And he lacked the skill to enter her mind. He did not know of the existence of the spiritual world. That was her advantage. She might not be good for much, but she could read the earth like an open book. Instinctively, like all the nomads of civilization’s birthplace, she followed the age-old direction that crossed The Empty Quarter.
It didn’t matter how long it took for her to track Nuke down. When she did, once she had the quartz chip, she would carve his still-beating heart from his chest cavity and squeeze dry every last drop of blood. Only for protection had she killed. But there was always a first time. Vengeance for Molly was her right!
Throughout the night, she wandered haphazardly north. She could hear nothing but the steady rhythm of her feet crushing the salt-like sand. She thought about the charred rubble of glass sand shards she had found. She had forgotten to tell Jack about the find. That ought to perk up his interest . . . if ever she saw him again.
As the dunes increased in height, she sometimes sank knee deep, sometimes hauling herself fistful by fistful over a dune’s crest. She knew to stay away from sand with ominous ripple on its surface. The robe the Bedouins had hastily bestowed upon her was far too large and dragged the ground, almost an impediment rather than an benefit. But she knew that the singular thing one didn’t do in the furnace of a desert was to shed clothing.
She wandered in and out of sleep. She was so drained that she had to fully trust her instinct . . . what little she had left, scalped as she was. But her pounding fatigue and deep dehydration could cloud even that instinct. There were no plants or even dried seeps where she could dig for water. Her throat was welded shut. Her body was slowly consuming itself. Soon she would be besieged by mirages and paranoia . . . and after that she would be a coffin of flesh.
What she needed was her survival kit – beer.
Damn’t without her hair, her inner GPS was a mess.
She implored The Voice to speak to her, to guide her.
Nothing.
But, of course. She was on her own. But not alone. Nocturnal scorpions, centipedes and other venomous insects accompanied her.
And skinks. Now here was a traveling companion. They were a family of lizards popular in desert environments. Their scaly bodies, about four inches long, were highly polished by the sand. They could literally swim just under the soft sand’s surface. Instinctively, as a child she had known where they were traveling out of sight, and crouching low over a patch of sand she could grab and bring up a wriggling lizard with which to play.
Rookie agents, trying to emulate her, invariably ended up with only a fistful of sand. They had not grown up in the desert. It was the skinks on which she now forced her wandering attention. That night she secured a skink beneath her robe into her denim jacket’s pocket.
She had a traveling companion. She was no longer alone.
The pearly gray light of dawn spread soundlessly. In minuscule graduations, it rimmed the eastern horizon, off to her right. She loved and respected the desert’s power, and she turned east to bask in the glorious beauty that banished the blackness of night. The sky was flush with the color of a fresh peach and as promising.
At that transcendent moment, explosions of radiant energy bombarded her. Nauseated, wobbly and weak, she dropped to her knees in the sand, sat back on her heels, and cradled her face in her palms. Inexplicably, she felt like weeping wildly. Weeping for the loved ones she had lost to that ogre called Death and for the love that she had never fully experienced in the brief existence called Life. Such an aloneness pervaded her every cell. An unbearable aloneness. She reminded herself she was not alone. There was the skink wriggling in her pocket.
She laughed wildly at this absurdity. The only sound in 250,000 miles. She had to be losing it. Too many nights of not enough sleep. Too much grief. So little routine and simplicity to reassure that all was right with the world.
Then from a distance, she distinctly heard Cary Grant’s suave voice deliver in its semi-crankiness English/American accent, “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be, and, finally, I became that person.”
What in the holy crap did that mean?
If there was one thing she had never, ever done, and she had done a lot, it was pretend to be somebody else. If Janet Lomayestewa was too far off the mark of propriety, then hit the road, Jack.
Pushing herself erect, she shook her head, trying to put together the pieces of this latest puzzle. What then did she need to know about the movie star Cary Grant? She was too young to remember much about him or his films. No, wait. There was that rerun she had caught returning from Afghanistan on a layover at JFK The one with the seat-gripping chase scene across Mount Rushmore. What was the film’s name? North to Alaska? No, no, not that. It was . . . that was it, yes – North By Northwest!
Her hand searched beneath her white robe in one of her jeans pockets for the compass and rotated it until the compass point read two points west of due north: N22°30´W. North by Northwest.
Her journey began again. Nuke might already be passing through security at Riyadh’s international airport. She couldn’t entertain that thought. She couldn’t entertain any thought less than his annihilation. She quickened her pace.
The orange ball of fire rose and began to broil the land once more. Its shafts sizzled their way into her skull, blistered her eyeballs, burned her lungs, cracked her lips. Arid gusts sucked the moisture from her like a vampire. She tucked the folds of her robe across the lower portion of her face. When the sun was at its zenith and she cast no shadow, she dug in her jean’s pocket for a pebble she had collected on her way out of the canyon. She popped the small stone in her mouth to keep it moist and reduce the sensation of thirst.
On through mid-day she walked. Occasionally, she felt the skink wiggle, and she would talk to it. “Better in the shade of my pocket, my friend, than walking in my footsteps.”
It was important to move faster than what was being tracked in order to catch up. But neither walking nor running would exceed the speed of a vehicle. Still, she plodded on. Her focus was divided between the twelve inches of sand directly in front of her and everything between that and eternity.
Searing dry wind whipped around her. She felt like she had entered an open hot oven, drying her blood to a powdery dust. She barely breathed in the white-hot vacuum. Sand clogged her throat and ears, coated her sunglasses, rimmed her eyes, and caked her hands. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. Extreme thirst and physical and mental exhaustion were already attacking her mental faculties. With only remnants of her stamina remaining, she stumbled forward step after step. She was heading in the direction of her worst fear, incapacity. That utter powerlessness. When there is nothing left but to surrender to the trampling of the body, the spirit, the soul.
Never will I see Molly again. Nor feel her small, magical hands clasp either side of my face when revealing something important to her.
Never will I see Jack. Never will I laugh with him. Be tickled by his mustache. Never will I make sweet, sultry wall-slamming love with him. Never will I see his lopsided grin that just drops me to my knees.
Those thoughts were a dead end, and she pushed them way, way back to the darker edges of her mind. She couldn’t afford to panic.
Yet one train of thought persisted. She had chosen an occupation that had kept her separated from most people. Kept her isolated in the desert, where she couldn’t come to care so strongly about anyone. Her fatal flaw. And here, once more in the desert, she realized she couldn’t hide anymore. It was time to embrace love. If she had any time left. What a pathetic excuse for a human being she had she had been. Fucked up her entire life.
Until now.
Yet her very flaw could also be her asset. If nothing else, could she not use her desert skills to track down Nuke? If she were fortunate enough to live beyond that, to see Molly again and Jack . . . oh, God! Maybe there was, indeed, a God.
She had a choice. She had yet to pass the Point of No Return. As a daughter of the desert, she could find he
r way back to Marib. There was more than a likely chance Nuke could die in the desert and his hoard, the Ark of the Covenant and the crystal corner piece, buried by the sandstorms of centuries to come.
She had to trust in the process. Trust that all was as it should be.
At last, she knew what she had to do. Shutting off any fondness for her traveling companion, she captured the scrambling skink from the vest pocket. Its five tiny digits of each paw clung to her fingers. A whispered “Thank you” passed her lips; then, like uncapping a soda bottle, she twisted off the skink’s head. Its blood instantly dried brown on her hands.
Wasting not another second, she drank and ate. She diverted her mind from each revolting bite left in her fingers to other images. Her father’s laughing dark eyes as her little fingers mangled the mess of the upright loom’s weaving he was trying to teach her. Molly’s deft fingers weaving the beautiful baskets and their hearts’ message. And Jack’s strong, supple fingers worshiping her body.
Then, finished with her banquet, she plodded on in a stupor.
* * * * *
Yasmin, Sam, and Jack spread out from the canyon entrance, always staying within hailing distance of one another. Eyes scanning each trench of every dune, she walked as best as she could, hampered by the trailing Bedouin robe.
She tried to recall her years with her father’s Bedouin tribe. How did one round up camels? All that came to mind were her father’s fierce eyes and dazzling smile. With a start, she realized he was the image of Sam. Her father had always seemed tall, almost as tall as the desert palms, but then maybe it was her perspective from that of a child. Possibly, he had been no taller than Sam.
And Sam, was he like her father, ruthless with adversaries and generous with allies? Where did she stand with Sam? Ally or adversary? He was no garden variety professor. This past week in intimate quarters with him had confused her thoroughly. He was like an oasis mirage. Inviting and illusory. Who really was Dr. Sampson al-Addin? She knew he was very much a man, evidenced by the large bulge in his khaki pants when she had sat in his lap. Yes, he desired her, but was his admitted interest in her genuine?
By Allah, she felt so frustrated with the man! There was something about him. Something about his liquid presence. She was accustomed to brute force sexually, but he kept his cards close to his chest . . . as if waiting for her, her, to make up her mind. If his true character was so difficult to pin point, then she was taking a chance with him. If they ever found Nuke and the chip, it might be Sam, not Nuke, who took them down.
Sam yelled out now, “Over here! Over here!”
She headed in the direction of his voice to find two of the four camels. Gone were the saddle blankets, goatskin bags, and whips. The two camels were lying down. Sam was hauling hopelessly on one’s bridle and cursing vividly.
She enjoyed finding him less than his ever ebullient self. “Good luck in getting them up if they don’t want to,” she called out.
Too late, because the provoked camel threw up on him a foul smelling, greenish fluid. As she well recalled from childhood, it was a defense that seemed never ending to the recipient,.
Sam managed to look faintly amused, and she had the impression this was his coping mechanism . . . if always amused then you were impervious to pain.
At that moment, Jack crested the nearest dune and raised a sardonic brow at the sight of Sam’s aghast expression. “I’d say the thobe needs to be retired from your wardrobe immediately.”
“I’ll second that,” she said, “especially if I’m going to ride that camel with him.” The second she last word tumbled from her mouth, she was appalled. What am I thinking? I could have chosen to ride in safety with Jack!
Later, she rode the camel in a sensual haze. Behind her, Sam’s Popeye arms cradled her, his burnished bare torso supporting her back. His hands at the flat of her stomach gently retained her as a captive in his arms. She could smell the fresh scent coming off his hot skin. Here was safety and security, was it not? A sweet languor overtook her. Feeling evidence of his desire nudging her from behind, she had to ask herself again what was she thinking – especially as she felt his heat transferring to her. The shock of the electrical current exchanged between their bodies reverberated down her spine.
He whispered teasingly, his breath hot against her ear, “You have plans to save the world from itself. What about saving yourself, Princess Yasmin?”
Princess Yasmin, he calls me! Princess Yasmin! When I have been plundered more than any brothel whore. “Saving myself from what, Ali Babba?” she demanded stringently. “From shape shifters like yourself?”
But his exuberant laughter was infectious. Why, could she be falling in love with Sam? What would he be like in lovemaking?
Lovemaking . . . something she had never experienced. She didn’t know why, but she felt like crying, because she sensed that Sam would be exquisitely gentle in bed.
Behind an AK-47, that might be another thing.
* * * * *
Jack tried to sit easy in the saddle, but riding a camel wasn’t the same as riding a horse. And easy wasn’t in his vocabulary right now. As he urged the camel to a quicker pace, only the word hurry was necessary to his vocabulary. As necessary as Janet had become necessary to him. After the hollow promises and dashed hopes that Life had hid in its shell game, this mite of a woman had burrowed beneath his skin to remain steadfast and unconditional.
He had to trust in her . . . as he had to trust in his camel’s instinct to follow the ancient caravansary trails, also traveled by two humans right now. No, make that traveled by one monster and one wild woman.
He was staggered by the intensity of the love he felt for this Native American faerie. And afraid. Could he risk loving . . . and losing . . . but again? The fear of a future without Janet was paralyzing. His life would be empty without her. He wanted her to feel the same deep, unreasonable, overpowering need that pursued him like the hounds of Hell. An image of her haunted him. Her precious head posed so proudly on her long neck, her slender, graceful body. She was so beautiful to look upon. A woman of women.
After Linda’s death, he had grown pitiless in his regard for others. In recent years, he had become accustomed to having his way in everything. When with dates, he had dealt with their starry eyed gratitude harshly. He had wanted something else. Something elemental, inescapable, overwhelming that made him come alive right down to his very core in every moment his lungs drew breath. Something he’d shoot the moon for; someone he’d put out the stars for. And he had thought what he wanted didn’t exist. All this time, it was Janet Lomayestewa he had wanted. If he was not too late. If she survived. She must survive! Her light could not go out like that, her magnificent resilience and fearless courage extinguished.
It wouldn’t be the desert that would claim her, he reassured himself. She was a daughter of the desert. No, it would be something more treacherous, something to which she couldn’t relate.
Evil.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Janet plodded right up one sand dune, down another, and plodded upon tire tracks!
She was slow to react. Had she happened upon these by just plan dumb luck or spiritual intervention? How long had she been walking within sight of them? Certainly she had missed the vibration energy trailing behind the four-wheeler, a vibration energy which was transmitted to sound and tracks. The same tire tracks found near the flair and the rocky outcrop. The vehicle was driven by Nuke; she could tell from its tracks by the cavalier way he drove it. Sand crumbled quickly. The tracks had to be fresh, which meant Nuke had survived the sand storm.
She ditched her sunglasses. Both the lenses and metal could reflect light. The AK-47 she kept within the shadowy folds of her robe. Quickly, she scaled the next dune and peaked over it. There in the trough between waves of dunes was a specially built, enclosed cab ATV. Both the windward wheels were nearly buried by the recent sandstorm. Its hood was raised. On its bed were two 55-gallon drums – and the Ark.
But where
was Nuke? Had the four-wheeler broken down? Hot, sandy and salty environments were hell on equipment. Had Nuke abandoned his quest, leaving, walking away from the Ark? She doubted that. Nevertheless, she scanned the footprints around the four wheeler, then cut outward in concentric circles. The prints might have led away on the other side of the four-wheeler. It was too far away to make out anything.
Or had he detected her careless approach? She had to be dead certain she wasn’t walking into a lethal trap. She began looking for a carefully camouflaged trip wire. One that might trigger a violent avalanche of sand or merely give him warning of her exact proximity.
She opened her mouth slightly, thereby increasing her hearing ability. With rapt attention, she listened for anything – the pulling loose of a Velcro fastener, the removing of a backpack, or the lighting of a match. Nothing.
She had a bad feeling about this. Stealthily, she slid the AK-47 from her robe’s folds. Cautiously, quietly, she began to circle the area, moving from one dune to the next, searching for prints below. She smelled and tasted the air, trying to detect the lingering scent of him. All her senses were electrified.
That’s when she heard it, the slamming bolt of a weapon. Instantly, she dropped and rolled. A ballistic path of sand sprayed in the spot where she had been. She bellied closer, calling out as she continued to crawl, “You’ve got the Ark. Give me the quartz chip.”
She was hoping to get a response that would identify his location. His response was a round of shots. One grazed her thigh. Fuck! Where was he?
Rapidly, she shimmied on all fours down the next slope. The clack-clack-clack followed her. She saw her blood dripping and the sand absorbing it. With nothing less than a Herculean effort, she vaulted over the crest of that dune. Another bullet-spray of sand stung her face, blinding her. Quickly, she rubbed the grit from her eyes and kept scrambling.
Call Me Crazy (Janet Lomayestewa, Tracker) Page 18