Date with a Surgeon Prince(48)

Too tired and upset to argue, Tasnim dressed, then lay down to sleep—on the floor, not on a mattress.

She was still asleep when Manir heard the engine of a vehicle break the endless silence in which they’d lived since they’d reached the shelter.

‘Come on, we’re moving you,’ Fawzi announced, when Marni met him outside the hut.

‘Did you hear me calling? Tasnim’s ill. She has a rash across her stomach and it could be affecting the baby. She needs to get back to town and see her doctor.’

‘No can do,’ Fawzi said, although Hari looked only too happy at the idea of getting rid of their captives. ‘But it won’t be much longer,’ Fawzi continued. ‘The imposter has our letter of demand and he’ll be giving in any minute now.’

‘The imposter? You mean Ghazi? Why is he an imposter?’

‘Because he took the throne from our brother,’ Hari said, apparently repeating a lesson Fawzi had drummed into him.

‘But I heard Nimr didn’t want the job,’ Marni argued.

‘He should still have taken it,’ Fawzi said. ‘It was his birthright.’

‘Well, I don’t understand the politics of your country and even if I did I’d have no right to comment, but it’s silly to be standing out here in the heat. Tasnim’s asleep so we can’t leave yet, but if you move around the side into the shade I’ll bring you some mint tea and biscuits.’

Hari, appearing only too happy to indulge in tea and biscuits, led the way, and Fawzi followed, though, Marni felt, more reluctantly.

She set everything out on a makeshift tray and joined them in the shade, knowing it would be to their advantage if she could make friends with the young men, rather than hitting them on their heads with rocks.

And as they talked, relaxing quickly as young people did, she realised just how much they loved their country, especially the desert.

‘I’ll get some of Fawzi’s photographs to show you,’ Hari offered, when he’d finished his tea.

He raced over to the car, returning with a computer tablet, opening it up at a picture of an Arabian gazelle, a beautiful picture, taken so close up you could see the reflection of the camera in the animal’s eyes.

‘How on earth did you do that?’ she asked, and Fawzi explained that they had many hides in the desert, like this place, only built for photography rather than for shelter.

‘So you’re still hunters, the two of you, but your gun is now a camera?’ she said, and Fawzi looked pleased that she understood.

She slid her fingers across the screen, looking at one photograph after another, amazed at how good they were.

‘You should put these into a book. I had no idea there was so much wildlife in the desert. It would be wonderful publicity for Ablezia.’

‘This is what people are forgetting,’ Hari said. ‘That’s what Fawzi and I don’t like about the way our country is going. People move into the city and lose their interest in the desert, forgetting that the desert is part of their hearts and souls.’

‘I can understand what you mean,’ Marni said, but her visitors’ attention had shifted from her, and as she watched the tension build in their bodies and their heads turn skywards, she heard the distant thud, thud, thud of a helicopter.

‘It’s Nimr, he’s found us,’ Hari said, looking as if he’d like to burrow deep into the sand and disappear.

‘Quick, we have to leave!’ Fawzi stood up and looked ready to flee but couldn’t quite bring himself to haul Marni to her feet.

‘Sit down again,’ she said. ‘You can’t go rushing all over the desert with a helicopter chasing you. That’s only for the movies and even in the movies the vehicle usually crashes. And there’s no way on earth I’d let Tasnim get into the vehicle with you. She’s too far gone in her pregnancy. Stay here, I’ll talk to Nimr. I’ll show him we’re both quite all right and you’ve been very kind to us and that it’s all just been a joke.’

‘Except Fawzi wrote the letter to Ghazi, telling him we had you,’ Hari reminded her.

‘Well, we can get around that too,’ Marni said above the now loud clatter of the helicopter rotors. ‘Ghazi isn’t going to throw you into a dungeon. In fact, I doubt he’ll even throw you into jail. We’ll work something out.’

She didn’t add that he might well have given them a medal for getting rid of her, if his sister hadn’t been involved as well.

Perhaps realising the futility of escape, the young men stayed put, all three of them bending their heads low over their knees as the sand from the rotors kicked up all around them.