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Dr. Yes
By Lisa Cach
Dorchester Publishing
Copyright © 2003
Lisa CachAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-505-52518-6
Chapter One
Kathmandu, Nepal
"It's going to be hard to say good-bye," Fritz said in his
German accent, holding her hand and stroking its back.
"It always is," Rachel said, affecting her best Ingrid
Bergman, Casablanca stance. Fritz was a middle-aged member of
the tour group she had just led on a two-week trip through
Nepal: two weeks during which she had had to deflect his
frequent amorous advances without offending him.
This was the farewell party for her group of ten, held at a
noisy restaurant and jazz club that called itself New Orleans.
The restaurant served jambalaya and blackened catfish, a fact
that never failed to amuse her. Who would ever expect to find
Cajun food on the edge of the Himalaya?
Her group ate and drank at a table on a wide balcony, looking
down over the crowd of Western tourists in the open-air
portion of the restaurant. Strings of small lights drooped in
catenaries above them, but if she tilted her head back she
could see the real stars twinkling in the black night sky
above, barely dimmed by the low-voltage streetlamps of the
city. The stars reminded her of chilly nights with her father,
stumbling out onto the lawn in bathrobes and jackets to look
for meteors or the fuzzy blob of a comet. A wave of sadness
washed through her at the memory, bringing a sting of tears to
her eyes.
"A toast, to our leader!" lecherous Fritz declared, standing
with a glass of Chinese beer in his hand. "One more lovely, we
could never have hoped to have- pink hair, nose ring, and
all!"
Rachel lowered her gaze from the heavens and forced a smile,
just as she forced away thoughts of her father and mother.
"Nor one more resourceful!" a British girl added.
"Wily as a dingo," an Australian man said. "Like how she dealt
with that hotel manager in Pokhara. I thought he'd be offering
the rooms for free, when she got done with him."
Rachel smiled sincerely this time, as they all raised their
glasses and drank to her.
"Here's to a great group, with remarkable powers of
endurance," Rachel said, raising her own glass and feeling a
fleeting fondness for the lot of them. "Only three of you got
lost, eight ill, one bitten by a dog, and I give special
honors to Annette, for sitting with the goats on the bus from
Pokhara."
They laughed, and drank.
A touch of envy lay against her heart as she looked at her
tour group. They seemed so happy, so easy in each others'
company. So apart from her.
She tried to shake off the melancholy. On the bright side,
hanging out in Kathmandu nightclubs beat the grind of graduate
school, and at least she no longer had her nutflake older
sister Pamela lecturing her on how to live her life. She was
free to do as she wished, and to do it whenever, however,
wherever she wished. Curiosity, whims, and fancies were her
only commanders.
Her attention was caught by a waiter down below, pointing up
at her group. The remnants of her morose mood dissipated when
she saw Beti standing next to him, nodding. The small Nepalese
woman moved through the restaurant, headed for the stairs up
to their balcony.
Curious, Rachel excused herself from the group and went to
meet the woman at the bottom of the stairs. Beti was no more
than 4'10, slender as a child, but hidden inside that tiny
package was a wealth of knowledge and intelligence. She had an
advanced degree in history, and was a teacher, but the economy
of Nepal forced her to earn extra money as a local city guide.
Rachel had often hired her to lead walking tours of Kathmandu.
"Beti, what a surprise! Everyone will be so happy to see you
again."
"Forgive me if I do not go to say 'Hello.' It was you I came
to see," she said, unsmiling. Beti was naturally reserved, but
she and Rachel had built a small friendship over the year
Rachel had lived in Kathmandu. Her serious tone was
unexpected.
"What is it?" Rachel asked, a flutter of worry starting in her
chest. "Is something wrong? Has something happened?" There
were so many possibilities. A few years ago half the royal
family had been massacred. Maoist rebels routinely killed
members of the police and army. Bombs went off in the city,
organized strikes and marches sometimes led to violence in the
streets. It was rare for foreigners to get caught up in the
country's strife, but it was not unknown. She might have to
move her group back to the relative safety of the hotel,
quickly.
"Nothing has happened," Beti said, betraying now a trace of
tension in her voice, "but there is someone who needs your
help."
"What? My help? Who?" Rachel's disquiet went up a notch. As a
foreigner in a strange land, she was the one who usually asked
for assistance, from the locals.
"Can you come with me?" Beti asked.
"Do they need first aid? I left my supplies back at the
hotel."
"No, no, it is not so urgent as that." Beti's smile was small,
and she nervously pushed her glasses higher up the bridge of
her nose. "No one is bleeding, no broken bones."
Rachel hesitated, and glanced up the stairs towards her group.
She shouldn't leave them so early. They were still her
responsibility. "But you do need me right now?"
"Within the half hour?"
Rachel nodded. She could get away by then.
"The Nepalese Kitchen. We will be in the bar."
"We?" Rachel asked.
"You will come?"
Rachel nodded, more puzzled now than worried. She sensed Beti
did not want to be pushed further for details, though, so she
would have to hold her curiosity. Impatience never got you
anywhere in Nepal.
* * *
The narrow, dust-covered street was quiet outside the
centuries-old Newari house that was the home of the Nepalese
Kitchen. Lantern light flickered on either side of the wooden
door, and glowed orange from inside the upper windows,
persuading her for a moment that she had stepped back in time.
The facade of the building was red brick and dark wood, the
windows carved bays and grills that had graced the house for
hundreds of years.
Rachel stood for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of
motorcycles and cars, and the barking of a dog. There was
never silence in Kathmandu, and one learned to appreciate
different degrees of relative quiet in this city that was
struggling to find its place between the medieval and the
modern world.
The owner of the restaurant, Rajendra, greeted her from behind
the foyer desk as she entered. He was a handsome Nepalese man,
tall and broad-shouldered.
"Your friends are waiting for you upstairs," he said, coming
round the desk. He was gorgeous, his features more Asian than
Caucasian, his skin a perfect, poreless, warm-toned brown.
Rachel had been here many times, and considered seeing
Rajendra as big a lure as the food. He figured regularly in
her sex-starved fantasies. Pity he was married.
"It's only Beti that I know," Rachel said, letting him guide
her up the narrow, rickety wooden staircase. She knew better
than to say she could find her own way: Rajendra was nothing
if not courteous, and would insist upon escorting her. Who was
she to protest?
"Ahh," he said.
There was something to that "Ahh" that gave her pause. She
cast a look over her shoulder at him. He was smiling. "What is
it?" she asked. "Why do you look so amused?"
"I think your friend has plans for you."
"What sort of plans?" she asked, suspicious.
"Very nice ones."
"Everyone is being very mysterious tonight," Rachel muttered.
He only smiled, and gestured for her to continue up the
stairs. At the top landing she bent down and removed her
sandals, leaving them with the other shoes shoved against the
wall, noticing a pair of black men's dress shoes, expensive
and dust-free, set neatly amidst the worn, dirty footgear of
others.
The "bar" was an attic room, low tables scattered far apart,
cushions round them for customers to sit upon. She felt the
embrace of the warm light cast by the oil lamps, the dark wood
of the roof beams and lattice windows adding to the sense of
quiet, relaxed comfort. It was late in the evening, and only a
few tables yet had customers.
Rajendra led her to the far corner, his broad back blocking
her view until she was standing right in front of the table
where Beti sat ... with a man whose beauty made all thoughts of
Rajendra vanish from her lusting head.
Rachel stood and stared, gape-jawed, at the male anomaly who
was climbing to his feet, his hand held out to shake hers.
Where the hell had he come from? A European perfume ad? Good
God. He couldn't be human. He looked like he should be driving
a convertible down a seacoast highway with a long-haired
blonde in the seat beside him. He was even wearing a tuxedo,
for God's sake, the bow tie undone and hanging round his open
collar.
"Rachel Calais?" he said. "I'm Harrison Wiles. It's a pleasure
to meet you."
Rachel put her hand in his, still incapable of speech. Glossy
black hair, light brown skin, Caucasian features, tall, lithe,
graceful ... and he had a British accent, indecently seductive
when spoken in such a deep voice. His ancestry could have been
anything from Indian, to mixed Asian, Spanish, Italian, Arab,
or even a Frenchman with a tan.
His hand was warm and dry, engulfing hers. A faint scent of
cologne came off him, just enough that she wanted to lean
forward and breathe more deeply.
She saw his dark eyes quickly take in her pink hair and the
small gold disc on the side of her pierced nose, then come
back to meet her gaze. He was still smiling, but he couldn't
completely hide his dismay at her appearance.
He was the sexiest man she'd ever met, and she immediately
felt her own beauty lacking in comparison. Fluorescent hair
suddenly seemed gauche next to such practiced suavity. She
felt the heat of a blush burning her cheeks, then spreading up
over her forehead. A sick mixture of desire and inadequacy
made her gut churn.
Even in the soft lamplight Harrison Wiles would be unable to
miss her blush, and the knowledge embarrassed her anew. It
annoyed her, as well. She was already at a disadvantage,
without even speaking a word.
Wiles released her hand, and she looked away, feeling awkward
and at a loss for what to do with herself. Rajendra's familiar
voice broke into her dazed state.
"I will bring you your usual, yes?"
She looked at him, grateful, wishing that he could stay and be
her safety blanket. "Yes, please, the usual."
The amusement in Rajendra's eyes and the bare hint of a smile
at the corners of his mouth told her what he thought: that
Beti had brought this man as a prospective husband for Rachel.
Rachel widened her eyes at Rajendra, and shook her head.
He winked at her, a big, slow wink that he had learned from
his foreign customers, and that was as obvious as a drunk
elephant sitting on the table singing Madonna tunes. Her blush
deepened as he left her to her fate.
"Please, sit down," Wiles said, genial and at ease, and
gestured to the cushion across from where he had been sitting.
He went around to take his own place again, failing to look
silly without his shoes on.
He should have a hole in his sock. Lint on his pants.
Something. And for God's sake, he should button his shirt to
the top. Men like him shouldn't leave that hollow at the base
of the throat exposed. It was indecent.
Rachel glanced at Beti, looking for clues to what this was all
about, but the Nepalese woman was looking even more nervous
than before, refusing to meet Rachel's gaze and playing with
the edge of her glass of mineral water.
Rajendra hadn't been right, had he? This man could not be her
date. It would explain his faintly detectable disappointment
upon seeing her, though.
She sat down with a conscious effort at grace, folding her
legs neatly to the side, and arranging the long skirt of her
silk tunic in a smooth drape over her legs. This past year she
had taken to wearing shalwar kameez, the long tunic and loose
trouser outfit that was as popular in Nepal as the sari.
She would compose herself, and pay no attention to the
indecent good looks of Mr. Wiles. She may not have ever met
anyone as sexually appealing as he-was the man exuding some
unnatural level of pheromones?-but good looks did not a
superior man make.
"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Ms. Calais," he
said in his luscious accent. "Beti tells me you had to abandon
your tour group to do so."
"They'll manage to get toasted just fine without me," she
said, with a quick smile. "Most will probably even find the
hotel again. I doubt that more than two or three of the most
drunken ones will sleep on the streets tonight."
"Are you sure it is safe to leave them alone?" he asked with
concern.
She made a face. "I was kidding."
"I see." He didn't smile.
God's sake, did Mr. Gorgeous really take himself so seriously?
Maybe he was stupid. Yes! That would make her feel better.
A waiter appeared with Rachel's "usual," a bottle of Sprite.
He popped the top off the small green bottle and poured the
contents into a glass of ice, the three of them waiting
silently for him to finish and leave. Rachel pondered reaching
under the table to fondle Wiles's knee.
"So. What's this all about?" Rachel asked, smothering a giggle
as she imagined his look of shocked offense at a pawing hand.
She sipped from her glass to cover her grin, looking over the
rim at first Wiles, and then Beti.
Beti made a murmur in her throat, then sat up a bit
straighter. She glanced at Wiles, then at his nod turned again
to Rachel. "Before I begin, may I have your promise to keep
what is about to be said in confidence?"
What the-? She lowered her glass from her lips. This didn't
sound like the beginning of a romantic introduction. "Of
course." She hoped she wasn't about to hear about something
illegal.
"Thank you." Beti pushed her glasses up her nose and fixed her
gaze on Rachel. "We have a job for you. We need you to lead a
trek into the Himalaya, to search for the legendary city of
Yonam."
Rachel's lips parted as her eyes widened. She set her glass on
the table with a thud. "You what?"
She turned her gaze to Wiles, who appeared as serious as Beti.
"Is this your idea?" The man must be some species of rich
idiot, fancying himself a real-life Indiana Jones, chasing
after fairy tales. After Shangri-La.
"No. If I had my way, you wouldn't be involved at all," Wiles
said.
Rachel looked back at Beti, disbelief and confusion muddling
her brain.
Beti said, "What do you know about Yonam?"
"Just what you've told me in the past. It is a legendary city
in a hidden valley of the Himalaya, a paradise where beautiful
women cater to every wish and whim of the men. A chauvinist's
paradise, I should say." She glared at Wiles.
"Paradise for the men, but likely a hell for the women," he
said.
She tucked in her chin in surprise. It wasn't what she would
have expected him to say. Shouldn't he be smirking about what
a wonderful world that would be?
"What if Yonam were real?" Wiles went on. "And what if the
secret to the subservience of the women were a drug?"
"Then I should think that it was a very good thing that the
city was lost," Rachel said. "I certainly would not go
searching for it."
"Someone has already begun the search. And he not only knows
that the drug is real, but he has the knowledge and resources
to synthesize it, and bring it to the world marketplace.
You've probably heard of Rohypnol and GHB, the date-rape
drugs?"
Rachel nodded, her skin going cold.
"Victims of Rohypnol have no memory of what has happened to
them. Those who take GHB go unconscious. How much worse, do
you think, to be fully conscious, lucid, and an active
participant in one's own abuse? The drug takes away a woman's
ability to follow her own will. She becomes completely
subservient to the man who has drugged her."
"It only works on women?"
Beti answered. "As far as we know. And the woman is somehow
bound to the specific man who drugged her. We speculate that
it has something to do with his unique scent. When the drug
wears off she is herself again, but for as long as it is in
her system she has no will of her own, and is possessed by
strong sexual urges."
Rachel frowned at Beti. The woman's background was in history
and anthropology. How much could she know about the chemistry
of a drug? "When you say 'we,'" Rachel asked, "are you
speaking only of yourself and Mr. Wiles?"
"We are speaking of B.L.I.S.S.," Beti said.
"'Bliss?' What the hell is 'Bliss'?"
"It's an acronym for an international secret service
organization comprised almost entirely of women," Wiles
explained, without cracking a smile.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dr. Yes
by Lisa Cach
Copyright © 2003 by Lisa Cach.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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