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They were at the cave’s entrance, blinded by the sunlight, barely able to see the beat-up Jeep that pulled up to the level area on the hillside before them. It came to a halt between the two trucks, which had their engines idling.
A man in full tribal wear, including a soiled headdress, got out. A moment passed before she recognized him.
“Husam.” The name slipped from her mouth, and a cold shiver ran down her spine as the smugglers nodded to him respectfully.
Although he was too far away to have heard her, the man’s eyes zeroed in on her in the next second.
His face twisted into a frightful smile as he strode toward them. “You are alive,” he said to her with a wide smile. “I had to come and see.”
Tariq spoke rapidly and forcefully in Arabic, lurching forward, but the man behind him held him back. Husam sneered at him and pointed at her, switching to Arabic. One of the older men with the bandits came over, listened to Husam for a while. Tariq was still speaking, as well. She couldn’t understand a word, but from the tone of his voice it sounded like he was alternately threatening and protesting.
The bandit leader shrugged and pulled a curved knife from the sheath on his belt. She shrunk back as he aimed it at her, but he ended up slicing the ropes that tied her to Tariq, instead of slicing into her, as she’d half expected.
Then Husam grabbed her arm, and the gleam in his beady dark eyes left little doubt about his intentions toward her. “I never wanted to do you harm. I meant to save your life. From the moment I saw you, I knew you were a gift.” The look he gave her made it clear that he expected her gratitude.
“Let me go!” She struggled against him.
He seemed confused. “I’m offering you life.” The smile was fading from his face at her resistance.
“You knew that the cars would be attacked.”
“I knew our people would be in the same place that afternoon. I joined you to make sure you were spared.” He sounded angry now at her lack of gratitude.
“Let me go.”
“You will appreciate the honor of being chosen by me. You will respect me,” he warned.
She tried to elbow him in his chest, but underestimated the strength of his grip. He slowed his stride enough to backhand her, hard, across the face. She tasted blood and heard Tariq roar behind her.
Then so many things happened at once that she couldn’t untangle the sequence of events, not even later, when she had time to think about it.
There came a number of shouts, then a sickening thud, and Husam let go, falling face-first into the sand next to her, a dagger protruding from his back. Where had Tariq gotten that? At the same time, gunfire sounded, bullets slamming into the ground all around them. She sprinted forward on reflex, threw herself onto her stomach and slid under the Jeep for cover.
As soon as she was out of sight, she was out of mind, as well. Nobody came after her. Obviously, nobody considered her a threat. She watched with horror as the bandits focused on Tariq, who had drawn back into the cover of the cave, having somehow laid his hands on an AK-47.
The bandit leader and the young guy who’d brought them from the cave lay crumpled on the sand, and more bandits were falling by the second, Tariq’s aim proving to be exceedingly accurate.
The rest of the bandits were lying flat on their stomachs among the rocks, some backing away toward the trucks. Then one appeared in the back of one of the vehicles, with a sinister looking weapon on his shoulder.
A handheld rocket launcher. She hadn’t watched all those action flicks on late-night TV for nothing. The man aimed it straight at the cave’s opening.
She rolled to the other side of the Jeep and came up to a crouch, slid behind the steering wheel. Nobody heard the motor rev over the din of gunfire. She floored the gas pedal and went after her target, who didn’t notice her until too late.
He had time only for a horrified look as he turned the weapon on her. He couldn’t fire, however. The next second the force of the collision knocked him clear off the truck bed.
Sara was stunned for a moment or two, having hit her head pretty hard on the steering wheel. Her vision clouded. She rubbed her eyes, the back of her hand coming away bloody. She reached up and touched her fingers to a gash in her forehead, brushed off shards of glass from the broken windshield. Then spotted the guy’s rifle on the hood, which was crumpled under the truck’s tailgate.
She stretched forward and grabbed the weapon just as the man finally picked himself up from the ground—looking as stunned as she felt—and lunged for her. She pulled the trigger without thinking, feeling more surprise than anything when red bloomed on his camouflage shirt, and he crumpled to the ground, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a shout that got forever stuck in his throat.
She didn’t have time to think about him.
She whipped back to the battle behind her and squeezed the trigger again. Moving the rifle back and forth in a sweeping motion, she pointed in the general direction of the bandits, her index finger frozen to the trigger until the last bullet was spent from the curved magazine, and for seconds after that.
When Tariq came up to her, with his arm bleeding again, but no sign of new injury, he had to pry the gun from her hands.
“Easy now. It’s okay. It’s over. You saved us.” He drew her into his arms and held her as sobs broke free from someplace deep inside and shook her body.
She was a strong woman who prided herself on never falling apart, no matter the circumstances. Well, now she was falling apart spectacularly, and she didn’t care. The events of the past few days, especially the past few minutes, had taxed her beyond bearing. If Tariq hadn’t been holding her up, she would have fallen.
But he was holding her, his strong arms around her, his lips on her hair, murmuring gentle words of encouragement.
She was sobbing.
“It’s okay. It’s over. I’m going to get you some water. Why don’t you sit?” He was gentle and attentive, looking at her with concern.
“I thought we would die.” Her voice sounded strangely weak. “But I—” She couldn’t finish.
“I remember something my father told me after a battle when I was a child, although I didn’t understand it then. He said for a warrior with a heart, the worst isn’t the threat of dying, it’s the taking of another life, no matter how unworthy the person is of living.” Tariq rested his forehead against hers. “You are a warrior with a heart.”
He overestimated her. She was no warrior, no lioness. She pulled away and sat on a rock ledge, watched him walk away after a moment. She’d managed to regain some measure of self-control by the time he returned, his bloody, shredded clothes replaced by a clean set of traditional pants and robe.
“We’d better get out of here.” He handed her a heavy canteen, then bent to brush shards of glass from her hair while she drank.
“Somebody will come looking for Husam and the trucks sooner or later.”
She handed back the canteen as she stood. They were in this together; she couldn’t expect him to lead her around like some invalid. She drew a deep breath, filling her lungs. “What do you want me to do?”
“You could go back to the cave and rest while I pack for the road.”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t think so, but I had to try.” He gave her a half smile. “Okay. You can gather supplies if you’re up to it. Food, water, blankets, weapons. See if you can find that satellite phone they took from you.”
She nodded and set off, her gait unstable at first before she found sure footing. As she walked around the carnage, she did her best not to look at the dead. Tariq was trying to back the Jeep away from the truck, but the motor wouldn’t turn over.
“Can you fix it?” she shouted, before her attention was drawn to the rocks and the remains of a phone that had been reduced to slivers of black plastic. It had either met with a stray bullet or a hard-heeled boot during the fight. She lifted it and dangled some wires for Tariq to see. “I don’t suppose this can be fixed.”
He shook his head. “The engine looks busted, too.”
“The trucks?” She nodded toward them.
“Probably equipped with locators. Their cargo would be worth over a million dollars on the open market. Whoever owns them isn’t going to let them run around the desert without being able to keep track of his goods.”
An otherworldly laugh sounded from somewhere below them on the hillside. She started before she recognized it. “The hyena.” It had followed her all this way. A shiver ran down her spine. “Are we stuck here?”
But Tariq nodded toward the camel, which was tied to a rock in the shade. The guard she had enticed outside with some odd sounds, so that she could sneak in, must have found it and led it there. She hadn’t even noticed it until now.
“When you’re done gathering supplies, why don’t you give it some water to drink?” Tariq said. He grabbed the bandit closest to him and dragged the body into the cave, then the next, and the next. When he was done, he came for the camel and led it a good distance away. “Hold it here.”
He walked back to the Jeep and came up with the rocket launcher, aiming toward the cave. The explosion blocked up the entrance, sealing in the dead.
Then he dropped that weapon and picked up an AK-47, heading down the hillside. “Stay here.”
Soon, he was out of view of the ledge she was standing on. She heard the sound of a single shot, and a few minutes later Tariq reappeared. “If anything happens to me, I didn’t want the hyena bothering you again.”
He seemed winded. Odd for Tariq. She searched his face and noticed that he was paler than usual. Just how badly injured was he?
“Would you hold this?” She handed him the camel’s reins, making sure to put them in his right hand. Not giving him a chance to protest, she reached for his other sleeve and ripped it to his shoulder, then gasped at the sight.
The bullet hole was infected, the welts an angry red, nearly black. He had to have a fever. She placed her hand against his forehead, and his fiery skin confirmed her suspicions. Sleeping against him, she had thought he’d felt hot because he’d been so close to the fire. But he was in much worse shape than he let show, probably walking by sheer will alone.
“How about your leg?” The thought of the merciless torture she had caught glimpses of when she’d found him sickened her.
“It’s fine.” He tried to hold his shirtsleeve together over his arm as he scowled at her.
“I should take a look.”
“What’s the point? There’s nothing we can do about it right now.”
They had a brief staring contest. Then he pulled up his loose pant leg. “We don’t have time to argue about this.”
She took in the half-dozen raw wounds on his tanned skin, the muscles in his thigh tightening as he bent to examine the damage. She could have wept for him. He had to be in pain, but nothing save the tight set of his lips showed it.
“Your brother will find us,” she said, because they both needed hope, and she could offer no other encouragement. Tariq needed medical help.
“When did you talk to him last?”
“When I reached the cave. I described the hills to him.”
“There are many hills here and hundreds of caves. They might have been setting a trap for him. I overheard them discussing him when I was going for the trucks yesterday.”
“But I’d just talked to him.”
Tariq glanced at the rocket launcher, and she knew what he was thinking. One of those could easily take a chopper out of the sky.
It would have been nice to catch a break somewhere. Just a single one. And who knew … She refused to give up hope. Which didn’t mean she wasn’t going to act as if they had nobody to count on but themselves.
She reached for the saddlebag on the camel and pulled out two headdresses. She wet one from the flask and wrapped it around Tariq’s head, hoping to control his fever somewhat. The other she ripped into pieces, then wrapped around his wounds, once she’d washed them clean. Not nearly enough. He needed disinfectant, antibiotics and several stitches.
Frustration clamped her jaw tight as she stood and took the reins from him. She tugged on them, hard, until the camel knelt in the sand. Then she climbed up, making sure she would be in back, in case Tariq needed an arm around his waist to keep him from falling off.
He headed for the trucks first, however, and did something around the gas tanks. Soon both vehicles were engulfed in flames, along with their sinister cargo.
“We’d better go,” he said as he hurried back. “Before they explode.”
His robe fluttered behind him. In his traditional desert clothing, he looked a lot more like the sheiks of old than ever before.
“Where are we going?” she asked, when he slid into the saddle in front of her and took the reins.
“We are going to try and find the nomadic families of my tribe,” he said, his voice not revealing weakness. But she caught a shiver that ran through him. “You are about to meet the Bedu.”
They were several hundred feet away when the fire reached the gas tanks and twin explosions shook the air. If Karim was anywhere near, he would hear that, would see the smoke, which might act as a guide.
Of course, the same was true for their enemies.
She looked out at the endless hills to her left and the equally barren desert to her right. What were the chances that they would run across a small, wandering group of camel herders before their enemies found them, or before their water ran out? Or before Tariq fell unconscious from blood poisoning?
Chapter Eight
Tariq clung to life by sheer will alone, his head buzzing, his arm feeling as if it were on fire. His vision was dark and fuzzy, his ears popping.
“You okay?” he asked Sara, as he had done intermittently.
“Fine.” She humored him. She probably knew there was nothing he could do if she weren’t.
He wasn’t going to find the Bedu. All he knew was the general direction of the places they camped. There weren’t many areas where there was still enough grass to support the herds. He had pointed the camel that way and left the rest to Allah and luck, although it looked like both had deserted him.
“We’ll stop soon.” He hoped. The grazing grounds couldn’t be too far off now.
If he couldn’t get her to camp, at least he had to get Sara to a place where his tribe might find her, to one of the watering holes they regularly visited. Only one goal remained in his fevered mind—to save her. She could then warn his brother.
They were crossing a semiarid area that supported some vegetation, although sparse—a few scraggly bushes here and there, some yellowing grass. The breeze blew garbage around them, and he swore.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.
He gestured, his anger giving him extra strength. “People who dump their refuse in the desert. It chokes what few plants live here. When they die, the sand takes over. The desert becomes even hotter, with less rain. See?” He pointed. “We are in an indentation here. In the rainy season, water will gather and create a watering hole. The Bedu will come, unaware of the garbage rotting under it, and let their animals drink. There’ll be disease.”
She had her arms around him from behind, and now hugged him a little tighter. “When I researched MMPOIL’s Web site, I saw that part about the desert preservation project.”
“Yeah, that went over well.” If he had any extra energy he would have laughed. “The Middle East is still a far cry from California, as far as environmental awareness goes.” But he was working on it. He’d seen both good and bad things while he had lived in the U.S. He was working on bringing the former into his own country as much as he could.
They rode on silently for a while.
He was getting weaker as time passed, and hating it. Abandoning appearances, he finally let his body lean against the camel’s hump, barely able to support himself. He needed to preserve what little strength he had left.
“Why did they torture you?” she asked.
“They think I have the previous king’s gold, because I’m his half brother and sheik of the tribe.”
“And you don’t?”
“There is no gold. Majid amassed a fortune, but he wasted it as fast as he stole it. He spent insane amounts on luxuries, on building his army, on bribing people inside the country and out.”
“So it’s a myth?”
“It’s becoming a legend. Even some people in our own tribe believe it. Majid used to hand money out to them to ensure their loyalty. They miss that. Some think I have access to vast treasures, and I’m just too greedy and want it for myself.”
Loyalty disappeared faster than a drop of water in the desert when speculation about a secret hoard of gold bars and other treasures became the focus of conversation. That’s why he saw Sara’s loyalty as the true treasure and felt humbled that she would give it to him.
