Highlander - Donna Lettow [20]
Maral tied the ends of the shawl in front of her, then playfully guided his hand along the edge of the silk as it passed gently over her breast before holding his hand tight against the knot of the shawl where it lay just beneath her bosom. Her dark eyes met his own and a moment sparked between them. It wasn’t a promise. It was a possibility.
“This was my grandmother’s,” she finally said, but MacLeod could tell that wasn’t what she really wanted to say. “It was part of her dowry from my great-grandfather.” She abruptly released his hand and his gaze as her bodyguard Assad and yet another man who had obviously been shopping off the rack at Spy City approached them.
“We’re ready, Doctor,” Assad announced.
“Then I guess so are we.” Maral offered her arm to MacLeod. “Duncan?”
He looked at the two men, who were obviously armed to the teeth and who clearly intended to accompany them. “I didn’t realize this was a double date.” He turned to Maral. “I thought you were going to arrange to leave Toto at home.”
Maral’s face reflected her deep concern. “Farid didn’t tell you?” She looked across the lobby toward the man in the kaffiyeh.
“I’m afraid they were too busy measuring my inseam. Not a very chatty bunch. Tell me what?”
She reached out and touched his hand. “There’s been more trouble at home.” Her eyes grew darker, her voice took on a note of pain. “Forty-three people were murdered outside a mosque in Hebron yesterday by an extremist Jewish student with an automatic weapon.”
That would explain the smell of paranoia in the lobby, the heightened security. He understood immediately. “And you’re afraid of retaliation.”
Maral nodded. “All of the peoples of Palestine are children of thousands of years of blood feuds and retribution. A Jewish attack like this will only lead to an Arab counterattack Then an Israeli response, then a Palestinian uprising. And then the military will crack down, and the next thing you know, five years of compromise and negotiation and movement—however so slowly—toward peace could be gone. All because of one fanatic. Everything we fought for. Everything we’ve gained. We will be prisoners again in our own country.” MacLeod caught a glimpse of the combination of eloquence and a had edge of steel that bred a strong negotiator. “We cannot let that happen.”
“Then you are in danger?”
“No more here than in Ramallah, I think. But you see, don’t you, why Farid and his security people would not allow me to go to dinner with such a charming, mysterious stranger without proper”—she looked at stern-faced Assad and his brooding associate and said wryly—”chaperones?”
“Well, the more the merrier, I always say.” MacLeod took Maral’s arm and started toward the door. He glanced back at Assad. “You coming, Toto?”
“I will drive,” Assad announced.
“I thought we’d walk,” MacLeod said. “The restaurant’s only a few blocks away, and it’s a nice night. C’mon, the exercise’ll do you good.”
“I will drive,” Assad reiterated.
“I’m afraid Farid has picked a different restaurant for us,” Maral told MacLeod apologetically, “one he knows is secure. I hope you don’t mind. It was either this, or I would be having room service one in my hotel room again.”
MacLeod smiled at her. “It’s fine. I don’t care where we eat or what we eat, as long as it’s with you.”
Maral laughed. “I’m beginning to think you have the patience of a saint, Duncan MacLeod.”
“If it keeps you from becoming a martyr, I can be anything you like.” He ushered her through the revolving doors to a dark Town Car waiting outside.
The ride to the restaurant was an uncomfortable one, Maral sandwiched in the backseat between MacLeod and the sullen Arab whose name MacLeod still didn’t know. With the two bodyguards listening to their every word, it wasn’t the best place for conversation beyond remarks