Bausari had opened it and fallen to his knees in prayer and gratitude. It would be put to good use, in accordance with Allah's plan. Just as had been prophesied, it had come to light now as the end times approached. He had risked a transmission to Cairo, to tell them.
He didn't know his message had been intercepted by others.
Bausari rose painfully and stretched. Soon enough, the gates of Paradise would open and Allah would welcome his faithful servant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The sun overwhelmed the western sky with fierce reddish light. The view from the mesa took in a vast, wind-swept space of sand and sharp rock that sloped away toward a glinting, far horizon. The light turned the landscape into a vista of stark and hostile beauty. It was still over a hundred degrees.
They rigged the tarp over two boulders, away from the edge of the plateau. Carter cut one of the sleeping bags so it could be opened up like a blanket. He put it on the stretcher. They lifted Harmon onto his makeshift bed and carried him to the improvised shade and huddled out of the sun. At least it was cooler here than on the valley floor.
"We have to ration the water," Selena said. "We need some now."
"Careful sips." Nick handed her the bottle.
She drank. He took the bottle and trickled a little into Harmon's mouth. Dangerous to give him any water, but he would die without it.
"Easy. Just a little." Harmon's forehead felt hot and dry. Carter took two sips for himself and set the bottle down.
"Depp." Harmon's voice was weak, not the voice that could shout across a crowded bar for service and get it. For a second Carter had to remember who he was supposed to be.
"Yeah, Joe."
"This sucks."
"Yeah."
"I’m not going to make it."
"Knock it off. You’ll be fine."
"Yeah, sure." He coughed. "Let my folks know."
"Come on, Joe."
"Promise. You gotta promise."
"Will you shut up if I promise?" He took Harmon's hand and squeezed it. "I promise. Now lie still." Harmon closed his eyes. His breathing was slow and shallow. Carter looked down at Harmon's gray face. Nick had seen that look before, too many times.
"I’m going to look around." He got up and approached the edge of the mesa, got down and crawled to the side. He peered over the edge. The rock dropped straight down, two hundred feet or more. No one would come that way, or leave, either.
He worked his way around the perimeter. Three sides were impassable. On the fourth, the rock sloped away in a narrow, steep incline covered with loose stones. It would be possible to get down here. It would also be possible to get up. Good news and bad news, depending on who did the climbing. At least he knew which way they’d come, if they came.
The light faded and the temperature dropped. The moon rose. Harmon's hand twitched and moved against the ground. Nick sat down next to Selena.
"I’m going to do a little recon. Now’s the best time. There’s almost a full moon. It'll give me enough light."
"Where are you going?"
He pointed. "Back the way we came. It can’t be more than a few miles. We need to find out what we’re up against. We have to do something right now. If we wait here they’ll find us, or the sun and lack of water will get us."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Stand watch where that slope goes down. When I come back I’ll signal so you’ll know it’s me. Like this,"
He made a soft bird call he’d learned as a kid. "Don’t shoot the birdie, okay?"
"How long, you think?"
"Four hours, maybe five. It depends. It’s dark enough for me to go now."
"It’s getting cold."
"We can’t risk a fire. Eat a granola bar if you’re hungry."
"What about you?"
He patted his stomach. "Nah, I’m too fat anyway. I’ve done this before. Don’t worry about me."
She nodded. He went to the edge of the mesa and started down the slope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Selena watched Nick disappear over the edge. She heard a few stones roll away, then nothing.
The night was clear, the moon rising, the sky an ocean of stars. For just a moment she could believe the violence of the day had been no more than a dream, an aberration of her mind. It was so peaceful here, so calm. Looking up at the stars, she wondered how anyone could justify so much hatred and violence in the name of God. Everyone lived under the same sky.
Selena shivered in the chill night air. How fast the heat of the day went away. Restless, she checked on Harmon. He was asleep or unconscious. His forehead burned. She wet a cloth with some of the precious water and draped it over his brow. She sat on the hard ground above the slope.
She thought about their situation. They were almost twenty miles from Taoudenni and the nearest thing resembling civilization, if you could call that miserable place civilized.
If the terrorists didn’t find them they could walk out. They had enough water. But Harmon would never survive an overland journey. He might not even survive a trip to the bottom of the mesa. She realized she thought he would die. She’d seen the same thought on Nick's face as she’d watched him work on Harmon. There had been concern, worry and something incredibly tender in his expression. Love, even.
He’d saved their lives today, made that landing. He’d just done what had to be done. That was his way, no matter what kind of insanity surrounded him. There was plenty of that working with the Project. It scared her, if she thought about it too much. There would be days, even weeks of calm. Then everything would dissolve into violence.
Nick had called her a rookie. It was true, she was a babe in the woods compared to him. Rookie or not, she'd saved his ass more than once already. The thought was comforting.
She gazed at the stars and thought about love. God was supposed to be about love. Why did people forget that and became hateful killers in the name of God? There had to be more to it than the reasons you always heard, like injustice and poverty and envy. Old Testament thinking carried over into modern times.
Maybe it was just fear, the need humans had for control in an uncontrollable world. The need for Rules. The need to know where you were in relation to the universe and other humans. Knowing what you were supposed to do, allowed to do, because someone told you God wanted it that way.
Selena didn't know if God was real, but she didn't believe in the self righteous strictures of dogmatic religion. No God worth the name would inflict such insanity on people. People did a damn good job of that themselves. It didn't need God to make it happen.
For the third time she made sure she had a round chambered in her Glock. It hadn’t changed.
A noise made her start. A loose stone? An animal? There weren’t many animals out here. The desert fox, she knew, the Fennec, a sly, small creature that could go without water for days and somehow survive in this terrible environment. She held the Glock in both hands and peered into the night. The moon cast soft, quiet light, enough to throw shadows and dark shapes everywhere. Was that a rock down there? Did it move?
She looked at the faint glow of her watch. Nick had been gone twenty minutes, a little longer, and it already felt like hours. Sitting in the dim moonlight, grasping the pistol, she let herself realize she was afraid.
Her thoughts drifted. What did she want from life? How had life brought her here, to a corner of earth that resembled hell?
As a little girl her parents had dazzled her with stories from the Arabian Nights. In her fantasies she'd been an exotic princess, surrounded by slaves and large men with swords to protect her, perfumes and mysterious foods, pearls and jewels. It was a good memory.