Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

But all that changed when Dawoud hired a new driver for her.

Anwar was strong, handsome and kind. He treated her well and respected her words, which no one had ever done before. At first, she thought his courtesy was the result of her husband’s status, but soon she realized that Anwar did not look at Dawoud’s other wives the way he looked at her. One day, as he helped her to load some packages into the car, his hand brushed against hers and she looked up at his face. In that moment, she realized that he loved her.

In all Faiza’s life, no man had ever looked at her the way Anwar did. Not her father, who cared more about what his beautiful daughter could bring him, nor her brothers, to whom she was just another female in the house, and certainly not her husband, who used her when he needed her and then left her alone; no man, she realized, had ever loved her.

Their affair was short but magnificent. Anwar’s passion sizzled, and his touch seared her flesh every time they met. They knew they could both be killed for their transgression, but neither cared. For her, life without him felt like death, and she would not give him up. Not even to save her life. But then, as so often seemed to happen, things changed suddenly.

Faiza became pregnant.

Now she had more to worry about than just her desires. Once the child was born, Dawoud would have known it was not his, and he would have killed her and the baby, as well. She ended her affair with Anwar, telling him it was wrong and they should be ashamed. He had stayed on as her driver, unwilling to give up on her, but eventually he moved on and found another love. She never told him about the baby, though she thought he suspected. And even now, he sat in the driver’s seat of the Rolls Royce, taking her back to her home in Shiraz.

After ending the affair, she sought her husband’s bed for the first time in years. Dawoud was so pleased by her aggressiveness that he began seeking her company again and again, and soon the two were spending almost every night in each other’s arms.

When she told him she was pregnant, his smile took up half his face.

Of course, she knew the math would not work. But she gambled that her husband would be out of town when her time came, and she was right. She had gone into labor while he was away in Saudi Arabia, believing she still had another month to go before delivery. By the time he was able to get back, the baby was gone.

He raised a tremendous row, threatening to bring legal and illegal retribution to everyone in the hospital, but in the end, it changed nothing. The Abbasi son was gone, and no one seemed able to find him. She played her part well, acting outraged and despondent. It was not difficult to pretend she was grief-stricken; sending her son away was the hardest thing she had ever done, but it was best. He would live, and so would she.

But now her secret would be revealed, and her son would pay the price. Dawoud was an ambitious man, and he was intelligent. It would not take him long to realize that Erik Somers was not his son. And then he would kill Erik, her and Anwar, as well.

But she still had one more card to play, and she had just played it.

She hoped it would be enough.





13.



When Bishop awoke, he was strapped to a chair inside a stone chamber. Next to him on his right was a row of large metal tanks, at least a dozen of them, each labeled in Persian: DANGER. The tanks also had the biohazard symbol stenciled on the side. Bishop had no trouble imaging what the tanks contained. And from the sheer quantity of fluid the tanks could hold, it appeared Dawoud meant to poison the entire world.

Across the room, on a small metal table, sat Bishop’s things. His Sig Sauer pistol, extra clips, knife and backpack. The bottle of water was just visible under the flap, but the knife would have been the most useful. The straps felt like thick plastic zip ties—the kind used by police to secure prisoners—but he couldn’t see them. Most likely they would be too strong to snap. CJ would have seen to that.

He tried anyway, but he was too weak. All he managed to do was make enough noise to draw attention.

“He’s awake,” came a familiar voice from his left. Bishop turned to see CJ standing over him, the Beretta in hand.

“You were part of it,” Bishop said. “You were with the jihadists in Hassi.”

CJ nodded. “Took you long enough.”

“You set the trap,” Bishop said.

CJ smiled. “Good thing you kept me from opening it quickly.

Bishop frowned. CJ’s rush to open the hatch had been a ruse, as was his feigned surprise that caused him to fall off the edge.

“Though I was kind of worried you’d take the shot full on. How’s the arm, by the way?”

“Fuck off,” Bishop said.

“Come on, B, don’t be like that. I just wanted to reunite you with your folks.”

“You just wanted to get paid.”

“Fair enough.” CJ winked.