Desert Fire Read Free Page B

Whalpol to come after her, but she heard the car pull away. She was soaked and cold. When she reached the third floor she was winded and shivering. Finally she found her keys at the bottom of her purse, and unlocked her door.
    She closed the door behind her and snapped the locks, fearful of making any noise. You dare not disturb the sleeping ghosts lest they awake and devour you. It was a line from something, but she couldn’t remember what.

    Her apartment was long and narrow, well furnished. The living room was in front, a bathroom and the bedroom in the middle, and the kitchen in the rear overlooking a courtyard.
    In the bathroom she pulled off her sodden raincoat and laid it over the drying rack at the foot of the tub. She kicked off her shoes as she unbuttoned her blouse, peeled it off and dropped it over the edge of the tub. She felt like a robot, like one of the remote handling machines for nuclear materials at the research facility.
    Wrapping a towel around her wet hair, she went into the bedroom, where she pulled off the rest of her wet clothes, letting them lie where she dropped them.
    She put on a thick terry-cloth robe and padded barefoot into the kitchen. She poured a stiff measure of cognac and drank it down straight, shuddering as it hit her stomach, but enjoying the afterglow.
    One year she’d given herself to finish the KwU project and her dirty little job of spying for Whalpol, and then she would strike out on her own again. Her father would have been proud of her if he had been alive. He had served as a construction engineer in the Shah’s army, but he lost an arm so the best he could do was clerk in a small hotel in Tehran until the opportunity came to manage the Four Seasons Hotel in Beirut.
    Those were difficult times for everybody. The PLO was gaining strength, although nearly everybody in Iran thought Arafat was nothing but a joke. And Israel was putting a lot of pressure on the Lebanese, so her father had returned to Tehran, where he believed his family would be safer. He had not counted on SAVAK, which had become mistrustful of him. How was it that a one-armed clerk could be selected to manage such a prestigious hotel in Beirut? Whom had he paid off? Whom did he work for? What secrets had he sold to get such a position? Questions upon questions.
    It was because of him that Sarah had gone to the United States for her engineering degree. But now he was
gone, and at this moment she wished more than ever that she had siblings. A sister, perhaps to telephone and tell her troubles to. A brother, who would put his arm around her and tell her that it was all right, Sis. She was lonely.
    The telephone in the living room rang, startling her out of her thoughts. At this hour, it had to be either Whalpol checking up on her, or Ahmed Pavli because she had avoided him all day. She didn’t want to talk to either of them.
    She put down her glass and went into the living room and took it on the fourth ring.
    â€œYes?” she said softly.
    â€œIt’s me,” Pavli said. His voice was deep and rich, his German precise.
    She gripped the telephone hard but couldn’t speak.
    â€œSarah? Is everything all right? Are you ill? Shall I come over?”
    â€œNot tonight, Ahmed,” she said, the words choking at the back of her throat.
    â€œI missed you at work.”
    â€œIn the morning, we’ll talk.”
    â€œI could come to you now. I’m only a few minutes away.”
    â€œNo.” But she wanted to beg him to come and hold her in his arms, to put everything right.
    â€œIs it to do with work?” he asked. “Has something happened that you can’t talk to me?”
    â€œWe’ll talk tomorrow, Ahmed, I promise you. Insha’ Allah.” Tears welled up in her eyes again. She felt as if someone had kicked her in the gut.
    â€œWe’ll have lunch together,” he said. It was the Western thing to do. Nearly everyone on the Iraqi team had adopted the