distance. The whole atmosphere reminded him of an opium den he’d once visited in his rougher days.
“They’ve been drugged.” Tarik came up behind him, whispering low. “We expected something like this. But it will make it tough leading them to freedom in their condition.”
Tarik spun in a circle and counted heads. “Have you spotted her yet?”
“She isn’t here.” Shakir didn’t know whether to be relieved or panicked.
He went with standby mode. “Take these four and move out. I’ll keep looking.”
Tarik nodded and silently crept away toward the closest woman. Shakir was grateful that his brother had not mentioned the obvious. Time would not allow an extensive search. If he didn’t locate Nicole soon, the extraction choppers would leave without them.
As he flipped the NVGs back over his eyes and moved into darkness, Shakir’s lifetime of training overruled his all-too-human mind. Long ago he had developed the instincts of a predator. A hunter. He would use those instincts now to locate his former lover.
And he would not allow himself to dwell on the other possibilities. He would not consider the chance that Nicole may have already been sold into slavery. Or that the Taj elder might have picked her out for his own household. Or that she had already been accidently given a lethal overdose of the drugs.
Shutting out any of those potential pitfalls, he moved swiftly. Those thoughts were inconceivable and therefore they did not exist.
Not for the hunter.
“Your plan is too dangerous, miss. Please reconsider.” The old handmaiden’s shoulders were rounded and bent and her ancient eyes watery. But her sharp gaze seemed bright with intelligence, good sense and a healthy dose of fear.
Nikki Olivier went against her better judgment and hugged the woman. “I must go tonight, Lalla. I cannot manage another day of pretending to take the drugs. The guards will soon uncover my stash of unused pills and you and I will both suffer the consequences.”
“But if given another day or two …” The old woman continued with her pleading. “The moonlight will guide your way to the coastal village of Sadutan. The Zabbarán desert is full of dangers on moonless nights, but you dare not travel during the day.”
The old woman named Lalla had done so much for her. Grateful, Nikki wanted to ask about her nationality in order to carry a message back to her family. Nikki had grown curious about where the old woman had originally come from before she’d been bound into slavery. Her accent sounded eastern European, but Lalla spoke both French and English fairly well, along with a generous knowledge of the language of her captors. How long had this poor soul been a household slave for the Taj elder?
Nikki decided to keep her questions to herself. She did not wish to share her own secrets and asking curious questions could only bring trouble.
“I have a broad knowledge of astronomy, Lalla. I shall have little difficulty navigating by the stars.”
Lalla opened her mouth, then shut it again without any more words of caution. “Here is the boot polish, miss. Your nose requires another coat.”
Nikki rubbed the foul stuff over the bridge of her nose. The boot polish mixed with soot that she’d used as a disguise had turned her skin a warm brown. She wiped her hands, pulled her precious map from the folds of her robes and moved closer to the nearest light source, wanting to study her route.
Going to Sadutan was not her plan. But she didn’t want anyone, not even Lalla, to know her true destination. If, after she was gone, the Taj elder tortured Lalla for information, the old woman would be unable to tell him anything useful.
What a dismal thought. Nikki couldn’t help feeling guilty and tried once again to plead her case. “Please come with me, Lalla. I beg you. Do not stay behind.”
Lalla dropped her gaze to the floor in an imitation of the way Taj women behaved. “It is too late for me. Too many years have passed. If God wishes to bring me home, I am ready to go.”
The old woman was talking about dying. Suicide by torture. Nikki felt fresh tears threatening to ruin her makeup job but she held them back. She had to stay strong.
“You are young and you have a mission yet to accomplish,” Lalla added more forcefully than Nikki would’ve thought possible. “A mission best undertaken alone. Someone waits for you to change destiny. You must succeed in those efforts.”
Now how could she know that? How could this old woman possibly know that Nikki had voluntarily come to Zabbarán to search for her son? She had told no one.
Thinking back on the whole sordid story of arriving in Zabbarán expecting to find a new job waiting for her as promised, only to be thrust into a dank cave-like prison with five other women, was not something Nikki did often. She didn’t know what the Taj elder had in mind for her future now but knew it wouldn’t include a legitimate job.
She’d come to Zabbarán with high hopes of locating her baby, and she would find him, or die in the attempt.
Truthfully, Nikki’s first unforgiveable mistake had been in trusting her Parisian neighbor to watch her little boy while she went to work. That mistake had been the start of this journey through hell.
But, in her own defense, she’d been desperately poor at the time and her child had needed food and a place to live. After her father died, Nikki was left with no choice but to go to work. And there had been no friends or family to babysit her son while she worked.
Still, in retrospect, that seemed like a lame excuse. But at the time she was trying to be a good parent. The neighbor woman had actually seemed rather sweet and was good with children. She was kind. And, she already watched over other children from their building.
Nikki had checked around for another job, desperate to find a different solution. Eventually, she’d given in and handed over her five-year-old boy for eight hours a day to a woman she barely knew.
Then the day arrived when Nikki came home to find her son, the neighbor and all the neighbor’s possessions gone. It was her worst day—in a lifetime filled with bad days.
Nikki flew straight to the Paris police who looked at her as if she had sprouted wings. “Sorry, madame. We will take the report. But many children disappear each year in Paris. Not many are ever found. We will do our best.”
Fighting hysteria and with no one to help her, Nikki beat on every door in her apartment building, searching for anyone with information. Her tears did not open any mouths, but eventually she sank to threatening people with bodily harm. That bought her a little information.
She was told the neighbor who’d disappeared with her baby had bragged about selling two of her charges to a desperate middle-eastern couple. The couple supposedly had wanted sons and were willing to pay a fortune to obtain them. Greed. Her son was taken from her because of greed. The more she thought of it, the more it made her sick to her stomach.
Nikki also learned that the middle-eastern couple claimed to be from a small town in the newly freed country of Zabbarán. She rushed back to the police with the news. They took the information and shrugged. Then they suggested she hire a private detective.
Too low on funds to consider such a solution and now frantic with worry, Nikki badgered everyone she met for ideas on how to get her son back. Eventually she was introduced to a man, who knew of a man, who was recruiting westerners for jobs in the new country of Zabbarán. She’d jumped at the prospect.
The next thing she knew, she’d landed in this horrible place. If it hadn’t been for Lalla …
“You must adjust the moustache, miss.”
Nikki refolded her map and put it away before pressing down against the smattering of dark hair she’d glued to her upper lip. “How is the disguise?”
“You will not fool anyone for long. Your feminine figure stands out even under the manly robes.