by Michelle Fox
Even better, I would get a gun and a taser. I was tired of being defenseless, shoved back and forth between agendas that weren’t mine. As for Blake...I bit my lip. I’d known he was unreliable the second I’d overheard that conversation about Mara. He’d played me, but I’d also thought he wanted me. Thought he would come to my rescue. Instead, for a second time, he was going to walk away while I paid the price.
If I ever got out of this alive, he would be the first man I hunted down for a little revenge ball kicking. It was the least he deserved after everything he’d done to me.
I was done with him. For good. Damned though, if I didn’t cry about it. Ugly choking sobs that had tears and snot streaming down my face. Deep down, I wanted things to be different. I’d wanted to be in a romance, but somehow my life had ended up in a lousy action adventure story. One where the heroine was probably going to die. At that thought, I started crying for me. The life I would never live. The dreams that would never come true for me. I was thankful for the carpet which soaked up my broken heart and hid it from the rest of the world.
In the middle of my break down, I heard a door open then and something heavy fell on the floor next to me. I paused mid-sob and held my breath, straining my ears to catch what sound I could. All I heard was the turn of an engine and then I lurched inside my carpet prison as whatever they’d dumped me in began to move.
Once again I was being taken against my will to an unknown destination. This time though, no one wanted me to survive.
.
Chapter Sixteen
I drew my knees up to my chest and stared out into the empty desert. From the way the sun glinted on the dunes, I was pretty sure the heat was melting the sand into glass. My throat ached with thirst, my skin felt hot enough to fry an egg and sweat soaked my clothes. The night had been cold and I’d yearned for the heat. Now I wanted night back, but there were at least six more hours of frying to go.
Blake sat beside me, silent and brooding, sweat beading his skin like dew. As it turned out, he’d been that thump I’d heard. Ferrid had rolled him up, same as me and a good thing, too because Blake was the only reason I hadn’t suffocated inside that rug.
I tried to swallow, but couldn’t work up enough spit, so my voice came out in a rasp. “Will you at least tell me what we’re dying for?” Thinking of Lilli, I winced. She would pay the price as well for whatever Blake and I were mixed up in. I just hoped her death was quicker than ours. Being slowly burned to death by the sun had to rank up there on the list of ‘most unpleasant ways to die.’ Of course, Frankie probably wasn’t one to make death easy.
“Well, I guess there’s no point in secrets now.” Blake heaved a sigh. “Ferrid is part of a terrorist network that hit the government’s radar sometime last year. He’s been recruiting members, training them how to swindle people out of money and sending them to the US.”
“So he’s running a con man network of some kind?” I frowned at him. “That’s kind of a lame thing to die for.” Personally, I wanted there to be a nuke on the loose or an assassin after the president so my death would mean something.
Blake scanned the desert, a hand to his head to keep the sun out of his eyes. So far, we’d seen nothing but sand and more sand, but he kept looking as if that might change. “Well, the whole thing is, he takes US money and uses it to buy weapons and fund terrorist cells. He gets off on the idea of using our own money against us.” Blake squinted into the horizon, but it remained frustratingly empty. “He started with shell game gangs on street corners of major cities. Then he took his top performers and taught them how to run bigger cons.”
“Like what? Rob a bank?”
He shook his head. “No, like taking the life savings of retirees who had no family to look out for them. We’re talking about gangs of terrorists working in concert and funneling millions of dollars back to Ferrid.”
My jaw dropped. “Wow.”
“When he started buying missiles and sniffing around for chemical weapons, the NSA got involved and sent me to establish a cover.”
“Is that how you ended up at the Cirque?” My mind began to put some of the pieces together. I’d always thought he held himself apart at the Cirque because he was a magician, but now I understood his agenda had driven him to aloofness. At least up until the night we’d slept together.
“Yeah. I was establishing my cover so I could come here and infiltrate his network, but,” he shrugged and waved at the desert around us, “you see how well that went. He made us.”
“How?”
Blake frowned. “I don’t know. I spent months building my cover, making myself legit. The team was solid.” He fell silent, but his eyes spoke volumes.
“But I was a weak link, right?” I said it for him.
He looked at me, guarded. “Maybe.” His gaze intensified. “Are you the weak link, Ruby?”
I laughed, a bitter sound. “No. If I was, I wouldn’t be trapped here with you, would I?” I gave a half shrug. “Sorry.”
He grimaced. “I should be apologizing to you. If not for me, you wouldn’t be here.”
I nodded my agreement. He should be sorry. “So is anyone coming to save us?” I asked, unable to keep myself from hoping for a miracle.
Blake shook his head. “The team will scatter now that we’ve been exposed. They won’t be circling back for us. That’s not part of the protocol.”
“So we’re dead.” I made a gun with my fingers and pretended to shoot. “Lilli’s dead.” My dehydrated body managed to work up a tear. What a disaster. All because I’d had a crush on a magician. I would never listen to my libido again.
“Not yet,” Blake said.
I gave him a scathing look. “You got a plane in your back pocket or something?”
“No, but I have survival skills that will buy us some time.” He pulled up his pant leg, revealing a small camouflage pack fastened to his calf. “This has some basic survival gear in it.”
“I don’t see any water,” I said doubtfully.
“I can make water, just give me some time. But first,” he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s figure out where we are and how far we need to walk.”
“Wait. Your phone works out here?” I jumped to my feet. “We can call someone to come get us.”
“Yes it works, but I’m not calling anyone.” He held the phone close to his body as if afraid I would snatch it. “We don’t know how far Ferrid’s network goes. I’d rather stay under the radar. If they find out we survived, they’ll be sure to shoot us first next time.”
I didn’t like it, but what he said made sense. “What’s the plan then?”
He gestured for me to come over to him. “Come see.”
I dropped to the ground next to him and peered at his phone. He had a map of the desert onscreen, his finger tracing a route north. “Are you serious? We’re going to walk the Sahara?” My feet hurt just thinking of it.
“Yes, we’re only about twenty miles from the airstrip we flew into. Today we’ll camp in place and set up some water collection. Tomorrow we’ll hike until we get there.”
“Why can’t we just go?” I waved at the desert, impatient to leave it.
Blake shook his head. “We’re dehydrated. We won’t make it five miles let alone twenty. We need water first.”
I rolled my eyes. “We should have done this last night.”
He raised an eyebrow. “When all the animals, most of them poisonous, that survive out here are active? No, not a good idea.”
“We don’t have time to waste,” I said, frustrated. “I’ll take the heat, if you will.” I stood up and started to head down the dune we’d slept on the night before. The long, hot walk would suck, but I would do it. I had to. There was no time to do anything else.
Blake grabbed my hand and held me back. Giving me a disappointed look, he said, “The first rule of survival is never do something you can’t back out of. If we start walking now, we won’t be in a position to collect water later. The heat will suck us
dry if we go off half cocked.”
“The human body can go three days without water,” I protested, pulling against his hand.
His grip tightened and he tugged me back. “Come on, Ruby, use some common sense. It’s too hot to last even ten hours. We have no reserves. We’ll cook to death. The smart thing to do is rest and wait until we have some water before we set out. Timing is everything.”
“And if the clock runs out?” I asked, frowning.
“It won’t.” His voice was curt, no-nonsense, but his tone softened when he said, “Just trust me. I got this.”
After a long moment of silence, I gave in. I was out of my depth and he had more experience. I should listen to him. “Well, you’re the expert, right?” At his nod, I said, “How can I help?”
He pointed to the desert around us. “Go find as many stones and rocks as you can.”
I didn’t move because he sounded crazy, like the desert had already parboiled his brain into heatstroke. “We’re going to get water from a stone?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. It’s desert survival one-oh-one. The nomads have done it forever and soldiers adopted the technique in World War Two.” Blake put his phone back in his pocket and beckoned me forward. “Here, put this on your head.” He pulled at the light scarf I’d bought at the souk. It had matched my caftan that night so I’d looped it around my neck as an accessory.
“But it’s hot.” I put a hand on my scarf, keeping him from taking it.
“In the desert, you must create your own shade.” He tugged the scarf away from me and placed it over my head. “Don’t take it off unless you enjoy heat exhaustion.”
“If you say so.”
Blake grabbed my hand and gave it squeeze. “We’re going to be fine. I’ll get us out of here.”
“What about Lilli? Is she going to be fine?” I thought of his phone. “We should call them.”
“No. No phone calls. I don’t want anyone to know we’re alive right now. Frankie could easily be in Ferrid’s network.”
“So Lilli has to die?” I bit back a sob.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said quietly.
“You’re going to have to do better than hope.” I was yelling now and the vast emptiness of the Sahara swallowed my words, cutting them off before they could echo. I stormed off and started looking for rocks. Maybe I should throw a few at his head.
Blake didn’t comment on my outburst, and instead jumped up and down on the sand repeatedly. Why, I didn’t know. I kept an eye on him, wondering if he was doing some weird survival rain dance. A moment later he began digging, tossing handfuls of sand over his shoulder. While he dug, I lugged whatever rocks I found over to him. Some were small, but a few were as big as my hand. The small ones he tossed to the side, but the big ones he kept.
Finally, after my fifth trip, he said, “That’s enough. You can rest now.” He’d taken off his dress shirt and the t-shirt underneath--apparently the rule about creating shade didn’t apply to him. Every scoop of sand, caused his torso and arms to flex, emphasizing the lean curves of his body.
I watched him dig, half ashamed that, in such dire circumstances, I could still find him so damn attractive. I was mad at him. He was going to get me killed. Both statements were true, but they didn’t negate the fact that Blake was my kryptonite.
Deciding, I should stop torturing myself with the view of his lean body, I laid on the sand, pulling the scarf over my eyes. Fatigue weighed me down and the rhythm of his digging lulled me into a light sleep. My nap didn’t last long, though. Blake let out a loud shout and I bolted upright at the noise, alarmed. Pulling the scarf away from my face, I saw that he’d jumped out of the hole and was staring at…well, nothing in the sand as he slowly backed away. Had he lost his mind?
“What?” I climbed to my feet and moved to peer into the hole, but he pulled me back.
“There was a snake.” His breathing was fast and ragged. “I read that they tunnel into the sand to escape the heat. I stomped on the ground before I started digging, hoping to scare them off.”
Well, that explained the rain dance. “Guess they didn’t mind a little noise.” I stepped further away from the hole and then caught sight of the snake slithering sideways down the dune. It blended in almost perfectly with the sand. If it hadn’t been moving, I might not have spotted it at all.
“Guess not,” Blake agreed. We both watched the snake slither off. Thankfully, it was just as anxious to get away from us as we were to stay away from it.
“It’s poisonous I take it.” I hid behind Blake and peered over his shoulder.
“Yeah. Most things are out here.”
I tried not to imagine a snake bite on top of everything else. “Do you think there are any more?”
“Let’s hope not.” He wiped sweat from his brow and went to stomp around the hole. I joined him and we pummeled the ground for several minutes. Then he returned to work, scooping out more sand.
I sat down about twenty feet or so away. I didn’t want to be nearby when the next snake jumped out at us. “Are you sure you don’t want to call someone? Anyone?”
He shook his head. “This is for the best. With a little luck, we’ll be out of here by dusk tomorrow.”
I furrowed my brow as a thought occurred to me. “So, is Ferrid incompetent? If he meant to kill us, he sure botched the job.”
“Maybe.” Blake threw more sand over his shoulder. “He’s never served in the military. Most of his crew hasn’t either. They’re experienced jihadist criminals, but don’t know anything about survival. Or maybe they just assumed we didn’t know either.” He dusted off his hands. “Okay, so that’s done.”
I craned my neck to peer into the hole. Aside from the big hole, he’d made a smaller one inside. “What are you doing exactly?”
He pointed to the rocks. “There’s water even in the desert, you just have to know how to find it, or make it as the case may be. Since it’s so cold at night and so hot during the day, there’s dew and we’re going to collect it.” He emptied out the little pouch that had been strapped around his leg. “This is going to hold the water.” He pushed it into the small hole at the bottom and then dropped in the bigger rocks. After that, he covered everything with a plastic poncho from his kit, weighing it down with some smaller rocks.
“What does the plastic do?” I asked, curious.
“Condenses the water,” he said, panting with the exertion of his efforts. “When we wake up tomorrow morning, we’ll have enough water to keep us going for the day.”
“Wow. They taught you that in the military?” I looked at him, amazed. For the first time since we’d been dumped in the desert, I thought we might get out of this alive.
Blake headed down the dune to where the carpets we’d been rolled up in lay, saying over his shoulder, “I read up on things, too. The military can’t cover every eventuality. I’ve made survival a hobby.”
I followed him and helped as he rolled up the rugs. “You use that hobby a lot in a professional capacity?”
“More than I’d like.” Blake hoisted a rug over his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I watched him marveling at his strength in the face of soul melting heat.
“Making a shelter for us.” He headed up the dune, aiming for the spot where he’d dug the water hole.
I tried to follow suit with the second rug, but it was too heavy. When I tried to heave it up onto my shoulders, all I accomplished was knocking myself over with the momentum of its weight. Getting up, I settled for dragging the rug behind me.
At the top of one dune, Blake spread the one rug on the ground, wedging it in a narrow dip between the dune he stood on and its neighbor.
I huffed and puffed my way up to him and dropped the rug at his feet. “Here.”
“Thanks.” He took the second rug and balanced it across the top of the dunes. He anchored each end in place with some nearby rocks.
“It’s snug, but it’s shade.” He gave a little bow a
nd a wave of his hand. “After you.”
I ducked into our carpet made cave and he joined me. The shade instantly made the air feel cooler, although it was still hot.
“We’ll wait here and once we have water, we start walking.” Blake hesitated for a moment. “We should talk too, while we have the chance.”
“About what?”
“It was a mistake to bring you here, Ruby.” He pointed to himself and then me. “We can’t happen, baby. It’s too dangerous.”
I nodded. “I agree.” The words hurt, but they were true. I would spend the rest of my life wishing we could have made it somehow, but the guy was the US version of freaking James Bond and I wasn’t bullet proof.
“I’m sorry. I thought I could keep you safe. I thought I could make it work.” He ran a hand through his hair and scowled.
“Is that what happened to Mara?” I’d only heard her name once, but it had stuck with me because of Blake’s strong reaction. There’d been someone else, I was sure of it. Had she survived?
Blake looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I think you owe me whatever explanation I ask for,” I said boldly.
He bowed his head. “She was an operative.”
“Like you.”
“Yes, like me.” He paused and then heaved a sigh. “We were in love, but she didn’t make it. The operation went bad.”
“Bad like this?” I wanted to know if we were repeating history, wanted to know why his team had said I was Mara all over again.
He shrugged. “Yes and no. All missions are the same in many ways.”
“So why me, Blake?” Why had he plucked me out of the obscurity of the Cirque D’Amour?
Blake looked at me then, his eyes serious and steady. “I saw you watching me and I started watching you back until I had to have you. The night you performed in Lilli’s place, I realized I would regret never knowing you, never touching your skin. So I took a chance.”
