The Red Room by Ridley Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

dislocates Knox’s jaw.
    Knox’s spine is a Twizzler. The whining of the wind covers his howl as numbness fills his fingers and toes; he can’t feel anything past his elbows and knees. Tries to block the next blow, but can’t lift his arms. Deadweight.
    He goes over backward, opening himself to a world of hurt. Prepares himself abstractly for a boot toe to the temple. Thinks of Tommy. Feels the fool.
    Nothing happens.
    Squinting, he rolls over painfully.
    Nothing but the smoky, coarse air—sand and dust traveling horizontally at thirty miles per hour. Ancient rock walls surround him. His world is gray and hard. Pain arrives to his limbs like venom.
    The man appears as a specter, fleeing from him, quickly absorbed by the sandstorm.
    Running away.
    But why?
    —
    T HE CAFÉ , crowded with refugees from the storm, has the feel of a downtown Detroit bar during a power outage. The air might be cleaner outside, given the interior gray haze of tobacco smoke. Knox finds the bittersweet coffee aroma intoxicating, the loud conversation soothing. It’s a mixture of young and old, women and men, and probably the biggest crowd the café has ever seen.
    It’s clearly not what Shamir expected. He prepays for time; they wait uncomfortably for a computer to come available. Shamir buys Knox an espresso.
    “Who were these men?” Shamir asks in surprisingly decent English.
    “I thought you were going to tell me,” Knox says, trying to play naive. Knox doesn’t have the looks for naive. Shamir isn’t buying it.
    Hell, neither is Knox. Why did the man retreat when he clearly had the advantage? Who does that? Which of them had he followed: Shamir or Knox? All questions that need answering.
    “You were followed,” Knox says, trying to put this at Shamir’s feet and keep suspicion off himself. “From the restaurant? Why?”
    “It was you that is attacked.”
    Knox was hoping the man might have missed that part. “Because I’m a Westerner? Robbery?”
    “In this storm?” He doesn’t say what they both know: the man was dressed as a Westerner.
    Knox takes note of what Shamir chooses not to say. It’s as important as what they do discuss.
    They both realize they’re lying to each other and stop talking. Knox finds the café’s atmosphere entertaining; he keeps an eye on the entrance. So far, so good.
    When their time comes, Knox is guided to the bar stool by Shamir, who pulls a pair of tangled earbuds from his pocket and plugs them into an older model Mac laptop crudely secured to the wall counter. The name on the Skype account is not Shamir’s, but of a woman named Victoria Momani. Knox wants badly to “slip” and open her contact information, which will come up if he can click on her name. Clearly Akram has no suspicions: he instructed Shamir to set Knox up on this account for the call, assuming Knox to be the import/export businessman Akram knows. Knox feels ugly about his true intentions.
    “Mr. John?” Akram’s voice sounds thin through the earbuds. Knox can’t say for sure that it’s Akram he’s speaking with.
    “Akram.”
    “Shamir tells me you wish to speak to me.”
    Knox can hear he’s confused about Knox’s involving Shamir. “The waitress said she knew nothing about how I might reach you. This is time sensitive.”
    “Please tell me.”
    “I am sorry, my friend. This connection is not so good . . . Imust confirm . . . Let me ask you this, please. In Irbid, you and I once spent a nice hour in the shadow of a mosque as we talked. What is the museum near that mosque?”
    There is an outside chance that an agent might be able to answer this, but it would take his team several minutes to collect the information. The timing by the man who says he’s Akram is the tell-all. Knox can’t believe he has to go to this kind of extreme; he wonders what must be running through Akram’s head, given Knox taking this kind of precaution.
    “You exaggerate, my friend. The mosque was several blocks south of the