by Dana Marton
Abigail pushed her doubts about Gerald out of her mind. She could always ask him later. Right now, she had more important things to worry about-surviving to the next day, for one.
She glanced over her shoulder at the road behind them. Empty. Their chance for a speedy rescue was a nice fat zero. Nobody in Tukatar owned a vehicle and it wasn’t market day. The truck wouldn’t come again until next Wednesday, five days from now. And the bandits were still out there, probably tracking them.
Tufts of dry grasses broke up the sand here and there, and the few trees she could see were scraggly, without a single leaf. It looked as though in better years there had been enough water running off the hills to support vegetation. Since then, however, the sand had established a firm hold as far as the eye could see.
Walking on the uneven ground was difficult, the road not much more than a couple of tire tracks snaking toward the horizon. If the wind rose and the slightest sand storm kicked up, they’d be lost in the desert forever.
She tripped on the abayah, but Gerald caught her. The man had good reflexes.
“Tell me what you’ve done since you got here.” He was moving forward at an even pace.
She stared after him. Back in reporter mode? Maybe that was all he was. She hurried to catch up. Still, how on earth could he think about gathering material for his documentary at a time like this? Then again, thinking about anything but the distinct possibility of a slow death under the scorching sun-provided they survived the night-was an improvement.
She had a hard time arranging her thoughts. “Right now, I’m trying to establish credibility.” Without that, she could accomplish nothing. “Respect the customs, make no waves, prove that I’m not here to pass judgment or change their ways.”
“I liked your ideas on community building,” he said, surprising her.
He’d read her grant proposal.
“Wars destroy more than lives. And civil war is worse. It takes everything—security, sense of identity, pride, trust. It’s not like when people band together to fight an outside enemy. Civil war is about brother fighting against brother. It takes society apart at a very basic level.”
“How many kids did you get to participate in your program so far?”
“Twelve boys.” Pathetically few, considering the UN put the number of displaced children at around twelve thousand just in this corner of the country.
“No girls?”
She shook her head. “They’re more likely to be adopted by relatives. Most of them are married off at an early age anyway and can help with work around the house until then. They inherit no property.”
“Less trouble.”
“I suppose,” she said and thought about the rumors of young homeless girls being abducted from the streets of larger towns and being sold as servants or prostitutes. “There’s much to be done.”
“You’ve made a good start.”
“Right now, the boys pretty much come to me only for the free food, but hopefully that’ll change. I’m teaching them the alphabet one letter at a time with each meal.”
“You’re giving them a future.”
God, she hoped so. But to get there, first they needed to survive the present. “I’m trying to work with some of the locals. Talk the boys into working for them for free. Dig fields, build huts, carve bowls, whatever. If the boys damage anything, I’ll pay for it.”
“So the boys would learn some usable skills,” he said, surprising her by how fast he got the idea.
“And change the perception of the village. Most people think of them as beggars and thieves. That’s still true. After all, it’s hard to be a law-abiding citizen when you’re starving to death. But I’m trying to change that.”
“And if a farmer or butcher or whoever produces more because of the extra help, eventually they’ll be able to pay the boys, in trade if nothing else.”
She nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“Is it working?”
“We just began. A couple of boys are helping someone to put up a new mud hut. They’ve been making and drying mud bricks. I think the hut will be going up today. Once they learn how to do that, I’m hoping to talk them into showing the rest how it’s done. If they could build some kind of shelter, they’d be off the streets. They’d have something”
“They’d have a hell of a lot. Some of their pride back, for starters.”
He sounded impressed, and she couldn’t deny it felt good.
The next thing she knew, her right foot sank into the sand up to her knee and she was in excruciating pain, her ankle twisted. She’d stepped into a hole, created either by some burrowing animal or a sand drift.
Gerald pulled her up. She plopped to the ground, unable to put any weight on that foot. Great. She was smart enough to know when she was screwed.
“Are you okay?” Gerald squatted in front of her, his concern obvious on his face.
The only thing she could think to say was “Go on, save yourself;” but it seemed too melodramatic to actually say aloud.
“How far do you think we are?” she asked, knowing that it didn’t really matter. She couldn’t have made it if Tukatar was around the next tall dune.
“I figure we’ll be within sight of the village by noon.”
He would be. Not her. Another twelve hours of walking was out of the question. “Hurry back.” “I’m not leaving you.”
“Then we both die.” It wasn’t unusual for the temperature to be well over ninety by nine o’clock in the morning. She hoped she’d be too loopy from sunstroke by the end to know what was going on. “Go.”
Chapter Three
Spike stared at her. She was too quick to give up on herself, as if she didn’t think she was worth the fight. He wondered who the hell had given her that idea. She didn’t give up on others; that was clear from the way she’d been talking about the boys.
He pulled up her abayah and pushed her pant leg out of the way to take a look at her ankle. Not that he could see all that much in the moonlight. He felt the bones, the muscles. “Nothing feels broken. It’s probably a sprain.”
She had slim ankles and incredibly smooth skinand now was definitely not the right time to notice it. He pulled back and turned around. “Hop on.”
She didn’t move.
“Let’s not waste time with arguing.” He bent his knees, relieved when she pushed herself up.
Her arms came around his neck. He put out his hands, and she put her right leg up, then the left. He adjusted her weight, keeping her legs wrapped securely around his waist from behind. “We’ll be there before you know it.” He started off at a good pace.
She weighed next to nothing. He’d run miles with heavier equipment than her during his training. Which brought her training to mind. Was she a suitable recruit? That was what he needed to think about, instead of how her body felt pressed against his. He had to focus on evaluating her skills, not her curves.
She didn’t panic at the sight of the bandits and she toughed it out when she was hurt. She was a crack shot according to the CIA profile he’d read on the plane over here, and her performance with the guns had certainly proven that. She’d been on her university biathlon team, one of the best.
She wasn’t a hopeless candidate, but neither was she a good one. She couldn’t keep a secret if she tried. Not that she would talk, but her expressive face betrayed her emotions all too easily. She didn’t look tough enough for the job, but that could be a plus. She wouldn’t look tough enough to the enemy, either. And the fact that she was a woman might work to her advantage. In a country where women were thought capable of little, she probably wouldn’t be suspected as an undercover CIA operative.
And that was what he was supposed to turn her into, despite all the things she didn’t have to be a perfect fit for the job. Because she had something nobody else did-she had gone to college with Jamal Hareb, the oldest son of a prominent Beharrainian family
whose youngest son, Suhaib Hareb, aka El Jafar, was suspected of heading a relatively new terrorist organization. A group who, according to intelligence, sought to make a name for itself by orchestrating a massive attack against the United States.
The plan had been simple. The CIA had fixed the grant competition so Abigail would be the winner. They were going to evaluate her and, if she passed, train her. She was suppose to “run into” Jamal, a woman alone in a foreign country-as non-threatening as they comeand somehow gain an invitation into the family home, observe what she could, plant a couple of bugs and get out. The family claimed they had cut off relations with their youngest son years ago. The CIA wasn’t buying it.
Their plan was workable, if a long shot. Except that Abigail had taken off for Beharrain before the grant allocations were announced, before the CIA had gotten their act together enough to make contact. Now here he was, trying to do last-minute damage control.
He shifted her weight again. If she was hurting, she gave no sign of it. She was tough, he had to give her that. But for this job, toughness wasn’t the only thing required. If all went well, she wouldn’t need that or her skills with the gun. All she had to do was to place the bugs and walk away before all hell broke loose. Mental, more than physical, toughness was what she needed, the ability to play a convincing role without becoming frazzled. The question was, could she do it?
His phone buzzed in his pocket. If her leg weren’t right on it, he would have ignored it. He didn’t want to have to explain how he came to have superspy equipment that worked even in impossible places like the middle of the desert, which is why he had lied about it earlier when she’d asked.
“We must be just in the right spot, with the right communication satellite passing over.” He got the phone and wedged it between his shoulders and ear without stopping to put her down.
“Thornton.”
“Our target acquired enriched uranium yesterday,” the colonel said without wasting any time on pleasantries. “He could have a dirty bomb within days. You have to move fast.”
“Will do.” But what about Abigail? Was there time to ditch her and come up with a different cover for him?
“Our friends at the agency would prefer if she didn’t know anything,” the colonel said as if he’d read his mind. “No time to give her proper training. We can’t risk that she’ll blow the operation. You’ll have to take care of things now. Her friend is visiting one of the family companies in Tihrin this week. You must make contact within forty-eight hours at the latest. Use her to get in, then do what has to be done.”
The colonel clicked off.
“You won’t believe this, but we’re stuck in the desert on the road between Rahmara and Tukatar… Yeah. Bandits. Listen, my battery is going. I’d appreciate if you could give a call to the police at Rahmara to come and pick us up. Thanks, I—” He pulled the phone away from his ear and slipped it back into his pocket. “Battery’s dead,” he said for Abigail’s benefit.
“Who was that?”
“My boss.”
“Should we stop and wait for the police to come and get us?” Her hot breath tickled his ear from behind.
“Better keep on going. I’d prefer to be as far from those mountains and the bandits as possible.”
“Of course,” she said with a sigh that pressed her breasts against his back.
A quick bolt of heat shot through his gut, causing his step to falter. Whoa. He squelched the unexpected sensation and forced his mind to his mission. He couldn’t afford to let her grow into a distraction. Being saddled with an untrained civilian in the middle of a top-secret military operation was difficult enough.
He would have preferred to leave Abigail at Tukatar and then go to take care of this business on his own. But that was the CIA for you. Not only did they tell you what to do, but they also told you exactly how to do it and then blamed you if anything went wrong. Precisely why he was in the SDDU instead. And yet, he’d managed to land in the middle of this mess.
He had to use Abigail without her knowing. Not that it would be that hard, but he hated doing it. She hadn’t signed up for this. What right did he have to risk her life?
He could think of no way to talk her into going to Tihrin with him and willingly abandon her project. Which meant he had to make it impossible for her to remain in Tukatar.
Tomorrow at the latest.
ABIGAIL SQUINTED, HALF-BLIND from the sun, her arms sore from hanging on to Gerald’s shoulders for hours. He had a slim waist. Her legs were wrapped around it. She tried not to be too frazzled by that, or by the solid muscles pressed against her.
“Are you okay?” Gerald turned his head sideways and his stubble-covered cheek collided with her nose.
She pulled back. “Fine.’
“Let’s rest a few minutes.” He headed toward a baby palm tree, no more than nine feet tall, a hundred yards or so from the road.
“Sounds good.” He probably needed a break. She hated being a burden.
“Keep hanging on to me,” he said when they reached the tree and he let her good leg down first then the injured one.
Pain shot up her ankle as soon as her foot touched the sand.
He reached for her arm, turned around to face her. “How does it feel?”
“Okay.” She stood on one leg, which had long ago gone to sleep, hoping he wouldn’t step away and let her fall face-first into the sand.
He didn’t look like he was going anywhere. He watched her with that intensity that rarely left his eyes, and she got the distinct feeling he was trying to make some kind of a decision. Maybe he had finally realized how much better off he would be if he left her.
She tried to put weight on her right foot again, but couldn’t. “Still not working.” She owed him the truth.
“I’ll take care of it when we get back to Tukatar. You just need rest and a cold compress. It’ll be as good as new in a day or two.”
He sounded very sure of himself. Like Anthony always had. That had been what attracted her to Anthony in the first place. It was nice to be with someone who wasn’t riddled with self-doubt all the time as she was. And, of course, he was very handsome, and very charming, and very Italian, which guaranteed her parents’ unconditional approval.
“Let’s sit.” Gerald lowered her gently to the sand.
Sitting felt good. She rolled her neck. The sun was up. They had walked all night, but still the hardest part of their journey was ahead of them. From now on, they would be walking in increasing heat.
Gerald turned his attention to the tree, and she relaxed a little. He had a way of unnerving her. His body was imposing, for sure. But more than that, he had a kind of infectious charisma that drew her in. And she did not want to be drawn to him. She didn’t even want to like him. He was a pain in the butt, interfering with her work. She should have turned him around and sent him packing the minute he had arrived.
Not that he was that terrible. She hardly knew him enough to make judgments about his character. What she didn’t like was the instant attraction she felt for him. Physical attraction. Which, she knew from experience, meant absolutely nothing. Nil. It served only to confuse people and distract them from more important issues.
She didn’t want to be attracted to a stranger—a co worker, really. The fact that he was her temporary husband made things even worse. Marriage or a long-term relationship was not in the cards for her, she was pretty sure of that. Her life was too crazy. And she wasn’t the type for casual affairs. She longed for more. But more she couldn’t have. Not with the life she had chosen to live. Who in his right mind would understand, let alone want to share this with her?
She glanced around at the endless desert to the east, at the mountains behind them. The bandits were out there somewhere. But so were the kids who needed her. Whatever happened, she was glad she had come.
“Thirsty?” Gerald was eyeing the date palm, knife in hand.
&nb
sp; She was so dry her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth. “It’s not nice to tease.”
He grinned and sliced into a lower branch near its base. A clear liquid oozed from the cut. “Sap. Come on.” He reached out his hand to her.
She grabbed on. “You first.” He had carried her for hours. He needed it more.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poisonous. You can trust me,” he said with a grin and helped her step closer, his hand steady under her elbow.
The liquid beaded up and ran slowly down the trunk. She pressed her lips to it. Sweet. More came, faster now, like a tap being opened. She drank, careful not to waste any, but stepped back long before she was fully satisfied. Gerald took her place.
She plopped onto the sand, into the shadow of the tree. In a little while, he sat down next to her.
“We can’t rest long.” he said, scanning the terrain.
“I know.” She worried more about him than herself. He was expending a lot of energy by carrying her. Energy he had no way of replacing. If there was one thing she hated, it was not being able to pull her own weight. “You should go on alone. I trust you to come back for me.”
“Not a chance.”
She had known he would say that. If she were a better person, she might have tried to convince him otherwise. But the truth was, she didn’t want to be left behind. She was scared.
They sat together in companionable silence for a few minutes. She wondered what the kids back at the village were doing, how Zaki was managing. They would have stopped by her hut for food by now. Did they worry that she had left them?
“Ready?” Gerald stood then turned, bent his knees and held his hands out.
For a city boy from New York, he sure took to the desert well. After a moment of hesitation, she got on.
He walked at a good pace all through the morning, stopping to rest in the shade of another palm while the worst heat of the day passed. Her ankle was feeling marginally better, but still not good enough to walk on. At least, she could stand unassisted while she drank more palm sap. He wandered around until he found a good handful of green grass stalks, then instructed her how to eat them-to consume the white swollen part just above the root. It had a not unpleasant nutty flavor. He would not take any, but insisted she eat them all. When she had, he told her to get some sleep.
