The Sheik's Command(2)

The only safe way out of Al Na’Jar was through that military blockade, through that palace. Her kids were dying. She had to do this.

She inhaled deeply, sucking down fear as she continued to move toward the tanks, arms held out wide. Mirrored sunglasses winked at her from beneath the soldiers’ helmets, the dark snouts of their automatic weapons poking above the battle machinery, every muzzle trained on her. A fly buzzed around her head.

She didn’t dare swat at it.

Then as Nikki took another step she crossed some invisible line and the soldiers tensed collectively. Someone screamed in Arabic for her to stay back or they would shoot.

Nikki’s heart blipped, and for a second she wavered.

Think of the children. Save the children.

If she failed them now, then she would fail herself. She’d be worth nothing and might as well cease to exist entirely.

Clenching her jaw, gaze riveted on the tanks, Nikki took one more tentative step forward. And a soldier fired.

The slug pinged near her feet, showering her with tar.

She froze. “I mean no harm!” she yelled in Arabic. “I have come to see His Royal Highness, Sheik Zakir Al Arif of Al Na’Jar!”

A flurry of movement told Nikki they’d heard from her voice that she was female. And foreign.

All turned deadly silent.

Heat pressed down.

Nikki moistened her cracked lips as she tried to summon the mental calm she’d depended on while performing operations, back in her other life when she was still a surgeon. “I am a nurse!” she called out. “I come only in peace! I need humanitarian aid and safe passage for a group of sick children.”

Silence hung heavy, broken only by desert wind rustling through palm fronds.

Carefully telegraphing her movements, Nikki reached up, removed her sunglasses, dropping them with a clatter to the hot road. Next she unwound her dark turban, letting it fall to her feet. Long hair tumbled down about her shoulders, gleaming like spun gold under the hazy red sun. She held her arms out again, shaking inside. “I am an American!” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “I work with Mercy Missions, a UNICEF organization. I come in peace!”

There was another ripple of movement among the troops, and a lone soldier edged his helmeted head above a tank. He barked an order in crisp Arabic, instructing Nikki to set her dagger on the road. She unsheathed her jambiya, crouched down and placed it at her feet.

The soldier then ordered her to place proof of identity alongside the dagger and once she had done so to walk backward a hundred yards, then wait. If she moved, they would kill her.

Nikki removed her passport and nursing papers from a pouch beneath her belt. She placed the documents on the road next to her dagger, then walked slowly backward, arms out wide. Heat burned on her uncovered head as she squinted into the burning orange haze.

A portion of razor wire was drawn back from the boulevard and three soldiers approached, automatic weapons trained on her.

A pearl of sweat trickled down her belly under her robe as she waited.

One of the soldiers retrieved her documents, quickly flipped through them. He glanced up at her, then nodded curtly.

The second soldier frisked Nikki, found her pistol, disarmed her and removed the clip. Her turban was then shoved back into her hands, and with angry gestures she was ordered to recover her head.

Hands shaking, Nikki fumbled to drape the indigo cloth over her hair like a veil, flipping the fabric over her mouth and nose, leaving only her now-naked eyes exposed.

With the business end of a rifle pressed into the small of her back she was marched toward the blockade.



It was much cooler inside the palace, under the soaring mosaic arches and high domes of stained glass. But after weeks out in the desert—she’d lost count of how many—Nikki felt trapped, edgy.

The guards ushered her along a labyrinth of marbled passageways and into a large chamber. The double doors thudded brusquely behind her. She heard a bolt being driven home across the outside.

Prisoner.

Claustrophobia tightened her chest. Slowly she turned, taking in her surroundings. Marbled keyhole arches opened onto a high-walled garden lush with citrus trees and flowers. Stone fountains carved in the shapes of lions’ heads tinkled water into pools and birds darted between sweet-scented orange blossoms. Nikki hadn’t seen songbirds in a long time and the sound of water forced her to swallow reflexively, a potent reminder of the thirst she’d been desperately trying to ignore.

The design of the palace was similar to the Moorish architecture she’d seen in Marrakech and Casablanca. Morocco bordered Al Na’Jar to the north, and Nikki had visited the country on her honeymoon—before she’d had the twins.

When her name used to be Alexis Etherington.