“There’re no more answers here,” Kate said grimly. She strode over to the bike that lay eight feet away from the corpse. A worn leather bag hung over the seat. She opened it, her expression grim, and pulled out a water bottle and a cell phone. “A disposable phone,” she said, turning it on. “Nothing.”
Emir came up beside her. “What are you saying? That he’s not one of the kidnappers?”
“I don’t think so, but he’s obviously not innocent. He knows something and it seems like he was trying to prevent us from going any farther.”
“We’re not finished here yet,” Emir said grimly. “Let’s go back. Maybe there’re answers there.” He shrugged in the direction of the other downed biker.
Five minutes later they were at the body of the second biker. Like the first, he was dead. But, unlike the first, they didn’t recognize him at all and he carried nothing but his pistol, a water jug and an extra magazine for his weapon.
Kate stood and took a step back.
The wind was quickly picking up and already it was whipping at their clothes and driving sand into their faces. Emir slipped his sunglasses on and she did the same.
“We’re going to have to leave him here,” he said with a final look at the body. “I’ll alert Zaf when the satellite connects again.” The satellite had been down since they’d begun this leg of their journey.
His heart was pounding. No matter how many times he was in a gun battle, he never liked them because the outcome always meant someone was going to die. Yet, when he looked over at Kate, he saw the flush on her cheeks and a slight curve to her lips, as if she was about to smile.
As the wind whipped a strand of hair across her face and she turned to look at him with eyes that sang with excitement, he realized that, no matter how much he disliked killing, there was one thing he’d never admitted. That it was eclipsed by the heady power of the afterglow, of being the one still alive. They might have killed two men but the alternative was that they would have been killed themselves. The silent communication between them had reminded him of that and he knew in that moment he couldn’t have asked for a better partner.
They drove in silence for a while. Their only goal was to get as close to the oasis undetected as they could before night came or the storm hit—whichever came first.
The ringing of the satellite phone made Kate jump. “We’re back in business,” she said with relief in her voice.
Emir picked up the phone before the second ring ended. “What do you have?”
“Ed hasn’t been working security like he led us to believe. In fact, I’m not sure what he’s been doing. I’m doing more digging. Two things. First, I think Tara’s kidnappers are on to us,” Zafir said. “They haven’t followed up with any additional demands. I’m getting worried and I think it was a mistake to go after them.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Emir said and frustration wove through the words.
“Okay, look, keep your eyes open. You’ve got bigger trouble coming. There’s a sandstorm forecasted. You need to take shelter. Weather reports look like you might have another clear hour, maybe less.”
“Less. It’s starting up already.” Emir’s tone gritted. He told Zafir what had happened and about the bodies they’d left behind.
“Give me your coordinates,” Zafir growled. “I don’t like any of this”
A minute later Emir turned to Kate. “We’re going to have to camp for the night.” It was something they’d both known for a while now. “If we didn’t suspect we were heading into a storm, Zaf’s confirmed it.”
The earlier excitement was gone. Kate’s full lips were tight with tension. She gripped the dash, staring out over the desert with a grim look as if he’d sentenced her to life instead of one night.
And he knew her worry, knew it tenfold, for it meant his sister must spend one more night alone with her kidnappers.
His jaw tightened as he navigated a rut. The Jeep bounced and the tires spun as they hit hard, flat sand. As they came out of the dip, the wind began to whip around them. They had no choice. They didn’t stand a chance in unfamiliar terrain in a sandstorm.
Emir shifted the Jeep down a gear and veered left, taking the dune that loomed ahead at an angle, as it was steeper than any of the others they had yet to encounter. Straight-on and he could visualize the rollover that would follow. They were close to the oasis. According to Kate’s last coordinates, less than ten miles away.
“We need shelter!” Kate yelled five minutes later over the roar of the wind. “We can’t go any farther.” Sand pelted the vehicle and it was getting more and more difficult to see. But, according to the map, there were sandstone cliffs on the other side of this ridge. Before they’d been attacked, they’d been taking it slow, scouting the area—noting the weaknesses, the strengths, buying time. Now they were about to be swallowed in the storm if they didn’t get to shelter quickly. Just as that thought ran through his mind, the first shot rang out.
“What the—?” Kate bit off the rest of her comment as she swung around in the direction of the shot, her gun in her hand and crouching in her seat, taking what cover she could.
Emir swerved right then left, taking them dangerously close to a rollover. He looked over at Kate who was on her knees as she put herself in a position to defend them both. He couldn’t have asked for a better person to ride shotgun.
“Go left,” Kate shouted over the din of the Jeep’s engine and the wind. “I think they’re using that break to the right between the dunes.” She glanced left. “This storm is going to be our cover pretty soon.”
He couldn’t agree with that assessment more, but all he could do now was get them as far away as possible.
She was firing blindly through the partially opened window, but there was only a distant shot returned and that indicated that the shooter might be on foot.
“So much for sneaking in,” Emir said, his hands clenching the wheel as he realized what this could mean.
“We’ll work around it, Emir.” She looked at him with lips tight. She was perched on the seat as if poised to launch. They were over a mile from the first shot and, through the waves of sand and gusts of wind, he could see the rise of a hill to their right. The storm had intensified and was now driving sand so thick that there was no going much farther. They were as far away as the storm would allow.
They were so close to Tara and yet so far.
“There.” Kate pointed as a bank of low-rise cliffs appeared to their right.
“It should work,” he agreed as he fought to keep the Jeep moving in the right direction. The sand was beginning to act like water as it moved with the wind that churned it.
The visibility had rapidly decreased. Some storms could come out of nowhere, swallowing you in a sea of sand, while others were slower moving and, often, longer lasting. This one wasn’t hitting them out of nowhere but it was rapidly getting worse.
Within minutes he had the Jeep angled in the direction the wind was coming from, using it to act as a barrier.
“We’ll set up the tent beside the Jeep,” he said. “We could stay in the Jeep if I thought this thing was going to blow over quickly, but all signs look like it might run through the night.” A gust of wind hammered him from behind, pushing him forward. He looked at Kate, who was struggling to double her ponytail to keep it from whipping against her face. The scarf she’d been using had blown away minutes ago.
They wrestled with the tent to get the anchor lines secured.
Finally, inside the tent, Kate shivered,