Sahara Crosswind Read online

  “Tell him we were traveling on official duty through the western Sahara when Major Pierre Servais was stricken with an unknown illness,” Jake said, his voice officer-sharp, speaking more to establish himself as an American than because the words were important. “You, as his nurse, must immediately escort him to a military hospital.”

  The corporal gaped at him as together they eased Patrique down onto the barren office’s only bench. Jasmyn continued to speak, her voice desolate with loss. Jake was sorry for her, but at the same time felt that her sadness was the perfect attention grabber. Nobody could have faked the concern she was showing.

  “The corporal says that the nearest clinic is at the Foreign Legion fortress in Colombe-Bechar,” Jasmyn said.

  “How far?”

  “If we leave now by transport, we could arrive before nightfall. He will have to radio and obtain permission before we can take the truck.”

  “Tell him to hurry,” Jake said, and bent over Patrique’s sweat-drenched form. “You’re gonna make it, buddy. Almost home free.”

  “I’m so very thirsty,” Patrique replied.

  Jasmyn spoke with the corporal, who went to his desk, poured out the half glass remaining in his water bottle, and carried it over to Patrique. He spoke to Jasmyn, who said to Jake, “He says there is a good tearoom down the side street and across the next square. I could go—”

  Jake straightened. “I’ll do it.”

  “But Pierre—”

  Jake looked at her hard and spoke very carefully, “The only way we will know if everything is all right with Patrique’s being transported to the official French government hospital is if you are here to overhear whatever they say.”

  Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “You are right. Of course.”

  He patted her arm, murmured, “Be strong,” and was out the door.

  Jake bolted down the stairs, motioned for Omar and Pierre to follow him, and headed down the side passage. Once out of sight he said, “Patrique’s losing a lot of liquid. We need to get him something to drink. Both of them, for that matter.”

  “And the plan?”

  “Looks like the soldier’s bought it. He’s radioing for permission to drive him to the hospital at someplace called Colombe-Bechar.”

  “Colombe-Bechar,” Omar repeated, using the Arab pronunciation, then nodding his head vigorously. The destination clearly met with his approval.

  The tea house’s interior was as grand as the exterior was simple. Arched colonnades gave the great hall a pretense of being separated into a series of interconnected chambers. The pillars were of darker granite, the floor of polished marble slabs, the walls of grand desert carpets and ornate mosaic designs. The sound of dice and slapped backgammon chips accented the lively talk. Hookahs bubbled and sent up pungent clouds of smoke. A central fountain tinkled merrily, spraying out a continual sheen of perfumed water.

  Omar ignored the silence and the stares that their appearance caused and imperiously ordered a waiter into swift action. Within minutes a tray was brought bearing heavily sweetened tea and glasses of cooled honey and curds. Jake drained his glass in one thirsty gulp and then reached for his tea. “I want to get back and see if everything is all right.”

  “Agreed.” Pierre licked at his white moustache and took the tray with the extra servings. He said to Omar simply, “Patrique and Jasmyn.”

  But when Pierre turned for the door, the waiter grasped his arm and began arguing. Omar reached into the leather purse slung from his belt and spoke soothing words. Impatiently Jake stepped back into the sunlight.

  As he moved across the square, he felt the bottom drop from his world when a familiar voice hissed, “Yes indeedy, just as was thinking. Is the one destroying Hareesh Yohari’s world and home and life.”

  Jake spun and found himself facing a diminutive figure, hopping from one foot to the other with rage, his head raised to eye level by standing on the well’s stone border, both hands gripping an ancient single-shot pistol. From Jake’s perspective, the gun looked as big as a cannon. All he could think to say was, “How’s business?”

  “Business, yes, man now speaking of business. I speaking of business too. Business of missing Rolls Royce motor vehicle. Business of palace wall and escaping prisoner. Business of ruining life of sultan’s official chief assistant.” He shook the barrel inches from Jake’s eyes. “But I am making all correct. Yes. Am bringing head of number one criminal back to sultan, sitting on front of formerly stolen Rolls Royce motor vehicle. Now you are telling me where—”

  “Is that who I think it is?”

  Hareesh Yohari jumped and spun about. His eyes widened at the sight of Pierre marching toward him, dressed in desert garb and burned to a leathery brown, bearing a gleaming tray with tea and curds. The little official squeaked, “You!”

  Then Jake did the only thing that came to mind, which was to bend over and grip Yohari’s ankles, lift, and fling the man over the lip of the well. The sultan’s former official gave a lingering wail that ended with a resounding splash. Jake straightened up and did not bother to mask his grin. “All in a good day’s work.”

  “Come, my friend,” Pierre said. “The tea is growing cold.”

  They turned the corner to find a dusty jeep stationed in front of the French post, its motor idling noisily. “For once my army has acted with dispatch and efficiency,” Pierre proclaimed. “I must write a note of commendation once I am again myself.”

  Jasmyn appeared at the head of the stairs, Patrique leaning heavily upon her. Her eyes fastened upon Pierre and remained so throughout the maneuver of loading the sick man into the jeep. Yet she said nothing. Her gaze shifted only when the corporal came around the jeep and officiously helped her in. She permitted the man to load her into the back beside Patrique, shook her head to the proffered tea, and handed both glasses to Patrique, who drank greedily. Then her eyes turned to Jake. “Colonel Burnes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You are to take care of my treasure,” she said quietly, her gaze dark with unspoken loss.

  “With my life.” Jake fumbled over the affection he felt for that beautiful, brave woman. “Everything I’ve learned here has been because of you.”

  “No, Colonel,” she corrected. “I have helped. But you have learned because you have wanted to. You have not been stopped by the alien surroundings or the hardship or the fatigue. You have given great honor to my mother’s people. I am proud of you. As are they.”

  “Jake,” Patrique called hoarsely. “Thank you.”

  Before Jake could reply, the corporal gunned the motor and wheeled the jeep in a tight circle. Through the rising dust Jasmyn looked back at Pierre, and as a single tear escaped she mouthed the words, I love you.

  Then she was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake followed Omar back to where the tribesmen waited, giving Pierre silent space to compose himself and erase the naked emotions that lay etched upon his features. Already he felt Jasmyn’s absence, and not just because of his friend’s sorrow. There was a new barrier between Omar and him, one that respect and hand signals could never fully cancel.

  Behind them, a hysterical voice began shouting incomprehensible words. They spun about, and spotted a wet and bedraggled Hareesh Yohari emerge from the side passage and limp furiously across the square toward them.

  Pierre mused aloud, “Now how did he get out of that well so swiftly?”

  A band of desert warriors appeared from the shadows behind Yohari. At the sight of Omar they howled their fury. Omar hissed, “Tuareg.”

  “That explains it,” Jake said.

  Omar pressed them forward and ordered his tribesmen into a phalanx blocking the alcove behind them. They turned and fled as the passage erupted into fighting, shouting men.

  Omar led them in a twisting, winding pattern down countless, nameless streets. From time to time they would catch wind of voices shouting and calling to unseen fellows, before Omar jinked and sped them off in a different di
rection.

  The chase forced them farther and farther away from the oasis and the tribe and safety. Every time Omar sought to direct them around and back toward the camp, voices barely one street over warned them away.

  Jake crouched with the others in a shallow doorway, panting and sweating and feeling like a prey hunted by beaters, driven toward exposure and death.

  He opened his mouth to tell Pierre that it was time to separate, to let him and Omar try to draw them off while Pierre escaped with Patrique’s testimony on the traitor. He knew it was futile, that his friend would never let others sacrifice themselves so that he could live, yet all the same he had to at least try.

  Suddenly the voices of the approaching mercenaries were drowned out by a sound once familiar to Jake, and yet now so alien that for a moment he thought it was thunder.

  He craned and searched the empty spaces overhead, when abruptly the sun was blocked from view by a great roaring beast. Before the sky again emptied, Jake was up and racing and shouting behind him, “Come on!”

  They sprinted with all the strength they had left, Omar following a pace behind them and shouting fearful words they could neither understand nor spare breath to answer. Jake followed the sound of revving motors out beyond the final border of houses, through the great sand-and-mortar embankment erected as the city’s first line of defense, over the first line of dunes, up the second, where he flattened himself into a shallow crevice and drew the others down with a swift motion of his hand.

  Cautiously they raised their heads over the summit and looked down at a long, flat stretch of rocky terrain marked only by a series of blackened oil barrels, a dusty shed of corrugated sheeting, and a limp French flag. They scarcely saw any of it. Their attention remained fastened upon the behemoth standing just beneath their perch. Its four great engines idled noisily, impatient to break free from its earthly bonds and fling heavenward once more.

  The Lancashire bomber had seen many hundreds of hours of hard wartime service. Bullet holes traced a silvered pattern from wing to tail, the flaps were streaked with oil and ancient grime, one side window was starred and shattered, and two of the wheels were worn down to dangerous white patches. Despite all this, the great plane bore its age and scars with pride, and the engines rumbled with smooth accuracy. It was the sweetest sound Jake had ever heard.

  “Beautiful,” Pierre murmured, clearly agreeing with him.

  The pilot clattered down the back loading ramp, pushing an overloaded trolley and carrying a folded sheaf of papers in his mouth. Behind him came a single Arab guard, pushing a second trolley piled so high with boxes that he had to crane around the side to find his footing. Together they maneuvered their cargo into the rusting warehouse.

  “Now’s as good as it’s going to get,” Jake whispered.

  Omar hissed, causing them to swivel about on their bellies. A cadre of Tuareg appeared in the embankment’s narrow opening, searching the empty desert reaches and arguing fiercely among themselves.

  Keeping himself below the lip of the defile, Jake slid the knife from his belt and offered it back to Omar. “I wish you could know what it has meant to travel with you,” he whispered.

  Omar looked down at the knife for a very long moment, then pushed it back toward Jake.

  “I can’t,” Jake murmured, reaching out once more.

  Again Omar pressed the hand back, harder this time, and pointed with his chin toward the waiting plane. Go.

  Jake grasped the chieftain’s shoulder and held it firmly. Omar returned the gaze and nodded once. He understood.

  Pierre reached over and gripped the chieftain’s hand. “I owe you much,” he whispered. “I will repay. A way will be found.”

  Omar murmured a reply, the meaning clear.

  Jake slithered forward and rolled over the edge, followed by Pierre. Together they scrambled down the dune, raced at a crouch across the open terrain, and pounded up the plane’s loading ramp.

  Inside, the noise was deafening. The plane’s age was visible everywhere, from the rusting struts to the string of bullet holes that provided the interior’s only light and ventilation. The hold was mammoth and filthy and rocked continually in time to the droning engines. Boxes and bales were strapped along both sides, and loose padding littered the central gangway.

  Jake was still standing there, trying to get his bearings, when voices approached and shouted words indistinguishable over the engines’ roar. Panicked into action, he and Pierre ripped up padding, pressed themselves into two empty pockets between the bundled cargo, crouched down, and flung the filthy burlap over their heads.

  A pair of boots climbed the metal ramp, shouted something more, then operated a winch that ground and groaned and finally pulled the ramp up tight with a resounding bang. The boots walked forward, passed Jake’s hiding place, and headed up into the cockpit.

  The engines’ roar rose to a new pitch. The plane rattled and groaned and trundled slowly about. The thunder rose even higher, the ground bumped beneath them, then with a gut-wrenching swoop they felt themselves leap from the earth.

  Jake eased himself as much as he could in his cramped position and took a couple of easier breaths. Safe.

  Then he almost jumped out of his skin when a voice shouted just inches from his ear, “Well if this ain’t a sight for sore eyes, I don’t know what is.”

  A boot kicked at his shin, and the Texas twang went on, “You two come on outta there. My copilot’s down with the galloping whatsis, and this baby don’t fly too well without a firm hand on the tiller.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Lucky for you boys I was blocking the guardhouse window,” the pilot told them once they had joined him in the cockpit. “That Arab back there woulda probably shot you for renegades. Me, now, I got a naturally curious nature. I see what appears to be an American Army officer skedaddling for my plane with an Arab in them fancy desert robes hot on his tail, why, I figure this is probably one for the books.”

  He pointed through his window and went on, “That river coming out of the Raggah oasis used to be almost two miles wide. Now it’s not much more than a stream. Not much farther on, it just gets swallowed up by the desert. This lake here is the last gathering place for waters that used to be wide as an inland sea.”

  Jake tried to match his easy tone. “How do you know all this?”

  “Oh, you mosey around these parts long enough, you’d be surprised what you learn. So happens I like the desert and the people. Folks around here haven’t bothered with the folderol of people back home. Got a lot to teach us, if only we’d unplug our ears and stop thinking of them as backward. They’re perfectly adapted to where they live. Why, you put one of your so-called civilized fellas down here, and they wouldn’t last a week.”

  The pilot eyed Jake. “Which brings me to ask what you’re doing here.”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Like that, is it. Well, long as it’s not breaking the laws of here or home, I’m not bothered.”

  “It’s perfectly legal,” Jake said. “Sort of.”

  “Sounds like a good desert-type answer to me.” He gave them both another up-and-down inspection. “You don’t aim on skinning me while I’m driving this crate, are you? So happens I’m right partial to living.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Jake spotted a worn and tattered Bible crammed in with flight documents. He plucked it out, held it before him, and said, “I give you my word as a Christian that I mean you no harm.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good enough for me.” He stuck out a leathery hand. “Frank Towers. Formerly of the United States Army Air Force, currently head of Tower Transport, the only asset of which you’re crouching in.”

  “Jake Burnes. Commander of the garrison at Karlsruhe. And this is Major Pierre Servais, head of the French base at Badenburg.”

  That brought a start. “You’re a Frenchie?”

  “I am indeed,” Pierre replied, extending his own hand. “I am happy to meet you, Mr. Towers.”
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  “Likewise. You boys musta been out there quite a while, to get as sunburned and sandblasted as you look.”

  “Quite a while,” Jake agreed solemnly.

  “Why don’t you slide yourself on into the copilot’s chair, Colonel. You’d be a durn sight more comfortable, and I won’t have to keep craning around to see you.”

  “Thanks. The name is Jake.”

  “Pull down that seat in the bulkhead there beside you, Major.”

  “Pierre.”

  “Right you are. It’ll take both hands, seeing as how it ain’t been used since the war. Can’t afford a radio man, and even if I could, most of the places I fly don’t have a soul on the air I could talk to.”

  “What are you doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” Jake said.

  “A likely question. Joined up in thirty-nine, flew them lend-lease planes ’til we decided to jump into the fighting ourselves. After that, well, I flew just about anything you’d care to name.” He eyed Jake in the seat beside him. “That true, what you said about being a Christian?”

  “It is.”

  “This I can confirm,” Pierre said gravely. “My friend has taught me not only with words, but with the way he tries to live.”

  “That’s nice. Real nice. Myself, I saw the light after getting shot down around Arnheim. Guess maybe you heard about that. Brother, let me tell you, that was one whale of a mess. Anyway, I managed to crawl back to where it was safe, but I lost a lot of good buddies out there. So I started looking for answers, something that’d make some sense of what I’d been going through.” He pointed at the Book in Jake’s hand. “Had a buddy start showing me things in there, stuff I’d heard all my life but never bothered to think about before. Been trying to live up to the Master’s example ever since.”