Sarah leaned close to Ping’s neck. The horse was breathing hard but Sarah didn’t dare slow her down.
“They’re deliberately driving us farther into the desert,” Jarek shouted.
Gunshots burst through the air, causing little explosions that nipped at the heels of their horses.
The Al Asheera’s cries shot across the sand. Their red robes brazen in the sunlight, the rifles raised against their shoulders.
“They’re gaining on us, Ping,” Sarah warned the horse, then gripped the saddle tighter to keep her seat.
Suddenly, Jarek pointed toward an outcropping of jagged, black stones jutting up from the sand. “Head for the rocks!”
“Come on, girl!” Sarah urged. The horse raced through the dunes and scrub to the field of rock.
Jarek pulled Taaj to a halt at the edge and checked the wind. “It’s blowing in the right direction. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Sarah offered a brief prayer of thanks when Ping stopped alongside Taaj. “They’re coming, Jarek.” Without realizing it, Sarah said his name. He stiffened beside her, but otherwise didn’t say anything.
He slid off Taaj and gave the reins to Rashid. “Get as far into the field as you can, then wait for me. Go slow enough so the horses can find footing. The last thing we need is for them to break a leg.”
Bullets strafed the rocks a few yards behind him.
“Did you grab the flares from the cockpit?” Jarek asked.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Give them to me.”
She dug into her purse until her fingers touched plastic caps. “Here.”
He tucked the end of the scarf over his face, then snapped the lids off two flares and struck the ends against a nearby rock. “Go!”
Sarah followed Rashid over the broken bits of stone. “What is he doing?”
Sparks shot from the flares. Jarek tossed one, then another toward the edge of the rock bed.
“Look.” Rashid pointed to the edge of shale.
Almost instantly, a fire fluttered over the ground in an orange haze of heat.
“That’s not big enough—”
“Watch,” Rashid responded, cutting her off.
Within moments, smoke rose from the flames, dense with sulphur, black with oil, until it stood twenty feet high—and more than thirty times that in length.
“The smoke is too thick for them to see the ground,” Rashid explained, but the young boy’s eyes never left his father.
“They can’t bring their horses in over the rocks without risking injury.”
“They could walk them through,” Sarah answered, her eyes never wavering from Jarek.
“It would take too long. They would pass out from the fumes.”
The dark cloud gathered strength, rolling over the rocks as it grew in girth. Jarek scraped the last two flares against the stone, turned and was swallowed whole.
Sarah held her breath. The fumes stung her nostrils, coated her lungs.
In the distance they could hear horses scream. Men yelled obscenities. Gunshots bounced behind them, too far to cause damage.
Jarek. Sarah’s mind screamed his name, willing him to reappear.
Suddenly, he broke from the darkness, running after the horses.
Within moments, he swung up behind his son. His scarf was gone from his face. Black streaks smudged his cheek, across his forehead. But otherwise he appeared no worse for the experience.
“That was close.” She exhaled slowly, hoping to settle the pounding in her head, the queasiness that slapped at the back of her throat. He was safe. They were safe.
“You think we’re safe?”
Startled, she realized she’d spoken the words out loud.
“Yes.” She glanced back. The river of fire and smoke had widened the distance between them and the Al Asheera. “Safer than we were a few moments ago.”
Jarek’s gaze flickered over her. “Do you know how to pray, Miss Kwong?”
“Yes.” Hadn’t she just done that very thing for him?
“Then I suggest you start,” Jarek answered grimly. “Because this only delayed them. Next time, they’ll be more prepared.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
Jarek glanced at the woman beside him, fought the irritation that she provoked just with her presence.
“Oil shale.” It wasn’t the answer she was looking for, but the only one he was willing to give at this point.
His gaze swept over her face, in spite of himself. It had been awhile since he’d seen her. A lifetime since he tasted her, felt her give beneath him.
Since then, Sarah Kwong had become a household name—less here than in America—but recognizable nonetheless. At thirty, she was the most recent rising star in the news correspondence business.
Unaware of the adult tension, the little boy grew excited over the topic. “I’ve never seen the shale burn like that before, right, Papa?”
Jarek gave Rashid a reassuring squeeze but didn’t answer him. He wasn’t about to have any kind of personal conversation with his son while a reporter looked on.
“But you’ve seen it burn before?” Sarah asked, with a hint of a smile.
Her lips were full, her mouth just short of wide, but with enough curve to leave one wondering if she understood some hidden secret. A secret that reached the feminine arch of her brows, the deep green of her irises.
Heat curled deep in his gut, stroked the base of his spine.
Jarek recognized the sensation for what it was, cursed it for what it meant.
“Many times—”
“Here in the desert, you can’t always find brush or wood for a fire, so people use the shale for heat and cooking,” Jarek interrupted his son.
Undeterred, Rashid continued, “They also use camel dung. I’ve seen Grandpa Bari’s people use it.”
“Do
