Desire In The Desert: Sheikh's Rule

“She wouldn’t want to make it difficult, yet she didn’t know how much time she’d have. Thus the cut-off words.” She looked at him. Saw the hope in his eyes.

A thought came to her that, somehow, what Tara’s security, now so critically wounded, and what Tara had just tried to tell them were connected. “Could what Ahmed have been trying to tell you also have been a place?” She looked at him. “Emir? Where in the Sahara did your parents take Tara that summer? What was their final destination?”

“El Dewar.” He smacked his hand on the desktop. “I’d forgotten about it. I don’t know how I could have.”

“It was trivial detail at the time, especially since you weren’t involved in the trip,” Kate said. “Understandable.”

“That was the farthest they went before returning home. But is that the clue?”

He was quiet for a minute, considering what she had said. “Davar. Could Ahmed been trying to name the place and now she’s trying to tell us the same? That she’s near El Dewar, or there’s information to be had at El Dewar, the same Berber village she saw at ten?”

“It’s a possibility but it’s also a big stretch,” Kate said. She grabbed the map. “It’s a small place. I doubt if she’s there now. She couldn’t be hidden and there are enough people that not everyone would be complicit. So, could she be near there? Is that possible?”

He didn’t answer. Instead his fists were clenched, his lips in a straight line, his mind obviously elsewhere. Fighting, she imagined, with long-forgotten memories.

“Emir!” Her voice was sharp. It was the only way to get through to him. He was ready to hit the desert without a plan, with only guns and rage, and neither of those would be successful in rescuing his sister.

He looked at Kate as if seeing her for the first time. “I’m sorry. I lost it, I shouldn’t have...” He paused, as if he needed time to breathe. “You have no idea,” he said.

Time seemed to beat slowly between them and, for a second, all she could do was look at the strong jaw, feel his solid presence, and wish that was all it took—a minute in his arms to make all of this right for him. She shoved the thought away.

“You’re right, I don’t. But what I do know is that my decisions aren’t clouded by emotion. Yours are.” She took his hand in both of hers and tried not to acknowledge the irony of her words. “Listen to me.” She looked at him. His rich dark eyes were pools of pain. “That’s what the kidnappers want, for you to irrationally follow their demands without thought. That was more than likely part of the purpose behind that video. Maybe...” she began, thinking of the lack of ransom detail. “All of it. You falling for that ploy won’t help Tara. But it might ensure that, if their plan was to kill you at the airport, that scenario will still play out. Only this time, someplace else. You’ve got to let me lead and help you keep a cool head. It’s the only way.”

This time when she met Emir’s eyes, she saw that, for once, they were dark with hope rather than despair. And something else, as if he were looking at her for the first time. She looked away.

She let go of his hand as he nodded and turned away from her. The tension seemed to noticeably lift from the room as she blew out a quiet sigh of relief.

“I’m puzzled. Why did they send the video to me?” Kate murmured. “How did they know about me?”

“They’ve got some sort of inside information. Or maybe they contacted the others when they saw you at the airport.”

“How did they find out my name?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking at her in a way that had nothing to do with what she was saying.

She was unprepared when he bent and kissed her, and even more so for her own reaction, for the need and want that made her put her arms around his neck and, for a few seconds, to allow herself to sink into that kiss.

It was instinctive and so very wrong. She pushed him back, her hands on his shoulders, creating a distance between them. They were trapped in an emotional situation and it was a natural human reaction to turn from trauma to passion.

He stood there for a moment then his eyes met hers and a truth seemed to pass between them. That what had happened was real, as real as the tragedy unfolding around them. But now it was Tara who eclipsed all and they both knew it.

“She’ll die if we don’t get her out of there soon,” he said. “Let’s move.”

Chapter Ten

They took off in Emir’s Cessna from a runway at the back of the property that wasn’t visible from the main entrance. The plane had already been loaded by staff with the supplies they’d need, and Emir had arranged for a Jeep they could use to take them from the village of Kaher into the Sahara.

Now, inside the plane’s darkened cabin, they were each immersed in their own thoughts. The roar of the engine and the endless night sky seemed to wrap around them and was only broken by the occasional lights of communities and vehicles traveling on highways beneath them.

The golden blanket of lights that had been Marrakech was far behind them. Ahead, the shadowed peaks of the Atlas Mountains punctured the night sky and seemed to challenge them to enter. The steady noise of the engine was all that broke the silence in the cockpit.

Kate looked to the right, where the dark outline of the wing seemed almost alien, threatening. She shivered. The darkness sheltered many secrets.

She glanced at Emir, saw the tight grip he had on the wheel and the set of his jaw. She looked at the map in her lap. They’d dropped technology when they’d made the decision to fly to the edge of the desert. Cell towers weren’t the norm as one ventured deeper into a place that in some ways was not only off the grid but on another planet. They were also a means of tracking and that went both ways. After Kaher, they were going in electronically silent with no one able to follow their tracks, at least not easily.

Her thoughts shifted and she thought of the northern reaches of the Sahara as it penetrated Morocco. The settlements were mapped in her mind for it was there they’d determined as the most likely area the kidnappers had gone. Now they just needed something a little more specific. She glanced at Emir. She’d been aware of him the entire time the plane had been in the air and all the while she’d studied the map.

“You’re all right?” he asked as he turned to her. “You’ve spent a lot of time studying that map.”

“I did. It’s calming.” She didn’t look at him. Even in the dark, she only saw his full lips, felt the memory of them on hers and... She couldn’t think of that. It was over, a mistake.

Still, she was relieved to say even those few words for there had been silence for much of the first part of the flight. She’d rather he had spoken. The silence seemed filled with the memory of the brief intimacy they had shared.

None of that had promised anything, she told herself. She looked out the window into the night sky, saw the darkened wisps of clouds and the bulk of the mountains. She pulled her gaze away from the uncertainness of the night sky that was so like her feelings for Emir.

Emir.

She wanted none of his kisses and yet, if she were truthful, she wanted the little she’d received and more. She looked at the map, pulling her attention from the line of his jaw, his strong yet artistic hands on the wheel—imagining how they would feel...

“I’ve located every community within a hundred miles of Kaher, as well as between that and El Dewar,” she said as she pushed her unwanted thoughts away.

“And if they’ve taken her farther?” There was a rough edge in the timbre of his voice. He looked at his instrument panel and adjusted something, she couldn’t say what. Flying in a small plane in the co-pilot seat was not something she did often and never at night.

“The desert won’t be easy,” Emir said as if another reminder would somehow ease the journey. “I don’t know how long it will take to find her. We may need to set up camp—overnight.”

It wasn’t optimism she heard so much in his voice as something else. There was something almost suggestive in the words, and a shiver ran through her. Alone in the desert with Emir, under different circumstances... She let the thought trail off. Any attraction they felt meant nothing. Danger often got emotions flaring and that led, given the opportunity, to other things. That’s all their attraction meant. She should have known better.

“It’s impossible to know,” Kate agreed, ignoring any connotation an overnight trip might have meant or if there had been any connotation at all. “Hopefully we don’t have to enter blind.” But that was the point of this trip—to get more information, to be able to enter the Sahara with something more than that Tara’s message was connected to a childhood trip. Too bad Tara had been cut off.

Emir glanced at her, his jaw tight, his eyes shadowed in the darkness, and yet she could imagine they were hot and full of passion, a different kind of passion. She believed it was more about finding his sister. None of that was her imagination. His raw emotion filled the cabin with an intensity that caused a shiver to snake down her spine.

Kate knew there was no outcome that was even conceivable to him other than success. All she could do was provide support, be part of the team that pulled Tara out. She reached instinctively for her handgun and felt some comfort at the bulk at her waist. But her hand shook slightly as she realized her feelings had changed. She was no longer there just to get Tara out. She was deluding herself if she thought there was nothing more to this, especially when being in his arms had felt so right.

A tick in Emir’s jaw was the only sign of the tension he was under. He flew the small plane with ease, as though flying over treacherous mountains through the dark that seemed to mock them was nothing. She clutched her seat belt and watched for lights, for some sort of indication of civilization, but since they’d entered the mountain range there was nothing. She knew this area of the Atlas Mountains was sparsely settled, mostly by Berber tribes, and that all were remote and distant from each other, including their destination: the village of Kaher.

Kate’s phone beeped and she looked at it, startled. “It’s a text from Zafir. He wants me to call him,” she said even as she punched in the number. They’d kept her phone and planned to drop it at Kaher as the mobile coverage was limited in the Sahara. To lighten what they carried and to limit the possibility of being tracked, they would take only a satellite phone.

The plane dipped slightly to the right as she gripped her seat belt with one hand.

“You’re on speaker,” she said.

“I didn’t know if I’d catch you—” Zafir began.

“What do you have?” Emir interrupted. “We’re close to landing.”

“I just came from the hospital. Ahmed didn’t make it.”

“Bloody—” Emir broke off as he slapped his open palm against the wheel of the plane. He reached over and took Kate’s free hand, squeezing it. His hand was large and warm, and she felt safe.

“It was tough. His family was there. His wife’s pretty torn up.”

“Make sure they have what they need,” Emir said. “Funeral arrangements...and we’ll talk monetary assistance later. Money is the last thing his wife needs to consider, ever.”

“The usual, retirement settlement, insurance...we can’t bring him back, but she’ll be very comfortable.”

Kate glanced at Emir, not realizing, or, she supposed, not having a need to know just how much support was available for the families of not only the home compound’s employees but agents, as well. She was impressed by both their compassion and their generosity.

“He said something else before he passed,” Zafir continued, breaking into her thoughts. “Ajeddig.”

“A name, but who?” Emir asked.

Kate frowned.

“It’s not much, I know,” Zafir said. “That’s it, Emir. I’ll use the satellite next time. I assume you’re ditching the cell.”

“Turning it off after this call and dumping it at Kaher,” Emir confirmed.

He looked over at Kate, who had opened the map and was running her finger over it.

“Another place name?” she muttered.

“Any luck?” Zafir chimed in as Emir looked at her with a question in his eyes.

“Nothing in Morocco by that name. So, if it’s not a place name, what is it?”

“It’s got no relevance, at least none that I can find that correlates to anything involving the case,” Zafir said. “I’m at the compound now. Got your phone in my hand. I drove in the gate just as you were taking off. That’s it, all I’ve got.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll touch base as soon as I can.”

Kate clicked off just as a strand of lights appeared below. “I thought there was no electricity?”

“In Kaher, no. There’s some solar power that’s generated and used in parts of the village...the landing strip and a few other buildings. Nothing more.”

As he arced the plane she found herself looking straight down at the ground for a few slightly disconcerting seconds and gripped the edge of the seat as if that would somehow prevent the plane from sliding into the abyss beneath them.

The plane leveled off and, as it descended, Kate could see shadowed buildings that seemed to rise from the ground. It was strange, for they weren’t skyscrapers or even remotely tall. Instead they were short and squat and crowded into a small space where the mountains ended and the desert began. As she watched, the buildings disappeared as the plane broke through the low-lying cloud cover.

“I’ve spoken to one of the leaders in the community. A man by the name of Yuften M’Hidi. He’ll meet us,” Emir said easily as if landing in the dark on the edge of a mountain range was something he did every day.

She laughed. “His parents must have been optimistic. Really? His name means ‘the chosen’?”

He smiled as he looked at her. “Firstborn son. It’s all about expectations, my dear,” he said in a bad imitation of a Southern accent. And he reached over and took her hand and squeezed it.

“Not funny,” she said with a smile. But it was a relief to have even a brief moment of levity. They both knew from experience that it did wonders to keep an agent fresh when, as they always did, a case got intense and became a marathon of tension.

The lights on the ground were now clear and the runway stretched beneath them.

“One other thing. We’ll be staying tonight at his house. He says he has extra mats for guests. Hopefully, it won’t be too grim.”

“We aren’t expecting luxury,” she replied. “If we can get some information, even better. A few hours of sleep would just be gravy,” she said with a smile.

“We’re going in,” he said, still holding her hand as if he knew, despite her silence, how uncomfortable flying in the night in a small plane made her.

She’d never said, but she wasn’t letting go of his hand, either. After that there was only the roar of the engine, the dark heaviness of the mountains as they seemed to close in, and the small river of lights that acted as landing lights.

“Despite how I first reacted when I picked you up at the airport,” Emir said glancing at her as the plane rolled to a stop, “I couldn’t have a calmer, more analytical thinker by my side.”

Kate’s hand dropped from the seat belt she’d been clutching as the plane rolled along the narrow runway, startled by the unexpected compliment. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“More beautiful, either,” he added as he brought the plane to a stop.

She wasn’t sure if he’d really said that or if she’d just imagined it, rather like the earlier kiss. None of it seemed like the in-charge man she knew, and yet, if she were to profile him...she wouldn’t. Instead she enjoyed the instinctive rush of pleasure the compliment gave her and, just as quickly, pulled her mind back to reality. There was no time for such thoughts. Instead, there was silence as they quickly disembarked.

A slight, dark-haired man, whose gray hair glinted in the lights, waved to them as he hurried down the runway.

“Right on time,” he said in heavily accented English.

“You’ve been waiting?” Emir asked.

The words, spoken in Berber, reminded Kate of what she had read about Emir. She knew Berber was a language he had learned as a boy. His father had ensured that he and his siblings were fluent in each of the languages of Morocco. As a result, Emir spoke Arabic, Berber, English and French. The English, he spoke flawlessly, with a hint of American colloquialism. She knew, too, that he’d gone to university in Wyoming where he’d been into all things American. Adam had told her that, along with the fact that Emir was comfortable straddling the Moroccan and American cultures, easily diving into one or the other and enjoying both depending on which country he was in. What nothing had told her was that he was a man she could not only admire but desire in a situation when all of that information was completely inappropriate.

“Good to meet you.” Emir reached out a hand to Yuften, who took it with hesitation. Kate guessed the ritual was foreign to the smaller man.

Yuften took a step back, his hands linked behind the back of his navy blue windbreaker. He didn’t look at Kate.

She took a step forward, ahead of Emir.

“Kate,” she said and didn’t offer her hand, knowing it would be an affront to what he believed.

He nodded and turned almost immediately as Emir took her hand and squeezed it before letting her go.

Yuften spoke, his back to them. “Follow me. My wife will show you where your sleeping mats are later. In the meantime, I believe you have questions,” he said in English and in the precise tones of someone unused to using the language. He began to walk away, leaving them to follow as his jacket and matching blue, baggy pants flapped in the light breeze and he almost immediately seemed to fade into the night.

“I’m glad you made it when you did.”

They could hear his voice but now he was only an outline in the darkness.

Kate looked at Emir. “What does he mean?” she whispered.

Before Emir could reply, their host answered the question for her.

“Their type isn’t welcome here. Killers and the lot.”

Time seemed to stand still and only one word echoed between them.

Killers.

Kate shook her head as she looked at Emir.

His hand went to his gun. “Whoever is responsible will die,” he said through gritted teeth.

And she knew without question he spoke of Tara’s kidnappers and that it was a promise he planned to keep.

Chapter Eleven

Five minutes later, as Emir and Kate followed their host, they found themselves climbing three sets of rough-hewn stairs that were surface-smooth and worn, and made more treacherous by the darkness. The steps ran between small box-like houses that looked very similar. Light, flickering from the entranceways of houses that seemed to close in on them, appeared to come from a candle or kerosene lantern, for it only faintly illuminated patches of the path.

To their left, an older man in a desert-sand-colored aselham, also called a djellaba, and the traditional, Berber, long-sleeved robe, led a donkey through a narrow alleyway that wound amid the squat houses and looked to go upward into the foothills and beyond.

It was pushing close to eleven o’clock and the hours before daylight stretched in front of them. The path became more narrow and steep. They navigated another set of primitive stairs as they moved higher, the darkness seeming to deepen and her breath catching as if it had become difficult to breathe. They stopped in front of one house. It was a sandstone-colored building, squat like the rest they’d passed in the last few minutes.

“Here,” Yuften said as he stepped through the arched doorway. He motioned with a flick of his right hand that they should follow. Inside, the room was small with soft blue plastered walls and an arched ceiling that made the area feel slightly less cramped.

Three children stared at them. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their legs stretched out and their backs pressed to the wall. Kate doubted if the oldest could have been more than six. She guessed that they had been commanded to sit there, for it seemed too formal for a child. She also guessed that only the excitement of strangers visiting had them up this late.

A woman stood quietly just to the right of the doorway. Her hair was covered by a pink, embroidered veil that matched the gray and pink of her traditional robe. A strand of dark hair escaped the veil and her hands were clasped in front of her as she smiled, not looking at anyone but Yuften.

Yuften nodded to her, turned to Emir and said, “My wife, Saffiya.” Then he gestured with a sweep of his arm to a solid mahogany table with stubby legs that raised it only a few feet off the floor. He took a place on one side, sitting on a thick emerald-green rug that covered much of the floor. It was clear that they were to follow.

In the corner Kate could see just one chair, a rocking chair, painted orange. She wondered how that cultural anomaly had come to be or how the clash of colors seemed vibrant rather than odd. She turned her attention quickly away, for none of that had any relevance to what they needed to know now. What they needed was information that would bring them to Tara before it was too late.

“You had questions,” Yuften said, again in English.

Before they could answer, Saffiya entered the room with a silver teapot and poured them each a cup of tea.

The children giggled.

Yuften raised a hand in a flagging movement without turning around and the children were silent. On a ledge on either side of one wall, a trio of thick candles flickered, throwing shadows across the room.

“Atrar Tashfin—the man you asked about.” Yuften looked at them. “He was killed at the Marrakech airport? I can’t believe one of ours could be involved.” He shook his head. “Of course, he’d been gone a long time, but his father...” He put his teacup down. “How did it happen?”

“A gunfight with the authorities,” Emir said.

The explanation was a bit of a stretch, but they were here to get information not give it.

Yuften shook his head, a frown worrying his brow. “It’s too bad.” He looked at Emir. “Unless he was involved in your sister’s kidnapping. Then he had it coming.”

“Did you know him?” Emir asked.

Yuften shook his head. “He was here not quite yesterday. But I’d heard he’d gotten mixed up with others. Like I said earlier, thieves and murders.” He shook his head. “It’s all the same. One leads to the other.”

Kate frowned at that as Yuften continued.

“We didn’t talk long. But I have heard everything from the others he spoke to. He wanted nothing but money that we didn’t have. He stole from me and others...”

“How much?” Emir asked.

“Whatever we could give, but I doubt if he got much.” He shrugged. “No one is well off.” When he told them the amount that had been stolen from his home, he was right. It was equal to about twenty American dollars.

Their host touched Saffiya’s arm. She had sat beside him after the tea was poured. A silent exchange seemed to run between them and then Saffiya nodded and smiled. “Saffiya didn’t like him,” Yuften said with a nod to her.

He turned back to them. “He’d been away for a long time. Left for work before he was twenty and, when he returned, his parents were old and had died years before. He never came for their burials but he came now—for money.” Yuften shrugged. “He was angry, especially after he’d been here for a few days. My boy said he shoved him aside when he ran too near. A few days ago, when he did leave, he wasn’t alone. Four men arrived one day by Jeep—harassed some of our young girls—I had to step in. A few hours later I was glad to see they took him away with them.”

Kate glanced at Emir. “Five,” she murmured. That could mean there were only three left. Three men holding Tara. But, then again, it was only a guess.

Emir turned his attention to Yuften, who was now looking at his wife. Her lips were pinched.