He spared her a glance then. “I have my sources. So, for that matter, do you. I imagine we’ll be able to pick up his trail again.”
“Especially since it seems as if someone wants us to know where he’s going,” Maggie said. “These clues are just a little too coincidental. Particularly since each one leads us into a trap.”
“You noticed that too, did you? Someone’s definitely jerking us around. If it isn’t Flynn himself I’m going to be very interested to see who it is.”
She slid down further in the seat, opening the window and letting in the cool, clean breeze. “Randall,” she said, and her voice was uncharacteristically small and beseeching. “Bud Willis has to be dead, doesn’t he?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know, Maggie. You were the one who saw him die, not me.”
“That’s right,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I saw him die.” She could feel the question in Randall’s eyes as he glanced over at her, and she steeled herself for it. But he was silent, biding his time, no doubt. He’d already warned her, sooner or later she’d have to tell him. And she would. When she was ready, not when he demanded answers. “So what hovel are you taking me to tonight?” she inquired, keeping her voice cool.
He managed a small, weary grin. “What makes you think it’s going to be a hovel?”
“It always has been. You sure know how to show a girl a good time, Randall. Tenements and shacks in Eastern Europe, bombed-out buildings in Beirut. I expect we’ll be spending the night in a goat barn.”
“Then your expectations are wasted. I’m taking you where you belong. A palace, Maggie.”
“Sure.”
“I mean it. There’s a deserted palace called El Khabrim not more than five miles from here, if I remember Mabib’s instructions well enough. No one’s lived in it for more than a century, but apparently enough of it is still standing to provide shelter.”
“Great. What makes you think half of the PLO isn’t hiding out there?”
“Because it’s a hell of a location. And because Mabib would know if it was in use. No one lives within miles of this area but a few goatherders. Why do you think Flynn chose this area for his pickup? No witnesses.”
“How far are we from the border? Couldn’t we drive straight through to Damascus and spend the night at some nice tourist hotel?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m too damned tired, that’s why. We’ll spend the night at the palace, get an early start, and be in Damascus by noon. If you have any more objections or suggestions you can keep them to yourself.”
Maggie had just opened her mouth to protest his highhanded arrangements, and she shut it again. She didn’t want to be alone with Randall for another night, alone with her anger and the unwanted attraction that sprang up no matter how much she distrusted him. But she was being foolish, she told herself. She’d been safe enough last night sharing a tiny cot with him. Tonight, with both of them so tired they could barely move, she’d be as inviolate as a nun.
Five miles it might have been, but it was almost an hour before Randall pulled to a stop. The moon had risen, and with it a soft breeze, stirring the warm night air. Maggie climbed out of the Bronco, her weary muscles protesting, and peered up at the huge structure looming some distance away.
“It looks like something out of the Arabian Nights,” she said, a mixture of awe and irritation in her voice. “Couldn’t you drive any closer?”
“No.” He had pulled her suitcase out of the back and tossed it to her. “Stop bitching, Maggie. It’s just a short hike. Mabib said there was even a fountain up there—you could take a bath.”
At those blessed words Maggie stopped all complaints. She had a desperate desire to be clean, to wash the blood and sweat and dust from her. “Lead on, MacDuff. First dibs on the fountain.”
He turned and looked at her for a long, silent moment, and she could see the surprise in his face. Her light-hearted words were at odds with her usual hostility, and for a moment she regretted them, casting about in her mind for some way to sharpen her momentary lapse. And then she gave it up. “Come on, Randall. Let’s call a truce.”
“Temporary or permanent?” His voice was patient.
“Only temporary,” she replied. “It’s better than nothing.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
For a palace, El Khabrim was damnably close to a hovel. To be sure, the filth and dust-covered hallways were mosaic, there were more than a hundred decaying rooms, and the view over the moon-drenched valley was magnificent. But it was still nothing more than a large-scale ruin, with the one blessed amenity of a large, clear pool of water in the midst of the tangled overgrown garden. Maggie looked at the pool and sighed.
She should have hated it. She should have turned to Randall and started bitching once more, but she was silent. There was a timeless magic to the night, the centuries flowing about them. Desperate, bloody struggles belonged to another time, to the harsh daylight and the glaring sunlight, not to the moon that silvered everything around them. Not five
miles away bodies lay huddled in ignominious death, but in El Khabrim death had no place, reality had no place. The Arabian Nights had settled around them like a gentle blanket of silk.
“What do you think, Scheherazade?” Randall spoke beside her, and his rich voice only added to the magic. “Will it do?”