by Valerie Parv
“It doesn’t matter,” she said firmly. “Des’s life may be in danger if you can’t convince him to go to the hospital.”
“I can’t risk you either.”
He sounded so ragged that her heart turned over. “Leave me here. Go to him. You and your brothers spent many hours here. I’ll be fine until you return. Call Judy back and tell her you’re on the way.”
He nodded and pressed numbers on the keypad. “The number’s engaged. She could be talking to the doctor.”
“Then don’t waste time. Go.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. My tape recorder is still in my bag. I can start making a record of the rock art in the cavern.”
He pressed his lips hard against hers, sending her temperature soaring. “I’ll tell Des what you’re doing. If it gives him hope, he may agree to get help.”
“Do it.”
Still, he hesitated. “Do you still have Judy’s cell phone?” When she inclined her head in agreement, he said, “Good. I’ll let you know what’s happening when I get to the homestead. Call me if there’s any sign of trouble in the meantime. You’ll find food and drink and a torch in my bag. Use whatever you need. There’s no telling how long I’ll be gone.”
She drew herself up. “My people come from the desert. I’m as at home here as you are. This cave sheltered you when you were a boy. It will do the same for me until you return.”
“Don’t try anything heroic. Promise me you’ll stay here until I get back?”
“You have my word. Now go.”
He wasted no further time. She watched him climb down to his car and heard the engine fire moments later, then waited until he was a speck on the horizon before turning back to the cave.
Documenting the Uru paintings kept her occupied until she was too tired to think anymore. Turning off the compact recorder, she made her way back through the tunnel to the entrance cave.
Wearily she dragged one of the stretcher beds into the open air and beat the dust out of it, then took it back inside and settled on it to eat some of the sandwiches from Tom’s pack. The bread was thicker and the filling more generous than she was accustomed to, but when she removed the meat, the bread and salad was more than enough to satisfy her hunger. Washed down with water, it was all she required.
She wished she could say the same for her mental state. Jamal had been seen around the homestead. Was he the reason for Des Logan’s collapse? She couldn’t help blaming herself and wishing there was more she could do to help Tom. This relentless stalking couldn’t go on. Not if the cost could end up being Des’s life.
Even now she would have followed Tom. Her car was parked in the bush below the cave and she was fairly sure she could find her way to the homestead. But she had given Tom her word she would wait.
She pulled Judy’s cell phone out of her satchel. It was fully charged and the reception, sometimes patchy in the Kimberley according to Tom, was good as long as she was near the cave entrance. But the instrument remained stubbornly silent.
She debated calling him. If he was taking care of Des, he didn’t need her distracting him. She decided to lie down for a while, and hope he called.
Tom should never have left Shara alone, he told himself as he drove back to the homestead. Instinct told him something was wrong with all this. What was Jamal doing at the homestead? And why wouldn’t Des let Judy take him to the hospital if his condition was so bad? He was a stubborn man, but he wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t put such a burden on his daughter.
If this was a trap set by Jamal, had Tom played into his hands by abandoning Shara? The only way to find out was to get to the homestead, assure himself Des was all right, then get back to the cave as fast as he could. Until then he’d have to trust her word she’d stay put where she was safe.
He left the car in a thicket of trees and approached the homestead on foot. The house looked deserted, but that was normal at this time of day. The stockmen would be scattered around the property, leaving only the elderly clan members drowsing in the sun outside their cottages, their dogs lolling in the dust at their feet.
Then he saw it. The door to the living room was closed. Des and Judy only closed that door during a cyclone or a dust storm. She must have intended it as a warning to him.
Keeping to the shadows, he padded around the back and nodded in grim satisfaction at the sight of two strange vehicles parked behind the house. One was the Jeep Jamal had been driving when he followed Tom’s car. Two men were smoking a short distance away. One was Eddy Gilgai. The other was the man who had been with Horvath and Jamal yesterday. He looked big and ugly enough to be Jamal’s bodyguard.
Moving silently, Tom slid between the cars until he stood beneath an open window. Judy’s voice reached him clearly. “Tom will never fall for your message. If he comes, he won’t have Shara with him. She’s miles away from here by now.”
“Then he will lead me to my fiancée, or he will watch you and your father die,” a heavily accented voice responded.
Tom risked glancing over the sill. Judy and Des were seated on a couch. Jamal stood over them, the silhouette of a gun barrel protruding from his arms, a bulky silencer at its tip. He had his back to the window. Horvath was at the opposite window, no doubt expecting Tom to arrive from the front.
Four against one, two if Judy pitched in, and Tom didn’t know of any way to stop her. Hardly good odds, considering Jamal’s weapon. Keeping out of sight of the smokers, Tom returned to the front of the house where he heaved a good-size rock at the door. He was on his way to the back again before the door had fully opened.
As he’d hoped, shouts sent the smokers racing around to the front, giving Tom his chance. He slipped in through the window, only to come up short at the sight of Jamal’s gun aimed at his heart. “Did you think I’d fall for such a childish trick?”
Tom slowly lifted his hands. “It was worth a try.”
Jamal gestured to his bodyguard who’d come in the front way, followed by Eddy Gilgai. “Take him.”
The larger man pulled Tom’s arms roughly behind him. Judy’s face fell. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Tom tried unsuccessfully to shake off his captor. “I got your message about Des being ill.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Jamal sent it to lure you here.”
“Evidently your brother is not as smart as you thought,” Jamal said, stepping between them. He pressed the gun against Tom’s temple. “Where is my fiancée?”
“No idea,” Tom said, then the air rushed out of him as Jamal cuffed the side of his head with the gun barrel. Head ringing, he slumped in the bodyguard’s grip. Through a haze he saw Judy start to jump up, but Des pulled her back down.
“Look, son,” Des said to Jamal. “This is Australia. If the princess doesn’t want to go with you, you can’t force her. Beating up Tom is not going to change her mind.”
Jamal swung the weapon back to Des. “I am not your son. Under our laws, Shara became my property when King Awad promised her to me in marriage. I am only claiming what is mine.”
Making sure to appear groggier than he was, Tom stayed on his knees, feeling gratified as the guard’s grip loosened. This time he was ready. When Jamal swung the gun around, Tom grabbed the barrel and yanked, sending the man crashing into his bodyguard. Before either could recover, Tom pulled Jamal to the floor and pressed the gun into the back of his head. “One move by any of you, and Prince Jamal dies,” he stated, his tone steely with purpose.
They froze in place. Tom lifted the barrel slightly and dug his boot into Jamal’s side, knowing that to touch someone with your foot was a deadly insult in the other man’s culture. “Get up.”
Jamal moved slowly to his knees, then shouted something in his own language. Everything happened in slow motion. A gun appeared in the bodyguard’s hand and stuttered almost at the same second. Tom only knew he’d been hit when pain like white-hot needles flamed across his wrist. He dropped Jamal’s gun.
He saw Judy spri
ng at the bodyguard, who knocked her aside.
Jamal picked up the gun and swung it in a wide arc. “Everybody back off,” he ordered. Horvath seemed immobilized by the gunplay.
Judy picked herself up and rejoined her father. At a signal from Jamal, Eddy and the bodyguard moved to stand over them.
Jamal’s eyes blazed. “I will kill you,” he growled at Tom.
“You’ve already disabled him,” Horvath insisted, sounding petrified. “Let’s get them secured and go after your fiancée. Now the plane’s fixed, you can settle up with me, and take Shara back where she belongs. I didn’t agree to be a party to murder.”
Tom pulled off his bandanna and wrapped it around his throbbing wrist. “You’ll never find her.”
“I think we will.” Jamal snatched the bloodied cloth from him. “Eddy’s people are famously able to track anyone anywhere. When they do, your blood on this should convince her to give herself up.”
Tom’s heart became a lump of stone in his chest as the bodyguard herded them at gunpoint into the main storeroom. Intended as a shelter in the event of a cyclone, it was the most secure room in the house. The walls and floor were concrete, with only a tiny window set high in the wall, and a low-wattage electric bulb for light. The solid door slammed shut and they heard the key being turned in the lock on the outside.
Judy snapped on the light and came to inspect his hand. “How bad is it?”
“It’s only a graze. Looks worse than it is.” Felt worse, too, but Tom kept that to himself. “How about you?”
She rotated her shoulders experimentally. “A few bruises, nothing serious.”
Knowing Judy wouldn’t thank him for fussing, he nodded. “We have to get out of here before Jamal finds Shara.”
Des rummaged through boxes, coming up with a supply of cotton wadding and surgical tape. He handed them to Judy, who began to bind Tom’s wrist. The pain had him grinding his teeth, but when she finished he felt better and the bleeding had stopped. “Now can we get out of here?” he demanded.
Judy shot her father a knowing look. “You were right, he’s in love.”
Pain and worry had considerably shortened Tom’s fuse. “Will you stow it?”
Des’s face was drawn with illness and strain, but he summoned a wan smile. “Calm down, son. I know you’re worried, but if Shara’s where I think she is, she’s safe for now.”
“You took her to our cave, didn’t you?” Judy said.
Tom nodded. “She wanted to check out her theory that the people who did the paintings are from an ancient race called the Uru.”
Des massaged his chin. “I’ve heard of them. If she’s right, it means we might have a valuable site on our land.”
“She’s right. And once Horvath finds out, she’ll have him as well as Jamal to contend with.”
He paced to the door and rattled it to no avail. In frustration, he thumped on the wood with his good hand. “I shouldn’t have left her alone.”
“You didn’t know the message was a fake.”
Tom spun around. “The message. I am such an idiot.”
They thought he meant for falling for Jamal’s lie, he saw, until he fumbled one-handed in his pocket and fished out his cell phone. “They didn’t think to frisk me before locking us in. The battery’s low but should last for one call.”
“There’s only one place you’ll get a signal in here,” Des said, looking pointedly at the window above their heads. “Neither of us is in any condition for climbing.”
Judy’s jaw firmed. “You may not be, but I am.”
Voices woke her. Sleepily she lifted her head from the pillow she’d made out of her satchel. She felt chilled to the bone. Something was wrong.
She sat up with a start. Through the needle-eye entrance of the cave she could see the sun hanging low in the sky. How long had she been asleep? She went to the entrance and peered out cautiously, then felt her heart seize. In the clearing below the cave were two Jeeps. Beside them stood Jamal, Horvath and a couple of their men.
With shaking fingers, she pulled the cell phone out of her bag and punched in Tom’s number, only to be told by a recorded voice that she should try again later. Frustration gripped her. Later might be too late.
Shara withdrew into the cave, her thoughts whirling. Perhaps it was just as well she couldn’t contact Tom. If he came now, he would be outnumbered. Better to wait it out and hope Jamal had no better luck finding the cave than she had earlier.
She had reckoned without the tracking skills of the man with him. Another cautious glance out of the cave saw them gesturing upward. They seemed to be looking right at the cave entrance.
Moments later, Jamal’s voice rang out. “You may as well show yourself, Shara. We’ve found the car and tracked your footprints to the bottom of the rock wall.”
Then why didn’t they come up and get her? Perhaps Horvath’s man was superstitious about approaching the cave. She stayed where she was.
Silence. Then, “If you don’t show yourself, I will have the entire escarpment blown up.”
She was sure Jamal would have no compunction about destroying the ancient gallery. If he did, his friend Horvath would succeed in claiming Tom’s family’s land, and it would be her fault for bringing Jamal here. She couldn’t let him wreak havoc on her country. Neither could she let him destroy the cave.
Her only hope was to pretend to cooperate, and buy some time. And hope it would be enough. She checked the tape recorder, returned it to her bag and shouldered it. “I’m coming out,” she called.
When she stood on level ground in front of him, Jamal took the bag from her hand and touched the side of her face almost gently. “My beautiful Shara. We are together at last.”
“We will never be together,” she spat back. “I’m only here because I won’t let you help Horvath destroy Tom and his family.”
“Ah, but we’ve already destroyed them,” Jamal said. He pulled out a bloodstained cloth. “I’m sure you recognize this.”
Tom’s bandanna. Her heart almost stopped. “What have you done to him?”
“It was self-defense. He tried to kill me.”
“So you killed him.” She hadn’t thought it was possible to feel such pain and still function. If Tom was gone, she had no reason to go on. Jamal could do what he liked with her and it wouldn’t matter. She was already dead in every way that counted. All she could do was make sure Tom hadn’t died for nothing.
“You’ll have plenty of time to grieve when we’re back in Q’aresh,” Jamal said. “Our plane is waiting. We can take off immediately.”
Horvath looked shocked. “You can’t leave yet.” He scrabbled in his pocket and came up with a small handful of crystals the size of rice grains. “What about the mine? These diamonds Eddy found in the river leading out of this escarpment prove it can’t be very far from here. You told me we’d be partners as soon as I have control of the land.”
Jamal gave him an icy look. “My plans have changed. You’ll be paid for accommodating me, like any good innkeeper.”
She saw Horvath flinch. “You can’t treat me like a servant. I did everything you wanted, helped you take care of the Logans. We’re in this together.”
“Do you have diplomatic immunity?”
“Of course not.”
“I do. Therefore I am not accountable under your law, unlike you.” He caught Shara’s arm. “Don’t try to stop us from leaving.”
His meaning was clear. If Horvath got in his way, he would meet Tom’s fate.
“Your immunity has limits,” Horvath said viciously. “I’ll find those diamonds with or without you, then I’ll have the resources to bring you to justice.”
Jamal laughed. “I wish you luck prosecuting the king of Q’aresh.”
“You’ll never be king while my family and I are alive to stop you,” she vowed.
He looked unperturbed. “But my dear, none of you will be alive to stop me. Your life ends as soon as we’re legally married and I have access to the cont
ents of the royal treasury.”
The cold-blooded assertion made Horvath fall silent. He must have known what manner of man he had teamed up with, but his appalled expression suggested he hadn’t grasped the full extent of Jamal’s villainy. Horvath and his man were still standing in the clearing when she was hustled into the car. Jamal’s bodyguard got behind the wheel and they drove off.
Her look of hatred should have seared Jamal as he sat beside her. “You won’t get away with this.”
He gave her a pitying look. “I already have.”
“I’ll tell my father everything.”
“Who will believe the ravings of someone exposed too long to the Australian sun? I’ll tell him you were found wandering lost in the outback, and your reason was affected. He’ll be so grateful to me for bringing you home, he won’t question anything I tell him.”
“Not even why you’d marry a supposed madwoman?”
“The king will respect my wish to take care of you for the rest of your life. Short though that may be.”
He had everything worked out. Unfortunately her father was likely to believe Jamal’s outrageous story, she knew. Easier for the king to accept that Shara had suffered sunstroke while lost in the outback than that he had driven her to desperate measures to avoid marrying Jamal.
The plane was still parked under the trees where Tom had steered it, she saw when Jamal drove up to it. Signs of recent work suggested that the repairs had been completed.
He really meant to take her back to Q’aresh.
Her mind worked furiously as she boarded, apparently quietly. She didn’t contradict Jamal when he recounted his story about sunstroke to the guard, Talib, who looked at her in concern as she sat down.
Only the two men were on board besides herself and Jamal. The bodyguard, acting as pilot, was in the cockpit, she saw through the open door. The guard readied the cabin for takeoff. Jamal settled into the copilot’s seat.
Was she really calculating the odds of putting up a fight? With Tom gone, there was nothing in Australia for her now. Her last hope was to convince her father that not only was she rational, but Jamal was the one whose sanity King Awad should question. She had to make him believe her.