Desert Rogue (3 page)

“Yes, yes, get on with it,” Hayden brusquely commanded with a wave of his hand, knowing as well as the uniformed Egyptian that the police force was independent in name only.

“My presence tonight concerns these two,” the policeman stated with a nod, his tones made more deferential by Hayden's obvious impatience.

Hayden studied the pair in question, noting the apprehension in the Bedouin's eyes and the casual nonchalance of the other man. The one was obviously contrite about his part in whatever had occurred, while his companion appeared to be merely amused, a sentiment Hayden did not share as he thought of his comfortable bed at the opposite end of the corridor and the upset he had felt when he had been awakened.

“These criminals were involved in a most dreadful altercation,
mudir.
But since I suspected that fellow there might be a countryman of yours,” the constable said as he gestured toward Jed Kincaid, “and despite the fact reports show this is the third fight the fellow has been involved in today, I thought it best to learn your wishes in the matter before I placed him and his opponent in jail.”

“I tried to tell him I'm an American and not English,” came a casual drawl from across the room, forcing Hayden's attention.

“Your nationality is quite evident,” the British official replied in clipped tones. The man, with his sun-burnished skin and raw strength, was all too primitive for Hayden's taste. There was very little that was civilized about him, from his clothing to his manner. Dismissing him, Hayden pointedly turned to the portly constable once more. “As far as I am concerned, you can throw them both in jail for as long as you wish.”

“No, most respected sir,” the Egyptian in custody protested, his concern for Fatima overcoming his natural cautiousness in dealing with British officials. “I am not to blame. I was merely trying to recover money from this villain for the damages he did to my humble shop during one of his rampages. I asked him for payment, and that is when he set upon and attacked me.”

“And with good reason,” Jed growled, remembering the dark eyes and soft femininity of the woman employed at Nadir's establishment.

“There was nothing to excuse your assaulting
me,
” interrupted the constable, his pride as bruised as his jaw.

“I wouldn't have had a chance to hit you if you hadn't been in that brothel,” Jed replied, his low, husky voice ripe with insinuation.

“I—I was merely con-conducting an investigation,” sputtered the squat, little police official.

“Yeah? Maybe you should ask him just what it was he was investigating,” Jed muttered skeptically to Hayden Reed.

“Never mind that! Let's get back to the original issue. Why did you attack this Egyptian?” snapped Hayden with a nod in Ali's direction.

“He asked for it. Besides, he deserved a good pounding for retreating into his shop when those other three jumped me. Is that what the shopkeepers in the
medina
do when an innocent man is beset by cutthroats?”

“I am nothing if not a law-abiding citizen. I do not become involved in common street brawls,” objected Ali. Never, in all his years in Cairo, had he called himself to the attention of the police or the English authorities.

“All that effort to recover a few piasters for some cheap tin and copper? I doubt that. It could be that you're associated with the men who tried to rob and kill me. Maybe it was your job to see that I didn't get away,” bluffed Jed coolly. He'd be damned if he was going to spend a night behind bars while the fellow who had interrupted his pleasure went free.

“My only quarrel with you was to recover the price of the goods you had ruined. By Allah, I swear it,” Ali maintained, casting a nervous glance in Hayden's direction. One never knew what these foreigners would believe.

“This doesn't concern me,” Hayden stated with the exasperation of one of the upper class forced to deal with inferiors. “Though I thank you, Constable, for your intention of allowing me to help decide the fate of one of my countrymen, what you do with these two is your concern. For all I care, you can lock them up and lose the key.”

“Whoa, one minute, Mr. Hayden Reed!” Jed shouted over Ali's moan of despair. “I happen to know Great Britain runs the show here, and if you think you can turn your back on this Yank and wash your hands of me, you people are going to have another damn revolution on your hands!”

When Hayden replied, his ice blue eyes had turned frostier. “Is that a threat, Mr....?”

“Kincaid. Jed Kincaid.” He'd dealt with men like this before, Jed thought, long-suppressed images of his stepfather coming to mind after so many years. And he'd see himself in hell before he surrendered to propriety and played by this stuffy Englishman's absurd rules. “And it's no threat, Reed. It's a reality.”

“See here, you colonial clod, your blustering has no effect on me,” Hayden retorted with disdain, half wishing that he had grounds to order this upstart American's execution. Looking at the restless energy of the man before him, he doubted many jail cells had been built that could contain this powerful thug for very long. To imprison him and then have him escape would only feed the American's already considerable ego as well as give the consul general cause to reassess his junior aide's performance. The possibility made Hayden decide he
should
settle this matter—thoroughly frighten the man and then extract a promise from the bloody bounder to leave Cairo immediately and not return. As for the merchant, he would lecture him, as well. It wouldn't do to have the natives think they could do whatever they pleased.

“I will tend to this problem,” Hayden began, waving the policeman out the door. Then he turned to Jed Kincaid. “Someone has to teach you proper respect for authority.”

“Many a man has tried,” Jed retorted, a dangerous glint lighting his emerald eyes, “and not one of them has succeeded.”

“Obviously,” Hayden replied dryly. “But now it is my turn.”

Concerned with their confrontation, both the American and Briton had forgotten Ali, standing quietly in the corner, viewing the escalating tension with growing anxiety. Hayden was determined to bend Jed Kincaid's will to his own, and the American was just as resolved not to comply. As the two proud males squared off against each other, Ali feared that no matter who won, he would ultimately emerge as the loser.

But before either man could take any action, the door to the office burst open and one of the
fellaheen
entered quickly, carrying a message for the person in charge at the moment.

“Put it on the desk and then get out,” Hayden Reed ordered brusquely, not sparing the native Cairene a glance.

“But,
mudir,
it is most important!” the fellow protested vehemently. “This is from Mrs. Shaw.”

“There's nothing so important that Mrs. Shaw would feel compelled to send me a missive at this time of night,” Hayden replied, the servant's insistence filling him with uneasiness all the same. Then a possibility emerged, ladening him with dread. Could Cameron Shaw have died, gone to his Maker before he could use his influence to procure a title for his future son-in-law? Reed paled at the thought, forgot the disturbers of the peace and whirled around to confront the Shaws' employee. “Nothing has happened to Mr. Shaw, has it?” he demanded anxiously, “or to Miss Victoria?”

“It is the young miss, to be sure,” the servant replied while Hayden tore open the seal and scanned the letter addressed to him.

Its contents all but undid the consular agent's practiced reserve, and he sank into his seat, an upset and bitter man. Life's greatest treasure had been stolen from him. Yes, of course he was worried about Victoria, she was everything he could want in a wife, and he had grown fond of her. But along with his fiancée, it was his own rise to power and social position that had, it would seem, been abducted. He slumped down further into his seat. Wondering if it was Victoria's link to him and his own profession that had precipitated so tragic an event, he threw Grace Shaw's letter onto the desk and rested his throbbing head in his hands.

Sensing that he and Ali had been forgotten, and curious as to what could visibly move a man of Reed's reserve, Jed drew closer to the desk to read the decidedly feminine scrawl on the proper, watermarked stationery. The first few lines caused his lips to curl in a grim smile. It would seem Hayden Reed was in for a long night.

“Is this Victoria anything special to you?” Jed asked the benumbed British official.

“
Miss Shaw
is my fiancée, and I will thank you to refrain from mentioning her name. It should not be uttered by a man of your ilk,” Reed snapped before turning back to the servant. “Five thousand pounds! I can't possibly raise such a sum in time.”

“The money is no problem,
mudir.
The mistress has sent someone to Mr. Shaw's bank to fetch it.”

“But even given that, do you think we can get it to the oasis south of Wadi Halfa in five days' time?” fretted Hayden.

“Wait a minute!” interrupted Kincaid. “I can't be hearing right. You aren't planning on paying the ransom for this girl's return, are you?”

“What we do is none of your affair, Kincaid,” growled Reed.

“But why don't you just ride out and get your woman back?” a truly puzzled Jed asked.

“Don't be ridiculous, man! Difficult as it might be for you to comprehend, I can't even begin to consider such a tactic,” Hayden protested. “The bastards are taking her to a wadi in the Sudan outside the realm of British authority. If I took it upon myself to send troops out after her, I could set off an incident that might cost thousands of innocent people their lives.”

“Oh, I can understand that part, all right, Reed,” Jed said, a taunting smile playing around his mouth. “What I can't understand is why you don't go after her yourself. If it was my fiancée, no one would be able to keep me here. It makes a man question your devotion to the lady.”

“I'm an official of the British government! I can't be caught doing anything of the sort.” Perspiration was beading on Hayden's brow. “It might very well involve my country in an intolerable situation that would only result in international confrontation. As for devotion, how dare you speak to me of my feelings for Miss Shaw? What does an uncivilized clod like you know about real love? After all, the constable did find you in a brothel!”

“I might not be on a first-name basis with true love, I'll grant you,” Jed said with a chuckle, “but before this idiot interrupted me the lady I was with was loving every minute of it.”

“Uncouth lout! 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.”