Grains of Truth (38 page)

Team L offered up their binoculars. Mariette brandished a pair as well. The others would remain with the van. Certain members of the party weren’t happy about the arrangements, but Henrietta, in her gentle fashion, smoothed the ruffled feathers. By the time they finished making preparations and consuming what remained of their provisions from the harrowing Gulf crossing, dawn drew near.

~

Mariette turned off the sand-strewn road into a wadi barely wide enough for the Jeep to pass. Her male passengers lurched to grab whatever they could to try and keep their seats as she shot up a sudden uphill grade. A second sharp turn around an enormous boulder and she switched off the engine. 

“Here we are hidden from the road. Now we climb.” Mariette took out her mobile phone and switched it off. “These, we do not want to ring, non? Besides, in these mountains, they do not work so well.” 

The short distance turned into a long climb. More than an hour passed before they reached a point with decent visibility and adequate cover. The spectacular sunrise created a curious sense of unreality, with shades of pink and lavender tingeing the sky over the top of the blue-gray mountains.

Crowded together behind a low ridge, the scouts held three pairs of binoculars zeroed in on the oasis below. Smoke curled up in several plumes above the village from fires lit against the last of the cold night air, and to cook the morning meal. They easily spotted the two cars from last night, parked near a cluster of tents on the southwestern edge of the palm grove. No human activity yet stirred.  

The entire interminable day passed with little activity other than the workers in the palm groves, who harvested dates. All they could do was wait. They took turns keeping watch and tried to take advantage of the time for getting some badly needed sleep. The sun drove down fiery shafts onto their heads and turned the stones around them into a giant oven.

Finally, as sunset began to lengthen the shadows, two men emerged from the tent beside the parked cars. 

A low call from Alex brought the rest of the scout team back to the ridge in a flash. They watched the two men intently until Mariette stiffened and raised a cautionary finger to her lips. They held their collective breath and no one moved.

Two seconds later they all heard it: the sound of steady, heavy footsteps on sandy gravel. The steps came closer—alarmingly close—from an unexpected direction. They hunched down behind the rocks as the camels trudged past on the path directly below, less than twenty feet away.

~

The lumbering rhythm of her mount’s plodding feet on the narrow path produced a strangely hypnotic effect. Julia dozed in a state of semi-consciousness as the caravan made its way through the wadi and over the mountain pass. This wasn’t the first time she’d ridden a camel. Many found the experience disagreeably uncomfortable but, as an accomplished horsewoman, Julia took it in stride. It seemed to her now, however, that they’d been winding up and down the steep and narrow passes forever.

The sudden descent after cresting a rise brought her back fully awake and she started at the sight of a picturesque oasis in the valley below. Not for the first time, Julia marveled at her ability to appreciate the beauty of the scene under such traumatic circumstances. She’d always thought of herself as a “glass-is-half-full” kind of person but, honestly, this was way over the top.

Still, the grove of date palms, lemon and mango trees amidst the sun-baked rocks presented a magnificent sight to behold. She knew that underground springs provided the water for irrigation as they had done for centuries. The desert dwellers learned long ago to utilize to the fullest the water supplies in these verdant areas. 

The green of the grove proved farther away than it appeared and it took quite a while for them to reach its outer fringe. A few words from the Bedouin brought their mounts to a halt. One of the men waiting there, with the aid of a stick, cajoled the beasts to their knees, not without loud complaints from the disgruntled dromedaries.

No one paid the slightest attention to the stiff, limping, black-clad figure as Julia was led to one of the tents.

~

As soon as the caravan passed, the scouts cautiously raised their heads. Four camels: two men in the lead, then a black-garbed figure, with another man behind. With their backs to the scouts, identification was impossible. The path wound down the hill, and as the riders turned again towards the west, rays of the setting sun illuminated the profile of the last man—unmistakably that of the fearsome Faoud.

Alex, crouching next to Mohamed, gripped his arm as the Egyptian started to rise.

“Wait.”

They watched to see what happened next. The tortuously slow descent of the camels was observed from below; several more figures emerged. Two men approached the caravan to greet the riders as they dismounted. The black-clad figure stumbled down and was led to one of the tents. Several of the male figures remained in conversation outside before eventually disappearing behind the flaps of another tent.

No one on the ridge above said a word. Mohamed broke the tense silence. “What are we waiting for?”

The ex-military officer and the secret service agent exchanged a hard look, but it was Mariette who answered.

“Excusez-moi, it is a difficult situation, non? One thing is certain: It is unlikely that your friend is in imminent danger. If they meant to kill her, they would have done so by now. Let us return to the others and discuss what we do next.” Without waiting for an answer, she replaced her binoculars in a worn case and started back down the hill.

Almost complete darkness made the descent difficult, and they were all worn out by the time they reached the Jeep. Night fell quickly after sunset in the mountains. And the temperature dropped dramatically in the last half-hour. The men were grateful Mariette reminded them to bring jackets.

When the headlights of the Jeep shone on the van by the side of the road, the weary scouts could not at first believe their eyes. The vehicle looked like a grotesque monster, with the weird shape of the luggage piled on the roof. Thirty yards back from the road, the others sat around a glowing fire.

“Sarah found the scraps of wood,” announced Linda cheerfully, “and camel dung. Wilderness training. Who would’ve thought there’d be wood out here?”

Sarah ignored the compliment, jumping up to pounce on Alex. “What happened?”

Brad delivered a concise summary of the situation. The silence lasted no more than a second or two before Mohamed spat out, “What are we waiting for?”

Henrietta came, once again, to the rescue. “Now listen. Everyone. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that Julia’s life is in constant jeopardy. Any risky actions on our part could have devastating consequences.” She patted Mohamed’s arm as she turned to Alex. “Could you tell how many more of them there are now?”

He shook his head, firelight turning the gray in his hair to polished silver. “No. Not definitively. At least two more, to have driven the cars.”

Henry cleared his throat. “We’ll have to wait. Wait and continue to follow them. When we have a better idea of what we’re up against, then we’ll strike.”

This time, no one argued. Mariette produced a much appreciated pique nique from the basket in her Jeep. The campfire provided a soothing atmosphere as they gratefully consumed the roasted poulet, aubergine and fromage de chevre, washed down with a more than adequate French vin rouge.

Mohamed, as always, and Sarah, with responsible abstention, stuck with eau minerale, as they had the first watch. They would all take shifts on lookout at the turn-off to the road leading to the oasis while the others tried to sleep. The sentry would change every two hours. 

~

Mohamed leaned against the fender of the Jeep with arms folded over his chest. Sarah sat on the hood, legs crossed Indian-style. Several minutes of strained silence ticked by.

“She will be all right. We will get her back.”

He sighed. “I know that you know everything, Sarah. Everything about Julia and me.” When she failed to comment, he added, “You must think I am a very bad person.”                                               

Sarah tilted her head to look over at his profile, striking in the light of the newly-risen moon. “No, Mohamed. I don’t think you’re a bad person. Just pretty damn selfish.”

Stung, he swung around to face her.

“All she ever wanted, from the beginning, was to be with you and to help you. To help you and your family. You were the one who made the first move, making her want more, making her believe there could be more. You were the one who proposed marriage, asking her to be your ‘number two’ wife, for god’s sake. Do you have any idea how hard it was for her to accept that? But she did. Then you changed your mind! When she was ready to make all the sacrifice to come and be here for you, you pushed her away. But you won’t let her go, won’t let her get on with her life.

“I think it’s incredibly selfish of you. Selfish to not be a man and make up your mind, once and for all.”

He turned away, in tormented silence, beneath the canopy of stars, staring out into the shadowy night.

~

Inside the tent, Julia hunched down near a burning brazier, a tray of empty dishes at her feet. The murmur of men’s voices rose and fell just outside. She looked up as a young girl ducked in through the flap. She wore the colorful dress of the Bedouin, her ears and arms covered with silver and gold bangles and beads.

Julia gave her a smile and a nod as she bent to pick up the tray. The girl giggled and said something unintelligible before she backed out the way she came. The men’s voices began to grow faint. Julia’s heart raced as she listened to them, clearly moving away. With one eye on the entrance, she took out a small, empty, wooden bowl from the folds of her robe and crawled to the back of the tent, dragging a blanket in her other hand.

That unbelievable scene in the desert seemed to have established some kind of rapport between her and her captor—some level of trust. Unencumbered by burqa or rope, Julia had every intention of taking advantage of that. Barely breathing now, she scraped the edge of the bowl against the sandy soil under the back wall of the tent.

Her head bobbed back and forth between the entrance and what she hoped would be her exit. She’d dug a shallow hole, growing more feverish with each stroke, almost wide enough to crawl beneath the fabric wall, when she heard a man laugh, right outside. In a split second, Julia shoved the bowl up her skirt as she flipped the blanket over the hole. She had just enough time to sit on it before a hand appeared inside the flap and Ahmed stepped into the tent.

Flickering flames from the brazier etched deep, sinister shadows on his striking face. He stood motionless—like a cat in the jungle—all senses on alert, instinctively aware of tension in the air.

~

Brad and Linda took the second shift. They huddled on the hood of the Jeep, leaning against the windshield with legs stretched out before them, under a blanket for warmth against the icy night air. The endless sky blazed with stars.

“Look,” whispered Linda as she squeezed his arm, “you can see the entire Milky Way.”

Brad shook his head at her inopportune enthusiasm while undeniably enjoying the closeness of her warm body. “We can’t both be stargazing, Boyd. At least one of us has to keep watch, remember?”

She snuggled closer, dropping her head on his shoulder. “Okay, Caldwell. You look up and I’ll look out. They won’t budge before morning.”

The words were scarcely out of her mouth before she bolted upright. “There they are. Two cars.”  

She gave a low whistle to the others as they jumped into the Jeep. In less than a minute, both engines came to life and they were off.

~

It was slow going on the serpentine road through the mountains at night. They drove without lights, and darkness prevented them from seeing the number of passengers in the vehicles ahead. But there was no doubt that the two cars were the ones they saw at the oasis.

With the enemy in clear sight, the rescue party held cautiously back. The van, with its mound of luggage on top, easily gave the appearance of just another tourist group. Brad and Linda followed in the Jeep.

No one spoke during the tense crawl, but they didn’t have far to go. Before long the two cars ahead reached level ground and approached the fork in the north-south road along the east Sinai coast. The first set of headlights turned, as expected, left, heading north toward Nuweiba. Alex, at the van’s wheel, slowed even more to keep a safe distance from the second car. A collective gasp exploded when it turned right, headed south toward Dahab.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” snarled Mohamed with a rare expression of profanity. “What do we do now?”

In the Jeep, Brad and Linda saw the split. Even though this possibility wasn’t discussed, they were in no doubt as to their course of action. Brad watched Alex turn left while Linda punched Mariette’s mobile number.

The only cell phones that functioned in the region were those belonging to Mariette, Mohamed and Alex, who had the foresight to purchase one in Cairo. Mohamed  reluctantly had given his to Linda, for the time being. All parties understood that they must be extremely cautious about their communications. One never knew how closely the lines might be monitored and who might be listening. Especially on Mohamed’s phone.