Sleeper 13 by Rob Sinclair

Author:Rob Sinclair [Sinclair, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409175940
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2018-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

Rome, Italy

Obbadi dragged open his eyelids. His head was pounding, a horrific stabbing pain right between his eyes. He fought through it, his lids doing their best to shut, but Obbadi eventually won the battle for control.

He realised he was on the sofa. In his lounge. He lifted his hand up to look at his Patek Philippe watch. It wasn’t there, and instead he was left looking at the ring of lighter skin around his wrist. He tried to sit up, but only managed to get halfway before he gave up because of the throbbing in his head. His eyes shifted over to the windows. The blinds were closed. He could tell from the dark outline around them that it was nighttime outside.

Then he heard a noise in the kitchen that sent a wave of clarity over him. He looked over and spotted Katja, who was hunched over as she searched through a drawer.

Obbadi shot up from the sofa.

‘What are you doing?’ he said, more a statement of warning than a polite question. Katja bolted upright and spun round, the base of her spine smacking off the open drawer she was standing by. Obbadi saw her fight through the pain as she gently closed the drawer behind her.

‘Honey, you’re awake,’ she said, sounding both surprised and concerned.

She moved towards him and Obbadi, as much as he was fighting to keep his weary mind focused, had to put a hand up to his head and press against his temple to try and ease the thumping pain. As she came closer Obbadi could see she was looking rattled.

‘What were you doing?’ he asked.

‘Just putting things away.’

A clear lie.

She was wearing a long black dress, silver earrings and necklace with a drop pendant that ended in her pushed-up cleavage. Formal wear, for her. His brain began firing as he recalled. He looked down and saw his own clothes; black trousers, white dress shirt.

‘You said you were feeling sick,’ Katja said, answering one of the questions he was asking himself.

‘The ambassador’s dinner,’ Obbadi said as the memories began to take shape. After the recce with Arab’ah in England he’d headed straight back to Rome for the event. He had to keep up appearances after all.

‘I don’t know if it’s something you ate or if . . . well, it’s not like you drank too much, is it?’

Obbadi stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on, and looking for any deceit in her eyes. Was it just tiredness from all the recent travel catching up with him?

Shit. Bruges. He realised he still didn’t know how that had panned out. The last he’d known, Itnashar had been trying to lure Talatashar into a trap. When he and Katja had headed to dinner Obbadi had still been waiting on confirmation of how that had turned out. In this case he firmly believed no news was likely very bad news.

‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘About midnight.’

‘We came home early?’

‘I practically had to carry you out of there.

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