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“Let’s go.”
Her wrist was caught in a band of steel that pulled her forward.
“Did they see you?” she whispered, hurrying to keep up with him.
“The hyena paid them a visit. I shouldn’t have left you here.” His voice was taut with intensity.
He picked a different path than the one they’d taken to get here, keeping in the cover of buildings and out of sight of the men, who were still milling about outside.
“Who are they?” she asked, struggling through the soft sand, which sucked at her feet with every step.
“Drug runners.”
“How many?” She hadn’t been able to see in the darkness.
“About two dozen. Well-armed.” Instead of taking her back to the villa where they’d spent the night, he was walking toward the structure that housed the Hummer.
She glanced at the sky before they stepped inside. How long before morning? How much time did they have left in the relative safety of darkness? Couldn’t be more than an hour or two. She tried to glance at his watch, but couldn’t make out the dial.
“You think the bandits will find us once it’s light outside?”
“They might.” He let her go at last, and walked to the vehicle. “They could pile back on their trucks and drive out without ever looking around. Or they could be here for a couple of days, waiting for the handover of the drugs, if it’s been arranged for this location. If they wander around, they’ll see the trailer doors I busted. I think they come here often. They would notice the missing wood that we took for the windows. If that happens, they’ll come looking for clues as to who was here.”
She glanced at the Hummer. Even if the two of them could successfully hide, they couldn’t hide the car. And if the smugglers took it … God, she didn’t want to be stranded in the middle of the desert.
Tariq reached into his shirt, and only now did she notice the bulge there. She could have kissed him when he pulled out a satellite phone. Okay, she could have kissed him without much provocation at any time, but she was extremely relieved to see the phone.
He was dialing already. Then he spoke in rushed Arabic, before stopping to listen to the response from the other end. It couldn’t have been good news. His face turned darker and darker, his free hand fisting at his side. He barked several questions, scowling fiercely as he hung up.
He set the phone on the Hummer’s hood, then leaned against the car and rubbed his hands over his face. Then he swore. Heartily. In English.
When he was done, he looked at her and apologized.
“What is it?” Her heart clamored. Although she hadn’t understood a word of the conversation, she knew something was seriously wrong.
“My brother Aziz was killed,” he said. “The new well was blown up yesterday. Nobody survived.”
“The well we were going to?” She felt light-headed and decided to sit down.
He nodded, a stony expression on his face. “The fires are still burning. Emergency crews are trying to put them out and cap the well again. My brother Karim is coming with a chopper. I told him where we are.”
He picked up the tire iron he’d dropped as they’d come in, and she knew he was considering going back to fight those bandits, to find out if they knew anything about this, to take out his rage on someone.
But he wouldn’t stand a chance. She needed to distract him until he calmed down a little. She couldn’t begin to imagine what losing a sibling would feel like, but she had lost her mother at an early age, then more recently her father. She could understand the rage.
She stood and walked to him, placed a comforting hand over the one that held their sole weapon. “I’m sorry.” She stepped closer and laid her head against his chest. She could hear his heart beating madly beneath her ear. “Were you close?”
He nodded, then began talking with some reluctance. “When I was a child in the U.S., I lived with distant relations of my mother. Their sons were older, and didn’t much like the intruder they considered me. I spent a lot of time being ganged up on, or alone. I always thought of myself as the piece that didn’t belong, fantasized about my real family, how it would be when I returned. Perfect.” He gave a sour chuckle. “Then, after a while, I grew up and forgot that I’d ever wanted to come back. I suppose I was angry.”
“At your family, for sending you away?”
“Yes. My mother said she wanted to save me from danger, but she kept my twin brothers, who were born just before I was exiled. Only they didn’t call it that. Everyone said I was going to America to get a Western education. My father had sons from other wives. He could afford to send me far away to see if I learned anything useful to bring back to him. As a child, I was often dejected. Then over the years, teenage angst was added on top of that, and I convinced myself I didn’t care. And later I made a life for myself separate from my family.”
“What brought you back?”
“A call for help.” He drew a slow breath. “I thought myself so separate from them, but a call was all it took. My family and my people needed me. They needed someone to take over the company, someone who knew how to lead a large business the Western way, who could negotiate on the same level with the foreigners who poured into the country to make investments. I had this fantasy that everything would be perfect now. I’d be where I’d always belonged. It didn’t last long.”
“This place is so different from the U.S.” She could understand how someone who had lived decades away from it would have a hard time trying to fit back in.
“The same men who wanted me for my business skills didn’t trust me, viewed me as a foreigner. I wasn’t a perfect puzzle piece. I stood out. My own people didn’t trust me, because I’d been away for so long. People outside the tribe didn’t trust me, because I was half brother to the former king, Majid. The only thing that worked was my brothers.”
“They accepted you.”
“Without reservation. Despite the fact that, aside from a few brief visits, they didn’t know me at all. We were strangers, but bound by blood, and that proved to be stronger than I could ever have imagined.” Pain crept into his voice.
“You think this was an attack on your family?” He had told her other men among his relations had been killed before. In a subconscious gesture, she laid a hand on his forearm.
“It’s possible.” He dropped the tire iron and wrapped his arms tightly around her, buried his face in her hair. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m going to make sure that you’re safe.”
“Take me to safety then.” Sara had a fair idea that he had other plans—plans that would put his life at serious and immediate risk.
“Karim is coming for you. He’ll make sure you get to the embassy and acquire new papers. He will guard you until you leave the country.”
Tariq was going to stay and fight, do whatever it took to gain information about the attacks.
“Come with me.” She drew back so she could look into his dark eyes, her heart aching at the raw pain in them.
“I cannot.”
And she knew that no matter what she said, he wouldn’t.
“Isn’t Karim’s coming here dangerous?” she asked. “The bandits have guns. They could take down a chopper.”
“He’ll pick you up two miles north of here. I’ll take you there.” Tariq pulled away reluctantly. “When I was out scouting yesterday, I found some oil they’d had on hand for the machinery during construction. I should be able to plug the hole in the oil pan and fill it up. Even if it leaks a little, we should be able to get to our rendezvous point.”
“And then you’ll come back here?”
He nodded.
“What about the authorities?”
He opened the hood. “My half brother was not a good king,” he said darkly. “Half the people in the current government spent time in his infamous prisons. He didn’t shy away from torturing political prisoners. People in power are not fond of my family. I don’t trust the authorities.”
“You’re not your half brother,” she said as he dropped down and crawled under the car.
He pulled himself out after a minute and searched around for several slivers of wood. He grabbed the tire iron, too. “The Tihrin chief of police lost his right leg in Majid’s torture chambers. He is not going to do anyone in my family any favors,” he said, back under the car again. His voice was filled with frustration.
He banged on something. Stopped.
“Do you have anything I can wrap around the iron so it’ll make less noise?” he called.
She stripped off her suit coat and passed it to him. The muted sound was a lot quieter. Hopefully, it wouldn’t carry as far as the smugglers.
He was done in a couple of minutes and crawled out, handing her back her jacket. Then he brought an earthenware jar filled with oil from the rear of the Hummer. When had he put that there? Probably when he’d been scouring the site for the satellite dish and carrying in water for their bath.
He filled up the oil pan, checked the level, then closed the hood. “Let’s get some water, then head out of here.”
She moved toward the door, stopping to look around before she stepped out. No one was in sight, except the camel, which was licking a discarded brick about two hundred feet ahead. Nobody said camels were smart.
She and Tariq moved quickly between the buildings without talking. He was carrying the tire iron again. Dawn was breaching the horizon. As soon as daylight arrived and the bandits could look around the construction sight, they would notice the boarded up windows and come searching.
“I need to go back to the trucks,” Tariq said once they were inside the villa. “I need a gun. I almost had it when the hyena came in, and then they were all awake, every gun in hand.”
“You got out. Don’t you think that’s enough of a feat? You can get a gun from your brother.”
“We’ll need one before that. No matter how quietly we move, there’s a chance that they’ll hear. I want to be able to defend you. And if I could find a knife and slice their tires, they couldn’t follow us at all.”
And as an added bonus, the smugglers couldn’t leave before he got back. That was part of his plan, too, no doubt. She stared at him, slack-jawed. “This is insane. You know that, right?”
“Most of them should be asleep again by now.” He shrugged. “They came in late last night.” He held her gaze, his mind obviously made up.
The only thing she could do was help. “What can I do?”
“Get the water to the Hummer and wait there. If anything goes wrong, drive north.” He pointed to show her which direction he meant. “As fast as you can. Even if you miss the meeting point, Karim will find you from the air.”
He meant if they killed him. Sara’s blood ran cold at the thought.
“You’ll make it,” he said in a reassuring tone.
She didn’t want to think about having to make it through the desert without him. She didn’t want to think of him dead. He was little more than a stranger, but he had saved her life. And there was some undeniable connection between them, a zing of electricity that she couldn’t begin to comprehend. She cared about him, felt as if she knew him, a lot more than she would have thought possible, given the short time they’d spent together. Of course, she’d seen him tested more than once, watched him endure incredible hardship. That had revealed his character and strength more than several months’ worth of a casual relationship would have.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” she said.
“Not if I can help it.” He came back to her and drew her into his arms. “I’m going to find you when this is over.”
His head dipped slowly toward her. He was giving her plenty of time to pull away from the kiss. She rose to meet him instead. He didn’t waste time with being tentative. He kissed her with full passion and need, taking her breath away.
Through the mist that obscured all coherent thought in her mind, three things became increasingly clear. One: Tariq was a man like no other she had ever met, and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted another. Two: they would be lucky if either of them lived through this. And three: life was incredibly unfair. They could have met while he’d lived in California. She went to California on business all the time.
I will find you when this is over. Considering the kind of man he was, she believed that nothing but death could keep him from that promise. She clung to him, aware of the precarious nature of their situation, of the fact that he was injured, of the incredible odds.
She fisted her hands in his shirt and kissed him as if it was the last time they would be together. He kissed her back with the same desperate need.
And would have kept kissing him, but a small sound outside penetrated the haze of pleasure in her mind.
She froze.
Chapter Six
The sound came again. Tariq listened, reluctant to end the kiss. Probably just the hyena coming to try its luck again. The damn beast was nothing if not persistent. Tariq had the tire iron somewhere at their feet. He figured he had another second or two of savoring Sara before he had to pull away and chase the stupid animal off again.
But with Sara in his arms, he couldn’t spare much thought for anything else. He wanted to protect her himself, and not trust her to Karim, even though he would trust his brother with his own life.
“Who the hell’s been out here?” a heavily rasping voice said in Arabic, just outside the villa.
Sara froze in his arms. Tariq held his breath.
“Probably some camel herd. Better look around,” another man grumbled.
They had about a second to hide. Tariq pushed Sara to the sand and draped a blanket over her, kicked sand over it, then dropped to the ground and wiggled in next to her. He barely had time to pull the satellite phone and the tire iron with him before the men came in.
SARA LAY WITHOUT MOVING, barely daring to breathe. Bandits scourged the villa, walking not a foot or two from them on occasion. If it weren’t for Tariq’s calm, solid presence next to her, and his restraining hand on her arm, she would have freaked out and betrayed herself a hundred times by now. She inhaled his masculine scent and soaked up the comfort of his strong, lean body, which he kept like a shield in front of her.
The men were talking excitedly in Arabic. She wanted to ask Tariq what they were saying, but would have to wait until they were alone again. The arm she was lying on went numb, but she didn’t move. If anyone was looking their way, the slightest shifting of the blanket would betray that someone was hiding beneath. How long could they hold out?
Not long, it seemed. The following moment something hard connected with her shoulder. She didn’t think she made a sound, but she must have, because someone yelled, a single shrill word. The next few seconds passed in a blur.
The blanket was lifted, and she saw two men. The one who must have kicked her in the shoulder was staring at her with a frightening grin on his dirt-smudged face.
Tariq rose with a roar, sand scattering all around him.
By the time she blinked most of the sand from her eyes, he had the guy who’d kicked her disabled. She could barely glance at him, where he lay on the ground with his head bashed in. Tariq, pipe held above his head, was running for the other man, ignoring the gun pointed at the middle of his wide chest.
“Run,” he yelled to her.
He was never going to make it.
She lurched forward on instinct, knowing there was nothing she could do, knowing that as soon as Tariq was gunned down, she would be next.
But he threw the pipe, knocking the gun aside, then lunged at the man, flying through the air and landing heavily on his target. A mountain lion, indeed. He could have been an action movie stuntman, except nobody yelled, “Cut!”
The men rolled on the sand, evenly matched. She hoped. How much would Tariq’s injury slow him down? Was the other guy smart enough to notice it and use it to his advantage?
She dashed back to the dead man and snatched his weapon, aimed it at the other bandit’s head as she moved toward him. “Stop!”
The men rolled, paying her no heed.
“Don’t shoot,” Tariq grunted as he flipped the guy again.
What did he mean, don’t shoot? Of course she was going to shoot. Just as soon as her target stopped moving.
“Too loud,” Tariq said on the next breath.
And she lowered the gun. He was right. It would be best if they kept quiet, so the rest of the bandits didn’t come rushing to join the fray.
Great, so she couldn’t use the gun. Okay, to be truthful, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to hit the right man, anyway. But she wasn’t going to stand here, just hoping for the best. She tossed the gun out of reach of the men and looked around for a quieter weapon. The tire iron would have been perfect if they weren’t right on top of it.
Her gaze landed on the heavy pot made of some sort of tarnished metal. She retrieved it, and when the men turned again so that the bandit was on top, she swung it, whacking him over the head with all her strength.
