Edge of the Heat 6 (20 page)

Dani’s feet slid in the sand-covered ditch. She felt like she could go the rest of her life without ever seeing another grain of sand and die happy. An objection rose up in her mind and she tried to catch it. Running. They shouldn’t be running. They were going to draw more attention to themselves. Negative attention.

“JT,” she panted. “Let’s walk.”

He slowed immediately but glanced behind them. “I don’t know how you feel about old movie clichés, but we’ve got company. If they run, we’ll need to run too. Unless you want to have a showdown in the middle of the street.”

Dani looked. Three local men, and one of them had something in his hands. “Is he carrying what I think he’s carrying?” she asked JT, whispering, although she wasn’t sure why.

“Yep. An RPG. But don’t worry, there’s no rocket in the tube. Besides, it would be stupid to shoot us with an RPG.”

Dani looked again and saw JT was right. So it was probably just for show. But that didn’t make Dani feel any better. They could have guns. And they almost certainly had knives. Maybe machetes. And if just one of them got a little bit brave, it wouldn’t matter. Mob mentality would take over and they would pick up rocks on the streets and pull bricks out of walls. Dani had seen it happen. Had reported on it. Americans were never safe in the Middle East.

Dani felt JT reach under his shirt. He pulled the gun Sara had left with him out of its holster and turned around to walk backwards. He didn’t point it at anyone, but the effect was immediate. The three men scattered. JT faced forward and put the gun back in the holster under his shirt.

Dani tried to look every direction at once, to make sure no one was trying to ambush them as they crossed the narrow streets, still heading towards the hotel. She’d read somewhere that dawn was the worst time to try to defend against an assault. Something about the quality of the new light made it harder to see. Dawn and dusk, her reporter brain recalled. They were the worst times to defend against an assault, and the best times to execute one.

“There, the stairwell.”

Dani looked up. It was an open air stairwell leading into the hotel. They could hide in it on the top floor and watch for Sara. It had to be better than just running around in the open. She nodded and started running again, just a little, in spite of herself.

They were 20 feet from the hotel, run-walking, still hand in hand, passing the many small brick buildings that lined the street. Pain speared through Dani’s head and she lurched to the right, her hand pulling out of JT’s. She had time to think
I didn’t fall why am I falling,
before something hard slammed into her ribs. Agony cascaded in a vice grip around her middle. She cried out and grabbed at her side, pulling away from whatever had jabbed her. Smooth metal slipped under her fingers and the pain followed her.

“Put your hands up or I gut shoot her right here,” she heard a familiar voice say, deadly intent obvious in the tone.

Uncle Kevin, no
, she thought.
How could you?

Sara cautiously approached the smaller St. Marin Inn where she had left Agent Farmer. It didn’t look right. All the lights in the hotel, including the lobby were off and there were no cars out front in the small, circular drive. As she got closer, she could see the front doors were locked and bolted shut, and signs declared the hotel closed until further notice. But that wasn’t what disturbed her the most. The boarded up windows, the shards of broken glass, and the abandoned sticks and rocks that littered the front pathway drew her eye and made her heart beat faster. The hotel had born some sort of an attack. From the citizenry? But why? Because the hotel was American friendly? Were things that bad in this tiny town?

Sara didn’t know, but she lingered momentarily, trying to figure a new plan of action. To get out of here on their own they’d need a driver. She had money. Or if she could just get to a telephone she could try to find Farmer. Maybe he had checked in to one of the other hotels. Or she could call Camp Patriot. But it could take hours to get someone out here. If the attack on and closing of the St. Marin Inn had anything to do with Anti-American sentiment after the bombing out in the desert, JT and Dani were in incredible danger just being in town.

Sara had never suffered from indecision in Mexico. But here in the Middle East the game was different. So much different she found herself frozen in place, unable to decide on a plan of action.

Mentally, she shook herself.
Just get moving! Anything is better than standing here and calling attention to yourself.
She skirted the hotel and race-walked down the rough, sand-hewn street towards the next hotel, wondering what she’d find when she got there.

The Sinai Grande was open, white light spilling out of the large front doors. The sun had not risen yet, so she was surprised to see a bit of movement inside the lobby. A woman dressed in a simple black and white uniform answered a phone behind the counter and two European men in athletic wear passed her on their way out the door.

Sara approached the counter, still not sure what she was going to ask for. The lone hotel employee faced her and smiled. “May I help you ma’am?” she asked in Arabic.

“Yes, thank you. My business associate has been displaced and I am trying to find him. Could you tell me if he has registered at this hotel?”

The woman faltered slightly before she answered and Sara knew why. Dressed in the dirty niqab, she looked like a local, and not someone who would have a business associate at any of the hotels. But what could she do? With a name like Farmer she couldn’t claim he was her husband or a relation, not without drawing further suspicion.

“Certainly, his name?”

“Mitch Farmer,” Sara told her, enunciating carefully to keep her American accent off of these American words.

Now the woman’s eyes narrowed, telling Sara everything she needed to know about the current attitude of the town. She needed damage control, and fast. She leaned in conspiratorially to the woman and whispered “I hate working with the Americans. They are so demanding and horrible. And my boss hates them too, but he says we must humor them for now. Until …” She leaned back and looked around as if conveying a great secret. Then she brought her hand to her face and bit the side of her right forefinger, using a simple, threatening gesture her mother had used occasionally when she was really upset. A memory of her father lightly teasing her mother for using it surfaced in her mind, hurting her heart a little bit.

The woman nodded, satisfaction on her face. “Just a moment,” she told Sara, turning to her computer. “No.” She shook her head, looking up from her computer. “No Farmer here. But the Americans have all left town anyway.”

Sara thanked her, her heart sinking.
What now? If only she could use a telephone.
She wondered briefly if it would be smart to bribe the woman to let her use the phone to make an outside call. Probably not. Once the woman heard her speaking English, she would be even more suspicious. But then an idea hit her.

“Miss,” she said. “I stayed in this hotel last week, and I left my cell phone charger. Do you have a lost and found?”

The woman nodded, doubtfully. “Yes, but only the manager is supposed to access it. He is not at work yet.”

Sara dug in her bag, praying the woman had a family to feed. Her fingers closed on her small coin purse and opened it. She drew out about half of the bills in there, and laid them on the table, under her sleeve, not sure if there were cameras behind her recording their movements.

She spread the bills and watched the woman’s eyes track them. She knew how much money she had, and this should be close to a thousand Egyptian pounds. A month’s salary or more for this woman.

“Could I just have a look in it? It’s very important to me.”

The woman nodded jerkily, her eyes never leaving the money. She motioned for Sara to sit in a cream-colored chair in the lobby. “I will be right back.”

The woman disappeared quickly, then returned carrying a box the size of a microwave. She eyed Sara over the top of the box and Sara held the money out in a closed fist. The woman made it disappear and placed the box on the table in front of her. “You have one minute,” she said, tucking imaginary strands of wayward hair behind both ears. She turned, still patting her hair, and disappeared behind the front desk.

Sara pawed through the tangle of chargers, extension cords, headphones, batteries, cell phones, and binoculars. She found 6 chargers  that seemed to fit the hole in her satellite phone, then almost as an afterthought, took a few of the cell phones on top as a backup, not that they were likely to work this far out in the desert. But at this point, even the long shots were worth going for.

Sara left the box and headed for the front door, eying the clerk at the counter as she did so. Her back was turned. Sara ducked quickly into the bathroom, cradling the electrical equipment in her hands and noting every electrical outlet she saw in the hallway on the way there. Inside the bathroom the first thing she did was look for a window, an exit. The empty bathroom had one that pushed out instead of raising up. Sara unlatched it and tried it. It swung out onto the night air. The lightening streaks across the sky in the East told her it would soon be morning. But it opened and if she needed a quick getaway, it would do. Sara could see only darkness past the window, but she knew this side of the hotel opened into a large, empty field made of sand, with the open desert beyond.

Now she needed an electrical outlet. A quick glance told her there weren’t any at the sink, or any she could see on the wall. She moved a plastic trash can.
Bingo!
Sara dropped to her knees, laid the chargers and phones out in front of her, and dug the satellite phone out of her bag. She tried all the chargers in the little charging hole on the side of the phone. Only 2 actually fit. She said a short, casual prayer and plugged in the one that was still seated in the hole. Nothing happened. The phone didn’t catch on fire or make a sound. But no lights came on either. Holding back curse words in her head she ripped the charger out of the hole. But as she did, the lights behind the numbers lit up momentarily. Holding her breath, a huge PLEASE WORK painted across her mind, she gingerly plugged the charger back in. Outside the window, she heard a man yelling off in the distance. Dimly, some part of her registered it and marked it, and hoped it had nothing to do with Dani and JT. As she plugged the charger back in, the lights came on briefly again. She wiggled the charger in the hole and found she was able to keep the lights on by pushing the charger as far up as it would go. So it didn’t
quite
fit, but it could work.
Thank you Jesus
, Sara mouthed. Just to be sure, she tried the other charger, but it didn’t work at all. So back to the
could work
one.

Sara finagled it and got the phone to turn on. She pressed a button and heard the soft lilt of ringing in her ear. She was about to say another impromptu prayer when the phone on the other end clicked in her ear and Agent Farmer spoke, sounding anxious and sleepy, like she had just woken him from a horrible dream. “Sara?”

“Where are you?” she asked, knowing there was no time for playing catch up.

She heard things falling and crashing to the ground in the background. “You’re alive,” he said. “And the hostages?”

Sara could almost see him putting on his glasses in the dark. “Aren’t hostages anymore. Where are you?” she repeated.

“I’m 20 miles out of town. I would have stayed but the hotel threw out all the American tourists yesterday and none of the others would take us. I paid a guide to take me in. I’m sleeping in his camel barn. At least I think that’s what it is. There’s no camel but it smells like camel.”

And just like that, Sara was sorry for every miserable thought she’d ever had about Agent Farmer. Maybe he just took a while to warm up. But he hadn’t left. And now Dani and JT had a chance.

“Mitch, how quick can you get here?”

“Hold on.” She heard more noises in the background. “I see the car. It’s outside. I’ll get Khalid to drive me. 30 minutes. Where?”

Sara stood up and thought hard, the swiftly-rising morning light filling her eyes through the window. Here? The St. Marin Inn? Here. They wouldn’t look quite as out of place if they waited for him near this hotel. She hoped. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but nearly dropped the phone out of her nerveless fingers as something far off in the field was revealed by the rising sun.

A Black Hawk helicopter sat big as life and twice as scary, its rotors drooping towards the ground. It was either good news, or very, very bad news. Sara’s gut told her it was the latter. And she always listened to her gut.

Dani wriggled in her uncle’s grip. He’d weaved a hand under her arm from the front, then across her back and tangled into her hair with a deadly grip. The pain in her side and her head fell away, deferring to the pain in her heart. Her flesh and blood, her father’s
brother
had just threatened to shoot her. Was probably planning on ultimately shooting her no matter what. And after all this time, she hadn’t learned a thing about
why
. What could possibly be bad enough that he would do something like this?