The Illumination Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t—know—What eye—?”
    Agony ripped through her cheek as he backhanded her, the metal setting on his ring tearing her skin.
    â€œDon’t lie to me,
sharmuta
! I know you have it—so
where is it
?”
    Tears streamed down Dana’s bleeding face as she scooted back toward the window.
What . . . is he . . . talking about? He’s in the wrong room. If I can . . . just get to . . . my phone.
. . .
    â€œMis . . . take,” she gasped. “You’ve made a mistake. I . . . I don’t have anything you want—”
    He lunged toward her, and fear clogged the scream in her throat. His thick fingers closed around the
hamsa
necklace that had tumbled from her fingers and landed near her feet.
    â€œLike this!” He shoved the
hamsa
charm in her face, showing her the eye emblazoned in its cloisonné center. “The Eye! You have one like this—I want it! Now!”
    That pouch . . . the pendant,
Dana thought in shock.
That piece of . . . junk I sent Natalie?
She tried to speak calmly, in the dulcet TV voice viewers had come to respect, but her words were a croak.
    â€œIt’s gone. I . . . don’t have it anymore—”
    â€œLiar!
Sharmuta
!” He belted her again, cracking open her lower lip.
    Dana’s vision doubled. One of her teeth was lying against her tongue. She didn’t have the strength to spit it out. She had to get up, away, but she was too dizzy even to stand.
    She started to scream then, as loud as she could, screaming in terror, screaming for help.
    Her voice reverberated through the room like the shrieks of a scalded cat.
    Yusef’s fists clenched. The only thing he wanted to hear out of her was where she’d hidden the Eye. It wasn’t in this room,
that
he knew. Did she have an accomplice? She’d tell everything before he was done. Overwhelming pain was a great motivator. Soon she’d be begging for the chance to tell him where it was.
    He lifted her easily, as though she was a hollow mannequin, and threw her across the room. But she was slender and he overestimated his strength against her slightness. Instead oflanding on the bed, she slammed into the dresser, her head hitting the sharp edge with a crack.
    Silence circled the room.
    Yusef hurried toward her. She wasn’t screaming. Wasn’t moving. She was out cold.
    Cold water will take care of that.
    But as he rounded the bed, he could see the impossible angle of her chin, and the blood pouring from her ear.
    She wasn’t going to be waking up.
    Fury and frustration surged through his chest. And so did a spurt of fear.
The anger of Aslam Hameed will be uncontrollable. But it will pale in comparison to the fury of Hasan Sabouri.
    He broke into a sweat thinking of the powerful Iranian with the ice blue eyes. The evil eyes. Hasan Sabouri had killed his own mother, and countless others, with just his glance. What would happen when he learned of this failure to secure the Eye of Dawn?
    His stomach contracted.
I let my zeal get in the way. How could I have been so careless?
    Still clenching the dead woman’s silver chain and its jeweled charm in his fist, Yusef fled the room as quietly as he’d entered it, leaving the tiny American journalist with her blood soaking the tangled strands of her blond hair.

6
The White House
    Â 
    Â 
    Secretary of Defense Jackson Wright scowled as he barreled into the Oval Office. President Owen Garrett threw down his pen and rubbed the fatigue from his eyes.
    The commander-in-chief’s campaign-perfect mahogany hair was newly peppered with wiry gray that glinted in the sunlight from the windows behind him.
    Only two and a half years in office, and already Garrett was looking a decade older than his forty-nine years. Presidents aged quickly in this twenty-first century, marked as it was by worldwide terrorism, sectarian war, Islamic jihadism, and the