Danger in the Desert

by Merline Lovelace

  “Not with an entire squad of air commandos only a radio call away.”

  “That makes me feel a little better.”

  “It should.” El Hassan showed his teeth in a quick, slashing grin. “I trained every one of them my self.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “Within the hour. I’ve sent someone to pack your things and check you out of the hotel. I’ve also called Fahranna. She’ll have our driver deliver some of the robes she wears when we visit Jawal. You will need them for protection against the wind and the sand. Also—” his grin took a rueful turn “—it’s better if you go robed. My father is somewhat traditional in his ways.”

  “Your father?”

  “Sheik Yousef El Hassan. He and his father and his father’s fathers before him have held Jawal for centuries.”

  “Oookay.”

  Jaci barely had time to process everything she’d experienced in the past few days. Now, apparently, she would be the guest of a genuine sheik. All that remained was to say adios to a certain lying, conniving secret agent. Stiffly, she got to her feet and held out her hand.

  “Well, I have to admit our brief association has been…interesting. Good luck stalking your next prey.”

  “Save the goodbye speech. I’m going to Jawal with you.”

  She dropped her hand and any pretense at civility.

  “Why? You did what you were sent to do. You checked me out, decided I’m not some wild-eyed anarchist and, oh, by the way, had a little fun on the side. You’re done here.”

  “Not quite.”

  “I hope you’re not traipsing out to the desert expecting a repeat of last night’s performance.” She hid her still stinging hurt behind an angled chin. “I try not to make a fool of myself more than once with the same man.”

  “Dammit, Jaci…”

  He threw a glance at Kahil. The colonel had folded his arms across the front of his uniform and was following the conversation with unabashed interest.

  “You mind, El Hassan?”

  “Not at all.” The Egyptian waved a hand. “Please, continue.”

  “I will, when Jaci and I get some privacy.”

  “May I remind you this is my office?”

  “And may I remind you there are still a number of incidents that took place during our under graduate pilot training days your wife knows nothing about.”

  “Nor,” an amused voice called from the outer office, “does she wish to know.”

  Jaci almost didn’t recognize Fahranna when she strode in. The white-coated physician in Western dress had disappeared. So had the gracious hostess in her silk caftan.

  This woman wore soft cream-colored boots, a turquoise scarf draped over her head and neck and a loose-fitting cloak with tiny, tinkling bells embroidered on the cuffs and hem. She carried a second cloak draped over an arm and a bulging carryall in her hand.

  Her unexpected appearance brought her husband to attention. “Fahranna! Why are you dressed for the desert?”

  “I’m going to Jawal with you.”

  “Absolutely not. This is a military exercise.”

  “Really? And Jaci is what? A sergeant in the Egyptian Air Force? A captain?”

  “She is an integral component of the operation. You are not.”

  “She is also a woman alone in a country whose customs are unfamiliar to her. Especially the customs practiced by your father.” Fahranna lifted her chin. “I won’t allow her to walk into the lion’s den without another woman for support.”

  “There are women at Jawal!”

  “None who speak English very well,” she shot back. “Do you really wish to show Jaci the purification rituals if she has her menses while at the oasis?”

  A line of red singed her husband’s cheeks. “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.

  “Let’s,” Jaci agreed faintly. “Look, Fahranna, I appreciate your generous offer. I really do. But there could be trouble.”

  “All the more reason for me to accompany you,” the dark-eyed physician said with a shrug. “Kahil will tell you I’m a far better shot than him or his father. My ancestors on my mother’s side were Berber,” she explained. “The same Barbary Coast corsairs who bedeviled centuries of Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land.”

  And battled U.S. Marines on the shores of Tripoli, Jaci recalled.

  Good Lord! Had she stepped into a time warp? Egyptian pharaohs. Barbary pirates. Bedouin sheiks.

  “According to family legend,” Fahranna told her with more than a touch of pride, “my grandfather many times removed could send an arrow across fifty yards of storm- and wind-whipped ocean and put it through the eye slit of a Crusader’s helmet. I inherited a measure of his skill.”

  “More than a measure,” her husband conceded with obvious reluctance. “I wish my commandos could shoot as well.”

  “Then we all agree. I travel to Jawal with you. Let’s go to the ladies’ room,” she suggested to a shell-shocked Jaci. “You can change your clothes while Deke and Kahil ready a Land Rover for our journey.”

  “Deke isn’t coming with us.”

  “Yes,” he countered swiftly, “I am. The matter’s not open to discussion,” he added when Jaci started to protest.

  She shut her mouth with a snap and marched out of the colonel’s office.

  Fahranna waited until she’d shut the door to the cramped ladies’ room to pounce. “What was that all about? Why do you not want Deke to accompany you?”

  “Before I answer that, tell me something.”

  Feeling as though she’d gotten lost in an Indiana Jones movie, Jaci leaned against one of the sinks lining the wall.

  “Do you know what Deke does?”

  “In his consulting business, you mean?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” Jaci retorted.

  “Ah, you refer to the work he does for your government.”

  “So you do know!”

  “Of course. Not that he has ever said a word to me about it. Or Kahil, either.” Amusement lit her dark eyes. “Despite all evidence to the contrary, men persist in thinking women are such naive twits.”

  The starch went out of Jaci’s spine. Sighing, she slumped against the sink. “Some of us are.”

  “Perhaps. But not you, my friend. Look how you’ve tied Deke in knots in just a few short days. I didn’t think I would live to see it happen.”

  “It hasn’t happened, Fahranna. I’m just…just an assignment to him.”

  “Do you think so? Then our time at Jawal should prove extremely interesting.” She handed the carryall to Jaci. “Here, I brought you clothes more suited to the desert.”

  At the physician’s urging, Jaci shed her jeans and tank, then pulled on an ankle-length gown of soft Egyptian cotton in a vivid rose-and-blue pattern. Exquisitely embroidered at the cuffs and hem, the gown tied around the waist with a silk cord to keep from dragging on the floor. Over that, Fahranna draped a dark blue robe with billowing sleeves, also embroidered at the neck and cuffs.

  “You will find these garments very comfortable at Jawal. The loose sleeves let air circulate during the day, and the long folds give warmth at night. Let me show you how to adjust the head scarf.”

  Deftly, she arranged the square of shimmering red silk embellished with tiny crystal teardrops.

  “The straight edge goes across the forehead. This end you tuck over your shoulder so the fabric drapes your throat. When the desert wind blows sand at you like a thousand stinging wasps, you draw the cloth up to protect your mouth and nose, like so.”

  Jaci turned and peered through the narrow slit left for her eyes at her image in the mirror. Who was that strange, exotic woman? Certainly no one she knew.

  With her Western clothes folded away in the carryall, she followed Fahranna out of the ladies’ room to the front exit. Outside, they found Deke and Kahil waiting beside a dusty Land Rover. The men, too, had dressed for the desert. Deke wore a black robe and a white head cloth. Kahil wore a loose white under-gown, a black robe
and a white head cloth banded with two black ropes. Both men, Jaci saw when a gust of wind blew back the folds of their robe, sported leather holsters buckled low on their hip.

  Wondering what in God’s name she’d gotten herself into, she hiked up her skirts and climbed into the backseat of the Land Rover.

  Chapter 10

  Jaci’s Thursday-night group had spent an entire evening discussing Alexander the Great’s grueling march across the desert to consult the oracle at the Siwa Oasis.

  From those detailed studies, she knew Siwa was one of five large oases that had served as a lifeline for caravans crossing the desert for thousands of years. She also knew there were many smaller watering holes. She’d just never expected to catch her first glimpse of one of these perfect green gems after jouncing along a pitted asphalt road, then abandoning the road for a beaten dirt track and, finally, churning through miles of shifting sand. By the time the Land Rover topped a rise and Jawal Oasis appeared in the distance, she was hot, tired and seriously questioning her sanity.

  Especially after sharing the Land Rover’s cramped backseat with Deke for most of the trip. The bumps and jolts had sent her shoulder into his, and their knees had connected so often that Jaci got a cramp trying to corral her leg. Then they’d had to stretch and work out the kinks. Of course she’d lost her balance trying to clamber over her tote and had practically fallen into his arms.

  His grip when he caught her roused instant, searing memories of last night. Disgusted with herself all over again for being so gullible, Jaci spoke barely two words to Deke for the rest of the trip…until they topped a mountainous sand dune and spotted Jawal Oasis far below.

  Surprised, she put her nose to the window. “It’s sunk so low!”

  “Most desert oases are,” Deke answered, leaning his shoulder into hers for a better look. “Centuries of wind and erosion blow away the sand and cause depressions that go down deep enough to tap into the water table.”

  “The great Kharga Oasis south of here is more than a hundred miles long,” Fahranna supplied from the front seat, “and sunk well below sea level.”

  Jawal didn’t look anywhere close to a hundred miles long. At best, Jaci guessed, the oblong slash of verdant green stretched for a mile. Maybe two. She couldn’t imagine how it had held out for so many centuries against the sand dunes that towered over it on all sides.

  After Fahranna’s comments about her father-in-law, Jaci had expected to see strings of camels and goat-hair tents pitched among the palms. The camels were there. Milk producers, pack animals and sleek racing camels worth tens of thousands of dollars, according to Kahil. But instead of tents, the oasis boasted what looked like a dozen or so mud-brick buildings, all seemingly stacked one on top of the other.

  “Jawal has no electricity or phone service,” the colonel warned as he put the Land Rover in gear, “so I wasn’t able to advise my father of our arrival.”

  “But he’ll send a party out to greet us,” Fahranna added drily. “Nothing, not even a scorpion, moves in this part of the desert without Sheik Yousef’s knowledge.”

  As if to underscore her comment, a dazzling light flashed for an instant atop a distant dune. When it flashed again, Jaci realized watchers were using mirrors to signal the oasis. Just a few minutes later, four men raced out of the palms. Their camels moved with an ungainly grace and speed that sent them flying across the sand.

  The riders wore dark blue robes that flapped in the wind and the traditional white head cloth banded by corded ropes. Only after they got closer did Jaci note that each carried what looked like lethal and very nontraditional submachine guns.

  “Deke, do you remember the last time my father’s men welcomed you?” Kahil asked.

  “Sure do. I spit out sand for a week.”

  “Prepare for another mouth full. You had better wait with Fahranna, Jaci.”

  She didn’t argue. Those charging camels looked like they meant business.

  Kahil put the Land Rover in Park and left the engine idling while he and Deke walked forward twenty or so yards. Hands on hips, they waited for the reception committee.

  It arrived in a storm of sand and noise. Whooping and firing their weapons in short, ear-battering bursts, the four riders raced around Kahil and Deke in dizzying circles. Their camels’ hooves thundered against the earth. Dust funneled and spun like whirling dervishes.

  Jaci had to lean over the front seat to be heard above the clamor. “Is this how they normally greet guests?”

  “Only the son of their sheik.”

  The tumultuous welcome went on for another few minutes. Then the riders reined in their mounts and threw themselves out of the saddle. After much back-pounding and cheek-kissing, Kahil loped back to the Land Rover. Fahranna rolled down the window so he could lean in.

  “You don’t mind driving down to the oasis, do you?”

  “Have I ever?”

  “That, my precious pearl, is why you hold my heart.”

  “Go,” she said, laughing, “before the prospect of spending time under your father’s roof makes me put this car in Reverse and scurry back to Cairo.”

  “Ha! You know you love nothing more than pulling his whiskers.”

  He gave her a grin and a quick kiss before rejoining the reception committee. Two of the riders had doubled up, leaving their camels for Kahil and Deke. They mounted and took off amid more raucous bursts of gunfire.

  “Men!” Shaking her head, Fahranna invited Jaci to join her in the front seat.

  “Well?” she asked when her passenger had gathered her skirts and scrambled over the gear shift.

  “Are you ready to beard the lion of the desert in his den?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Lion, Jaci decided, perfectly described Sheik Yousef El Hassan when he strode out of a sprawling, two-story mud-brick house to welcome his daughter-in-law and her guest. Although his beard was snow-white and the desert sun had tanned his skin into a mass of leathery wrinkles, he stood as tall and broad-shouldered as his son. Even more intimidating, he didn’t speak. He roared.

  He greeted Fahranna with a bellow and a fierce affection that she returned in equal measure. His greeting to Jaci was more restrained but no less thunderous.

  “Welcome to Jawal,” he boomed in heavily accented English, raking her with a keen eye. “May the blessings of Allah be with you while you reside within my house.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You will go with the women to refresh yourself. Then we will speak of this matter that has brought you here.”

  Fahranna had told Jaci that Kahil’s mother had died giving birth to him and his father had never remarried. That didn’t mean there was a lack of females at the oasis, however. Along with the sheik and the male members of his extended family, Kahil’s aunts, cousins and nieces had all poured out to welcome the newcomers.

  Chattering with excitement and delight, the women escorted the new arrivals through a set of double doors studded with brass spikes. Jaci didn’t understand a word, but their friendliness and hospitality required no translation.

  Almost before she’d stepped into a palm-shaded courtyard, an elderly woman draped in black had pressed a glass of cinnamon-spiced tea into her hand. A younger woman with merry eyes and an impish smile offered a plate of almonds and fresh dates. Chattering a mile a minute, she trailed Jaci up a set of stairs that led to a second story lined with arches.

  “She wishes to know if you are promised to al Shamshir,” Fahranna translated.

  “Al Shamshir?”

  “It’s an ancient word for scimitar. Sheik Yousef bestowed the name on Deke because his eyes are the color of Damascus steel. And, I suspect, because of the skill with which he wields a weapon.”

  Jaci had an all-too-vivid memory of Deke wielding his weapon. Both of his weapons!

  “Please tell her I’m not promised to al Shamshir.”

  She had no idea what Fahranna said, but it resulted in a burst of laughter from the other women. They
were still giggling when they ushered Jaci into a high-ceilinged chamber. The first thing that struck her was the blessedly cool air. She assumed the shuttered windows and four-foot thick walls accounted for that until Fahranna pointed to three vents in the ceiling.

  “Heat rises, so the higher opening in the center conducts hot air out. The two smaller openings draw fresh air in.”

  Whatever. All Jaci knew was that the room was dim and cool and outfitted with a fascinating blend of palm wood furniture and striped Bedouin wall hangings. And it had a shower! Piped in, Fahranna explained, from one of the dozen or so freshwater springs that fed the oasis.

  “I’ll come for you in a few minutes, after you have had time to refresh yourself. Then we’ll go down and join our men.”

  Jaci didn’t bother to correct her use of the possessive. From the unsubtle comments Fahranna had let drop, it was clear she thought the two Americans had more going on between them than foiling an antigovernment conspiracy.

  So, apparently, did Sheik Yousef. That became apparent when he granted his daughter-in-law and Jaci the rare privilege of eating with the men of his household.

  “Sit there,” he boomed, stabbing an imperious forefinger at an empty spot beside Deke. “You will fill your belly first, then you will tell me of this ancient scarab your man says you have found.”

  A quick glance from “her man” warned her not to contradict the sheik in front of the others. Gathering her robes, Jaci sank onto the low bench beside Deke while Fahranna did the same beside Kahil.

  Deke used the tip of a small curved knife to spear chunks of meat from a large clay platter into a bowl. He then scooped up pea risotto and what looked like stuffed beet leaves. When he deposited the bowl in front of her, Jaci glanced around surreptitiously. Nope, no forks or spoons anywhere in sight.

  “Like this,” Deke murmured.

  Following his lead, she picked up another small knife and skewered a chunk of meat. She wasn’t sure what it was. Not lamb, she decided after the first bite. Goat, she guessed, boiled in milk to tenderize it before being seared over an open flame.

  The risotto proved a little trickier to manage until she once again followed Deke’s example and scooped the starchy mixture up with two fingers.