Sheikh Seduction

She barely recognized her own voice, it sounded so hollow when she spoke. “Where are the rest?” She’d seen more men than this die in the fierce battle.

“The smugglers took their own. Cleaning up evidence.” He tossed the shovel aside and dragged the bodies into the shallow, wide grave, one after the other.

She helped as best she could, pushing sand over the fallen with her bare hands while Tariq used the shovel. At the end, he said a few words in Arabic, and she added a simple prayer, said a teary goodbye to Jeff. When she was done, she followed Tariq back to the car.

He picked up the driver’s kaffiyeh, then went to the other Hummer and brought a suit coat from there, laying them on the grave. “It’s an old Bedu custom, to pass on the clothes of the dead to some poor wanderer.”

“They were Bedouin?” She couldn’t consolidate the sharp business suits with her idea of desert nomads.

“We are all Bedu,” he said as they got into the car.

She tried to picture him in a goat-hair tent. It didn’t work. That West Coast accent threw her off.

“We can tell the families where they are,” she said as he put the vehicle into motion, feeling guilty for being alive. “The bodies can be found again, right? The other Hummer will be here.”

He drove in silence for a few moments before he responded. “My people are at rest. We believe that we come from the desert, so we go back to the desert when we die. No marked graves. The sand is sufficient.”

It did seem fitting. The vast desert in itself was a breathtaking monument. She was sure, however, that Jeff’s parents would want his body to be returned to the States. Guilt pushed deeper into her core. It didn’t seem fair that all these people had died and she was alive. Not that she didn’t feel grateful. She did. Then felt guilty about the quiet appreciation that she was still here to draw hot air into her lungs.

“How about the GPS?” Both Hummers were well equipped. “Don’t those things have panic buttons or locators or whatever?”

“The other one was shot to bits. This one I had hope for….” He gestured at the display, at the small hole in the middle, then shook his head, his masculine lips pressed in a flat line.

From his expression she figured the damage was bad enough to render the unit unusable.

“Where are we going?” she asked after a while. “What’s closer, Tihrin or the well we were heading for?”

“Wouldn’t make it to either. A bullet nicked the oil pan. We have a slow leak.”

She looked at the profusion of holes in the door next to her and the dashboard before her. Everyone had been trying to take cover behind the vehicles, which had taken the brunt of the attack. That Tariq had been able to salvage one of them was a miracle.

“Without oil to lubricate the engine, it’ll overheat and stop. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it as far as the oasis,” he said. “We need more water. And we should get out of the open as fast as possible.”

She pictured palm trees nodding in the wind, green grass and a glistening blue pool where some underground stream surfaced in the sand. She would have given anything to be able to wash off the blood.

“Can we get in touch with the sheik somehow? He could send people to get us out of here.” She pictured robed men racing over the sand on beautiful horses, their swords drawn, the sheik at the very front. They would be brave and fierce, whisking her to safety.

She blinked that image away. Okay, so reality would most likely be a group of the sheik’s armed guards, sent in the chopper—when someone fixed it. Either way, she would be deliriously happy to see anyone who came to the rescue.

The look on Tariq’s face redefined grim. “In case this wasn’t a random attack, we need to figure out whom we can trust, before we do anything. But yes, there is a satellite phone at the oasis.”

She let herself relax a little. “I’m sure you can trust the sheik and the people at your company. And the authorities.”

She didn’t want to sit around in a desert full of murderers any longer than was absolutely necessary. The people they’d buried were an effective reminder just how dangerous the place was.

“We buried only seven,” she realized belatedly. “There were ten of us. Who’s missing?” She’d tried as much as she could not to look at the bodies as they’d buried the men.

“They took Husam. Perhaps he was injured at the end and could no longer fight. I didn’t see him.”

“And they tried to take me. Why?”

“Husam’s father is a wealthy man. They might have recognized the son. Could be they wanted you for themselves, or to sell at Yanadar or to ransom you to your foreign family.” Tariq’s face was getting darker and darker as he spoke.

Her chest tightened at the prospects he was enumerating. Yanadar? Did that have something to do with the sex trade he’d mentioned? She rubbed her arm where she’d been grabbed, and found her skin still tender. “But then why didn’t they take me? At the end?” She fingered the bump on the back of her head. She certainly couldn’t have defended herself.

“They thought you were dead.” He paused a beat. “Sorry about that.”

For a moment she didn’t understand. Then the hard object that had hit her made sense all of a sudden. He’d been the only person near enough to hurt her. He’d still had his gun back then. “You hit me?”

“I couldn’t be sure if you could pull off playing dead. I had no bullets left. They were closing in.”

He’d knocked her out, then draped his bleeding body over her and pretended the bandits had shot both of them. There’d certainly been enough blood to be convincing.

“I still don’t see what they would want with me. If they were going for ransom, why not grab Jeff, too? The sex slave thing…” She shook her head. “Seems too far-fetched, frankly.”

“Don’t count on it.” He dug into his pocket, then held her rings out on his open palm. He could afford to take his attention off the road now. They were going over flat terrain, and it wasn’t as if he would cross the center line and veer into oncoming traffic.

“Thanks…for saving these,” she said, although her jewelry was pretty low on her list of priorities at the moment. She noticed suddenly that his watch was already on his wrist. He must be attached to it, she decided.

“If they saw anything valuable on either of us, they would have taken it. And if they had to grab us and move us around, they might have realized we weren’t dead. Or they would have…” He fell silent and looked back at the so-called road.

Would have what? She was about to ask when she thought of the driver with his finger missing. She nodded, grateful that Tariq had had the presence of mind to think of everything.

“Husam was at your meeting this morning?” he asked. “The more I think about it, the less I believe this could have been a random attack. They might have known he was coming, and lain in wait for him.”

“What about the two men in the other car?”

He thought for a second. “Minor managers. And nobody tried to take them. They were shot in cold blood.”

“An assassination? Maybe they were the true target.”

“But then why take Husam? I think that’s the real clue,” Tariq said.

She tended to agree with him. “When the others went up to the helipad, he stayed behind to make a call. He sounded…I don’t know. I didn’t understand anything he was saying. But he sounded angry and stressed. Maybe he told whoever he was talking to that he was headed for the desert. Maybe he was betrayed?” She didn’t much care for Husam, but she hated to think of anyone in the hands of ruthless bandits. God knew what they would do to him.

“Possible,” Tariq said, tight-lipped. “Did he know at that time that you’d be taking the cars instead of the chopper? You were still heading for the roof when we met.”

“I was told as soon as I got up there that the helicopter needed repairs. Someone could have called him already. Maybe that’s why he never went up.”

“Was there anything strange about your leaving? Do you remember him talking to anyone else in the hallway? Have you noticed anyone watching him?”

“No, but at the meeting…” She hesitated, not wanting to sound like a complete idiot.

“At the meeting?” Tariq’s gaze was sharp as he studied her face.

“He was looking at me. A lot.”

His expression softened, a corner of his mouth turning up. “For that, you must forgive us.”