he’d better. Otherwise—otherwise—” The woman jerked her head toward the men behind her. Leanna shrieked as one of them moved faster than she’d have thought he could and grabbed the neck of her T-shirt. “Stop it! Take your hands off—”
The shirt tore to the hem. Leanna lashed out but he laughed and caught her wrists in one hand, lifting her off her feet so the other man could yank off her sneakers and her cotton trousers.
When she was stripped to her bra and panties, they flung her to the floor. Leanna scrambled toward the wall and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.
This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be real, couldn’t be—
She shrieked as a gusher of warm water hit her in the face. Her eyes flew open. A scraggly line of serving-women surrounded her. Some held steaming pitchers, some held soap and towels. The men had dragged in an enormous wooden vessel…
A tub?
“Take off your undergarments,” the woman in charge snapped. “Bathe yourself well. If you are not clean enough, you will be punished. My lord, the sultan Asaad, will not tolerate filth.”
Leanna blinked. She was in an improvised bathroom. That was the reason for the drain in the floor.
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat.
The ruler of this godforsaken place had bought her, had her thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. He was going to make her into his newest sex toy.
But first, she had to scrub behind her ears.
Suddenly everything that had happened, that was happening, seemed unbelievable. Leanna let the laughter out. Peals of it. The servant women stared at her in disbelief. One giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough. The woman in charge slapped the one who’d dared laugh, barked an order, then rounded on Leanna in rage.
“Perhaps you would like to appear before my lord beaten black and blue!”
Leanna looked her tormentor in the eye. She was tired of being afraid, tired of behaving like a whipped dog. Besides, all things considered, what could she possibly lose?
“Perhaps you’d like to appear before him and explain how you managed to damage the merchandise.”
The woman blanched. Leanna’s heart was racing but she smiled coolly.
“Tell your goons to get lost and I’ll get into that tub.”
Stalemate, but only for a few seconds. Then the woman snarled a command and the men marched out of the room.
Leanna took off her bra and panties, stepped into the tub, eased down in the hot water and let it soothe her body while her brain worked feverishly to come up with an escape plan.
Unfortunately, by the time she was pronounced clean enough for the sultan of Baslaam, she still hadn’t thought of anything. Improvisation was for actors, not for classically-trained dancers.
But she’d never been a coward.
If she had to, she’d die proving it.
CHAPTER TWO
CAM had seen a lot of places in upheaval.
Baslaam wasn’t in upheaval. It was in collapse. It didn’t take training as a spy to see that.
No people. No vehicles. A gray sky, filled with plumes of smoke. And the vultures, scores of them, circling overhead.
Things were not going well in the sultanate, he thought grimly.
Adair offered no explanations. Cam, nobody’s fool, didn’t request any. All he kept thinking was that the pistol he’d secreted in his briefcase might end up being useful.
The sultan was waiting for him in a marble hall with ceilings easily twenty feet high. He sat on a gold throne elevated on a silver platform, and he sure as hell wasn’t the man Avery had described.
The sultan, his father had told him, was in his eighties. Small. Wiry. Hard-eyed and determined.
The man on the throne was in his forties. He was big. Huge, really, a mass of muscle just starting to turn to fat. The only resemblance between the picture Avery had painted and this behemoth were the eyes, but the hardness in them spoke more of cruelty than determination.
Had there been a coup? That would explain a lot of things, including the disappearance of his father’s representative. It was a good guess the poor bastard was one of the unlucky souls attracting the attention of the vultures.
Cam had only one real question. Why hadn’t he been disposed of, too? The man on the throne must want something of him. What? He had to find out, and do it without giving away the game.
Adair made the introductions. “Excellency, this is Mr. Cameron Knight. Mr. Knight, this is our beloved sultan, Abdul Asaad.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Knight.”
“Excellency.” Cam smiled politely. “I expected you to be older.”
“Ah, yes. You thought you would meet my uncle. Unfortunately, Uncle passed away most unexpectedly a week ago.”
“You have my sympathy.”
“Thank you. We all miss him. I had similar expectations about you, Mr. Knight. I thought the man who owns Knight Oil would be much older.”
“My father owns the company. I’m his emissary.”
“Indeed. And what brings you to our humble nation?”
“My father thought the sultan—I should say he thought that you,” Cam said, with a polite smile, “might prefer to discuss the final details of the contract with me instead of his usual negotiator.”
“And why would I wish that?”
Why, indeed? “Because I have his full authority. I can come to agreement on his behalf.” Cam offered a just-between-us smile. “No middleman, as it were, to slow the process.”
The sultan nodded. “An excellent suggestion. As it is, your predecessor and I have had some areas of disagreement. He wanted to make changes in the wording your father and I had already agreed upon.”
Bull, Cam thought coldly, but he smiled again. “In that case, it’s a good thing I’ve come, Excellency.”
“I am sure Adair explained that the gentleman in question has gone to visit the plains beyond the Blue Mountains.”
“He mentioned it.”
“It was my suggestion. I thought it might do him good to get away from the city for a while. Take a break, I think you would call it. The plains are very beautiful, this time of year.”
The lie bore no resemblance to what Adair had said, and ended any last hope that his father’s representative might still be alive. The desire to leap onto the platform and grab
