Sean decided it was time to try a tactic that had never occurred to him before, but after seeing how Bash dealt with the guards, he felt it might be worth a try. He gave Ahmed a disdainful look. “Do not forget to whom you are speaking,” he said in his best imitation of his grandfather’s arrogant tone. “I may be at odds with the king at the moment, but I suggest you remember that if the House of Rasheed is going to rule Akkadia into the future, it is throughmyblood that it will do so!”
Ahmed’s expression was a comic blend of outrage and fear. Sean suspected he didn’t care for being spoken to in such a way by a prisoner, but he probably also realized Sean might have a certain amount of power one day.
Sean waited as Ahmed collected himself. He thought there was a new hint of respect in Ahmed’s manner toward him as he gave a half-bow. “I will inquire,” he said grudgingly. Sean decided that was good enough, so he gave a brusque nod and headed up the stairs.
He supposed it was a concession to his status as part of the royal family that he was taken out of his cell for meals. Bash had been surprised to learn of it, and he’d been eager for Sean to take advantage of that freedom in order to gain information. After months of the same routine, Sean had stopped noticing, but now he had reason to pay close attention to his surroundings.
The palace was centuries old, and the architecture reflected the times before electric lights and air conditioning, with high, arched ceilings and lanterns suspended from chains at the apex. The larger open rooms had columns at regular intervals which helped support the upper stories, and the walls were lined in jewel-toned tiles set in geometric patterns. He could feel the age of the building around him, and for the first time, he felt a sense of connection to his ancestors who had lived and died within these walls. Perhaps he was not even the first to have been held within the gilded cage against his will, nor the first to wish to escape a destiny not of his own making or desire.
As usual, he went to a small dining room close to the kitchens and sat at a table by himself. An unsmiling manservant placed his meal in front of him, and Ahmed took up a position by the door.
Even though Sean wasn’t a psychologist, he’d had enough training in the field to understand the mind games his grandfather had been playing with him from the start. By keeping him prisoner and separated from other people, yet treating him like an honored guest, Faisal was employing a classic “carrot and stick” manipulation. It might have been effective if Sean had been any less intelligent.
As he ate the lamb and rice placed before him, Sean glanced around the dining room, wondering if there were any items he could purloin and conceal that might be useful to Bash. The knife they gave him to cut his meat was an obvious choice, and yet he knew it would be missed when the manservant cleared the table, so he couldn’t hope to take it with him.
After finishing his meal, Sean stood and looked at Ahmed. “I would like to take a walk outside,” he said. He’d been permitted occasionally to walk around the inner courtyard of the palace, which contained gardens and a fountain full of lotus flowers. Reaching the courtyard involved a walk through several interior corridors, which would give him an opportunity to count the guards.
Ahmed grudgingly led Sean to the courtyard, and Sean kept careful count of everyone he saw along the way. By the time they reached the garden, the sun was setting. Sean stood by the fountain, watching the lotuses as they closed against the approaching darkness.
The garden always reminded him of his mother, who had loved flowers and had kept their home in England full of them. She was like a flower herself, fresh and full of life, loving the sun and the scent of growing things. She’d come from an aristocratic European family, but she’d never hesitated to perform any dirty task she was called to do, whether it was working in the soil or helping care for a sick child at the orphanage that had been her family’s special charity for years. Alanna Grimaldi had instilled her love of helping nurture children into her son, which is why Sean had gone into medicine and concentrated in pediatrics.
His father, Fahd, had a head for business. After cutting ties with Faisal and leaving Akkadia, he’d started with almost nothing, and in ten years had built up a small retail empire, which had continued to flourish for the next twenty. Sean’s younger sister Alia had been the one who took after their father, and she’d stepped into his shoes the previous year when their parents had been killed in an avalanche while on a skiing trip in Switzerland. No doubt Alia would be outraged by Sean’s captivity, but there had been no way for him to make her aware of his dilemma without also putting her at risk.
Sean missed both his parents deeply, but, unfortunately, he’d not heeded his father’s advice concerning Faisal Al Rasheed — and Faisal had discovered the perfect bait to use. How could Sean have refused the opportunity to do something in his parent’s memory, especially when a hospital would do so much good for the people of Akkadia? No matter what the politics were or how different the culture from what Sean had grown up with, it was still the country of his father and a part of his heritage, and he’d felt a surprising sense of homecoming the moment he’d stepped off the plane. Surely if Faisal had produced a son as wonderful as Fahd had been, he couldn’t beallbad.
“Never trust him, Sean,” Fahd had told his son many times. “I loved my father, but I know what he is capable of. He thinks only of Akkadia and his legacy. If he decides he can use you, he will do everything to get control of you. I am thankful I am only the second son. As long as he has Sayyid and Sayyid’s sons, he doesn’t need us.”
The sound of raised voices in the quiet drew Sean’s attention back to the present. Remembering Bash’s words about unusual happenings, he sauntered around the fountain to get a look at the speakers, keeping his movements casual so as not to alarm Ahmed, who stood back near the door through which they had entered.
Sean had entered the courtyard from the west, and as he rounded the fountain enough to see the walls of the eastern side, the voices fell silent, or at least dropped low enough that Sean couldn’t hear them. But he could see well enough, and his attention was immediately drawn to a room on the second floor, where the last rays of the setting sun gleamed off the golden hair of a man standing framed within a window. He could see the expression of anger on the man’s face and the way he had one hand raised in emphasis of whatever he was saying. Sean couldn’t see whoever it was he was arguing with, and the man stepped away from the window just as the sun sank far enough to cast the entire courtyard into darkness.
He turned back toward the fountain, dismissing the incident as unimportant.I wish I had listened to you, Father, he thought, watching as the last lotus folded into a tight bud and sank below the surface. He’d learned too well that his father had been right about Faisal. No doubt the deaths of his eldest son Sayyid and his entire family at the hands of terrorists had made Faisal even more desperate. Faisal wanted a legitimate heir of his blood, and he saw Sean only as a means to that end.
Turning from the fountain, Sean headed back into the palace with Ahmed following behind him. For the first time in months, he had hope of returning home. The lesson had been a hard one, but he’d learned it well. Now he could only hope placing his life in the hands of a stranger who was an admitted killer turned out better than trusting in a grandfather who should have loved him.
5
Once Sean had left and he was alone in the cell block, Bash got to work.
He didn’t know how long he had before someone else might enter, so he started by removing the guitar strings, coiling them up, and secreting them beneath his thin mattress. Then he removed the coarse sheet, and tore it into a bunch of long, narrow strips using the sharp metal at the corner of the cot. Most of these he hid beneath the blanket, just in case someone entered, but he kept out three and braided the strips into a thin rope.
He’d gotten about six feet of length when he heard the door to the cell area opening, and he quickly stuffed his work out of sight and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes as though resting.
“You! If you want something to eat, you’d better take it now. Otherwise you can starve.”
Bash looked toward his cell door, finding a guard he’d not seen before standing outside the bars, holding a plate and a plastic tumbler. On the plate was a sandwich, and against his will, Bash’s stomach growled.
The food might be drugged, but he decided to at least taste it and see if it was safe to eat. The guard placed the plate and cup on the ledge in the door, and Bash took it.
“Thanks,” he said, backing off toward the bed.
“Don’t thank me, infidel. Captain Mansur gave orders you were to be fed.” With that, the guard departed.
“Then it’s probably poisoned instead of drugged,” Bash muttered, settling himself once again on his cot. He sipped from the tumbler, which contained what looked like clean water. Still, he waited several minutes after his initial taste to see if anything seemed off about it. When nothing happened, he downed half of it quickly, then contemplated the sandwich while he waited once again.
The bread was a multigrain, the meat apparently lamb, and nothing about it smelled suspicious. He subjected it to another taste test, although his mouth was watering with hunger. He’d been through survival training, so he knew he would not starve if he didn’t eat it, and it would be far worse to ingest something toxic and miss his best opportunity to escape than it would be to go hungry for a few days.
He returned to working on the rope, wanting to have a suitable length ready by the time of their escape attempt. As his fingers worked automatically, Bash’s thoughts turned to his fellow prisoner and the interesting problem Sean presented.
