The Storm struck first on the slopes of the Djebel Amour, the Mountains of Love, killing a French farmer and his family. The farmer had immigrated two years earlier and scratched a hard living from land that had been confiscated from an Algerian. He had improved the well and added irrigation ditches, but the soil was poor and his figs and olives withered under the sun. He was clearing rocks for a new vegetable garden while his young son played nearby. His wife and infant daughter were inside their farmhouse.
He saw them coming, a dozen men on camels who descended from a ridge. At first he was not alarmed. There had never been trouble. He saw they were an odd lot of men of different tribes. They rode quickly. He saw one was a Targui, and only then suspected something was not right. The Tuareg did not often venture so far north. When he saw their weapons unsheathed the farmer snatched up his son and started to run toward the house. Mahdi overtook him easily and struck him down. The farmer was dead before he hit the ground, falling on top of the little boy in a futile attempt to save him. It didn’t help. The boy died next. Then the raiders swarmed around the house where their swords flashed again. A torch finished the work. It was all done quickly.
The smoke could be seen from a neighboring farm. That farmer, a paroled Sicilian convict, grabbed a rifle and mounted his donkey and rode quickly to help. On the way he encountered the men of the jihad. He was able to get off one shot before he was overwhelmed. His own farm was next.
There were four more raids before the first alarm reached the French garrison in Laghouat. The commandant was not overly concerned; there had been sporadic but ineffective uprisings for years. He sent out a party of ten tirailleurs under the command of Lieutenant Lebeque, a supremely confident Parisian. His troops rode magnificent Arabian horses. Mules pulled a supply wagon that carried his tent and a casket of wine and the other necessities of life in the wretched regions in which he traveled. He was contemptuous of the filthy lot of ruffians he was chasing. His scouts picked up their trail and followed them into a wadi that ran into the open desert. His wagon became stuck. The horses struggled against the deep sand. His men were busy trying to free it when the lightning of the jihad struck again. This time there were more of them, thirty men now, and they used rifles and swords. There was a great shrilling as the warriors of Islam dispatched the French force. Lieutenant Lebeque was the last to die. The life of one tirailleur was spared. The rebel leader spoke to him as he was being released. “Tell them my name is Tamrit,” he said, “and that my cause is holy. Tell them I will not stop until they are all gone from this place. Tell your brother tirailleurs that those who help the French shall also die, even the Muslims among them.”
To drive home the point, two Algerians who administered land for the French were murdered that same day in broad daylight in their town squares.
Tamrit’s name was made. He was terrorizing a huge area, while hundreds of miles to the west, Bou Amama was mounting a similar insurrection. The settlers were growing panicked. Deputies began making speeches in Paris, decrying the intolerable lack of security. More patrols, stronger in number, were sent from Laghouat. The garrison in Wargla was alerted.
Months before the raids began, Paul had journeyed toward home, as ordered by Captain Chirac, the commandant at Wargla. In Algiers, as Chirac had promised, Paul was greeted by the governor himself, who insisted on feting him. The lords and ladies of Algiers gathered around him, chattering gaily and fawning over him like a hero, the lone French survivor of a martyred expedition. A young woman in a breathtaking dress tried to seduce him. Paul was shocked by the adulation, which only intensified his feelings that he was a low failure rather than the hero they sought to worship. Where is their anger? They ought to hold me in contempt. But the governor was a gifted orator and the audience was receptive. During a speech at dinner Paul listened, incredulous, as the politician managed to turn the Flatters expedition into a triumph of French will. He suffered through it until he could take no more. Then he rose abruptly and left the room, retiring to the quiet of the governor’s study. He found brandy there and got roaring drunk.
He couldn’t stomach the thought of enduring more of the same in Paris. He could not return home without honor. He did not take the boat for Marseilles. “I don’t want to go,” he told the governor the next day. “I want to return to Wargla. I want to kill the enemies of France.”
“That is a lot of killing.” The governor smiled gently. “A matter for a nation, not for one man.”
“The nation will not do it,” Paul said. “So I must.”
As glib as the governor was before an audience, he sensed what the young officer had been through, and was deeply troubled by what he saw in his eyes. “Give yourself some time. Return to Paris, at least for a while. Find yourself a girl and have a good time. In a few months all this will fade. Then you can decide what you must do.”
But Paul knew what he wanted. He pulled family strings he had never tested in order to get it done. It was far easier than he’d ever imagined. The minister of war himself overturned the order for his return to France and granted his request for a posting to the garrison at Wargla. If redemption was ever going to be possible, the opportunity would come there.
But he miscalculated. Nothing was happening in Wargla, and inactivity sharpened his sense of failure. His hatred for the Tuareg simmered, while his guilt over the cowardly way he left Melika tortured him. He didn’t know himself, or understand what he was going through. He was too young to know what to do with his hatred. He seethed inside, slowly disintegrating in the acid of his obsession.
He sat in the dark and thought of Melika and drank himself into a stupor. He ate little. He stopped shaving and didn’t bathe. There was no joy in him, no spark of life. There was nothing left of the naïve but enthusiastic officer who had once found treasure in the smallest discoveries of the desert. He wouldn’t talk to the other men about what had happened. They began to avoid him, averting their eyes when he walked past, muttering about le cafard, the profound depression that carried so many desert soldiers to the very brink of sanity, or beyond.
He did practice with his rifle, and cleaned and polished his weapons. The soft sounds were repeated each day in his room – the stroke of the sharpening stone along the blade of the sword, the soft whisper of the oil cloth against the guns, the cork returning to the neck of the bottle.
He thought of his father, sitting drunk and alone in his room at the château after the court-martial, sharpening his sword and sending everyone away. Both father and son had come to a bitter end. What surprised him was that the son had gotten to the end so much more quickly than the father.
One day a sentry arrived to tell him that a woman was at the gate of the garrison, asking for him. “She says she knows you, sir. Says her name is Melika. She’s quite good-looking for a local—” He almost said whore, but thought better of it. He envied the lieutenant his wench.
Paul looked away. He took a deep breath.
“Send her away,” he said quietly.
A few days later she came again. “Send her away,” Paul said. From a window he watched her leave.
The next time she came the sentry didn’t bother to ask. He invited her inside the watch house and unbuttoned his trousers. She turned away angrily. He caught her by the arm and offered her money, pressing the coins into her hand. She slapped him hard and he let go. “Only good enough for an officer’s prick, are you?” he sneered.
Father Jean came to the garrison. Paul was disheveled and smelled of rum. But there was no escape from the priest, who had been shown directly to his quarters. Paul stared at him through dull eyes.
“I came to ask if you are well,” Father Jean said. His eyes registered disapproval but he said nothing of it.
Paul shrugged, embarrassed by his own condition. “I know you saved my life,” he said after an awkward silence. “I should have thanked you for that. I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye.”
“As am I, my son,” the priest said, his voice on edge. It was the real reason for his visit. Melika was a daughter to him. She had been shattered by the lieutenant’s abrupt departure. He permitted himself only a trace of scorn.
“You could have at least said good-bye to her. She cared for you.” The words turned inside Paul like a knife.
“I couldn’t,” Paul whispered. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then help me understand. I will listen.” The priest’s eyes filled with compassion. He could see Paul’s agony.
“I can’t, Father.”
“Then let us pray together. Ask the Lord for what you need. He will listen.”
“I don’t believe in God, Father. I only believe in the devil. I’ve seen the devil. I’ve seen who he is. I’ve seen where he lives. But I’ve never seen God. If He’s there He doesn’t listen. I won’t pray to the deaf, not anymore.” Father Jean started to say something but Paul waved him off. “I don’t want to argue this. Leave me alone. Mind your own business.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to intrude.” He turned to go, then hesitated. “Is there any message I can take her?”
Paul shook his head, but as the priest’s hand touched the door he changed his mind.
“Yes there is, Father. Tell her… tell her Paul deVries is dead.” He fought to control his voice as he said it, but it broke anyway.
“I cannot lie to her.”
“It isn’t a lie, Father.”
When Captain Chirac received word about Tamrit’s raids he summoned three of his officers and ordered each to assemble patrols to hunt and kill the rebel. The captain was concerned about making Lieutenant deVries one of those officers. Like the governor, he worried about Paul’s look. Yet he knew the assignment might be the very thing deVries needed to regain his confidence and control. The lieutenant was just near enough to madness that his passion in the pursuit of Tamrit would also serve the interests of France. Indeed, Paul accepted his orders with enthusiasm the captain hadn’t seen in months. He pulled himself from his lethargy and didn’t touch another drop of alcohol. He was ready to depart a full day before the other patrols.
Paul took twenty men, a third the number the captain suggested. Paul persuaded him that too large a force would be a hindrance, not a help. He chose as his deputy Messaoud ben Sheikh, a crusty NCO who reminded Paul of El Madani. Messaoud was from Algiers, a half-breed whose father was a French seaman and whose mother was Algerian. He hated the Shamba and the Mzabites and the Tuareg and every other tribe whose blood he considered inferior to his own. Even though France would never make him a citizen or allow him to advance past his current rank, he was fiercely devoted to everything French. He was a disciplined soldier who followed orders. He suited Paul perfectly and saw to the details of arming and provisioning the detail.
They passed through the gate of the garrison just after dawn. From the shadows near a well Melika watched them go. He passed only a few feet from her. She called out but he didn’t hear. And then he was gone.
Tamrit moved through the desert like a phantom. He was seen and then he was not. He moved quickly and at night. His force was small but created fear everywhere. He struck without warning and then vanished, only to strike again a great distance away. No one knew for sure what he looked like. It was said he wore the veil of a Tuareg, or that he wore no veil and was dressed like a merchant of the Mzab, or that he wore the rags of a beggar. Still others swore they’d seen him and that he was of the Ouled Sidi Sheikh. His eyes were brown; his eyes were blue; his eyes were gray. There was a scar on his cheek; his face was unblemished; one could not see his face at all.
Paul knew the man he was chasing, if not his face. He had heard the name during his long night in the cave with Moussa. He remembered all the names: Attici, Mahdi – and oh yes, Tamrit. Ahitagel’s inner council of treachery. Tamrit. He had been there, at Tadjenout. Paul knew it. He had been one of those watching as the poison did its work at Aïn El Kerma and the men of Flatters died one by one. Only Attici bore more guilt, but Attici was for later. Tamrit was for now.
Lieutenant deVries pushed his men to their limit, crisscrossing the desert, traveling vast distances in pursuit of shadows and rumors. He slept little and never permitted his men to grow comfortable in camp. He posted sentries and tested them himself, determined not to be caught by surprise. His men struggled with their horses, which were ill-suited for the desert fringes but always used by the French for patrols. The captain had refused his suggestion that they use camels. “Too undignified,” he said, “and far too slow.” Paul didn’t think so. It was the horses of the hunters that failed on long marches, not the camels of the hunted. Yet he obeyed the captain, at least in the beginning.
Paul looked for patterns in the raids so that he might anticipate where Tamrit would strike next. There were none. If he thought Tamrit was going to move west, he moved east. If he thought he would strike a farm next, he attacked a village. In one thing only did he prove predictable.
He killed without mercy.
Even the most callous of the tirailleurs looked away from the grisly scenes they encountered. Only Paul was able to stare at the bodies without flinching. Nothing he saw compared to what he had already seen.
“We will catch them,” he said with absolute conviction to Messaoud. “And we will kill them all.”
The chase went on for months, ranging from Wargla to the fringes of the Grand Erg Occidental, and south almost to the Tademait Plateau – farther into the desert than any other French patrols had ventured, and well beyond the range approved by Captain Chirac. As hard as they pushed, they were always days or weeks behind Tamrit, who seemed to mock them by the very ease with which he moved.
They nearly caught him once, at an encampment of a few tents that belonged to nomads journeying to the souk in Wargla with a flock of sheep. It was clear that the nomads had fed Tamrit’s men, who had stayed the night. They had been gone for some time, but evidence of their presence was everywhere.
Messaoud interrogated the patriarch of the clan, who nervously regarded the waiting French column behind him as he explained what had happened. “He says yes, they fed Tamrit, but only on pain of death. He says they were forced to provide them food,” Messaoud said.
Paul nodded. “Then he must pay,” he said evenly. Paul didn’t know whether the nomad was telling the truth about being coerced. It didn’t matter. It was time for an example to be made. “Burn their tents. Kill all the sheep. Butcher one and bring the meat for us.”
Messaoud snapped the order. The patriarch watched with horror as he realized what was going to happen. Pleading for leniency, he began wailing and pulling at Paul’s pant leg. Unmoved, Paul sat in his saddle.
“What is he saying?”
Messaoud snorted. “That our action is, too extreme, sir. That this is all they have in the world.”
“No. Their life is everything. I am not taking that – not this time. Tell him to be thankful for that. Tell him to spread the word that men caught helping Tamrit will be treated without mercy. They must be prepared to pay a great price.”
The women of the camp raised a shrill cry as their belongings went up in smoke. One tried to snatch a leather bag from the flames, a bag of cheap jewelry and sewing utensils. A tirailleur pushed her roughly and she collapsed to her knees in tears. Paul watched without sympathy.
The sheep were slaughtered without the ritual ceremony that would have at least permitted their use as food. They were shot where they stood by a soldier who moved quickly through the flock with his pistol. Each shot raised a fresh cry from the nomads, who were beating their breasts and crying.
In addition to the sheep the nomads had eight camels. They grazed next to the camp, oblivious to everything. Paul called out, “Messaoud! Bring the headman’s mehari!”
Messaoud cut the camel’s hobbles and led the beast to Paul. It was a strong fawn-colored female. Fearing the worst, the patriarch followed along, clasping his hands and whimpering. He looked up at the French lieutenant, whose stare was stone.
“Tell him I want to know of Tamrit – where he is going, how he is dressed, how many men he has, what arms they carry,” Paul said.
The headman gave quick answers, shaking his head. The NCO barked at him, clearly dissatisfied. “We might as well ask the camel, Lieutenant. He says he doesn’t know which of them was Tamrit. There were several men who seemed to be giving orders. All their faces were veiled. He doesn’t know where they were going. He didn’t count how many there were.”
Paul pulled his pistol from its holster and without a word shot the man’s camel. The beast sagged to its knees and rolled over on its side. A fresh wail arose from the members of the clan.
“Bring another mehari,” Paul said coldly. “Then ask him again.”
It was done. The headman just shook his head, caught in a deadly game he knew he could not win. Whatever the French or the warriors of the jihad might do to him, he could not afford the loss of his camels. He began talking. He pointed off toward the eastern end of a low range of barren hills. He drew a map in the sand. Messaoud asked a few questions, nodding at the responses. When he was finished the tirailleur looked at Paul with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.
“His memory has improved, sir. There are twenty, maybe twenty-five, moving toward El Gassi. They have old muskets and two new carbines, he thinks of Italian manufacture. Tamrit is dressed like a Targui. He swears he could only see his eyes, and that they were as green as emeralds. He thought the man unusual because he wore no amulets, no ornaments of any kind. All Tuareg wear amulets.”
Paul was satisfied, knowing the man was telling the truth at last. He watched from his saddle as his men butchered the sheep. The nomads began picking through the smoking ruin of their camp. The soldiers finished quickly and they set out at once. Paul brushed off Messaoud’s cautions that they should not travel in the heat of the day. “The heat does not stop Tamrit. It will not stop me.”
As they departed, the air was still as only the desert can make it, thick with the smell of blood and smoke.
Paul did not look back.
Paul retreated into his thoughts as they rode toward El Gassi. He was vaguely troubled that it had been so easy to shoot the camel. Certainly it had been harder than giving the order to torch the camp. Yet he had done both without hesitation and felt no remorse. He knew that had he run out of camels he would have shot one of the men.
You’ve changed and gone cruel. He remembered Hakeem’s words, spoken a lifetime ago. He knew it was true. He felt himself growing cold inside, indifferent to people. At first he had focused on Tamrit as the symbol of everything he hated. But hatred, having taken root, fought to blossom inside him, nurtured in his mind by the death he saw and the death he delivered. He felt some part of himself withering inside. Soon the other men traveling with Tamrit, men of different tribes, became as evil to him as Tamrit himself. The line between Tuareg and all men of the Sahara, all men of Africa, was becoming blurred. The desert faces began to look alike to him, the victims as well as the criminals. Retribution wore no veil.
It was an awful state he’d gotten to, he knew. Yet the demons of Tadjenout were stronger than he was, nipping away at his soul.
He also knew that in his neat mosaic of loathing, there were two parts that didn’t fit.
He wanted to hate Moussa the way he hated the others. Moussa had made it difficult, by interfering during the march. He had intentionally ignored Paul’s orders to stay away. Now Paul didn’t know what he might be capable of doing if he saw his cousin again. How many times had Moussa saved his life on that march? He loved his cousin and he hated him too, and he hated the world that had torn them apart.
Then at night when all was silent in camp and sleep wouldn’t come he let himself think of Melika. He saw her face clearly, and felt her touch on his cheek, and heard her soft laughter. He knew he had been falling in love with her, yet when he walked away from her he had crossed an invisible bridge. Could he ever cross back? Would she ever let him, if he could? He was afraid of the answers. His duty was so clear to him, until he thought of her – and so he tried not to let himself think. But Melika never left him,
He still drank no alcohol. He ate little and slept less. He was growing as lean as the desert itself. He learned a great deal about tracks and the telltale signs of the passage of men and animals. He watched the sky and the shifting sands, but only for the hunt. He did not see the beauty of the land, or of the stars at night. Delicate desert wildflowers perished unnoticed beneath the hooves of his horse.
The chase went on.
Elisabeth was consumed with thoughts of her son. Of course she knew of the outcome of the Flatters expedition. All France knew and shared a common humiliation. It was all too awful to bear, that her own son had been part of such a debacle. She was cursed by military failure. First Jules and now Paul. The newspaper articles were horrid. Slaughter, retreat, cannibalism. Shame at the hands of savages. Everywhere accounts of the survivor Lieutenant deVries. Some called him a hero. Others – well, others used words she could not repeat. Her friends looked at her with a dreadful mixture of pity and condescension.
Well. Enough was enough. Even Paul would have to see that how. She would get him out of the loathsome military and into his proper civilian role as the Count deVries. She was deliciously close to a resolution in the courts and expected to hear any day. But now, just when she could taste victory, Paul had fallen mute. She knew he was safe, yet he had not even bothered to write her. She had a letter about him from the governor in Algiers, and another from Captain Chirac, but she had heard nothing at all from Paul himself. She had written back demanding the officials order him to write her. She had enclosed letters to him, letters in which she made it quite clear what was in his best interest. Still he had not responded. How could he be so unfeeling? She assumed he was chastened by the fiasco, but that was no reason not to write his own mother. And now he was off in the insufferable desert somewhere, chasing some Arab thug.
“There is a… someone to see you, madame la comtesse,” the butler announced, interrupting her thoughts. “A – foreign… gentleman.” The distaste was evident on his face as he struggled for the proper word to describe the man. Besides, civilized people did not call before three-thirty and it was not yet noon. “He has no calling card or letter of introduction. He is quite persistent. He says he has news of Count deVries. He insists on seeing you personally.”
“Le comte? Why did you not say so immediately? I will receive him in the study,” she said.
A few moments later the visitor was ushered in and stood before her. “Madame, it is kind of you to receive me. I am called El Hussein. It humbles me to be at your service.” The speaker bowed deeply. He was tall and dark skinned and resplendent in the flowing robes of a Bedouin, woven of silk as fine as could be bought in France. A jewel adorned his turban. His face had the sharp lines of a hawk above a neatly trimmed goatee. He had long fingers with lacquered nails and wore rings on both hands. She saw there was a certain elegance about the man, for a desert ruffian.
Elisabeth was fascinated by him, at once repelled and attracted. Were it not for his birth she knew he would have been a gentleman of distinction, a man as comfortable in a French parlor as in a desert tent. His failing, apart from his race, was that his teeth were long and pointed, and he sucked at them quietly. It annoyed her, as did his eyes, which were sharply penetrating, too bold. As he took her hand and bent to kiss it they rested for just a moment on her breasts, and she felt his gaze almost as if he had touched her there. Certainly he was mentally undressing her. His attention turned subtly to the diamonds she wore, clearly assessing their value rather than appreciating their beauty. Next his eyes roamed the rich contents of the study, from the crystal to the silver candelabra to the rich boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl, to the priceless Gobelin tapestries on the walls. It was all done in an instant, his gaze practiced and smooth. Most people would not even have noticed, but Elisabeth did. She had always been an excellent judge of people, men in particular, and there was something unsettling about this man, something that filled her with a profound unease. She couldn’t pinpoint it. He was a cobra with its hood withdrawn – no immediate peril, yet no mistaking the danger.
If El Hussein noticed her discomfort he gave no sign. He turned to business. “Perhaps your manservant has informed you already, madame. I have come about the Count deVries.”
“Oui. My son. You have seen him? I am anxious for news.”
El Hussein gave her a blank look. “He is your son, madame? Perhaps I have made an error. I had been led to believe the count was your nephew.”
Elisabeth’s blood ran cold. Moussa. She recovered quickly.
“Ah, my nephew. There are some, oui, who call— called him count. He died with his father years ago. A balloon crash. Now it is my own son Paul who—”
“But madame, pardon,” he interrupted her excitedly. “It is that very matter about which I have come to see you!” His eyes were alight with triumph, that he could share such glad tidings. “I am delighted to be able to bring you the joyous news that he is not dead.” He expected a cry of relief, or a gasp, or something more than a mouth turned down in displeasure, but that was all Elisabeth could manage.
“Indeed.”
Her reaction puzzled El Hussein. His news had made her tense, alert. There is something here I do not understand, he thought. She said he was dead, yet she knew already he was not. Strange.
“It is quite so, madame. However, I regret my news is not all good. He is in great peril, being held… ah, how should I say it? – captive in a remote desert village. He has been taken prisoner by a powerful sheikh. It is a most unpleasant matter. A question of tribal rivalries. Ordinarily nothing could be done about it, nothing at all. But I was pleased to learn of his family here. It opened the possibility that he need not suffer a most unpleasant fate at the hands of his captors. It is within my power to… to intervene with the sheikh. To assist you, and the family of the Count deVries, in obtaining his release.”
Elisabeth’s anger flared. “You presume much, coming here to me. Your offer to help is nothing more than a bald attempt at ransom. I should call the prefect of police. He knows what to do with brigands.”
“I presume nothing, madame, and assure you I am no brigand. Besides, what would your prefect say of me? That I am guilty of attempting to help? I have traveled far, madame, at considerable expense and difficulty, in an effort to render some small assistance to you. I gain nothing from this personally. I have come in the spirit of the Koran. And forgive me, madame, but what could your prefect do while the count suffers in another land? He is deep in the desert, well beyond the realm of French influence. Not even your military can help him. I assure you – there is only one way to the count’s salvation.”
El Hussein opened his arms in supplication. “I must confess I do not understand your anger, madame. Frankly I had assumed you would be glad of my news, and thankful for my humble effort.”
“Of course I am… interested,” she said. She regarded him warily. She would have to be careful. This was a clever man.
Elisabeth sat down. She rang the bell for the butler, who appeared immediately. He had been waiting just outside the door, as if he expected the foreigner to attack the mistress.
“Countess?”
“Brandy.” She looked inquiringly at her visitor. El Hussein started to decline. “It is not permit—” he started to say, but then relented. He was in France, after all. “Of course, you are too kind,” and his glass was filled. He raised the glass to Elisabeth, who ignored him. The liquor burned his throat. As he drank he cursed Jubar Pasha for giving him insufficient information. The butler had addressed the woman as “countess.” If her nephew Moussa was the count, this woman could not be la comtesse deVries. Inwardly he shrugged. There was much about France he didn’t understand. Its few customs that weren’t odd were backward. And too, there was much about this woman he didn’t understand. He sensed a very resourceful woman. He did not like being ignorant of either.
“You say Moussa is alive. You have seen him yourself?”
“But of course, madame.” Jubar Pasha had summoned Moussa to stand naked before them, his hands bound behind his back. El Hussein had walked slowly around the prisoner, touching, probing, memorizing every detail for precisely this moment. Even though tightly bound, Moussa had lashed out at him, kneeing him in the groin. A most unpleasant man. El Hussein had beaten him until the pasha would allow no more.
“Describe him to me.”
El Hussein complied. Elisabeth didn’t know what Moussa looked like anymore. She had no idea whether the description fit. The blue eyes, the dark hair, the noble features all sounded like a man who could have grown from the boy she remembered. There was something of Henri in the description. Yet there was no way to be certain. A thousand men might have similar features.
“That is all? It is hardly proof.”
“There is a scar, madame.”
“A scar?”
“Oui. I saw it myself. In his side. Just here, below his rib cage.” He indicated the spot at his own side, drawing a line with his finger. “It appears to be quite old.”
Elisabeth closed her eyes. The boar. She struggled to maintain her composure.
“And his mother? You know who she is? Where she is?”
“Certainement, madame, although I have not met her myself. She is called Serena. She is of the Tuareg. She lives in their tents in the Hoggar Mountains. Deep in the southern desert.”
“I know where the mountains are,” she snapped.
El Hussein gave her a thin smile. “Of course. Please forgive me. You are convinced, then, that I speak the truth? That it is truly the count in captivity?”
Elisabeth waved her hand. She would not quibble with this man over the identity of the true count. “I believe you have Moussa in captivity, yes.”
“I can, of course, guarantee his safety. Arrange a meeting where an exchange can be made. In Algiers, perhaps. Any place to your liking.”
“And tell me, just how much ransom will it take to pry the – my nephew from the grip of this sheikh?”
El Hussein looked pained. “I prefer not to call it ‘ransom,’ madame,” he said. “Such a coarse term for a transaction that is nothing more than commonplace in the desert.”
“And what term is commonplace enough for you?”
“ ‘Tribute,’ madame. And but a modest one at that. Five million francs.” He had discussed the amount carefully with Jubar Pasha. Together they had settled on four. El Hussein had increased the amount upon seeing the château. The pasha would not miss the extra million any more than the deVries family would. Such a fortune in the desert, yet a pittance against such wealth.
“Five million—!” Elisabeth nearly choked on her brandy. “You call this ‘modest’? Evidently, monsieur, modesty costs more in your country than in mine.” “Forgive me, madame, but we are talking about a member of the nobility, are we not? Your own nephew, the lord of this great estate? It seems a small price to pay for his safety. Surely the furnishings in this room alone are enough—”
“You presume far too much,” Elisabeth snapped. She seethed in quiet turmoil. How hard she had labored toward her object! How many sacrifices she had made! She deserved the estate as much as Paul deserved the title! And now this smelly little thief brought her news of her wretched nephew, who could ruin everything. It was all at risk. Why now, when things were so close to being finished? Not now! And ransom? Out of the question. She would let him languish in captivity. If he died everyone would be better off.
But what if he didn’t die? How clever could any desert sheikh be? They were ignorant, all of their sort. Everyone knew it. What if Moussa escaped? Then what? As long as he lived he was a threat to her.
It was maddening. She couldn’t leave him where he was. She certainly wasn’t going to pay this ruffian a fortune to see to his safe return. What was left? She took a drink.
And then it came to her, and it warmed her inside like the brandy.
It always came to her, when she needed it most.
She looked at El Hussein. His eyes had narrowed. She hoped she had not misjudged him. She needed a man as contemptible as she was certain he was.
“You say you can intervene with the sheikh on behalf of my nephew. That does not suggest the level of influence that I require. I need a man with more than influence. I need a man with control.”
“I can do whatever is necessary, madame, in the circumstances.”
“Do not play games with me. I must know how far your influence reaches with this sheikh. If you persist in being coy I shall terminate this discussion immediately and you can return to the filth from which you crawled.” She set her glass on the table and moved as if to stand, indicating it was time for El Hussein to leave. Quickly he relented.
“I assure you, madame, my influence is more than extensive. I have control.”
“Very well,” she said, nodding. “I thought as much. You are a relation of this sheikh, I suspect, if not the sheikh himself.”
El Hussein smiled. “His brother-in-law, madame. You are—”
“I am prepared to pay your price. All of it.”
“Allah be praised! A wise decision, madame. It is clear you have the best interests of your nephew at heart.”
“As a good-faith measure I will pay you five hundred thousand francs. Today, before you leave.”
El Hussein was astonished. It was more than he had expected. More than he had dreamed possible. He changed his mind about her. She was not so clever as she seemed. “That is quite generous, madame. Very wise indeed.”
She held up a hand. “I will pay you the balance in full when our business is successfully concluded.”
“Of course. You can see him for yourself if you wish.” Elisabeth appraised him coldly. “You misunderstand me, sir. I have no wish to see him. The balance is payable only when you can prove to me that my nephew is dead.”
As El Hussein was leaving the château in his coach his mind raced with it all.
A beautiful woman. And she was dangerous. It made her all the more attractive. He had had an erection throughout their meeting. Most distracting.
He wondered what had made her reach such an extraordinary decision. Of course he would complete his end of the bargain. With pleasure. The Count deVries – or whatever he was – would be dead within a fortnight.
It was what happened just before he left that still had his heart pounding. She had told him to wait and had gone into the next room. As he savored the forbidden brandy he had noticed her reflection in a pane of glass in the hallway. She had moved to the far wall and removed a painting. There was a box mounted in the wall. She opened it and withdrew a large bundle of paper. It had taken him a moment to realize what he was seeing. He watched intently as she took the money she needed and put the rest back. She had made no attempt to hide, but then she hadn’t known he was watching. His breath came more quickly. The deVries family was richer by far than he had imagined. It was beyond rich. His mind was in turmoil with all the possibilities.
His coachman drove him through the Bois de Boulogne toward the heart of the city. He decided to rent a more expensive room for the night than the one he currently occupied – a much more expensive one. At the Hôtel du Louvre.
Paris was such a beautiful city.
“Where the devil is deVries?” thundered Captain Chirac to his adjutant. “He was supposed to report three weeks ago!”
“I don’t know, mon capitaine. I heard he was near El Golea.”
“El Golea!” The captain’s face raged red with anger. “That is far beyond his orders!”
“Oui, capitaine. So it is.”
“Merde! I’ve unleashed a rogue officer! The commandant in Touggourt will have my head!”
The adjutant smiled inside. French officers in these parts were not known for restraint or the overly careful reading of orders. Chirac was making theater. Practicing, perhaps, for his appearance before the colonel. He cleared his throat. “I understand, sir, that he has given up his horses as well.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir. He traded them for camels.”
“Mon Dieu, a French officer upon a camel in my command? It is unspeakable! Against all orders! Has the man no shame?” At this news the captain was truly aghast.
“Apparently not, sir. But he seems to have lit a fire under Tamrit. There are reports everywhere.”
Chirac nodded. Secretly he was delighted. The lieutenant’s legend was growing as rapidly as that of the man he chased. There were unconfirmed reports of “excesses,” reports of civilians – even some women and children – killed in unfortunate incidents. But such incidents were the price one paid for order. Besides, they were followed by reports that local support for the rebel Tamrit was drying up, that he was spending more time running than killing. The gun of France was proving mightier than the sword of Islam.
The captain dismissed the adjutant. “I only hope he reports in sometime this year,” he sighed. “I will be embarrassed to say I have no idea where he is. And when he does I hope he isn’t riding a camel.”