by Linda Conrad
“Here? In the guard shack? Uh-uh. I want to go with you.”
Shakir took her hand. “I can’t be worried about you while I’m scouting. Stay here—in the shadows behind the shack. You’ll be safe and I’ll be back before you know I was gone.”
Ripping her hand from his, she glowered at him through streaks of moonlight. “Do I have a choice?”
“That’s my girl.”
Nikki nearly growled her disapproval of the term, but figured it would be a waste of time. “Fine. Let’s go.”
They crept back into the night air and waddled on their haunches to the back of the shack. Nothing but empty fencing behind the shack. Shakir was right. She should be safe enough to wait here.
“Come back soon—or come back with my son.” She tried to make Shakir hear her pleas through the tone of her voice.
“You will have your son tonight. And I will return soon with a better plan. Wait.”
Nikki settled down with her back to the shack’s wall. But looking out to nothing but mountain desert landscape made her more frightened than ever. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her knees.
With her eyes closed, thoughts of William sprang into her head again. Where was her baby? Was he okay?
She thought back to the day she’d given birth. To how frightened she’d been for William on that day, too. All alone, she had taken a bus to the hospital in Paris. Worried about her baby’s health, she’d fought through twenty hours of labor all by herself. Then when William was born in good health, she worried about how they would survive.
Luckily, her father had relented and brought his daughter and grandson home. It didn’t make them part of a happy family unit, but it kept them alive. When her father died, probably of a broken spirit after losing his bid to return to the throne, Nikki had once again thought about contacting Shakir. This time for purely selfish reasons. She’d needed help.
But a cursory check on his whereabouts gained her nothing. It was as if he’d disappeared directly into the atmosphere like a ghost. She’d even started to believe she had imagined their whole relationship. That there was no real person named Shakir Kadir.
Suddenly the hair on Nikki’s arms stood straight up. Someone was coming. Shakir?
Opening her eyes and adjusting them to the darkness, she turned her head in time to see the outline of a man as he turned the corner of the shack. But what was that he was carrying? His assault rifle?
Once the figure was fully around the edge of the building, Nikki saw the true picture. It was not an assault rifle, and it was not Shakir.
This was a much shorter Taj soldier and he was carrying a rifle fitted with a bayonet. A bayonet?
Nikki jumped to her feet as the soldier spotted her and pointed his rifle directly at her chest. The man sputtered words in the Taj language, but Nikki clearly understood what he was trying to say.
She raised her hands in the air. But that didn’t seem to satisfy the soldier. He rammed his bayonet in her direction, just missing her chest by inches.
Swinging the rifle, the soldier spoke angry words as he glared at her naked legs. She jumped, but the blade caught her on the thigh. Blood oozed from the wound and it was all she could do not to cry out.
But she didn’t have time to scream. The soldier kept swinging and ramming his weapon at her legs. This man intended to keep cutting her until she either bled out or couldn’t stand under her own power.
Did she dare try to run? Would he shoot? Where could she go?
Desperate, Nikki kept backing up, darting left and right and trying to avoid the blade. Tears sprang from her eyes as she pleaded with the soldier to stop.
As Nikki watched the man’s face for any slip up in his concentration or any sign of compassion, she saw a dark shadow looming behind his back. Another soldier? She imagined much worse trouble would befall her if more soldiers arrived to torment and torture.
Before she could react, the gigantic shadow stepped close and captured the soldier in a tight-fisted embrace. Through the moonlight, she saw the flash of a blade as it slashed across the man’s throat.
Instantly, silently, it was all over. Blood came spurting from the neck wound. A wound that had ended the man’s life.
The soldier’s body crumpled to the ground. And when she looked up, Shakir was coming toward her. His face a mask. This was not a man she recognized.
Nausea hit her hard as the adrenaline flowed through her like warm wine. Her body began to shake. She doubled over and put her head down but it was too late. She felt herself falling into a deep, dark well of oblivion.
Chapter 11
“You came back.” Nikki trembled in Shakir’s arms and shivered against his neck. “You really came.”
“I said I would return.”
When he’d seen her crumpling to the ground, his veins had burned with fear for her. He hadn’t taken a breath until she’d come to from her faint. She wasn’t out cold for long, but he found his own hands trembling while waiting for her to come around.
Spotting blood on her dress, he held back the rage that sprang up in his gut. “Are you injured?”
“A small cut is all. But I thought I was going to die. Thank God you came in time and saved me.” She clung to his neck and tried to regulate her breathing. He felt her heart beat wildly as she pressed against his chest.
He hated that she’d had to face death again like that. If he’d arrived a few minutes later—
Even worse than almost losing her, he couldn’t stand that she’d seen his true nature. Violence was a big part of who he was. A part he’d kept hidden for the time they’d been together, and that he wished he could’ve kept her from knowing even now.
But a man could not change who he was inside. And Shakir was a killer. He’d first taken the life of a man at the age of fifteen. Tribal warfare, savage and real, was where he’d lost his childhood. His weapon of choice then had been a knife. But using a knife meant he’d had to get close—and personal. Close enough to see the man’s eyes and feel his life force draining from his body.
From then on, his own life had become one long horror-filled show of mutilated bodies and pools of blood, staying with people no better than the Taj Zabbar. In a world far different from the Kadir family tradition of congenial trade where he’d spent his early years. But his mother’s father had insisted he survive and live where he could not avoid the savagery. In order to make him into a warrior. A male adult member of the tribe.
“I didn’t believe you would really show up in time,” Nikki cried. “You didn’t bef…no one ever…” She buried her head in his shoulder and couldn’t continue.
But he got the message. Someone, probably William’s father, had left her in the lurch. As hysterical as she was, perhaps many people had walked away rather than help her out. Her parents. The Paris police. Who else?
So that must be the reason why it seemed hard for her to ask for help. When hope was kicked from a person for enough times, they gave up. The darkness rose inside him again. He wanted to murder all the people in her life who had abused her so.
But he was helpless to fix the past. All he could do was be there for her now. To help her save her son and bring them both back to civilization. Then, when they were truly safe and out of all danger, he would save her from his own brand of violence, too.
She deserved happiness. A peaceful existence. He would see that she got that—without the perilous atmosphere that always surrounded his life.
He’d tried to save her once before from everything that was dark inside him. He’d walked away rather than fight for her because he hadn’t wanted to impose his rash nature on her finer sensibilities. She’d had a chance to be what she was destined to become. Or at least, he’d thought she was being offered that chance. But he’d been wrong not to stick around behind the scenes and watch out that she didn’t get hurt. He saw that now.
But at the time—at the time—
Nikki stirred in his arms. “William? Did you find the children?�
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“Not yet. I didn’t locate any plans of the facility, either. But I did notice a lot of soldiers guarding an old drainage pipe and slag tower. The one near the vent house and conveyor drain. Doesn’t make any sense for soldiers to guard anything that’s abandoned and useless. My guess is something important is hidden in there. Maybe in a storage bin or superstack.”
“Oh, no. I can’t stand thinking of my baby there. Or any of the other children. How are we going to reach them with all the soldiers around?”
“I have a plan. I’ve contacted Tarik and he agrees. But first we have to take care of a few things here.”
She sat up and looked over at the body of the soldier. “Yes. We need to hide that.” She waved her arm at the dead man as though he were trash to be swept away.
Shakir was stunned that she could treat death so casually. “I’ll take care of the body. I don’t want you to deal with it.”
“I want to do my share,” she implored. “Whatever is necessary to rescue my son and the other children. I hate that anyone would take babies from their parents for God knows what reason. Anyone who can do that is not human. They deserve whatever they get.”
Surprised at her attitude, Shakir nevertheless had no time to discuss it. “I’ll handle disposing of the body. Meanwhile, I located something else while I was scouting that you might like.”
He pulled the garment from his pack. “I was hiding in the laundry, while trying to avoid a confrontation, and came up with these.” Holding out the soldier’s slacks, he grinned at her. “They’re the smallest size I could find.”
“A pair of pants? Wonderful. Let me have them.”
“Wait.” He handed her one of the antibiotic wipes. “Clean your leg wound first.”
She nodded and set to work. While she tended her injury and slipped on the slacks, he hefted the body and carted it to the fence line. On the far side, several tamarisks and cabbage plants grew nearby. It would probably take a day or two for anyone to spot the body under there. With any luck, the scavengers would not venture this close to humans until the smell tempted them out in the open in a couple of days.
By then, he planned for all of them—Nikki, the children and Tarik’s entire team—to be long gone.
Nikki had needed to tie the Bedouin woman’s sash around the waistband of the soldier’s pants like a belt and then had to roll the cuffs up three times to make them fit. But as she crawled along behind Shakir on the uphill side of the mountain right beyond the fence, she was grateful for the protection. And for the black material hiding her pale skin in the dark.
Shakir’s plan seemed too tricky and slightly too dangerous. But on the other hand, his brother said the whole town was filling up fast with soldiers. It was the only plan they had.
After disposing of the body, Shakir had led her through a hole he’d popped in the fence while she was changing. She hadn’t liked the idea of leaving the facility grounds without William, but Shakir said they wouldn’t go far before they would be back on the other side of the fence.
She wasn’t too sure at this point how that was ever going to happen. Already they’d had to stop and lay flat on the ground in order to avoid being caught by soldiers patrolling the fence. More and more soldiers seemed to be stationed along the facility’s perimeter.
As they crawled over rocks and sand, her mind filled with inconsequential thoughts. Like how proud she felt that Shakir had thought enough of her abilities to bring her into the middle of the danger. She was becoming surer of her own abilities every day.
Not just a helpless ex-royal anymore, she was far from weak. She wondered when Shakir had first noticed the truth of what kind of woman she was underneath the soft and sweet feminine trappings.
Shakir. He was exactly the right man for this rescue. Why hadn’t she seen his ruthless determination and fierce fighting spirit before? She’d always thought of him as a dashing sheik, a mysterious prince of the desert. More movie star than real Bedouin warrior. Even when he’d come for her and dragged her out of the harem prison she hadn’t really opened her eyes to the light. There was so much more to him than the prince of the desert image.
Perhaps this tough and rugged attitude of his had always been a part of him. Hidden deep like hers was. Underneath a shiny veneer. Or it could’ve been his attitude was that one special something she’d noticed in his eyes as a girl but couldn’t name then. Or maybe she’d been too young that long ago to really understand.
How had she gotten so lucky to have him fall back into her life at just the right moment?
And how was she ever going to tell him the truth now? She would tell him. Soon. She’d even begun to relish the idea of seeing his expression when she told him that William was his son.
Surprise? No doubt.
Delight? One could only pray.
Hurt? She hoped not too badly and not for too long.
Disappointment? That idea brought her up short. She assumed she might see disappointment in his eyes when he realized all the years he had missed with his son. But she assured herself that he could not blame her. Not when she explained how desperately she’d searched for him to tell him he was going to be a father. He had missed the years, but not for the lack of her attempts to find him.
Maybe after her revelation, Shakir would reciprocate and tell her where he’d gone when he’d walked away all those years ago. Then there would be no secrets between them anymore.
The idea of the three of them, mother and father and son, living together as a family unit gave her a snug and cozy feeling all over. She let the warmth of that thought wind around inside her heart, bringing her an easy, calm mood.
Until…she looked up ahead and saw the hulking relic of the old iron ore plant.
Lopsided metal buildings, a super smokestack, conveyor belts and rusted metal pipes. The profusion of ancient iron works resembled a ghost city with its eerie spotlights shining against the ruins of a once prosperous facility. Somewhere off in the distance near the front gate, she knew there were a few newer buildings. But this old section seemed to be a puzzle of deteriorating evil spirits.
Shakir climbed higher up the side of the mountain, farther and farther away from the fence. She didn’t want to go that way—in the opposite direction from her baby. But Shakir’s plan called for this—so she let him lead.
Soon, she saw an enormous obstacle in their path. The drain and slag pipe he’d told her about that was built over the fence. But it looked gigantic in the dark. How would they ever use this rusted piece of slick, gray metal to enter the plant when it was too tall and too round to climb?
Shakir waited at the base for her to catch up. “There’s a drain bridge on the other side of the pipe,” he whispered. “But we have to go up and over to reach it.”
She turned her head and glanced right and left, to be sure there weren’t any major breaks in the pipe where they could just duck underneath instead. But there weren’t any, not for as far as she could see. Besides, Shakir had played on these premises as a boy. He would know if there was any other way.
“How?”
He pointed to the metal rivets and stitches on the pipe. “Those will have to do as a ladder. Take your shoes off.”
He was the leader. She was the follower. Despite her misgivings, she crouched down beside him and removed her leather-soled sandals. Then Shakir tied the two of them together again at the waist as he had when they’d gone up the cliff near the horse barn.
But this pipe was a slicker surface. With far fewer footholds, and the ones they did have were narrow and shallow. Looking straight up to the top of the pipe, she couldn’t even see that far in the dark. The giant drain pipe must be fifteen feet tall and probably at least that wide.
She was terrified. But when Shakir patted her shoulder and then began his assent, she followed in his footsteps. And tried not to look down or up.
Just as she was beginning to think of herself as a mountain goat, they reached the top and Shakir grabbed for her waist when her feet
wanted to go out from under her. He deftly balanced the two of them on the rounded surface of the pipe while a hot desert breeze battered their bodies and whipped at their clothes.
“Now for the tricky part,” he said quietly.
Now? What had they been doing up to this point?
“I’m going to lower you down to the bridge. Think you remember the lesson on rappelling?”
She nodded. If she didn’t remember, she would make it up. Anything to climb off the metal pipe and go back to searching for her son on solid ground.
Down on her hands and knees, she closed her eyes and went over the side, hanging on to the scarf tied between them like her lifeline. But when her feet slipped off the metal and left her dangling in midair, it didn’t even occur to her not to trust in Shakir to keep her safe. He would. All she had to do was reach—
Her feet suddenly touched the wooden surface of the bridge at about midpoint on the side of the pipe. When she gained her footing, Shakir scrambled down, too.
The old wood bridge was shaky and some of the boards were rotted out. But it was a far better solution than trying to balance on the top of the pipe. And much preferable to fighting their way inside past the guards with guns. They rushed to put on their shoes.
Once again, Shakir went ahead, testing each board before he stepped down. Nikki was getting good at following his lead.
When they reached the spot on the bridge that straddled the fence line, they hugged the side of the pipe and slid by like a couple of shadows. All the while hoping no one would look up and see them walking past. Shakir said he’d noticed cameras at various vantage points along the fence and on some of the buildings. But he assured her they were easy to avoid by staying in the darkness.
All she cared about was that they were back on facility property. Back to where the Taj were keeping William prisoner.
The drain bridge ended at a doorway to a large elevator shaft. A rickety, wood-slatted structure, it looked pretty wobbly to her. Shakir urged her to keep going. When he came to the door, though, he found it locked. That didn’t slow him down for long.