The Desert is Wide
A Nightshade Story
It was sand. And nothing but sand. As far as the eye could see. How Dusty could wax poetic and even stand to move around in this oppressive heat was far beyond anything Nightshade could fathom. She had even gone so far as to trade in her blacks for some desert camo, wrapping her hair up away from her neck. The mission itself was a wash anyway. The tiny country of Azul had already been overrun and swallowed by Saudi Arabia; its leaders were most likely dead and buried.
But here they were anyway following Dusty's lead through the desert. Nightshade held on in the back of the Desert Fox, one hand wrapped around the roll bar while the vehicle followed the rise and fall of the dunes. She tried very hard not to think at all. Scarlett sat beside her, alternately watching the desert and checking on Nightshade. Meanwhile, Flint was behind the wheel, while Dial-Tone relayed the directions from Dusty's scouting up ahead. Nightshade was a hundred miles away, but at least she was still watching her rear points as she had been trained.
This was the place after all.
Eric's last known whereabouts had been Saudi Arabia. She kept seeing her brother's wrapped body thrown into a mass grave, afforded no final rites, and offered no mourning. How horrible it would be to die in this expansive wasteland...
Sweat began to dribble into her eyes, behind her sunglasses. Wiping them required exposing her to the blazing sun, so Nightshade glanced around. It was nearing midday; Dusty should be finding some sort of shelter for a siesta any time now. The four hours in the middle of the day were the worst, both heat and dehydration-wise. Just as Nightshade thought of it, Scarlett held out the canteen they'd been sharing. Accepting it with a grateful nod, Nightshade took only a mouthful before handing it back.
"You okay?" Scarlett asked quietly. When Nightshade automatically nodded, Scarlett frowned. Neither Nightshade, nor Snake Eyes had ever indicated what happened in Peru, but something was definitely strained between them. Scarlett would get to the bottom of it eventually. But not until Nightshade was willing to talk.
Dial-Tone turned slightly in his seat, causing the tension between the women to snap. Nightshade returned the communications officer's brilliant smile, while Scarlett just raised a brow to wait for his report.
"Dusty's gonna get us camping in the lee of a sand dune..." Dial-Tone sighed, and dragged his already sweat-soaked sleeve across his brow.
"I don't care if we're beneath a camel," Flint groused. "Just so long as we get some shade!" Glancing at the GPS, Flint turned slightly, and sent the Desert Fox skidding sideways down the embankment of a dune. The girls in the back hung on to the roll cage, watching as the dune just kept angling downward beneath them. It took almost ten minutes of tense driving to reach the bottom of the trough, and on either side of them the dunes rose higher than the Eiffel Tower.
Thankfully, the temperature at the bottom was a good twenty degrees cooler, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Not too far ahead, they spotted Dusty, waving them down. He'd already spread a sleeping bag on the ground, and was comfortably sprawled out on the fabric. One by one the rest of them climbed out, each grabbing a rucksack from the back of the Fox. While the others joined Dusty sprawled out on the ground, Nightshade remained standing, shading her gaze with her hand, looking up at the sand dunes. Even though it was midday, the springtime sun wouldn't rise high enough to crest the dunes. They could rest without baking.
She lent half an ear to the conversation behind her.
"So you think we'll be able to find this... Sheik whatshisname?" Flint had asked.
Dusty never lost his cheer; it was one of his more endearing charms. "Sheik Kasim Avinizhad, and his son, the Shapur Kouroush. The last contact I had with them placed them at an oasis perhaps fifty miles from our current location. We should reach it by sixteen hundred hours, if we don't push the Fox."
"Nightshade, you and Scarlett take the first watch. In two hours, wake Dusty and I." Flint's crisp orders were received, and the two women retreated around the opposite side of the Desert Fox. Dial-Tone, not used to field operations, gave Flint a grateful nod and stretched out on his back.
Nightshade hunkered down, and lifted a handful of desert sand. Letting it sift through her fingers, she sighed softly, conscious of Scarlett's attention upon her. When the sand clung to the sweat on her palms, Nightshade dusted them off on her pants, looking across to the redhead.
"I know that look," Nightshade muttered, rolling her eyes, even though she knew Scarlett would miss the action. "Nothing is wrong."
"You're not normally this quiet," Scarlett observed, keeping her voice low. Sound traveled well in the desert, regardless of elevation.
"You're not normally this nosy." Nightshade bit back. Then she shook her head. "I'm fine... really."
Scarlett swallowed hard, and turned away. They sat at opposite ends of the Desert Fox, each keeping watch over a hemisphere. They remained silent after that minor exchange; sound in the desert travels fast and loud, unimpeded by buildings or trees. The two of them were too involved in their own thoughts to even realize that there was any danger lurking around. By the time the shoulder-launched missile was screaming through the valley, it was already too late. Giving a shout loud enough to wake her fellow soldiers, Scarlett dove away from the Desert Fox. On the other side of the vehicle, Nightshade was scrambling for cover when the ballistic hit. The Fox exploded in a conflagration of shrapnel and munitions. Before the debris had completely settled, all five Joes had drawn sidearms and were ready for a fight. The fine desert sand settled slowly.
Glints of sunlight drew their eyes to the rim of the dunes. Nearly thirty men stared down the sights of various firearms. They were all wrapped in the dozens of layers worn by the nomadic people of the deserts. Under his breath, Dusty cursed. The colors woven into their turbans, and smattering of Arabic that drifted down to him, both pointed to this being the wrong tribe. A dozen men broke off from the main force to skid with alarming alacrity down the slope of the dune. Flint and Dial-Tone automatically allowed Dusty to take the forefront. Even before he could strike up any conversation, Dusty was struck with a rifle butt and flattened. When Dial-Tone jumped to catch him, a single shot ricocheted off nearby debris.
"Lay down your weapons." One of the swathed Arabians ordered, in a suspiciously British accent. "Or you will be shot on sight."
All eyes turned to Flint, who nodded. Dropping his own pistol first, he slowly raised his hands in surrender. One by one, the motion traveled around, ending finally with Nightshade. She ground her teeth, fighting the urge to disobey orders. Two Arabians partnered off with each Joe, one holding them at gunpoint, while the other forced them to their knees. Nightshade continued to defiantly stare up the barrel of an American-made Browning 3-inch shotgun. Behind her, the Saudi grabbed her hands and forced her into shackles. As he leaned down, she caught a whiff of stale tobacco, and too much cologne trying to cover the stench of sweat. Her body reacted before she even completely understood what she was doing.
Nightshade's elbow connected hard with the guard's ribs. Scarlett threw a panicked glance toward Flint, thinking she had missed some sort of signal. Flint could only shake his head. As the Saudi holding Nightshade doubled over, she straightened her spine, whipping her head back to connect with his nose. Even before the satisfying crunch of broken cartilage had cleared from her ears, she was trying to get to her feet. In the span of seconds she had taken out one, but with her hands bound she wasn't fast enough to take out the other.
The gunshot seemed to bring the world to a halt. Scarlett shouted, while Flint cursed the Saudi's out in his rusty Arabic. Nightshade was back on the ground, lying on her side this time, missing a hefty chunk of flesh from her thigh. In the few moments before her body registered the pain, she continued to fight to stand up, a string of Spanish explicatives streaming unchecked from her mouth.
The Saudi she had head-butted began to kick her, first in the ribs. Five or six good shots had her fighting not to wretch into the sand. Dial-Tone tried to twist out of his bonds, only to feel the cool barrel of a gun resting against his temple. The threat didn't need to be spoken, all their lives where in danger here. Nightshade's captor gave her a final blow, this one directly to her head, sending her eyes rolling back, and the world to black.
"My friend? Sheik? Sheik! Wake up!" Dusty whispered hoarsely through the bars of his cage. The collection of cages were bolted to the floor, each separated about three yards from the one next to it, but almost 18 yards from those across from it. Dusty had already spotted Flint and Dial-Tone, hunched miserably in the small cages across from him. But it was the heap of cloth in the cage beside him that had Dusty's attention. The very man they'd come to evacuate from his war-torn country curled in a lump on the floor of the cage. The girls, Dusty automatically assumed, were in a separate wing. But the sheik's son Dusty hadn't yet spotted among the cages. Dusty kept insisting, alternating between Arabic and English, until the heap of rags stirred.
"I am sheik no more," the heap mumbled. "Just Kasim. Poor man. Slave..."
"Nonsense." Dusty grinned through the grime, and tried to reach through the bars to the older man. "You're alive... you're still sheik."
The white of Kasim's eyes stood out starkly against the darkness of his skin. "My people have abandoned me. Azula is no longer." He ignored the outstretched hand, and hunkered down within the remnants of his once-royal robes. Dusty fell silent, not understanding for a few moments. He glanced around again, searching for signs of Kouroush. He knew this place, he realized. These cages had once held prized fighting dogs, for the Sheik's favorite amusement. This bombed out building had to be on Azula soil.
"Kasim," Dusty began carefully, using the familiar address as the older man had wished. "What do you mean? And... where is Kouroush?"
The old man groaned and threw his head back, as though in mortal pain. The groan soon became a bitter laugh however, and when Kasim focused once more on Dusty's face among the bars, the despair in his eyes was clear. "There never has been a Kouroush."
Dusty blinked in confusion, as he considered that. He had fought beside Kouroush. There could be no Azul without a male heir; that much was written out in Avinizhad law. Dusty started suddenly, as the thought occurred to him. He looked across to Kasim once more, only to find the old man nodding slowly.
"Oh boy," Dusty muttered quietly.
Scarlett still couldn't figure out why they hadn't been locked up. If this room were a prison, she'd love to see how the rest of society lived. She felt like some fantasy damsel, locked in a tower far away from any hope of rescue. Nightshade was still out cold; the blow she'd taken to her head had kept her out the entire trip across the desert. By defacing some of the opulent blankets strewn over the bed, Scarlett had managed to staunch the flow of blood from the Latina's leg, but there was little else she could do. She paced around the room, checking the high narrow windows repeatedly. There was no hope of either woman squeezing out of there; they were just too impossibly narrow.
The heavy doors began to rattle, as someone on the other side fought with the iron lock. The doors themselves were foot-thick oak, obviously imported from some non-desert country. If her briefing was right, and her mental navigation proved correct, they were somewhere on Azul lands, if not in the royal palace. The door yanked open, and a figure was shoved roughly within. Staggering slightly, the woman straightened her back, and fired a rapid slur of Arabic curses at the men beyond the door. Scarlett caught and understood a few choice words, but elected not to speak up. Instead, she took up position between Nightshade and the newcomer. She breathed steadily as the woman began to turn.
The woman was dark-skinned, of mixed descent. There was something hard and weary about the way she regarded the red-head. In the moments that the two stared at one another, the lock outside the room clicked shut, heavy and hard. The sound broke the pall for a moment, as both women glanced to the door, as if by their wills they could open it.
Scarlett heaved a soft sigh. "Looks like we're in this together," she murmured in English.
A rustle of fabric, the woman's tattered robes swirling around her, came as swiftly as the Arabian closed the distance. Scarlett brought up her guard again, setting her feet and taking a defensive stance.
"You are American!" the woman exclaimed in excellent English. Her voice was rough and low-timbre, as though a life on the desert had scoured her throat rough and raw. She seemed happy, even relieved. But all that faded quickly. "This means that... Rudat is prisoner, as well..." She frowned, and bit her lower lip. As she turned away, Scarlett noticed for the first time that her hair was shore, short and choppy, as though inexpertly done with a knife or scissors.
"Rudat?" The name shocked Scarlett out of her self-imposed silence. "Wait, you know Dusty?"
"I fear you have come too late," the woman rattled the handle on the door, scowling at the answering, taunting voice that filtered through the thickness. "The sovereignty has fallen. The bloody Saudi's have taken our water, our oil, and our lives." She turned again to face the American, only now studying the look of complete confusion written on her features. "I am sorry. My name is Karida Amatallah bint Kasim al-Avinizhad. I was once known as Kouroush."
"The Shapur?"
She shook her head sadly. "I never had a claim to the land. My father had no sons; so he created a son from his daughter." With a heavy sigh, Karida began to move toward the bed. "My people have hurt your friend."
Scarlett rubbed the back of her neck. "Your people? Your people did nothing. We were ambushed by Saudis. It's our own fault."
"What once were Azuls, are now Saudis. The people do not follow a false Shapur, nor a Sheik who has lied for decades." Karida sat down slowly, easing herself down onto the edge of the mattress. Her fingers brushed along the bandage that graced Nightshade's leg.
"Hey, we're not giving up." Scarlett crouched, refraining from knocking the stranger's hand away. "We came to evacuate you, and your father, and that's what we're going to do. We need to break out of here, and find the guys. You can either be with me, or against me."
Karida's dark brow knit together in concern. "What of your friend?"
"Nightshade will help. She'll wake up, and we'll be one stronger."
Silence raged in the room for long moments. Scarlett waited tensely, watching for some tic or twitch of feature that would give away Karida's innermost thoughts. When the Azul revealed nothing, Scarlett laid her hand on the woman's shoulder.
"Do you trust Dusty?" When the Azul nodded slowly, her breath caught. "Then you can trust me. I'm here to help. We're here to help."
"Help! These American swine are going to kill me!"
Scarlett had to hand it to her; Karida had some acting chops. Her desperate cry for help, plus the timely smashing of a vase and some equally convincing Spanish curses from Nightshade helped seal the deal. The door rattled more, the heavy binding lock swung off and thrown to one side. When the two guards burst through, they were met with the sight of Scarlett squaring off with the former Shapur. They brandished guns, ordered them in both English and Arabic to stand down, and acted as though they still had the situation in hand.
Behind them, Nightshade slunk from the shadows of the heavy doors. She had armed herself with nothing more than a sharp shard of pottery, but it was more than enough to open one man's jugular before the other could even react. Nightshade dropped the gurgling, bleeding mess of a man, and focused her malignant intent on the second. She didn't need to worry.
In the split second where the second guard's attention had been distracted, Scarlett and Karida both sprung. Both women hit the guard with a pair of brutal punches that knocked him clean out. Nightshade eased her weight off her leg with a hiss as Karida began to drag the unconscious man toward the bed. Scarlett tore the sheets into strips, and together they bound and gagged him. Karida patted his bearded face gently, before she turned to offer a hand to Nightshade.
She found her hand batted away, as Nightshade reached down to pick up one of the men's discarded weapons. Scarlett had retrieved the other, and was checking the hallway. Motioning all clear, the two other woman crept forward. Nightshade shook the rifle in her hands.
"American models, but.." She rolled the weapon until Scarlett could see the manufacturing stamp on the stock. Both women recognized the squiggle, but to any untrained eye, the insignia would have just been another whorl in the wood.
"M.A.R.S." Scarlett groaned. "This just keeps getting deeper, doesn't it?"
Karida waited until they had finished, before pointing down the eastern hall. "The men will be in the dog pens."
"Pretty light on guards..." Nightshade commented as she motioned Karida to follow Scarlett.
"Much of the Saudi army has moved on. They left perhaps... fifty men to guard the Azul compound. Not nearly enough to cover the land."
The three women fell silent as they neared the stairs. Karida knew where she was headed, so the only thing standing between them, the men, and freedom happened to be however many guards lurked the sandstone corridors.
Dial-Tone shifted again in his cage, trying to find a comfortable way to curl up. His back ached steadily from the cramped quarters, and he knew, from the dark look of quiet determination that was painted across Flint's features, the warrant officer felt the same way. The cages weren't even fit for dogs, honestly, even though Dusty assured them that had been what lived here previously. Across the way, the former sheik huddled in a heap of robes and misery. Dusty slouched against the bars of his cage, both men had been silent since the revelation of the sheik's apparent lack of an heir.
It was obvious that those two weren't going to be much help until something shocked them out of their harsh misery. And Flint was a ball of anger, so pent up that Dial-Tone actually pitied the first person to step in his path. No, it seemed that all the chips had fallen down, and Dial-Tone felt like he was the only one with the mental capacity to make their situation any better. The simple question remained, now, just how was he going to accomplish that? Thus far there had been no ample opportunity. They were largely ignored by the guards who strode by at regular two hour intervals. No one had even thought to bring them food, or water. He couldn't allow himself to wonder just how long the sheik had been treated this way; if the man was too weak, he'd be a liability in their escape.
After all, the parameters of the mission had changed. They'd originally come to help out against the insurrection, to help the people of Azula stand against the armies of the Saudis. Now they had to save themselves, and that hothead Latina had gotten herself shot. Dial-Tone sighed hard, and shifted his position in the cage, trying to find a comfortable lean.
"So what're you thinking?" Flint's voice was thick with his pent up frustrations. Dial-Tone didn't move, but he listened to Flint readjust himself as well, until his head was as close as possible.
"I'm not sure, Flint," Dial-Tone began quietly. By his reckoning they still had another twenty minutes before the guards came around. "We're not strong enough to break the bars. The cages are bolted to the floors. The locks are solid."
Flint grunted. "Have a hard time believing these were dog cages." Without answering, Dial-Tone agreed with him. Flint kept on, thinking aloud to calm himself down. "We need to get out of here, get at least to Kuwait. We can get an evac once on sympathetic soil."
"Flint... getting out is the problem."
Twisting in his cage so he could look Dial-Tone in the eyes for a moment, the warrant officer just grinned. "You're underestimating Scarlett."
Dial-Tone arched his brows at the other, expecting some grand revelation to follow in the wake of that statement. When Flint deigned on further comment, Dial-Tone heaved a sigh and shifted again, aligning himself so he could watch the doors leading into the sprawling dog arena. His mental clock was counting down to the time when the doors would swing open, and the pair of Saudis would walk slowly through, chatting between themselves in that sparse, rapid language of theirs. Dial-Tone didn't care to listen to their talk, he could understand it if he put his mind to it. It was the unerring regularity that they strode through that captured his attention. That sort of reliability required not only a perfectly measured step, but also a complete lack of interruptions all along the way.
"Huh."
The allotted minutes had passed and the door didn't swing open on the whisper-quiet hinges. Confused, and almost irritated at the anomaly, Dial-Tone struggled until he was on his knees in the cage, with his back pressed against the top of the box. From this angle he could almost see the little window in the door, trying to see if the guards lingered outside. He began to count the minutes, feeling them tick by in slow, agonizing succession. Flint paid no attention to him, and Dusty was simply watching him with calm blue eyes from across the way.
Four minutes late, the door swung open slowly. But instead of walking down the stairs sedately, the guards, three of them this time, backed through the door, with their weapons drawn. As Dial-Tone watched, he caught a glimpse of flame red hair escaping from beneath one of the caps. Floored, he forgot to speak out. Instead, he remained in his uncomfortable lurch, and watched intently. Led by Scarlett, the other two backed down the stairs as well. The door locked shut heavily behind them. The echo of the click brought everyone's attention around.
"Scarlett!" Flint was the first to speak out, causing the red head to ditch the Saudi uniform's cap and let her hair free. She jogged from the stairs to their cages, and began to rattle a set of keys, searching for the one to set them free. Behind her, Nightshade limped with a drawn, tight face, her knuckles white on the assault rifle she carried. The third figure was also a woman, but it took Dial-Tone a minute to figure that out.
This last one raced first over to the Sheik's cage, causing the first stir from him anyone had seen in a while. Kasim's hands reached through the cage to grasp those of the woman, and they fired back and forth in Arabic much too fast for Dial-Tone to follow. Suddenly, Dial-Tone found he could stand up, and did so with slow, cracking agony. As his spine realigned with a series of loud, hard pops and snaps, he nodded his eternal thanks to Scarlett.
Dusty hadn't brought himself to speak until after the tearful reunion on father and daughter. He simply stared the entire time. Features that he had once found so familiar and so strong in his friend, were now alien, and strange. She had been masquerading as a man since she was young. Her mannerisms were nearly perfect, her voice just pitched low enough. But now Dusty could see all the little flaws that pointed fingers. The Dervish robes had been to conceal a body composed equally of curves, and muscle. Her fingers, though strong and capable, were delicate, and slender. He was beating himself mentally when Scarlett blocked his vision, rattling his cage until the lock came free.
As Dusty re-situated himself, he glanced at his fellow Joes. Nightshade was taking a talking-to from Flint like a man, practically ignoring him with all but the occasional nod, as Flint found every reason in the book to threaten her with discipline when they got back state-side. Dial-Tone was working the kinks out of his neck and shoulders, while Scarlett was finishing unlocking the Sheik's cage. As soon as Kasim rose, his daughter, formerly known as Kouroush, embraced him fiercely.
"We should get more uniforms, get out of here, and get to the Kuwaiti border as fast as possible," Scarlett interrupted Flint's tirade with a well-timed point. "They've got vehicles around here somewhere."
All eyes shifted to Karida, who met them all boldly. She even smiled, an expression Dusty had never seen Kouroush accomplish in his years of aiding the Avinizhad. She looked decidedly feminine in the moment. "Dusty knows where the weaponized vehicles are housed," she pointed out, as soon as Dusty looked away, unnerved by the change in his long-time friend. "I must stay with my father and throw these dogs out of our homelands."
"No child," Kasim lay a restraining hand on his daughter. "We will go with the Americans."
Her jaw dropped, and for long silent moments she struggled with herself. Torn between the task to be a dutiful daughter, and the patriotic 'son', Karida stared at her father with horrified realization. Kasim refused to acknowledge his child's anger, and attempted to maintain as dignified of a presence as he could, striding past her to join the Joes.
Flint led the group up the stairs, and proceeded to check for guards. The others trailed after him, except for Dusty. He lingered, watching Karida's face carefully. She guarded her emotions well, almost too well, as he watched the anger at her father's conceding victory slip behind a carefully cultured mask. Her eyes met his, as she moved toward the stairs, and he found himself, struck speechless. She strode past, climbing the stairs slowly, leaving it to Dusty to take up the rear guard. He blinked, sighed, and slowly followed in her wake.
It was quickly drawing to nightfall when they finally managed to sneak around to the garage. That was a hazard in the desert. The light always looked good, reflected off the white sands, bright and strong, until the sun touched the horizon. Once that happened, within a matter of ten minutes, the sky could go from bright blue-white, to pitch black. Dusty had often been asked during his many times serving in the Middle East to go fetch unfortunate souls who got caught out in the desert at night. He always enjoyed the desert at night.
But this was different. Kasim, Dusty, Flint and Dial-Tone all wore the uniforms of the Saudi troops now, with the four soldiers they took them from tied up in some broom closet somewhere on the grounds. They were gathered around a barrel of water, left out for the troops to drink from as the day passed. One by one, they wet their mouths, being careful to only drink enough to keep them hydrated. A full belly of sloshing water would do them no good if a fight broke out. Dusty was worried though. Nightshade was peculiarly quiet, her dark skin drawn and pale. She alone sat on the ground, her head tipped slightly back.
Scarlett caught him staring at the Latina, and nodded slightly. Good. She was worried too. They needed to be out of here before long, or something very not good was going to happen. Dusty sidled up to Flint, and gestured with his eyes towards a building across the way.
"The garage. There's a HUMVEE in there with a turret mount, should fit us all." Flint nodded slightly to indicate he'd heard. Dusty continued. "But there's also at least six guards, probably three or four mechanics. Two guards on the roof, at least four in the post just to the left there."
Flint turned away from the vista and motioned everyone to gather in the shadows of the building. "Alright, here's the plan. I need Dusty and Nightshade to take out the two guards on the roof. Quick, quiet and without a fuss..."
As he spoke, he watched Nightshade struggle to her feet. She refused an arm from both Scarlett and Dial-Tone, determined to make herself upright without help. The woman had heart, Flint had to admit that; she stood with her weight solely on her good leg. He paused long enough in his directions to pass her a pointed look, which she returned with a hard nod. She would do this simply because she refused to be the weakest link.
Flint turned slightly, motioning to Scarlett. "You think you and Karida can handle the guard shack?" As if to answer, Karida shared with them a wolfish grin. "Good. Once the guards are all taken care of, the four of you will converge on the garage. Dial-Tone, you get to find that HUMVEE. Sheik, you stay with me."
They made a show of shaking hands, bidding each other a good night. Just a change of the guards, as far as any onlookers were concerned. Nightshade did her best to hide her limp as she moved out with Dusty, skirting the edge of the road and flanking the garage until they were both in shadow. Karida and Scarlett moved toward the guard shack as casually as possible. Dial-Tone hung out with Flint and Kasim, watching the whole thing unfold.
Dusty made it up the ladder to the roof first. Nightshade followed a moment or two behind him, sweating from the pain of climbing with a bullet hole in her leg. She rested a few moments, while surveying the flat roof. Two men were staked out on the front edge, one laying prone with his elbows on the edge, the other pacing back and forth along the far side. Dusty pointed to the far side, and began to slide along the smooth concrete roof. Nightshade slipped one of the stolen knives out from her belt, and crept up on the prone soldier slowly.
She followed Dusty's lead for once, waiting until he'd wrapped his arm around the soldier's face and silenced him with a hard twist to his neck. Her soldier had begun to get up, but she dropped her knee in the small of his back, and reached around with the knife. Glancing at Dusty, she worried that the soft gurgle would be loud enough to alert the mechanics inside. After a few moments, no shouts of alarm rose from within, and she began to relax.
Dusty went down the ladder first, prepared to catch her if she slipped. Just as they reached the bottom, the rapid pop and blast of small arms gunfire began. Dusty left Nightshade to her own devices, and ran around the front of the building, his own 'borrowed' hand-gun cocked and ready. The guard shack was lit up from within, but it only lasted a few seconds. Across the road Flint came running, with Dial-Tone and the sheik close behind. They only had moments to act.
Bursting into the garage, the Joes brandished their weapons, ordering everyone to lie on the ground. As the mechanics began to comply, Nightshade limped around the corner, supporting herself with the wall. From the opposite direction, Scarlett and Karida joined them. Karida's uniform was torn at the shoulder, blood soaking the sleeve, but she had a joyous light in her eyes, and a wild grin upon her features.
Kasim fell to fussing over his daughter, while Dusty and Flint covered the mechanics. There were four of them, just as they thought. Scarlett found some heavy chain, and a padlock, and proceeded to chain them up together. Too many lives had been lost already. From deeper in the garage, they heard a deep basso rumble start up. Dial-Tone had found the HUMVEE and hotwired her already. Seating was an unspoken understanding. Flint would drive, while Dial-Tone tried to raise an American frequency on the radio. Dusty took command of the turret atop the vehicle, while Karida and Kasim got the safest seats. Scarlett and Nightshade would have to hang onto the roll-cage in the rear, where supplies and ammo were normally kept.
"It's gonna be a bumpy ride!" Flint warned as he gunned the engine out of the garage. Dusty held off using the turret, even though the grounds were coming alive in wake of their escape. He drew up his mask to ward off the desert night winds, and spun the turret to face the rear. As fast as Flint was opening ground, their small weapons wouldn't do any harm to the armored vehicle.
"Brace yourselves!" Flint swore loudly as he hit the gate at full speed. The metal shrieked and protested, but gave way beneath the big truck. Spinning the tires in the deep sand, Flint fought to face it east, and tried to edge out a little more speed.
"They're following!" Scarlett warned, only to have her words echoed by the loud rata-tat of the turret.
Flint shared a quick glance with Dial-Tone. "I'd be worried if they weren't. Got anything yet?"
"Not sure," came the quick answer. He jabbed a button, and grabbed the hanging microphone. "Mayday! Mayday! American task force requesting emergency pick-up..."
The radio squelched and protested being used. Flint hit a sand dune, sending the HUMVEE airborne for thirty seconds. While the shocks absorbed most of the impact, the passengers were thrown around by the rocking vehicle. Flint didn't bother with an apology; his job was to get them all out safely. Dial-Tone released his white-knuckled grip on the dash, and shot Flint a dirty look. Then he tried a different frequency for his distress call.
Up on the turret, Dusty was starting to worry. He had spotted six vehicles tailing them when they crested the first sand dune, but since then, he hadn't seen anything. It could be good for them, he tried to tell himself. They could have lost the Saudi's; or they could have picked up something like an air strike. Dusty scanned the skies nervously, swinging slowly back and forth on the turret. The HUMVEE lurched and skidded down the side of a sand dune, much to the protest of the occupants. Dusty made it a point to remember this, and make fun of Flint's horrible driving later. When their lives weren't in danger. Yeah.
"Shit!" Scarlett lunged forward, barely catching hold of Nightshade's arm as the Latina's grip gave way. Karida twisted around in her seat, lending her arms to the task of keeping Nightshade in the vehicle. Nightshade was out; the scraps of sheets they had used to bind her wounds were soaked through crimson. Scarlett swore twice more as Flint became airborne again, then hit the ground with a jarring thud. Kasim struggled for a moment, before finding a position in which he could also lean over the seat and steady the inert form of the young lady.
"I repeat, mayday!" Again, the radio squelched, causing both Flint and Dial-Tone to wince. But moments later, Dial-Tone thumbed the mic once more. "Please, repeat? Hello?" Reaching out he thumped the dash. "C'mon, work you foreign piece of trash!"
As if he spoke the magic words, the speakers suddenly jumped to life. "Dial-Tone? Do you copy?"
Flint let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding, while Dial-Tone dove into the radio communication without a pause. Flint wasn't willing to stop long enough for anyone to get a tracer lock on the radio's signal, no matter how many times Mainframe asked him. Neither Flint, nor Dial-Tone even questioned why Mainframe had answered. They knew they'd been long overdue at their rendezvous point. They figured that others had been waiting for them to make contact, before launching search parties.
Flint grimaced as Dial-Tone and Mainframe hashed out a plan. He couldn't call the mission a complete failure, because they had secured the Avinizhad family. Granted, it hadn't been an easy, quiet, in-and-out operation, but they had the sheik and his daughter safe for the moment. Above them, Dusty let out a whoop of joy, just before the scream of jet engines nearly deafened them all. Dial-Tone started laughing, bordering on hysterical, as he praised Mainframe's skills over the radio.
With air support, Flint knew they were home safe. The Conquest's wings tipped in salute, and Flint turned to follow a more direct path to their destination: Camp Arifjan. Though Flint didn't slow down, he did take a less treacherous path, keeping to the troughs between dunes instead of scaling and falling down the sides. The Conquest would take care of anything following them, all he had to do was get everyone home safe.
"How is she?" Flint finally called back, sparing a momentary glance over his shoulder.
Scarlett didn't spare him a glance, but the sheik turned to him gravely. "She has lost much blood, my friend."
"She'll make it," Scarlett corrected. "She always does."
The gates were standing open for them. Flint was relieved to see a medic team standing by, as he locked up the brakes and brought the HUMVEE to a screeching halt. Dusty was down out of the turret first, blinking in the blinding floodlights of the Camp's courtyard. He yanked doors open and helped the sheik step down from the armored vehicle, before reaching in again for Karida. Instead of accepting his offered hand, Karida helped Scarlett carefully unload Nightshade's still unresponsive form from the back.
The response was instantaneous. The medic team swarmed the scene. Most of them focused on Nightshade, but a few forced Karida to sit down. Dusty noticed then for the first time, the wound to her arm. Kneeling down beside her, he found himself asking the question that had bothered him from the start.
"Why?" She looked at him, her expression unreadable, as he settled down on the sand beside her. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"
She tilted her head slightly, allowing herself a small smile. "And have you treat me differently before my people?" She reached out, patting Dusty's cheek, touching him for the first time. "I could not risk that. Only my father's closest vizier's had knowledge." For a moment, her features softened, and she began to look almost girlish in her borrowed uniform, and raggedly shore hair. "I am truly sorry. If I had known it would affect you so..." She trailed off, sparing the medic tending her arm a quick glance. He didn't seem to be paying any attention to them, but she always knew that appearances were deceiving.
Dusty yanked off his Saudi cap, and scrubbed a hand over his head. He honestly couldn't tell her if he would have treated her differently. His upbringing demanded that women be treated with utmost respect, and not the casual camaraderie that had slowly forged between them. Groaning to himself, he crossed his legs, Indian-style, and leaned forward over them, seeking a better view of her face. "I just... I thought I knew you."
She smiled for him then, an expression that was without a doubt meant for his benefit. She went from being merely girlish, to a hint of the beauty she could be. "But, Rudat, you do know me. I am Kouroush." She reached out, laying her hand on his forearm gently, but her eyes were unable to meet his. "I know, this is a deception that I cannot be forgiven for. But I hope that someday..."
Dusty felt a ray of hope break through his worry, and he burst into a beaming smile. "Someday is always just around the corner."
Nightshade felt like a train had run her over, repeatedly. As soon as she started to open her eyes, she regretted it. The light was blinding. With a muttered groan, she attempted to throw her arm over her face, only to find her movement impeded. Squinting hard through the light, she tried to make out exactly what was going on. After a moment, a shadow fell across her, blocking out most of the light. For a moment, she was grateful, until she began to make out the tubes running from her arm, up to bags of fluid and blood.
The memory of the gunshot wound hit hard. She closed her eyes again, willing away the creeping in sickening feeling. The shadow above her moved slightly, keeping itself between the light, and her sensitive eyes. After a moment, a hand reached down, and smoothed across her forehead, moving a stray curl.
Snake Eyes. She realized with a lurch. He'd been standing vigil for who knows how long. Hospitals bothered him. So where were they? She started to sit up, to move around, but his hand on her shoulder prevented her from going too far. He tapped his index finger against her forehead, calling for her to use some bit of her brain. She forced herself to relax, muscle by muscle, until her head slid to one side. As she wound down, the ninja retrieved from one of his many pockets a pair of sunglasses. Tucking them gently over Nightshade's face, he gave her a moment to adjust before lowering himself to sit on the edge of her bed. Seeking out Snake Eyes' hand with her own, Nightshade gave him a squeeze.
"Gracias." She fell silent for a few moments, while Snake Eyes returned her squeeze. With her shades on, she could see him clearer in the brilliant light, and could read the tilt of his head as expectant, waiting for the other words to drop. With a sigh, she obliged him. "And I'm sorry." He leaned forward slightly, prompting her to continue. "For being such a pain in the ass."
There was something like a laugh, or as close to it as the silent man could manage, a slight shake of his shoulders, and a tipping back of his head. They were cut short however, as Scarlett and Mainframe poked their heads into the tent. Nightshade wanted to offer a grin of welcome, but both of them were silent and somber.
"We have a bit of a problem," Scarlett admitted quietly. "We're just waiting for others." She stepped inside the flap to make way for the rest of the Joes. Dial-Tone held the flap open for Kasim and his daughter, who trailed behind with a strangely somber Dusty.
"Alright, Mainframe, what's going on?" Flint poised the question as soon as everyone had settled.
"The Saudi's are claiming they had nothing to do with the attack on Azul." Mainframe was blunt about it, which everyone appreciated except for the Azul's standing with them.
"That is..." Karida struggled for the word, raising her fist into the air. "Camel dung! Those were Saudi troops, with Saudi weapons!"
Nightshade shot Scarlett a quick glance. "No, they weren't."
"The guns had MARS manufacturing stamps on them," Scarlett finished, catching on quickly. "There's something going on here that we're not quite seeing yet."