AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hala came down and bid him goodbye. She was continuing on with the plane to New York.
"You've become a treasured memory, Dirk Pitt."
"We never did make our dinner date."
"The next time you're in
Cairo, it's on me."
The Senator overheard and came over. "Cairo, Ms. Kamil. Not New York?"
Hala gave him a smile worthy of the beautiful Aphrodite. "I am resigning as SecretaryGeneral and returning home. Democracy is dying in Egypt. I can do more to keep it alive by working in the midst of my people."
"What of Yazid?"
"President Hasan has vowed to place him under house arrest."
A frown crossed Senator Pitts face. "Be careful. Yazid is still a dangerous man."
"if not Yazid, there is always another maniac waiting in the wings." Her soft dark eyes belied the fear that rode in her heart. She gave him a daughterly hug. "tell your President Egypt will not become a nation of insane fanatics."
"I'll pass along your words."
She turned back to Pitt. She was on the brink of falling in love with him but fought her feelings with every bit of will she possessed. Her legs felt weak as she took both his hands and stared upward into his ageless face. for an instant, in her mind's eye, she saw herself entwilled with his body, caressing his muscled skin, and then just as quickly she erased the thought. She had found brief fulfillment with him, long denied, but she knew she could never divide her love for one man with that for Egypt.
Her life belonged to those who had no life except misery and poverty.
She kissed him tenderly.
"Do not forget me."
Before Pitt could answer, Hala had turned and hurried up the steps into the aircraft. He stood looking at the empty entrance for a long moment.
The Senator read his thoughts and interrupted them. "They've sent an ambulance to take you to the hospital."
"Hospital?" Pitt said vacantly, still watching as the door closed. The jet engines whistled as the pilot increased the rpm and began to taxi toward the main strip.
Pitt tore the bandages from around his head and face and threw them into the jet's exhaust, where they were caught and sent swirling through the air like airborne snakes.
Only when the plane was airborne did he make his reply. "I'm not going to no damned hospital."
"Over doing it a bit, don't you ?" think?" the Senator said with paternal concern, full knowing it was a waste of breath to preach to his independent-minded son.
"How are you getting to the White House?" asked Pitt. The Senator nodded toward a waiting helicopter about a hundred meters away. "the President arranged my transportation."
"Mind dropping me at NUMA?"
His father looked at him slyly. "You're speaking figuratively, of course."
Pitt grinned. "You never let me forget which side of the family my sadistic sense of humor came from."
The Senator slapped his arm around Pitts waist. "Come on, you crazy nut, let me help you over to the helicopter."
The tension built like a twisting knot in his stomach as Pitt stood in the elevator, watching the numbers rise toward NUMAs computer complex.
Lily was standing in the foyer as the doors parted and he stepped out.
She wore a big smile that froze when she saw the , bedraggled look, the long scab on his cheek, the hump of the bandage beneath a knit fisherman's turtleneck sweater borrowed from his father, the dragging leg and cane. Then she bravely broke out the smile again.
