Desert Rogue. Erin Yorke
This is not the time for such crude bragging.”
“But, sir, what could you expect of a man like this?” Ali ventured to say. He had no wish for Kincaid’s reference to the circumstances of their arrest to remind Hayden Reed that he still had two lawbreakers with whom he must deal. Now more than ever, Ali Sharouk wanted to disassociate himself from the troublesome Jed Kincaid. And so, he went on to say more. “Unfortunately, I have become acquainted with his temper. However, he and I are quite different. He is a drifter, whereas I am a family man, a businessman of good standing in this city. My people have lived here for generations, and recently I have been fortunate enough to wed the daughter of a rich man who has no sons. I have ties to this community, while this ruffian has none. I care about the consequences of any action against the Sudan, though he does not. Do not listen to his goading. You can send a messenger and expect him to arrive at the oasis within the appointed time, if he makes use of the Nile.”
“Lord knows where I’ll find a reliable, experienced man,” Reed reflected aloud as his long fingers tapped out a perfect rhythm on the polished surface of his desk.
“Look, if you insist on going through with this ransom business, and I hope you realize that payment is no guarantee you’ll ever see Victoria Shaw alive again, I can offer a simple solution,” Jed said, recognizing the fact that trouble had found him once again, though he was willing to concede he had gone halfway to meet it. “I’ll take the money there for you.”
“You!” Hayden snorted in surprise. “You can’t go anywhere. You’re under arrest.”
“Then release me,” Jed persisted. Though he didn’t know her, he wouldn’t feel right walking away and leaving the woman’s safe return in the incompetent hands of Hayden Reed. If nothing else, Abigail Kincaid Bradshaw had raised her boys always to help a lady in distress, and it sounded as if the Shaw woman needed all the aid she could get.
“If you do let me go,” he continued, “I’ll track down the men who stole Vicky and get her back for you.”
“It’s Miss Shaw to you. And I would never allow such a thing as you are proposing to occur. You would only make a muck of it. Miss Shaw would be killed before you ever came near her abductors.”
“Really? Maybe you don’t realize you’re talking to the man who recovered Sheik Abdul Nabar’s stolen amulet, the symbol of his sovereignty over his people. Tell me, who else could have done such a thing and returned to tell about it?”
“You? You’re the one who went after the amulet and helped avert a tribal war among the Bedouins?” Hayden asked, cocking his head to one side and studying Jed Kincaid anew.
“One and the same,” Jed asserted to Ali’s dismay. Stories of the amulet’s savior had circulated through the bazaar, celebrating the man’s ruthless cunning. The idea that he had unknowingly tangled with him did not sit well with the tall Egyptian.
“You almost make your harebrained plot sound workable,” Hayden stated wistfully, his hopes for the future once more taking flight. “Still, I’m not willing to put Miss Shaw’s fate in your hands.”
“But you can’t sit by and do nothing,” Jed said with derision. “You’ve said you can’t undertake your fiancée’s rescue, and neither can anyone else in your department without putting Vicky’s life at stake or chancing this international incident. Me, I’m an American. If something happens, you can write me off as lost.”
“You and the five thousand pounds,” muttered Ali.
“What! Are you casting doubts on my honor?” a hotheaded Jed shouted, ready to begin a fight with the Egyptian all over again.
“Stop it! The two of you!” commanded Hayden Reed, coming to stand between the two men, the Egyptian’s words echoing in his head. “You had better start being civil to each other, because you’re going with Kincaid to the wadi.”
“By Allah, no!” the Egyptian objected vigorously.
“Like hell he is,” Jed growled simultaneously.
“There’s no question about it,” Hayden replied.
“But we hate each other,” Jed grumbled.
“We would kill each other,” Ali added hopefully.
“There will be no discussion on the matter,” Hayden Reed reiterated. “You may have the ability to get the job done, Kincaid, but I am not such a fool as to trust a man of your caliber with five thousand pounds, when Miss Shaw’s life depends on every shilling of the sum involved. As for you, your claim of indissolvable ties to the Cairo community and your family assures me that you will not run off with the ransom. You are going to see that Kincaid does as instructed. And that means merely delivering the money, with no dabbling in heroics.”
“And what makes you think I’ll allow Ali to go along?” Jed asked, his voice as bellicose as his tightly drawn features.
“Quite simply put, Kincaid, you are a man who needs his freedom. Refuse me, and I’ll turn you back over to that constable and see to it that you are put in a cell and forgotten.”
“How do you know I won’t agree to your plans and then get the hell out of Egypt?”
“Because Ali will not allow you to abscond with the funds when I am holding him personally responsible for your actions. Should you disappoint me, his family will learn just how bad business can be in Cairo.”
“And if I decline to become involved?” Ali inquired.
“Then we take you home and tell your wife that we found you tonight brawling in a whorehouse. Will she be pleased by those circumstances? I doubt it,” said Hayden in an incongruously pleasant tone of voice. “There’s really no need to think about it, gentlemen. You have no other alternative.”
Jed scowled in Ali’s direction, visions of the Egyptian’s constant carping in the otherwise silent desert almost more than he could bear. His only consolation was that the shopkeeper appeared no more pleased than he was. Damnation! Jed swore silently before nodding his head in assent. This was going to be the most difficult job he had ever undertaken.
Chapter Three
Almost two hundred miles south of Cairo, Victoria, deposited as she was in the lowest part of the falucca, could feel the boat turning. She twisted her slender frame until she could look upward and see the sky beginning to show signs of evening, the sun cooling off to trace soft lavenders and blues across the heavens.
In the bottom of the boat, protected from sight and any possibility of a cooling breeze, the young Englishwoman knew only suffocating heat and discomfort.
This morning, though, just before dawn, the men had drawn the craft into shore in an uninhabited stretch of the Nile, beached it and allowed her a modicum of freedom, if not privacy, to care for her needs before resuming their rapid flight upriver. While they did not pamper her, neither could they afford to have their prisoner die of thirst or malnutrition.
As hard as Victoria tried to keep from surrendering to her fear, concentrating instead on Hayden’s inevitable pursuit, every mile they sped from Cairo increased the apprehension she sought to bury. Had her mother recalled the unfamiliar falucca she’d pointed out that night and associated it with her disappearance? If she had, was it not possible that the authorities might overtake these villains at any moment?
Straining her ears for unusual noise, the slender blonde was disappointed to hear only the rustle of rushes against the boat and the soft scraping of the sand as its hull touched bottom.
A heavy splash sounded suddenly, accompanied by a violent rocking. Someone jumping overboard to pull the boat in, she supposed, hopefully the tall, foul-smelling fellow.
Then the movement stopped altogether and the pudgy Arab loomed over her, reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her awkwardly to her feet.
Unable to voice