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The guard frowned, looking uncertain. “Your Highness, are you sure that is wise?”
Junayd nodded. “You don’t want to see what is about to happen,” he stated with an eerie placidity.
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a small rectangular box. The door closed behind the guards, and the poisoner became perfectly still.
Junayd removed his outer jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt using calm, measured movements. He stepped around his desk with the box in his hands. The man’s face was carefully blank again.
“I’m going to ask you a question and you are going to answer it—truthfully—the first time. If you do not, I will begin operating on you. There are many parts of the body that a person can live without. I will began removing each one until you give me the answers I want.”
Junayd’s tone was serene, and he did not give in to the urge to savagely grin when the man’s eyes widened with alarm, his whole body recoiling as he sputtered, “You-you… youcan’t! You are a—"
Junayd opened the box, revealing a pristine set of stainless steel scalpels.
“—a prince. You—”
He lifted one, rolling it between his fingers.
“You’re a doc-doctor!”
Junayd looked the man square in the eye.
“….I demand to be taken to the police,” the man said in a faint, high-pitched voice.
“First question, do you know who is trying to kill my wife?”
The man frantically shook his head. “No-no! You-you are married? I don’t kn-know who is trying to kill her. I knew nothing about-about her being your wife.”
Junayd’s lips tightened and he sliced in a quick, sure stroke. The man screamed, his eyes bulging with terror and pain as the tip of his little finger fell to the floor. He heaved with great, gasping sobs. Junayd felt no remorse. He would cut off far more than that to get the answers he needed.
“I am the law here. I make the rules, and I live by the ways of the desert. Answer me.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just give the information to the sheikh. He tells me what to do and I do it. He gave me the vial. You wanthim,” the man choked out, tears running down his ashen face.
“Which sheikh? What did you tell him? What information did he want?”
The man frantically jerked in the chair, trying to throw himself away from Junayd. Snot ran from the man’s nose. Junayd raised the tip of the bloody scalpel.
“I will remove one of your eyes if you do not answer my questions.”
“Sheikh al Hamid. It was Sheikh al Hamid. He said that some foreigners wanted information on the woman you brought with you. He gave me the drug and told me to put it in your coffee. It was—it was only supposed to make you sick so you wouldn’t return tonight!”
“Where is al Hamid?”
“I don’t know.”
Junayd grabbed the man by the chin and tilted his head back. The scalpel in his hand was less than a millimeter from the terrified man’s pupil. Hiccupping breaths shook the man’s body as the ammonia scent of his urine filled the air.
“It’s an apartment. I will give you the address. Please don’t-don’t. He will kill me when he finds out I have given you this information, but I gave it to you! I gave it to you. I gave it to you.Please.”
“If my wife dies, you will wish he killed you,” Junayd promised.
* * *
Junayd stared with unseeing eyes at the desert landscape rapidly passing beneath him. “When will the team arrive?” he asked Tarek through the headset connected to the phone call.
“An hour and a half,” Tarek grimly replied. “Are you still in contact with Badr?”
“Yes. They are locked in the security room. The cameras were shot down. There is no word on Midnight. I’m on my way. The poisoner gave me Rashid’s location. He has been giving information to a group of foreigners. Will you go after him?”
