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The words rolled like thunder in Tahir’s brain.
The brute who’d ruled his people and his family so corruptly was gone for ever.
The tyrant who’d betrayed his wife with a string of whores and mistresses. Who’d ruled his tribe by fear. Who’d thrashed Tahir time and again to within an inch of his life. Then had his thugs take over when Tahir grew old enough to defend himself against his father.
The man who’d exiled his youngest son when he’d finally done what the old Sheikh had probably secretly wanted and overstepped the mark completely.
Tahir had never been able to please his father, no matter how he tried. He’d spent his boyhood wondering what fault of his inspired such hatred.
But he’d long ago given up caring.
Tahir turned to look across the elegant room and its throng of late-night pleasure-seekers. In his mind’s eye it wasn’t the glamorous crowd he saw, the flirtatious and curious glances or the opulent display of wealth. It was Yazan Al’Ramiz’s bloodshot eyes, his bristling moustache flecked with spittle as he ranted and bellowed. The violent pounding of his clenched fists.
Surely Tahir should feel something, anything, at the news his tyrant father was dead? Even after eleven years’ absence the news must evoke some response?
A yawning void of darkness welled inside where once emotions had lodged.
He supposed he should have questions.
When? How? Wasn’t that what a child asked about a father’s death?
‘Still, I don’t feel a burning desire to return to Qusay.’ His tone was as blank as his mood. There was nothing for him in the land of his birth.
‘Damn it, Tahir. Stop playing the arrogant unfeeling bastard for a moment. I need you here. Things are complicated.’ Kareef paused. ‘I want you here.’
Something unfamiliar roiled deep in Tahir’s belly.
‘What do you need?’ Kareef had always been his favourite brother. The one he’d looked up to, in the long-ago days when he’d still tried to emulate his elders and betters. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘No problem,’ Kareef said in a curiously strained voice. ‘But our cousin has discovered he isn’t the rightful king of Qusay. He’s stood aside and I’m to take his place on the throne.’ He paused. ‘I want you here for my coronation.’
Tahir walked slowly to the roulette table.
Kareef’s news was momentous. To discover their cousin had been made King in error was almost unbelievable. He was no blood relation to the old King and Queen, but had been secretly taken in by them while they grieved the death of their real son. If it had been anyone other than Kareef telling the story Tahir would have doubted the news.
But Kareef would never make such an error. He was too careful, too responsible. He would make the perfect King for Qusay. Either of Tahir’s older brothers would.
Thank merciful fate their father wasn’t alive to inherit the throne! As brother to the old King and leader of a significant clan he’d been too powerful as it was—too dangerous. Having him rule the whole nation would have been like letting a wolf in amongst lambs.
A heart attack, Kareef had said.
No wonder. Their father had liked to indulge himself and hadn’t limited himself to one vice.
Tahir approached the gaming table. He saw his barely touched champagne and the two women waiting for him, both undoubtedly eager to give him whatever he desired tonight.
His lips curled. Perhaps he was more like the old man than he realised.
‘Tahir!’ Elisabeth’s voice was a shriek of delight. ‘You’ll never believe it. You won! Again! It’s unbelievable.’
The babbling crowd hushed. Every eye was on him, as if he’d done something miraculous.
Before him, piled high, were his winnings. Far larger than before. The croupier looked pale and rigidly composed.
Eager feminine hands reached for Tahir as his companions sidled close. Their eyes were bright with avarice and excitement.
Tahir slid some of the most valuable chips to the croupier. ‘For you.’
‘Merci, monsieur.’ He grinned as he scooped his newfound wealth safely into his hand.
Tahir lifted his glass, took a long swallow and let the bubbles cascade from the back of his tongue down his throat.
The wine’s effervescence seeped into him. He felt buoyant, almost happy. For once fate had played things right. Kareef would be the best King Qusay had known.
He put the glass down with a click and turned away.
‘Goodnight, Elisabeth, Natasha. I’m afraid I have business elsewhere.’
He’d taken but a few steps when the babble of voices stopped him.
‘Wait! Your winnings! You’ve forgotten them.’
Tahir turned to face a sea of staring faces.
‘Keep them. Share them amongst yourselves.’
Without a backward glance he strode to the entrance, oblivious to the uproar behind him.
The doorman thrust open the massive doors and Tahir emerged into the fresh night air. He breathed deep, filling his lungs for the first time, it seemed, in recent memory.
A hint of a smile played on his lips as he loped down the stairs.
He had a coronation to attend.
Tahir skimmed low over the dunes of Qusay’s great interior desert.
Alone at the helicopter’s controls, he put the effervescence in his blood down to the freedom of complete solitude. No hangers-on. No business minions seeking direction. No women with wide eyes and grasping hands. Not even paparazzi waiting to report his next outrageous affair.
Perhaps the barren glory of the desert had lifted his spirits? He even, for this moment, put from his mind what awaited him in Qusay.
His family. His past.
Yet he’d visited deserts in the last eleven years. From North Africa to Australia and South America, motor-racing, hang-gliding, base-jumping—always searching for new extreme ways to risk his neck.
Finally he recognised his mood was because he flew over the place he’d called home for the first eighteen years of his life. The place he’d never expected to see again.
But this realisation came as an almighty gust buffeted the chopper, slewing it sideways. Tahir grappled with the controls, swinging the helicopter high above the dunes.
The sight that met him sent adrenalin pumping through his body. The growing darkness filling the sky wasn’t an early dusk, as he’d thought.
If he’d been flying by the book he’d have noticed the warning signs sooner. Instead he’d been skylarking, swooping dangerously low, gambling on his ability to read the topography of a place that changed with every wind.
This was the mother of all sandstorms. The sort that claimed livestock, altered watercourses and buried roads. The sort that could whip up a helicopter like a toy, whirl it round and smash it into fragments.
No chance to outrun it. No time to land safely.
Nevertheless, Tahir battled to steer the bucking chopper away from the massive storm. Automatically he switched into crisis mode, sending out a mayday, knowing already it was too late.
Calmness stole over him. He was going to die.
The prodigal had returned to his just deserts.
He wasn’t dead.
Fate obviously had something far worse in store. Dehydration in the heat. Or, going by the pain racking him, death from his wounds.
The preposterous luck that had seen him win several fortunes at the gaming table had finally abandoned him.
Tahir debated whether to open his eyes or lie there, seeking the luxurious darkness of unconsciousness again. Yet the throbbing pain in his head and chest was impossible to ignore.
Even opening his eyes hurt. Light pierced his retinas through sand-encrusted lashes. It dazzled him and he groaned, tasting heat and dust and the metallic saltiness of blood. His hands and face felt raw from exposure to whipping sand.
He had a vague recollection of sitting, blinded by dust and strapped in a seat, hearing the unearthly yowl of wind and lashing sand. Then the smell of petrol, so strong he’d fought free of both seatbelt and twisted metal, stumbling as far as he could.
Then nothing.
Overhead the pure blue of a cerulean sky mocked him.
He was alive. In the desert. Alone.
Tahir passed out three times before he dragged himself to a sitting position, sweating and trembling and feeling more dead than alive. His brain was scrambled, wandering into nothingness and then jerking back to the present with hideous clarity.
He sat with his back against a sandbank, legs stretched out, and tried to ignore the brain-numbing pain that was the back of his skull in contact with sand.
He was drifting into unconsciousness when something jerked him awake. A rough caress on his hand. Gingerly he tilted his head.
‘You’re a mirage,’ he whispered, but the words wouldn’t emerge from his constricted throat.
The animal sensed his attention. It stared back, its horizontal pupils dark against golden-brown irises. It shook its head and a cloud of dust rose from its shaggy coat.
‘Mmmmah.’
‘Mirages don’t talk,’ Tahir murmured. They didn’t lick either. But this one did, its tongue tickling. He shut his eyes, but when he opened them the goat was still there. A kid, too small to be without its mother.
Hell. He couldn’t even die in peace.
The goat butted his hip, and Tahir realised his jacket pocket had something in it. Slowly, so as not to black out from the pain, he slipped his hand in and found a water bottle.
A muzzy memory rose, of him grabbing bottled water as he stumbled from the wreckage. How had he forgotten that?
It took for ever to pull the bottle out, twist off the lid and lift it to his lips. The hardest thing he’d ever done was drag it away after one sip.
Guzzling too much was dangerous. He risked another sip then lowered his hand. It felt like a dead weight.
Something nudged him and he opened his eyes to see the goat curled up close. In the whole vast expanse of desert the beast had chosen this place to shelter.
Gritting his teeth as he brought his left hand over his body, Tahir poured water into his palm.
‘Here you are, goat.’
Placidly it drank, as if used to human contact. Or as if it too was on its last legs and had no room for fear.
Tahir had just enough energy to recap the bottle before it slid from his shaking hands. His head lolled.
Beside him the warmth of that tiny body penetrated his clothes, reminding him he wasn’t alone.
It was that knowledge that forced him to focus on surviving Qusay’s notoriously perilous desert.
Annalisa drew water up in the battered metal scoop and sluiced it over her face. Heaven.
The huge sandstorm had delayed her journey into the desert. Her cousins had tut-tutted, saying it was proof this trip was a mistake. The sort of mistake she wouldn’t survive. But they didn’t understand.
Just six months after her granddad’s death, and her beloved father’s soon after, it meant everything that she come here.
Annalisa was keeping her last promise to her father.
It was wonderful to be here again, though sadness tinged the experience as she remembered previous trips with her dad.
She’d arrived this morning, spending the afternoon cleaning her camera and telescopic equipment. A day out here meant a day of heat and dust, and the luxury of having the oasis to herself was too much to resist.
She lifted another scoop of water and tipped it over her head, shivering luxuriously as the water slid through her hair, over her shoulders and down her back. Another scoop sluiced over her breasts and she smiled, revelling in the feeling of being clean. She wriggled her toes in the sandy bottom of the small pool.
The sun was setting and she should move to build up the fire before darkness fell.
She was just turning to get out of the water when something on the horizon caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes against the setting sun.
A shadow. More than a shadow. A man. She made out broad shoulders and dark clothes. Remarkably, for this place, he was wearing what looked like a suit as he took a step down the dune, letting the slip of sand carry him several metres.
Automatically Annalisa reached for her towel and wrapped it close, her actions slowing when she registered his strange gait. He didn’t use his arms to keep his balance on the treacherously steep slope and his movements were oddly uncoordinated.
Caution warned her to take no chances with a stranger.
No local would harm her. But this man clearly didn’t belong. Who knew how he’d react to finding a lone female?
But as she knotted the towel and watched his slow progress she realised something was wrong. Instincts honed by years of helping her father tend to the sick overrode her wariness. The stranger was no threat. He looked as if he could barely stay upright.
Moments later she was racing up the other side of the wadi towards him.
Her steps slowed as she neared and took in the full impact of his appearance.
