“I’m not riding on the back of that,” Tommy blurted out.
“Well, you’re in no condition to drive it. It’s the only way right now.”
Tommy’s head went back and forth in a dramatic, drunken motion. “Where are we going? And why not wait for the firemen and the cops?”
“We need to get to the IAA building. I’m not sure, but I have a feeling that whoever just tried to kill us might come back. It would be better for us to not stick around.”
Tommy seemed to accept the answer and swung his leg over the back of the bike. The only problem was he was facing the wrong direction.
“Other way, buddy,” Sean said, still helping him.
When he got his friend turned around, Sean hopped on and slid the helmet over his short, messy blond hair. The key was still in the ignition, so all he had to do was hit the button. The Triumph revved to life.
“Do I get a helmet too?” Tommy asked, his speech still fairly slurry.
“Not this time. But I’ll keep one around for you in the future. Just hold on tight.”
Sean sped out of the driveway and down the street just as a giant red fire truck appeared over the hill. A few seconds later, they passed a police car on the same trajectory.
Tommy and Sean had been the best of friends since early on in life. They attended the same high school and kept in contact through college. When Tommy’s parents died suddenly, the Wyatts took him in for a short time. While he appreciated their help, Tommy’s mind and heart were torn apart. He struggled with his emotions for years, even through college. Things changed when he disappeared for a year. He’d told Sean not to try and find him, that it was something he needed to do, something about finding his life’s purpose.
One night, while sitting at a bar in Istanbul, Tommy realized what it was he needed to do. Two days later, he was back in the United States working on the idea that would become his legacy, an agency that served the world by recovering ancient artifacts.
Somewhere in that year abroad, Tommy learned how to fight, though Sean never asked him about it. He’d become a brawler, able to defend himself in a pinch, though still clumsy at times. The two had found themselves back-to-back in more than a few situations. Now, awkwardly, they were back to front.
Sean chuckled at the irony.
The cool evening air sprayed over their skin as Sean steered the motorcycle down the tree-lined streets. One of the things he liked most about Atlanta was how there were still so many trees in spite of the massive city’s population. Tourists had commented on how different it was from cities in the West where all you could see were vast metropolitan areas filled with hundreds of miles of streetlights and homes stretching in all directions. Atlanta wasn’t like that because of the hilly terrain and the fact that the populace preferred to keep nature a more prominent feature.
He thought about this as he twisted the accelerator and sped out of the highlands and into midtown. Posh coffee shops, boutiques, sushi bars, and trendy hangouts blurred by. Sean pointed the single headlight at downtown. His friend kept his arms around him, more tightly than Sean would have liked, but he’d rather Tommy be safe than sorry, especially given his condition.
At the next intersection, the light went yellow and then red, forcing Sean to hit the brakes and bring the bike to a stop. The light was at a four-way stop. A late night cafe was open on the corner a few feet from them. Three gorgeous young women, probably in their midtwenties, stared at the awkward couple on the motorcycle. Tommy, without a helmet, looked especially uncomfortable.
He smiled and nodded at the girls. “It’s not what it looks like,” he tried to explain. The few minutes of fresh air on the bike had seemingly sobered him up. That or being seen riding bitch on the back of a bike with another guy.
Sean twisted his head to the girls, who were giggling in short summer dresses as they sipped their drinks. He flipped up his visor and said, “Yes, it is.” He patted Tommy on the leg to emphasize the statement.
Just then the light turned green, and he hit the gas again before Tommy could try to defend himself.
“Thanks, man!” he shouted over the swooshing wind and throaty engine. “Now they think I’m into dudes.”
“So? You’re never going to see them again.”
“You don’t know that! I could bump into them somewhere.”
Sean laughed and spoke over his shoulder. “Yeah but now if you go back to that place you’ll look like a creep.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. I love that cafe.”
Sean yelled over the noise. “You’re too old for them anyway.”
He weaved around a slow-moving minivan and into the left lane that had just opened up as the road widened on its way into downtown.
“Too old? Those girls were, at most, ten years younger.”
Sean thought about it for a second. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. My fault. If I see them again, I’ll be sure to tell them you and I are no longer an item.” He squeezed the throttle harder, increasing their speed, zooming past the Jimmy Carter Center.
3
A bluish-gray haze hung in the room. Through the fog of cigar smoke, the sandstone walls and columns appeared to be something out of a thousand-year-old palace. It may as well have been. To say that the mansion’s owner was wealthy would be a vast understatement, like saying the surface of the sun was warm. Mamoud Al Najaar puffed on his cigar as he watched the half-naked women dance in front of him. The doors to the balcony behind them were wide open, and the Persian Gulf beyond provided a unique and expensive backdrop to the view before him.
Another scantily clad woman fanned him as he watched the show. He occasionally took a sip of tea from the silver cup on a table to the right of his Corinthian leather chair. Six feet away, his friend and bodyguard, Sharouf Al Nasir, watched with restrained pleasure.
Mamoud smiled a toothy, perverse grin as the women moved in synchronized rhythm. Their hands flashed back and forth, gripping red silken scarves. The thin, lightweight fabric trailed around behind their bodies, occasionally grazing their bronzed skin.
He’d grown up in the deserts of Syria, a child of privilege and high tastes. When his father sold their familial lands to the oil companies, the money ensured their lifestyle would be one the sheikhs of old would have envied, and without all the worries of drilling, refining, and exporting.
When his father died, Mamoud inherited everything. He was one of two children, but his younger brother had died years before. Mamoud hadn’t understood why his brother joined the insurgency in Iraq, or why he had thought it a good idea to go head to head with an entire platoon of American soldiers.
As children, their father had taught them that the only way to defeat the West was to learn everything they could about Western culture: its people, its way of life, and its weaknesses.
He’d been trained to fight by some of the best martial arts teachers money could buy and still kept up an intense sparring regimen with his bodyguards to make sure he never got rusty. His expertise in Jujitsu and Isshin-Ryu was unrivaled throughout the Middle East.
Mamoud went to school in Great Britain. Not just any school either. He attended the most expensive private prep schools and university. He was steeped in the ways of capitalism, freedom of thought and expression, and in their religious and atheistic learning. The more he learned about those things, the greater his hatred of the West grew. His father had encouraged him to bide his time, to be patient. When the moment was right, he would know what to do with the resources he’d been given.
Know thine enemy. The quote went through his mind even as he watched the women entangle each other with the scarves, drawing each other seductively close before releasing and going to opposite corners of the room in their constant expand-and-contract dance.