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portfolio, zipped shut on one side. He looked Khaled straight in his dark eyes.
    “You know the history of our family, Khaled?”
    Khaled nodded.
    “Of course, Your Excellency,” he responded, using the most formal words he could find. He wasn’t sure where his uncle was leading with this, but he knew he had not been brought to the yacht on a whim. His uncle had a plan for him—had always had a plan for him. “A thousand years in the desert—”
    “Bedouins, nomads, wandering—and do you know how we survived for so long? Prospered, for so long?”
    Khaled looked at the sheik. It was hard to picture the man he had always known like this—resplendent in robes, embraced by the trappings of an unimaginable fortune—as the heir to one of the oldest Bedouin dynasties in the region.
    “We kept our eyes open,” the sheik continued, answering his own question. “And we saw when the sand was shifting.”
    He took a heavy breath, then handed the leather portfolio to Khaled.
    “The sand is shifting now, my nephew.”
    Khaled unzipped the portfolio and glanced inside. It was a letter of acceptance, an appointment to a position the sheik had obviously arranged for him. Khaled looked up from the portfolio, eyebrows raised—then nodded. If this was how his uncle felt he could best repay his debt, then he knew where he was headed next.
    He embraced the sheik again. Then he headed out of the parlor. The sun hit him full in the face as he rose back onto the deck. The bikinied girls were on their stomachs now, but still they smiled up at him as he passed. Khaled did his best to ignore them; his heart was pounding, and he could feel the tension rising in his chest. Anticipation .
    The sands were shifting, indeed. And his uncle was sending him directly into the center of that coming sandstorm.

Chapter 4
    S EPTEMBER 10, 2002
    I ’m sorry, David. He’s on his way to his son’s swim meet. But I’ll give him the message that you called, I promise. And thanks again for the flowers. You’re such a sweetheart.”
    David sighed to himself, the phone heavy against his ear. He rubbed his free hand against his bleary eyes.
    “No, Harriet, you’re the sweet one. I think I’ve spent more time this week talking to you than my girlfriend. But at least you still take my calls.”
    The woman on the other end of the line laughed. “Flowers today, chocolates yesterday, a photo of yourself on Wednesday with a box of freshly baked cookies—heck, David, you can call me for the next five years if you want. I just wish I had better news for you. But thank you again, and have a nice day.”
    David didn’t move the phone right away, even as the dial tone lashed out at his eardrum. This was getting ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. How long could Giovanni keep avoiding him? Seven days of phone calls—sometimes five, six times a day—and the furthest he had gotten was Harriet Farelli, Giovanni’s pleasant if a bit matronly-sounding secretary. And David had tried everything.First he’d sent résumés, references, transcripts. Then he’d moved on to the flowers and chocolates, resolved to at least win over Harriet, keeper of the phone, if he couldn’t get to Giovanni himself. But now he was beginning to lose hope. Maybe he could get away with bothering Harriet for a few more days, but sooner or later someone at Merrill was going to wonder why he kept making these trips to the shared office attached to the firm’s main library. And he certainly couldn’t have made these calls from his cubicle up on the eighth floor. Not only didn’t he have a door upstairs, he didn’t really have walls or even much of a desk either. Just a chair, a computer, and a phone in full view of the thirty-five other first-year Merrill slaves—and worse yet, his cubicle was just a few yards away from the open-door office of his tight-ass thirty-year-old boss, who would have loved nothing more than to make an example of David in the first week to scare the hell out of