Power Play

Only he knew the whole truth, only he had heard his father’s breaking voice when he told him on his sat phone that he simply didn’t see how he could marry Natalie now, that he knew it would ruin her career and he simply couldn’t do that to her, not after his photo had been published. He heard the pain and soul-deep anguish in his father’s voice. And what could he say? That what he was doing was righteous? That he had nothing to be sorry for, that he was fighting in a just war against a tyrant and a murderer of his own people as well as his own wife’s family, a war he’d volunteered to join because his conscience demanded it? He’d told his father this many times, and then the photograph of him in the tabloid—if he hadn’t known the truth, he would believe he was looking at a terrorist, just as the British people now believed. What was amazing was that his father didn’t blame him. His father wanted him home, out of harm’s way, but he didn’t blame him. And that was how they’d left it at the end of that last call—his father trying to come to grips with what he was going to do and assuring his son, as he always did, that he loved him.

Then Natalie Black’s email had appeared in the British tabloid and his father was dead. There was no doubt in his mind that she was responsible for his father’s killing himself, that she’d driven him to it. His father had loved her, would have willingly given his life for her, but she’d broken their engagement to protect herself in an email! And then she’d leaked it to the press. It was unconscionable. He hated her more than the U.S. government, whose operatives he was sure had been taking photographs of him and his closest friends in Syria. Why they’d leaked his picture to the tabloids he didn’t know, and he didn’t really care. He didn’t care about their unending petty intrigues and machinations on the sidelines of this bloody war, that they should be fighting, didn’t really care his life would be in danger if he was ever able to return to Syria because his former friends knew now he was a peer of the English realm, and he was anathema to them. He barely cared that the relationship with his wife and family in Hamburg was strained to the breaking point because they had found out who he really was on the television. He cared only that his father was dead and that bitch who’d supposedly loved him had driven him to kill himself. An email! A soulless, dismissive email that bitch had sent him. He’d failed before, but he wouldn’t fail again.

When Khalid Al-Jabiri—William McCallum—finished chewing on the last meatball, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Perry Black’s condo

Sunday evening

Perry was looking at photos of Colin Kaepernick taken with fans at the game in London with the Jaguars this past October, and she smiled. The English loved him—understandable, since he was cute, well, downright sexy, and he looked different enough to fascinate. And all those tattoos—they fascinated the English as well. Perry wondered what Colin would think of his tats in twenty-five years or so, say, when his own son graduated from high school.

She laughed at herself. Who cared about twenty-five years from now? He was young and that was wonderful, even with all its stupidities. And talk about stupidities, look at her. She had this guy sleeping on her sofa she hadn’t known existed a week ago and yet here he was, protecting her and giving her grief. She had to admit he appealed to her right down to her toes.

She realized she wasn’t concentrating, looked at her watch, turned off her notebook, and flicked on the TV. It was time.

The man himself came out of the kitchen, wearing jeans, boots, and a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, his Glock on a clip at his waist, a cup of tea in each hand. The whole package was as potent as a guy in a sparkling white navy dress uniform. She frowned at him. “I see I’m starting to train you pretty well. Shut up, sit down, and watch with me.”

He merely grinned at her, handed her a cup of tea, and slouched beside her on the sofa, his feet plopped up atop a pile of magazines on her coffee table. In another minute, Edward Rose of Fox News was welcoming her mother in the studio here in Washington. Her mom looked great, in charge as usual, Perry thought, dressed in a navy-blue suit and a white blouse with a multicolored scarf that showed off her vivid hair. Perry sipped her tea and sat forward.

Rose said, “Ambassador Black, thank you for being here tonight. And I must say we all as a nation are happy to see you are looking well. There have been news reports of an assassination attempt on you at your home as recently as this past Friday. Can you verify this and tell us what is being done to find the person or people responsible for these continuing attacks on you?”