Page 22 of Her Fearless Warrior

5

This is not good.

Not good at all.

A man that Leila didn’t recognize came into the room. He was wearing a suit and tie. Not just any suit. This suit had obviously been tailored to fit him. Now this man looked like he was in charge. He walked calmly into one of the innocuous empty offices where she was currently tied to a chair. He was holding a piece of paper.

“Tell me why you’re here, Leila Cloud, translator,” he said as he looked down at the piece of paper in his hand.

“I’m a freelance translator. I was hired by Elijah Hopkins to help explore opportunities between the al-Assad regime and two American companies.”

“America has a policy of not doing business with Syria. Do you expect me to believe you?”

“It’s the truth.”

He looked back down at the piece of paper in his hand and nodded.

“Had you done work with Elijah Hopkins before?” he asked curiously.

“Yes. He and my father went to school together. I probably work for him once a year.”

“And why was your team meeting in this government building today, and not back at your hotel?”

“We were told that members of the al-Assad government would meet us here.”

“And when your meeting room blew up? What did you think, then?”

“I thought that members of ISIS or Al Qaeda were trying to stop the meeting. That was another part of the reason we were doing this in secret,” Leila answered honestly.

The man nodded. Then slapped the piece of paper onto the desk. “I have some questions for you, Leila Cloud. Freelance Translator. Currently completing your master’s degree in Global Affairs in Turkey as you live with your grandparents.”

Holy hell, how does he know that?

The man continued. “After only two years of college at Georgetown University, you went to work as an analyst with America’s Central Intelligence Agency before going back to complete your degree in communications.”

He looked up from the sheet of paper and his grin was positively feral. Where had he gotten that information? She had never posted her time with the CIA on the web.

“Ah, you’re getting curious. I see it in your eyes. Let me continue. It says here that you aren’t just fluent in Arabic, but that you can read and write in Arabic. Is that true?”

Leila said nothing.

“Answer me,” he demanded in Arabic, his fist hitting the table so hard that it jumped.

“Yes,” she answered in English.

“Arabic. You will speak to me in Arabic.”

“Yes,” Leila said in Arabic. “I’m fluent in Arabic.”

“And what other languages?” he continued in Arabic.

Leila swallowed. He was looking at the damned piece of paper. She rarely put down every language that she spoke. She would write down the languages relevant to the position that she was applying for, otherwise it seemed to intimidate potential employers.

“I speak Arabic, English, Turkish and French,” she answered.

He slapped her so hard across the face that both she and the chair she was tied to fell over and slid at least four feet across the tiled floor.

“Don’t lie to me again. I know everything.”