The Sheik's Safety (7 page)

He remained silent for a while before responding. “They had a royal warrant.”

She took off for the house, hugging the walls, making sure she looked as scared as the other servant women. She made her way toward Saeed's offices, slinked by and saw the soldiers go through his files, dumping everything on the floor, seizing what they pleased.

They grilled one of the male servants, but she could not understand what they were trying to get out of him. Then one of the soldiers caught her watching, said something to her.

Now what? She stood, rooted to the spot. What did he want? She bowed her head, tried to back away. The man advanced on her, waving his gun. He wasn't big, but he was armed, and she didn't have anything. The pistol she'd taken from Saeed's desk had disappeared by the time she woke that morning.

The soldier yelled at her. She began to tremble, whimper loudly, and covered her face with shaking hands. When the man reached her, she crumbled to the floor sobbing.

He looked at her with contempt, said something in a harsh voice then turned and let her be.

She moved away, half crawling, not standing fully
until she was out of sight. She had to find out what the hell was happening.

She made her way back to the guard at the gate as fast as she could without raising anyone's suspicions. At least he spoke English.

“Somebody must tell Saeed what's going on here. Warn him not to come home. I can do it. I'm a woman, the soldiers are paying no attention to me. I must know where he went.”

The guard did not respond.

“Your sheik's life is at stake.” She wanted to shake the man, put him in a headlock if she had to, but she couldn't draw attention.

“I do not know where he went,” the guard said at last, appearing more upset now. “He did not take a driver.”

She went back to the house and questioned any servant she came across, but they would not respond to her. Some, she suspected, because they did not trust a foreigner, others because they did not speak English.

And then, as soon as it began, the invasion was over. Half the soldiers left, carrying boxes of Saeed's papers, the other half remained, guarding all entrances from the street.

She came upon a group of Saeed's guards gathered in the kitchen. They argued. A couple of older servant women wept.

“What happened?” Dara would not let them ignore her.

They looked at her with disapproval, but the guard who'd been at the front gate earlier, Umbarak, answered her. “Sheik Saeed was arrested this morning for treason.”

She felt the blood run out of her face. Damn. Keeping the sheik safe was her responsibility. “We must get him at once.”

“
Inshallah.
It is now in Allah's hand.” The man tried to brush her off.

Anger filled her, anger and worry. “So you'll leave him to his fate?”

“We have sent news to Nasir. It is his place to decide what to do.”

“And if it is too late?”

Umbarak looked stricken at the suggestion, but turned from her. He probably thought her rude for speaking out of place. No amount of argument could make him see her point, could make them understand how much danger Saeed was in, could make them accept her as an equal and work with her.

It was painfully frustrating, but she had to accept it and move on to find another solution. She could not change a millennia of tradition in one afternoon. And she didn't have an afternoon. King Majid wanted Saeed dead, and now he had him in his clutches.

“Where would Sheik Saeed be kept?” she asked, ignoring the disapproval of the men.

“There are many prisons in Tihrin, but he would be held at the palace,” Umbarak answered.

“Do you not care if he lives or dies?”

Anger flared in the man's eyes. Good. So he did care. She stepped closer, ready to press her advantage.

 

D
ARA WALKED AROUND THE PALACE
for the third time, noting the position of the guards, the height of the walls, the security cameras. She could have walked around the building a hundred times and not be noticed, thanks to the black
abaya
that made women indistinguishable from each other.

She looked at Umbarak, sitting in the car in the parking lot of a ministry building across the road. He was waiting for her; at last he had finally understood the gravity of the situation. That was something. She turned down a side street, circled the palace again, from farther this time, then again one more street down, then again, in concentric circles, mapping possible escape routes from every exit.

Darkness fell by the time she was satisfied. She walked back toward the palace, noted the locked gate, walked down the street, looking at vehicles until she spotted a truck that was high enough. Popping the lock and hot-wiring took less than three minutes—she'd paid attention during her training.
She drove the short distance to the back of the palace compound where the wall was the lowest, waited for the night patrol to pass by. She had a few minutes before they would loop back again.

She parked the truck as close to the wall as she could, climbed on top and jumped, aiming at the spot where two security cameras stood back to back. She landed exactly between them, out of the range of both. She crouched on the wall and looked around at the flat-roofed building under her, then dropped soundlessly.

She ran across the roof, looked down at the ground, jumped and rolled into the shadow of the building. Garages, she realized, catching a glimpse of a row of luxury cars through the window.

She could see six guards from where she was, all of them relaxed, probably bored, smoking. A servant woman crossed the yard, carrying a small wooden box. Nobody paid her any attention. Dara stood and stepped out of the shadows. The guards looked up for a second before returning to their conversation. She walked toward the same door where she'd seen the woman disappear. Her finger was on the knob when it opened from the inside.

She kept her head down, stepped out of the way of the exiting man hastily. He glanced at her, said something. As if not hearing him, she slipped in the door and kept walking. He stepped back in after her. Damn.

She could not play the woman-scared-into-hysteria here. The royal servants would be used to demands from the royal guard.

He shouted something at her and came closer. She waited until he was no more than two feet away, then she pulled her gun, pointed it at his head with her right hand, put a finger to her lips with the left.

He froze.

“Sheik Saeed.”
She said the words carefully to make sure he understood her.

He stepped back.

She took the safety off.

He said something on a low voice, stepped closer, and reached for the gun.

The trouble with this country was that nobody believed a woman could be dangerous. And she couldn't even give a warning shot to show him she was. Gunfire would have drawn attention. She rushed him instead, gun to temple, knife to throat, she pressed it just hard enough to draw a little blood. She had his attention now.

“Sheik Saeed,” she repeated, satisfied when he pointed down the hallway to the left.

She took the knife from his throat and shoved him in front of her, the pistol in his back. He understood her and moved forward.

Two doors to the left, then a flight of stairs down. She kept track of their approximate location in the
building. The corridor down here was narrower, darker. They were coming to a T at the end. She stopped the man, stepped in front of him while keeping her gun trained at his head, peeked around the corner. A row of doors each way, a soldier standing in front of one on her left.

Dara turned around, swung at the man's temple with the butt of the gun, caught him so he wouldn't make too much noise falling to the ground, lowered him slowly.

She tucked his handgun next to hers into her belt under the
abaya
and stepped forward, walked toward the guard without looking at him. He said something, probably ordering her out of the prison. She walked on. He spoke again, his voice angry this time. But she was close enough now. A chop to the man's windpipe dropped him to his knees.

“Keys,” she said and pulled her gun, pointed it between his eyes.

He gasped for air, shook his head. Probably didn't even understand her. Too bad for him. She didn't have time to play around. She knocked him out same as the first man, searched his uniform. He didn't have the key. Okay, maybe that was what he had tried to tell her.

She looked the door over, pulled her knife and went to work on the pins in the hinges. Damn, it wasn't easy. She forced the blade into the tiny gap
between the top of one pin and the doorjamb, wiggled it. Her efforts were working but too slow. She glanced around—still alone—then wiped her forehead as she focused on the pin again.

When it was out far enough, she popped it free with the butt of her knife and went to work on the second pin. It was even more tightly stuck than the first.
Come on, come on, come on.
She put all she had into it. She hadn't come all this way to fail. She wiggled the pin up with the tip of the knife, wishing she could see through the door, see what shape Saeed was in. She wouldn't allow herself to think that she might not find him alive. He was charged with treason. There must be an official execution. King Majid would want that to legitimize the whole charade. He had to keep Saeed alive for that.

But it didn't mean he hadn't been tortured. She pushed harder, the pin moved up another fraction of an inch, but then the blade slipped and scraped against the door. She didn't worry about the noise, just went back to what she was doing.

If there was someone in the room with Saeed, they would have heard her by now. She was pretty sure he was alone.

The sound of boots scraping the floor came from above her head, people going somewhere on the upper level. She popped the pin, jammed the knife between the door and its frame, put all her weight
into it and moved the door enough to get her fingers in the gap, then pulled with all her strength. Damn, that didn't feel good on her bad shoulder.

Saeed sat on a metal bed in a small dingy room, handcuffed to the frame. She took her first deep, real breath since he'd gone missing that morning. Relief rushed blood to her head, drumming through her ears.

“Are you okay?” She leaned the wooden door against the wall to make sure it wouldn't fall and draw attention.

“Dara?”

If she ever saw a man more surprised, she couldn't remember it. Good. Maybe now he would start taking her seriously. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

She handed him the knife before she left to get the guard outside the door. She tied and gagged him before pulling the listless body into the cell, then went and dragged in the other man the same way. He was heavy, made her work up a sweat, starting to come to and fight against his ropes.

Saeed was still trying to open the handcuffs, not easy with his hands bound together. She took the knife from him, tried, and didn't seem to manage any better. Damn. She looked around the room for another tool.

“Your gun,” Saeed said.

“They'll hear us.”

“Use the pillow.”

There was no time to hesitate. “Stand back.”

She placed the pillow over the barrel of the gun, pushed it against the chain that held the cuffs together, then squeezed the trigger. The sound echoed through the room, but not as badly as she'd expected, no more than a door slamming shut.

She stripped off her
abaya,
veil and headscarf then tossed them at him. He understood at once and handed her his kaffiyeh from around his neck. She tucked her pistol into her belt, flung the guard's rifle on her shoulder, handed Saeed the extra gun. He hid it under the
abaya
that unfortunately came only to midcalf, and revealed his black suit pants and shoes that obviously belonged to a man. Still, it was the middle of the night. Not many were awake, and she hoped those who were wouldn't be looking too closely.

“We gotta go.” She turned, ready to make a run for it, but he caught her by the arm.

“Dara,” he said, then crushed her to him and kissed the soul out of her.

And she kissed him back as fiercely as she felt, angry with him for having gone out alone, angry at herself for not knowing better and letting her guard down in more ways than one. And then the anger and fear melted away, and there was nothing but sweet pleasure and the relief that he was alive and she was back in his arms once again.

She smiled when he let her go, and fastened the veil and headscarf in place to cover his face. He gave her a we-will-never-speak-of-this-once-it's-over look, and strode out of the room, pulling her behind him. And it occurred to her how annoyed she used to be when in movies the hero and heroine stopped to come together in a heated kiss in the middle of a chase scene, when every second might mean the difference between life and death. And she wanted to stop him and kiss him again. Because if this was it, if they were going to get nailed on the way out, she wanted to take at least that much with her.

He went up, but in a different direction than she'd come. She followed him, figuring he knew the palace better than she did. Her path of entry wouldn't have worked for a way out anyway. The two of them scaling the garage wall would be bound to draw the guards' attention.

They were in the servants' quarters—small rooms, narrow hallways, not nearly as neat as the rest of the palace. The few who were awake and about paid little attention to the young soldier and the tall woman he escorted.

They reached the door he was apparently looking for. He shot off the lock with a loud bang that raised some shouts behind them. They didn't stick around to see whom they woke, but spilled out into the street.

Straight into the night patrol.

Saeed heard Dara swear as he blocked her and shot at the men. But if he had hoped she would take the hint and stay safe, he was mistaken. She pushed around him and took out her share of the patrol. The fight was over in seconds.

He ripped the veil and burka from his head as he ran between the bodies out to the street, looking back as much as forward, making sure she was okay.

“You should think about letting me do my job now and then.” She caught up with him finally. “Umbarak is on the other side by the east gate. He probably heard the gunfire.”

“We don't have time to wait for him.”

Few cars were on the street at this hour of the night. He stepped in front of a large luxury sedan and pointed his gun at the driver as more guards poured out of the palace, letting some bullets fly now.

Saeed banged his palm on the hood of the car
when it screeched to a halt in front of him, nearly knocking him over. Then he was at the driver's door, pulling the man out. Dara was already in the passenger seat returning fire by the time he got in. And they were off, flying down the four-lane boulevard named after his legendary great-grandfather, about a dozen royal guards pursuing them.

The good news was that traffic was sparse, making driving easier. The bad news was that the royal guards were shooting as freely as if they were in the middle of the desert, not caring whom or what they hit. And yet he had no choice but to lead them through a densely populated area, the fastest way out of the city.

Dara knelt on her seat, firing back at the guards.

“We cannot harm the people.”

She threw him an offended look. “I hit what I aim at.”

He turned down a side street, moving away from the highly developed areas and into the outskirts of the city. The farther out they got, the less common streetlights were and the worse the condition of the roads. He wove in and out of a jumble of little alleys, knocking over a jar or a small cart now and then, the turns tight for the car.

A couple of times he got ahead enough so their pursuers were out of sight, but the royal guards were persistent and caught up with them over and over again.

“Hang on,” he said the next time they temporarily shook off the men.

He pulled off the road and across a dirt yard, aiming straight at a shack. He drove through the palm-frond side without trouble and stopped, killing the motor.

“Not bad for a sheik, considering you have two chauffeurs.”

He saw only the outline of Dara's head in the dark, but could hear the smile in her voice. “You should see me on a camel.” He pulled off the
abaya
and tossed it on the back seat.

Sheik Saeed ibn Ahmad ibn Salim had run from his cousin dressed like a woman. He swallowed the humiliation of it. He would not have done so to save his own life. But from the moment Dara had stepped through the cell door, he knew he would do anything to get her out of there alive. Even sacrifice his dignity.

“Don't ever do that again,” he said.

“Shoot back at people who are shooting at me? In my line of work, you turn the other cheek, you go home in a body bag.”

“Not that,” he said, impatient. He was glad she was strong and competent enough to defend herself. He admired her for it. “Don't ever put your life in danger for mine.”

“It's my job.”

“I refuse protection.”

“Because I'm a woman?”

“Because I can take care of myself.”

“Me, too,” she said, and they both fell silent for a while.

“If things were reversed, if I was arrested for some reason, would you have let me be executed?” she asked.

He hadn't thought he could be more scared for her than he had been for the past hour, but her question turned his blood to ice. She
could
be arrested. She had broken into the palace and freed a prisoner. She could be charged with a pile of offenses, not the least of which was espionage. What she did and did not do wouldn't matter. They would try and hang any charge on her they could.

“Would you?” she asked again on a quiet voice.

He would take the palace apart stone by stone. “No.”

“See? Because I'm your guest and according to your customs, you're responsible for me. According to my orders, I'm responsible for you.”

He took a deep breath. “You are more than a guest,” he said.

She stayed quiet after that.

Cars approached, then moved on. He waited a few minutes, backed out of the shed and took off in the opposite direction, making sure to note the house so he would know where to send reparations later. He didn't slow until they hit the desert and then he had to, the luxury sedan being not exactly designed to race over sand.

Still, he drove as fast as he could. It wouldn't be long before their pursuers figured out where he was heading.

 

M
AJID GRABBED THE EDGE
of the table, willing his rage to subside.

“How could it be?”

The captain of the guards would not raise his head to look at him, but remained bowed. “He had help from inside. A servant woman.”

A woman? Preposterous. “Search the servants' quarters, find out which one is missing then deal with her family. An example must be made.” He would not have traitors in his own palace. “And all who were on guard. For failure of duty. I want them executed in front of the rest.”

He watched as the man's skin turned a shade paler, and for a moment considered ordering his execution, as well. After all, he was the captain, responsible for his men.

No. He tossed away the thought. He trusted this one, and trustworthy men were few and far between these days. He couldn't afford to lose any. Too many of those around him, especially in the government, he suspected would favor Saeed.

Saeed. It had always been Saeed. His cousin had been the one their grandfather had groomed for the throne, the man everyone thought golden. Even Ma
jid's own father, Abdullah, had sworn upon becoming king after his brother's death to rule only until Saeed came of age.

He pushed that memory away, almost too painful to bear. He had gotten his uncle, King Ahmad, out of the way. It had been Majid who had made it possible for his father to take the throne. And even then Abdullah had favored Saeed. The muscles tightened in Majid's face. His father had been too soft, unfit to rule.

Majid poured another drink. He, too. had Sheik Zayed's blood in his veins, stronger than in any of the great man's other descendants. He always knew he would sit on the throne some day; although, he hadn't planned on making his father king first.

But when the opportunity had come to get rid of Saeed's father, Ahmad, it had been too good to pass up—the perfect chance to change the line of succession.

They had been on a hunt in the desert and Majid had gotten separated from the rest with his uncle, the king. The hawks had been circling, looking for prey. One of the salukis had scared up something, he couldn't remember now what it was, and he had taken aim, racing his hawk to the prey. His uncle had ridden in front of him and without notice veered into his path. He had shouted at the man, scared at how close he had come to shooting the king.

He could recall that moment in detail, the still that had come over him at the thought, the clarity of
what he had to do. He had aimed again and pulled the trigger.

Afterward he had tied his uncle's body to the saddle and forced his horse into quicksand, then he'd ridden to tell the rest of the hunting party of the terrible accident.

He had never told the truth to anyone, not even his father. Abdullah had been too weak. He would have been shocked to know that it was his son's quick thinking and not the mysterious will of Allah that had put him on the throne. The throne on which he had been ill-equipped to sit. And hadn't he proven it at the end, making one ill-advised decision after the other, allowing the country to slip into civil war. At the beginning, Majid had tried to save him, but at the end he had done whatever he could to hasten his father's demise.

And then with an iron fist, using all the wealth he could raise honestly and by other means, he had created his own army and restored order. The country had accepted his rule without any serious resistance; as Abdullah's son, he was the rightful heir, after all. He had proven that he was fit to sit on the throne by being strong enough to take it.

But now that he had accomplished what he had dreamed of since boyhood, now that the country was his, along came Saeed like a persistent ghost from the past. The people demanded Saeed—the same people Majid had saved from civil war.

It grated on him to have made this one mistake—to have underestimated his cousin. The man had fooled everyone, hadn't he? All his talk of peace and reconciliation, of brotherhood and standing together, and all along he had been planning a rebellion against the rightful king.

“He'd go to his brother.” He named the range of dunes where he knew their
fakhadh
would be settled by this time of the year. He had spent enough time there as a child. “He has betrayed me. I wish not to see him alive again.”

As soon as the captain of the guards bowed deeper and backed out, Majid reached for the phone.

The country needed a distraction from this rebellion. A common enemy would bring everyone together. The sooner he started the war on Yemen, the sooner the people would realize his vision for the country and would unite behind him.

But first, the U.S. Air Force base across the border had to be destroyed. And then, he would take what was meant to be his.

 

B
Y THE TIME THEY GOT
within sight of his people's camp, Saeed was vibrating with impatience.

“We have to move fast.” He stopped the car at a good distance, stuck his head out the window and called to the guards.

They came over, not lowering their weapons until
they were close enough to recognize him. He greeted the men then drove on, finding not the sleeping camp he had expected, but everyone very much awake.

Tents were coming down, animals herded together, people packing. When he was close enough for them to recognize him, a shout went up with his name, and everyone dropped what they were doing to gather around him.

Nasir, too, came running, hugging him as soon as he stepped out of the car. “You're free.”

“A long story. You are moving deeper into the desert?”

“The women and children are—the rest of us were coming to get you. I have sent word to the other tribes.”

Saeed glanced around and for the first time, he noticed the men, more heavily armed than usual, weapons piled on the backs of pickups. An impressive feat considering the short time they had had, but still nothing compared to Majid's army.

“I have sent Salah to Saudi with Fatima and Lamis,” Nasir said.

He nodded, relieved to hear that his son and sisters were safe. “To Gedad?”

“Yes.”

Good. Gedad's house was as safe a place as they came. Their second cousin was a supplier to the U.S. Air Force base just on the other side of the border, his home right next to the base.

“Try to get as many men in the cars as you can, the rest can follow on horseback,” Nasir ordered.

Saeed watched the men obey, men for whose lives he was responsible. “We are not ready for a war.”

A flash of anger crossed Nasir's face. “Too late. It has already started.”

“We haven't the manpower, nor the weapons.” But Nasir was right. The war
had
already started. Majid would come after Saeed and anyone who supported him. He would be damned if he would let his people be massacred by his power-hungry cousin. They didn't have much time; they had to prepare. He needed resources.

“I need Hawk.”

Nasir looked at him with some surprise, but then said, “I'll help you saddle him.” And moved ahead. “There are thirty tribes behind us. We have more than you think,” he said too calmly. “Everything is arranged.”

How could everything be arranged? How could he have made alliances in such a short time?

And in a moment of understanding, it dawned on Saeed. “You are involved in the rebellion.”

His brother smiled, a mixed expression of pride and relief spreading across his face. “I started it.”

For a second he was too stunned to comprehend the words, then everything fell into place. Small comments, times when Nasir went here or there on busi
ness and then could not be found. But still, bringing together hundreds, thousands of people, had to take enormous coordination, arming them would cost…

“You know of the cave.”

Nasir hung his head for a moment before he looked up, passion burning in his eyes. “Forgive me, brother. I could not stand by and watch Majid ruin our country. It boils my blood to see him rule when it should be you.” He fell silent for a moment. “Or our father still.”

“His death was an accident.” They had covered this ground many times before. However misguided Majid was now, bent by the weight of ruling, Saeed had a hard time thinking him capable of murdering his own uncle. Majid had been but a youth at the time, not yet tainted by politics. He remembered their childhood too well, times they spent in the desert, the summers Majid had spent at the palace. He had loved the place.

Loved it too much, maybe?

“He arrested you for treason.” Nasir walked next to Saeed with barely controlled fury.

“He felt threatened by the revolt
you
started.” No. He'd seen Majid's eyes. He'd known what he was doing. He had planned it. Saeed could no longer make excuses for his cousin. “You're right. We'll do what we must.”

They reached the horses at last. He greeted Hawk and grabbed his saddle.

Nasir helped with the bridle. “Where are you going?”

“To the cave. I imagine our assets were seized the moment I was arrested. We need money for better weapons if we're to take the palace.”

And it was necessary, even he had to accept it now. The tribes had risen. The fight would not end until either Majid or he was dead. “Wait for me. But not here.”