Page 85 of Defenders of Jawhara

If she was coming on board, that put her off-limits. Totally. Pity about that, because Brock wouldn’t have minded seeing what she looked like under that big shirt of hers. But work came first. Always. That was one rule Brock was never breaking.

2

Keira Mantz stepped off the plane, her nerves just about vibrating. This was the first time Slade was trusting her to run an operation. She’d come a long way in five years, but it had been rough in the beginning. To say that Slade had been tough on her barely scratched the surface of how hard she had to work to prove herself. It didn’t help that she’d been angry and eager to show everyone that she was every bit as good as the team members who’d had years on the job, and she’d been too stubborn to admit she was wrong every time she’d ended up flat on her back or worse.

Thankfully, the man had been patient with her and little by little, she’d let go of that ginormous chip on her shoulder and learned the job. Weapons, hand-to-hand, covert ops, and she was now fluent in three foreign languages—Arabic, Spanish, and…well, make that two languages—Mandarin was still giving her some trouble.

Over the years, she’d glimpsed Brock Wells on occasion, but he’d always managed to be somewhere she wasn’t, and she tried not to take it personally. It wasn’t as if he owed her anything, but the least he could have done was stand still long enough to say hello. She did manage to keep track of his missions, even going so far as to request placement on some of his teams, but each time, Slade had told her no, leaving her to wonder if it was Brock who didn’t want to work with her. Feeling slighted, she doubled down on her efforts to become one of the best at Slade Security, and this was her chance to prove herself to SladeandBrock Wells, even if he did act as though she didn’t exist.

The flight halfway around the world had been one of the most luxurious she’d ever taken. Flying first class with a luxury airliner had its privileges and while she knew it was part of the job, Keira wasn’t used to this level of pampering. It made her nervous. Life had taught her you never got anything good without paying for it, and even though she knew she was more than ready for the job, a part of her was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, kicking her back to a support role.

Stepping off the plane’s steps and onto Jawhara soil, she slipped her sunglasses on and glanced around.

Not an arid desert, she thought. The landscape she’d been expecting was nowhere to be found. Oh, sure, there were distant mountains that looked dry, and she’d read up on Jawhara—it had deserts, but it also had oil, forests, beaches, and opportunities for investments with high returns. She could see the attraction.

She headed to the airport entrance and the limo waiting for her. Lush plants seemed to be everywhere—in pots, hanging from the rooflines and clinging to the walls of buildings, both outside and inside, or pushing up from the ground. She spotted date palms waving in the breeze that brushed over her skin. The air smelled of nearby ocean and carried a hint of spice and kerosene exhaust from the jets.

The limousine driver waiting for her caught her eye. He looked former military, which she approved of—that meant the sheikh was hiring good people. She gave a nod to the guy, and he moved to open the car door for her. She slipped into the car, pulled off her designer sunglasses, and pulled up the file on the sheikh of Jawhara on her tablet.

She’d been through his profile several times now, but she didn’t want to screw this up. Kamal Mehalel El-Jawhara was one of the richest men in the world, and one of the most camera shy. He’d also fallen in love with an American woman, a lawyer from Washington, DC, and they’d recently married and were expecting their first child. That was good, since it meant he’d have a crown prince soon, maybe, but also not so good in that there was some anti-American sentiment in this part of the world.

Sheikh Kamal had to walk a fine line between keeping his ties to the West and keeping his country secure and his neighbors happy. It couldn’t be an easy job, and given what had happened to his wife, she could understand why the sheikh was concerned about security.

Keira had been given a dossier on those closest to the sheikh, and so far, it all looked good on paper. Keira would be playing the role of one of Erin’s college friends, a spoiled socialite eager to enjoy all that Jawhara had to offer.

While Keira could easily step into most any role, she much preferred the more low-key jobs where she didn’t have to worry about which fork to use or if she was holding her wineglass wrong. Looking around the limo, the kind of money that bought these luxuries—leather seats, a bottle of Dom sitting in an ice bucket, state-of-the-art electronics that included satellite TV—had her rubbing her palm on her bare thigh to ground herself.

Was she ever going to get used to this? The limo smelled of leather and new car—and it rode like a cloud, not a bump making its way to her. She’d be playing with the rich and powerful, all right. She tried to settle.

She was supposed to be the epitome of a spoiled society girl used to getting everything she wanted. She’d dressed the part, dripping designer everything, mostly a mix of Gucci and Prada, and she could act the part when needed. She’d been coached over the years and had hung out with models in New York and Paris. The trailer trash part of her only came out under the worst stress.

She thanked genetics for the high cheek bones, good skin, and long legs she’d been blessed with. The fashionable figure—model slim—had come from a childhood where there was never enough to eat. Her hair, once a mousey brown, was newly blonde and had cost her a small fortune to do and maintain, but it was worth it. When she’d walked into Slade Security after her transformation, hardly anyone recognized her. Colored contacts let her easily change her eye color to suit the role, and she often felt like a chameleon—something that came in handy in securing the safety of the rich and pampered of the world, especially the men. None of them ever complained about having a beautiful woman attached to their sides. The women were a different story, but from everything she’d read about Jawhara’s newest sheikha, she didn’t think she’d have anything to worry about.

Keira flipped back her hair and settled into her pose—wealthy socialite and Erin’s old friend, here to see how Erin was settling in with Kamal Mehalel El-Jawhara, the reigning Sheikh, and have some fun.

She thought over the brief. Erin was key to making this work because they needed to look and act like friends. If the woman proved difficult, that could make the job all but impossible. But Erin’s background suggested someone smart—expensive education at Georgetown Law, background working in DC, and then a whirlwind romance. The girl was lucky, that was for sure. But not so lucky that bad things couldn’t happen to her.

The sheikh’s wife had recently been kidnapped for political reasons, which left Keira with important questions that weren’t answered in the brief. Namely, how traumatized had that experience left Erin, what was her current mindset, and how was she handling things post-kidnapping? Was she one of those wilting females, or was she more like Keira, and prepared to fight and to push boundaries? On top of that, the sheikh’s brother, Khalil, was recently engaged, and that worried Keira, too. Guys in love tended to go stupid. Two men in power, both of them still in that starry-eyed phase of a relationship, might be easy targets.

Shifting on the leather, Keira gazed out the tinted limo window. At twenty-one, she’d always dreamed about traveling—about seeing the world. She’d never thought she’d be doing it as a security specialist, but here she was five years later. Her pulse quickened, but not in a bad way. This was going to be fun.

Jawhara was a country that most geography classes never covered, but it was also highly prosperous. Oil rich, Jawhara could be a target for terrorists or takeover. Since assuming the position, the sheikh had been smart about making good allies; just about everyone—Russia, US, and China—wanted a stable government here to keep the oil flowing. It was those inside the country who could make the most trouble—the ones who wanted someone more conservative in power.

Watching the scenery pass—high-rises and a nice stretch of beach—Keira thought the main city looked almost like any other western capital, except for the occasional veiled women on the street, or the men still wearing the traditional thobe and keffiyeh. The writing was mostly in Arabic, and she sent up a silent thank you to Slade for insisting that Arabic be one of the languages she learned. She also glimpsed some signs in English. In addition to the array of autos on the road, there were also donkey carts hauling wood, fruits, and vegetables. Jawhara looked like an interesting mix of old and new.

Tapping one newly lacquered fingernail on the armrest, she thought about how she was supposed to meet up with PJ—one of the few females working for Slade.

Phyllis Jerome—but no one ever called PJ anything but PJ—was another complication. She’d become involved with someone here, so she would be shifting into a permanent security position with the sheikh’s family. That was the trouble with romance—emotions messed with your mind. Slade had drummed that lesson into Keira, but she was still struggling to master the Zen-like detachment that made Slade one of the best. Her problem wasn’t losing her heart, but losing her head when her temper heated up.

Well, at least the cover of her being Erin’s friend, Ella Clausen, from her college days, would prove easy. She had that cover down pat—a socialite who spent her days in far-off locations and attending only the best parties. The only trouble she’d had was finding places to secure her slim Kel-Tec PMR-30 pistol.

She had on a minidress that covered the essentials, and a huge Coach handbag covered the rest of her essentials—her .22 and a few other tricks she liked to keep handy. Jimmy Choo heels, gold earrings from Cartier, and lots of tan on display served up the rest of her distraction.

The houses thinned out and the limo turned off the main road and onto a narrow lane. It paused in front of iron gates before heading up a winding road and finally drifting to a stop. She fixed her lipstick, checked her reflection in a mirror, and slipped into the role she was here to perform.Smile on, girl.

The driver opened the door for her, and she slid across the seat and stepped into a garden paradise. The palace looked to be three floors with an arched colonnade that enclosed the main entry on three sides.

Gates barred the front, and she noted with approval guards in discreet suits, with obvious bulges and earbuds. She pegged the gardeners tending to the lush display of flowers as more security—either that or she really did look great, going by the way they were stopping to check her out.

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