“We’re aware of that, Chaplain,” McKenna said. “We’re not trying to pin two decades of terrorism on this guy. But if his reach extends from the Middle East to North America, we want to know about it.”
McKenna rubbed a hand across the back of his neck as if he was growing increasingly hot under the collar of that starched white shirt. “We can’t risk offending the al Ra’id with a rescue operation.”
“You’d sacrifice my daughter for some damn CIA recruiting mission?” The admiral advanced on him.
McKenna took a step backward. “Even I’m not that heartless.”
“Alan, get me the Chief of SpecOps on the horn,” the admiral ordered.
“That won’t be necessary, Mitch. I’m willing to concede the point and send a Navy SEAL in after her. Just one unarmed man. Keep it low-key and friendly.”
“What’s the catch? Besides being unarmed. If the CIA is in charge of this operation, why aren’t you sending in one of your own?”
“I’ve never had an operative return from that particular part of the Arabian desert. It’s known as the Rub’al-Khali, Empty Quarter, the largest stretch of desert in Saudi Arabia.”
The admiral cursed under his breath.
“Your guy paves the way for my guy.”
“Unarmed,” Marc interjected. “That’s suicide.”
In the end every SEAL in the room volunteered, including his outspoken brother-in-law. Zach didn’t have a chance of being assigned the job among all the experienced volunteers in the room.
He only knew he had to be.
He made eye contact with McKenna. No one in the room liked the man. But Zach was about to become his new best friend.
“I’m going myself,” Admiral Dann announced, putting an end to the discussion and a crimp in Zach’s plans.
“Actually you were our second choice, Admiral,” Dr. Trahern dared to tell him. “We even considered the retired Captain Prince because of his psychology degree. To put it bluntly, sir, under these conditions, if your daughter is under the influence of these men, you want someone who knows her better than she knows herself.”
“What in the hell kind of psychobabble is that?”
Zach looked into McKenna’s eyes and knew…
“We’ve chosen Lieutenant Prince for the job,” McKenna said.
“You can’t send Zach. He hasn’t even been through the first training phase.”
“I have the authority to dip into SEALs.” McKenna asserted. “As of 0700 this morning, he’s one of your boys.”
“Why not send in a SEAL specially trained in hostage negotiation and deprogramming?”
“He wouldn’t have the advantage of knowing your daughter the way I do. If you’ll forgive me for saying so, sir.” Zach shifted his attention to his godfather. He’d beg if he had to. “I’m the man for this mission. You might even say I was born for it.”
CHAPTER SIX
AL RA’ID BEDOUIN CAMP,
Saudi Arabia
“MAY I COME IN?” Asad asked, lifting the tent flap and entering at her nod. “How are you feeling today?”
“Still fuzzy,” she responded, sitting up in her bed of sheepskins. And a little guilty for having taken over his bed. His tent. And his life so completely. Khanh Asad and his people had been more than kind to her since her arrival in their Bedouin camp. Especially since she was still covered in filth. And smelled worse than his whole herd of camels combined. “How long have I been out?”
“Two days.”
“What?” She’d arrived bone-weary, but he hadn’t allowed her to sleep those first twelve hours because of the bump on her forehead. She touched it gingerly and winced. Asad had cleaned and dressed the gash with butterfly tape. “Forty-eight hours?”
“What does it matter?” he said kindly. “You needed your rest.” He moved to her bedside with a cup of coffee. “El-heif, first cup. Drink.” In the Bedouin tradition her host took a sip first, then offered the cup to her. Their way of letting strangers know it was safe. And she did feel safe here. Perhaps the safest she’d felt in a very long time.
If only she could remember who she was running from. And why. Then maybe she could remember her own name.
“Thank you.” She took the cup of coffee, amazed that after one taste she knew she liked hers strong and black. The aroma triggered another fainter memory of a coffee shop.
In her own neighborhood? One she visited occasionally or frequently? Or the image of one on every street corner, an association from an advertising blitz?
She didn’t know.
“Would you care to break your fast?”
“I’m not really very hungry.”
“You will soon regain your appetite and your memory. In the meantime, perhaps we can piece this puzzle together.” Asad sat down next to her and picked up the discarded robes she’d been wearing when she’d stumbled into the al Ra’id camp two days ago. “Aside from the fact that the robes belong to the al Mukhtar and you are definitely not of their blood, I think we can assume they are not yours.” He stuck his finger through the bullet hole of the bloodstained robes for emphasis, then tossed the garments aside.
At least she hadn’t been shot, but she had been wearing a vest, holstering a 9-mm handgun. And toting an AK-47 assault weapon.
Did that make her the shooter?
She toyed with the zipper of the jumper she’d fallen asleep in. Some kind of uniform or work clothes, worn underneath the robes. Also bloodstained and much too big for her. A man’s jumper. “I don’t think these are mine, either.”
Asad looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Perhaps not.” But he didn’t sound as sure as she did. And she wasn’t sure about anything at all. “I found these things in the pocket of the black robes.” He spread an array of items across her lap.
She picked up a ring first thing. A small diamond set in a plain gold band. She studied it thoughtfully with no recollection of how it had come to be in her possession. She looked down at her left hand, tried to imagine it there—and couldn’t.
“I do not think you are a married woman. Or even betrothed. No tan line,” he said, pointing out the obvious.
But when she tried it on her finger, the diamond fit. If the ring was hers, why hadn’t she been wearing it? If it wasn’t…
“A thief perhaps?” Asad teased.
Had she stolen it? Why would she do such a thing? Was she someone of low moral character? Perhaps something worse than a thief. A murderer? A thief and a murderer? Is that why she was wearing bloodstained, bullet-riddled clothes and running for her life?
No, no…she couldn’t even comprehend committing such acts.
“I don’t honestly know.” But she preferred to believe she was engaged. She placed the ring on her finger and picked up the next item. A printed card. With both English and Arabic writing. She’d discovered earlier that she could understand the Arabic language, even speak a little, but she couldn’t read it. “What is it?”
“Some sort of communication aid. The Arabic translates the English phrase. As is this,” he said, picking up a cloth printed with an American flag. “It promises great rewards for helping the bearer to safety.”
She stared at the items without comprehension. “Am I that bearer?”
He nodded in that thought-provoking way of his. “I think we can also assume you are an American.” He picked up a red, white and blue patch and matched it to the threaded outline on the shoulder of the jumper.
Stars and Stripes. Old Glory.
The Star Spangled Banner.
Yes, she knew without doubt she was a United States citizen. Where was her passport? Her identification?
Driver’s license? Military ID?
“So what are you doing in the Arabian desert?” Asad echoed her thoughts.
“I don’t know,” she answered earnestly.
“A while back there were rumors of an attack by two U.S. fighters shot down over Iraq. The pilots were reported killed. And the Iraqi celebrated a great victory. The U.S. cl
aimed the incident started over Kuwaiti airspace. Both sides settled the matter without further incident.”
“Who’s your rumor control?”
“CNN.”
“Still, I’m not a fighter pilot,” she said, laughing off the suggestion. “I know the inside of a cockpit like I know my own name, not.” She brought the coffee cup to her lips and took another sip.
“Hmm…perhaps not. But you are dressed like one. And how would you explain these?” He held up a set of dog tags.
She reached for them and read the names. “Sara Daniels. Michelle Dann.” Didn’t they come in pairs? Wouldn’t they be the same?
“My understanding is you take one and leave the other with the body,” Asad explained.
“But there’s only one of each.”
“So which dead woman are you?”
An image flashed. She could feel the chain tightening around her throat until she couldn’t breathe. In the next instant she was the one yanking the chain free from around someone else’s neck.
She shook her head to clear it.
Asad searched her brown eyes with his darker ones.
“What did you remember?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. What didn’t she want to remember? was a better question.
He let the chain slip from his hand into her lap, along with the rest of her life’s story. If only she could make sense of it all.
“All the pieces are there. You have to want to put them together.” His nomadic wisdom seemed far beyond that of his thirty-some years, perhaps passed down from generation upon generation of tribesmen. He had the dark exotic looks of his Moorish ancestors. And she could easily picture him at home in his desert surroundings. But his clothes were modern and his manners that of a well-bred gentleman.
An intriguing combination.
She broke eye contact and stared, unseeing, into the coffee cup in her hands. “You think I’m one of those American fighter pilots? Then why isn’t my country searching for me?”
“Perhaps it is.”
She picked up the dog tags again, turned them over in her hand. “Sara.” She had a very strong gut-level association with the name. “I think…I’m Sara.” She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t sound right. But I remember Sara, not a face, but a feeling.”
“What about Michelle?”
“No, nothing.”
“There is an American embassy in Riyadh. I can get in touch with your people though e-mail…”
A very real and unexplained fear closed off her throat at the thought of leaving this safe haven. She reached out and touched his hand. “Asad, I wish you wouldn’t.” Did that make her a traitor? A deserter?
“A man cannot escape his past. But in the desert a man’s past does not always matter. It is the same for a woman. We have much in common, I think.” He pushed to his feet. “You may stay under the protection of the al Ra’id as long as you wish, Sara Michelle. Or you are free to go and I will provide the transportation. The choice is yours.”
“I’d like to stay. For a while,” she added, suspecting she sounded too eager.
He nodded. “As you wish.” He bowed his head slightly. “A new life calls for a new name. You shall be reborn in the Muslim tradition. I will call you Kalilah. Kalilah al Ra’id.”
“Kalilah al Ra’id.” She tested the sound of her new name. “What does it mean?”
He hesitated. “Darling or sweetheart of the leader.”
Her pulse skipped a beat. Darling, sweetheart. She liked the sound of it. Maybe a little bit too much, considering he was the leader of this particular camp.
She twisted the ring on her finger.
“And darling,” he teased, “I don’t know how to break this to you. But you need a bath. To put it in plain English. You stink.”
WITH THE BASIN of water Asad had provided, she attempted to make herself presentable. But only made matters worse. She’d have to get used to wearing her debris-matted hair in dreadlocks. It be came mud-caked around her freshly washed face. And hopelessly beyond combing.
She angled Asad’s shaving mirror to get a better look at herself. A stranger stared back. Not a single recognizable feature in her drawn face. Who was she?
A fighter pilot? Sara? Michelle?
Someone’s fiancée?
Sun-damaged skin flaked on her nose. But aside from multiplying freckles, her sunburn had already begun to fade. Also fading were bruises and telltale abrasions, reminding her, along with the gash on her forehead, she didn’t want to go back to wherever the hell she’d come from. Clearly she’d taken a beating from more than just the elements.
She shivered. Was this person or persons likely to come after her again? Scrubbing her body with what remained of the now-filthy bathwater, her limbs went from being dirt-covered to streaked with mud. And kept getting worse. Until she finally gave up. To top it off she had nothing to wear other than the dirty, bloodstained clothes.
Arduously she put the jumper back on. Hesitating a moment more before adding the vest and handgun. Next she slipped her feet into sandals more than a size too big. As an afterthought she hung the dog tags around her neck.
All in all she sure didn’t look like something stepping off the pages of the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.
When she dared poke her head out of the tent, Asad had the audacity to laugh at her. As did other members of the tribe, including several children who got a real kick out of tugging on her outfit and scurrying away.
“They have never seen such clothes on a woman,” Asad explained.
Indeed, the women around camp wore decorative black garments, real gold jewelry proudly displayed on their necks and wrists. Their heads and faces were protected by a plain black scarf called a bourque. One of the elderly women offered her a scarf, which she gladly accepted.
When she added it to her ensemble, more peals of laughter followed. She joined in the merriment and didn’t mind that the joke was on her. It just felt good to laugh again. To be near children. She didn’t think she’d been this content in a very long time.
However, with the bourque in place, she could no longer ignore her itching scalp. “I need delousing,” she whined to her host.
“Come, I will take you to the wells. My men are filling the water tankers, but they won’t be back this way again for several days.”
He led the way along the outskirts of the encampment to one of several dune buggies parked beside a herd of ninety or more camels and maybe thirty or so tethered Arabian horses.
“Buckle up,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat.
She ducked under the roll bar on the passenger side. “I didn’t know itinerant tribes rode around in dune buggies.”
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he teased. “It is, after all, the dawn of a new century.”
“Why did you call me that?”
Asad turned to look at her. Sincerity replaced his teasing smile. “I apologize for my poor attempt at humor, Kalilah.”
“No, I didn’t mean that.” She dropped the subject. What did she mean? As he started up the buggy, she studied Asad’s profile with a very real sense of déjà vu. She’d heard that line, or one just like it before.
Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella—she could list all the most common fairy tales. She also knew she didn’t put much stock in them or happily-ever-afters.
She touched her thumb to the ring on her finger. Then why get engaged?
“Khanh!” A young woman in a plain black gown came running toward them.
Asad made a U-turn and pulled up alongside her.
“She’ll want these,” she said shyly, holding up a cloth-wrapped bundle.
“Thank you, Raja.” Asad took the parcel from the woman and deposited what appeared to be toiletries in her lap. “Raja, Kalilah,” he introduced them.
“Yes, thank you, Raja.” The women exchanged smiles, and the dune buggy roared away.
Nearing midday and several sand dunes later, the novelty of riding helter-skelter through the
desert gave way to the reality of a blistering hot day. The mercury topped one hundred degrees. Asad had explained to her that his Bedouin people often rested during the day, saving activity for the morning and evening hours.
Finally the dunes gave way to hard-packed sand and then what appeared to be a small oasis on the horizon.
“Is it real?” she asked, aware of the tricks heat could play on the eyes. When hot air came in contact with an even hotter surface, it created heat waves. Heat waves created an illusion of a wet surface. Mix in a little imagination or a lot of dehydration, and you had a hallucination. Or rather, a mirage.
“See for yourself,” he answered.
As they drew nearer, she could make out two tanker trucks and a Humvee a few hundred yards from the watering hole.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, unbuckling and standing in the seat of the moving vehicle for a better look. “Why don’t you camp near here?”
“Because we would trample its beauty beneath our feet.”
They pulled up next to the black Hummer, and Asad exchanged greeting in Arabic with a couple of armed tribesmen. One of the men climbed into the lead truck and pulled away from what appeared to be a well, while the other truck took its place. She watched with fascination as the men worked together to lower a pump in preparation for filling the second tanker from the underground water source.
“A bath or a shower?” Asad asked, grabbing a gym bag and the bundle of borrowed toiletries from the back of the dune buggy.
“You mean I have a choice? By all means a shower,” she said, enjoying this new adventure.
Asad waved to the driver of the filled tanker, and a few minutes later she was standing under a tepid spray. They’d jerry-rigged a three-sided canvas drape about neck high at the side of the truck, where a long pipe with a showerhead on the end could be turned on and off by a valve. Asad stood guard over her modesty with his back to her.
Not wanting to waste the water or impose on his generosity, she hurried through her shower. When it came to her hair, however, it was clear there was only one solution. She brushed the long rope over her shoulder, bringing to mind another fairy tale. Rapunzel. A princess locked in a tower.
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