Free The Illumination by Karen Tintori Page A

impress was anything but. Standing beside her, the wind tousling his dark black hair, he looked vigorous and athletic, with the tough good looks and lean build of an Italian race-car driver.
    â€œDana had great respect for you. Thank you for coming.”
    â€œNo thanks necessary.”
    But as his gaze locked with hers, she caught something in his intelligent pewter eyes—something beyond polite sympathy. Worry. Hesitation. She sensed he wanted to say something more.
    Before she could wonder what that might be, she felt Aunt Leonora leaning in close. “We really should go to the car,” the older woman whispered. “People will be waiting for us.”
    Natalie’s stomach churned all the way back to the apartment. And while friends and family swirled around her, trying to get her to eat egg salad and fruit and coffee cake, to sit and rest, her mind was tumbling with a single question.
    Why would anyone want to kill Dana?
    Â 
    Baghdad
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    Aslam Hameed stumbled up from his bed and down his wide marble staircase in a slowly lifting fog of sleep. His alarm at the insistent ringing of his doorbell grew as he made his way to the peephole.
Who could be rousing him at the ghastly hour of 4:00
A.M .?
Who would dare . . . ?
    Terror swallowed him as he saw the glittering pair of eyes staring back at him.
Blue eyes. The eyes of Hasan Sabouri.
    Aslam’s hand froze momentarily on the door handle. The towering Iranian was the last person he’d expected to see at his door tonight. He didn’t want to open it, but he had to.
    Hasan cut off the welcoming words Aslam was trying to muster and pushed past him into the foyer. Aslam Hameed shuddered as he caught the glint of the curved scimitar in the Iranian’s right hand.
    â€œYou have failed me. You have cost me the Eye of Dawn.”
    Aslam Hameed’s swarthy face paled at the depth of Sabouri’s rage. “This man . . . Yusef . . . ,” he stuttered. “He’s one of my best. How was I to know . . . ?”
    Hasan Sabouri’s arm swung up, flicking the long blade against Hameed’s throat.
    Struggling not to cower in his own grand foyer, Hameed couldn’t decide if he was more terrified of the scimitar painfully nicking his flesh or of Hasan’s cursed blue eyes boring into his.
    â€œPlease. I will get it back. There is still time. . . .”
    â€œYou are mistaken. Your time is over.” The blade burned deeper, and Hameed could feel the warmth of his own blood as it leaked down his neck. Still, he couldn’t look away from the eyes.
    â€œPlease, I beg you. . . .”
    The knife angled deeper.
    Upstairs, his wife and children slept. As death began to suck the strength from his knees, he prayed silently to Allah that they wouldn’t stir, wouldn’t put themselves in the path of the blade. Or be doomed by the gaze of the man who possessed the evil eye.
    He had no hope for himself.
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    One hour later, in a garbage-strewn alley on the outskirts of Baghdad, Yusef faced the same man. The same blade. The same eyes.
    He proved not as stoic as his employer, Aslam Hameed. Yusef quaked as the Iranian glowered, impaling him with those strange accursed eyes.
    Frantically, Yusef dug through his pockets and yanked out the dead woman’s necklace. He thrust it toward Sabouri with trembling hands.
    â€œThis was the only thing the American reporter had. Believe me, in the name of Allah, may he be praised, I questioned her. I searched her room—truly, she had nothing, knew nothing. . . .”
    â€œSo you give me this?” Hasan Sabouri sneered, holding up the delicate amulet on its broken silver chain. With his other hand, he tapped Yusef’s chest with the blood-caked scimitar. “The Hand of Fatima in place of the Eye of Dawn?”
    â€œI will find it. I promise you.” Yusef couldn’t keep his eyes from flicking down toward the blade. “I