Читать книгу Rayan - Son of the Desert - Indira Jackson - Страница 15

Colonel Abboud stomped around. He was in a violent temper.

He was a small man with some fat starting to show, who seemed to sweat constantly.

However, his mind was quick and always fully awake. He and his men had the reputation for being unbribable.

Neither with him nor with any of his man was it possible to fool around. They simply had no sense of humour.

For three days he had been preparing for the arrival of the Sheikh. He had drilled all his men and nearly driven them crazy, planned the ceremony and had personally taken care that they were spotlessly presented down to every last blinking button on their uniforms. The same went for the local police officers.

After all, His Excellency, who was a person of high influence, did not come here too often. Most of the time he flew with his jet directly to Alessia. At least according to the information you would hear about him.

Therefore, it was naturally in the interest of the Colonel that this experience was a special one.

Well, it had been, hadn’t it? At least in a way…he thought ironically.

He was fully aware of the reputation of the Sheikh and knew more than anything how far his influence could reach.

It was said that he had destroyed the life of men just because they had not treated him respectfully enough. The Colonel was not really sure if these rumours were true but for sure he was not willing to take the risk of finding out.

And then came the first bad news: the jet had had a technical defect so the Sheikh had to change to a regular flight, full of tourists. What a disaster!

Consequently, it was necessary to change the whole ceremony from the rear part of the airport, which was reserved for private jets, into the main part, which was completely exposed. From a security point of view, it was a nightmare. Additionally, on top of the assassination that had led to the death of one of the Sheikh’s men (and not just anyone, so he heard), one of his officers had reported to him a minute ago that the perpetrator had gotten away.

A break-out? In the middle of the night – just like that? Out of the city’s prison?

What made the situation even worse was that his men had not succeeded in getting a single word out of him, in spite of hours of interrogation yesterday. He knew his men had no conscience about abusing a prisoner a little bit harder if he asked for it. Ashraf had obviously been one of the tougher ones.

That scumbag! He would put him in his place eventually. This was his city and he estimated it would take no more than three days until the man would be in his grasp again. He already knew that the cousin – a small fat merchant named Ali – had been part of the game. He was going to find him as well. Soon.

He was just relieved that His Excellency had departed already. He was the last person he needed in his company right now. Just the thought that he would have had to report to him this bad news gave him the creeps.

But the good news was, that by the time he saw the Sheikh again, all would be resolved. Both men would be securely somewhere deep down in the basement of his prison. He was absolutely sure of that.

At that moment he could not even begin to know, that he was absolutely right about the time frame of three days before getting back the perpetrator. Only he had imagined it to be completely different.

When Ali was found later that day with a cut throat, the Colonel began to have a hunch that there was something very unusual about their break-out.