Sanctuary: Delos Series, Book 9 Read online

  “Have you had to?” she asked, finishing off the tomato salad. If she asked Nolan about his life as an undercover Delta Force agent, he would often give her general details.

  “Many times,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re vaccinated up to our eyeballs for all kinds of diseases you can pick up here in Africa, but there’s no vaccine for viruses like Ebola, Crimean fever, Lassa, or Marburg.”

  “I know. Well, no worries, okay? I talked to Nafeesa this morning and she’s got most of the food provisions made and packed. They’re all ready to go.”

  “This is when I’m really glad to have MREs—‘meals ready to eat’—around.”

  She grinned. “We do a lot of packaging of meals when we have to go out like this, which is at least once every three months. Nafeesa is a brilliant chef. She does a lot of goat jerky, and dried fruits and vegetables. Then all we have to do is add water. And we carry clean water and pots and pans, and never drink from any village water source. Too dangerous.”

  “Tell me about it,” he muttered. “Sometimes I had to drink brownish water and was hoping like hell it wasn’t full of brain-eating parasites.”

  “And yet, here you are,” she teased, smiling over at him. “Fit, healthy, and very, very sexy.”

  Giving her a heated glance, Nolan said, “What’s for dessert?” He saw Teren give him a coy look, her cheeks suffusing with pink. She was still an innocent, still learning to embrace herself as a sexual woman. Two weeks had shown her the beauty of having a skilled man as her lover. She was blossoming before his eyes in the best of ways. Even more, Nolan appreciated her honest responses to him pleasuring her. Some women pretended to be satisfied when they weren’t, but she didn’t.

  Her expressions, that smoky sound in her voice as he teased her, increased to a peak where she would orgasm. That couldn’t be faked.

  “Well,” she said, looking suggestively down the hall toward her bedroom. “I was thinking that you could be my dessert.”

  “I like your boldness.” It was as if their time together had released Teren in many positive ways. Nolan understood the importance of partners who fed each other praise, support, and love. He’d been lucky enough to be married to Linda and knew what a good marriage consisted of. Linda had taught him a lot, but he’d equally contributed. The same kind of healthy connection had just automatically sprung up between him and Teren.

  Every day, Nolan was seeing Teren flourish in exciting and unexpected ways, and he loved her for her eagerness to explore all her potential. The influence of family, right or wrong, played hell on most people. Teren had come from one that might have had good intentions, but her personality, who she could become, had been deeply suppressed. Until now.

  “My turn today,” she told him archly, standing and pushing the chair back. “I’ve been thinking of how I was going to undress and make love with you tonight.”

  “Did you get any work done in your office today, I wonder?” he chuckled, rising. Nolan picked up their plates and flatware while Teren gathered up the salt and pepper shakers and the butter dish.

  “Very funny,” she sniffed, then grinned broadly. “Of course I did.”

  They stood side by side at the sink, their hips brushing against one another.

  “Do you hear that?” Teren said, lifting her head.

  Nolan frowned, hearing a tinkle of bells. “What is it?”

  Pulling the curtain aside, Teren said, “Look. It’s a camel caravan!” She hurried through the dishes. “They come through here off and on. The caravans don’t carry cell phones on them, so they can’t call ahead and let us know they’re arriving.”

  Nolan dried his hands, studying the line of about twenty-five dromedary camels that were carrying loads. There were at least ten men in long white flowing robes walking beside them. The bells they heard were part of the decorations around each camel’s neck. Nolan knew that if a camel ever got loose, its owner could find the camel by the sound of the bells. They were made of brass, hand-painted, and usually came from India. Anywhere between three and ten of those bells were around each camel’s long neck.

  “Been a while since I saw a caravan,” he murmured. “What’s the SOP—standard operating procedure—on one coming to Kitra?”

  “They have to remain outside the walls of Kitra. The guards on the outer gate will guide them to three, huge wooden water troughs placed alongside the north wall. They can refill them with water from the nearby faucets. Those camels will consume a lot of water.”

  “Do you go out and talk with them?” Nolan asked, seeing the excitement in her eyes. He was concerned that Uzan might try to sneak close to Kitra in disguise as a camel driver. He put nothing past the enemy soldier.

  “Yes. I love camels! I know some people hate them, but they have such gorgeous, liquid brown eyes and those long, long lashes over them.”

  He gave her a sour look. “I got bitten by one once. He turned on me so damned fast, he took my hand and arm up to my elbow in a millisecond. Surprised the hell out of me.” Nolan pointed to several deep scars along his forearm. “The camel was unhappy with how heavy his load was and took it out on me as I walked past him.”

  Teren moved her fingertips over the small white scars that dotted his forearm. “Ouch. Their bite is really bad.”

  “Well,” he said drily, “at least he didn’t spit in my face.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Teren said, “Ugh…that’s worse than a bite! They regurgitate part of their meal and spit it at someone who has pissed them off. The smell is horrible!”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Been there and had it done to me.”

  “Don’t wanna be a camel jockey, eh?” she teased.

  “No. Not even, I’ll get my jacket and pistol.” When he returned, he became serious, placing his hands on her shoulders. “You’re going to have to stay behind. I’m sorry.”

  Teren became somber, her excitement dissolving. “I forgot all about the threat,” she admitted, frowning.

  “Uzan could be among them. I just want to be extra watchful,” he said, seeing all her childlike enthusiasm wane.

  “I understand. I’ll wait for you here by the door.” Caravans came through about once a month, and she loved going out to talk with the head driver, finding out what stories he had to tell. Usually, they camped outside the walls for one or two days while they and their animals rested up.

  Kitra was a well-known camel oasis. Here, water was plentiful, and the fruit-tree orchard lent shade to everyone. Tamping down on her sadness that she couldn’t go out this time, Teren understood why.

  CHAPTER 17

  The village of Zalta, which was Arabic for “grazing,” was pastoral, rural, and peaceful. Enver Uzan melted into the village as someone passing through. He smiled beneath the cloth he wore across his nose and lower face. He’d dressed like the rest of the Sudanese tribe of this farming village, who raised cattle. Like the populace, he wore a long white robe and white turban, so that he blended in.

  Nazir had found out from his own network that Kitra was sending out a three-van Belgian medical team to this village. This community was thriving, very busy, and a crossroads to many other areas of Sudan because it was built on the Blue Nile, a major river. They were used to strangers in their village, and it didn’t raise any eyebrows. Enver had found out the Kitra medical team was to arrive here this morning.

  He stood near one of the stucco, single-story houses and watched the villagers wake up to greet a new day. It was barely light, but he had driven in with his own fleet of vehicles during the night. Sudan’s roads were mostly dirt, filled with potholes, and ungraded; there were no asphalt highways in this immediate region. Where he came from, in Pakistan, the major cities had paved streets.

  His men were well hidden, away from the main village in a nearby forested area, remaining with the three vehicles, all Land Rovers. This was a vehicle that could take a beating and still keep running. Enver had rented them in Khartoum, paying a hefty price to do so, but the desert-toned vehicles, alr
eady badly dented up and rusted from years of abuse on Sudan’s dirt roads, suited his plan. Nazir knew this village and had given him a detailed layout.

  Only one thing concerned Enver. When Nazir had asked him what he was going to do, he hadn’t told him. He’d hired Nazir as one of the drivers of the three Land Rovers. He was getting paid three times the usual amount for a driver, so Nazir nodded and asked nothing more. He worked in the employ of crazy Bachir. The other men, the best that could be found to kidnap Teren Lambert, were up for it, but they weren’t formally trained soldiers as he would have preferred. These were not his men, and he wouldn’t trust them as he would his own.

  But money spoke volumes, and the eight soldiers with him had their weapons hidden in the vehicles. They pretended to blend into the village as he had, and weapons would be used only if necessary. Uzan wasn’t interested in a bloody assault. Just the quiet theft of the American woman was his mission, with no blood spilled. Except hers. Later. When they were finished with her.

  The sky was turning a pale pink as dawn broke over the large, flat green pastures where the Kenana cattle grazed. This was a very comfortable village in comparison to most, especially with the Nile winding nearby. There were ditches around these large pastures, telling Uzan that the officials employed irrigation to keep the grass growing for their zebu-like, short-horned white cattle. The pastures completely surrounded the village of three-hundred tribespeople.

  The rich lived in modern, one-story stucco homes instead of the hundreds of grass huts that sat on the outskirts of the village. He snorted at the evidence of the class system, even out here.

  He’d seen a number of empty grass huts on the north, south, and east sides of the village. They were being prepared for the coming medical group from Kitra. Nazir was their point man to find out particulars, fading into the populace to ask questions and find out where each medical group would be working. Uzan had walked from one end of the awakening village to the other. It appeared that medical staff would be in the north, the eye doctors in the east, and the dental team in the south. Already, he was seeing women in brightly colored clothes, their heads covered, doing last-minute tidying up, sweeping around these designated areas. Where would Teren Lambert be? That was all he cared about.

  The cattle were lowing back and forth to one another. The cows’ udders were heavy with milk, and frisky brownish-red calves frolicked and kicked up their heels. In a smaller pasture were the yearlings, now weaned from their mothers’ milk, playing in the cool dawn morning.

  The women emerged from their huts, placing blackened kettles on tripods over smoldering fires of dried cow dung. Their children soon appeared, and it was a peaceful scene as morning arrived. However, at some point, Uzan was going to create one hell of an uproar. He preferred executing a swift kidnapping of Teren Lambert, and his mind moved over several plans he’d concocted. He still wasn’t sure which one he’d use; it depended upon how things developed.

  Uzan would have to see how the Kitra medical teams set up and behaved. Either way, Lambert would be his by the end of this day. He wanted her alive and unharmed. Later, once he got her back into the slums of Khartoum, that would markedly change. He would let his boss, Lord Zakir Sharan, know that he had his targeted hostage. And whatever Sharan wanted, he would get. Uzan was prepared to carry out any order, especially against an American woman. Personally, he hated them. They were the devil’s spawn.

  *

  Nolan remained out of the way, keeping a few feet from Teren after the medical vans drove into Zalta. It was nearly nine a.m., and the sun rose, spreading heat across the land, the sky a pale blue. The smell of cattle, of green pastures, and the river nearby, filled his nostrils. The village was near the Blue Nile, and he was familiar with this area because of his Delta Force undercover activities over the years.

  Zalta was a thriving, large rural village. And it was one of the few places where people weren’t on the edge of starvation all the time. The leader, a chief, had gone to the University of Khartoum when he was a young man and had a degree in agriculture, which had certainly helped put this place on solid economic footing.

  Wearing his usual safari jacket over a black T-shirt and blue jeans, Nolan wore a level-two Kevlar vest beneath his T-shirt today, the Glock in place beneath the jacket. He’d tried to get Teren to wear a vest, but she refused, saying that everyone who saw the vest on her, would be asking what it was. Then they’d ask her why she was wearing it. There was no way she wanted to scare the populace, telling them she was a target. Not wishing to argue with her, Nolan understood her position. There was little to no protection for her in this type of village; and he certainly didn’t want the people of this village to know she might be stalked by their enemy. In the end, he gave into Teren’s request against his better judgment.

  Nolan remained alert and on guard as women in bright colored robes worked with Teren. She was speaking in their unique tribal language, giving them directions, pointing here and there as the dental team unloaded. Village men eagerly came forward, dressed in their white robes and white caps, to help carry the equipment into the huts that were being used as makeshift clinics.

  This was the last van to set up its station in the southern part of the village. The dental team’s hut was a highly popular place to gather. Nolan also saw many villagers lining up at the medical doctors’ hut area to the north of them. In the east, the ophthalmologists and optometrists had many older residents, all of them complaining of losing their eyesight, mostly due to cataracts, and seeking medical help.

  Teren had said that the team of ophthalmologists would be doing surgery today on many of the elders in order to remove those cataracts from their eyes. Then they would be able to see again. It was a miracle!

  Teren wore a red scarf over her hair—which she’d piled up on top of her head—and her normal attire of a dark blue tee covered by a long-sleeved white blouse. She had chosen jeans and boots instead of her usual loose-fitting cargo pants and sandals. The people of this village, she’d told Nolan on the drive here, were used to European and American dress codes. All the European women wore headscarves to honor the Islamic customs of the country; but instead of head-to-toe robes, they all wore green or blue scrub uniforms.

  This village had profited greatly by quarterly visits from medical volunteers over the years, and the customs were noticeably relaxed. Nolan thought that was a good idea under the circumstances, as there were few doctors out in these areas at all. The chief of the village was a wise man. He was getting free medical services for his people every three months.

  Remaining in the background, Nolan scanned the crowds of people. The chatter was high, laughter was frequent, and there were long lines of adults and children. The kids, as always, were restless and didn’t want to stand quietly waiting in line. Soon, Nolan saw a lot of them playing tag, laughing and squealing with delight, running in and around the patient adults. The cattle in the pastures were being tended, too. Nolan saw young boys taking armloads of sorghum, one of the mainstays for the cattle, and dumping them into wooden troughs along one side of the fenced-in pasture.

  The scent of cereal cooking in tripod pots had a nutlike aroma to it. The smell of smoke came from the dried cow dung burning beneath the pots. Nothing was wasted out here.

  Nolan scanned the crowd again. He saw Ayman in village garb, his pistol hidden in the folds of his white robe as he walked like a quiet wolf, threading silently among the unaware villagers in another area. He had brought six of his soldiers with him. They were all in disguise, also wearing village garb, but each had a pistol on him, hidden out of sight. They were making the rounds, looking for anything that seemed out of place. So far, it was a peaceful village filled with expectant, anxious people seeking medical help.

  Nolan was never fooled by such a scene, however. He’d been in too many close calls and scrapes in other Sudanese villages where peace could be ripped away in a millisecond as a rebel group of soldiers drove into it, guns firing, murdering those unable t
o get out of their way fast enough. No, in his experience, there was no place in Sudan that was honestly peaceful. Except maybe Kitra. Teren had told him that Delos had two other charities in Sudan. One was east, at Port Sudan, and the other was on the western side of Sudan, in a rundown, poverty-stricken area.

  *

  Teren caught sight of Nolan near the round grass hut where the team of dental technicians was sitting down with paper and pens at a makeshift table. They were there to take the names of the patients waiting in line for attention. She gave Nolan a sunny smile, but he didn’t respond, his face set, his eyes reminding her of a guardian lion. Her heart warmed, because they’d made love earlier that morning before leaving Kitra. Even now, her body glowed subtly with memories of his skill in pleasing her. Equally, Teren felt much more confidence in being able to please Nolan. It was no longer one-sided, as it had been in the beginning.

  She saw the worry banked deep in his eyes and knew he was very unhappy about her being out in the open like this without a protective vest. But the joy, the laughter, the smiles of the people, and the delight in the children’s faces made her smile in return. This was a safe village, and she had tried her best to convince Nolan of that.

  He didn’t buy it. She understood his job was to protect her and was happy that he took it seriously. Still, as she gazed around at the busy village, the air alive with excitement and expectation, she felt joy moving through her. There was so much good that this medical team would do for these people.

  She saw a dentist waving a hand to beckon her. Time to translate! Nodding, Teren eased through the lines, excusing herself and making her way over to the dentist seating a young girl in her chair to be worked on. Teren was carrying a radio and knew that she’d be running to each of the areas all day long, providing translation when needed.

  Even better, Ayman knew English, and so did two of his other soldiers, who were in disguise. They all had radios on them, including Nolan, and were all on the same channel, so they could easily communicate with each other.