Nikki closed her eyes for a moment, her features tight. Moisture glistened under her lashes.
He cupped the side of her face. “Nikki, you are like no one I’ve ever met.” His voice caught on a sudden surge of emotion, becoming hoarse, low. Seductive. “I want you, Nikki. I want you to try on the role of queen. Just for a short while. Get to know the real me. And allow me to get to know you. One step, one day at a time.”
She slumped a little at these words, leaning into his touch as if desperate to believe, yet still fighting it with every morsel of her being.
“I’ve seen your love for my desert. I’ve witnessed your under standing of my people. I have seen your passion and purpose through the way you have protected and cared for your children. It not only makes you more beautiful than any woman I have known. It makes you the perfect role model for this country. My people need you. I need you.”
A pearl of moisture slid from the corner of her eyes, glistening in flame light as it tracked down her cheek.
He wiped it away with his thumb.
No one had ever said such beautiful things to her, making her feel worthwhile, loved, absolved, things she’d so very deeply craved since the death of Hailey and Chase, since her downward spiral into alcoholic oblivion and her long slow crawl back.
“Those other five women, Nikki, are merely a backup. In case I could not persuade you to stay.” He pressed his fingers to his left temple suddenly, closing his eyes for a moment. “I am running out of time,” he said quietly. “My vision is failing. And if you insisted on leaving, on breaking off our engagement—”
“I was never actually engaged to you, Zakir. You said it was a pretense so I could be here.”
“It’s real in the King’s Council’s eyes.”
“So you did use me.”
“Only because I wanted to know you better. I would have moved more slowly if I could have, Nikki. But I just don’t have the luxury of time.” He paused. “Can you accept this?”
She cast her eyes down and fidgeted with her napkin, emotions twisting. Zakir was offering her everything she ever wanted—and a chance to fall in love. Then she thought of Gelu, what he might still want of her and the children if she stayed. And of what it could still cost Zakir if her past came out. “Zakir, I can’t—”
But before she could finish her sentence, a ruckus sounded outside the doors—guards yelling, footsteps clattering down the hall.
The doors to the patio burst open, and little Solomon came barreling through, Zakir’s Gurkhas close on his heels, trying to stop him from barging in on the king’s dinner.
“Miss Nikki, Miss Nikki, she’s gone!” Tears gleamed over Solomon’s brown cheeks.
Nikki lurched from her chair, crouched down, taking his shoulders. “Shh, take it easy, Solomon. Breathe.”
He gulped down air.
“Now tell me, who is gone?”
“Samira!”
Tension whipped through her. She flicked a glance at Gelu who was lurking by the door now, his features impassive.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“She’s not in the room, not in the palace, not anywhere.”
Zakir dismissed his guards with a curt wave of his hand and came to Nikki’s side. “She must be somewhere on the grounds, Solomon.”
He closed his eyes, shook his head. “She would not go anywhere, Miss Nikki, not without telling me. She always tells me everything. She said I was her backup. She said I was brave like her little brother. She promised she’d never leave me alone if she had to go somewhere again.” He began to shake. “I just know, Miss Nikki, I do. Someone has taken her. Something terrible has happened.”
Chapter 15
The younger kids stared in silence as Nikki rummaged wildly through everything in their room, trying to see if Samira had taken clothes, books. But nothing was missing.
She spun round. “Did she say anything to anyone?”
Heads shook.
“Solomon—” Nikki crouched down in front of him, trying to stay calm, keep her voice level, but fear was rising uncontrollably in her chest. Gripping his bony shoulders a little too hard, she asked, “When did you all last see Samira? What was she doing? Think.”
He scowled, brow lowering, features tightening as he racked his brain. “It was this afternoon,” he said in French. “Down past the pool, near the tree plantation—”
“The olive grove?”
He nodded vigorously. “She was talking to someone.”
“Who!” Nikki reined herself in when Solomon’s eyes went wide and round. She softened her voice. “Who was she with, Solomon?”
“One of the women who comes up from the village to work in the palace kitchen. She’s a very nice lady, Miss Nikki…She—” Solomon glanced nervously at the king towering in silence behind Nikki. “She sneaks us fresh dates and guavas when the other kitchen staff aren’t looking.”
Zakir spun on his boot heels and stalked out of the chambers, boots ringing angrily down the corridor as he headed for the kitchen wing.
By midnight, there was still no sign of Samira.
The woman from the kitchen had been located and questioned by Zakir. She said she knew nothing of what had happened to the teenager. She’d simply been showing Samira how to pick the first ripe blond olives. The woman was trembling, distressed and tearful at having been brusquely interrogated by the king himself, at being thought responsible for the teen’s disappearance.
Nikki stood on the edge of the patio in the dark, staring down toward the shadowed olive grove that had been searched twice already by staff. Her mouth was dry, she felt dizzy, cold in spite of the heat.
Zakir came up behind her, touched Nikki on the shoulder and she jumped.
She turned, looked up. The glow from the torches that burned from sconces along the terrace wall danced over the sharp angles of his profile. “She’s not here, Zakir. She’s gone—something terrible has happened.”
“I’m sure she just wandered off, got lost.”
Gelu’s taken her. I’m sure of it.
“Samira wouldn’t do that, Zakir. Not without telling me. Or Solomon. You heard what he said. Samira had a little brother who died in her care. Solomon has become that little brother to Samira now. She’d die before abandoning him.”
“We will find her,” he said gently. “My men are still searching the palace grounds.”
“All those miles of it? In the dark?” Nikki clenched her teeth, wrapping her arms tightly over her stomach. “I…I’ve got to do something, Zakir. I can’t just sit all night and wait.”
“Nikki,” he said softly, “tell me more about Samira, her background. When did she arrive at your mission?”
Nikki inhaled deeply. “The first time she was eleven. Her parents had been killed when her village was attacked. Samira, her younger brother and a few other children had managed to flee. At night they slept in the bush near the village, and during the day they hid from rebels who would otherwise capture them to work as child soldiers or sex slaves. But when her brother cut his foot and developed a serious infection, Samira found her way to the mission for help.” Nikki fell silent for a while, trying to compose herself. “Her brother died. We couldn’t save him. Samira ran away.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t trust us. She got spooked by her brother’s death. But then…she was raped, violently, by some soldiers, and she was brought back to the mission by a woman who found her bleeding alongside the road.” Her voice grew thick. She clutched her arms tighter over her stomach.
“And she has been with you since?”
“She was in real bad shape after the rape, Zakir. When she was somewhat healed, she left one more time. But she returned on her own accord when her pregnancy started to show, and she realized that the mission nurses really might be able to help her bring a baby safely into the world.” Nikki wavered. “Which is why I must find her, help her.”
“Why’d she leave the second time?”
Nikki exhaled. �
�Samira took a long time to trust, to believe the nurses and priests and sisters at the mission would do right by her. Compassion from strangers was a foreign concept in her life. I also believe she was too young to initially comprehend what pregnancy was going to mean to her. When the gravity of her situation became clear, when she realized she couldn’t do this on her own, she returned for help.”
“But, you see, Nikki, Samira has a record of going away. Not wanting to be somewhere unless in need. Maybe because she’s feeling well again, she might feel there is no longer need to stay here.”
Nikki whirled to face Zakir, desperate to tell him about Gelu, about how he’d threatened Samira, but at the same time she was terrified Gelu would find out, and that Samira would bear the consequences. “How?” she demanded, pointing out into the darkness in her frustration. “How would she get out of these grounds—even if she wanted to?”
He grasped her shoulders, steadying her. “Nikki, assassins breached a whole army of trained guards in Al Na’Jar to kill my parents right in their beds. Anything is possible. Samira might have sneaked out with the women from the village who work in the kitchen. They might’ve told her they could take better care of her than some foreign nurse.”
She spun away from him, shaking inside, panic licking through her.
“I am going inside to contact the palace in Na’Jar. I’ll bring up another cadre of troops to search the village beyond the palace walls. They’ll be here by dawn. They will find her. Wherever Samira went, she cannot have gotten far. Not in her condition.”
He touched her again as he spoke. But Nikki pulled away, dry eyed. Afraid. Powerless. Frustrated beyond reason. More than any of the other children, Samira was her purpose. Without Samira and her baby, Nikki was cut loose, blowing terrified in the wind. She couldn’t even flee the Summer Palace, not without Samira.
She was well and truly trapped now.
“Come inside with me while I make the call.”
Nikki shook her head. “I’ll wait here.”
He hesitated, nodded, then hooked his hand into Ghorab’s collar, using his dogs to guide him back through the arches.
Nikki stared fiercely into the darkness, fighting herself. Fighting the anguish that threatened to crash through her and overwhelm all logical thought.
She’d brought Samira so very far, after so many years. She could not stand here doing nothing, just waiting to see if Gelu was going to make a move. Darkness had descended, but she had to keep looking. And she had no idea where to start, other than the point Samira was last seen.
She shot a glance back at the marble arches where flaming torches billowed in the hot desert breeze.
On impulse, she strode to the end of the terrace, took a torch from one of the sconces and descended the wide black marble staircase toward the dark glistening pool, heading toward the shadows of the olive orchard.
It was hot in the grove—residual heat from the ground being stirred by pockets of cooler air as Nikki moved through the gnarled trees. The darkness felt thick. Ominous. And the scent of freshly watered ground was musky, dense.
Leaves rustled in gusts of wind. The flame of her torch sputtered. A small animal scrabbled through debris at her feet. Nikki jumped, heart jackhammering.
“Samira!” she called, throat dry as she held the flame up high. She moved deeper into the dark grove, farther away from the lights of the palace, the rows of knotted trunks taking ominous shape in her imagination. “Samira!”
Oh, please let me find you.
Something crackled leaves under the dark trees. Nikki froze, listening. The wind was picking up, shadows bobbing, leaves whispering and clicking as they rubbed together. It might have been a trick of her mind.
She inched forward, pulse racing. The torch sputtered in sharp hot gusts, making shadows shimmy and lunge. Her heart beat faster—there was someone out here. She could feel it.
Abruptly a hand shot in front of her face, clamped down hard over her mouth. Nikki tried to scream, but the hand killed her sound. She dropped the torch, struggling and squirming to wrench the hands off her. But she was powerless against her assailant who dragged her kicking into the shadows.
“Make one sound—” a voice whispered in a guttural Arabic as a knife pressed up against her throat “—and the child will die.”
Nikki froze, heart palpitating, sweat prickling over her body. It wasn’t Gelu!
“You will be silent?”
She tried to nod.
Slowly the hand released her mouth. He turned her to face him, but his blade remained pressed tightly against her skin. Her assailant wore a black balaclava, black tunic and pants. He was not tall, but he was wiry, incredibly strong.
A second man materialized from the shadows. He was smaller, maybe just a boy, also dressed in black. He kicked sand over her burning torch.
“What do you want?” Her voice came out a hoarse whisper.
The larger man held what looked like a sophisticated PDA in front of Nikki. He pressed a key, and a small video feed flickered to life.
Samira.
Tied to a chair. Blade to her throat. Wrists bound by rope. Eyes terrified.
Nikki’s hand flew to her mouth, almost to stop her own involuntary sound. Her gaze shot to the man.
“Now listen very carefully,” he said. “Do as we say, or you will watch her throat being slit on camera, understand?”
“How…how do I know she’s still alive?” Nikki shook with fury. “What proof do I have that this was not recorded before you bastards killed her!” she hissed.
The man spoke into a cell phone, then held the screen for her to see as he gave her the phone. “Speak, and you will have your proof.”
Nikki grasped the phone. “Samira! Can you hear me?”
On the small screen Samira’s eyes flashed wide. She nodded.
The man yanked the phone away. “If you refuse to obey orders, the next time we show you this screen you will watch as she dies.”
“What in hell do want from me?” she ground out through her clenched teeth.
The man clicked off the feed. “We have a man inside the Summer Palace—”
Gelu. He was a part of this. He’d given these men access.
“He knows there is a document in the Sheik’s office.”
Nikki’s mind raced. The man referred to Zakir as sheik, not king. He had to be one of the insurgents unwilling to acknowledge his rule. Gelu was working for the insurgency.
“This document was delivered by two Sheik’s Army generals today, in a metal tube. It’s a map of key military installations. The Sheik has placed this tube in a drawer in his desk. It has this code on the tube.”
A piece of paper was thrust into her hand.
“We know you have access to the Sheik’s chambers at night. Get the contents of that tube while he sleeps. Bring it to us before sunrise. We will be waiting here, in the olive grove. Once this is done, we will release your orphan.”
“That’s insane!” she hissed. “He’ll see me—”
“Which is why you will put this in his nightly carafe of wine.” Nikki felt a capsule being pressed into her palm. “He will sleep soundly enough for you to enter his office unseen.” He paused, allowing his words to sink in.
“Choose very carefully now. Whose life do you value more—Sheik Zakir Al Arif or your little pregnant orphan?”
She tried to swallow, tried to breathe, the man’s words snaking ominously through her brain. “What…what’s in the capsule?” she whispered.
“A narcotic to aid sleep.”
Nikki felt sick. The smaller man handed the torch back to her, and he slid back into the night shadows.
“Before sunrise,” the man reminded her.
“How…how can I trust that you will safely return Samira to me?”
“We want our country back more than we want to kill a little Mauritanian whore.” He came closer, his voice lowering to a whisper that was almost lost in the rustle of the wind through the olive leaves. “And
remember, we do have someone on the inside. He is in direct radio contact with us. If you breathe even one word of this to the Sheik, if he takes any countermeasure to save those installations on the map, we will know. The orphan will die at once. Make one mistake, and you’ll live to regret it.”
The man melted back into the night.
Bile rose to Nikki’s throat. Shaking, she walked slowly back to the palace with her dead torch.
Zakir stood in his office after having summoned another cadre of men. The black blot in the center of his left eye seemed permanent now, expanding slowly. This additional tension didn’t help. The candidates for marriage would be arriving tomorrow, and he’d made no headway with Nikki. Now this. He glanced at the gilt doors that hid a bank of LCD security screens.
There were security cameras installed in every palace room, all of them feeding continual footage into a digital database that was backed up hourly. His men had already gone through the footage from today, trying to find evidence of where Samira had gone.
The last digital image of Samira had been captured as she and the woman from the kitchen had left the kitchen entrance, making for the olive grove, baskets in hand. Just as the woman had testified.
Zakir did not have cameras in the orchards. Nor in the grounds beyond the patio and pools and private gardens. So he couldn’t see what had transpired there. The next image was of the woman returning to the kitchen entrance with a full basket. Alone. She’d said Samira wanted to remain and walk in the orchard awhile.
Zakir drew back the gilt doors, exposing the bank of screens. He wanted to see that image again. But as he clicked on the monitors he was distracted by a live and grainy footage of Nikki emerging from the darkness near the pool, an unlit torch in her hand.
The Sheik’s Command Page 15