The League of Night and Fog (9 page)

They rested frequently, eating the last of their food, trying not to fall asleep. At dawn, they reached a pass between low hills. She exhaled in distress. The pass was near where her car had failed, halfway between Drew’s cave and the village. They hadn’t walked far enough. In a couple of hours, the heat would be so intense they’d have to stop and put up the canvas sheet. They wouldn’t be able to proceed again until late afternoon. At the earliest, they wouldn’t reach the village till tomorrow morning, provided they maintained the pace they’d set throughout the
night. But now that their food was gone, Drew’s strength would diminish rapidly. Already she could feel him leaning more heavily against her. If they didn’t reach the village by the morning, they’d have to stop and rest again throughout the next day, and by then Drew might be so weak that she’d never be able to get him to the village.

I might have to leave him, she thought. To go for help.

But what if he becomes delirious and wanders? What if I can’t find him?

A bullet struck a boulder on her right. A splinter of rock sliced the back of her hand. The report from the rifle followed at once, its echo filling the pass. Ignoring the blood that dripped from her hand, she dove with Drew behind the boulder.

In the same motion, she unholstered her pistol. As she squinted from the edge of the boulder, scanning the rocky slope on the right, searching for a target, she flinched from the impact of a second bullet spewing rock shards behind her.

She realized sickly that the second bullet had come from the left, from the opposite side of the pass. She and Drew were trapped in a cross fire.

“Leave me,” Drew told her weakly.

“No.”

“Listen.” He breathed with effort. “You can’t fight them and take care of me. I’ll get both of us killed.”

“I told you no.”

Almost simultaneously, two bullets threw rock shards—from behind them and from in front—so close her ears rang.

“Their argument’s better than yours,” Drew said.

“I didn’t come all this way to get separated again.” She scanned one slope, then the other.

“Listen to me.”

She was shocked to see the blood streaming from his knees where they’d landed on jagged stones.

“Our friends up there,” he said, “they could’ve killed both of us before we knew it. They’re either lousy shots, or they missed on purpose.”

“So?”

A bullet from the left sprayed pebbles over Arlene’s boots. A bullet from the opposite slope
caromed
off the boulder.

“They’ve got something else in mind,” Drew said.

“Don’t give them a chance to keep pinning us down.” He struggled to a crouch. “Go after them. Until they get what they want, they won’t kill you unless they have to.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll take my chances. I’d only hold you back. This way,
you
at least have a chance.”

She shook her head, aiming anxiously one way, then the other, toward the rocky slopes.

“Okay,” Drew said. “I’ll make the choice for you.”

As weak as he was, he hefted himself to his feet and staggered from behind the boulder, knees buckling, rolling into a ravine.

“You bullheaded … !”

Gunshots echoed.

She charged toward the slope on the right, diving below a mound.

But he’d judged correctly. The bullets that sprayed stones before and behind her seemed calculated to box her in, not kill her.

Okay, then, she thought. Let’s dance.

D
rew winced from the jolt as he tumbled off the rim and down the ravine. He landed hard, losing his breath. The morning sun was still so low its rays didn’t penetrate to the bottom. In shadow, he mustered the little strength he had, took care to keep his head down, and wavered along the bottom of the ravine.

To a certain extent, what happened next was predetermined, he knew. The snipers, having seen Arlene support him and realizing how weak he was, would fear him less than they did her. Granted, in Arab culture, women were not held in high regard, but the snipers would still have to give her credit for being brave
enough, having knowledge enough, to travel through the desert unprotected, and after all, she was an American, an incalculable factor. When she started shooting at them, they’d definitely give her their respect.

So, for the sake of efficiency, they’d eliminate the easy target first. One sniper would distract Arlene while the other went after Drew. Once he was taken care of, they could devote all their attention to her. But not kill her. No. He remained convinced that the snipers could have hit them both if that had been their intention. The purpose of the shots was to play with the quarry, to restrict, to corner, to trap without killing. At least not kill just yet.

He was too weak to fight, but even if all he did was keep moving, he’d still be helping Arlene. Divide and conquer—that’s what the snipers were hoping to do. But that tactic could work the other way around.

A
s Arlene lunged up the rocky slope, dodging from boulder to boulder, the sniper shot at her again. Diving behind cover, she suddenly recognized where she was. This cluster of jagged stone was where she’d hidden the bodies of the two men who’d attacked her. She glanced around, startled.

But this
couldn’t
be the place. There wasn’t any sign of the bodies. Even allowing for the efficiency of the desert scavengers, the corpses wouldn’t have disappeared completely yet. There ought to be something—bits of flesh, bone, and cloth—crumbs, as it were.

All the same, she was positive that she recognized the spot.

Then how … ?

A bullet ricocheted off shale. She peered upward through a chink between boulders, pistol ready, eager for a target. The shot made her wonder if this ambush in the same spot where she’d been attacked earlier was more than coincidence. Had the bodies been found and carried away? Were these snipers avenging
friends who’d been killed? If so, the ambush made sense, as did the way the snipers seemed deliberately to have avoided killing her. Before that eventuality, they meant to do to her what their friends had intended to do. Her chest heaving, she stared harder through the gap in the boulders, straining to see the target.

But when she did distinguish a blur of movement—a scarved, robed Arab scurrying down the slope, over boulders, across a ridge, and down the continuation of the slope—she became confused again. Because the Arab took cover and aimed a rifle, but not toward her. Instead he aimed toward the ravine at the bottom of this slope.
The ravine into which Drew had tumbled
.

Swinging her gaze in that direction, she saw the second sniper: another Arab, his scarf flapping behind him as he ran down the opposite slope, converging on the ravine.

A welter of possibilities occurred to her. Perhaps the snipers had not been convinced that Drew was as weak as he appeared. Or else these Arabs felt so superior to women that even an obviously weakened man seemed more of a threat to them than an able armed woman.

But yet another possibility insisted, its implications so disturbing it had to be considered before the others. Now that she thought about it, it was the most obvious explanation but so outrageous that she must have subconsciously rejected it.

She
wasn’t the target. Drew was!

D
rew flinched from a bullet that grazed the right edge of the ravine, continued its downward trajectory, and walloped shale below him to his left. Dizzy, he lunged toward an indentation in the wall to his right, the direction from which the bullet had come.

But in that instant, a bullet from the left cracked against that indentation. Avoiding the cross fire, he toppled backward. Through a swirl of weakness, he fought to reason out his dilemma. He’d been convinced that Arlene was the primary target,
that one of the gunmen would grudgingly take the time to kill him, then join his partner to assault Arlene. But both were now attacking him! It didn’t make sense!

He rubbed his aching jaw where his teeth had smacked together from the force of his fall. Hearing rifle shots from his right and left, he shielded his eyes from shale flying off both rims of the ravine. He heard another shot, this one less powerful, from a handgun, not a rifle. Arlene.

But another sound, subtle, like a breeze or a deflating tire, was more obtrusive. Down here in the muffled ravine, it had paradoxically deafening force.

An angry cobra rose to strike at him.

A
rlene ignored the risk of breaking an ankle and continued to charge down the rocky slope. She cursed herself for letting her judgment be clouded by sexual arrogance. Admit you took for granted that the biological accident of your being female makes you an irresistible target for lust. You were so self-absorbed you didn’t understand what was going on. You helped them without knowing it.

Scrambling lower, she shifted her gaze from one Arab to the other as they flanked the ravine below her. Her handgun wasn’t accurate at this range. They shot again into the ravine. She stopped and fired, hoping that the bullet would at least distract them.

It didn’t.

The Arab on the left dropped into the ravine. The Arab on the right moved parallel to it, glancing warily toward her, making sure she wasn’t close enough to be a threat, then darting his eyes toward the depression his partner had entered.

“Look out, Drew!”

The echo of her scream merged with another scream.

The Arab who’d entered the ravine staggered halfway up its
steep slope, his face in agony. Raising his eyes toward the sky as if in prayer, he shuddered and fell back out of sight.

The second Arab froze in astonishment. His paralysis lasted just long enough for Drew to crawl to the top of the ravine, aim a rifle, and shoot him in the face.

The rifle’s echo subsided. Drew collapsed back into the ravine.

By now, the sun was high enough to scorch her. Despite the brutal strain on her body, she ran even harder. Scrambling into the ravine, she found him.

His voice was guttural. “Be careful. There’s a cobra down here.”

She whirled.

The snake lay coiled on the sand fifteen feet away from her. Unblinking, it assessed her.

“It’s going to strike!” She aimed her pistol.

“Wait,” Drew said.

“But … !”

“Give it a chance to live.”

The cobra poised itself. Just as Arlene decided she couldn’t afford to delay, the snake sank its head to the ground again, flicked its tongue, and slithered away. It seemed contemptuous, dismissive.

“I froze when I saw it,” Drew said. “The gunman jumped down here. The sudden motion diverted the snake’s attention.”

“And it bit the gunman instead of you?”

“With a little help.”

She shook her head, not understanding.

“The snake was only an arm’s length away from me. When it turned toward the gunman, I grabbed it behind the head and threw it. It flopped across his shoulder.”

Arlene felt sick.

“It bit his stomach. When he screamed and dropped the rifle to shove the thing off him, I yanked the gun off the ground. He tried to crawl to the top of the ravine. The snake bit him again. By then, I was over here, out of its reach.”

“And while the gunman’s partner was distracted by the screaming, you shot him.” She studied him with admiration.

“I was lucky.”

“No, you made your luck. As weak as you are, when you had to, you thought and moved fast. Instinct. Reflex.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

He stood with effort. She steadied him and helped him from the ravine. After its shadow, the sun stabbed her eyes.

“The snake reminded me of the lizard,” he said. “I hated it. Now I love it.”

“As long as we don’t have to eat it. There’s a sure test to learn if you’re a mystic. Can you bring yourself to love the men who tried to kill you?”

“No.” Drew stared at the body of the Arab he’d shot in the face. “God help me, I can’t.”

They searched the corpse. Inside a packet attached to the gunman’s waist, they found dates and figs.

“That solves our food problem.”

“Extra bullets for the rifle. No papers. No identification.” Drew turned to her. “It’s clear they were after me, not you. Why?”

Arlene shook her head in puzzlement. “I do know this. In case they’re from the nearest village, we’d better avoid it.”

“Sure. But they weren’t from the village.”

She followed his gaze toward the gunman’s mouth and tingled when she realized what he meant.

The bullet’s impact had parted the gunman’s jaws, exposing his teeth. Even those in back were clearly visible. They glinted from the rays of the sun, amazingly perfect, stunningly white.

“No fillings,” Drew said.

“But
everybody
has fillings.”

“In America maybe, if you’ve got the money to go to a dentist. Out here, though?”

“There might not be fillings. But there’d be cavities.”

“If you still had teeth. But this guy doesn’t just have teeth.
He’s got
perfect
teeth. It’s been a while since I went to a dentist, so I don’t know what the going rate is. But my guess is … since when do Arabs from outlying villages have a mouthful of three-hundred-dollar crowns?”

She nodded in outrage. “Professionals.”