Trusting A Sheikh (Playgrounds of Power 1) Read online

  TRUSTING A SHEIKH

  PLAYGROUNDS OF POWER

  ROSIE PIKE

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  www.RosiePike.com

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  The End

  Newsletter Signup

  COVER

  TRUSTING A SHEIKH

  by

  Rosie Pike

  Playgrounds of Power, Book I

  WWW.ROSIEPIKE.COM

  Copyright © 2015 by Rosie Pike.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published worldwide.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

  For free books, giveaways and to stay updated with my latest releases, please join my mailing list by clicking here or visiting www.RosiePike.com.

  1

  "Royal Flight Two, you're cleared for takeoff. Your escort will join you about twenty miles from Riyadh and take you to the border. Fly safe. Tower out."

  "Thanks Tower," Captain Ahmed Al Mansoor replied, thumbing the switch that activated his helmet microphone. "Glad to have the company. See you in a couple of weeks. Royal Two, out."

  "Why are they sending an escort?" the junior co-pilot sitting to his left asked, a little confused. "What's the point in that?"

  Ahmed chuckled. "New to the Air Force?"

  "Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?" the younger man asked a little defensively.

  The experienced captain raised his palms slightly to signify that he wasn't mocking the rookie. "Hey, don't bite my head off. Rough day? What's your name, anyway?"

  "Sorry, sir,” the co-pilot allowed, "it's Youssef. I wasn't supposed to be on this mission at all, the other guy got sick – my wife is going to be furious if I'm away for two weeks…"

  "There are worse places to be stuck for two weeks than London, let me tell you that. Anyway, I wouldn't call what we're doing here a mission… It's more like babysitting. Anyway, do you know who we've got back there?"

  Youssef shook his head. "They didn't tell me anything, just woke me up and sent me out here."

  Ahmed pulled back on the throttle, sending an increased flow of fuel to the four massive Rolls-Royce jet engines that sat, sparkling, on the wings of the green and gold liveried Royal Saudi Air Force 747 he was piloting. "We've got the pleasure of flying the Defense Minister's son to England today. That's why we're getting the escort."

  "What?" Youssef snorted. "That's a waste of money if I've ever heard of one."

  Ahmed raised an eyebrow and looked over at the young man. He was clearly not long out of the Academy – still arrogant, cocky and slightly too sure of himself.

  "I'd be careful how loudly you say things like that, son," Ahmed said, a paternal smile on his face. "That kind of thing gets to the wrong ears, you're looking at flying refueling tankers for the next thirty years. That where you want to end up?"

  The young man bristled at the statement, and Ahmed sighed inside. He'd seen it all before – young kids who thought they knew everything, but it was as annoying every time.

  "Is that how you ended up flying this old bucket?" Youssef said slyly.

  Ahmed was increasingly getting the urge to slap the young man, but restrained himself. He released the brakes, and all around them the roar from the engines reached a crescendo and the plane leaped forward like a sprinter out of the blocks. First, twenty knots, then forty, then a hundred, then they were airborne, the asphalt of the runway underneath them falling away, and before long, Riyadh itself was nothing more than a glittering island of sun reflected off the towering glass skyscrapers amongst a vast sea of sand.

  "Have a little respect for your superiors, son," Ahmed said with an edge to his voice. He was usually an affable man, and he'd tried to be nice, but he had to sit in the same cockpit as this rookie for the next eight hours, and he'd had enough of the sound of his voice. "Have you any idea what my day job is?"

  "I –." Youssef's voice quivered slightly, realizing he was on less stable ground. "I'm sorry, sir. I don't."

  "I'm Wing Commander of the 17th Fighter Squadron, based out of King Abdullah AFB. You think I got stuck with this gig?" he added, adding a little bite to prick the arrogant kid's ego a little bit. Youssef wouldn't have been allowed onto a plane flying a member of the Royal family if he wasn't a good pilot, but he clearly needed to be taken down a peg or two.

  Judging by the look on his face, Youssef knew he'd messed up. Internally, Ahmed was struggling to contain a smile, but he kept a straight face to prolong the rookie's agony. Every single pilot came out of the Academy the same – months of training on high-speed fighter jets has a way of boosting a man's ego almost to the point of being insufferable, and frequently beyond.

  "No, sir, I don't," Youssef replied shamefacedly. "I apologize."

  "Royal Two, this is Red Wing, we've just formed up on your starboard wing and we'll take you to the border. Over."

  "Malik, is that you? Over." Ahmed spoke back into his helmet mic with a smile on his face, breaking normal military discipline – after all, Malik was one of his own pilots.

  "You got it, boss. Packed your bags for your holiday in London?" Malik replied in English, the international language of aviation – and over the general cockpit channel, meaning as Ahmed had intended, that Youssef could hear every word.

  "Technically, pilot, I'm on detachment for this mission." Ahmed grinned. "But I hear the bars are packed this time of year… Over."

  As the F-16s formed up in a formation around them, Ahmed turned back to his young co-pilot, who was now regretting ever having opened his mouth. "Don't worry about it, son. But if you ever think you're going to get promoted, I'd learn when to shut up."

  "Yes, sir," Yousef replied looking determinedly forward, his back as ramrod straight a new cadet. Ahmed smirked. He was going to make this a long flight…

  * * *

  THE CAPTAIN'S voice rang out clear as crystal over the passenger cabin sound system – a sound system that was so far removed from the one found on typical Boeing aircraft that it was essentially unrecognizable.

  "This is your Captain speaking. We're currently leaving Saudi airspace, and if you look to your right, you'll see our escorts peeling away. We're on course to land at London's Heathrow Airport in just under eight hours."

  Of the four men sitting in the ornate passenger cabin, only Tariq bothered to look out upon the horizon and see the magnificent sight of two Royal Saudi Air Force fighter jets streaking through the afternoon sky on their way back to base.

  "Thank fuck for that," exclaimed a tall, thi
n man dressed in the elaborate military uniform of the Saudi Interior Ministry, his shoulders bearing the two stars and a crown in gold thread that indicated his rank of colonel. "Someone call the stewardesses, I need a drink. Tariq? Tariq!"

  "Did I miss something?" Tariq said absentmindedly. "Did you say something Khalid?"

  He'd never much liked the tall, birdlike Interior Ministry colonel sitting in the plush armchair in front of them, but as with many such relationships in the archaic game of thrones of Saudi Arabia's internecine political structure, his support – or rather his father's, was vital. Not, of course, to Tariq – but to his own father. And as a result, Tariq was forced to humor the man.

  "Isn't there something you can do about this ridiculous rule?" Khalid asked, his upper lip curled in what was almost a snarl of discontent.

  "What rule's that?"

  "This absurd rule about not being able to serve alcohol on Air Force planes while inside Saudi airspace. It's our own damn airspace, isn't it?"

  "I suppose you'll be going to the King to ask that, will you?" Tariq asked, with the faintest hint of a smile playing on his lips. "Don't you think you're being a little… Hypocritical?"

  "What do you mean?" Khalid blustered.

  "Well," Tariq began in his cultured, British-educated accent, "don't you chaps at the Ministry use the alcohol laws to, shall we say, control certain dissident elements?"

  "Oh, that," Khalid replied, his tone of voice indicating utter contempt for the idea that he might be forced to obey the same rules that he imposed on the rest of the population. "Don't be absurd, Tariq. There can't be more than a few dozen people in the whole country who don't drink. Hell, even the clerics do these days."

  "Go on, then." Tariq waved his hand in assent. "I suppose it can't hurt to have a gin and tonic or two while we talk all this over." It amused Tariq that, for all the power Khalid and his father wielded inside the Royal Kingdom, here – on this plane – he was ultimately in charge. His father had trusted him with this very delicate task, and he knew that it was his opportunity to stake a claim for elevation into the highest rank of Saudi politics – the Royal Council. Still, all the burning drive of ambition couldn't change the habits of a lifetime, and Tariq wanted a drink as much as the odious man in front of him.

  As he watched the stewardesses file down the wide aisle of the plane, Tariq found himself amused by the inconstancy of his country's moral rulings. The same country that denied women the right to drive, an absurd anachronism in Tariq's view, and exerted significant societal pressure for women to cover themselves in public was nonetheless more than happy to hire attractive European models to serve as air stewardesses for their elite.

  "Is there anything we can get for you, sir?" the tall blond stewardess asked Tariq – always Tariq first.

  "Gin and tonic, Tanqueray Ten, please." He ordered with a kind smile. "What about the rest of you?" He gestured around the small cluster of armchairs at his colleagues.

  Khalid curled his lip in the traditional pinched, displeased look his family was known for. "Whiskey,” he ordered, curtly, not glancing at the stewardess so much as leering at her. To her credit, she didn't respond in the slightest to his rudeness, or even the request of such a strong drink so early in the day.

  "Omar?" Tariq asked, ever the host. "Abdul? What about you guys?"

  They both ordered the same drink he had, and as usual, Tariq had difficulty working out in his head whether he liked them more because they were normally more deferential to him, or because they were in fact nicer people. His father had always told him how difficult it was to know who to trust in the business of politics, especially when you were members of a dynasty as powerful as the Saudi royal family.

  "To business, then," Tariq said, leaning forward after he'd received his drink, sniffing the floral bouquet of his favorite gin with appreciation. "Talk me through what we want."

  The three men seated around him were all dressed in very similar outfits. Each was just shy of their thirtieth birthday, born into a powerful family, and each wore the traditional insignia of a Saudi colonel – two stars and a crown – on the shoulder. Of course, none of them had ever had to make their way up the ranks…

  "The biggest aim, of course," Omar, the air force representative began, "is the Eurofighter deal. If we don't get that, we might as well not bother going home."

  Khalid snorted in disbelief, though Tariq got the distinct impression that the emotion was forced. "Something to add, Khalid?" he asked.

  "What enemies do we have?" Khalid asked, spitting in his eagerness to make his point. "Some rebels in Yemen? A weak, toothless Iran? Bah!" he exclaimed, smashing his tumbler down with considerable force, splashing the whiskey onto the leather armrest. "Our real threat is internal –."

  "You've made your point, Khalid," Tariq countered. "Perhaps you could let Omar finish?"

  Khalid's face twisted with an expression of inconsolable rage, and Tariq could see the battle of almost uncontrollable emotion fighting against the man's not inconsiderable self-control writ large upon his face. He'd always thought the man was a sociopath, and this display was doing nothing to disavow him of that notion. Eventually, self-control won the day, and Khalid gestured angrily at Omar to proceed.

  "As I was saying," Omar continued smoothly, as if he'd never been interrupted, "this is the big one, it's the one the King wants – and your father, too, I believe?"

  "Indeed," Tariq replied in a dry tone of voice. "The consequences of failing to get this deal have been made quite apparent…"

  "There is nothing necessarily standing in the way of the deal – but there are a lot of players involved – a lot of spinning plates, if you will. That's where you come in, Tariq. If you keep them all on side, I'll focus on the detailed negotiation."

  "Understood. Abdul – what am I doing for you?" He intentionally left Khalid til last, knowing the man's pride would be mortally wounded by the perceived insult. His father would probably have counselled a different course of action, but Tariq knew the man, and knew that he was the kind of man who would make a mountain out of a molehill, and if he couldn't find a molehill, would breed the subterranean animals himself.

  "Guns, tanks, bombs – you name it, we want it." Abdul smiled. "But this kind of stuff is the bread-and-butter of arms trading – no one is going to blink an eye at the Brits selling us this kind of shit. Besides, we've got the money, don't we?"

  "We certainly do," Tariq agreed. "But do your best not to spend it all, will you? I've got my eye on a new palace…" he joked. "And Khalid – the Ministry?"

  Khalid sat sullenly on his armchair as though debating whether to engage Tariq in conversation at all.

  "The Ministry," he spat, "isn't under Defense Ministry control. Why should I tell you anything?"

  "You make a fair point," Tariq agreed. "But why not tell me – my father has sent me here to help, after all. Why not let me?" he asked reasonably.

  "I don't need your help, brother," Khalid replied dismissively. "Not like these lackeys of yours," he said, indicating Omar and Abdul, who to their credit simply rolled their eyes at their colleague's behavior.

  "Very well, if that's the way you want it, I won't fight you. Less work for me, eh?" He smiled in an attempt to thaw the ice between them, but to no avail. Khalid, typically, was unmoved. "I'm going to take a shower," he finally added, aware he wasn't making any headway. "You guys have fun."

  * * *

  TARIQ ALLOWED himself a small smile of celebration as he opened the ornate double doors to his private suite. It was, naturally, the largest bedroom on the private 747, and marked his dramatic rise through the ranks. Only a couple of years ago he had been like the three men accompanying him – a scion of a wealthy branch of the Royal family, but merely one of thousands of minor royals bearing the title of ‘Prince’. How times had changed…

  His father's elevation to the position of Defense Minister, one of the ailing King's chief aides and key subordinates, had naturally led to his own swift p
romotion. That was, after all, the way things worked in Saudi Arabia – still one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchies. Family was everything, and his father needed allies that he could trust absolutely.

  Tariq new that some men, Khalid certainly amongst them, resented his swift rise – but there was nothing he could do about that other than perhaps hide these infrequent moments of quiet celebration as best he could.

  He slumped down onto the bed, picked up the phone to order a drink, and set the handset back in the receiver. Only moments later, he heard a quiet knocking at the door.

  "Come in."

  "I have your drink, sir," the startlingly attractive, tall brunette flight attendant said, almost whispering in a sultry tone of voice. "Is there anything else I…" She half paused, intimating that Tariq could do anything he wanted. "Can do for you?"

  Tariq sat up, gratefully accepting the proffered drink, and took a sip while studying the attractive woman standing in front of him, her long, tanned leg purposefully extended out through the thigh-high slit of her little black cocktail dress. He knew exactly what she was asking – knew exactly why these planes were stocked with some of the most attractive women that money could hire.