She slid her hands over Felix’s body, searching for another wound, the source of the slowly leaking blood, but couldn’t find it. It had to be the damn head wound.
The traffic going south was less. After weeks of bracing for nocturnal fighting, it must be an ingrained thing. Hunker down at night. Move during the day.
In the distance, on either side of the road, refugee camps had sprouted up. Those who couldn’t leave were stuck watching their future crumble. They had no say in what came next, who took power. It wasn’t fair. Nothing about this was right.
And for what?
So Zeina Razqa could have the rights to gold mines? Was that seriously worth it to her? What kind of human being thought materials were worth human suffering?
People like her dad and Zeina that was who.
“Guns at the ready,” a man at the front of the truck called out.
The others shifted into position, eyes on the windows. This wasn’t a normal truck. It looked more like a SWAT style ballistic vehicle, complete with holes to fire through.
She clutched Felix a bit tighter. He groaned in protest.
“Felix?” she whispered. “Pretend like you’re out. Don’t open your eyes.”
She was terrified of these guys giving him a round two beating and what that might do to him.
“Where are we going?” she asked louder.
No one responded.
She hadn’t really expected them to, but she had to try.
The truck slowed to a stop.
“If they get near the truck, shoot them,” the man at the front said.
“What? You can’t shoot these people.” Jackie blinked at the sudden press of people holding torches around the truck. She couldn’t blame them for being angry. They were displaced from their homes, on the run, hungry and hurt.
“There’s a group flanking the buggy,” someone called out from the back.
“Fire a warning shot,” the leader ordered.
“No—you can’t!”
Jackie barely got the words out before a loud pop reverberated through the metal vehicle. The crowd scattered, taking the light with them.
“Go!” The man barked.
The truck chugged past flaming piles of debris. After a few blocks, they rolled past the PPM barricades and what appeared to be wandering groups of people, all without having to fire a shot. More than the opposition they passed, it was the state of the city that horrified her. Buildings she vaguely recalled passing, their spires reaching toward the sky, were piles of rubble.
Ever since she was deemed old enough to travel her father had trotted her and her brother out to Nouakchott. The city and culture had their flaws, but it was getting better. There was promise for a brighter future—but not anymore. Not unless something changed. Her heart broke for those who would bear the brunt of change, those who would have opportunities closed to them now. All because of greed.
She leaned her head back against the side of the truck and stroked her fingers over Felix’s hair. He turned his head toward her, the only sign he was conscious.
Close to an hour later they pulled past the gates of an untouched, sprawling mansion in the heart of the city. Armed guards patrolled the fences and dogs snarled. It was like out of a movie.
“Get them inside,” the same man front the front of the truck called out.
All eyes locked on her.
She gulped and realized she hadn’t minded all that much that she was ignored.
Two men grabbed Felix by the arms.
“Careful!” She reached for him, but another man snatched her by the arm.
He pulled her forward off the bench. She hit her knees and hissed at the jolt of pain, but he kept going. She scrambled, partially tripping over her hem and nearly face-planting against the opposite wall before she got her feet under her to even keep up with her captors.
Felix left a bloody trail up the stairs to the grand entrance of the house. The sight of it turned her stomach.
“Where are we?” Jackie peered at the building. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. It’d been a long time since she frequented the fancier establishments of the city. Her usual haunts were in the poorer areas where people needed help.
“That’s both of them, ma’am.” The leader of this little mercenary group spoke to someone just inside the entry.
Jackie held her breath and peered around the door as she was hauled inside.
Zeina Razqa stood there, resplendent in a pale yellow dress with gold embroidery and a large, beautifully crafted necklace that lay over her collar bones and shoulders like something an Egyptian goddess might wear.
Of course the bitch would think she was that level of importance.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Zeina gave her a once over, her upper lip curling in disgust.
Shane, Isaac, Adam—the others might be dead for all Jackie knew. Felix could be next. All because this woman wanted more.
The other man said something else she didn’t hear.
Jackie hurled herself forward, breaking her captor’s grasp. She wrapped her hand in the gauzy material of Zeina’s dress and yanked her forward. The other woman’s eyes went wide, and she gasped, arms flailing. Jackie hauled her arm back, hand clenched tight.
The men grabbed her arm. Her fist got all of six inches from Zeina’s face.
“You fucking bitch. What the hell is wrong with your greedy ass?” Jackie yanked, but there was no getting away.
“Take her downstairs with the other one.” Zeina took a step back and pressed her hands to her stomach, smoothing her clothing.
“I hope you—”
A hand connected with Jackie’s face, cutting off her words. She reeled backward. Someone grabbed her other arm, and they dragged her down another set of stairs, into the darkness. A small voice cried an alarm, but her head was too foggy to hear it. In the end, they dragged her into a darkened room, dropped her on the stone floor, and left.
“Jackie? Jackie, you okay?” a raspy, familiar voice asked.
She groaned and rolled to her back, blinking up at the light casting patterns on the ceiling.
A man leaned over her, his hair sticking up every which way.
“Fine,” she croaked out.
“How long has it been?”
“Hours.” She pushed up and hissed.
“Shit. Jackie...” Felix cupped her chin and turned her face toward the light. “This broke open. What’d they do to you?”
“I tried to punch Zeina...”
She lifted her hand and pushed Felix’s hair out of the way. That cut across his head was deep, but oozing slower now.
“Now we really have matching head wounds,” she said.
She choked out a laugh that promptly turned into a sob.
This was what Felix, and the others had tried too hard to prevent. What they’d sacrificed to keep from happening. And here they were.
“Come here.” Felix scooted to lean up against the wall and pulled her to him. “We’re going to get through this.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but you’re stubborn and I’m resourceful. We’ll figure it out.”
“But what if it’s not enough? What about the others?”
“Right now, we can only worry about ourselves. The boss knows who to look at, and when they don’t hear from us in a few hours, they’ll get to looking.”
“I’m scared, Felix.”
“I know, babe. Me, too. But we can’t give up. That’s not who we are. This might suck, it’s tough as hell, but it’s not the end, okay?”
Jackie buried her face against his shoulder and let the despair wash over her. He hadn’t seen the city, the destruction, like she had. All the progress, all the hope, it was gone.
She might never see her mother again. Felix’s team could be dead. Everything they’d both worked for could be over. And for nothing more than simple, cold profit.
If Jackie did survive this, she would do everything in her power to sink Zeina and
make her pay for this. She might get away with it here, but the world was watching.
Felix was used to waiting, and it wasn’t his first time being in anyone’s custody, much less held against his will. These were all pitfalls of the job. He just wasn’t used to doing quite this much of it as a result of one woman.
“There are people on the street.” Jackie stood on a bucket, watching out the narrow window near the ceiling.
“Yeah?”
“They aren’t PPM or military. They look...normal.”
“Maybe they’re waking up to what’s going on and trying to take back control?” Felix rubbed his hand over his face, wincing as he got too close to the gash.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Jackie stepped off the bucket and crossed to his side. “How you doing?”
“Fine.”
He was alive. She was with him. And everything else, as far as he was concerned, would work out. He might not get Jackie home in time to say her goodbyes, but if they played along, he was pretty confident they would get shipped back home with the directive to never come back. The new, budding government couldn’t abide blood on its hands if they wanted to be recognized by the rest of the world.
Zeina, if not Samba, had to know that much. Their people were more valuable alive than dead.
Jackie sat next to him, her nearness a comfort he soaked up while he could.
To think, a few hours ago they were screaming at each other headed south. He’d thought they were almost clear of this mess.
“I’m still angry at you, but we need to stick together if we’re going to get out of this. What do you think happens next?” she asked.
Felix bit the side of his mouth, a part of him not willing to accept her anger. It wasn’t his place to tell her she could or couldn’t be angry with him. He’d kept the truth from her, even when he’d known that would damage their trust.
“Zeina will figure out how best to leverage you. If we’re right, and she’s really after control of the mines, she’ll twist your dad’s arm into supporting whoever will benefit her best. The process of propping up a new government will take time. I suppose you, and maybe all of us, will be her unwilling guest for a while. I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Me, too.”
“You had every right to be mad at me, but know I really only have your best interest in mind.”
Jackie stared straight ahead without speaking to him.
“Mom wasn’t always like this. Even in the beginning when her addiction started, she was still a good mom. It’s been in the last ten years it’s gotten bad. I guess when I graduated and started my own life she sort of realized that she’d lost out on all those years because Dad didn’t want her around us and wasn’t ever getting them back.”
“Your dad wouldn’t let you see her at all?”
“No.” She turned her head and stared at him, her gaze so cold he nearly got frostbite. “He knew what was best.”
“That’s not what we did, Jackie. It’s different.”
“Really? Was I asleep when you asked my opinion? Or what did Val say about it? You didn’t have the right to keep my mom’s condition from me.”
Shit.
“We made the best decision we could given the circumstances.” His head throbbed from clenching his teeth to keep his unvarnished thoughts to himself.
“You lied to me because it was easier to do that than be honest. I get it.”
“No. No, that’s not what happened.”
“Really? Because that’s what it looks like to me.” Jackie pushed to her feet and paced from one side of the room to the other.
She was angry and upset, looking for someone to blame. Felix was an easy target in this. He was complicit in the deception and he’d pushed forward when his better sense told him to wait. It’d been obvious from the way she reacted to word of her father’s part in this that anything to do with her parents was complicated. Felix wasn’t going to get through to her, not while she was scared and angry.
The spark they’d shared might be gone, which was a shame. He’d wanted that date and the opportunity to get to know the woman behind the reputation. But from now on, he’d just be the guy who didn’t save her.
17.
Tuesday. Zeina Razqa’s Home Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Samba pushed open the car door and stood, leaving Lemine and the others to scramble out after him. The armed men at the front of the house didn’t move to stop him, which at least meant that the woman had some brains.
At the last moment, the man closest to the door opened it and followed him in.
“Zeina,” Samba bellowed. His voice bounced off the marble floors and tiled walls.
The Razqa family home was beautiful. Opulent even, speaking to their wealth handed down through the generations. It was widely known her parents had grown senile and out of touch with age, which was a large reason why their errant daughter was allowed too many freedoms.
“What is all this yelling about?” Zeina rounded a corner, her garishly bright, pink clothing drawing all eyes to her. She frowned first at him, then the others who’d followed him through the door. “Didn’t anyone teach you to knock first?”
“Where is she?” Samba demanded.
“Safe.”
“Why am I hearing about this now and not last night?”
“Why?” Zeina planted her hands on her hips. “Maybe because it wasn’t safe last night to transport her? These groups, these rioters, they make the streets dangerous. Did you know they almost attacked a ballistic truck? You’re losing your grasp on the situation, Samba.”
“It’s being handled.” Samba glared at her.
They hadn’t anticipated the people banding together and opposing them. It had never been done before. With enough show of force, they would fall in line, just like Zeina.
“The Davis girl. Where is she?” Samba demanded.
“Why should I give her to you? You can’t take the Presidential Palace. What makes me think you can take parliament or the military?”
“You can either do this willingly, or when I am president, I can take your fortune by force.”
That threat didn’t seem to faze Zeina at all.
“Fine. Get the girl and her guard. Bring them both.” Zeina turned and gave orders first to the men in black uniforms, then to her assistant. “You’d better start proving yourself, Samba.”
“Proving myself?” He barked a laugh. “Today is the day parliament will swear me in as president.”
That got her attention. Zeina’s eyes widened with disbelief.
She wasn’t the only one who could orchestrate events. Samba had been hard at work on those in parliament that hadn’t fled, and he’d secured the votes to grant him the presidency and all the power he could want.
Tuesday. Presidential Palace Nouakchott, Mauritania.
The red carpet extending from the entrance to the Presidential Palace was charred in places, but the building seemed intact. Jackie had only been there once, and it was an experience she’d never forget.
Samba Hamadi’s men marched their group up the carpet and toward the wall of glass framed by the iconic pointed arch. The Mauritanian flag was nowhere to be seen, and neither were the Presidential Guard. Instead, a man wearing the black and red uniform of the PPM opened the doors for their procession.
Jackie glanced around, taking in the changes. The curtains were drawn back to allow natural light into the building in place of electric since the power was still out. She’d known the new president had undertaken a project to renovate the palace, make it grander in places, less sterile. By and large it appeared untouched.
Another set of PPM guards led the way down the hall and into the most photographed room of the palace. The presidential receiving room was mostly as it had been for years. The floors were marble instead of carpet and the drapes were a geometric, shimmering fabric instead of solid gold. The long, stately sofas where heads of state and their delegations would sit facing each other remained, as did the tw
o arm chairs reserved for the president and his equal.
The afternoon sun made the room seem to glitter from the ground up with the gold veined marble. It really was a lovely picture and well done. If anyone but Samba Hamadi were taking the throne.
Samba glanced over his shoulder as though to ensure all eyes were on him. He swaggered forward and turned to stand in front of what had been the president’s chair.
This wasn’t happening.
Jackie closed her eyes.
This couldn’t be real.
“Look, Zeina. See? You didn’t put me here. I put me here.”
Jackie couldn’t help but crack an eye. Samba had his arms spread wide and ever so slowly eased down into the chair. He grasped the arms and scooted back into the seat of power.
“Not such a bad fit?”
“What’s he saying?” Felix whispered.
“He’s gloating,” Jackie replied.
“What about General Taleb? What are you going to do about him?” Zeina strolled forward and sat in the chair opposite Samba.
He narrowed his gaze, but didn’t order her back in line.
“The girl will call her father. Her father will make the necessary calls. By nightfall, Parliament will appoint me the new president of Mauritania, and General Taleb will have no choice but to do as I say.” Samba grinned. He thought he had it all figured out that the old man general wouldn’t rally his troupes against him.
Jackie swallowed.
Dad wouldn’t do anything just to keep her alive. She didn’t matter that much to him. Hell, if she died here he probably had life insurance on her that would pay out a metric shit ton. Losing her would be acceptable if it meant keeping control of the mines and a friendly power in the palace.
She was going to die.
Felix kept saying everything would turn out okay, it would be fine, but it wouldn’t. She couldn’t trust him, not after he’d kept such a big secret from her. When the rubber met the road, she already knew where her father’s priorities were. He’d shown her his whole life. And it wasn’t as if she’d done anything to make him like her or value her life.
“Bring me a phone.” Samba waved his hand.
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