Desert Secrets

by Lisa Harris

  But then he never would have met Lexi.

  He couldn’t help smiling when he pictured her. He liked her independence, and yet there was that underlying sense of vulnerability that made him want to protect her.

  But what if I can’t, God? All of this seems so out of my control.

  It was what he’d always loved about flying. That feeling of control he felt when he was in the cockpit. But now with everything that had happened, he’d been reminded that he never really had been in charge.

  A sharp knock on his door jerked him from his thoughts.

  “Colton, come.” Issa stood in the doorway. “We must hurry.”

  He leaned up on one elbow and waited for his eyes to focus. “Issa—”

  “A group of armed men have just arrived at the Kasbah. And they are looking for you. My brother tried to convince them you weren’t here, but they insisted on searching. And there is no way to stop them.”

  *

  The sound of a familiar voice jerked Lexi out of her nightmare, but not enough for her to forget the dream. A group of armed men had been chasing her through the desert. And no matter how hard she pushed herself, it had been as if she’d been moving in slow motion as she struggled to make her way across the sand. She’d glanced behind her, but they’d continued to gain on her. In a few more seconds they would have been close enough to grab her.

  The voice was calling her again. Fear swept over her as she tried to remember where she was. This wasn’t just a dream. They had grabbed her and taken her into the desert. The only reason she had escaped was because of Colton.

  “Lexi?”

  This time she opened her eyes and looked up. Moonlight filtered through the window. Colton was leaning over her, his hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. Her mind flashed back to the moment she’d first seen him at the camp. Before the guns started exploding around them. Somehow he’d managed to get her to safety.

  “Lexi…we need to go. Quickly.”

  “Go where?” She fought to shake off the fog that had settled on her brain as she tried to take in his words. “I don’t understand.”

  “The men who were looking for us have just arrived at the Kasbah.”

  Lexi felt her heart pound inside her chest. Her kindnappers were here? A wave of panic streaked through her. No…they couldn’t have found them. Issa had sent them off in the wrong direction. And besides, this Kasbah was supposed to be a place of safety. She couldn’t go back.

  “We’re going to be okay, but I need you to come with me now.”

  Lexi nodded, then sat up and brushed her hair back from her face, as the reality of their situation grabbed hold. They weren’t safe. Not yet. Colton might have pulled her from Salif’s camp, but those had taken her were not done searching for them yet. And if they really were here…

  She looked around the room, but she had nothing to grab and take with her. No passports. No bags. She had no idea how they’d eventually cross the border without documents, but at the moment it didn’t matter. They just needed to get as far away as possible from her abductors were determined to track them down.

  Colton grabbed her hand and helped her up. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “Just groggy. Where’s Bret?”

  “A couple of Issa’s men have taken him to one of the Jeeps. We’re going to meet him there, then leave the Kasbah.”

  Issa was waiting for them in the long, narrow passageway. “Come, we must hurry. My brother tried to hold them off, but they have guns.”

  “How many are there?” Colton asked as they followed Issa.

  “I’m not sure. Five…maybe six. They arrived in a vehicle about ten minutes ago.”

  “I knew we never should have involved you and put your family at risk,” Colton said.

  “Forget it. I don’t want to see Salif succeed any more than you do. Ransom payments give him the funds for weapons, and those in turn are used against my people.”

  They were winding their way through the dark maze of tiny passageways inside the Kasbah. Lexi could hear men shouting behind them as they ran. Her heart pounded in her throat as they made their way across the uneven brick. She tripped on a crack in the pavement. Colton grasped her elbow to stop her from falling.

  “I’m fine,” she said, ignoring the pain shooting through her ankle. “We need to keep going.”

  The men’s footsteps behind them were getting louder.

  “Through here,” Issa said.

  He unlatched a heavy wooden door and ushered them inside a small room with no ceiling that was open to the night sky. Lexi breathed in the musty smell of animals and constant bleating. Something brushed across her leg and pushed her backward against the wall.

  “What in the world…”

  “Sorry. They’re sheep.”

  Sheep? He had to be kidding.

  Moonlight caught the bodies of the animals that filled the room. In any other situation she’d see the humor in the situation. A room filled with sheep in a Kasbah in the middle of the desert… But right now, it was all she could do not to panic.

  Issa was making his way in front of them, through another door and this time down another narrow staircase.

  “I told you my grandfather had a number of wives,” Issa said, his breathing fast. “He used these passageways to discreetly visit them. When I was a child, I would hide from my brothers and sisters using these tunnels. We’re almost there.”

  Lexi glanced back as Colton grasped her hand and led her around a sharp twist in the flight of stairs. Her lungs were burning. The light of the moon had vanished, and the dark stone walls began to close in on her. She pressed her fingers against the cold rock.

  God, this is not the time for me to be claustrophobic.

  “Lexi?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

  Colton squeezed her hand. “Just breathe slowly. We’re almost there.”

  She drew in a breath. In and out, wishing she wasn’t so terrified. When she’d agreed to take the job in Timbuktu, she’d been fully aware of the unpredictable security situation and the threat of kidnapping and terrorism. She’d seen the heavy security presence of police patrols. She—along with her team—had lived with contingency plans to leave the country on short notice if necessary. And now she was having to escape in the middle of the night from men who wanted to take her again.

  Lexi drew in another deep breath, as they rushed down the narrow passageway. Despite the fear she felt, she wanted to believe that coming here had been worth it. That she’d do it all over again given the choice.

  Because she’d come to love this country and the strength of the women who would do anything to protect their children. Women who worked hard from sunup to sundown to provide for their families. And she’d found contentment in helping to ensure they had the clean water they needed to protect their families.

  Now the contentment she’d found in her work had been exchanged for a growing sense of panic. Even if they did get out of here without being followed, where would they go? Salif clearly had men spread out over a vast territory. Yet how could they give in to his demands when they didn’t have what he wanted?

  Colton didn’t have the two million dollars. She didn’t know where her brother was or if he had access to the money he owed them.

  Issa pushed open another heavy wooden door that opened up into some sort of garage, then let them pass.

  “Here’s the Jeep.”

  Two men were helping Bret into the front passenger seat. One of them grabbed a package off the top of the vehicle and handed it to Issa.

  “Where do we go now?” Lexi asked, hesitating.

  “We need to head for the boarder.”

  “What about my team?” Colton asked.

  “I’m bringing the satellite phone. For them to land at this point isn’t safe. Rumor has it that Salif’s men are guarding all the airstrips in the vicinity.”

  “So we drive out of here?” Lexi asked.

  “I believe it is our only option. I’ll
come with you as your driver. I know the way.”

  Issa handed Colton a weapon. “Just in case we need to defend ourselves. These men are heavily armed, which means it won’t be enough to take them down, but at least it will give us some way to defend ourselves.”

  Lexi stared at the weapon and felt her stomach tighten as Issa put a second handgun beneath the driver’s seat. She’d never liked guns, despite her stepfather’s collection. And while she could agree there was a time and a place, she hated the fact that they might need one now.

  “Lexi?”

  “Sorry.” She jumped into the backseat next to Colton and felt that eerie sense of déjà vu sweep over her. They’d tried to lose Salif’s men before, and his men had found them. Which mean that while Issa might know the desert, so did these men. They’d grown up here. They knew how to survive in the stark conditions. And they knew how to be ruthless.

  All she knew was that this was a world completely different from her own.

  The fear was back, twisting in her gut. The night sky loomed above them as Issa sped away from the Kasbah. She glanced at Colton and caught the same look of worry in his eyes as he reached out and grasped her hand.

  “We’re going to get out of this.”

  She nodded, but wasn’t convinced anymore that there was a way out.

  EIGHT

  Colton felt the strap of the shoulder belt catch, then pull tightly across his chest as Issa accelerated, leaving behind the confines of the Kasbah. The same seeds of alarm that had been planted when he’d first received his sister’s call that Bret had been kidnapped had sprung to life again. Because this was far from over. Just when he’d thought his brother-in-law was safe, everything was—once again—crumbling down around them. And this time he wasn’t sure he knew how to put an end to the continual nightmare.

  Bracing one hand against the seat in front of him and the other on the armrest, he studied Lexi’s grim expression as she sat in silence beside him. Like he’d told her, he’d been in situations where he’d been convinced there was no way out alive. Circumstances where comrades had lost their lives beside him, and that still haunted him. But there was one major difference in this situation. He and his fellow soldiers had trained in combat, expecting to encounter death. It was an inevitable risk of their job. And while it was something he’d prayed wouldn’t happen, that possibility had always been there, lingering in the back of his mind. Today, though, it was the urgent sense of duty to bring his brother-in-law—and Lexi—home safe that had him focused.

  He turned to look out the back window of the 4x4 to see if they were being followed. Visibility was limited. The sun had yet to make its appearance over the horizon, but rays of light were already spreading across the orange sand.

  “Do you see them behind us?” Issa asked from the driver’s seat.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean they’re not back there.” All he could see was the never-ending desert being bathed in the obscure yellow light of the sunrise. And the winds were strong enough that the dust didn’t allow him to discern if there was a vehicle behind them.

  Which would hopefully give them the same cover, as well.

  “I’m not surprised,” Issa said. “It’s hard to see more than fifty meters ahead of us, and it’s getting worse.”

  Something else to worry about. As well as Issa knew this desert, to be out here now with the winds picking up wasn’t a wise choice. Sandstorms were common in this part of the world and could overcome a vehicle in a matter of seconds. But what other choice did they have?

  He turned back to where Bret lay against the front passenger seat with his eyes closed. The jarring of the vehicle as it sped across the sand was anything but comfortable. This wasn’t what Bret needed. He was supposed to be resting, not on the move, running for his life.

  Colton leaned forward and grasped the injured man’s shoulder. “Bret…are you okay?”

  He just groaned and turned his head.

  “Bret?”

  Still he wouldn’t answer.

  Colton felt his forehead for signs of a fever, but he didn’t seem hot. Only clammy.

  Issa shifted gears as they went up a slight embankment. “When I spoke to Sara late last night she told me she’d given him something to help him sleep. I’m guessing it should wear off soon, but until then I suspect he’s going to feel extremely groggy.”

  Colton sat back against his seat and gripped the armrest again.

  What are we supposed to do, God? Take a risk and ask my team to meet at an airstrip or try to make it all the way to the border?

  The airstrip was less than an hour away, and flying would get them to Morocco sooner, and it would avoid the long trip across the desert. But if Issa was right, if Salif’s men were covering the surrounding airstrips, sending his team to meet them wasn’t a chance he wanted to take. Which meant their only option was to lose the men who were after them and head for the border.

  “You’re worried.” Lexi caught his gaze, her words more of a statement than a question.

  “Issa knows this area better than most. If anyone can get us to safety, he can.”

  Colton frowned at his own words. What he said was true, but they’d somehow sounded hollow. Salif’s men knew this desert, as well. And they clearly had resources that included weapons and the ability to shoot down a small plane out of the sky. Which meant that the four of them were outnumbered and outgunned. If the men who were after their group caught up with them…

  He reached out and squeezed Lexi’s hand a moment before letting go. “What about you? You okay?”

  “I guess that’s up for interpretation,” she said, but he didn’t miss the determination in her eyes. “Twenty-four hours or so ago, I was facing being held ransom for who knows how long. Now I’m speeding across the desert with a group of armed men closing in on us, and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do beyond pray that we’ll make it out.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Praying. Sometimes it’s hard to not wonder what lesson God might be trying to impart to me.”

  “Maybe He’s just trying to teach you to rely on Him,” she said. “That’s what I keep coming back to. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to control situations, but living here the past few months has changed all of that. I’ve learned that I can’t get around the red tape in this country. I can’t fix every broken water system, or especially get things done quicker. And right now there’s nothing I can do on my own to change any of this. Just hold on for dear life and trust.”

  He’d already come to admire that attitude. That determined set of her chin. The fact that despite being caught in a situation that would have most people in a complete panic, she had yet to allow fear to immobilize her.

  He couldn’t help the image of Maggie with her polished nails and red lips that surfaced in his mind. He wondered how she’d cope with a situation like this. Especially wearing one of the five-hundred-dollar suits she wore every day to the law firm she worked for. Which wasn’t really a fair comparison. Maggie was smart and ambitious and had no qualms confronting an opponent head-on. But dealing with poverty, sickness and insurgents in the desert? Somehow law school didn’t prepare you for this scenario.

  Or maybe nothing could prepare you for this. Maybe it was nothing more than the circumstances they’d now been thrown into. Circumstances that forced each one of them to dig up every ounce of strength they had left.

  “Just so you know, I’m speaking to myself more than to you,” Lexi said, holding tight to the armrest as the 4x4 flew across the bumpy sand. “Trying to convince myself that somehow this is all going to end up okay.”

  The wind was blowing sand through the cracks and crevices of the vehicle, making his nose itch and his throat scratch. There was still no sign of any other car behind them, but he knew they were out there. Besides the worry about the men who were after them, there were plenty of other things to be concerned about—like running out of fuel or getting lost.

  “It’s gettin
g worse,” she said, staring out the window.

  The howling winds seemed to cut right through the vehicle. A wall of sand rose up beside them. Issa took his foot off the gas, but it was too late. Darkness swept across the desert, blocking the light of the rising sun and turning visibility to zero in a matter of seconds.

  “Hold on, everyone,” Issa said.

  Colton felt the tire on the driver’s side hit something. The Jeep flipped once then somehow managed to land upright with one of the side windows shattered on impact. Sand swirled against his face like sharp needles. He turned to check on Lexi, but he couldn’t open his eyes.

  “Lexi… Bret?”

  But the roar of the sand was all he could hear in response.

  *

  Lexi kept her eyes closed tight, praying for the sand and dust swirling through the car to settle. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her nose and throat felt as if she’d swallowed sandpaper. The temperature seemed to have risen in the past few seconds, adding to the discomfort of the suffocating conditions.

  She listened for the others in the car, but all she could hear was the deafening sounds of the wind surrounding her. She managed to take off her seat belt, then pulled the scarf she’d been wearing around her neck and wrapped it around her face. But it wasn’t enough to stop the sand from scraping against her face and neck.

  She fought the panic. She’d heard of the blistering sandstorms that swept across the desert at the blink of an eye. And of men losing their way and dying from dehydration. She hoped that if she didn’t move, she’d be okay. Issa and Colton would find a way out of this. All they had to do was wait for the storm to subside.

  She remembered one of her coworkers was planning a romantic a trip into the desert on her next anniversary. Rennie had talked about the endless sand dunes, caravans of camels, camping among the Bedouin and watching the stars at night. No doubt there was beauty in the desert that she’d learned to appreciate, but not this way.