Sands of Time (Out of Time #6) Read online

  There were villages and towns both to the west and to the south of his last known stopping place and so they’d split up. Jack had continued on to the west and they’d gone south. About ten hours later, they’d come across a tribe of Bedouins who had crossed paths with Mason. He was headed south which meant they were on his trail and Jack was on a wild goose chase.

  Simon tossed his hat down onto the blanket and ran a hand through his hair. “He can take care of himself, Elizabeth,” he assured her.

  She smiled and nodded again and leaned back against the blanket. “I’m sure he’ll have stories to tell.”

  Simon had little doubt of that. He turned away from her to watch the men hurry about, tending to this and that when he noticed that Hassan was not watching them, but surveying the horizon. Simon excused himself and stood, and walked over to join him.

  He stared off into the distance trying to see what Hassan seemed to see. “Everything all right?”

  Hassan kept his eyes on the desert to the west where the sun was sinking low in the sky. “We should not tarry here long.”

  “We’re not making camp here?”

  “We are too vulnerable here.”

  Simon didn’t understand how they could possibly be more at risk in an oasis than they were out in the harsh desert. However, Hassan didn’t take his eyes off the horizon.

  “Why would a predator wander the wilderness for prey when he knows it will come to the water,” he said. “The prey will come to him.”

  Simon didn’t like the sound of that. Was there some wild beast he’d never heard of out there? Predators? In the short time he’d known Hassan, the man had been painfully jovial. This sudden shift in temperament was discomfiting. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Bandits,” Hassan said softly.

  “What?”

  “Bandits,” Hassan said, this time urgently. He spun around and barked orders. The men froze for a moment, before he bellowed at them again.

  Simon looked out onto the horizon, but he couldn’t see anything. “What are you talking about? Bandits?”

  Hassan hurried to where Elizabeth had been sitting on the blanket. She’d stood and started to walk over to them. Hassan gripped her fiercely by the arm. “You must stay quiet.” With that, he practically yanked her to the ground.

  “What the hell do you—” Simon said as he ran to stop him.

  Hassan pushed Elizabeth down and hurriedly flipped the blanket over on top of her.

  Simon grabbed his arm and spun him around. “What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Simon started to lift the blanket off Elizabeth, when Hassan stopped him. “Please, Mister Cross. Trust in Hassan. It is better they do not find her.”

  “Who?” Simon demanded.

  Hassan didn’t need to answer. Simon could hear them now, the approach of a dozen or so riders. They wore black robes and keffiyehs covered their faces. Their horses began to rim the small rise that ringed the far edge of the pool.

  Hassan took Simon’s arm and led him away from the blanket, away from Elizabeth. It was all Simon could do to not look back.

  “Do as I say,” Hassan whispered. “And we will live.”

  A large man on an even larger horse rode up into the middle of the line of men. Unlike the others, his face was not covered and he wore a large, wolfish smile.

  “Probably,” Hassan added.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The large man in the center of the line of men, presumably the leader, shifted in his saddle and stared down at them with keen, appraising eyes. He scanned their little company and then said something in Arabic to one of his men.

  Simon had a pistol in his saddle bags, for all the good it would do him, even if he could reach it. As the line of men shifted, Simon could see clearly now that they were well-armed. Some carried rifles and most had swords and daggers and looked the sort who wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

  One of the men moved his horse to his leader’s side. The leader spoke to the man, nodding toward Simon and Hassan as he did. The other man nodded and then began to translate.

  “Who are you to come to this place?” he said in English with a precise upper class accent. Cambridge, possibly, and young.

  “We are—” Simon started, but Hassan gripped his forearm.

  “We are but humble travelers, Effendi. We meant no—”

  The leader raised his hand and Hassan stopped talking and bowed his head in deference.

  The leader nodded his head toward Simon and said something to his translator.

  There was a momentary delay before the translator relayed the question. “You are English?”

  Simon kicked himself for having spoken, but there was nothing to be done for it now. “Yes.”

  There was little love lost between the Egyptians and the English in 1920. The British occupation had begun to more than chafe and violent protests had erupted just a year earlier.

  “You are not welcome here,” the man translated for the leader. “You and your kind have trespassed against the great people of Egypt for too long. The day is coming for freedom and today you will play your part in our revolution.”

  Simon tensed. If history had taught him anything, it was that revolutionaries seldom acted benevolently toward their occupiers, especially when they had such an advantage as twelve against one.

  Between the Ottoman Turks, the French and now the British, the Egyptian people had grown tired of overlords. Simon knew a little about the 1919 revolution and the path toward independence from British rule. It had been marked with violence in the beginning, mostly against the Egyptians, however. In the end, the revolution was considered by some to be a textbook case of successful non-violent civil disobedience. He could only hope these men, despite their warlike trappings, were not part of the fringe that seemed to exist in every insurgence.

  “I support your cause,” Simon said. After the moment it took for the man to translate his response a round of surprised discussion broke out among the men.

  The leader silenced his men with a raised hand. He spoke to his translator once more.

  “Then you will not mind giving generously to it.”

  The leader motioned for two men to dismount. They shouldered their rifles and strode toward Simon and Hassan. Simon tensed, but kept still. Their long shadows stretched out in front of them like ominous specters.

  One of the men lingered behind the other and scanned their makeshift camp. He unshouldered his rifle and walked to the far side of the camp where he began inspecting their supplies. Hassan’s men knelt in the sand, hands clasped before them in supplication and surrender. The man inspecting the camp waved to another man who dismounted and untied the sacks of their provisions and carried them back to his horse.

  The man in front of Simon said something in Arabic and lifted his hands and curled his fingers inward in the universal, give it to me gesture. Simon barely hesitated. The money he had with him was a fair sum, but thankfully, Simon had had the sense to visit the Bank of Cairo as soon as they’d arrived and deposited most of their money into an account there. He hated to lose what cash he had on hand, but it would be a small price to pay if they could get out of this alive.

  Slowly, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He started to open it when the man snatched it from his hand and pulled out a wad of bills. He waved it in the air to show the leader, who was unmoved.

  Next to him, the young translator shifted uneasily in his saddle and looked nervously between Simon and the leader.

  The man tossed his wallet into the sand and stuffed the cash into a small bag at his waist. He turned back to Simon and gestured again.

  “That is all I have,” Simon said, as he raised his hands, palms out.

  The leader nodded his head once and the man strode forward and patted Simon’s jacket. It was only moments before he discovered the watch. Simon could hear Hassan groan and mumble something next to him, but he ignored it. Simon’s mouth went dry
as the man turned the watch over in his hands. If they lost the watch, they’d be trapped here, back in time, forever.

  “It’s an heirloom,” Simon said as he looked up at the leader. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun. “Hardly of any value.”

  “One does not hide something that is not valuable,” the young translator relayed.

  The man who had taken their supplies had finished digging through their saddle bags and began circling the camp. He would stop every few steps and poke the bundles of their clothes or blankets with the tip of his bayonet. Simon’s jaw worked with the effort it took not to turn and look at the blanket that covered Elizabeth. If they found her, God only knew what they would do and he would be powerless to stop them.

  His heartbeat raced as he tried to find some way, any way out of this mess. Swallowing hard and trying to remain calm and focused, Simon watched the man out of the corner of his eye as he moved closer and closer to her hiding place.

  The man stopped and stooped down to pick up a gunny sack, but found the contents wanting and tossed it aside before resuming his inspection. Simon felt sweat bead on his forehead. His breath came quicker, harder. Just a few more steps and he would find her hiding place.

  “You are nervous.”

  The words snapped Simon’s focus back toward the leader. Simon tried to appear unaffected, but he could feel the sweat running down his temples now, knew the rising and falling of his chest had given away his anxiety.

  “Perhaps there is something even more valuable that you are hiding from me?” the translator said in an uneasy voice that did not match the pleasure on the leader’s face.

  The horse shifted beneath him, as anxious as his master was patient. The leader’s eyes studied Simon intently.

  The man with the rifle jabbed a saddle bag with the bayonet and then moved to the tree near where Elizabeth was hiding. Simon’s heart raced with every step. A cold fist tightened in his stomach as he watched him inch closer and closer until he was standing at the edge of the blanket.

  Simon tried to take a step toward her, but he was held back. “Don’t,” he said. “Wait.”

  The man raised his gun, ready to stab the blanket. Simon’s heart flew into his throat.

  “Stop! Please!” Simon strained against the man that held him.

  The man with bayonet remained poised, ready to strike.

  Simon turned to the leader. “Please, tell him to stop.”

  The man holding Simon jerked him back and pressed the sharp curved blade against Simon’s ribs and grunted in warning.

  The leader watched him with a cool expression, eyes narrowed and nodded imperceptibly. The man with the bayonet lowered it, but kept his rifle trained on the spot where Elizabeth was hiding.

  “Alhamdulillah,” Hassan said with a relieved sigh.

  Simon swallowed and tried to restart his heart when the leader barked an order and several more men dismounted. One came to hold Simon’s other arm and the others hurried toward the blanket.

  Simon strained against their grip. “What are you doing?”

  They raised their guns and pointed them at the small mound in the middle.

  Simon’s heart thrummed in his chest again. Dear God, were they going to shoot her? “Please—”

  The sound of the metal bolts of the rifles sliding the rounds into place echoed in the quiet oasis. One of the men gripped the edge of the blanket and nodded to his men. Simon couldn’t help but surge forward, in a desperate attempt to help her, to stop this madness, but the two men held him back.

  “Don’t! Don’t shoot!” Simon pleaded with them as the man flipped the blanket back. The men leaned forward in anticipation only to find Elizabeth curled into a tiny ball. Slowly, she lifted her head and the men lowered their weapons.

  “She…she was resting,” Hassan said, trying his best to cover for them. “It was a long—”

  “Iskit!” the leader called out and Hassan fell silent again and bowed his head obsequiously.

  The leader nodded to his men and two of them grabbed Elizabeth by the arms and roughly tugged her to her feet.

  Elizabeth blinked against the sudden bright light, confused and frightened as she saw the men surrounding her with guns. She caught Simon’s eye and the fear and confusion in her expression was like a hand squeezing his heart.

  “Simon?”

  Simon started to move toward her, but the men still had a grip on his arms. “Leave her—”

  Hassan stepped toward him and put a hand to his chest and whispered. “Do not make things worse than they already are, Mister Cross.”

  Simon’s chest heaved with the effort to remain where he was as the men dragged Elizabeth forward.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, trying to take it all in.

  “It will be all right,” Simon reassured her. He would find a way out of this, he promised her silently. Some way.

  The men dragged her to stand in front of the leader who leaned forward in his saddle and smiled. This time he spoke for himself. His accent was thick. “Beautiful woman. Very valuable.”

  “Please,” Elizabeth said. “We’re just travelers.”

  He ignored her and nodded to his men who dragged her toward the horses. Elizabeth squirmed in their grip and called out to Simon, her voice on the edge of panic.

  The sound of it cut through him and he struggled in vain against the men that held him. He clenched his jaw and glared up at the leader who finally pulled his attention away from Elizabeth and turned to look at him. He sized Simon up through narrowed eyes and then spoke through his young translator once more.

  “Your clothes, your accent, they are from wealth. You could have returned to Cairo and paid dearly for the safe return of your wife.”

  Could have? Simon’s heart and mind raced. He tried to twist out of the grip of the man that held him, heedless of the dagger pressed into his ribs.

  The men bound Elizabeth’s hands and then hoisted her up onto a horse, shortly followed by a man who sat behind her. Simon could see her searching desperately for any means of escape. His mind raced for something, anything he could do.

  “I can see you would be a problem, however, should I take only the girl,” the younger man translated.

  The leader stared at Simon for a long moment and Simon couldn’t help but wonder if it would be his last. He glanced over at Elizabeth. She’d stopped struggling, and now was focused solely on him. The fear in her eyes no longer for herself but for Simon.

  Simon could feel the leader’s eyes on him, but he would not look away from Elizabeth. If this were to be his last moment, it would be with her.

  The leader said something to the translator, who, for the first time, replied back in Arabic. After an eternity, the leader spoke again and after a pause the translator said, “You will come with us as well. Two will fetch twice as much as one.”

  Elizabeth sagged forward in relief. Simon exhaled. He’d been spared. For now. Simon kept his eyes on Elizabeth as they tied his wrists together. The relief and joy in her expression gave him strength. As long as he was alive, as long as she was alive, there was hope.

  The two men holding Simon by the arms started to pull him toward the horses.

  “I will spare you, brothers,” he added to Hassan and the other men.

  Hassan bowed. “You are most gracious, Effendi.” He avoided meeting Simon’s glare.

  “You will not speak of this,” the translator said to Hassan. “If you want to pass this way ever again and live.”

  Hassan bowed his head and tilted it toward Simon. His expression was intense, but whether it was regret or shame in his eyes, Simon didn’t know.

  The men gathered the reins of the camels and lead the animals up toward the horses. Hassan and his men might be spared, but they would be on foot from here on out.

  The men jerked Simon forward and hauled him toward another horse. The Arabian pranced anxiously in place as they forced him up into the saddle and a man climbed on behind him. The ot
her men returned to their horses.

  Simon’s rider turned the horse around so they were facing Elizabeth.

  “Do not be foolish,” the leader said in his thick accent. The man behind Elizabeth showed the long knife in his hands and pressed it between her breasts. Simon clenched his hands into fists.

  Elizabeth swallowed nervously.

  “It will be all right,” he said with much more conviction than he felt.

  The rider behind him spun his mount away as the leader called out a command. As one, the group of men spurred their horses and rode off into the desert. Toward what fate, Simon could only imagine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was dark by the time they arrived at the raider’s camp and Elizabeth couldn’t see exactly where they’d taken Simon. She’d heard him call out her name once and then nothing more. She had no idea where they’d taken him or what they might be doing to him. All she knew was that he wasn’t with her and it made her heart ache in a way she hadn’t felt before.

  She closed her eyes and pushed away the thoughts of what might be happening. If they’d wanted to hurt him, they’d had ample opportunity. Surely, he was simply being kept in a tent similar to hers, waiting for the ransom demand to be made.

  Of course, that was another problem. Not having any relations or anyone at all they could contact other than Jack, who was God only knows where, this little kidnap for ransom plan was going to fall short of the pledge goal.

  The initial shock at what happened had started to wear off, but it was still a jumble. Everything had happened so quickly. She’d nearly lost Simon and then he was spared and, the next thing she knew, they were being carried off into the desert. The long ride had given her plenty of time to think, but her mind just raced in circles. She’d only managed to catch a glimpse of Simon a few times. Each time broke her heart and gave her strength in equal measure.