Secret Agent Sheikh. Linda Conrad

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      Tarik peered past the edge of the glass. The room was an enormous space, set up with a temporary conference table surrounded by six captain’s chairs. A handful of men had already gathered and were standing at a bar with drinks in their hands.

      He recognized the Russian gangster who’d reputedly organized this little get-together from his CIA dossier. The gangster was Karolek Petrov, a renowned physics genius before the fall of the Soviet Union who had since amassed a $300 million empire based on illegal banking ventures and arms deals.

      Tarik had to hand it to his older brother, Darin. His intel about this meeting had been spot-on.

      As Tarik quietly set up the micro recording/receiving device Darin’s geek department had come up with, he rifled through his memory trying to put names to a couple of the other faces he’d recognized around the bar. Clearly none of the men were members of the Taj Zabbar. He and his brothers had turned themselves into experts at facial recognition when it came to their family’s enemies. At this point he could pick out a Taj Zabbar face from any crowd.

      Apparently not everyone had arrived for the meeting yet. The Taj Zabbar participant was the only one Tarik cared about, and he’d better show up soon.

      Darin’s technicians had gathered secret intelligence about this private auction a few days ago. It had been one of many dirty dealings the Kadirs had been anticipating from their enemies. The Taj Zabbar were going back into the international black market to buy arms. According to Darin’s sources, the arms for sale at tonight’s auction would be more along the lines of weapons of mass destruction.

      Judging by Petrov’s background, the evening’s prize would involve advanced technology. Either biological or nuclear.

      Adjusting his earpiece, Tarik finished setting up and settled in to wait for the meeting to start. Crouching in the dark, he listened for anything important.

      Tarik thought of Shakir, his middle brother, and of how he had recently destroyed an underground nuclear reactor plant in Zabbarán that had been designed by the Russians for the Taj Zabbar. The Kadir brothers had figured then it was only a matter of time before the Taj Zabbar tried to buy the nuclear capability they needed in the open market.

      When the Kadirs had learned of tonight’s private auction, Tarik had gone to his old boss at the Department of Defense, trying to enlist the Americans’ help in gathering intel about the Taj Zabbar. Buying nuclear technology seemed a clear threat against the entire world rather than simple revenge against old enemies. But the DOD had been reluctant to commit, saying their resources were thin at the moment.

      “Get me something tangible I can use to convince my superiors that this new third world nation of the Taj Zabbar is anywhere close to obtaining nuclear capabilities,” General Wainwright had told him.

      Tarik had tried to explain about the auction and had asked for help from his old unit in putting together a sting. Instead, when the general had turned him down flat, it had been a hard lesson in the futility inherent in a major bureaucracy.

      One of the men in the room moved to the glass next to Tarik’s head and stared out toward the moonlit sea. Tarik held his breath and eased farther back in the shadows, quickly coming up with a name for the face. The man was one of the Nigerian terrorists his old unit had recently been trying to locate. Here in Monte Carlo and about to bid on weapons of mass destruction?

      Wouldn’t the DOD love to know about the Nigerian’s participation.

      Tarik checked his equipment and made sure the video was being transmitted back to Darin’s computers. This Nigerian terrorist alone would have been worth his old boss’s attention.

      As Tarik sensed the auction was about to start, a rap came at the suite’s door. A heavyset man who looked a lot like the movie version of a Russian bodyguard went to answer.

      Tarik’s pulse rate picked up again. This had to be the Taj Zabbar representative at last.

      Instead of a Taj Zabbar agent, a thin man sporting a mustache and wearing a gray tuxedo waltzed into the room with three beautiful women on his arm. Tarik was stunned. Expensive call girls at a secret auction like this?

      His gaze flicked to the Russian, whose expression had gone cold. But the man did not make a move to expel the newcomers. Instead he offered them all drinks. It was odd behavior. Tarik studied the new arrivals a little further. Something was not right.

      One of the women laughed at the Russian’s greeting, the sound of her voice reverberating deep and erotic in her throat. Something about that laugh …

      He narrowed his eyes and looked closer, but she didn’t look familiar. Her blond, pixie-cut hair was thick and shiny. Too shiny to be real. Her eyes were a violet color not often found in nature. Obviously the lady was trying to disguise herself and not doing it very well. But then, Tarik supposed, if he were a high-priced call girl, he might want to change his identity for each job, too.

      He let his gaze rake down over her tight, compact body and the too-exposed expanses of exotic, tanned skin and felt a surprising thrill of recognition. Those curves had appeared in his dreams often enough.

      What the hell …?

      Another knock on the suite’s door grabbed everyone’s attention. When the new man and his entourage entered, Tarik sucked in a breath. Not only had the Taj Zabbar sent a representative to the auction, this one was none other than the Elder Nabil bin Khali Taj Zabbar—the general in charge of Taj Zabbar armed forces. With him was a bodyguard and another man Tarik believed to be the new head of Taj Zabbar secret police, Malik Kasim Taj Zabbar. The Taj Zabbar had sent their big guns.

      CIA covert agent Jasmine O’Reilly worked hard not to fidget in her too-tight, scratchy dress while she surreptitiously checked out the men in the room as they greeted the newcomers. Who knew rhinestones could be this uncomfortable?

      She was accustomed to wearing six-inch stilettos on special missions, but the flashy hooker-style dress was turning into more than she’d bargained for. How did women wear all these spangles and zippers? The simple answer came to her before she finished the question. The dress was not meant to be worn for long.

      Pulling her attention back to the targets, she catalogued what she knew of them. The most important man in the room to her was not the Russian mafia character and his cohorts who’d called this meeting. No, with great glee she fixed her thoughts on the Nigerian terrorist she’d been after for the past six months.

      God, was she ever good at her job.

      Who else could’ve finagled their way into a room full of third world terrorists and wannabe bad guys? Certainly not that handsome but insufferable ex-agent, Tarik Kadir. She proudly noted that Kadir was nowhere to be found—even after he’d called the DOD’s attention to this meeting in the first place.

      Whatever was really going down here, Jass was about to make the premier bust of her entire career. She almost rubbed her hands together in satisfaction. But first she wanted to know about the rest of the players in addition to the Nigerian.

      There was Karolek Petrov, of course. And a number of bodyguards. Then the high-priced pimp she’d paid to bring her and the other two phony call girls tonight. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the other bidders included an Indonesian member of al-Qaeda, a rogue member of the IRA, a Georgian separatist and—hmm … The two Middle Eastern–looking newcomers were men who’d not been on her radar before. Interesting.

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