lay on the cold stone shelf that was his bed for long hours after the American left, nurturing the tiny spark of hope she’d ignited deep within him. If he had an ally on the outside, maybe, just maybe, he might get out of this alive. And then he might get a chance to set this mess aright, to make up for everything he’d failed to do before.
But first things first. He had to get out of here. And that wasn’t in the cards for him. Eventually his face would heal, the swelling would go down and then he’d be recognized. He was a dead man walking.
The problem with being locked up in a silent, dim cell like this was it gave a guy plenty of time to think. He’d spent the last two days in this black hole damning himself to hell and back for neglecting his duty for so many years. For much of his thirty-four years, he’d jetted all over the world, living as fast and playing as hard as he could, running away from the responsibilities that came with his family’s wealth and position. Hell, just running away from his family.
He bitterly regretted now never having spent time with his father after college, never trying to talk to him about how he ran his country, about his vision for Baraq. Lord knew, Baraq had been his father’s passion in life. To the exclusion of all else—including his wife, who’d eventually left, and his only son, whom he’d mostly ignored.
Nick knew far too little of his Ramsey legacy. But he did know he’d failed that legacy. For thirty generations—almost a thousand years—dominion over these lands had passed from father to son in an unbroken line. And he was going to break the chain. He would go down in history as the last Ramsey. The one who failed. Spectacularly. The thought galled him.
His father might have been a bad parent, but in the clarity that came with staring death in the face, he admitted to himself that he’d also been a bad son. And obviously the Army believed he was going to be a bad king or else they wouldn’t have overthrown him before he could prove them wrong. Not only had he failed the Ramsey dynasty, he’d failed himself.
His remaining life span could no doubt be measured in days rather than weeks or years. Surely someone would recognize him soon. And then the Ramsey line would end.
Unless…
The idea was preposterous. The American aid worker would never go for it. It wasn’t fair to ask her such a thing. He barely knew her, for goodness’ sake! He had no right to put an innocent young woman’s life at risk any more than he already had.
But what other choice did he have?
He couldn’t sit by and watch his family disappear without a trace. He couldn’t leave his countrymen with no hope at all of continuing Baraq’s proud heritage, which was so closely tied to his family’s. If there was even a chance of salvaging the line, he had to try.
He wrestled through the night with his misgivings, examining his idea from every angle, analyzing its chances for success, anticipating the pitfalls and planning how to get around them. And his idea was full of holes. Huge, gaping craters. Starting with the fact that it all hinged on the American woman.
But after a long, sleepless night, he finally came to a single conclusion. He had no choice. He must try.
Chapter 4
The worst of Katy’s jet lag was gone when the first call to morning prayer broadcast across the city at dawn. She went over to her French door and, leaning on the jamb, gazed out across Akuba as sunrise bathed the white metropolis in vivid peach hues. Ox-drawn carts laden with fresh produce lumbered by on the street below, and veiled women met the carts at their front doors, bartering in quick Arabic and filling woven bags with food in a ritual as ancient as the city itself.
Gold onion turrets and the tall needles of minarets marked mosques. Tapering white steeples marked the Christian edifices on the skyline as the sun broke over the horizon and morning burst upon the city at her feet. The first shopkeepers slid back grates from the fronts of their shops and spread out blankets on the sidewalk, arranging their wares for sale. Brass and woven goods, tobacco and spices, piles of fruit, loaves of bread, small electronics and racks of CDs and DVDs emerged to line the margins of the street. The blend of old and new was oddly representative of the city itself.
With the reality of a new day came insidious doubt that she’d actually found Nikolas Ramsey yesterday. Maybe the guy just looked like the king and was hoping to parlay that into some sort of negotiated release. Time to go see if her imagination had been playing tricks on her or not. She had dozens of prisoners to see today, but somehow she’d make time to pay a return visit to him. She donned her mostly dry abaya and managed to get her scarf tied around her head and the veil across her face with the help of the tiny mirror in the corner of her room.
Too nervous to eat much more than a single, delicious honey cake, she hiked up the killer hill to Il Leone, and the climb sucked every bit as bad as she’d expected it to. Nobody needed stair-climbers in this town! Her abaya clung to her sweaty skin, and the silk veil clung to her face in the most annoying fashion when she and Larry finally staggered into the palace courtyard, huffing like racehorses. More like broken-down, asthmatic horses ready for the glue factory.
Throughout the morning a number of the prisoners asked her under their breath and with some urgency whether there’d been any word on King Nikolas. Did she know if he was alive or dead, and where? Did Nikolas, despite his playboy ways, engender loyalty in his troops? Or were they simply being questioned hard about him by the Army?
It ran against her grain to lie, but it wasn’t as though she had any choice. She shrugged and told the men she hadn’t heard anything and that InterAid was not supposed to get involved in such matters. Right.
Many of the prisoners were in bad shape. Most of their injuries could have come from the rigors of combat, but she suspected that many of them had actually come from beatings administered during their initial interrogations. The soldiers controlling the palace were rude to her and arrogant enough to set her teeth on edge. It was easy to dislike this bunch of thugs who’d taken over Baraq. They might have legitimate reasons for what they’d done, but their methods left a great deal to be desired.
Moving from prisoner to prisoner within the palace, it didn’t take Katy long to figure out that the coup had been planned for some time prior to Nick’s father’s death. He’d died a lingering death of heart disease, apparently, and the Army had waited only for the poor man to stop breathing to seize the kingdom. Larry commented to her that the former Ramsey king had been so popular that no coup against him would have worked anyway. Not so with the younger Ramsey. Everyone she came across, both rebel and royalist, agreed that Nikolas was a complete stranger to them.
It was midafternoon before she was able to make her way back to Prisoner 1806 without it seeming unnatural. But finally she stood in front of the iron-banded door once more.
Her guard escort today was named Riki. He was a gregarious youth who swore he was eighteen, but she’d put his age at closer to fourteen. He was a distinct departure from yesterday’s surly escort, and for that she was grateful.
“I’ll be with this prisoner for a while,” she informed the boy.
Riki shrugged and reached for the door. She waited impatiently while he fumbled with the rusty lock. Finally it creaked open and she stepped inside.
The prisoner was sitting up when she entered, one foot propped up on the ledge and his arm resting across his knee. Their gazes met and locked, their shared secret hanging heavy in the air between them like the scents of cinnamon and curry that hung over the city. She hadn’t imagined a thing. It was all real. The aristocracy cloaking him, the impatience of a man used to getting
