Guarding the Princess(4)

The princess’s cell phone lay atop the covers. It was buzzing.

Brandt went over to the bed, the soles of his boots squeaking slightly on highly polished stone. The buzzing stopped. He picked the phone up. Eight unanswered calls, probably from her brother, Omair, trying to alert Dalilah, let her know that he was coming for her.

Irritated, Brandt tossed her phone back onto the covers. Now the job of convincing her to come peaceably would fall to him.

Using the barrel of his rifle, he edged the muslin drapes aside slightly and peered out the window. Down the pathway, under the branches of huge nyala trees, firelight winked through gaps in the branch fencing surrounding a lapa. He could hear drumming, singing, ululating. The dinner would go on for a while yet, he suspected.

His plan was go down to the lapa and identify his target from the shadows. Once he had confirmation Dalilah was among the guests, he’d head back to this bungalow as festivities began to wrap up, and wait for her here.

He opened her closet. Cocktail dresses in exotic and gauzy fabrics hung in a rainbow of colors. He trailed the muzzle of his gun through sequins, sparkles, shimmering scarves. At the bottom of the closet was a high-end luggage set and five pairs of sandals with ridiculous heels. The princess’s saving grace was a lone pair of sturdy hiking boots, a pair of khaki pants, two T-shirts, a long-sleeved button-down shirt and a sun hat. He tossed those onto the bed. His intention was to gear her up properly before he took her out into the night.

Brandt opened one of her drawers, looking for thick socks—once she returned to the bungalow he didn’t want to waste a second getting her changed and out of here. He stalled suddenly at the sight of a black bra and small pile of G-strings—mere scraps of silk. And he couldn’t help touching them, the fabric snagging on the rough pads of his fingers. He hadn’t seen, or felt, really expensive feminine underwear in years, and the silky sensation of it stirred something in him, a deep rustling of memories. An unspecified longing.

Then he cursed sharply, slamming the drawer shut.

He’d had his fill of women, of deceit. He liked things the way he had them now. He lived solo in the bush for weeks on end, and when his piloting jobs did take him to Gaborone, he found sex. No fuss, no foreplay, no commitment, just pleasure straight up. Until recently he hadn’t felt bad about it either—but lately, even the mindless sex had left him feeling hollow, unsatisfied, uneasy.

He found the princess’s purse, checked the passport picture in her wallet. His heart beat a little faster at the sight of her thick hair, her dark, almond eyes, her exotic features. Her looks alone pushed his buttons. He needed to get this job done fast—this was not a woman he wanted to linger around. She reminded him too much of someone else, of a past he’d worked for ten years to forget, but still couldn’t quite shake.

Brandt’s mind went to the phone call and the man who had coerced him into this mission—Sheik Omair Al Arif.

“I won’t do it,” Brandt had informed Dalilah’s brother. “I’m done kidnapping damsels in distress—you know what happened last time.”

“Which is why you’re going to do this for me now, Stryker, please—you owe me. My sister’s life is in danger and you’re the only guy in a position to get her out quickly. You’ll be in and out in seventy-two hours. Fly her over the border into Botswana, take her to your place out in the bush, let me know she’s safe, and I’ll send someone out there to bring her home.”

“You really trust me?”

“You sober?”

“For the moment.”

“Stay that way and I trust you. You’ll be well compensated.”

“Look, I don’t want your money, Sheik.” But truth was, Brandt did. He needed cash. He’d sunk everything into his farm, and to make ends meet he was forced to fly tourists out to game lodges across Botswana. A solid injection of capital would enable him to turn down the piloting work and stick to his land.

And he knew Omair would pay handsomely.

“Do this for me, Stryker, and next time I’ll owe you. Anything you want.”

Brandt laughed and hung up.

But he wasn’t laughing now. It was a restiveness he felt, a sixth sense of something bad closing in. Brandt had learned to trust that sense.

Quietly he left the bungalow and moved down through the shadows toward the lapa.

The fencing along one side of the dining area was open to a low rock wall that dropped down into a grove of trees. Brandt crouched among the smooth roots of those trees, gun in hand as he scanned the group. He saw her instantly. Princess Dalilah Al Arif. An exotic bird in cocktail gold among a group of mostly middle-aged men gone soft around the center and flushed with booze.