Obsession (Year of Fire) Read online

  Once they were safe in the tinted car, he didn’t turn on the engine but stared at her. He wanted to say so many things that he didn’t dare. Don’t go to the Congo. Don’t keep coming here, I’ll teach you French or I’ll pay a professional to teach you at home. At home. In our home. Because the house on Avenue Elisée Reclus is as much yours as it is mine. It’s already not the same without you, Matilde, my love. What have you done to me? A Horse of Fire loves his liberty, it’s his most prized possession. Now I’m chaining myself to you and I don’t mind at all. Matilde held his gaze sweetly. She lifted her hand and ran the back of her finger over his jawline.

  “What’s going on, Eliah?”

  “Tu es si belle, mon amour.” She looked down as her cheeks turned red. Al-Saud laughed. “And you’re so adorable when you blush.”

  “You always say you like it when I blush, but I don’t. I look terrible.”

  Al-Saud put one hand on the nape of her neck, the other on her waist, and pulled her to his lips.

  “Yes, yes, terrible. So terrible.”

  He kissed her for a long time, carefully, going deep into her mouth, invading it with his tongue, absorbing her lips, consuming them with his. Every breath intoxicated Matilde because it was laden with his cologne, the sweet notes of chocolate mixed with other spicier scents, like cayenne pepper. Sometimes she thought she caught orange essence, others, vanilla. She said to herself that this cologne had as many different sides as Eliah Al-Saud—some she knew, others she didn’t. She had the sensation that he was hiding a darker, possibly sordid side. In the silence inside the car, she could tell that he was beginning to go wild; his breathing was becoming more intense and rapid.

  “Let’s make love, right here, right now,” he proposed, already sliding the seat back, away from the steering wheel.

  “What if someone comes by? They’ll see us!”

  “The windows are tinted, even the windshield is. No one will see anything. And I can’t wait until we get home.” He wedged his hand under her and pulled her onto him so that she straddled him. “J’ai besoin de toi, Matilde. J’ai besoin de te sentir.”

  “You’re speaking French because you know you can get anything out of me when you speak French. You’re perverse. And an opportunist.”

  Al-Saud laughed in a low rumble and started to take off her coat.

  “Does that mean I can make love to you?”

  Matilde’s protest transformed into a moan when Al-Saud slipped his hands under her jersey and squeezed her breasts through her bra. She arched when he teased her nipple with his teeth through the fabric of the garment. Matilde opened his jacket and unbuckled his belt. Al-Saud threw his head back like someone coming up for air after a long time underwater. He lifted his pelvis so she could take off his pants and boxers.

  “Touche-moi, Matilde. Je t’en prie.”

  Kneeling on the seat, hovering over her lover, Matilde covered his member with both hands and, following Juana’s advice, rubbed it up and down. She was alert to Al-Saud’s reactions; he didn’t realize how hard he was gripping her waist. He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut—his black eyelashes stood out in a tangle—and bit his lip. Matilde also listened to Al-Saud’s heavy, irregular breathing and the noises his hair made brushing against the leather of the headrest, loud in the silence of the car. Every once in a while she heard the rumble of the engine of another car passing by, and Matilde would remember where they were making love. She rubbed faster and harder, and Al-Saud’s eyes popped out of his head in response.

  “Le préservatif!” he cried out, and Matilde rummaged in the inside pocket of his jacket to get to his wallet and extract a condom. She put it on with his help.

  Al-Saud pulled up her jersey and liberated her breasts from the bra so he could bury his face between them, and then searched for her nipples with an avid mouth so he could suck, lick and nibble them. Matilde was still on her knees in complete submission, one hand on the door handle and the other spread open on the roof, as if she were holding it up herself. Al-Saud pushed her back onto the passenger seat and took off her ballerina flats, pants and panties, which he threw to the back of the car. He kept her in that position so he could slide his middle finger into her and gently flick her clitoris with his thumb. Matilde screamed and twisted.

  “You’re so wet,” he panted.

  He pulled her upright like a rag doll. Matilde let her head fall back. He settled her on top of him, made her take him inside her with a brusque, authoritative movement that caused Matilde an instant of burning pain. She dug her nails into Al-Saud’s shoulder and sobbed. He pushed her hair back and looked at her contorted face.

  “Matilde…” The worry in his voice made her smile. “My love, I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, incapable of articulating anything in that moment of delirium, pleasure and pain. She felt him kissing her neck, right where the blood was pulsing, and turned her head to find his mouth. Al-Saud’s hands took Matilde’s hips and showed them how to move the way he liked best, thrusting his phallus deep inside her. Matilde broke off the kiss; she grabbed a breast and shoved the nipple into Al-Saud’s mouth.

  “Suck me, Eliah, as if you were feeding from me.”

  She felt his reaction to her words; his penis grew and pulsed inside her, and his dark eyelids drooped heavily, almost covering his eyes completely. His right hand was still on Matilde’s hip and kept rocking her while the other climbed her back to her shoulder blades and pressed her toward his face. He breathed hotly on Matilde’s skin before sucking. They moved in time, Matilde’s hip over his groin and his mouth on her nipple. Matilde arched and moaned when he abandoned the breast to throw his lips around the other. Suddenly, their eyes found each other, and an excitement invaded them. The movements grew faster. She pulled away from Al-Saud’s dark eyes to look at the ring that his lips had formed around her nipple. The sight excited her, as did the sight of the point where their bodies were joined. She slipped her hand down and, with her index finger, touched the little part of him that wasn’t inside her, and then touched her own inflamed clitoris. Al-Saud protested with a groan and, without letting go of her nipple, spoke to her in French, short of breath.

  “Don’t do that or I’ll finish before you.”

  Matilde embraced him and whispered onto his forehead, “Finish when you want, my love. Seeing you come is enough for me.”

  “Matilde…”

  The erotic rocking intensified, along with Al-Saud’s sucking. Matilde was screaming, divided between devastating pleasure and the pain caused by his hands on her waist and his voracious lips on her breasts. It wasn’t long before ecstasy racked their bodies, leaving them trembling at the overwhelming power of the passion that had been unleashed inside the English sports car, passion that enslaved them both wherever they might be.

  Very early on Thursday, the fifth of February, the base was a hive of activity. The employees were finalizing the details for the mission in Cairo while Al-Saud and his partners were revising the plan. At around one in the afternoon in the Egyptian capital (noon in Paris), the scientists from the nanotechnology seminar would go to lunch on the terrace of the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel, which hung out over the Nile. That would be the moment for Diana to approach Bouchiki.

  Peter Ramsay was on a small yacht on the river, where he was filming the restaurant with his camera and sending the images to the projection room in the base, where Eliah, Tony, Mike and Alamán had shut themselves to follow every second of the exchange. The microphones and communications systems had been checked many times.

  Just after one, the scientists started to emerge onto the terrace and occupy their seats as assigned by the maître d’. Zooming all the way in, Ramsay could read the nametags with his electronic binoculars.

  “Got him,” Ramsay informed them. “Bouchiki just came out. In the green-and-white striped shirt. Diana is right behind him.”

  “We see him,” answered Al-Saud, who was following the images attentively, standing in front of a gigant
ic screen. “Diana,” he said, “wipe your forehead with your hand if you can hear me.” Diana did so. “Dingo, what can you see from your position?”

  Dingo, dressed like a waiter, leaned over a table and pretended to arrange some plates before answering. “There’s a lot of movement, both in the lobby and here in the restaurant. I also see a few boats and motorboats in the river. Nothing’s catching my eye.”

  Diana sat next to Dr. Bouchiki, who looked bored with his conversation with a Canadian colleague.

  “Diana”—Tony Hill spoke, grabbing his blond hair with both hands, a tic that revealed his unease—“see if you can see Bouchiki’s pen. If you see it, put your napkin on your lap now.”

  Diana spread the piece of cloth over her legs after making sure that a pen similar to the one Al-Saud had passed to Bouchiki in Ness-Ziona was sticking out of his left shirt pocket.

  “It’s time to go, Diana,” Mike Thorton urged her. With an agile movement, he jumped up from his seat and moved his tall, thin body until he was standing next to Al-Saud, very close to the screen.

  Tension gripped them as they watched the beginning of the arranged scene. Diana knocked over her glass of water, which spilled onto Bouchiki’s plate. The man jumped back so he wouldn’t get wet.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so clumsy!” She got closer to dry some fictitious drops from his sleeve and murmured, “Diana and Artemis are the same goddess.”

  The Israeli scientist’s movement was imperceptible. Diana ducked down to pick up the napkin she had dropped on purpose and heard a buzz over her head. Bouchiki collapsed onto the white tablecloth, which bloomed red with the blood gushing from the Israeli’s forehead. The other scientists jumped up and started to scream. A second shot dispersed them, along with the rest of the guests.

  “Take cover, Diana!” Tony Hill urged her, and they saw her duck under a table.

  “If you stay at ground level,” Peter Ramsay said into the microphone, “the veranda’s parapet will protect you.”

  “Unless they throw a grenade,” Al-Saud noted.

  “Get the pen!” Mike Thorton ordered, and his face, strangely olive for an Englishman, turned red. “Don’t leave without the evidence.”

  Diana, crouching under the table, heard shots rain in all around her.

  “They’re shooting from a boat at my three o’clock!” Peter Ramsay informed them.

  “Can you cover her, Pete?” Al-Saud asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  The camera captured Diana’s hand emerging from under the table, slithering through the pool of blood and groping around Bouchiki’s chest in search of the pen.

  “Got it!”

  “Diana, listen to me!” It was Al-Saud’s voice. “I want you to dive into the river and swim to Peter’s boat. You should stay underwater as long as you can. It’s your only escape route. Under no circumstances are you to return to the lobby. They could ambush you there. Let’s go, start crawling toward the veranda.”

  “Dingo, Peter!” Tony Hill shouted. “Cover Diana’s retreat!”

  “The pen!” she said desperately. “It’ll be ruined in the water!”

  “The memory card is in a waterproof compartment,” Alamán explained. “It will be fine.”

  “Now, Diana!” Al-Saud urged. “Dingo, cover her and jump in after her!”

  Diana crawled between the tables. The shooting grew worse, not just in her direction but also toward Peter’s boat. The moment of greatest exposure, and thus the greatest risk, would be when Diana had to climb to get over the concrete barrier to the river.

  “Let’s go!” Dingo appeared crawling behind her, and Diana suddenly felt relieved; if the Australian was by her side, everything would be okay.

  Dingo lay on his back on the ground and took off his waiter’s apron. Diana saw that he was hiding a Galil assault rifle, strapped to his long right leg. Dingo opened the butt, took the cartridge out of the back of his pants and loaded it into the gun.

  “On the count of three, jump. One, two, three. Now!”

  Dingo sat up behind the slope and emptied the cartridge in the direction of the boat that was firing on them. The empty shells shot forward at a high angle. Diana heard them hitting the precipice. Unprepared for the impact, she hurt her hands and her knees, though that didn’t matter as long as she got to the Nile and the protection of the murky waters. She was afraid that the enemy boat would come after her. She hoped that Peter and Dingo wouldn’t leave her vulnerable.

  Having used up all thirty-five bullets, Dingo took cover behind the parapet, hung the Galil across his shoulder and pulled out his Magnum Desert Eagle. He could hear the sirens of the Egyptian police; in a few seconds, officers would stream onto the restaurant’s terrace. He threw himself over the concrete barrier and rolled toward the water.

  In the projection room at the base, Mercure’s directors were watching the action with bated breath. The realization that they had been betrayed, that someone within the organization had sold them out, increased their anguish. The cameras were frozen on the hotel terrace and didn’t show what was happening on the Nile. They saw that Ramsay’s boat had started to move.

  “Pete!” Mike’s brownish-gray eyes were glistening with anxiety. “Tell us if you can see them.”

  “I see them! I’m going toward them!”

  Once Diana and Dingo had gotten onto the boat, they didn’t waste any time. They found the RPG-7 rocket launcher, already loaded, and took cover. The enemy boat was approaching; two men were on it. One of them was preparing to fire an antitank missile. Dingo, who had taken out a pair of binoculars, saw that it was a Spike-SR, Israeli-made, used by the Tsahal, the Israeli army. They’re kidonim, he thought, using the name for Mossad’s hired assassins. He saw, with satisfaction, that the man was having trouble with the launcher’s tripod.

  “I’ll take care of the one who’s about to shoot. You get the one driving the boat.”

  “Perfect,” Diana answered.

  They aimed the red targeting laser and fired. Peter Ramsay, who was busy getting the small yacht away into the Nile delta so that they could get lost in the intricate web of islands and islets, heard the whistle of the shots and the roar when they hit the enemy boat. He didn’t stop to check out the result. He turned the engine up to maximum. He could hear the siren from an Egyptian police boat approaching.

  Some very tense hours passed before they considered the mission in Cairo finished. At ten at night, when Al-Saud and his partners were sure that Peter, Dingo and Diana were safe in Mercure’s Gulfstream V on their way to Le Bourget, they left the base to eat. Leila received them with the food already prepared and the table set. No one praised the vichyssoise or the moules avec sauce au safran. They ate in silence, absorbed in their thoughts. Leila tried to ask Al-Saud about Matilde; with the tip of her index finger, she touched the bridge of her nose a few times, as though she were drawing freckles. Al-Saud smiled reluctantly.

  “She’s not coming today, ma petite. You miss her too, do you?” Turning to his partners, he indicated, “Let’s have coffee in the music room. I’ll join you in a few minutes.” He left the dining room.

  It was eleven thirty, too late to call her. But he needed her; the sound of her voice would bring him peace. He couldn’t get the image of Bouchiki falling face forward onto the table out of his mind. He had led him into a trap. He banged his fist against his desk and then covered his face with his hands. He picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Juana, it’s me.”

  “Hi, stud!”

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “No. We were watching an old Alain Delon movie. What a hunk, my God! But don’t get jealous, Mat said you’re much more handsome than him.”

  Al-Saud smiled in spite of his mood.

  “I’m glad that you girls were awake.”

  “Tomorrow we don’t have to go to the institute, so we’re giving ourselves a little treat.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because an exterminat
or’s coming to get rid of the rats. It seems that a girl from the other class opened her desk to find a rat the size of a cat ready to teach her some French. She almost had a heart attack. So they decided to close the institute tomorrow and Friday for the exterminator to do his work. I’ll pass you to Mat, she’s trying to grab the phone from me.”

  “Thanks,” Al-Saud muttered. He had had an idea.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, my love. It’s so good to hear you.”

  “How are you? You sound tired.”

  He closed his eyes. Matilde’s voice slipped over him softly. Its effect on his spirit was like a soothing balm. He inhaled deeply and stretched out on the armchair.

  “I had to work a lot today. Very hard work.”

  “Yes, you told me you were going to have a long day today. I can sense how exhausted you are.”

  “Yes? You can sense me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish you were here.”

  “And I wish I was there.”

  “Matilde, I want to show you my estate in Rouen. Juana has just told me that you don’t have to go to the institute tomorrow. We could leave early tomorrow and come back on Sunday night. What do you think?”

  “I would love that.”

  Al-Saud sat up in his chair.

  “I’ll come to pick you up at nine.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you. Sleep well, Eliah.”

  “Thank you, my love.”

  Al-Saud joined his partners in the music room. Someone had chosen Bach’s “Suite for the Unaccompanied Cello No. 1.”

  “It’s clear that we have an infiltrator,” Tony Hill stated.

  “Please!” Mike Thorton protested. “Let’s not get paranoid. The guy had Mossad following him for two years. We knew that it was going to be a very complex exchange.”

  “That’s true,” Al-Saud agreed. “But still, it’s one thing to follow him, watch him, not lose sight of him, and another very different thing to shoot at him with M-16s.”

  “Let’s assume for a moment that the information was leaked and that it reached Mossad’s ears,” Mike conjectured. “Let’s assume the hypothesis that we have a traitor inside Mercure. Why would Mossad or whoever killed Bouchiki wait until that moment, the very moment when he was exchanging the information to kill him? Why not do it before and avoid all the risk?”