“Faster!” she yelled each time the camel thought about slowing, and the animal listened, responding to the tone of her voice.
She might have a chance to catch up with the bandits yet, depending on the camel’s stamina. The trucks had been driving slowly when they’d left, probably due to the uneven terrain. The sandstorm had left drifting dunes behind.
An hour of galloping brought them to a rocky area, one that sloped upward, with mountains in the distance. Sara was fine while there was sand mixed in with the rocks, but once the rocks won out, she could no longer see any tracks.
The camel was slowing now, too, since the ground was harder to run on. It was probably tiring. She untied a new bottle—she had drained one already—and took a long drink, then glanced back. The hyena was a dot in the distance. But it still followed.
“Let’s go.” She urged the camel forward, scanning the mountainous region ahead. Then she noted movement on a ridge far ahead, and made out the silhouette of two trucks against the sky.
Maybe she could catch up a little before they completely disappeared. The camel could go through narrow passages that trucks couldn’t. She gripped the reins with one hand, the saddle with the other, dark spots dancing before her eyes all of a sudden. She blinked them away.
The heat was strong enough now to kill. And there was little shade among the rocks, not even higher up the mountain. The sun was almost directly overhead.
She had two choices. To sit out the noon heat, hiding in the shade of the camel, letting that damn hyena catch up with her, and risk forever losing Tariq. Or to keep going, risking sunstroke and becoming hyena lunch, anyway.
“WHERE IS THE GOLD?” The man sitting by Tariq’s prone body asked the question for the hundredth time, hissing the words through his yellow teeth.
Tariq closed his bloodshot eyes. Maybe he’d already died and was in hell. It seemed unlikely that pain such as this would exist anyplace but there. He turned his face from the blistering heat and blinding light of the flames next to them. Better. That spoke against hell. He didn’t think a place like that would afford any relief.
The man kicked him. “Wake up and talk.”
He opened his eyes and glared into his torturer’s face, until the bastard turned toward the fire to pull out a stick that glowed red at the end. He lowered the hot tip to Tariq’s exposed thigh, and there was nothing Tariq could do. He was bound tight, the man’s foot holding his ankle to the ground. His pant leg had been ripped away a long time ago. Red welts lined his skin where he had been repeatedly burned.
“Where is the gold?”
Tariq turned his head toward the cave’s opening, not wanting to see his flesh seared yet again. He clenched his teeth and stared out into the night. A sole sentry sat by the cave mouth, while sleeping smugglers lay scattered across the floor. They had gotten bored with his torture over an hour ago, and gone to sleep, save the man who held the stick and seemed to have inexhaustible energy for causing him pain.
Fire branded his skin, but Tariq swallowed his groan, fought against the agony. He wasn’t going to give the bastard the satisfaction of crying out loud. “There is no money.” He said the words through gritted teeth, sweating profusely.
His torturer simply laughed and thrust the stick back into the fire.
Tariq kept his gaze on the small patch of sky and stars, trying to focus on them and on Sara’s beautiful face alternately as the sickly smell of his own burned flesh filled the air.
Where was she now? There had been that explosion. And then the smugglers had taken him away, without him seeing Sara again. Had they killed her? Fear of that had tortured him during the long trek, and was more painful than the burns on his thigh.
What had become of Karim? Had he, too, been lost to a trap? Those thoughts bound Tariq more tightly than his ropes. He should have somehow defended Sara and warned his brother.
He watched as the guard at the mouth of the cave raised his head and peered into the darkness. Had he seen or heard something? Was Karim coming? Had he found them somehow? Tariq had been listening for the sound of a chopper, but hadn’t heard it. Then again, torture did have a way of occupying a man’s full attention.
The guard stood and walked away from the opening of the cave.
A shadow appeared a few seconds later and slid inside. Not the guard, and not Karim, either, but someone much more slightly built. He recognized the shape and swore silently in helpless desperation, even though knowing she was alive filled him with relief. She shouldn’t be here.
He watched as Sara moved around, staying away from the area lit by the fire. He knew the exact moment she spotted him, knew when she decided to come out into the light to get to him.
His torturer was pulling the stick from the fire and giving him a demented grin, his focus fixed on his task.
Tariq could do nothing to stop Sara without bringing attention to her. Then she lifted something that in a split second he recognized as the tire iron. If they survived all this, he was going to frame it and hang it in the palace.
She brought the tire iron down hard on the back of the man’s head, and he folded without a sound. Sara immediately dropped to the sand next to Tariq and covered herself with a blanket, in case anyone woke up and looked around.
“Sara,” he said in a barely audible whisper, just to reaffirm that she really was alive and with him.
After a few moments, when no one raised the alarm, she reached out slowly, touched his face and left her hand there for a second. An amazing woman. He could only stare at her and drink in the sight. She was here, she was safe and she was about to save him.
She was already pulling water from somewhere and pouring it over his burns to cool them. She was an angel. His angel, he thought, with an urgent, possessive sense that took him by surprise.
He wished his hands were free so he could draw her into his arms. He inhaled a slow breath and held her troubled gaze in the light of the fire. “You shouldn’t have come.”
She was the one shaking her head now, even as she ran her fingers over the rope that bound him. “Karim is on his way.”
Relief eased Tariq’s tense muscles as she worked quickly, her movements impossibly quiet. He admired her temerity, her honor, that she would risk her life to save him instead of seeking to take the shortest route to safety.
“Thank you.” Loyalty was not something he had experienced a lot of in his life, especially not over the last couple of years. Hers touched him deeply.
“Quick.” He shifted as Sara worked the ropes with nimble fingers. The tension in his chest eased with every millimeter the rope loosened. “You have the phone?”
She nodded.
Allah be blessed. They might make it out of here yet. He lay still, not wanting to make her job any more difficult.
She made no noise. He couldn’t fathom how anyone could have heard her. But as he turned his head, he could see a dark shadow rise behind her, and before he could warn her, the butt of a rifle smashed hard against the back of her head. All he could do was roll forward, so that when she fell, it was on him instead of
