Page 11 of Enemy Within
Fuck, that had been a low blow. Doc watched Faisal’s words slam into Adam like bullets, each one driving the air from his body, making him step back, and drain the blood from his face.
“There’s no place for you.”
“You are down a man. I can fill in for Fitz.Bismillah, let me help, Adam—”
Adam’s fists had hit the counter. A disassembled rifle part clattered to the floor. “Notyou. You can’t—”
And then, Faisal had moved. Hands darting out, he’d picked and grabbed from the pieces of ten different weapons spread across the marble counter, assembling, before their eyes, a perfect AR-15 in under a minute. He’d pressed the rifle stock to his shoulder, turned to the living room, and raised the bore. The patio door had been left open, the breeze from the Red Sea floating through the house. He sighted the rifle, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
A perfect hole had appeared in the center of the middle pylon on his pier. If a bull’s eye target had been fixed to the wood, he would have landed his shot dead center.
Doc’s mouth had dropped open. He’d stopped breathing.
Faisal had turned back, disassembling the rifle as he moved until it was nothing but pieces scattered on the counter again. “You forget where I came from,habibi,” Faisal whispered. “And our history.”
Silence. Doc’s eyes had bounced from Adam to Faisal and back again like he was watching an invisible game of tennis.
Adam had shoved away from the kitchen counter with a snarl and walked out.
Later that afternoon, the rest of their supplies had arrived, and that evening, they were on their first flight to Riyadh, Faisal sitting squished next to Doc. Since the kitchen, not a word had been spoken between Adam and Faisal. And once they left the villa, everyone had ignored each other. They were, to the outside world, strangers.
Or they would be, except, Doc thought, glaring at the back of Adam’s head,for Adam.He was doing a shit job of acting like everything he wanted in the world, and who he wanted to turn to, wasn’t sitting four rows behind him and to the left. As Doc stared, Adam leaned forward again, wrapping both hands around the back of his neck, and tried to surreptitiously glance beneath his bent arms to their row.
Doc met his dark, hooded eyes. Adam looked away, fisting one hand and holding it in front of his pursed lips.
“Excuse me.”
The fat Brit snorted and then glared as Faisal squeezed his way through the seats and into the aisle of the jet. Doc tried to catch his gaze, but Faisal, far more so than Adam, was keeping to their ruse of not knowing each other at all.
He turned, watching Faisal head down the aisle toward the rear of the plane. Passengers watched, too, Brits and Europeans with narrowed eyes and suspicious glances turned Faisal’s way, watching him with a predatory intensity. One man unbuckled his seat belt as Faisal drew near, as if readying himself to lunge.
Fuck it. Doc rose, heading down the aisle. He glared at the businessman ready to leap after Faisal, now relaxing back in his seat since the Arab had passed him by. Shit, out of anyone, Faisal was the least likely to ever start something. He was the tech nerd, the skinny guy with the computers and the awesome house. He called Adamhabibi, and he’d put them all up over and over again, never asking for anything. And with the tiny bit that Docdidknow about Adam and Faisal, well—
Faisal had put a roof over their head, food in their bellies, and intelligence in their hands, even though it meant having his ex, a man he still loved, in his face. Using his palace like a personal base. And ignoring him, and their history.
Faisal didn’t deserve to be side-eyed like he was some kind of dangerous terrorist. Without him, would their team have accomplished even half of what they had? It was Faisal who’d put the pieces together with the Yemeni tanker and found Noah in Ma’an. Hell, they were all just Faisal’s muscle, at this point.
A part of Doc twisted at the thought, his gut clenching against that mental sucker punch. His words, thrown at Adam days before, echoed in his ears.Serious foreign influence violations. They all trusted Faisal, Adam especially. But why? What did they have to go on, other than Faisal’s endless consideration and politeness and his and Adam’s mercurial connection?
What kind of world was it where Saudi princes became frontline allies against a rogue American general?
Doc followed Faisal to the back of the plane, catching every sidelong glance and lingering glare sent Faisal’s way. Even the flight attendants disappeared when Faisal neared, their heels click-clacking against the corrugated cabin flooring as they fled.
Sighing, Faisal leaned against the plane’s bulkhead next to the rear door and ran his hands over his face. His lips moved as if whispering, but Doc couldn’t hear a thing over the drone and rattle.
“Hey.” He leaned back, his shoulder blades digging into the knobs and toggles and levers along the rear compartment wall, the stowage area of bins and trays and carts the flight crew used.
Faisal’s eyes popped open. He spotted Doc and snorted. “Of course.Yallah,you would ignore the rules about not interacting.”
Doc shrugged, one corner of his lip curling up in a smirk. “I’m sure people just think I’m trying to get into the mile-high club.”
Faisal shook his head.
Doc’s smirk faded. “How you doing?”
Faisal stilled, and a shroud descended behind his gaze. “Fine.”
Lolling his head toward Faisal, Doc’s eyebrows shot high on his forehead. He said nothing.
