Date with a Surgeon Prince

by Meredith Webber

  Hari left them, no doubt to drive the limo back to the city, and Fawzi drove—carefully for one so young, Marni thought—across the desert, up and over sand dune after sand dune, reinforcing—as if she’d needed it—the desolation of the endless shifting sands.

  Tasnim was asleep again and Marni dozed, aware there was no point in watching where they were going because it all looked exactly the same. Finally, he pulled up beside what looked like a small thatched cottage, half-buried in the sand.

  ‘We are here. There is food and water, a little camping stove, beds and bedding. You will stay there. We will be watching you, though you may not see us. Just remember if you venture out into the desert, you will surely die.’

  Marni didn’t argue. Tired, confused and still angry with Ghazi over his ‘Why didn’t you tell me’ question, still hurt by it, she was beginning to think a comfortable prison cell might not be such a bad idea.

  With Fawzi’s help she got the still sleepy Tasnim out of the vehicle and into the little shelter, lit by two small gas lanterns that threw dark shadows into the corners of the room.

  She could see a couple of mattresses against one wall, a pile of bedding in a corner, a table, where one lantern and a small gas stove, some plates and cups and a kettle stood, and a set of shelves packed with what was probably tinned food—the second lantern on the top of them.

  ‘Lie down on that mattress,’ she told Tasnim. ‘I’ll make you some mint tea. Assuming there is mint available for tea?’

  She’d turned to Fawzi, hovering in the doorway, to ask the last question and a more hesitant or unhappy kidnapper she could not imagine.

  ‘Of course,’ he said abruptly, before walking out into the darkness. She heard the engine of his vehicle starting up then the noise gradually died away.

  Tasnim was lying on the mattress, shivering in the night-cold desert air. Marni found a warm duvet and tucked it around the pregnant woman, thinking, as she did so, of her far-off obstetrics training.

  How much did she remember?

  ‘I’ll get some tea,’ she said. ‘There might be biscuits. I’ll have a look. We’re quite safe here,’ she added, reassuring both herself and Tasnim. ‘And as soon as Ghazi realises we’re missing, he’ll find us.’

  Given what had happened, she actually wasn’t sure about that statement and had said it to reassure Tasnim.

  It must have worked for Tasnim nodded and snuggled into the bedding. Satisfied that she was all right for the moment, Marni stood up to explore their temporary home. Water first, to boil for tea. Four large plastic containers of it suggested their kidnappers thought they might be here for a while. Fortunately, as she doubted she could lift a full container, she found a tap at the bottom of each of them so was able to slide a cup under it and get enough water to put into the kettle.

  They’d thought of everything, she realised as she picked up a box of matches to light the little gas cooker. Beside the matches was a small gas firelighter but she was too tired to work out how to use it right now.

  She set the kettle on to boil and began to check the shelves—sure enough, there were biscuits. Probably because the young men liked them, she decided, but she wasn’t going to quibble over the reason for their choice.

  Dried mint in a plastic container—she had no idea how much to use, having only made the tea with fresh mint when she’d been living in her little flat. She guessed amounts, realised there was no teapot so she waited until the water boiled then threw the mint into the kettle, adding sugar because that would help with shock.

  But by the time she was done, Tasnim was asleep again, too deeply asleep for Marni to want to wake her.

  Pouring herself a cup of tea, she carried it to the doorway of the hut, holding it in both hands as she sipped the sweet liquid, looking up at the billion bright stars and wondering if some combination or permutation of their movements had dictated the events of this most momentous day.

  Well, at least you’ve achieved what you came to this place for, a cynical voice whispered in her head. Now perhaps you can get on with your life—go on dates, have some fun!

  The realisation that she didn’t want to go on dates—except perhaps with Ghazi—or have some fun—except, of course, with him—made her feel so miserable she gave up on the beauty of the night sky and crept back into the hut.

  CHAPTER TEN

  TASNIM WOKE UP irritable and unhappy, waking Marni, who’d settled on a second mattress nearby and had finally gone to sleep way past midnight.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Tasnim was saying, while Marni was still shaking off the heaviness of sleep. ‘We’ve got to get away!’

  ‘And go where?’ Marni demanded, more concerned that she was going to have to find somewhere behind the shed to relieve herself in private.

  And soon!

  ‘If we walk out into that desert we’re as good as dead,’ she added, heading for the door then hesitating there. ‘Do you think they’re really watching us from somewhere? I mean, it’s not as if we can escape, is it?’

  ‘I went behind the shed,’ Tasnim told her, guessing at her concern, ‘not something that’s easy when you’re eight months pregnant. And I don’t mean to walk out into the desert, but next time they come we’ll have to overpower them some way and take the vehicle.’

  I rather think that’s a royal we, and she’s meaning I will have to do the dirty work, Marni thought.

  But right now she was beyond caring, hurrying around behind the shed, worrying now about how they’d wash themselves and their underwear.

  Tasnim was ahead of her, for when Marni returned Tasnim had found a basin and filled it with warm water from the kettle, smelling of mint but very welcome nonetheless.

  ‘I’ve found a couple of long gowns, like the men wear in the desert. I think the boys must use this place when they come out to hunt. They look clean enough so I’m going to have a wash and put one of them on. We can use the water we’re washing in to wash our underwear.’

  She must have read the surprise in Marni’s face for she laughed and said, ‘Being the descendant of a long line of desert women,’ she reminded Marni, ‘I know how precious water is. Out here we don’t really need our underwear so we wash it this once then put it away until we’re rescued.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Marni said, ‘but are you the same woman who was telling me, rather emotionally and only minutes ago, that we have to get out of here?’

  Tasnim smiled at her.

  ‘Pregnant women get very emotional,’ she reminded Marni, ‘but we’re also very sensible under the hysteria because we’ve something very special to protect.’ She patted her bulging belly. ‘So now we have to be practical and look after ourselves, bathe and eat, and then we plan.’

  The bathing and eating part went well, but planning? Tasnim’s escape ideas became more and more impossible—finding a rock and hitting whoever came over the head, grabbing the gun, hiding in the sand then racing to the car while their kidnappers searched for them—until Marni grew tired of pointing out just why they wouldn’t work.

  ‘Well, we can’t just sit here waiting to be rescued,’ Tasnim complained. ‘I mean, Yusef’s still away, and is Ghazi likely to come looking for you?’

  After the way she had stormed out of his office? Hardly!

  But Marni didn’t share that thought.

  ‘Your staff will know you’re missing and they must know you went off with Hari,’ Marni said instead.

  ‘Yes, but if Hari’s not in town—if he’s somewhere out here, watching us—how can they ask him where I am? And if they’ve really thought things through, that pair, they’ll have come up with some reason why we didn’t go home. They’d have told my people we were going to stay with one of the sisters or something.’

  ‘Would your people believe them? I mean, you didn’t pack anything or make any arrangements.’

  Tasnim’s smile was rueful.

  ‘I do tend to be a little impulsive so although they might mutter among themselves, I doubt any
of the staff would be surprised enough to be suspicious. And everyone always has spare clothes and toiletries, even make-up, for visitors. Like the stuff in your bedroom suite.’

  They were sitting on Tasnim’s mattress, and now she stretched out and lay down on it.

  ‘I’m going to sleep for a while,’ she said, patting Marni’s leg where she still sat on the edge of the mattress. ‘You keep thinking.’

  Marni was relieved her companion was sleeping, but without Tasnim’s chatter and flow of ideas there was nothing to stop Marni’s mind drifting back to Ghazi and the events of the previous evening.

  ‘They cannot just have vanished,’ Ghazi yelled, striding about his office at the palace, glaring at his closest friends and advisors.

  Unfortunately, deep down he believed they could have done just that. Marni, upset with him—hurt—over what had happened, or what he’d said, could have told Tasnim and Tasnim certainly had the guile and resources to hide them both away somewhere. In fact, the little devil would delight in the intrigue!

  ‘I don’t want to alarm you further—’ Nimr’s voice brought Ghazi out of his dark thoughts. ‘—but Alima says there’s no way Tasnim would put her unborn child in jeopardy by doing something rash, and as far as Alima’s concerned, leaving her home voluntarily at this stage of a pregnancy counts as rash.’

  ‘So they are in danger!’ Ghazi stormed, as his cousin swept away his last hope that Marni might be safe. ‘Why? Who? Is it to get at me? Who have I offended?’

  ‘At least we know they’ve got Hari with them,’ Nimr offered, and Ghazi snorted.

  ‘That’s hardly comforting, Nimr. Those two young brothers of yours have about as much sense as the rabbits they love to hunt.’ He hesitated for a moment, then added, ‘Although, where’s Fawzi? Maybe he knows something.’

  Nimr shrugged.

  ‘He went off a few days ago. Hunting, as you said. The pair of them are obsessed with all the old ways. They believe we should still live in tents and roam the desert sands—in the newest and biggest four-wheel drives, of course.’

  Ghazi shook his head. He had no time to be thinking of Nimr’s irresponsible brothers now, not when Marni was missing, perhaps in danger.

  His gut had been tied in knots since he’d first tried to contact her at Tasnim’s house, phoning when he’d been on his way from the hospital to Nimr’s dinner, phoning again every ten minutes, feeling more and more desperate until someone finally admitted that neither woman had returned to the house.

  If she’d left voluntarily it was because of him, and if something had happened to her, well, that was probably to do with him as well.

  Somehow they got through their first full day of captivity, although Tasnim’s mood swings took more out of Marni than the desert heat when she ventured outside during the day. Tasnim’s first idea had been to write the word ‘help’ in big letters in the sand so the searching helicopter Ghazi was sure to send would see the message.

  Although not believing for a minute Ghazi would send any form of rescue, Marni did write the word in large letters in the sand a few metres behind their shelter. But the wind that came up in the afternoon obliterated the word in seconds—and gave Tasnim a new idea.

  ‘We’ll put up a flag—use one of the wuzars in the pile of clothing.’

  She dug around and produced a snowy-white length of material and Marni felt blood flowing into her cheeks as she realised it was the kind of undergarment Ghazi had shed on that memorable night.

  Did Tasnim see that blush that she laughed and said, ‘It’s only a strip of cloth!’

  As they’d agreed Tasnim should stay inside out of the sun, so as not to overheat, once again it was Marni who searched the dunes around their shelter for a stick long enough to hoist a flag.

  But a flag with no message? Would it mean anything on the slim chance someone did come looking?

  She found a stick behind the shelter where some small branches and bunches of dried grass had been stacked, presumably to provide fuel for a fire on a cold night. Digging around, wary of the scorpions Tasnim kept telling her to watch out for, she discovered another, smaller, though thicker stick. Taking it inside, she put the little gas lighter under one end of it, charring It all around so she could use it as a writing implement.

  Tasnim objected to the word ‘help’ this time. It had been chosen when Marni had written in the sand because it was shorter than the local word, but now they settled on the universal ‘SOS’.

  It took over an hour, charring the stick, writing, charring again, until it was done. But where to put it? Their shelter was nestled between dunes, and even on the stick and somehow attached to the roof, it would barely be seen above the sand.

  ‘You’ll just have to climb to the highest dune,’ Tasnim told Marni, ‘and if Fawzi and Hari really are watching us then you’ll get caught but I don’t think they’d shoot you.’

  ‘Well, that’s comforting,’ Marni grumbled, although she was becoming used to Tasnim’s cheerful fatalism.

  Ghazi stared at Mazur in disbelief.

  ‘You’re telling me those two idiots are holding Tasnim and Marni because they want me to stand down and declare Nimr the ruler?’

  Mazur shook the six-page letter he was holding.

  ‘There’s a lot more than that—all kinds of rot about you having stolen Nimr’s birthright and brought shame to the family’s name, and not having any honour or integrity or cultural importance.’

  ‘What the hell is cultural importance?’ Ghazi demanded, then shook his head at his stupidity. As if it mattered what the pair had said about him—the important thing was rescuing Tasnim and Marni, although Tasnim would probably be happier to see him than Marni would.

  ‘Phone Nimr, get him here immediately. If anyone knows where those two reprobates might be holding the women, he should.’

  Ghazi hoped he sounded more in control than he felt. His mind had been in chaos since Marni’s disappearance, and now this! His chest was tight with worry, his gut knotted, and his neck ached with tension. It was bad enough that he’d hurt Marni with his thoughtless words, but to have put her into danger purely because of her connection to him—a connection he’d shamelessly used for his own purposes…

  He’d kill those two.

  ‘There are two or three old hunting shelters they use as bases when they’re hunting.’

  Nimr was striding into the room, his mobile phone in his hand. He crossed to Ghazi and put an arm around his shoulder.

  ‘I was in the palace when Mazur called. Man, I’m sorry about this. We’ll get them back. The one thing we can he sure of, they won’t hurt the women. They might be stupid and infantile in their pranks but they would never hurt a woman.’

  Ghazi acknowledged his cousin’s words with an abrupt nod, but Nimr’s arrival had brought more than hope.

  ‘Did you want the job?’ Ghazi had to ask, although he’d been sure they’d discussed this many times and Nimr’s answer had always been the same.

  ‘No way,’ Nimr assured him now. ‘And those two lamebrains know that! I’ve told them times without number that I’ve other things I want to do with my life and, besides, I’ve always known, just as my father did, that you’re the best man to rule our country at this time.’

  He gave Ghazi another hug, then bent over the map he’d asked Mazur to find.

  ‘A helicopter, flying low,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll pilot it and you be the lookout. We’ll take the little four-seater Bell. It can fly lower without disturbing the sand too much so we’ll still be able to see.’

  He nodded to Mazur, who left to arrange the helicopter while Nimr pored over the map then glanced up at Ghazi.

  ‘What about Tasnim? How do you think she’ll be holding up?’ He grinned then added, ‘Are your obstetric skills up to date?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Ghazi said, watching as Nimr traced a line across the map with a red pen.

  Obstetric skills? The words echoed in Ghazi’s head.

  Tasnim
was eight months pregnant and had been through a major upset. He phoned the hospital and asked if they could have a midwife with her obstetrics bag standing by on the heliport in twenty minutes.

  The little aircraft lifted lightly into the air, Nimr confident at the controls, Ghazi already working out logistics. He would send Marni, Tasnim and the nurse out on the first flight and Nimr could return for him.

  Once they found the women…

  If they found the women…

  Marni had expected Tasnim to be asleep again when she returned from planting her flag on the dune. Tasnim dozed on and off all day because her sleep at night was restless.

  But Tasnim was awake—not only awake but naked.

  ‘There must be something in the clothes, either some kind of bug or they’ve been washed in something that disagrees with my skin. Look!’

  She pointed to where little red weals were showing on her belly.

  ‘They’re itchy and they’re driving me mad.’

  Marni examined them, wishing she knew more about general medicine than she did.

  ‘They look more like an allergy than a bug of some kind,’ she said. ‘And I’ve not been bitten by anything. Lie down on the bed with just the sheet on you and I’ll see what there is in the supplies that might help soothe the itches.’

  Cold mint tea? she wondered.

  But Tasmin refused to lie down, believing now that whatever had bitten her could be in the mattress. She went outside and sat on the sand in the small amount of shade offered by their shelter, scratching at the weals and crying softly to herself.

  Aware just how brave and held-together Tasnim had been so far, Marni knew she had to do something to help her friend before she fell apart.

  She poured cold tea into a cup and tore a clean strip of cloth off a wuzar, then went outside.

  ‘Let’s try this to see if it helps, otherwise there’s salt—we can try salt and water—or oil perhaps. She kept thinking of bicarbonate of soda, which had been Nelson’s panacea for all ills. Bathing in it when she’d had chickenpox had definitely eased the itchiness. But their little hut didn’t provide bicarbonate of soda…