by Linda Conrad
Shutting out any of those potential pitfalls, he moved swiftly. Those thoughts were inconceivable and therefore they did not exist.
Not for the hunter.
“Your plan is too dangerous, miss. Please reconsider.” The old handmaiden’s shoulders were rounded and bent and her ancient eyes watery. But her sharp gaze seemed bright with intelligence, good sense and a healthy dose of fear.
Nikki Olivier went against her better judgment and hugged the woman. “I must go tonight, Lalla. I cannot manage another day of pretending to take the drugs. The guards will soon uncover my stash of unused pills and you and I will both suffer the consequences.”
“But if given another day or two…” The old woman continued with her pleading. “The moonlight will guide your way to the coastal village of Sadutān. The Zabbarán desert is full of dangers on moonless nights, but you dare not travel during the day.”
The old woman named Lalla had done so much for her. Grateful, Nikki wanted to ask about her nationality in order to carry a message back to her family. Nikki had grown curious about where the old woman had originally come from before she’d been bound into slavery. Her accent sounded eastern European, but Lalla spoke both French and English fairly well, along with a generous knowledge of the language of her captors. How long had this poor soul been a household slave for the Taj elder?
Nikki decided to keep her questions to herself. She did not wish to share her own secrets and asking curious questions could only bring trouble.
“I have a broad knowledge of astronomy, Lalla. I shall have little difficulty navigating by the stars.”
Lalla opened her mouth, then shut it again without any more words of caution. “Here is the boot polish, miss. Your nose requires another coat.”
Nikki rubbed the foul stuff over the bridge of her nose. The boot polish mixed with soot that she’d used as a disguise had turned her skin a warm brown. She wiped her hands, pulled her precious map from the folds of her robes and moved closer to the nearest light source, wanting to study her route.
Going to Sadutān was not her plan. But she didn’t want anyone, not even Lalla, to know her true destination. If, after she was gone, the Taj elder tortured Lalla for information, the old woman would be unable to tell him anything useful.
What a dismal thought. Nikki couldn’t help feeling guilty and tried once again to plead her case. “Please come with me, Lalla. I beg you. Do not stay behind.”
Lalla dropped her gaze to the floor in an imitation of the way Taj women behaved. “It is too late for me. Too many years have passed. If God wishes to bring me home, I am ready to go.”
The old woman was talking about dying. Suicide by torture. Nikki felt fresh tears threatening to ruin her makeup job but she held them back. She had to stay strong.
“You are young and you have a mission yet to accomplish,” Lalla added more forcefully than Nikki would’ve thought possible. “A mission best undertaken alone. Someone waits for you to change destiny. You must succeed in those efforts.”
Now how could she know that? How could this old woman possibly know that Nikki had voluntarily come to Zabbarán to search for her son? She had told no one.
Thinking back on the whole sordid story of arriving in Zabbarán expecting to find a new job waiting for her as promised, only to be thrust into a dank cave-like prison with five other women, was not something Nikki did often. She didn’t know what the Taj elder had in mind for her future now but knew it wouldn’t include a legitimate job.
She’d come to Zabbarán with high hopes of locating her baby, and she would find him, or die in the attempt.
Truthfully, Nikki’s first unforgiveable mistake had been in trusting her Parisian neighbor to watch her little boy while she went to work. That mistake had been the start of this journey through hell.
But, in her own defense, she’d been desperately poor at the time and her child had needed food and a place to live. After her father died, Nikki was left with no choice but to go to work. And there had been no friends or family to babysit her son while she worked.
Still, in retrospect, that seemed like a lame excuse. But at the time she was trying to be a good parent. The neighbor woman had actually seemed rather sweet and was good with children. She was kind. And, she already watched over other children from their building.
Nikki had checked around for another job, desperate to find a different solution. Eventually, she’d given in and handed over her five-year-old boy for eight hours a day to a woman she barely knew.
Then the day arrived when Nikki came home to find her son, the neighbor and all the neighbor’s possessions gone. It was her worst day—in a lifetime filled with bad days.
Nikki flew straight to the Paris police who looked at her as if she had sprouted wings. “Sorry, madame. We will take the report. But many children disappear each year in Paris. Not many are ever found. We will do our best.”
Fighting hysteria and with no one to help her, Nikki beat on every door in her apartment building, searching for anyone with information. Her tears did not open any mouths, but eventually she sank to threatening people with bodily harm. That bought her a little information.
She was told the neighbor who’d disappeared with her baby had bragged about selling two of her charges to a desperate middle-eastern couple. The couple supposedly had wanted sons and were willing to pay a fortune to obtain them. Greed. Her son was taken from her because of greed. The more she thought of it, the more it made her sick to her stomach.
Nikki also learned that the middle-eastern couple claimed to be from a small town in the newly freed country of Zabbarán. She rushed back to the police with the news. They took the information and shrugged. Then they suggested she hire a private detective.
Too low on funds to consider such a solution and now frantic with worry, Nikki badgered everyone she met for ideas on how to get her son back. Eventually she was introduced to a man, who knew of a man, who was recruiting westerners for jobs in the new country of Zabbarán. She’d jumped at the prospect.
The next thing she knew, she’d landed in this horrible place. If it hadn’t been for Lalla…
“You must adjust the moustache, miss.”
Nikki refolded her map and put it away before pressing down against the smattering of dark hair she’d glued to her upper lip. “How is the disguise?”
“You will not fool anyone for long. Your feminine figure stands out even under the manly robes. Try to avoid encounters. And…” Lalla reached under her own robes and withdrew a dagger. “If you are attacked, use this wisely.”
Staring down at a wide blade attached to a short leather hilt, Nikki tried to imagine using such a blade on a human. It was unthinkable—until she considered her son. For his sake, she would use any weapon at her disposal.
Reaching out to take the knife, Nikki froze with her arms stretched wide. One second ago she and the handmaiden had been alone in the harem’s kitchen. The next instant she’d felt another presence behind her back, joining them in the room. Her instincts went on alert.
But before that fact had time to sink in, Nikki was attacked and roughly thrown to the floor. The dagger flew from her hands and clattered against the stone as the fall took her breath. Sucking in air, she fought to move. But as she tried to squirm out of the way, she was pinned underneath the hard planes of a man’s body.
A big man.
Chapter 2
Shakir silently pointed the older woman into a corner, jammed the barrel of his weapon to the base of the young Taj soldier’s skull and ordered the kid to be silent. The soldier kept squirming and moaning. Pressing his advantage with a knee to the kid’s kidney, Shakir tried to quiet the tango. He growled orders in both the Taj Zabbar language and in the few words of Kasht that he could remember.
“You are making a mistake,” the old woman said in French.
He glared at her, flipped the tango to his back and began a rough pat-down. Sweeping his hands across the kid’s shoulders and down his sides and legs
, Shakir checked for more weapons. The sight of that ancient dagger had put him on alert. This young Taj soldier could be as deadly to the mission as a scorpion’s sting.
Temporarily stashing his compact MTAR 21 in the pack on his back, Shakir used both hands to search. With his right, he checked between the kid’s legs. While with his left hand, he rolled down under the soldier’s armpits and around the rib cage.
“Bloody hell.” Shocked, Shakir stepped back and stared down into surprised hazel eyes. “Blast it, who the devil are you?”
“I…I…” The female under his hands was at a loss for words. So was he.
Then it hit him—a few minutes too late. “Nicole?” He reached out to take her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Shakir? Shakir Kadir? Oh, my God, what are you doing here? You scared me to death.”
He took a step back and studied the form of the young man standing in front of him. Only now that he knew the truth, the form no longer even vaguely resembled a young man. He should’ve known.
But Nicole’s honey-blond hair had been entirely tucked up under a purple-checked kuffiyah. Her skin beneath the Taj soldier’s garments looked the color of splotchy brown dates. Her tiny feet—the feet should’ve been a dead giveaway—were encased in the smooth leather sandals prevalent in these desert regions.
“What is that ridiculous-looking thing you’ve stuck to your lip?”
She reached up, smoothing her finger along what looked like a line of dirt. “Just a bit of Lalla’s hair. Doesn’t it look like a moustache?”
“Not even a little.”
She grimaced, but immediately recovered her composure. “I don’t understand. This is crazy. Like a bad dream. What are you doing here, Shakir?”
His initial flood of relief at finding her alive gave way to irritation and he, too, grimaced. “We’ve come to bring you home.” She didn’t look injured, but what had they done to her mind?
Where was her gratitude? Where were the tears of joy he had expected to see?
Antsy and ready to move out, Shakir fought his annoyance and reached for her arm. “Let’s go.”
Nicole jerked back. “Where?” She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “How did you find me? Why are you really here?”
Stunned, Shakir saw the mistrust in her eyes and it wounded his pride. Never in their entire relationship had he given her reason not to trust him.
And he didn’t have time to deal with it here. “We’ll hash this out later. The choppers won’t wait.”
She stood her ground. Something odd was going on behind those eyes. Something very odd. “Now, Nicole.” He started toward her again.
“I was about to leave on my own.” She backed up a step. “What about the other women?”
“I brought in a team. They’re rescuing the other women at this moment. Everyone will leave the country in choppers as a group. Everyone.” His whole body hummed with impatience. “Do I have to carry you?”
“What about Lalla? We can’t leave her behind.”
For the first time, Shakir turned his head to study the old woman in the corner. Speaking to her in French, he asked, “Are you willing to leave?”
“I cannot. I have family who…I cannot, sir.”
The old woman was not Taj. That much was clear. But how long had she been living with them? Long enough to bear Taj children?
Suddenly, the old woman was too much of a liability to leave behind—but killing her was out of the question. “Sorry. You go with us.”
Moving with the speed of lightning, Shakir grabbed the old woman up with one arm, then swung around and picked up Nicole with the other. Neither of the women was a burden. Both weighed less than his backpack. The old woman went limp against his side, but Nicole was another matter.
She didn’t shriek or call out but beat at him with her fists. “Put me down. I can walk.”
He hesitated. “Will you behave? If I set you down, you must keep up. And you must do exactly as I say. Everything. Understood?”
Nicole nodded but kept her mouth closed. Good girl.
He lowered her to her feet. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”
Taking her elbow, he guided her out into the narrow hallway. Once again in darkness, he flipped the NVGs over his eyes. But he didn’t really need infrareds to see. He had memorized every inch of the maze inside this building and they weren’t that far from an exit. He could make it blindfolded.
Moving like a cat, Shakir let his instincts take control. He wanted to blank his mind, to act as he had been trained—without thought. But that look in Nicole’s eyes still bothered him.
He tried to reconcile the tough woman in a makeshift disguise with the sophisticated royal he had once both loved and then hated, but couldn’t make the connection. In a way, he should be impressed with her. Impressed that she would’ve taken the initiative to disguise herself and try to escape on her own. The Nicole he remembered was a follower, not a leader.
Slanting her a glance in the dark, he wondered what kind of person this new Nicole had become. And if he would care for her as much as the Nicole he’d fallen in love with long ago. So far, that seemed highly unlikely.
Nikki let Shakir lead them out of the harem and into the fresh air. She still couldn’t believe it was really him. When he’d first said her name, shock waves of memory blasted right through her system like an earthquake.
Of all the people in the world. Why now?
There’d been a time when she would have given ten years of her life just to see him again. To hear him say her name. To have him tell her what to do.
But that was long ago. A different lifetime.
In this lifetime, he presented a threat. Oh, not that she thought he might hurt her. She knew without question that he would never do such a thing.
No, the biggest threat Shakir posed today was that he had a different agenda from hers. Nikki wasn’t sure exactly what his agenda entailed. But she knew he must have some reason for showing up here in Zabbarán all of a sudden. Since he couldn’t possibly know what she needed most, what she longed to get back, he could not be trusted.
It didn’t take much for her mind to travel from that thought to the next—she might not trust him, but she could use him. She’d seen the light in his eyes when he’d first realized it was her under the makeup. She’d also caught his slight distraction whenever they touched. He’d felt that instant charge the same way as she had. He still had feelings for her.
But Nikki could not let her own distraction deter her from her goal. She would use the charge between them, that sexual awareness, to her best advantage.
With Lalla thrown over his shoulder, Shakir led Nikki through the gardens toward the outer perimeter wall. He was heading toward the hidden gate. She’d been told by Lalla that no one else knew about the almost invisible exit in the wall.
Squaring her shoulders, Nikki prepared for a surprise confrontation at the gate. If he knew about it, others might know and be waiting. This could be some kind of trap. Nikki only wished she still had the dagger that Shakir forced her to leave behind.
When they reached the farthest wall, Shakir leaned down and whispered, “We’re late. Make no noise.”
Noise was the last thing she had on her mind when freedom was this close. She froze, silent and panting, as he released her to lean against the wall.
The gate was nearby. Only a few yards away, but Shakir didn’t move in that direction. Instead, he ignored the gate and withdrew a long doubled up rope with a hook arrangement on the end and began twisting it in his hands. In a few seconds, he pitched the hook end up and over the ten-foot wall. A distant clank told her the hook had hit something solid on the other side.
After another few rope maneuvers, Shakir turned to her. “You first. Put your foot in the loop. I’ll hoist you to the top of the wall. Wait for us there.”
One second’s hesitation was all she allowed herself. She slid her sandal into the loop, locked her knee and hung on to the rope w
ith both hands. The ride to the top went quickly and she crawled up on the wide ledge. Taking a breath, she dropped the rope loop back over the same way she’d come up.
Nikki couldn’t imagine how Shakir would be able to climb up on his own, especially since he had to carry Lalla. But moments later he was standing beside her.
“Down is trickier,” he whispered. “Got the nerve to try it? Or shall I make two trips—one for you and one for the old woman?”
“Tell me what to do.”
Shakir gave her a quick lesson in rappelling. If Nikki hadn’t been so scared, she might have hesitated to go backward over the edge. But she was determined not to draw any attention or cause any trouble.
Not until the last second when she could make a break for it. Shakir and the others might be leaving by helicopter, but she wasn’t leaving Zabbarán. Not without her son.
She still had her map, her compass and the ability to navigate by the stars. And she could rely on her wits. The only difference now was that with all the others leaving by helicopter, her captors would assume she had left the country as well. They would not be quite as quick to give chase.
Her goal remained the same. She had come to this country to rescue her son.
Dragging Nicole by her arm and carrying the old woman, Shakir traipsed across the sands to a stand of date palms not twenty yards away from the wall. He used a simulated high-pitched falcon whistle to warn the others of their approach.
Out of the darkness, Tarik appeared like a ghostly spirit and handed him a canteen. “The others have already headed for the coordinates. The women hostages are so drugged, they’ve been no trouble. There’s not much time left and ten miles to travel.”
Shakir took the first sip then put the canteen to the old woman’s lips and waited for her to drink. She was not cooperative but he forced her to swallow a couple of priceless drops. Afterward, he handed the canteen over to Nicole.
“I’ll take the old woman,” Tarik told him. “You take Nicole. We can make better time if we carry the women rather than try to walk them that far.”
