Free Assassin by Ted Bell Page A

remember?”
    “Right. He still gives you all the credit, Alex.”
    “Yeah, well, he’s still a liar. Splendid guy. Superb criminal intelligence officer,” Alex said.
    There was light in his eyes. The first light she’d seen there since she’d seen him standing at the altar two weeks earlier watching his bride-to-be walk down the aisle.
    “Tex could use your help again, Alex. He told me so himself. Hell, we all could. The president himself is asking for you. They both also told me not to tell you that. They know you’re hurt. What Tex said was, ‘I can’t call Alex, Conch, that boy, why, he’s on the bench.’ He also knows you have some huge personal scores to settle.”
    “Yeah. Spot on, in that regard.”
    “Alex, I know you must be suffering terribly.”
    “I’ll deal with it.”
    “I have—a place. Where you could go for a while. In the Keys.”
    “Go?”
    “Be alone. It’s not much. Just a glorified fishing shack down on Islamorada. But it’s on the water. You could fish. Watch the sunsets. Pull yourself together.”
    “Very kind. Pull myself together.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Not at all. It’s me, Conch, not you.”
    “Alex, we’re in grievous trouble. Without compromising my government, I can tell you we’re seeing some kind of Armageddon scenario coming together.”
    Alex and his old friend stared at each other for a few moments. In his eyes, she saw his heart and mind tugging at each other. Saw them going in opposite and equally powerful directions. One way lay vengeance. The other, his highly developed sense of duty.
    “Give me a week,” he finally said, poking at the fire. “You tell Tex that for me. I’m sick to death moping around feeling sorry for myself. One week. Tell him I’ll be off the bloody bench so fast he’ll never know I was there.”
    Conch smiled and reached out to stroke his cheek.
    Alex jabbed the logs with the poker again and a shower of sparks rose up the chimney.
    He’d avenge Vicky’s death somehow. Somebody would pay. Pay dearly, and, soon. Like the much-vaunted Royal Navy battleships his ancestors had sailed through two world wars, Hawke’s mission in life was to give, not to receive.
    For now, duty had won.

Chapter Seven
Mozambique
    B IN W AZIR, IN THE YEARS BEFORE HE ACQUIRED GREAT wealth and notoriety, had fallen deeply in love with one of the world’s wealthiest women. Her father, who was known throughout the Middle East simply as the Emir, had vast reserves of oil as well as minerals, uranium, and gold inside the forbidding mountain ranges of his small country. Despite his enormous wealth, the deeply religious Emir lived the life of an ascetic, shunning all accoutrements of luxury. But, when it came to his only daughter’s happiness, his generosity knew no bounds.
    Snay bin Wazir was just twenty years old and the son of a modestly successful jeweler. He lived where he’d been born, in the village of Ozmir, a lush oasis nestled at the foot of the mountains on the southern coast of the Emirate. He had met the beautiful Yasmin the night before her sixteenth birthday.
    Her father had allowed Yasmin, in the company of four heavily veiled maidservants, to visit his father’s small shop in the souk. Only the best stones were sold by Machmud and these he proudly showed to Yasmin.
    Snay, hiding in the shadows of the storeroom to which he’d been banished by his father, could only stare in wonderment at this veiled creature. He could not see her face; but her carriage, her manner, her voice, even her long delicate fingers transported him. He was determined to gaze upon that face. Hear the music that surely was her voice. His fevered heart had conceived a plan to deliver to her in person an enormous emerald cut diamond. And, so, on that very night he slipped over the Emir’s garden wall and dropped down into the thicket amidst the palms and sycamores.
    She was standing alone by a fountain, singing softly to herself. She heard him approach and whirled around,