Read Darkness at Dawn for Free Online Page A

the capital of Nhala, a small Himalayan kingdom, vividly bright against the snowy backdrop. The monitor was so large that it was able to take in the Palace in one view. Lucy knew how huge the Palace was, perched up on the level plain of an enormous outcropping that had been carved out of the face of the rock a thousand generations ago.
    The Palace was one of the largest buildings in the world, essentially a small city, and she knew every inch of it. The last time she’d seen it, it had been up in flames, devouring the corpses of her mother and father.
    She couldn’t do this. She’d spent her life running away from this. She simply couldn’t do it.
    “Sir,” Soldier Boy said, sounding anything but respectful. “That’s the Palace in Chilongo, which at the moment is veering toward military rule. Rumor has it that the king is sick, maybe dying, and the country is in the hands of General Dan Changa, who makes Robert Mugabe look reasonable. The streets are patrolled by soldiers day and night, and there’s talk of a coup. Chilongo is at five thousand feet, and your agent was probably at eight thousand feet, an altitude that requires acclimatization and training. A mission to retrieve information your agent might have had would be risky for well-trained soldiers, but it is a suicide mission if I have to go in with a woman who probably requires a weekly manicure and can’t handle a weapon. Even if she does have a doctorate in political science or immunology or whatever. Sir.”
    Well. The man needed to be put in his place. Lucy leaned forward into her microphone. “Pedicure, too, Captain Shafer.”
    The captain turned a blank look her way. “What?”
    “Not only do I require a weekly manicure but I also require a monthly pedicure. And I go to the hairdresser twice a week. However”—she lifted her lips in what was meant to be a smile but was really a snarl—“I am a crack shot. I will pit myself against you at any moment on the firing range. And for the record, my doctorate isn’t in political science or immunology. It’s in art history.”
    “Children.” Uncle Edwin raised his hands. “We’re in the middle of a national security crisis and I don’t have time for pissing contests.” He quelled both of them with a grim look. “So settle down.”
    Lucy sat back, biting her lips against the pressing urge to say but he started it .
    “Lucy,” Uncle Edwin said, turning to her. “My agent died twenty miles from the Palace in Chilongo. And the two agents we sent in before him disappeared. In his last message, he said he’d left some proof with someone in the Palace in case something happened to him. The Palace is closed to visitors. We need for you to go back.” He stopped, as if—totally uncharacteristically—he didn’t know what to say next. But then he did, because Uncle Edwin always knew what to say next. “Your country needs you,” he added softly.
    Lucy winced. God. She took in a deep breath and put her shaking hands in her lap where no one could see them, particularly not that snake eater across the table from her, looking at her so critically. So okay, she was not a soldier like he was.
    She’d been put in enough danger for a lifetime throughout her childhood. So she liked to live safely and comfortably.
    So what?
    And yet—her country needed her.
    If the man had died in Nhala and they needed to go in, it was entirely conceivable that she was the only American alive with an entrée into the Palace, which in the last ten years had become more and more closed off to the world, as had the country itself. Nowadays, you could only visit Nhala on a strictly planned, government-organized tour, and it cost ten thousand dollars for a visa and a down payment to the Tourism Board.
    Uncle Edwin touched her lightly on the shoulder, pressed a button on the remote control of the giant monitor. “You got an email from Princess Paso.”
    Lucy’s heart stuttered. Paso, her childhood friend. Paso, who had