Gil definitely needed to think on a helluva lot of things—and somewhere other than here with Abdul. If he let the sexy Arab kiss him again, and he did, it was because Abdul really caught him off guard this second time; once the kiss had begun, it would have been a little inconsistent and inconsiderate suddenly to begin any just-what-in-the-hell-are-you-doing? protestation.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Peter said from the darkness above. Gil pushed away from Abdul, automatically glancing toward the top of the steps where Peter and one of Abdul's bodyguards were standing. There was no denying that, at that moment, Gil felt very much as if he were some farm boy whose father had just caught making out with a hired hand in the stables. There was something undeniably condemning about the look Peter gave—a combination of hurt and suspicion that made Gil feel (but why in the hell should he?) guilty. Following closely on the tail of his guilt, however, was anger—anger not only at being spied upon, but also at how the scenario might have been purposely engineered by Peter in the first place. Peter could just as easily have come with them, instead of stealthily following behind like a voyeuristic sneak.
"Actually, we were just about to head back,” Abdul said. Though Gil hadn't done all that well in taking the interruption in stride, Abdul seemed rather pleased that his intentions were now clearly out in the open and there could be no later accusations that he had hit anyone below the belt. “I hope you're both as ready for a good meal as I am."
Gil's displeasure with Peter didn't subside on the way back to the encampment—in fact, it increased whenever he caught one of the condemning glances Peter kept casting in his direction. Gil was furious that he even cared what Peter thought, especially since Gil's actions were none of Peter's damned business. If Peter hadn't gotten all hot and bothered over a peregrine falcon, Gil and he could have been in Cairo sightseeing at the Citadel and Muhammad Ali Mosque about then, and Gil would have had no notion whatsoever of how Abdul Jerada felt about him. But, oh, no, Peter had to come and watch Hatshepsût, then not even have the common decency to allow Gil the privacy of getting on with his own life. Gil found Peter maddeningly contradictory, and he was frustrated that Peter came off so unreadable in confusing fluctuation from hot to cold. Now, Peter was acting as though he cared that Gil had been kissing Abdul whereas, for most of the morning, he'd cared about nothing except the aerobatics of a damned girly-bird. If Peter really objected to what Gil and Abdul had been doing, he shouldn't have thrown them together by refusing to come along. If his failure to accompany them had been specifically designed to trap them into doing what they'd done, then he deserved the eyeful he got. If his ego was somehow hurt, really and truly upset because he thought another man was making time with Gil, then Peter was disappointingly not very confident of his manhood in the bargain.
They ate lunch while sitting on rug-covered sand in the main room of the tent, a low table covered with food before them. They reclined against large overstuffed pillows and dined on mashi—a selection of cold pepper, tomatoes, zucchini and miniature eggplant stuffed with a lightly spiced rice; labon zabadi—Egyptian yogurt that had been flavored with strawberry preserve; a salad of spicy tomatoes and soft white cheese eaten with pieces of thin Egyptian bread called aish shami; a kabob made of lean pieces of lamb cut into small cubes and marinated in a mixture of onion shavings, parsley, marjoram, lemon juice, salt and pepper before being skewered an grilled over hot charcoal; and umm ali—an exquisite bread pudding topped with pine nuts and milk and served piping hot. Gil only wished he could have done the meal justice, since it was apparent that someone had gone to a good deal of bother in its preparation. He was little consoled that Peter didn't seem any more enticed by the offered delicacies. At least, nothing seemed to have affected Abdul's appetite—which was considerable. He went back for seconds, then thirds, all of the while attempting to carry on a conversation that continually kept drifting into long periods of silence. Gil had long since given up as hopeless any attempt to get anything out of Peter except an occasional monosyllable that couldn't even pass for small talk.
"Well, since I suppose you two are ready to call it a day, how would you like to make the trip back to Cairo in the comfort of a car?” Abdul asked. He couldn't have come up with a better suggestion as far as Gil was concerned. The horseback ride there had been accompanied by Peter's unending questions regarding bewits and bells, manning and mews, haggards and halsbands, followed by Abdul's in-depth answers. Gil had no desire to spent an equally long ass-blistering time on the way back with someone who suddenly seemed determined not to be drawn into conversation even about his all-consuming passion—falconry. “I've sent someone for a Land Rover to take you to the road at Saqqâra, where my car is waiting,” Abdul said, stretching across the table for on final juicy cube of lamb kabob. “You must let me thank you for allowing me the pleasure of your company.” Perhaps his thanks had been meant to include Peter, too, but he was looking only at Gil.
"The pleasure was all ours, I assure you,” Gil said, taking his cue to come to his feet.
"We must make it a point to do this again sometime,” Abdul said; he was all smiles. “You say you're sailing on the Osiris tomorrow morning, Gil?"
"Yes.” Gil looked forward to those days he would have to himself. “I'm not due at the dig until the twenty-seventh."
"Perhaps, then, I shall see you there,” Abdul said. “I have extensive business commitments that will be taking me to that area quite often. May I call on you—if and when?"
Peter, who had been edging his way to the door, paused suddenly. Gil was well aware that he had done so. “Yes, by all means, do stop by,” Gil said. Without a word, Peter stepped outside, leaving Gil and Abdul alone. “But you'd better bring Hatshepsût along if you want Peter's attendance,” Gil added. Though he had meant it more as a silent afterthought, it had come out bitterly vocal.
"I have an extensive mews at my villa in Aswân,” Abdul said with a knowing smile. Mews: the falconer's term for those accommodations constructed exclusively for the use of the owner's hawks. “I'd be most happy to put it and its contents at Peter's disposal when I'm there,” he added.
"The Land Rover is coming,” Peter said, sticking his head back inside. Gil could very well imagine that Peter might have thought he was going to catch Gil and Abdul in a madly passionate good-bye kiss and embrace. Well, they had fooled him, and Gil headed for the outside (disappointed?) before Abdul could get any ideas of his own. Gil had had quite enough kisses for one day.
They moved to the outer edge of the awning, keeping to a line of shade that no longer seemed quite adequate in the face of a heat that was increasing now but that toward nightfall would undergo a sudden and almost miraculous dissipation. Land, unlike water, didn't retain warmth, and this was nowhere better illustrated than in the Sahara where one could be sweating one minute before sunset and freezing one minute after the sun went down.
The Land Rover approached from one of the larger dunes that kept the camp isolated from Saqqâra. They all turned in its direction, monitoring its progress as it picked up speed and veered amid a flurry of loud cracking sounds. That someone in the Land Rover might be shooting at them was the last thought that ever would have entered Gil's mind. Thank God, there was more than one person present with faster reflexes!
Peter took Gil's arm, jerking Gil down along with him. There was another volley of shots. Peter took a quick glance up and, again tugging forcefully on Gil's arm, headed them both back for the tent where he, again, manhandled Gil unceremoniously to the ground with him. “Stay down! Stay put!” Peter commanded and was gone before Gil really even knew what was happening.
Gil had sense enough to realize it would be best for him to stay put, knowing the tent might not stop a bullet but would prevent anyone from taking accurate aim. Nonetheless, he was too worried about Peter's safety to refrain from making sure Peter remained alive. He peeked through the tent opening to the outside.
One of Abdul's bodyguards had stopped the oncomin
g shooters the best way he knew how—by riding his horse in front of the vehicle. The force of impact had permanently crippled the animal, later to be put out of its misery, and had tossed the rider, injuring him, too. The Land Rover had rolled on its side and dumped its three occupants who were shaken but still functioning.
Abdul was down, his head bloodied by a bullet. If he wasn't dead, he soon would be if left so vulnerably exposed for long
Peter successfully threw Abdul's dead-weight body over a shoulder. Several bullets kicked up the sand at his feet; he took two steps forward and dropped to his knees. “Peter, my God!” Gil voiced reaction, sure Peter was dead. Gil exited the tent just as Peter struggled back to a standing position.
Abdul still on his shoulder, Peter saw Gil coming. “Damn it!” he shouted. “Get down!” Whatever else he said, and he did say more, was lost in another spurt of gunfire. Once again, Gil thought for sure one or more of the bullets had struck Peter. It had certainly sounded as though there were too many for Peter to have possibly dodged. Their origin, however, was a submachine gun fired from the camp to keep the enemy under cover long enough for Peter and Abdul and Gil to complete successful retreats.
Peter came into the tent and collapsed with his burden. Gil saw, with indescribable dismay, that the whole front of Peter's shirt was soaked with blood. Gil crawled over, took hold of Peter's shirt along its hem in an attempt to pull it up far enough to expose any wound. At the same time, he hadn't the foggiest notion what he would do once he found the bullet hole, except that he would somehow have to stop the flow of blood. The shifting material revealed an expanse of ridged and rippled stomach muscles punctuated by a slightly indented navel. Gil pushed the shirt higher, finding his mind flashing with remembrance of how his fingers had blindly explored this very same territory only that morning.
"Gil, what the hell are you dong?” Peter hissed, and his massive hands took hold of Gil's wrists and held. Gil mumbled as to how Peter's bullet wound needed taken care of. “I'm not the one who's hurt, here,” Peter insisted. More gunshots sounded outside. “Abdul is!"
Gil couldn't immediately believe Peter wasn't wounded. Gil certainly could tell blood when he saw it. He'd heard how shock sometimes numbed a person to pain, at least making death merciful. But he didn't want Peter to die, painless or not. Gil had waited most of his twenty-nine years to meet him, and he refused to let him die after only one day, gone before Gil really even had a chance to know him. Gil couldn't stand the thought of Peter killed by some bullet that probably hadn't even been meant for him. He tried desperately to get back to the business of finding Peter's wound, managing very little because of Peter's continual refusal to let Gil do what he was attempting to do.
"You're bleeding!” Gil insisted. “Damn it, you're bleeding!"
"I'm fine,” Peter contradicted, still clasping Gil's wrists in his large hands. His voice was calm and soothing, even though accompanied by the high whine of a bullet passing very near. “Do you hear me, Gil? I'm fine.” He must have sensed, though, that Gil wasn't buying it, the blood on his shirt—leaked there from Abdul's head wound?—having made all his assurances seem like lies. “Look” he said, “I'll show you if you just give me a chance. Okay? Gil? Okay, Gil? I'll show you, all right?” He released his grip and transferred it to the lower edge of his shirt; he peeled the garment off over his head. His chest was a chiseled expanse of bronze-colored flesh, almost completely absent of hair and composed of two-well-defined muscular squares above a washboard stomach. The sight took Gil's breath away, even as he breathed a sigh of relief at seeing Peter's satiny skin free of any wound. “It's Abdul who's hurt, Gil,” Peter repeated.
Gil felt a sudden rush of guilt in realizing he hadn't given Abdul more than a passing thought. He hurried to make amends.
"He's alive,” Peter said, having had enough sense to check the injured man's pulse. He was telling Gil that he hoped Abdul wouldn't have to wait too long for medical assistance when a well-placed barrage of machine-gun bullets set the gas tank of the overturned Land Rover, outside, off in a ball of yellow orange flames.
CHAPTER FIVE
A POCKET OF PITCH exploded like a rifle shot in the heat of the campfire, making Gil jump. The wood had been brought in by whomever had set up the campsite, since there were no trees, no bushes, and no type of flora within the immediate area. It would have been more in keeping with their surroundings for them to have been burning camel dung, but Gil had seen very little of that lying around, either. He stirred the flames, marveling at the inane thoughts his mind could come up with to blot out the more startling reality of a Land Rover still smoking, three men killed, and two men wounded, not even including Abdul, who was with a doctor in the tent.
"Here, take this,” Peter said, handing Gil a cup of hot coffee. Peter was seated with Gil by the fire. Up until the moment he had reached for the pot to pour the steaming contents, Peter had been silently absorbed in his own thoughts. “You look as if you could use it,” he added. He wore one of the outer garments the Arabs used for additional warmth, and it was hiding the bloody shirt he had put back on. Gil had on one of the wraps, too. The clothing had been volunteered by Abdul's men when it had finally become apparent that circumstances made anyone's departure prior to nightfall impossible. There had been all sorts of questions asked by the police, even more asked by a major in the Egyptian Army who had arrived on the scene via helicopter and had left a few minutes earlier with the bodies of the three dead men.
"Surely, the doctor would have told us by now if Abdul was in danger of dying,” Gil said. He didn't make it a question. Peter chose to answer anyway.
"Yes, I'm sure we would have heard by now,” he said. “Head wounds often tend to look far worse than they are.” Gil had once been ice skating with friends on a country pond outside of Spokane, Washington, when a young boy had slipped and fallen. There had been a lot of blood then, too, but the kid was back on the pond as soon as his head had been bandaged. Getting a bump on the head, though, wasn't the same as getting hit in the head with a bullet. “It looked like only a graze,” Peter added. Did he know enough about bullet wounds, though, to be convincing?
"It's freezing out here!” Gil said with violent shiver, sipping coffee to get warm, wistfully wishing Peter would put his arm around him to offer a bit more heat. At any other time, the beauty of the night would have claimed Gil's attention more than its cold. The sky was a vast canopy of blackness punctured by brilliant stars and a moon gone golden on the horizon.
Both men looked up at the approach of Zeid Talal. Zeid who was one of Abdul's men and had been wounded; he now wore his arm in a sling that was angled across his chest like a row of medals. He was a tall man with angular almost-Oriental features. His high cheekbones and hollow cheeks were only emphasized by the shadows cast from the flickering fire. “Both of you, come with me, please,” he said; his voice was the kind imagined as suitable for conspiratorial whispers.
Gil had expected to enter the tent to see Abdul laid flat on his back, being hovered over by the doctor who had arrived from somewhere soon after the incident had come to its exploding conclusion. The doctor was nowhere in sight, though, and Abdul was up and about, exhibiting such exuberance that Gil had to blink hard to make sure he wasn't seeing things. The bandage wrapping Abdul's head, while beginning to stain red at his left temple, was no larger than the sweatband Gil sometimes wore while playing tennis. “Ah, there you are!” Abdul said in greeting. His dark eyes were mostly dilated pupils. Whether this was caused by the dim lighting, the preponderance of adrenaline that had been turned loose in his system by the excitement, the drug the doctor had probably administered to alleviate his pain, or a combination of one and all, Gil couldn't tell. “I certainly don't think our simple lunch really warranted such a spectacular leave-taking, do you?” the sheikh said in obvious good humor.
"How are you?” Gil asked, unable to believe Abdul should be up and around.
"It did look rather grim,” Peter added.
; "Head wounds often look worse than they really are,” Abdul said, echoing what Peter had told Gil earlier. “I imagine I shall come through this with merely another battle scar.” As if amused by his earlier discussion of such wounds with Gil, he smiled at their privately shared joke. “Although this one, I'm informed, will be far less impressive and certainly less interestingly positioned than some of my others."
"You have this happen to you often, do you?” Peter asked, not having been privy to any previous insights on the subject. “I'm afraid I would find the excitement a little hard to take."
Abdul laughed, motioning them over to the table now moved to the side of the tent. Sometimes during the course of the afternoon and evening, the lunch dishes had been completely cleared, replaced by a coffee service. “Sit down, please,” Abdul said. “Unfortunately, there's going to be another delay—this one only a short one—before we can get you home. I'm afraid I put your car at the disposal of one of my men who, unlike myself, needed the more extensive facilities offered by a Cairo hospital. Coffee?” He didn't wait for their reply but proceeded to pour. He then turned to address Peter's question. “Actually, no, this doesn't happen all the time,” he said, lowering himself to a more comfortable position on the floor, gathering his galabia in close around his folded legs. “It's been almost two years since the last attempt."
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