off to fight our long war against Iraq. And when we
drove the invaders back, they used chemical weapons. Did you know
that, Miss Sheltered American? Did you know Iran was the first
country to be attacked with chemical weapons since the European war
you call World War One?”

Mandy shook her head, but doubted that he saw
her. She was a sounding board while Karim Shirazi justified his
existence. He was groping in the dark, searching for excuses. For a
world that lived on greed, thought nothing of turning women into
whores. Did he ever look, really look, at women at all? she
wondered.

Yet as long as he was talking, nothing bad
was happening. So humoring him was a wise move. To her, his country
was the home of fanatical nuke-rattling hostage-takers. To Karim
Shirazi, it was the home of his family, his religion, his comrades
in arms.

“
A bad war . . . and very long,” Karim
was saying. “Men died. Then more . . . and more. I became a captain
. . . a major.” Once again, he rocked back on his heels, flicked a
last look at the bright sunshine outside, then returned to the
blank white wall just beyond Mandy’s right ear. “I was a good
officer. I understood what I was doing. And why.” Karim drew a deep
breath. Almost, Mandy suspected, a sigh.

“
We fought alone—even the Russians
conveniently forgot the old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my
friend. Iran had no friends. Nearly two million died. It is a
miracle we survived at all.

“
And then came what you call the Gulf
War.” Karim’s pace suddenly switched from melancholy to sarcasm.
“The Americans proved more pragmatic than the Russians. There was
nothing official, of course, but the climate changed.”

Mandy thought of herself, hands on a
strange keyboard in a strange land, clutching a black
chador
in her teeth.

“
My government still claimed America
was the great Satan, but most of us considered Saddam Hussein the
Evil One, and American soldiers were destroying the Iraqi army far
better than we had ever managed to do. My beliefs, my certainties
were shaken. I was still very young, yet I was an old man. I wanted
only to be left in peace to understand why my world had become such
a strange place.”

Shades of Vietnam, Mandy thought, and wasn’t
surprised when Karim’s erect carriage seemed to sag. He took a step
back, sitting down on top of his desk, one foot on the floor, his
other leg bent at the knee, swinging free.

“
I looked around me. I saw many good
people, people who made me proud to be Persian . . . but there were
other things, frightening things.”

She couldn’t be feeling
sympathy.
Good God, was she
crazy?

Karim’s foot swung, tap-tapping against the
front of the maple desk. He frowned, the foot stilled. “In a
village one day I saw a crowd . . . I thought it might be an
accident so I stopped, thinking I could help. But when I saw what
was happening, I wanted only to go away. I had heard rumors of such
things, but when I was not at the front, I lived a good life, a
privileged one. It was easy to ignore what was going on outside my
own small circle.”

Mandy hadn’t taken her eyes from Karim’s
face. She no longer saw him as breathtakingly handsome. Or as one
of the bad guys. Like herself, Karim Shirazi was part of the great
army of walking wounded.

“
It wasn’t an accident,” the ex-major
explained. “There were two couples in the center of the crowd. They
were already battered and bloody, but the stones kept coming. Do
you know,” Karim mused, “that the size of the stones is decreed by
law? The stones should not be too large so that the person dies on
being hit by one or two of them. They should not be so small that
they cannot be defined as stones.”

Mandy’s stomach clenched.
Stones.
Stones?

“
Even as I watched, it was over. There
were so many stones . . . from every direction. The couples
clutched their bloody heads, trying to protect themselves. Their
knees buckled . . . the stones kept coming. And coming. I turned
away, pushed back through the crowd. Told myself it was none of my
business, that it had nothing to do with me.

“
Do you know what their crime was?”
Karim asked. “Adultery. Even if it had been murder . . .” His voice
trailed away.

Mandy bit her lower lip. She would not
sympathize with this man. Nor comment on the barbarity of his
country. Nor admit she was beginning to understand why he left.

“
My country is Persia, a civilization
so ancient it should rise above all other cultures. Instead, we are
reduced to stoning our people to death. A man should not turn his
back on the land of his birth, but I had seen enough death. Enough
fanaticism. I just wanted to go somewhere where a man could live in
peace, practice his religion in a way that did not hurt others,
raise a family . . .”

“
Why do you tell me this?” Mandy
demanded. She had to go on the attack. Had to remember Karim
Shirazi was a bad man. She refused to be his Wailing
Wall.

At last he looked at her, his dark eyes
nearly black with repressed rage and sorrow. Sunk into a face whose
classic symmetry had become even more striking, now shadowed by
pain into a chiascuro achieved only by the finest painters.
“Perhaps because you are a good woman,” he offered. “It has been a
long time since I have spoken with a good woman.”

“
You think I’m a good woman because I
am old and plain and no one wants me?”

Karim straightened his back, placed both
hands, palms down, on the desk on either side of him. “It is true I
said that,” he admitted slowly, “but I was trying to keep you from
being so terrified you couldn’t dress yourself.”