Captive (6 page)

She was an idiot! Why had she pushed herself this way? If she fainted now, out here on a public street, who would help her?

Her hands were on fire. Alex cried out, but could not move. She could no more drop the lamp than move her legs forward; somehow her body had stopped obeying her mind. In fact, she had lost all feeling in her feet and ankles and calves!

Alex was frightened. The lamp seared her palms. The night swirled about her, and her vision began to ebb and flow. Darkness
and more darkness. Her thighs were growing numb, too. And her fingertips, her palms.

Alex had one distinct and horrible thought as she tried to make her legs obey her brain, as she tried to move forward. She wasn’t merely jet-lagged, oh no—she had caught a foreign virus—a virus that was now paralyzing her—a virus that might even kill her.

She tried to cry out. Her mouth refused to open, or if it did, no sound came out. She wanted to throw the lamp away, but could not lift her arms. Her palms burned badly, on fire. And the night spun crazily around her.

Alex suddenly felt herself being sucked down into a wildly spinning vortex—being sucked down into a cyclone.

Alex became aware of several things at once. The sun was beating down on her face, and she was lying supine, the ground stony, hard and hurtful beneath her back. Her head throbbed; she was nauseated.

Alex forced her eyes open only to be blinded by the glaring sun. She closed them quickly, pain stabbing all the way through her temples.

What had happened? Where was she?

Alex opened her eyes again and stared up at the bright white stone wall of a house. Her gaze took in the orange tiled roof, the single open window below it, which was missing a windowpane, and a closed, arched doorway. Inside that house someone was cooking something very spicy and aromatic. Alex smelled roasting lamb. And then she heard soft female voices chatting merrily in Arabic. Peals of laughter pierced the animated conversation.

Alex levered herself up into a sitting position, glancing around. Hammers were pounding inside of her head. She did not recognize the narrow dirt street where she had been lying, or any of the clustered homes. But then she saw the blue oil lamp not far from her sandaled feet.

Good God, what had happened? Alex remembered the shop and Joseph and the lamp. She remembered hearing Blackwell’s voice. But she had no recollection of arriving at this small dirt street. Had she walked here? Had she fainted? But it appeared to be midday—had she been unconscious all night? And where was she? She was not in the souk where
she had bought the lamp. Alex was quite certain of that. She was in a very shabby residential neighborhood. A very old-fashioned neighborhood. There was a well beside the house, a bucket attached to a rope providing proof that the well was actually used.

Something soft and warm touched Alex’s back.

Alex cried out, scrambling to her feet so quickly that dizziness assailed her. She whirled, only to face a doe-eyed donkey.

The small donkey blew softly, then lowered its head and began to sniff Alex’s backpack. Alex laughed in relief.

Then she snatched her Coach backpack away from the animal, gathering up the lamp as well. It no longer burned her hands. Her nausea had disappeared, and she realized that she was famished and desperately thirsty. She fished a piece of Trident gum out of her backpack, tucked the oil lamp inside for safekeeping, and glanced around, wondering where the hell her hotel was. She could not see the harbor from where she stood. She was lost.

Alex hesitated only a moment, then marched over to the door of the small, single-story stone house where the women were still chattering away. The house was a brilliant, sparkling shade of white. To the left of her head, clothes were hanging out of the single window to dry. She knocked on the painted door.

It was opened almost immediately by a heavily veiled woman. She was wrapped in so many layers of clothing that it was impossible to tell either her age or her size. And if her clothing had not indicated her sex, Alex would not have been able to surmise that, either. Only her eyes were clearly visible.

Alex smiled and spoke in French.
“Bonjour. S’il
vous plaît, pouvez-vous m’aider?”

The woman’s eyes widened as she took in Alex’s appearance, and a moment later she slammed the door in Alex’s face.

Uneasy, Alex backed away. What had she done?

Alex glanced down at her wrinkled and stained white suit. It was torn, too. Well, she would just have to ask someone else for directions, someone who would not be shocked by her dishevelment.

Alex turned the corner and halted.

Four men were sauntering down the next dirt street toward
her, but they hadn’t seen her yet. Alex stared, unable to move. The men were clearly sailors, and as clearly, they were drunk. They were speaking a language that was an odd mixture of French and Italian and perhaps even German, as well. They were dressed strangely. They wore long-sleeved, colorless shirts that resembled old-fashioned woolen underwear, and baggy dark pants tucked into over-the-knee boots that were rolled down. But the real reason Alex could not move was that they all wore knives, very dangerous looking knives.

Alex came to her senses. She turned and fled back around the corner, her heart thumping, and then around another corner as well. She pressed against a stone wall, panting. She was a fool! She was an American woman in a foreign city filled with men who had absolutely no respect for Christian women. She had to find a taxi and get back to her hotel at once.

If only she could feel Blackwell’s presence again. She was growing frightened, and his presence would have been comforting now.

Alex strained very hard to feel him, but she felt nothing at all. She was alone.

Frightened, Alex glanced carefully around, but saw no sign of the sailors. She began to breathe easier and she started walking. A teenaged boy, dressed in flowing white robes, was leading a haltered goat across the street a half block ahead of her. Alex did not think too much of his bedouin-style dress, because yesterday she had noticed a few Arabs in very traditional costume, too. Although not with goats. “Please, stop!” She called out somewhat frantically.

The boy glanced at her, then did a double take. He looked at her high wedge sandals and her pants, his eyes widening as they stopped at her crotch. He stood there and oggled her in a shocked manner.

Alex grew angry. Clearly he was from some small, primitive village and he had never seen a woman in pants before. Alex had a new headache. Nevertheless, she strode over to him. “I need help,” she began.

He gave her a strange, condescending look, turned, and with a stick, prodded the goat and walked away.

“How rude!” Alex exclaimed. Alex realized she had no choice but to continue on, at least until she found another
passerby to ask directions of. And if she was really lucky, a cab would soon appear. If one did, even if it already contained passengers, Alex intended to flag it down.

She tured another corner, combing her hair with her fingertips. Alex saw them at the exact same moment that they saw her.

Two men. Men clad in turbans, colorful, embroidered vests and loose, flowing pants, each wearing a huge scimitar and an ancient pistol. Two men who looked exactly the way Alex had envisioned the Turkish soldiers she had read about in the history books at Columbia.

For a split second Alex stared at the Turks and they stared at her. The men cried out. Alex did not hesitate.

She ran. She ran as hard as she could, the men chasing her. Her heart had never beat so hard and her legs had never moved so swiftly. She pumped her arms. She did not have time to assimilate what she had seen, or to comprehend who the men chasing her were. She knew one thing. She was in dire jeopardy—she could not let them catch her.

She ran down one street and then another, turning corners pell-mell, cutting behind houses and through home-kept gardens. She ran past piles of refuse. A glance over her shoulder showed her that the men had finally disappeared from view—they were hardly as well conditioned as she was—but Alex did not stop running. Her lungs threatened to burst. Alex turned another corner and faced the open door of a small stone house. She saw a dark man clad in colorful robes shuffling about inside.

With a hoarse cry, Alex barreled into his home.

Alex sat on a dark red velvet cushion on the floor, her legs tucked up under her, shaking. The old man had shut the door and bolted it. He was pouring tea.

She was on the verge of tears. She could hardly comprehend what had just happened. Alex took off her black patent sandals and began rubbing her feet, trying to ward off the tears. As soon as she returned to her hotel she would call Joseph, she decided. Maybe she would tell him everything, the entire truth about why she had come to Tripoli. She had the strangest certainty that he would not be shocked.

But who were those men? Why had they been dressed like
nineteenth-century Turkish soldiers? Had they been in costume for some event or parade, or perhaps they were attendants at some historical sight? They had appeared so genuine; soldiers from another era.

The old man approached, his numerous robes flowing about him, handing her a steaming cup of tea. He murmured to her in Arabic, his tone low and soothing.

Alex accepted the delicate cup gratefully and took a sip. It was sweet and delicious. “Shukran,” she said huskily. “Merci beaucoup. I don’t speak your language, I’m sorry.”

He smiled at her. He had kind brown eyes set in a very weathered face.

“I need to use your telephone,” Alex said, glancing around the room. She did not see a phone. In fact, the old man lived in very primitive conditions. When Alex had barged in, he had been cooking in an iron pot over an open fire in the room’s hearth. He had no stove, no refrigerator, and Alex saw no running water. But she already knew that much of the Middle East lived in conditions far less comfortable than those of the Western world.

“I have to call someone.” She shivered. She had no doubt that those men had wanted to rape her. Why hadn’t she gotten Joseph’s telephone number from him? She hadn’t even taken a receipt for the purchase of the lamp.

The old man murmured soothingly.

Alex sipped the tea, exhaustion seeping through every pore and fiber of her being, even though she had been passed out all night long. But she did not want to fall asleep. She wanted to return to her hotel. She wanted to speak to Joseph. He would be comforting, reassuring, she knew. And she wanted to find Blackwell’s ghost again.

“Have you heard of the Hotel Bab-el-Medina?” she whispered, her voice sounding strange and distant, even to her own ears.

He watched her, unsmiling.

She forced her eyes to remain open. But her lids would not obey her mind, and they closed resolutely.

Her last thought before unconsciousness claimed her again was that this time she had been drugged.

Alex awoke and screamed.

The man looming over her was at least six foot four and black. He straightened, the huge muscles in his bare arms rippling, and backed off a step. That was when Alex noticed the gold collar on his broad, sinewed neck.

Her second scream died without ever being emitted.

She was lying on her back on a couch. Not a Western couch, but a Middle Eastern version, meaning it had no back or arms and sides. Numerous square pillows had been propped behind her, and Alex crushed her spine into them.

And then, through the archway, Alex glimpsed another man approaching. Her heart accelerated. He was short and dark, and he was dressed in flowing robes and loose trousers, but he was clearly European. His face was sharp featured and aquiline. He entered the room and smiled at Alex. His eyes were blue and ice-cold.

“I am so pleased that you are awake, mademoiselle,” he said in accented English.

Alex stood up. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Who are you? Why am I here? What do you want?” Was he her captor? Had she been kidnapped? Was she about to become a victim of white slavery?

“My name is Gaston Rigaux,” he said pleasantly. “Are you English?”

Alex crossed her arms. “I am … French. I demand you release me immediately. As a French citizen, I have rights, inalienable rights—and you have violated each and every one of them!”

“Hmm. I would have sworn that you are English or American.” He regarded her with bemusement. “What passion! What beauty. I shall do very well with you.”

Alex did not like his tone or his words. Worse, she did not like the way his eyes kept wandering over her body. She was hugging herself. “That is a very sexist statement.”

He blinked. “You make no sense.”

“Sexist,” Alex said. “Why am I here?”

He smiled at her. “You are different—unique. I can demand a tremendous sum for you.”

Alex stared. This was a nightmare—it could not possibly be reality.

“You should have known better than to wander the streets
of Tripoli alone, in such a state of dress,” he said softly—unapologetically.

“You can’t do this,” Alex whispered, beginning to sweat.

“Of course I can. In fact, I have already made appointments to show you to several prospective buyers. A great beauty is always easy to sell.”

Alex thought that she would faint. Her knees felt boneless. She forced herself to take deep gulps of air and to remain standing. Perspiration collected between her breasts. “You cannot sell me like I’m some … some … some
object.”

The Frenchman laughed, as if pleased. “But I can—and I will.”

Alex backed away, breathing sharply. “Let me go; you must. I promise I won’t say anything to anyone. I will not go to the police.”

He regarded her with open amusement. “I cannot let you go. But I suppose a ransom might be arranged. Do you have a rich husband? Rich relatives? Rich friends?”

Alex was about to say no, instead she kept her mouth shut, thinking the better of it.

“I did not think so.” He started for the archway. “Rest. Zendar will bring you food and wine. You may use the courtyard as you wish.” With a brief smile, he exited the room.

Alex rushed after him, only to have her way barred by one of the black servants. His expression turned so menacing that she immediately backed away, to stand shivering in the center of the room.