Pussycat in Peril (Pussycat Death Squad Book 3) Read online

  It had been surprisingly easy to sneak into the country. Everything was in such chaos and there were so many displaced people wandering about, no one had even bothered to ask what he was doing there. He had only had to present his forged documents once, and that was upon entering the city. He was presenting as a refugee from the east where some of the fiercest fighting was going on. His most pressing need initially was in finding a place to stay, but he’d eventually been able to find a small room in the home of an elderly couple. He shared the room with their son, but at least it was clean and reasonably quiet. Both were nearly impossible to find in a city where the population had doubled due to all the fighting.

  Now Kaeden sat in an underground shisha bar waiting to meet with a man who could purportedly tell him what had happened to his wife. Discreet inquiries for a “fixer” had led him to this location, and he was somewhat surprised by the boldness of the proprietor. He’d only been in Amaru for a couple of days and he’d quickly realized that IJIWO ran an incredibly tight ship with a network of spies that was quite impressive, and they were firm adherents to Sharia law. Though whether shisha was haram, or forbidden, was up for debate, it was definitely outlawed under IJIWO occupation. He wasn’t overly fond of the practice himself, especially as he suspected from the oily, musky aroma that something more than tobacco was in some of the pipes, and hash was definitely haram.

  Maybe IJIWO simply hadn’t gotten around to it, or maybe the owner had a pass from the occupiers. Even the most devout were not above good old-fashioned corruption. Narcotics were making a big come back throughout the region; selling them and working in oil were two of the only ways to make a living, given the almost constant state of war. But right now he couldn’t focus on anything other than his overwhelming fear about what had become of Astaria.

  As he looked around the gloomy confines of the shisha bar, he immediately recognized his contact. The man was rather nondescript, dressed plainly in a white button front shirt and casual trousers. His features were not particularly arresting either. He was not someone that anyone would look at twice, but something about his manner conveyed authority and would’ve done so even if Kaeden hadn’t noticed the way other patrons of the bar moved out of the way to let the man pass, conveying a respect and obeisance that his appearance certainly didn’t warrant. The man immediately walked over to Kaeden’s small table and took a seat. He said nothing, simply stared at Kaeden for a long moment, his bright black eyes taking in every facet of Kaeden’s appearance. Then he nodded as though seeing something that reassured him.

  “You are here to find Astaria Ibrahim?” the man asked in a Laritrean dialect.

  Kaeden nodded, thanking Allah that Astaria had taught him the language. He’d only been in the city for a few days, but speaking it constantly had strengthened his skill considerably. Though the man’s grammar was appalling, Kaeden had little trouble parsing his meaning. “Yes.”

  “Who are you to her?”

  Though he was prepared for the question, Kaeden paused for a moment. His initial impulse was to tell the direct truth. Telling unnecessary lies was a surefire way to get tripped up in such a circumstance. On the other hand, acknowledging their marital status could also be used to control or manipulate him. So he decided to tell a simple lie.

  “I’m a…family friend.”

  “Family friend?” the man asked with a quirked brow.

  “An agent, if you will.”

  That seemed to appease the man, which Kaeden thought was interesting. “Do you know where Ms. Ibrahim is?”

  The man nodded again. “She’s being held captive.”

  “Captive by whom? IJIWO?”

  The man barked out a harsh laugh. “I doubt IJIWO care one way or another about this woman. No. Do you understand how IJIWO operates?”

  “No, not really. I’m not particularly interested in politics,” he said with a deliberately dismissive gesture. In these circumstances it was much better to be seen as a being strictly about money. Being on the wrong side of this polyhedron of conflicts could get him killed. Money was never on the wrong side.

  The man sneered at him with a twist of his narrow mouth. “This isn’t politics it’s war. Never mind. Anyway, IJIWO takes a town then they find sympathizers to actually run it for them, while they move on to the next target. Amaru was given over to Ghalib Al Hakam. Most refer to him as Al Hakam. The Judge. Apparently he had a personal spite against your Dr. Ibrahim and that is why he was killed.”

  Interesting how the man’s grammar cleared up when he spoke about politics. Clearly his contact was presenting as something he was not. Knowing this made Kaeden even more wary so he weighed the question before he asked it. “Why wasn’t Ms. Ibrahim killed?”

  “She wasn’t here at the time the professor was arrested. She has only now been found. However, Al Hakam is out of town at the moment and no one dare make a decision without his say so. And given the way communication is these days…For right now she is safe, but the moment he returns.” He raised a finger to his neck in the universal gesture for decapitation.

  “I see. So what would it take to…” he hesitated, looking around the room as though frightened to ask the question.

  “Free Ms. Ibrahim and get her out of the country?” his companion finished the sentence for him without lowering his voice in the slightest, thus confirming that he was indeed a power in the town. Kaeden suspected he worked for Al Hakam himself, or at least was close to the other man.

  “Yes. That is what I’d like to have happen if possible.”

  “You will learn my friend, that anything is possible these days, though, it will, of course, be costly,” the man said, raising his rather unruly brows in inquiry.

  Kaeden had assumed it would be so, and he wasn’t surprised when the man named a figure. It was more than he wanted to pay, as it would take almost all the ready cash he had available, but it was not alarmingly high. Indeed the price made him wonder exactly what game his contact was playing. Was he deliberately trying to free Astaria for some scheme of his own? Or was this whole situation a scam designed to separate him from his money? Well, he had no intention of paying the man upfront anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

  He made a counter offer a little more than half the stated price. The man’s flat black eyes flashed his annoyance, but he shook his head and stated a slightly lower price than his initial offer. Kaeden settled down for some serious haggling raising his own offer by ten percent. A counteroffer followed and this time Kaeden only moved up five percent. This went for more than ten minutes until finally the other man rose from the table.

  “That is my final price. It cannot be done for any less than that. If you don’t take it I will have to assume that you are not serious about freeing Ms. Ibrahim.”

  Kaeden remained seated, having little doubt the man had others in the room prepared to take him out at even the suggestion things were going sideways. Besides, he knew a tactical ploy when he saw one. “No. No. It’s just that I only have a certain amount with me. And I must escape with her afterwards. You don’t leave me with enough to do that.”

  The other man gave a dismissive shrug. That wasn’t his problem.

  Kaeden finally agreed to the other man’s price. He’d actually sneaked into the country by way of Italian smugglers and intended to leave the same way, and those men had already been paid. Still it was always good practice to drive a hard bargain. If people thought he was a sucker they’d be continually trying to take advantage of him.

  “How much time do we have before Al Hakam returns?” he asked the fixer.

  “Who knows?” the man said with a casual shrug. “That is why we will put our plan in place immediately,” he said, returning to his seat across from Kaeden. “I will, of course, have to be paid before the plan is initiated.”

  “I will pay you half tonight. And half when the lady is free.”

  The other man opened his mouth to protest but Kaeden cut him off. “That is non-negotiable. I am not foolish eno
ugh to give you my money without having anything in return. I am a stranger in this town and don’t even know your name.”

  The other man sucked his teeth and gave Kaeden a baleful glare, but he didn’t protest further. “Fine. Give me the money.”

  Kaeden reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. He carefully counted out the agreed-upon amount in the murky light of the bar before passing a wad of bills under the table. The man glanced down, but didn’t attempt to count them. If he’d thought the man would balk at the large denominations he was mistaken. It couldn’t be helped. There was no way to carry that amount of money in small bills inconspicuously. “Euros. That is good.” He looked at Kaeden again with an avaricious gleam in his eye. That was to be expected, indeed Kaeden would have been more suspicious if the man hadn’t tried to rob him or at least considered it.

  “I don’t have another penny to spare, but I do have a very large caliber handgun pointed directly at your crotch,” Kaeden said, his tone soft but nonetheless strong enough to let the man know he meant every word he said. “I know you’ve got men here that would kill me but you would still be ball-less or dead.”

  The other man laughed again. “Oh, you amuse me. You do amuse me,” he said, tucking the money into what Kaeden assumed was a money belt at the waistband of his trousers.

  “Okay. What is this plan?” Kaeden asked impatiently wondering if he’d live to see this mission through.

  “You have no need to know. You will return here tomorrow night at the same time, and I will tell you. For now you will depart.”

  Kaeden nodded and then rose to his feet. He’d deliberately sought a seat with his back to a wall, now he strode purposefully out of the shisha bar, fearing a shiv in his back, but trusting the other man’s greed would keep him alive.

  Chapter Three

  Astaria paced back and forth within the confines of the tiny five foot by eight foot cell. Though she’d been confined for less than forty-eight hours it felt like an eternity. While she was terrified of what would become of her, she was no ingénue; it was clear that her captors intended to kill her as they had killed her father. As they had, for all intents and purposes, killed her mother. And with that thought she paused, frozen in place by the pain of her parents’ deaths. Her mother’s suffering was finally over, but it was more likely than not that the stress of the political situation in the past few years had brought the cancer out of remission.

  Her mother had never prayed to live, but only that she not suffer. Allah in his mercy had seen fit to grant her request and for that Astaria was eternally grateful. But for her father…Dear sweet Babba who’d never hurt another living soul. A man of science, an archaeologist dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of their people. She looked down at her hands. Replicas of his. Large and strong. Oversized for a woman’s hands. His so gentle that he was able to repair the wings of the delicate songbirds he rescued. She used that same sensitivity to take life. She’d made her peace with that a long time ago, and if she died she figured she probably deserved it for the many lives she’d taken. But her father…His murder was senseless and she knew just who to blame.

  Fear. She refused to even to think about that. If she did, she would be paralyzed and unable to take advantage of any mistakes the men who held her made. Unfortunately, thus far they’d made precious few. But she knew from experience that the longer she was held the greater the likelihood that someone would slip and make a mistake. An error or misjudgment she’d have to have her wits about her to exploit. Besides, what she felt more than anything right now was anger. Rage. Rage was good. Rage gave her an edge, kept her alert. And while most of her anger burned toward Al Hakam she reserved quite a bit of it for herself.

  She’d been fighting with the Legion of Valor for only a month, and had always been so careful. She knew the various political factions warring over Amaru would love to get their hands on her. As a former member of the Amazonian Guard she represented the old regime. If IJIWO knew about her past in the Amazonian Guard they probably thought her ransom would be a healthy addition to their coffers. The question now was, would Al Hakam let his lust for her blood override his obedience to his overlords? Of course, little did they know she’d die at her own hands before she’d let her capture earn them more blood money. She still didn’t know how she’d been captured, but she must have slipped in her vigilance somehow. She’d turned that question over and over again since the raid on the basement lair where she’d taken shelter since returning from her mother’s deathbed to find her father dead.

  Originally she’d assumed they knew she was an LOV fighter, but they’d disabused her of that notion. They were only concerned about her association with her father. She wasn’t even sure if they knew about her past in the Amazonian Guard and her subsequent escape to the U.S. Her parents had not broadcast either, and typically claimed she was studying in France whenever someone inquired about her. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile; funny how being Faisal Ibrahim’s daughter had turned out to be more of a liability than being a bodyguard in the old regime or even being an assassin with the LOV. Of course, if they knew about her LOV connection they would’ve killed her immediately. Now the question was how the hell did she get out of this?

  For the first time she regretted the impulse that led her to stay in Laritrea after her parents’ deaths. Frankly she wasn’t sure she could have escaped, but her rage at IJIWO and what they had done to her country had led her to join the LOV. And who knew what would happen to her now. She wasn’t even sure where she was. She’d been blindfolded when brought to the cell, and though she’d listened closely for any and all sounds, there was absolute dead silence.

  That silence was actually her primary clue as to her whereabouts; in the dungeons beneath the Presidential Palace. Despite her role in security for Colonel al-Fariq, she’d never actually been inside the cells. Rumor had it that they were maintained by the Colonel’s secret intelligence service, and that people were tortured there. Obviously, Lelia would never have had anything to do with such, so no one in the Amazonian Guard had ever been there. Of course she could be wrong, al-Fariq was rumored to have many such secret locations.

  Hearing a key in the lock of her cell, she turned to face the door. One of the three men who were set to guard her entered. She frowned her confusion as they typically came only twice a day to bring food and water and they’d already come for the day. This guard, who she’d heard one of the other guards refer to as Amir, entered, a small black cloth bag in his hand. He carefully closed the door behind him. That was odd too. Usually they didn’t enter the cell at all. She wasn’t sure if they knew about her profession or were simply cautious. Most men didn’t fear women, even when the woman was a killer like herself. It was a mental error she’d taken advantage of more than once.

  Astaria let her gaze meet his. The other two men usually looked at her with masculine interest, even lust in their eyes. But not this one. His eyes were flat and expressionless, and somehow more terrifying. There was no maliciousness there, or anger or really any emotion at all. Other than his scary eyes, his face was nondescript, the type of man anyone would struggle to describe because he was just average; dark hair and skin like the every other man in the country. He was neither tall nor particularly short, and nothing on his face stood out in her memory. But those eyes, she knew she’d be seeing his reptilian eyes for some time to come.

  The Lizard was the nickname she’d given him. She referred to another guard as Pig Pen for a character from one of Kaeden’s favorite Charlie Brown comics. Giving the enemy unfavorable nicknames was an old trick that she utilized now. When someone held you captive there was a tendency to imbue them with superpowers, at least in your mind. Belittling them with nicknames could help keep that from happening. Though she referred to him as The Lizard, he carried himself with an unmistakable air of authority. This man was in charge, not only of the small security detail watching her, but also of something more. She suspected he might have Al Hakam’s ear, and th
at could be beneficial to her if she could figure out an angle.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Astaria stared at him, as this was the first time he’d spoken in her presence and his voice, like everything about him was not particularly distinctive, though she noted an accent she couldn’t place. As he continued to stare back at her she considered his question. He’d been there from the beginning and certainly knew who she was. She wasn’t sure how to address his question, or even why he would ask it, but she decided the direct truth was her only course.

  “You know who I am. I’m Astaria Ibrahim.”

  “Of course, but who would spend €50,000 to secure your release?”

  Astaria sucked in a deep breath, then lowered her eyes to keep him from reading the excitement that she knew must be being broadcast there. The high amount let her know who her rescuers were. The LOV didn’t have a lot of ready cash, they spent every penny trying to acquire weapons. Besides they’d be more likely to try to break her out. They certainly wouldn’t give the limited resources they did have to the enemy. She’d just joined their ranks, though her brother had been fighting with them for nearly two years. Though she had value as a sniper she was not in a leadership position and even if she were, she would never be worth such a princely sum. Lelia had to be behind this, but who could she have sent?

  She almost looked up again as the terrifying thought of Lelia coming herself occurred to her, but she quashed it immediately. Lelia wasn’t that stupid. She had children and a husband and putting her life on the line this way would definitely be stupid. Lelia could be called many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Besides it would be almost impossible for a woman to launch a rescue mission in this part of the world. She rapidly considered the rest of their group, and couldn’t think of anyone else who could successfully take on such a mission. In her mad scrabble of thoughts she’d almost forgotten about the guard.