and shock clutched her heart, and pain sliced into her chest. She waited for an eternity, her mind in turmoil, before the other truck appeared, as well. Then the bandits drove away. She waited some more, hoping Tariq would emerge from one of the buildings. When it became clear that he wouldn’t, she went back to the hole.
They had taken her gun. She stared at the bare sand at least nine feet below her. No other way down but to jump.
If she broke a leg, she was as good as dead.
Not that she would survive all that long up here in the beating sun, without water. She stuck the phone in the back of her waistband and leaned forward to make sure she wouldn’t fall on it. She would still be better off with a working phone and a broken leg than the other way around. She took a deep breath and jumped, yelping in pain when she landed hard on her feet and fell over, the shock reverberating up her shinbones.
She stood gingerly, testing her ankles. No major damage. She said a brief prayer of thanks as she limped to the door. The trucks were dark points in the distance.
She stared at the charred remains of the Hummer for a brief second, registering anew that she was trapped here. Then she flexed her ankles and started out in search of Tariq, scared of what she would find. The tension in her spine tightened with each empty building she walked through.
No sign of him anywhere.
Except for the bloodstain on the floor of the main building the bandits had slept in. They’d taken him. The realization was too scary to accept, but she couldn’t deny it. She was his only hope. She needed to get with the program and make a plan. Where would they take him? She wouldn’t allow herself to think that he might not be alive.
“Don’t let him be hurt,” she whispered into the empty air, fighting the desperation that threatened to engulf her. She was alone, without a car or a weapon. But she refused to think that all was lost. She had the phone.
Her fingers closed around it and she pulled it from her waistband, just as a dark shape appeared in the doorway.
Looked like she wasn’t alone, after all. The hyena was here.
“Go away,” she yelled, and glanced around desperately. She had nothing to defend herself with, so she grabbed a fistful of sand and threw that at the slobbering beast. That didn’t seem to faze it. She drew a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Animals could smell fear. She raised herself to her full height, hoping to look more formidable. Easy. She could handle this. She had to, because she wasn’t going to let Tariq die.
The repulsive scavenger meandered in, keeping its beady eyes on her, giving a bark. The sound reverberated across the room and bounced off the walls, sounding like deranged human laughter.
She stepped back, her heel striking something: the tire iron, half buried in the sand. Sara said a prayer of thanks as she used it to fend off the intruder.
Chapter Seven
The shah gripped his cell phone so hard the plastic squeaked in protest.
“You’re sure it’s him?”
“It is Sheik Abdullah. He said so himself.”
The man had as many lives as a cat. The attack on the convoy had not been meant for him, hadn’t been planned at all. The oilmen had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of the men had recognized him after the fight, had thought him dead, but was too stupid to make sure. Had the sheik died, it would have been a bonus. But he seemed to have survived, after all, to interfere once again.
Was it a sign? Maybe Sheik Abdullah could be used for something. He was the king’s cousin. No love lost there, but honor would demand that the monarch ransom him. For money or other advantages. It bore thinking about. And then there was the treasure.
The ex-king, Majid, Tariq’s half brother, had amassed incredible wealth, not all of which had been found after his death. Speculation ran wild about where all the gold must be. Who would know better than Tariq, who had succeeded Majid as sheik of their tribe?
“Bring him to me,” he said into the phone, before he flipped the lid closed. He didn’t expect the shipment for another three days. They weren’t far away, but there were no roads where they traveled, which slowed things considerably.
Sheik Abdullah. The shah grinned. Plenty of time to send for Abbas, who was an expert at getting men to talk. If Tariq knew anything about the gold, they would get it out of him. If it turned out he didn’t, they could still ransom him to his cousin, the king.
SHE WAS INSANE. She belonged in a zoo along with the camel and the hyena. Preferably in a separate cage.
Sara held on for dear life as the camel she’d somehow managed to mount swayed under her, progressing forward with undulating movements. Why anyone would ever ride one of these beasts escaped her. They were slow, stinky and uncomfortable in the extreme. And this one had spit on her! Had had to show his disapproval before they’d been able to come to terms.
Every inch of her skin was covered to keep the murderous rays of the sun at bay. Luckily, one of the saddlebags had been full of brand-new kaffiyehs, the traditional headdresses men wore. Maybe the animal’s owner had been on his way to market.
She followed the tire tracks in the sand instead of taking the shortest way out of the desert. She couldn’t leave Tariq.
He had saved her life. She wasn’t the type who could turn her back on him now and live with that decision. The bandits had an hour’s head start. She would follow and see where they took him. Once she had a location, she would call Karim again. He was searching the desert for them already, thanks to the satellite phone. She had called the last number dialed, as soon as she had managed to outwit the hyena.
Beharrain wasn’t a huge country. The desert wasn’t as endless as it seemed. Help would come; she had to believe that. And she would do whatever it took to survive until then. She glanced at the water jugs, at the blanket, the saddlebag where she’d stuffed the food Tariq had brought from the vending machines. Good thing that had been buried under sand, or the bandits would have taken everything.
She looked back and sighed. The hyena was following close behind. Probably waiting for her to fall out of the saddle. A distinct possibility.
“Go away!”
She had hoped to leave the beast in the proverbial dust, but the camel was so slow it would have lost in a race with a snail. Race. Didn’t she read something in her guide book about camel races? Come to think of it, she was sure she’d seen camels on the National Geographic channel that moved faster than this one. So it could go faster. But how to make it?
She kicked the animal in the side gently. “Go!”
It ignored her.
She jiggled her body up and down in the saddle. “Go! Go! Go!”
The animal picked up speed. Marginally.
“Faster!” She slapped its side.
And to her surprise, the camel actually broke into a run. Time to hang on. If she thought her perch in the saddle had been precarious when the animal was walking, this was a hundred times worse. She needed
