Sheik's Rule

by Ryshia Kennie

  She laughed. “His parents must have been optimistic. Really? His name means ‘the chosen’?”

  He smiled as he looked at her. “Firstborn son. It’s all about expectations, my dear,” he said in a bad imitation of a Southern accent. And he reached over and took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Not funny,” she said with a smile. But it was a relief to have even a brief moment of levity. They both knew from experience that it did wonders to keep an agent fresh when, as they always did, a case got intense and became a marathon of tension.

  The lights on the ground were now clear and the runway stretched beneath them.

  “One other thing. We’ll be staying tonight at his house. He says he has extra mats for guests. Hopefully, it won’t be too grim.”

  “We aren’t expecting luxury,” she replied. “If we can get some information, even better. A few hours of sleep would just be gravy,” she said with a smile.

  “We’re going in,” he said, still holding her hand as if he knew, despite her silence, how uncomfortable flying in the night in a small plane made her.

  She’d never said, but she wasn’t letting go of his hand, either. After that there was only the roar of the engine, the dark heaviness of the mountains as they seemed to close in, and the small river of lights that acted as landing lights.

  “Despite how I first reacted when I picked you up at the airport,” Emir said glancing at her as the plane rolled to a stop, “I couldn’t have a calmer, more analytical thinker by my side.”

  Kate’s hand dropped from the seat belt she’d been clutching as the plane rolled along the narrow runway, startled by the unexpected compliment. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “More beautiful, either,” he added as he brought the plane to a stop.

  She wasn’t sure if he’d really said that or if she’d just imagined it, rather like the earlier kiss. None of it seemed like the in-charge man she knew, and yet, if she were to profile him...she wouldn’t. Instead she enjoyed the instinctive rush of pleasure the compliment gave her and, just as quickly, pulled her mind back to reality. There was no time for such thoughts. Instead, there was silence as they quickly disembarked.

  A slight, dark-haired man, whose gray hair glinted in the lights, waved to them as he hurried down the runway.

  “Right on time,” he said in heavily accented English.

  “You’ve been waiting?” Emir asked.

  The words, spoken in Berber, reminded Kate of what she had read about Emir. She knew Berber was a language he had learned as a boy. His father had ensured that he and his siblings were fluent in each of the languages of Morocco. As a result, Emir spoke Arabic, Berber, English and French. The English, he spoke flawlessly, with a hint of American colloquialism. She knew, too, that he’d gone to university in Wyoming where he’d been into all things American. Adam had told her that, along with the fact that Emir was comfortable straddling the Moroccan and American cultures, easily diving into one or the other and enjoying both depending on which country he was in. What nothing had told her was that he was a man she could not only admire but desire in a situation when all of that information was completely inappropriate.

  “Good to meet you.” Emir reached out a hand to Yuften, who took it with hesitation. Kate guessed the ritual was foreign to the smaller man.

  Yuften took a step back, his hands linked behind the back of his navy blue windbreaker. He didn’t look at Kate.

  She took a step forward, ahead of Emir.

  “Kate,” she said and didn’t offer her hand, knowing it would be an affront to what he believed.

  He nodded and turned almost immediately as Emir took her hand and squeezed it before letting her go.

  Yuften spoke, his back to them. “Follow me. My wife will show you where your sleeping mats are later. In the meantime, I believe you have questions,” he said in English and in the precise tones of someone unused to using the language. He began to walk away, leaving them to follow as his jacket and matching blue, baggy pants flapped in the light breeze and he almost immediately seemed to fade into the night.

  “I’m glad you made it when you did.”

  They could hear his voice but now he was only an outline in the darkness.

  Kate looked at Emir. “What does he mean?” she whispered.

  Before Emir could reply, their host answered the question for her.

  “Their type isn’t welcome here. Killers and the lot.”

  Time seemed to stand still and only one word echoed between them.

  Killers.

  Kate shook her head as she looked at Emir.

  His hand went to his gun. “Whoever is responsible will die,” he said through gritted teeth.

  And she knew without question he spoke of Tara’s kidnappers and that it was a promise he planned to keep.

  Chapter Eleven

  Five minutes later, as Emir and Kate followed their host, they found themselves climbing three sets of rough-hewn stairs that were surface-smooth and worn, and made more treacherous by the darkness. The steps ran between small box-like houses that looked very similar. Light, flickering from the entranceways of houses that seemed to close in on them, appeared to come from a candle or kerosene lantern, for it only faintly illuminated patches of the path.

  To their left, an older man in a desert-sand-colored aselham, also called a djellaba, and the traditional, Berber, long-sleeved robe, led a donkey through a narrow alleyway that wound amid the squat houses and looked to go upward into the foothills and beyond.

  It was pushing close to eleven o’clock and the hours before daylight stretched in front of them. The path became more narrow and steep. They navigated another set of primitive stairs as they moved higher, the darkness seeming to deepen and her breath catching as if it had become difficult to breathe. They stopped in front of one house. It was a sandstone-colored building, squat like the rest they’d passed in the last few minutes.

  “Here,” Yuften said as he stepped through the arched doorway. He motioned with a flick of his right hand that they should follow. Inside, the room was small with soft blue plastered walls and an arched ceiling that made the area feel slightly less cramped.

  Three children stared at them. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their legs stretched out and their backs pressed to the wall. Kate doubted if the oldest could have been more than six. She guessed that they had been commanded to sit there, for it seemed too formal for a child. She also guessed that only the excitement of strangers visiting had them up this late.

  A woman stood quietly just to the right of the doorway. Her hair was covered by a pink, embroidered veil that matched the gray and pink of her traditional robe. A strand of dark hair escaped the veil and her hands were clasped in front of her as she smiled, not looking at anyone but Yuften.

  Yuften nodded to her, turned to Emir and said, “My wife, Saffiya.” Then he gestured with a sweep of his arm to a solid mahogany table with stubby legs that raised it only a few feet off the floor. He took a place on one side, sitting on a thick emerald-green rug that covered much of the floor. It was clear that they were to follow.

  In the corner Kate could see just one chair, a rocking chair, painted orange. She wondered how that cultural anomaly had come to be or how the clash of colors seemed vibrant rather than odd. She turned her attention quickly away, for none of that had any relevance to what they needed to know now. What they needed was information that would bring them to Tara before it was too late.

  “You had questions,” Yuften said, again in English.

  Before they could answer, Saffiya entered the room with a silver teapot and poured them each a cup of tea.

  The children giggled.

  Yuften raised a hand in a flagging movement without turning around and the children were silent. On a ledge on either side of one wall, a trio of thick candles
flickered, throwing shadows across the room.

  “Atrar Tashfin—the man you asked about.” Yuften looked at them. “He was killed at the Marrakech airport? I can’t believe one of ours could be involved.” He shook his head. “Of course, he’d been gone a long time, but his father...” He put his teacup down. “How did it happen?”

  “A gunfight with the authorities,” Emir said.

  The explanation was a bit of a stretch, but they were here to get information not give it.

  Yuften shook his head, a frown worrying his brow. “It’s too bad.” He looked at Emir. “Unless he was involved in your sister’s kidnapping. Then he had it coming.”

  “Did you know him?” Emir asked.

  Yuften shook his head. “He was here not quite yesterday. But I’d heard he’d gotten mixed up with others. Like I said earlier, thieves and murders.” He shook his head. “It’s all the same. One leads to the other.”

  Kate frowned at that as Yuften continued.

  “We didn’t talk long. But I have heard everything from the others he spoke to. He wanted nothing but money that we didn’t have. He stole from me and others...”

  “How much?” Emir asked.

  “Whatever we could give, but I doubt if he got much.” He shrugged. “No one is well off.” When he told them the amount that had been stolen from his home, he was right. It was equal to about twenty American dollars.

  Their host touched Saffiya’s arm. She had sat beside him after the tea was poured. A silent exchange seemed to run between them and then Saffiya nodded and smiled. “Saffiya didn’t like him,” Yuften said with a nod to her.

  He turned back to them. “He’d been away for a long time. Left for work before he was twenty and, when he returned, his parents were old and had died years before. He never came for their burials but he came now—for money.” Yuften shrugged. “He was angry, especially after he’d been here for a few days. My boy said he shoved him aside when he ran too near. A few days ago, when he did leave, he wasn’t alone. Four men arrived one day by Jeep—harassed some of our young girls—I had to step in. A few hours later I was glad to see they took him away with them.”

  Kate glanced at Emir. “Five,” she murmured. That could mean there were only three left. Three men holding Tara. But, then again, it was only a guess.

  Emir turned his attention to Yuften, who was now looking at his wife. Her lips were pinched.

  “Saffiya thinks I should mind my own business. But...” Yuften hesitated. “You have come for information and I have promised you that.”

  Saffiya shook her head, as if contradicting him, and leaned over to whisper something to him.

  “She says that it could be one of our daughters, and that is true. Despite being Berber, he and the others are up to no good. There were rumors later that some of them had killed. Who or what, I don’t know. But I fear for the girl.”

  “What are you saying?” Kate leaned forward, her shoulder brushing Emir’s and heat seemed to radiate between them as neither moved, neither pulled away.

  “They had a woman with them. Her head and face were covered by a veil.”

  He stopped and no one said anything, for a veil was not unusual.

  “I didn’t get close but she didn’t seem to belong with them. Her clothes were different. She wasn’t one of us. She—” he said with a nod over his shoulder to Saffiya who, despite having stood, hovered by his side, as if to ensure that everything he said met with her approval “—has an eye for clothes. ‘City clothes’ she called them.”

  It was clear that while Yuften was acting as if he was in charge of the household, Saffiya was the silent voice of command in this house. She nodded, her eyes gleaming with approval.

  Kate leaned forward, her attention on their host. “How did they act toward her?”

  Yuften frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.” He turned to Emir. “They left almost immediately. I didn’t have a good feeling about it, but there was nothing illegal, nothing...”

  “Did the woman with them seem upset or distressed?” Kate asked.

  Yuften shook his head and was about to speak when Saffiya interrupted him.

  “This. Here.” Her English was fractured and unsure. “She said nothing but...” Saffiya pulled a colorful, beaded bracelet from her pocket. The bracelet was thin, the beads small, a combination of yellow, emerald-green and red, delicate and obviously old. “She dropped.” She whispered something to Yuften, who nodded.

  “The woman tossed the bracelet to her.”

  The expression on Emir’s face would have frightened Kate if she hadn’t come to know him in the intense hours they’d been together. His lips were tight and his dark eyes seemed to gleam with anger.

  Yuften’s wife nodded as she clasped her hands and moved closer to him.

  “It belonged to Tara,” Emir said, his lips tightening and his dark eyes pools of pain as he sat still for a minute. No one spoke. Finally he reached to take the bracelet. “She’s worn that bracelet since the day she received it. It was our mother’s and Tara took it after she died. It was small enough, the strand of beads, to go with any other piece of jewelry. She never took it off. I normally wouldn’t remember such a thing but Tara spoke of it often. She always said how it reminded her of Mother. It was as if in doing so she was making sure not just we, but she, never forgot.” He shook his head. “As if I ever could.”

  “Do you know what direction they went?” Kate stepped in, purposely changing the subject as she sensed that what Emir had just heard and then revealed had been emotionally overwhelming.

  “South. I heard one of them mention Ajeddig as a place they were going to. They did not know I was close,” Yuften said.

  Saffiya nodded.

  “It means nothing to me. I know no one and nothing of that name.” He shrugged. “Flower. What is that?”

  A place name again was the first thought that ran through Kate’s mind for the word was the same one that Tara’s guard, Ahmed, had spoken the last time he’d been able to reveal anything. And yet the map in the plane had revealed nothing. She needed to look at it again. There had to have been something she missed.

  “We need the map,” she said.

  “Come—” Saffiya gestured “—we have books.”

  Kate followed her as she moved into a smaller room behind the cooking area. Her slim hands lifted the edge of her traditional robe that flowed elegantly around her but threatened to dust the rough cobbles as she walked. Her yellow flip-flops snapped against the stone floor, seeming to keep time as she led Kate up a number of stairs at the back of the room and into another small room. This room seemed to be apart from the rest of the house and held two shelves, each filled with rows of books.

  Kate looked around. She hadn’t been expecting this. Of the few Berber homes she’d visited, none had had a room dedicated to books. But then, none had been as isolated as this. And even though there were only two shelves that were half the length of the wall they were attached to, it was still unique. In one corner was a wooden school desk similar to any that might be seen in a grade-school classroom in early twentieth-century America. On top of the desk was a metal can full of pens and pencils.

  “You teach your children?”

  Saffiya nodded with a smile and then pointed to the shelf. “Map,” she said as she pulled out an oversize book with no dust jacket and a faded red cover.

  “Thank you.” Kate took the atlas but continued to scan the shelf. Like the atlas, the remaining books were mainly dust-jacket free with faded red and brown covers, each with a film of dust, despite the claims of homeschooling.

  Saffiya backed up then turned and went out the door.

  Kate glanced over the titles and realized that the majority of the books weren’t in English and that the few that were, were history books. As she took a step back, she instinctivel
y felt like she was no longer alone. She turned to see Emir regarding her solemnly from the doorway.

  “Old schoolbooks will get us nowhere,” he said.

  “I’m not so sure,” she said.

  She opened the atlas, hoping she could find something, that the promise of a direction would somehow ease his worry, and knowing that nothing short of finding his sister ever could.

  “Nineteen-oh-one,” she murmured. She flipped the pages slowly and then stopped. “Africa.” She walked over to the desk, where she put the open atlas down. She gingerly turned a page, exposing another seemingly frail, yellowed page to the flickering light of the candle Saffiya had left for her.

  “Kate, the light is bad, the book is old, there’s nothing.”

  Emir’s hands were on her shoulders as he turned her around. She held back a shiver of pleasure as his touch evoked a memory of the earlier kiss and the truth that she wanted so much more.

  “And we have nothing but time, at least tonight,” she said, her voice low and husky. “Bear with me.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone so resolved,” he said as his thumb skimmed along her cheek, his touch like a caress.

  “Haven’t you?” she replied as she met his ebony eyes with all the resolve she was feeling. Time’s short but...” Her gaze went around the room. “We have no time to waste.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Despite her earlier words, minutes passed.

  Kate had taken a seat at the small desk while Emir had taken a position leaning against the wall. Her long legs were stretched out sideways, her body twisted as she bent over the book. The smell of pipe smoke wove into the room from the room below. The low murmur of voices and the high-pitched laugh of a child broke the quiet.

  Another minute went by and then two before Kate turned and smiled at him and something caught in his chest. The sight of her dogged persistence made him think that anything was possible, that between the two of them they would find Tara.