Lord of the Desert (15 page)

“You have found her! My stepdaughter!” a man with a thick German accent said mockingly. “Let me see her face!”

The man holding Gretchen moved her head so that he had a good look at her. Kurt Brauer cursed hotly. “This is not Brianne!” he said furiously. “They said Brianne was on her way here!”

“It is the American woman who stays with Sabon,” came the reply. “It is said that he means to marry her.”

Brauer's eyes were thorough. “Look at her hands. They have been hennaed. And she came from the direction of the camp. Why, gentlemen,” he added with a cold smile, “I believe we have Mrs. Sabon herself!”

G
retchen came to her senses in a smaller tent than the one she'd left, with a horrible headache and some nausea. She held her aching head and sat up, glancing around at the makeshift quarters. A man was sitting at a writing table. He turned his eyes toward her when she stirred.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Gretchen Brannon,” she replied huskily, disoriented enough to forget that she was married for a few seconds. Her head hurt terribly. “Who are you?”

“Kurt Brauer. You might have heard Philippe speak of me,” he added darkly.

Her eyes widened. “You!”

He smiled mockingly. “Yes. Me. And now I have Philippe just where I want him,” he added. “I think that he will be very willing to talk terms with me once he knows I have you. My spies have been very helpful in providing me with information about you.”

“You really think he'll care that you have his social secretary?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Ah, you are more than that,” he mused wryly. “My informants tell me that you were married to Monsieur Sabon not more than a few hours ago.”

“A marriage of convenience,” she said haughtily. “So that I can work for him in the palace without gossip.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Philippe has made it widely known that he will never marry at all, and I know why,” he added sarcastically. “He is no longer a man.” She forced herself not to react to the flat statement. He watched her closely and then laughed coldly. “You see, you do not deny it. This is a fact which I intend to share with all his countrymen, so that they will know what their ruler is. In this world, a man is judged by his ability with women, his ability to father children. I think that his throne will be a little less secure once the truth comes out. And his uncle will pay handsomely. He inherits, with Philippe out of the way.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this? Don't you know that the first thing I do will be to tell Philippe?”

“You will never tell him anything again,
madame,
” he said in a deadly tone. “I intend to leave you in the desert for the buzzards. I shall tell your husband in a few days where to find you. How I wish I could see his face then. They tell me that he is fond of you.”

Her heart jumped. She must not panic, she told herself. She must not panic. If she lost her nerve, she lost her life.

“I notice,” he observed again, intently, “that you do not deny your husband's condition.”

“Why bother to deny a lie?” she asked, completely calm—at least on the outside. “My personal maidservant would laugh herself sick if she heard your suspicions.” She smiled slowly. “She knows better, you see.”

For the first time, Brauer looked uncertain. He hesitated.

“You should never trust gossip, Mr. Brauer,” Gretchen said quietly. “It can be deadly.”

He watched her for a few seconds and then he began to smile. “Then I assume that you would not object to a physical examination? If your husband has actually consummated your relationship, a physician would know.”

Easy, girl, easy, she told herself, and forced a smile to her lips. “Of course he would. Bring him on.”

Now uncertainty turned to anger. He glared at her. “No matter. Your captivity is a fact. I have lost everything I own. I have spent two miserable years in a Russian prison. Now I have a chance to pay Philippe Sabon back for my torment, and that is what I mean to do, even if it costs me my life. He will pay!”

“Pay for what? For letting you and your hired gorillas kill his people and destroy half the city?” she asked hotly. “What sort of man mows down innocent people?”

He walked over to her, drew his hand back, and slapped her so sharply that she fell. But she got right up again and swung on him with her fist, hitting him hard enough to break his balance. But he hit her back, and with his fist this time. She went down with a cry, rubbing her sore knuckles and her jaw.

Furiously angry, her hand went to the slit in the side of the
aba
and she felt in her waistband for the Colt .45—only to find that it was missing.

“Is this what you search for?” he asked, picking up the pistol from his writing table. The box of cartridges was there beside it. He aimed the gun at her and cocked it. “Perhaps I should spare you the desert and just put a bullet in you.”

It was the closest to death she'd ever come. But she wasn't afraid. She lifted her chin and stared at him, her jaw throbbing. “Go ahead,” she invited with icy green eyes. “It takes a big brave man to knock a woman around, doesn't it? I guess it takes an even braver man to shoot one!”

He cursed furiously. He put the pistol down and yelled for someone to come inside the tent. He and the man, the redhead who'd hoisted Gretchen into the saddle, spoke quickly in what seemed to be German, and he gave the man a note. The redhead nodded, gave Gretchen a strange look, and went back outside. Seconds later, there was the sound of an engine revving up.

“My helicopter,” Brauer told her. “I am sending my man to the
Palais Tatluk
with a ransom note.”

“Philippe's father will barbecue him over an open fire,” she said with pure menace.

“Unlikely. The old sheikh has no stomach for a fight. He will tell Philippe what I wish him to be told—that I have you and am willing to bargain for you. Then Philippe will walk into my trap and be dealt with.”

“You seem very sure of yourself,” Gretchen said harshly.

“I am. Philippe is a sophisticate, not a fighter. It will hardly be worth my time to subdue him at all, but I want him to suffer before he finds you.” His eyes narrowed with perverted pleasure. “Perhaps I will turn Eric loose on you with the bowie knife and let him find you skinned alive.”

She didn't even flinch. She just stared at him. “And when my brother finds out,” she said softly, “there won't be one place on earth you and your cutthroats can hide where he won't find you.”

“Your brother,” he scoffed. “And what is this brother?”

“A former Texas Ranger,” she said, watching his expression flicker. “Someone might have mentioned that once a ranger starts tracking you, he'll follow you to hell to get you. That's my brother.”

“You will be dead by then,” he assured her.

“And you will follow me in short order,” she assured him.

“You are a woman of rare courage,” he said. “I had heard that my stepdaughter was being brought here. It was she I hoped to kidnap. Philippe's feelings for you are unknown to me, but I know he would die for Brianne. She is the only woman he ever loved.”

Brianne again! She lifted her chin. “Mrs. Hutton isn't even in the country. Looks like your intelligence network needs updating. Or wasn't working for the skeikh's uncle close enough for your spy?”

His eyes widened. “What do you know of that?”

“I know a lot about your intelligence network,” she replied cautiously. “I have friends who are professional mercenaries. I knew you had spies in the palace.”

He chuckled. “I doubt you knew about the head of security,” he mused. “Or the cook's assistant. But that knowledge will do you no good now. You have hours to live.”

“Enjoy your own last few hours,” she tossed back.

He glared at her. “Do not leave the tent or I will have you tied and gagged. In this heat, in that—” he indicated the thick
aba
“—you would probably smother to death.”

“Don't you wish!” she shot back, infuriated at her helplessness.

He shrugged, opened the flap of the tent, and went out. Gretchen dragged to her feet and looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. There wasn't a gun or a knife nearby. She heard Brauer speaking to someone outside the tent. On the writing table was an instrument like the one Philippe had used, a GPS cell phone. She grabbed it up, fumbled Philippe's number, which he'd had her memorize days ago, into it, and waited for someone to answer. Someone did, but in Arabic.

“It's Gretchen. I've been kidnapped by Brauer!”

She quickly closed the phone, cleared the number, and put the device back in exactly the spot and position it had been in, moving to lie down on the pallet as if she was hurting too badly to get up.

She closed her eyes and prayed that Philippe or his men had heard her. Brauer came back in seconds later, glanced at her, retrieved the cell phone and went back out.

 

“Where did the call come from?” Philippe was raging at the tribesman who'd picked up the phone when it started to ring. “Never mind!” He pressed buttons on the sophisticated instrument, got the number, then was able to fix on the location where the call had originated. He motioned to his men and gave a spate of orders.

He'd just had a phone call from the palace, from his chief of security, informing him that Brauer had Gretchen and wanted to make a trade. Philippe told him to do nothing, that he would make decisions and then notify the man. He wasn't certain that it was worth paying ransom for a social secretary, he told the security chief in a deliberately careless tone, even if she was his wife. It had been a business arrangement only, he added craftily, not a love match, so Gretchen was more or less expendable. The other man sounded surprised and asked if the American government might step in, since she was a U.S. citizen. There was, after all, a border dispute.

Philippe nodded to himself. So it was like that. Brauer would enjoy starting a war. It would set him up in the arms business with a client like the neighboring country, not to mention embroil Philippe in a vicious war just as his country was becoming prosperous from oil. It was the same plot that had put Brauer away in the first place. But now he had nothing to lose, apparently, and he was determined to carry it through to the end, whatever the cost in lives. He was not, Philippe thought, a man with many original ideas, and that would be his downfall.

Philippe told the security chief that he'd have to have time to discuss this with his cabinet ministers. He was on his way back to the palace, he added, and they could discuss it then. He hung up and tossed the cell phone to two of his men, indicating that they were to take it and travel back to the palace. If anyone traced it, they'd notice that it was en route to the city, not the border. He grabbed another cell phone from the pocket of the Land Rover before it left and pondered his next move.

The security chief had been hired by Philippe's uncle and desultorily approved by the old sheikh. Philippe didn't trust the new security chief, and had been having him watched for several weeks. It had proved useful, because the servant who'd run away had had many secretive conversations with the security chief. The man was probably a direct conduit to Brauer, so anything he told the man would get back to Brauer. Good. Brauer would think he was on his way back to the palace to undertake a diplomatic solution to the kidnapping. Brauer had never seen Philippe on his home ground. Not yet. He was in for a surprise.

Meanwhile, Gretchen had taken a huge risk to get those coordinates to him. He mustn't waste time. Kurt was crazy for revenge and with the grapevine on the desert, he would know by now that Gretchen was Philippe's wife. He'd kill her. He'd kill her in the most horrible way he could think of, and then he'd phone Philippe and tell him where to find her. It was the sort of thing Brauer did. Philippe groaned aloud, just thinking of that sweet, gentle woman in the grip of such monsters. He couldn't lose her now. He couldn't!

He motioned a shame-faced Hassan to him and told the man in biting tones just what he thought of his efficiency as a bodyguard. The man apologized profusely and offered to do anything to make reparation.

“Pray that she lives,” Philippe told him, his black eyes glittering with fury. “If she doesn't, pray for yourself!”

He whirled furiously, still in his flowing robes, and went out to his men. He ordered the tribal chiefs to go to their villagers and bring back every able-bodied fighting man available. He phoned the chief of staff of his small air force and gave him the target coordinates, cautioning them not to begin shelling until he gave the order. It would take time to organize an attack, and every second would count. He was furious that Gretchen had permitted herself to be captured. Hassan had sworn that he hadn't seen her leave the tent. But Leila had. She threw herself at Philippe's feet, wailing, as she imparted what had happened. She'd tried to stop the young, headstrong woman, but it had been impossible.

“She had a pistol, you say?” Philippe asked, aghast.

“Yes,
sidi,
” she replied. “And cartridges. She stayed up all night, watching to make sure no one harmed you. I think it was the old sheikh who gave her the pistol,” she added. “She had it concealed in a small bundle of cloth.”

He knew immediately what she meant, having seen the bundle when Gretchen came out of the palace. His teeth ground together. “Then why did she follow me?”

“She said that she must protect you,” she said simply.

He laughed curtly. “Protect me!” He threw up his hands and turned away. “Against a force of professional mercenaries led by a vengeful madman with state-of-the-art weapons? And she meant to protect me with a Colt .45?” He was still muttering when he swung into the saddle of his big, swift Arabian and motioned his men to follow. Leila watched, her eyes troubled, her heart heavy. If the lady was not found alive, she feared for everyone who would be blamed for it—including herself.