by Dana Marton
They had gained some time, but not much. Abdullab’s resistance would slow EL Jafar’s men but could not stop them. And once they searched the camp, they would realize their prey had escaped and would come after him and Abigail. He had to evade them long enough to reach the relative safety of the city.
HER STOMACH ROLLED with motion sickness from the nonstop swaying of the beast. Abigail took a deep breath then another, gagging on the combined odors of sun-baked leather and camel sweat. Her limbs ached from being crunched up for hours; her bladder was about to explode. She wasn’t going to make it much longer. Safety or not, she would have to get out.
Then, just as she was about to tell Spike, the animal stopped. Oh, thank God. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything beyond the men who had come with them. No sound of vehicles approaching, no strange voices. Dared she hope they were taking a break?
“Ready to come out?” Spike’s voice sounded like that of a savior angel’s from above.
“Ready, willing, but probably unable.” She croaked the words through her parched throat. She had finished her water flask some time ago, drinking more and faster than she was supposed to, out of nervousness and boredom. Her stretching bladder and crackling lips were the direct result.
Her stomach rolled again as the camel swayed and lay down. Then the flaps of the bag opened and she had to close her eyes against the bright light. She tried to scramble out, every movement a prickle of pain. “Hang on,” Spike said.
She felt his strong arms scooping her up, lifting her. He held her in his arms, showing no intention of letting her go. She blinked, squinted her eyes to look at him.
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” He lowered her feet slowly onto the sand.
Her knees buckled as she tried to put her weight on them, but he held her up with one arm, massaging her shoulders with his other hand as they waited for feeling to return to her legs.
“Better?” he asked when she could finally hold her own weight. But he didn’t let her go.
“Much.”
“Are you gonna be okay on your own for a minute?” She nodded.
“Sit here.” He helped her to the spot shaded by her camel, and handed her the ropes of both animals before walking off toward Abdullah’s sons.
True to his word, he was back in no time, carrying a dagger, its handle ornately carved. “A parting gift,” he said.
She glanced over at her camel, at the men who were moving out the herd, then back at Spike. He set the weapons down and unstrapped the empty bag from her animal. She rose to help.
“Take a break,” he said as he took the pillow from under his shut and tossed it onto the sand, shedding several sizes miraculously at once. “Stretch your muscles.” He took the ropes from her.
Right. Great idea. She did need to stretch her legs. All the way to the nearest Porta Potti. She headed for the closest sand dune with painful, shuffling steps.
“Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want you out of sight. You can go behind the camels.”
He tied the camels to the full bag, using it for an anchor, and walked away a short distance, scanning the terrain, picking up rocks here and there. She appreciated the effort he made to give her privacy and squatted behind his camel, the larger of the two. Two giant eyes looked at her.
Great. “I can’t do it if you’re watching”
The camel snorted.
“Fine.” She turned around. She was used to the lack of indoor plumbing, had gotten over her sensibilities during her trip to Uganda. For a moment, she thought of the dense bushes with wistfulness. Not much privacy in the open desert. The only thing she asked for was no onlookers. She took a deep breath. She was not going to get hung up on one peeping camel.
She stood when she was done, and felt good enough to really look around for the first time since they’d stopped. Abdullah’s sons were nowhere in sight. Spike was a good fifty feet away with his back to her, still examining the terrain. They were alone in the desert once again, in some kind of a wadi, an ancient dried-up river bed. Scraggly yellow-brown grasses peeked in scattered tufts from the sand; a handful of nearly leafless trees rose like admonishing fingers, not one over five feet high.
“What do we do next?” she called out to him.
He glanced over his shoulder, then turned and walked back to her. “We make camp.”
“Do we have time?”
“No. But if we don’t stay out of the noon sun, we’ll be going nowhere. We can’t help anyone if we’re not alive.” He grabbed the camels’ ropes, got them standing, walked them to one of the dead trees and tied them up.
She opened the tent bag and got out a rolled-up carpet, woven wool panels enough for a small tent, and a bundle of food. Then she carried them to the remains of the other tree.
Spike came over when he was done with the camels. He helped her to secure the top of the panels to the trunk and fanned out the bottoms, anchoring them with stone and stand. The end result was as ugly as it was flimsy, but they only needed it for a few hours, and it did provide the necessary shade.
He grabbed their food and water and carried it inside. She looked around at the empty desert, expecting as she had all day the sound of trucks, the terrorists popping up from behind one of the sand dunes. Nothing. They might just make it. She tried to make herself believe that as she stepped through the opening after Spike. He held the leather flap open for her and let it fall after she passed, closing them in. Not much room, but plenty of light to see. The sun was bright enough to filter through the panels.
She took off the abayah, her veil and burqa. As much as the thin cloth in front of her mouth had bothered her when she’d first put it on, she’d come to appreciate its advantages. It kept the sun off most of her face and neck, and the sand away from her mouth. A definite plus out in the desert. The pants and long thin dress Sara had given her felt soft against her skin. She was grateful to the woman for having given her a gift of fresh clothes.
Spike put their food-smoked meat, goat cheese, flatbread and dried figs-in the middle of the carpet. “Let’s eat. Then you can rest.”
“I’d just as soon rest first.” She hated motion sickness. She was no longer dizzy, but her stomach was far from ready for food.
He lifted the waterskin for her. “Drink at least. A few bites of flatbread probably wouldn’t hurt, either. You might feel better if your stomach is not empty.”
She swallowed some water while he moved closer and felt her forehead.
“Does your head hurt?”
“No.” Thank God. She didn’t need to feel any crappier than she did already. She reached for the bread.
“You could have gotten heatstroke.” He examined her face. “We should have stopped earlier.”
He’d told her at the beginning to let him know if she began to feel sick, or too hot, or needed a break for whatever reason. But she hadn’t wanted to slow them down. She had figured she could handle it. And she had handled it.
“A few minutes is all I need” She closed her eyes. The heat itself was exhausting. She wondered if she would ever get used to it, if she’d ever be fully functional like the Bedouins or the people of Tukatar.
“Take as long as you want,” Spike said, and settled down next to her.
And for the first time, his presence, his overwhelming body so close to hers, comforted rather than rattled her. But still, it was a long time before she could relax. The thought of a group of terrorists combing the desert for them, hunting them, circled in her exhausted mind. The race was nearly at an end, the winner still unclear.
Time was running out. By now EL Jafar’s men had figured out that they weren’t in Abdullah’s camp. Their pursuers would know they were heading for Tihrin, the nearest city where they could hide and make connections. The terrorists had trucks that would catch up with the camels easily. And they were coming after them. If she and Spike
could count on one thing, they could count on that.
Would they reach the safety of the city or would the terrorists reach them first?
Chapter Ten
The brief rest helped; so did not having to go back into the bag. Abigail wiped her forehead as she scanned the horizon. The swaying didn’t bother her now that she was on top of the animal, breathing fresh air. She urged the camel to go faster. They had to get to Tihrin. Their lives and the lives of thousands depended on it.
Thank God, they were pretty close now. For the first time she felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe…
She heard the approaching vehicle before she saw it. An army truck.
“Get down behind the camel.” Spike was already making his animal lie down.
She stopped her beast and slid onto the sand, tugged on the rope until the camel kneeled then went down all the way. Trying to flee would have been futile. They couldn’t out run a truck.
Spike handed her the rough-braided rope of his animal and lifted his rifle over the saddle. “It’s them. They must have split up to search for us.”
He was probably right. No other vehicles were visible on the horizon. She recognized the truck, with the right front mashed up and the headlight missing, the home-dyed canvas half blown off She spotted only two men, both in the cab, none in the truck bed.
Spike aimed and missed. Both men returned fire immediately. The camels bolted to their feet. She struggled to hold them, the ropes biting into her palm. One of them was slipping, but she had to hang on. Losing the animals would be a death sentence. And yet the rope slipped again. She could not hold both. Spike’s, the stronger of the two, broke free and took off in a panicked run. She managed to hang on to the other one, but could not make it stop and lie down again. The animal halted for a second; then, as more bullets flew by them, it rushed forth again. She dug in her heels and succeeded, but only for a moment. The camel lurched forward. She tripped, nearly lost that rope, too,.as the camel dragged her across the sand.
Then Spike was there and got hold of the rope, jerked it hard enough for the camel to pay attention. “Get down.”
A second passed before she realized he was talking to her. She dropped on her stomach. The truck was closing the distance fast. Spike was on one knee, pulling the camel down. Oh, my God. She stared at his right hand, covered in blood.
For an agonizing moment her heart stopped, as did the world around her. Then she blinked, shut everything from her mind but what she had to do. “Are you hit anywhere else?”
“No.” He handed her the rope as he fumbled with the gun. “We have to take them before they radio in our position. The others can’t be far.”
“Let me try.” She reached for the weapon.
“I want you to stay down.”
“I can do it.”
“I know.” He still hesitated, but when she tugged on the rifle, he let it go and took the rope back. “The sight is off.”
She took a couple of deep breaths. Steady. She waited for the calm, and it came just as it always had during the competitions. Nothing existed but the gun’s sight and her aim. She aimed for the driver’s head and shot out the lonely headlight, corrected on the next shot, aiming a little above, a little to the right, and squeezed the trigger. The man slumped forward; the truck abruptly changed direction. There was a break in firing as the other man took control of the wheel.
She aimed again, trying to compensate for the air that shimmered from heat and made her work harder yet. She got him on the first shot. The truck slowed then stopped.
“Not bad.” Spike’s expression held approval and maybe even admiration.
It felt nice. “I told you I could do it.” She set the gun down, her hands trembling again.
“It’s not that I didn’t think you could. It’s that I hate to see you in harm’s way. Is that too chauvinistic?” He flashed her a disarming smile.
She could feel her lips tug up in response. “It’s kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way. God knows, most of the time I need all the help I can get. Just not when it comes to guns.”
“I can see that.” He picked up the rifle. “I’m going over there to check them out. “You stay here and don’t let go of that camel.”
That was fine with her. It was one thing to do target shooting, aiming for the middle of the bull’s-eye; it was entirely another to shoot at a person, even if in self-defense. She was not prepared to inspect the results. Instead, she scanned the desert for anybody else and found nothing but Spike’s camel, an increasingly smaller dot on the endless sand as it raced away from them.
Spike was back in minutes, driving the truck, the broken windshield knocked out. “Get in.”
She climbed up and slid onto the seat, turning her head from the smudges of blood on the dashboard, grateful that he had cleaned up the rest. Her gaze settled on the radio, riddled with bullet holes. Spike must have hit it.
He got out, loaded their bags in the back and smacked her camel on the rump, sending it on its way.
“Are they going to be all right?” she asked once he was back in the cab.
“They should be able to find their way back to camp.” He was probably right. The camel walked straight in the direction from which they’d come.
“How is your hand?”
He started up the truck and stepped on the gas.
“Nothing serious.” He held it out for her inspection as the vehicle picked up speed.
It didn’t look as if he’d taken a direct hit. More likely, his skin got ripped when the bullet hit the rifle and jerked it from his grasp. There was some skin missing, and he had probably pulled some tendons pretty good.
“Feeling is coming back to it now.” He made a fist and then relaxed his fingers.
“You should let me take care of it.”
“We’re not stopping for a while.”
With their waterskin in the back, there was no way to wash the wound without stopping.
“Let me at least wrap it up so more sand doesn’t get into the wound.”
He grinned. “I like it when you’re worried about me. It shows that you care.”
She tore a strip, from the bottom of her brand-new dress under the abayah. “I’m only trying to keep you around because I don’t know how to drive a stick shift.”
“Sure, babe.” He grinned even wider. “Whatever you say.”
EL JAFAR ROARED with frustration. How was it possible that the Americans had not been captured yet? They were two foreigners in the desert his men knew like the back of their hands.
With every passing hour, the chance of their reaching a town grew. He could not afford that.
“Today!” he yelled into the cell phone. “Put every man on it. I want every car out looking.”
Anger filled him, rage that pressed hard against his temples. He would not be thwarted. His fate was to change the world his people lived in, to return his country to greatness. He would fulfill that fate, and all who tried to stand in his way would perish.
“The next report I want from you is that they’re dead,” he said, his voice calmer now and cold.
Then he closed the phone and hurled it across the room, watching with satisfaction as it smashed into pieces against the stone wall. Shards of black plastic littered the Persian carpet, along with bits and pieces of wire. Soon his enemies would be crushed liked that. With his own hands he would bring vengeance.
Pain, fire and death.
He could already taste the sweet zest off victory. He could see how it would be, the shift of power across the continents. And his people-the whole world, once it understood his foresight and courage-would have him to thank.
The two half-dead Americans running for their lives in the desert could not, would not, stand in the way of that. He would make sure of it.
ABIGAIL STRETCHED HER aching back. They didn’t stop to rest until they were well into the night, deciding to sit out the darkest part of it. The truck had no head
lights and they didn’t want to risk flipping it over on a sand dune.
She spread the tent panels in the back of the truck for extra cushioning and rolled out the carpet on top of them. There were no trees around, nothing to use as poles to set up the tent properly. They didn’t really need it, anyhow. The truck kept them elevated, away from any poisonous snakes and scorpions in the sand. They could have stretched the canvas of the truck overhead, but instead, Spike had taken it off. Probably so no one could sneak up on them.
The night wasn’t exactly balmy, but it was comfortable enough to sleep, the air standing still. She unpacked their food while Spike refilled the gas tank from the cans they had found in the back. For once, they had lucked out. They had plenty of gasoline to make it out of the desert. Spike had made sure of it before he’d let the camel go.
“Supper is ready.” She sat down on the carpet, her legs folded.
Spike came up, wincing as he hoisted himself over the side. His ribs were probably still hurting. His face looked slightly better though; the swelling had gone down. He’d cleaned the grease and ashes out of his beard, and a few drops of water still glistening here and there.
He gave her a wide grin. “Honey, I’m home.”
She blinked.
He sat across from her and grabbed for the food.
“Let me take care of your hand first. ” She unplugged their waterskin; when he put down the smoked lamb chop, she scooted over to him.
He held his arm out over the side of the truck, and she pulled off the dirty, bloody cloth and then poured as much water on his hand as she dared, wishing. for some kind of antiseptic. She plugged the waterskin tight and. set it aside, then ripped another strip from the dress Sara had given her to wear under the abayah.
“This should help some.” She bandaged the torn skin without once looking up into his eyes and moved away as soon as she was done.
He picked up the meat again, but after a moment set it down. “What’s wrong?”