Sheik's Rescue

by Ryshia Kennie

  “It’s too strange not to mean something,” she said with a frown.

  “We’ll take a closer look at it later. We don’t have time to speculate.”

  He moved along the road, a few feet from the van. He was searching for evidence that there’d been any other vehicle involved. There was nothing. Everything seemed to end here, with the van.

  He bent down, his ungloved hand sweeping across the snow as he looked at the footprints.

  “Sneakers.”

  “It was what he was wearing when I picked him up at the airport,” she said.

  He looked back at her and saw she was squinting. The sun was overly bright against the snow. He’d grabbed his sunglasses before they’d left the vehicle. She lowered her sunglasses, which had been perched on top of her head.

  “He must have been terrified,” she muttered.

  And without explanation, he knew that she was revisiting that earlier moment on the balcony of the first safe house.

  “I should have been on him immediately. Instead, I gave him a window,” she said with a touch of self-recrimination.

  “You were securing the perimeter. Critical work. You couldn’t have been two places at once.”

  “And Stanley disappears on my watch,” she said grimly. She held up a hand. “Don’t say anything more. The results are the same. It was my watch. You can’t deny that.” She looked around, scanning the area. “I need to take responsibility so I can fix what didn’t work. So I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  “It could have happened to any one of us,” Zafir said.

  “Doesn’t make me feel any better,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t be as good as you are if it did.”

  He looked along the ditch, following the sneaker prints as far as he could from where he stood. “Let’s go,” he said.

  She took the lead. He followed as she walked along the ditch, following Stanley’s footprints. They’d walked for about a quarter of a mile before the footprints veered into the field.

  “No trespassing,” she muttered as they approached a metal sign attached to the fence. “Great.”

  They ducked under the barbed-wire fence and headed into the field, disobeying the sign, following Stanley.

  “Look,” she said a few minutes later.

  In the distance there was a dilapidated small building.

  “A homesteader’s cabin?” she asked.

  “Possibly.”

  They walked in silence for another few minutes. In other circumstances, it would have been a beautiful walk. Another minute passed and then two as they made their way through the isolated ranch land.

  The rotting remains of a shanty that looked like nothing more than one room stood about another half mile ahead of them.

  “Do you think he’s there?”

  He shook his head. “We couldn’t be that lucky.”

  Scrub brush to their left was laden with snow. Silence seemed to wrap around them.

  Despite what he’d said, the footprints seemed to be leading directly to the shanty.

  “Where is he going?” Jade muttered. “He could take pictures anywhere around here if that’s what he wants.”

  His gaze swept over the land immediately around them. The ground was frozen, but the promise of spring seemed to burst through the snow. A stalk of wild barley here, a green bud there. It was all beautiful and oddly surreal.

  “If he’s there, we’re close enough for him to hear us,” Jade said. “I’ll call him.”

  Before she could act on it, there was a flash to their right.

  They looked at each other. Ahead of them and just to the right of the shanty there was a dip in the land before it rose into foothills. It was the perfect place for an ambush.

  Gunfire echoed through the valley and had them flat on their bellies.

  Jade turned her head, her cheek to the ground. “What the hell?” she murmured. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “Leave me alone!” came a voice from just ahead of them, very near, if not in, the shanty.

  “Stanley,” she mouthed.

  “Son of a...” Zafir said through clenched teeth as Stanley screamed something incomprehensible. “Is there any way we can get him to quiet down before he gets himself killed?”

  “Or us,” she muttered.

  Another shot ricocheted off a stand of barren poplars that clustered on the south side of the little structure. This time they could judge the position of the shots. They originated from somewhere behind and to the right of the shanty.

  Jade motioned to her left. There was another grove of trees there.

  He nodded. It was best if they came in from two different angles.

  “If I head for the trees, I can divert him, maybe get a look at what we’re dealing with.”

  “Keep low,” he whispered. “For whatever reason he’s not shooting directly at us. Yet he had to have seen us.” He wondered at that.

  “We’re trespassing. He just wants to frighten us. It could be as simple as that,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “Don’t shoot unless necessary,” he whispered. “Let’s try to get a handle on what’s going on. If it’s a rancher, we don’t want to appear aggressive and get Stanley killed.”

  She nodded and moved away, almost doubled over as she kept low to the ground.

  He knew that Jade would come in on the shanty from the left. She would work her way through the dips and hollows in the land. He was sure of her ability to keep herself out of the sniper’s line of vision. There was plenty of brush now that they were almost into the foothills that she could use for cover. He was going straight in, using the rockier, hilly face ahead of him. He wasn’t sure how they were getting Stanley out. But a gunfight was the last option.

  Another shot.

  He moved forward and saw red plastic sticking out of the snow. A shotgun shell.

  Was it possible that they were being shot at by someone armed with a shotgun? Or was the shell just the remnants of an earlier hunting party and nothing to do with their current situation.

  Who was shooting and why? The earlier shots in town had been from a handgun, at least that’s what they had assumed. A shotgun wasn’t easily hidden and not usually the weapon of choice in an urban environment.

  He pushed the thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time to build the profile, rework what little they had or think about it at all. He needed to keep Jade safe and then ensure Stanley was protected. He didn’t think much about the fact that he’d just put the client last in his priorities.

  He looked to his left. There was nothing. Everything was still. His heart stopped. Had she been hit? Was she hurt? He began to move closer to the shanty. He was on his knees and elbows, trying to keep his Glock out of the snow and his head down.

  Jade had slipped out of his line of vision. He didn’t like not knowing exactly where she was.

  He scanned the landscape looking for movement. There was nothing, only silence.

  The door to the shanty creaked open.

  His grip on his gun tightened and his teeth gritted. Stanley needed to close the door, and if thoughts could direct him to do so, he’d do it now. Amazingly, the door closed.

  Zafir’s attention veered as a movement to his right stole his attention. A shot, then two. Snow and dirt kicked up near him.

  Cease-fire was off. Whoever was out there was now directly shooting at them. Threatening them with deadly harm.

  He fired in the direction the shots had come from. But he still had no visual. There was a shout from the shanty, or it could have been a shriek. He wasn’t concerned. From the information he had on Stanley it might be fear. He doubted that Stanley was injured, because none of the shots had hit the shanty.

  Jade slipped down beside him.

 
; “I had a visual. Just a glimpse. Male—wearing a green-and-brown hunting cap, and he has a shotgun.”

  “Local?”

  “Possibly,” she said. “I can’t see a sniper using a shotgun.”

  He nodded. She was right about that. He’d thought the same when he’d found the shell.

  “Who are you?” he shouted.

  “Get the hell off my land!” came the low, gravelly voice.

  “Jade!” This time the frightened voice was Stanley.

  “Stay there, Stanley!” Jade shouted as she glanced at Zafir.

  Another shot echoed through the valley, seeming to bounce off the hills.

  “Cease-fire!” Zafir shouted. “We’ll move off, but our friend needs help. Let me get him and we’ll be gone.”

  His request was met by silence.

  Zafir moved forward, using a bush a few feet ahead of his previous position for cover. Now he could see the green-and-brown low-brimmed hat poking over a boulder forty feet to his right.

  “Nassar Security,” Zafir yelled. “Our client is an amateur photographer. He just wanted to get some pictures. He didn’t know he was trespassing.”

  “This is private land!” the man shouted back, as if that was all that mattered and any explanation was null and void.

  “He’s Moroccan, a foreigner. He didn’t know to read the signs,” Zafir yelled back. There was a time when property was the most valuable thing a man owned on these windswept plains. That need to protect it was still very much alive. Stanley had unsuspectingly stepped from one bad situation into another.

  “He isn’t fluent in English. It isn’t his first language,” he added as if that might make any difference. It was a lie, but it served a purpose in their current situation. He knew Stanley could read, write and speak English perfectly, as well as Arabic and French. It wasn’t uncommon for educated Moroccans to be multilingual. He could only guess which one was his primary language.

  He waited.

  Silence.

  He looked back at Jade. Her lips were tight, and she looked worried.

  A minute passed, and then two.

  “Drop your weapons and put your hands up!” the throaty voice demanded.

  The command was unprecedented. The situation was unexpected. None of it was fitting anything that had transpired before in any other case.

  “I’ll put my gun away,” Zafir said to Jade as he slid his gun into his holster and nodded to Jade to stay where she was. He wasn’t going to put both of them at risk. He was fairly certain that they’d been cornered by an enraged rancher. With any luck, his compliance would diffuse the situation.

  He put his hands up.

  “The client is unarmed,” he said. “I’m from Nassar Security,” he repeated. “I’m an investigator. State licensed,” he added, in case that hadn’t been clear, and in case the man hadn’t heard of them or their reputation. “I’m hired to protect the man in your shanty.” He repeated the fact as if it explained everything: “He’s unarmed.”

  He was taking a risk, but now he was almost certain the risk was minimal. He had a gun in the back of his belt that he could reach, and Jade had him covered.

  “If you’re who you say you are...”

  “I am,” Zafir assured him. “I just want to get our client back to the city where he’ll be safe and won’t be trespassing on anyone’s land.”

  “All right...” There was a brief pause. “Your client...” A glint of a shotgun barrel flashed in the sun. “The idiot in the shack,” came the now-amused throaty voice. “Get him off my land—I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Zafir moved cautiously from behind the bare bush. It had been the snow that clung to its branches that had offered any real cover. He was surprised that the rancher didn’t demand Jade’s visual, as well. He had to know she was there. He’d already motioned to Jade to move back toward the road.

  “Stanley,” he called. He walked slowly as he headed to the shanty. His hands were in the air. There was a glint to his right as the rancher’s shotgun winked in the sunlight.

  The rancher was standing in full view with his shotgun trained on him, but with the sun at his back and in Zafir’s face, he could make out little. He’d raised his sunglasses to appear less threatening, but that also made him more vulnerable as he couldn’t see through the sun’s glare. The man could shoot him now and say they’d been trespassing, that he’d been justified. And he was right. They were trespassing.

  He approached the shanty slowly, as if it, too, were rigged with an armed attacker rather than just a frightened royal. “Stanley,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.

  The beaten shanty was only one room, but a closer look told him that it had held up amazingly well through the years. It looked like it was still used. The stone chimney was intact and had soot clinging to it as if someone had recently used it. As he observed that, the broken plank door swung open.

  His first look at their client didn’t surprise him. He was everything he’d expected and what the photo in his file had portrayed. He was an average-sized man by Moroccan standards. His camera hung around his neck and rested on the top of his belly. His round face was flushed, and his eyes were panicked.

  It was always strange, Zafir thought, to see a client for the first time. Who they were on paper was often different from in person. In Stanley’s case he was surprised to feel sympathy. He couldn’t imagine what this might have been like for him. Hearing gunfire around him, being stuck in a weather-worn, one-room building—having that as his only protection. The man had more than likely never been near firearms, never been this deep into the wilderness. He broke off his thoughts and focused his full attention on getting Stanley the hell out of there.

  “I’m Jade’s boss,” he said, although the truth was that he was Jade’s partner, at least in this case. But he guessed that boss would have the most clout, get the client out of here without a dispute delaying that. “We’re going to get you out of this, Stan,” he said. He slipped into the nickname easily. Stan was a man’s name; Stanley—somehow that name just grated.

  Stanley was shaking slightly. “This is crazy.”

  “Maybe. But he was justified.”

  “Justified?”

  “You were on his land without permission.”

  “That’s why he was shooting at me?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” He watched behind him to make sure the man was following his instructions. “Follow me. I’ll keep you covered.”

  “He almost killed...” Stanley said as he stopped as if he couldn’t take another step. He looked over his shoulder. “Where’s Jade?”

  “She’ll meet us,” Zafir said. “C’mon, keep moving.” He doubted the rancher’s patience was going to stretch much further. “Follow me. Let’s get you out of here.” He moved ahead of Stanley until they were past the rancher’s position, then he moved behind. That made it difficult for the rancher to get a clear shot of Stanley. While the bulletproof vest wasn’t a guarantee of protection, it was more than Stanley had.

  “Hurry it up,” the rancher bellowed. “I’m not going to shoot you if that’s what you’re afraid of. Unless, of course, you don’t get moving faster than you are.”

  “Let’s go, Stan,” Zafir said. He looked to his right and could see a flash of movement—Jade. “Walk in front of me and head for the road. I’m right behind you.”

  He looked over his shoulder. The rancher was still standing, watching them. His shotgun was in both hands but pointed slightly down. In that moment, he realized that the threat was very close to over.

  “Keep quiet and keep moving,” Zafir said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “He won’t shoot?” Stanley asked.

  Zafir prodded him with the palm of his hand. “Hurry up!” he snapped. He wasn’t sure how this assign
ment was going to get better from here. He was scared it might continue to go south. Only a minute into a face-to-face meeting and already he was losing patience.

  Ahead he could see the brush where Jade was now concealed. He moved away from her and toward the road, knowing that she’d follow and keep out of sight for as long as possible as she did so. It wasn’t anything they’d discussed, just something he knew in his gut. There were moments where he’d just known what she was thinking, where nothing needed to be said. He’d never experienced anything like that before. And it made him uncomfortable, to say the least. But there was something else. She made him feel like no woman ever had. He’d admit that to no one.

  He didn’t believe in such things—that one could instantly fall for a person. That was hokey garbage. He’d told Emir that many times. But his twin had his own reasons for believing—his fiancée, Kate. Zafir liked playing the field far too much. There were too many fish in the sea to ever settle for one.

  He wouldn’t be thinking these things if he thought they were still in crisis. But the rancher appeared satisfied, and the drama appeared to be over. This time when he turned around, he saw Jade just behind him. He motioned ahead of him, so that he could stand between her and the last remnants of danger.

  He didn’t think about what that might mean. It meant nothing. His need to protect her—his fear for her, placing himself between her and danger—it was only what a good man did. But thinking that and believing it were becoming two completely different things.

  Chapter Nine

  “What is wrong with you people?” Stanley demanded five minutes later as he hurried to keep up.

  Neither Jade nor Zafir slowed their pace despite their client’s plea. At this juncture they preferred to get on the other side of the fence, to the road and safety. They’d left the rancher well behind them, and the road was in sight. But until they reached the highway, neither of them would feel comfortable.

  “Is this country all like this?” he demanded. “Are you all crazy?”