“What are you doing here?” he asked, knowing that he had to make small talk with her so she wouldn’t be suspicious of him. Americans chattered incessantly.
“Would you believe it? We’re goin’ to Arrowhead to watch the Chiefs play the Colts this afternoon, and I went off and left the tickets in my desk.” She went across the big room to her cubicle, which was smaller than some but larger than most, to retrieve the tickets. When she had them, she turned and gave him another smile. “Don’t work too hard now, hear?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he told her.
She paused in the doorway. “Say, maybe you’d like to go to a game sometime. We can always get tickets through the company, even when the stadium’s sold out.”
She was looking at him with lust in her eyes again, he thought. He knew he was not unattractive to American women, with his olive skin and his thick dark hair and his neatly trimmed mustache and beard. He was in superb physical shape. With the least bit of encouragement on his part, Mandy Armitage would lie with him, and she wasn’t the only one.
That was out of the question, of course, and even considering such a thing was sinful. But Hamed managed not to show the revulsion he felt as he said, “Sorry, I don’t know anything about American football. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what was going on.”
“That’s right, where you come from people play soccer, don’t they? That’s what you call football.”
That’s what 90 percent of the world calls football, you stupid American cow, he thought, but with your typical arrogance you believe that you’re right and everyone else is wrong.
“I could explain the rules to you,” Mandy went on. “I’ve got four brothers who played varsity, and I was head cheerleader. I’d have you knowin’ the difference between a blitz and a post pattern in no time.”
“I’ll think about it,” Hamed promised, with no intention of wasting even a second’s thought on such worthless drivel.
“All right, honey. See you tomorrow.”
Hamed smiled and waved as Mandy went out, then turned back to his computer. “And I’ll see you in hell, you foolish infidel bitch,” he said to himself as he went back to work.
CHAPTER 3
McCabe saw the woman as he rolled the big rig into the truck stop parking lot. She was a lot lizard—a hooker, of course. The tight, cutoff blue jean shorts, the equally tight tank top, and the high heels told him that much.
But it was the middle of the night and she was running and she looked scared. McCabe brought the truck to a stop with a hiss of air brakes, opened the door, and called to the woman, “Lady! Over here!”
She hesitated, as if she thought she might be trading one threat for another, but then she veered toward him. He had stepped down from the cab, and she must have thought he looked trustworthy.
What he probably looked like was tired as hell. He’d been on the road since early that morning, pushing the consecutive-hour limit and then busting right through it, risking getting in trouble if he was pulled over and the troopers checked his log. But he was stopped now, ready to crash for the night.
As soon as he dealt with whatever had gotten the hooker so frightened. Couldn’t be anything good.
She trotted up to him, pushed her lank blond hair out of her face, and said, “Mister, just get back in the truck and let’s go.”
McCabe shook his head. “Nah, I’m stopped for the night.”
She clutched his arm. Her long fingernails dug into his skin through the sleeve of the khaki shirt he wore.
“Some people are after me. I’ll make it worth your while. You won’t even have to pay me. I’ll be paying you, I guess you could say.”
McCabe looked at her and thought about his wife and said, “Honey, what I got at home, you can’t even come close to matching.”
She looked surprised and angry as she said, “Well, then, why’d you call me over here, asshole?”
McCabe’s voice was mild as he replied, “You looked like you were in trouble.”
“The only way you can help is to get me out of—”
“Hey, there she is! Hey, Lindy!”
Three men emerged from behind one of the big tractor-trailer rigs scattered through the parking lot. They started toward McCabe and the woman, moving fast. In the yellow glare of the sodium lights that washed over the parking lot, McCabe saw that they were all tall and muscular. They towered over his medium height, and their shoulders were broader, too. They had youth on him as well. None of them looked to be over thirty.
But their guts were soft. McCabe noted that right away. Big muscles and soft guts…not the best combination in the world.
“Oh, hell,” the hooker said. “Better go while you still can, mister.”
She turned to run again before the three men could reach her.
McCabe stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Stay here,” he told her.
She tried to pull away, but couldn’t get loose. “You bastard!” she hissed. “You’re gonna give me to them.”
McCabe didn’t say anything.
The three men slowed from their trot to a stop as they came up to the truck. “Thanks, buddy,” one of them said to McCabe. “This little lady tried to run out on a business deal after she took our money.”
Lindy stopped struggling in McCabe’s grip and glared at the three men. “I didn’t know what you had in mind,” she snapped. “I may be a whore, but there’re still some things I won’t do.”
The man who seemed to be the spokesman for the trio returned the glare. He wore a John Deere cap and had a goatee. “We paid you good cash money,” he said as he reached for her. “Now you come on with us like a good girl.”
McCabe moved so that he was between the men and the woman. He didn’t get in a hurry about it, but he was there before any of them seemed to know what was happening.
“Hold on a minute,” he said. “You mean she took your money and ran off?”
“Damn right,” one of the other men said. He took his cap off and wiped a hand over his mostly bald head. “That’s thievin’, in my book.”
“Yeah, it is,” McCabe agreed. He turned to Lindy. “Give them back their money.”
“We don’t want the money,” Goatee said.
“We want her,” the third man said. Tufts of red hair stuck out from under his cap.
“Well, she doesn’t want to go with you, so I think she should just give you your money back and we’ll all just say that the deal is off.” McCabe looked at Lindy. “How about it?”
She was sullen
