Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [78]
“Take your pick,” he said.
As the door swung open, Jack was accosted by a wall of sound, the music slamming into him like a living force, so loud that his eardrums immediately began to throb in pain.
Beyond the doorway was a small brick warehouse filled with flashing lights and writhing bodies, moving to the beat of the music. Most of the dancers wore typical street clothes, but some of the woman had skirts so short with necklines so low they flirted with public indecency.
Not that Jack was complaining.
It was a good old-fashioned rave, and for a moment he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Surely this couldn’t be where the woman had gone—no good Muslim girl would be caught dead in a place like this.
But then, based on what he’d seen so far, Jack wasn’t entirely sure she was a good Muslim girl. And what was the alternative? There was no place else for her to have gone.
Jack moved inside, pushed past a couple in a clinch, then stepped onto the main floor and scanned the sea of bobbing heads for any sign of her. He was too jet-lagged to make more than a poor stab at dancing, doing only as much as it took to blend in. The strobe lights didn’t help much, and after a full minute of searching, he was convinced he’d lost her.
Had he missed something in the alleyway? Another door, maybe?
His question was answered a moment later. At the far side of the warehouse, on a raised platform that looked like an old loading dock, the woman emerged from a doorway. A cardboard sign marked TOILETS hung above it.
No longer wearing the shapeless dress she’d worn at al-Fida’s flat, she now sported clothes that could easily have been hiding beneath that dress—a dark pullover sweater and a pair of blue jeans. He had been right about the woman. Her body was spectacular.
She eased up to a rail along the edge of the loading platform and looked down at the dance floor. It was hard to see her face clearly in the intermittent light, but judging from the way she carried herself—no bobbing head, no shake of the shoulders to match the beat—Jack figured she had as much interest being in this place as he did.
She’d been standing there for less than a minute when a slender, curly-headed white guy sidled up next to her and smiled, making his best play.
Who could blame him? She was a knockout. She was also way out of his league.
Jack watched them, thinking he was about to see the guy go down in flames. But to his surprise the woman leaned toward Curly and whispered something into his ear.
Did she know him?
“There’s a problem. We need to talk.”
Curly’s smile disappeared as he listened attentively. Then he nodded and whispered back, gesturing toward another hallway at the back of the warehouse.
When he was done, the woman gave him a dismissive push then shoved away from the rail without another word. Curly lost himself in the crowd. She headed toward that hallway.
Jack didn’t waste any time. Threading his way through the crowd of dancers, he moved in her direction, reaching the far edge of the dance floor just as she disappeared from sight. He glanced toward the loading platform to see if Curly was still there, but the guy was long gone.
Then someone grabbed Jack’s arm.
He spun around, expecting to see Curly, but was surprised to find an attractive blonde in a black bustier and fishnet stockings smiling at him. The bustier barely contained her, and her eyes had the glassy, faraway look of the perpetually stoned.
“Hey, luv, where you going? Let’s dance.”
“Some other time,” he said, and pulled his arm free.
This time it was Jeremiah that came to mind: “For my people are foolish, they know me not; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
Then he was up a short set of steps and heading into the hallway, which was dark because of a broken light fixture.
There was movement to his left and he hesitated when he saw two dark figures—then realized it was the clinching couple from