Prince Incognito (8 page)

In spite of his best efforts to stay on his feet, he found himself knocked to his knees by the concussive force, gripping his head, fighting against the flashes that shot through his skull, the brilliant glare of the grenades shrieking through his thoughts.

Rocking forward, he caught himself with his hands, and flinched back as the hot sun scorched his palms.

“You’re all right,” Lily
soothed him, her voice echoing from far away, though he knew she stood right beside him. She held his shoulders and pulled him back, her small hands tugging him from the brink of panic.

He swallowed back his nausea and tried to get a handle on what was happening.

The burning, searing scent of the explosions assaulted him, and the tinny sound of the Lydian national anthem tinkled like
a tightly wound music box between his ears.

The princesses—his younger sisters! He had to reach them! They didn’t know anything about surviving an ambush. He had to find them.

A blast rocked his body and he grasped the air in front of him, expecting to encounter limestone walls.

There was nothing but arid desert air.

Throwing his head back, he let loose an anguished scream
with all that was in him, but still the sound was not loud enough to drown out the terror of the attacks that echoed through his mind.

He screamed again and staggered to his feet. He had to reach his sisters. He had to save them! He stumbled forward.

“Alec?” Lily’s voice was patient as she ran along beside him, sprinting to keep up. “Alexander?”

He stopped and shook his head.
“I am, aren’t I?”

She nodded.

“They’re gone?”

“Who?”

“My sisters, my parents—ough!” He cried out again. “My brother, Thaddeus, has been missing for six years.” He shook his head, shook his whole body, as though if he could rattle his jumbled brain enough, all the missing pieces might fall back into place. His jaw clenched as the memories surfaced. “General Bardici wants
to know where he is.”

He flinched as though he’d been struck, then fell to his feet again, the sharp pain against his back nearly enough to make him pass out.

Yes.

He
had
passed out, had awakened in a blur on an airplane bound for home. The needles had pierced his arms with a drug-induced promise.
You won’t remember. You were never tortured. You were never struck. The scars on
your back are from a childhood tangle with a house cat.
He peeled back the whitewashed words, revealing the lies for what they really were.

He looked up at Lillian, who stood over him with concern knitting her brow.

“Could you look at my back? Are there scars there?”

She didn’t move. “Not scars. Scabs. They’ll scab over eventually, but they’re still fresh. I saw them when we
were on the boat.”

“How old would you judge them to be?”

“Less than two weeks, maybe even less than one week old. Do you recall how you got them?”

“Could they have been caused by a house cat?”

Lily shook her head and extended her bare arms toward him. “I’ve made it a habit of trying to rescue every stray that’s ever crossed my path.” A filigree of white lines etched through
her tanned skin like the gossamer threads of a spider’s web. “That was no house cat that sliced your back, not even a wildcat or lion. You look as though you were beaten.”

“Whipped?”

“Quite likely.” Pain knit her features. “Do you remember now what happened?”

He eased himself to his feet, the memories settling into place, though he didn’t like any of them. They were ugly, evil
things, and if he’d had any choice in the matter, he might have opted to suppress them again. But he needed that knowledge, needed it desperately if he was going to have any chance righting the wrongs against his family. “More than I’d like to.”

Alexander plodded forward, a thousand times more determined to get out of the desert. He had somewhere he needed to be. In fact, he was long overdue.
“What do you suppose the penalty is for whipping the heir to the throne of Lydia?”

* * *

Lily hurried to keep up with the soldier’s angry strides, trying to make sense of the scattered memories he’d flung at her. “Is that who you are, then?”

“I was, before my family was attacked. We’ve got to get back there. We’ve wasted so much time.”

“Do you think they’ve unseated your
family? How do you know all of this, all of a sudden?” Her heart pounded inside her, a thousand questions raining down through the desert air. Was he really a prince? He’d been whipped? And what
had
become of his family?

Alec met her questions with a question. “What day is today?”

“It’s Saturday evening.”

“The ambush on the motorcade was just last night—Friday night?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe there’s still time,” he muttered, then took a deep breath and explained. “Eight days ago, your uncle, General David Bardici, called me into his office in Benghazi. I’ve been deployed there with my unit on a humanitarian mission. I thought he wanted to check on the progress of our work, but he immediately started asking me questions about my brother’s disappearance.”

“Your brother,
Thaddeus?” Lily tried to keep up, not only with the soldier’s furious progress across the sand, but the suddenly complex story that had unraveled all around them. In the midst of her struggle to put the pieces together, her heart shouted loudly,
he’s a prince! He’s a prince!

“Yes. He’s the oldest, the only heir to the throne in line ahead of me. Six years ago, he and his best friend, Kirk,
went sailing. Kirk returned alone. No one has heard from my brother since then.”

Lily panted as she jogged along. She’d caught some of that story on the national news. “Kirk—he was accused of murdering your brother, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, but there was no body. No evidence my brother was actually dead.” Alec paused, and for the first time seemed to realize how much Lily was panting. He
pulled the canteen off his shoulder and handed it to her. “You look like you could use a drink.”

“Thank you.” She tipped the bottle back and forced herself to sip slowly of the precious liquid, even while she came to grips with what Alec told her. He was a prince. Her heart burned with the realization, and she realized she had gotten far closer to him than she likely should have. He was
far out of her league.

Alec continued his explanation. “Kirk was my friend, too. He wouldn’t hurt my brother, and if by accident he did, he would have apologized and explained what had happened. Instead he refused to say what had become of my brother. It made my father absolutely furious. He hasn’t been the same since.”

Lily handed the canteen back, and waited while Alec took a sip.
“Do you know what happened to Thaddeus?”

“No.”

“Why would my uncle think you do? And why, if he thought you knew something, would he wait six years to question you?”

“He didn’t just question me. He tortured me, trying to get the information he wanted.”

“But how could he possibly get away with that? That’s got to be highly illegal.”

Alec’s expression clouded, and he
looked down at his arm.

Lily noticed a faint, faded-yellow bruise inside his elbow.

“He gave me something to make me forget. A drug of some sort.”

“A memory-erasing drug?”

Alec looked uncertain, and offered her the canteen again. “Is there such a thing?”

“Nothing legal.” Lily shook her head, thinking back in time to research rabbit trails she’d followed in her undergrad
studies. “There are drugs that are known to have the effect of erasing short-term memories, but they’ve never been thoroughly researched because their use raises tremendous ethical questions. You can’t mess with people’s memories. Who would do such a thing?”

Alec met her eyes. “Your uncle?”

His words hit her like a slap to the face. Of course. Her evil uncle, who’d had the prince tortured,
who’d put a gun to her head. “I wonder if the effects of the drugs contributed to your amnesia after the attack?”

“I don’t doubt they did. But now that my memory is back, I seem to have tapped into those memories, as well.” Alec screwed the lid back into place on the canteen and nodded in the direction of their march. As they headed off again, he explained his theory. “That uncle of yours
is up to something—something huge. This ambush on the motorcade, torturing and questioning me, it’s all been festering for some time, and now it’s coming to a head.”

She could feel his impatience that he wasn’t in Sardis to squash whatever it was that was rising. “What are we going to do? We’re hundreds of miles from Lydia, and my uncle’s men have been searching for us. If they come back
to the wadi and find the canteen missing, they’ll know we weren’t killed by the rocks or the undertow. Our footprints will lead them straight to us. We can’t risk going back the way we came.”

“We can’t risk doing
anything
that might get us caught again,” Alec agreed. “That should be our first priority. I want to find out what’s happening back home, as well. Who knows what might have become
of my parents and sisters? I can only pray God has kept them safe.” He looked up to the sky, where sickly green twilight crept across the desert from the east, as the sun puddled in a pool of red on the opposite horizon.

“And then,” he panted, “
somehow,
we’ve got to get back to Sardis.”

Lily shuddered at the thought. “But, Alec? The last time you were there, you were ambushed. They
tried to kill you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Until your uncle and his coconspirators are brought to justice, things are only going to get worse.” He continued his march southeast.

Lily had no choice but to follow, though her breath caught as his ominous words clenched like fingers around her heart. Their situation was already dire enough. She couldn’t imagine it
possibly getting any worse.

SEVEN

L
illian wanted to give the prince all the time he needed to sort out his recovered memories. She was having enough difficulty absorbing the reality that he was a prince. Surely the news was even more shocking to him. But much as she wanted to let him have all the time and space he needed to sort through his thoughts, nonetheless, there were certain tactical details she needed
him to stay on top of.

“You realize Sardis is north of here, don’t you?” She didn’t want to come right out and say it, but they were headed in almost the opposite direction.

“Yes, and what’s in between us? Your uncle’s compound and the Mediterranean Sea. It’s over eight hundred kilometers from Benghazi to Sardis. Traveling by ship, even if we average seven knots, it would take almost
three days to get there.”

“So, if my parents have been in contact with my uncle, they should be headed toward the coast in hopes of reuniting with me, but they won’t make port until late Monday.”

“Do you want to be reunited with your parents?” Alec asked with caution in his voice.

Lily considered the question. “My father obviously called David to the yacht. My parents stood by
and did nothing while my uncle put his gun to my throat.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine trusting them again, and yet, who else do I have?”

“You’re an only child?” Alec asked.

“Yes. I have friends back in the United States, but what use is that to us now? Besides—” she cringed as she admitted the truth “—I don’t have anyone who cares about me enough to help me out of this mess.
My parents always discouraged me from forming close friendships. I’m not particularly close to anyone.”

To her mortification, Alec stopped walking and looked at her.

She couldn’t meet his eyes, but stared at the sand by her feet.

“That sounds lonely.”

The pity in his voice made her wince, though she was certain he was only trying to be kind.

Sympathy filled his words.
“Is that why you were so keen on rescuing strays?”

Mustering the courage to look him in the face, she admitted, “I always thought I wanted to help animals for
their
sake. But when my father’s horses died… .”

Alec bent closer.

She shook her head. The wounds were still too fresh to think about, let alone discuss. “We should get going.”

To her relief, Alec didn’t push the
subject, but pressed onward beside her. “You raise an excellent question, though. We need to figure out how to get to Sardis as quickly as possible.”

“Neither of us has a passport with us,” she reminded him. “I doubt we could cross the border into Egypt, let alone get on a plane to Lydia.”

“A plane would be the fastest way,” Alec agreed, “but you’re exactly right about our odds of
catching one. We lack both the paperwork and the funds.”

“Funds!” She grabbed his arm in her excitement, but quickly remembered that he wasn’t just a soldier. He was a prince. She didn’t have a right to cling to him anymore. She dropped his arm. “You had cash in your pocket. Is it still there?”

Alec fished around in both pockets and pulled out the money clip, complete with a fat wad
of bills.

“That is
real
money, I hope.”

“African dinar.” He spread out the bills. “Several kilo—the equivalent of a few thousand dollars.”

“Do you always carry so much money?” The moment she asked the question, she feared she’d overstepped her bounds, and backpedaled. “You don’t have to answer. You’re a prince, you can carry whatever you want. It’s none of my business.” Embarrassed,
she decided to keep walking.

Alec refolded the notes and tucked them back into his pocket. He hurried after her. “I don’t usually carry this much, but I recently cashed my last paycheck. Anyway, it
is
your business to know. Last I checked we were in this together. You rescued me from the ambush when I didn’t even know my own name.”

“And then I got you recaptured again.”

“How
many times did you bandage my face?”

“Only to let it get soaked in the ocean.” She shrugged. “You aren’t obligated to share anything with me. In fact—” she paused.

“What?”

She reluctantly admitted what she’d been thinking. “Given my connection to the man who had you tortured, perhaps we ought to go our separate ways.”

* * *

Alec plodded through the sand after Lillian,
pondering her suggestion. He didn’t like it. Granted, she had a good point about keeping his distance from any connection to David Bardici, including his niece. But much as he knew, in his head, that her idea made sense, in his heart, he felt it was an awful plan.

If they split up, that would leave her alone and vulnerable. It would leave him alone. Worse than that, it would leave him without
her. And he didn’t want to be without her.

Night fell as they continued on their way, and Alec wrestled with the implications of his response to their situation. He had a duty to get back to Lydia, but he didn’t know what he would find when he arrived there. Perhaps he ought to keep his distance until he knew more about what he was walking into.

“Perhaps,” he suggested after walking
in silence for over an hour, “you and I should stick together, precisely
because
of your connection to the general.”

Lily stumbled, and he offered her the canteen. She looked beat.

“What do you mean?” Her hands shook as she held it to her lips.

“I don’t know what’s going on in Lydia. I don’t know what your uncle is up to. Perhaps the quickest way to find out is through him.”

Swallowing a sip, Lily handed back the canteen and looked thoughtful. Then her face brightened. “I could spy on him for you.”

He couldn’t help but grin at her change of demeanor, but at the same time, he cautioned her. “Your uncle pulled a gun on you last night. I wouldn’t want you to endanger yourself.”

“I could be careful.” She reached toward him as though to grab his arm as
she had so many times during the last twenty-four hours, but then she looked self-conscious and shoved her hands into her pockets. “I could make him think I’ve had a change of heart. If he thought I was on his side, if he thought he could use me to get to you, perhaps, just maybe, I could convince him to reveal his plans to me.”

Alec appreciated her willingness to help, but one thing bothered
him. “Why would you do that for me?”

She looked confused. “I thought you said we were in this together?”

“But David Bardici is your uncle. I’m nothing to you. Why side with me instead of him?”

“You’re the rightful prince. Your family was unjustly attacked by
my uncle
—the same man who put a gun to my throat.”

“Do you think he had any intention of pulling the trigger?”

The shadows that flitted across her face looked all the more haunted in the moonlight. “Was the safety on or off?”

Alec didn’t have to think. He recalled that detail with clarity. Though he’d replayed the scene in his mind a hundred times, wishing he’d simply ripped the gun from the general’s hands, it would have been too risky under the circumstances. Lily could have been shot too easily,
and he wasn’t about to take chances on her life. Instead, he’d been forced to submit to the general’s demands. “Off.”

“So, he could have shot me. He could have stumbled when the boat rocked, or he could have twitched a little too much and I’d be dead?”

Unable to say the words out loud, Alec simply nodded.

“Then how can you ask why I’m siding with you over him?” she shouted into
the empty night. “You pulled me out of the ocean when my leg was caught by the rope. You swung me around the precipice and didn’t let me drop. You’re sharing your water with me, even though keeping it to yourself would mean getting to civilization without dying of dehydration first.”

She took a step closer and looked up into his face. “I owe you, Alec. I owe you for my life. More than that,
my uncle threatened me, he tortured you. He deserves to pay. Are we in this together?”

Alec had to grin at Lillian’s angry pledge of loyalty to him. “There’s no one else I’d rather have on my side.” He thought the words sounded corny when he spoke them, but as he hurried to keep up with Lily’s determined march across the desert, he realized he meant them.

The cool of the desert night
was a small comfort as their trek grew longer, stretching on for endless miles, and the canteen he wore across his torso grew lighter as they emptied it. Soon they would be out of water. There was no sign of shelter ahead to keep the glaring sun off them during the heat of the day. A soldier couldn’t make it more than a day in the desert without water. Lillian, in her exhausted condition, unaccustomed
as she was to desert heat, wouldn’t make it a fraction that long.

Alec swallowed back a sense of guilt. He hadn’t led Lily into the desert to die. They’d had no choice—not unless they wanted to be captured by her uncle again.

The knot of guilt tightened in his chest. If they hadn’t fled from David Bardici, Lillian would have a better chance of surviving. Would her uncle have tortured
her? He couldn’t know for sure, but their trek through the desert had to be torture enough for her.

The fine grains of sand shifted under his every step, fluctuating like his thoughts. Was it wise for them to head into the desert, not knowing when they might find water again? Or should he, for Lillian’s sake, let them be captured again? At least then she’d probably get food and water.

But then, he didn’t have the right to barter with his own life. He had a duty to the Lydian crown, and that duty hastened his every step. He couldn’t let them be recaptured. He had to find his family.

Ridges of sand barred their path like small walls, each one an obstacle to be vaulted. Lillian had valiantly hurdled hundreds of them, but as the night wore on the formations grew more
dramatic, the barriers higher. She wavered visibly as she faced a ridge of sand that came up past her knees.

Alec scooped her up in his arms, settling her back on her feet on the other side.

She made no sound but held on to him for just a second as she regained her balance. Her eyes met his, and she mouthed a thank-you before plodding on.

After a few more steps they met another
ridge, and Alec lifted her over this one, as well.

Ridge after ridge, the sand, swept by endless desert winds, rippled ever higher, almost as though the desert resented their progress, as though the sand itself was trying to bar their way, and prevent them from going any farther. Alec knew enough of the North African sky to keep them headed southeast, as the stars waltzed a slow dance through
the heavens in a timeless pattern that had guided many a desert caravan over the ages.

When they reached a ridge as high as Lily’s waist, Alec did his best to swing his leg over, to step gracefully in spite of his exhaustion, but he underestimated the sand barrier, or overestimated his strength. Somehow, he caught his hip on the ridge and they tumbled down the soft side to the valley below.

He lay as he had landed, the sand prickling the scars on the left side of his face, the fine grains spilling into his nostrils, his ears, his eyes. It already filled his boots and every inch of his clothing, covering him, claiming him, threatening to bury him alive.

Lily crawled over and wiped his right cheek clear of sand. “Maybe we should just rest here for now.” Her words slurred
with exhaustion.

Alec closed his eyes, his body relaxing into the sand, the breeze pattering fine grains against them. If they stayed put, they’d be buried soon enough. “If your uncle sends men to check the wadi again, if any of our footprints weren’t filled in with sand, and they realize we’re headed south…” He paused to moisten his mouth, the words sticking in the dry heat. “They could
come after us by helicopter, or on camels or horseback. It wouldn’t take long for them to catch up to us. We’ll be easy enough to spot in the open desert.”

“Then we should get going,” Lily said, but didn’t move.

“If they catch up to us, they’ll have water. He’s your uncle. You’ll be safe.”

Her mouth hung open just a moment before she closed it against the blowing sand. “What
about you? He’ll torture you again.”

“Will he? I might be able to escape. If I die out here, I won’t be any help to my family.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“Maybe we should go back toward the wadi. At least there we had water.”

“No. We wouldn’t make it anyway.” She swallowed. “Not before the sun rises.”

“What are we headed toward?”

“The blowing sand I saw.”

“Was it a mirage?”

She lay silent in the sand for several long moments, until Alec began to fear she’d passed out from dehydration.

But then the stubborn woman spoke. “I’d rather die chasing a dream than giving up. The Rising Sun Horse Race runs somewhere ahead of us. As long as our trail leads toward it, I have hope. If we turn around—” her voice stilled, and it took her several
moments to muster up the strength to finish her thought “—my uncle wins.”

Alec understood. Pride and affection rose inside him, that Lillian would fight so valiantly, that she’d struggle on against all odds. He pushed himself to his knees, then to standing. When she clambered up next to him he held out his hand to help her up, and met her eyes.