When Remington awoke, he almost forgot where he was. The braying of a camel sounded suspiciously like his alarm clock buzzer. He rolled over and in an attempt to hit the snooze button, found nothing but sand and rock. Opening his eyes to the brightness of the desert and the morning sun, he groaned. Still stuck in the desert. Sitting up and attempting to brush the sand off his tailored suit, he saw Mildred curled up on her rock.
The Sufis had already dismantled most of the camp. Abdullah came over and informed him they were leaving immediately.
Remington went over and gently shook Mildred awake. She cracked her eyes open just a little and said groggily, "Just a few more minutes I don't have to be in for at least an hour" swatting away his hand.
"Mildred, darling, wake up. Come on, then," he urged, trying to prop her up.
"Huh, oh Boss, I had the worst nightmare." She sat up and brushing her hair back, groaned as she surveyed the surrounding desert.
"One hell of a dream, isn't it?" Remington said with a smile. "Come on, before they leave without us."
Mildred staggered to her feet, gripping her behind and limping. "Ooh, ooh, ow! Oooh, I don't think I can walk," she wailed.
"There's always a camel."
"What do you know? All cured."
The city was not that far off. Within minutes, they could see the high walls surrounding it, looking suspiciously like a fortress and not a city limit. Small camps littered the area and recently squelched fires lent scent to the air. A few hundred feet away from the walls' great pylon, Abdullah ordered the Sufis to stop.
He turned to Remington and Mildred. "We must stop here. It is dangerous for Sufis to enter Omar's city," he remarked, gesturing to the guards on the battlements, pacing back and forth with machine guns.
"Well, now, wait a minute, friend, but this chap's already tried to kill us once!" said Remington.
"Yeah! Just how do you think that we'll do any better than you?" Mildred piped indignantly.
At this, the Sufis withdrew their swords and pointed them at the pair. Mildred scooted back and gripped Remington's arm.
"You are guest of Omar," Abdullah said pointedly to Remington. "Find the Jewel. Accept your destiny."
Remington gazed at the city walls and then back at Abdullah and his friends. With his trademark grin, he pushed his sunglasses back on his nose and with a wave of his hand, said, "Onward, then."
Mildred scowled. "Destiny, my"
"Let's go, Mildred!" Remington said, tugging her away before she could get herself into trouble.
She shook her fist at Abdullah as she walked toward the gate with Remington. "One day, buddy"
***
The Jewel awoke to falling stones pelting the side of his face. Bewildered, he reached for his glasses on the floor. Looking up, he saw Laura standing on the cot and chipping away at the rock around the window's iron bars.
She had gotten up early that morning, resolving not to feel sorry for herself. There was one way to deal with this situation and that was to work. To do what any PI worth their salt would do. Make an escape plan.
"What are you doing?" he asked tentatively.
"I'm trying to separate the mortar from the frame of the bars. I have to get out of here. He can't just imprison us... like this," Laura grunted, as she furiously hacked away at the wall with a piece of wood she had pried from the frame.
"Ah, but it is not the bars that make the prison. It is the desert," the Jewel said wisely.
"So? I'll travel at night. I don't careI've got to stop Omar. I've got to get out of here if I'm going to warn the authorities about him and his plans. I have to get to Kadir." Laura paused in her furious scraping, and turned to face the Jewel. "No. Wait. Wait a minute. You're the one who needs to get to Kadir." As she spoke, she waved the wooden plank at him. He scooted back, watching her warily. "You said so yourself, you're the only one who can stop Omar. By appearing before the people- they won't follow him if you're there to contradict what he says! You've got to come with me!"
The Jewel looked at her curiously, fingering his chin. "Ah, maybe, you are the one. I accept. We are sworn, Just Laura." He stuck out his hand.
Laura swung the plank forward, forgetting herself, as the Jewel ducked. Laughing, she transferred it to her other hand, and shook his hand.
"Right. But," she continued, as she went to work on the window again, "it's just Laura."
"Right. Just Laura."
"Right," and she attacked the window again, venting her anger with Omar and her grief over Remington into hard thwacks against the rock.
"Please please," the Jewel stepped up onto the cot next to her. "Allow me." Laura handed him the plank, but he waved it away. Instead, he gripped the iron frame and with a tug, pulled it in its entirety away from the wall.
"Magic," Laura said, with genuine amazement. Perhaps this man truly could perform miracles.
"Dry rot," the Jewel nodded, and proceeded to help Laura through the open window.
***
As Mildred and Remington approached the entrance to Omar's palace, they slowed their steps. Mildred gripped his arm. "Mr. Steele, what are we going to do?" she asked worriedly. "It's not like we can just walk up to those bozos and ask em to hand over the Jewel and Miss Holt!" She gestured to the heavily armed guards standing at their posts.
"Calm yourself, Mildred," Remington said, shrugging into his jacket. "Just let me handle it, okay?"
"Can I wait over there?" she said, pointing to a nearby darkened shed.
"Ah- perhaps you'd better stay with me. Who knows what is lurking in every corner."
"Good point, boss."
Remington strode up to the guards at the gate. Smiling, he spoke in a loud voice, "Oh hallo, hallo, my good chaps! My name is Remington Steele and I'm here to see a Miss Laura Holt, who happens to be a guest of your boss- Omar I believe. Now if you'll just announce me" he said, trying to walk by them.
They had other ideas. With a forceful shove, they moved him away from the entrance and began babbling in Arabic.
"What's going on?" whispered Mildred.
"I have no idea," he whispered back.
Eventually, another man attired in the black guard gear came over and the men began their babbling anew. They addressed him as Rashid.
"Ah, Rashid. My good man, will you tell these chaps not to worry, I'm a friend of Laura Holt's. Just thought I'd pop by for a spot of tea and a chit chat, you know, while I'm in the neighborhood," Remington drawled.
"Laura Holt does not want to see you," Rashid said stonily.
"Ah," said Remington deflated. She doesn't want to see me?, he thought bitterly. Incredibly hurt, he pressed on. "Perhaps I should introduce you to Ms. Futush of the US Embassy." He gestured to Mildred. She apparently didn't get it.
"Ms. Futush," he said, nudging her in the arm.
"Oh, yes, right," she said with a nervous laugh and approached the looming form of Rashid. Switching into her nastiest IRS Fraud Squad voice, she boomed, "You don't want to create an international incident, buster, or the UN will be all over you like hot fudge on an ice cream sundae. After all, she is an American citizen."
"If you let us see her," interjected Remington, "I promise, no paperwork. Mum's the word."
"Or I can haul you in for obstructing a diplomatic investigation," Mildred threatened, raising one of her eyebrows.
Rashid growled something in Arabic as a reply and after shouting orders at the guards, he stalked off. Remington and Mildred tried to follow but we again prevented and shoved into the street.
"I don't suppose he's getting Miss Holt," Mildred said, with no hope in her voice.
"No." Remington merely walked away, kicking up dust.
"He's lying. Miss Holt would have never said that. I'd like to go over there and give him one right on the kisser!" she said angrily, waving her fist in the air.
"Discretion might be wise, hmmm?" he said, eyeing the guards who were now watching Mildred like hawks, and slowly pulled her down the street.
As they walked down the road, passing vendors and panhandlers, through the exotic smells and cries of "baksheesh," Laura and the Jewel began racing across the mud brick roof tops. The Jewel was ahead of Laura, leading her way as they moved across buildings, unbeknownst to all below.
Unfortunately, one of the guards half asleep at his post, saw them, and crying out to his companion, they began rushing after them, waving their machine guns and screaming. Laura whipped her head around to see them coming, still two building away- for they had been a floor below the roof on a balcony when the fugitives were sighted, but were closing in fast. Sooner or later, they'd get friends.
Laura grabbed the Jewel's arm and pointed to the men. He said, "Maybe we should try running on the ground?"
He began to help Laura lower herself down a level, onto a thin ledge protruding from the building's façade. As she was dangling by her arms, she glanced at the drop below- and started, because there were two extremely familiar forms walking down the road- one of whom by all accounts was dead.
"Mr. Steele!" Laura cried out, as bullets began to zing past her head, the guards having caught up with them. "You're alive!"
Remington and Mildred were stopped dead in their tracks, looking up at a struggling Laura, who for all intents and purposes was supposed to be inside the palace. Remington, still hurt from Rashid's rebuff, yelled back, "Going out of your way to get rid of me, eh?"
Laura, frustrated with his coldness and her imminent danger, as she ducked from another round of fire, screamed out , "You bastard!"
Remington didn't receive the full force of her insult, as the Jewel lost his grip on her forearms in the process of ducking from that self-same line of fire, and as she screamed she fell several stories into a vendor's fabric tent. The tent promptly ripped from the impact and sent her downwards still into another draped rooftop, which due to its angle, she quickly rolled off of- straight into Remington's arms.
"Oof!" was all he could get out, as they both fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. When the dust cleared, Laura, on top of Remington now, grabbed his face and kissed him soundly on the lips.
"They told me you were dead- and I couldn't get through on the office phone- it had been disconnected- you weren't home- I thought you'd left- and then — oh you're never to die on me again- you hear me!" she finished angrily.
"Why can't you be this passionate when I'm not presumed dead?" he said, smiling up at her.
"AAUGH!" she said, thoroughly exasperated. She got up and brushed herself off, with the help of Mildred whose eyes glistened over with tears of joy.
"Oh, thank goodness you're all right, Miss Holt. We were so worried. Now we can finally get the hell out of this place."
Meanwhile, the Jewel, opening up the umbrella he had been carrying, had jumped off the rooftop and landed lightly on the first canopy. He gracefully descended the rest of the way down and took Laura by the arm.
"Come, come, this way," he said, dragging her off in the direction in which Remington and Mildred had just come, the guards gaining in number up above- some even attempting to slowly take the same route down.
"And who the hell is that?" Remington asked Laura, indignantly.
"He's a a friend," she stammered, following the Jewel.
Remington and Mildred followed. "You made friends in there?" he asked, stunned.
They ran through a maze of old tires and finally crouched down behind a small wall and the large baskets of a nearby weaver's shop. The fire continued, causing them all to flinch and duck,
It subsided for a few seconds, and Remington took the opportunity to tug Laura's arm in one direction. "C'mon, let's get out of here!"
"Wait. Mr. Steele- he's coming with us," she said, unmoving and gesturing to the Jewel.
"Lauraaaaa! I've come half way across Africa to rescue you-" he shouted angrily, half drowned out by the noise of gunshots.
She interrupted him. "Rescue me? I was doin' just fine without you!"
The Jewel turned to Remington. "I am guide. I can help you."
"I don't need a bloody guide- I need a bloody miracle!"
"He's coming with us!" Laura said firmly.
"Boss–please!" wailed Mildred, covering her head with her hands, afraid to look up.
Another blast of gunshots rang out, ricocheting off the wall and pulverizing the baskets.
"All right, all right," he sighed, peering out over the side. But if we get out of this alive, I'm never coming back to this town again."
And that, he began to run down the street, with Laura and the Jewel close behind. Mildred, on the other hand, was stumbling slowly along, shielding her face with her arms. As they turned the corner, she was left behind.
Omar, called out of his business meeting, looked out at the town from his balcony and frowned. That damn woman and her friends! He and several guards made their way downstairs towards the entrance to the palace.
Meanwhile, outside the city's gates, the Sufis had heard the commotion. Fearing for El- d'Jahara, they mounted their horses and camels. With banshee war cries, they rode off to the gates, waving rifles in the air and raising gleaming scimitars, to take back their holy man from Omar.
Mildred, hearing much less gunshots, finally felt safe enough to lower her arms so that she could see where she was running. The boss and Laura and her new friend were nowhere to be seen. Nervous and scared, she ran onwards, finally stopping in front of a familiar façade- the entrance to the palace.
She was stopped in her tracks by the dozens of guards suddenly pouring out of the entrance, heavily armed and fierce looking. With a frightened smile plastered onto her face, she said weakly, "Hi, how are you, looking good today," to no one in particular. Slowly walking backwards to go into the palace to escape the guards, she bumped into something. Or rather someone: Omar.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Hey- don't provoke me, mister. You know how hot it is here? It's a hundred and twenty in the shade! I'm just looking for my friends."
Rashid came around and grabbed Mildred by the collar, angrily speaking to Omar in Arabic. The only thing Mildred caught was the mention of Laura. Omar looked menacingly at her.
"I'm like this with Weinburger," she stammered, crossing her fingers. "You cross me and he'll be all over you like a cheap suit."
Rashid was forced to release her, however, for the Sufis had infiltrated into the town, and a small skirmish had ensued. Sufis whipped their swords around their heads, running Omar's men through as they rode through the streets, sounding off their rifles. Omar shouted more orders to Rashid and the two men retreated inside, as the Sufis approached the entranceway. Scared of her temporary traveling companions, Mildred attempted to hide within the palace walls as well, but was forced out.
She stumbled through the fighting men to the other side of the street, wincing as they smashed one another's faces with gun butts, swords and fists. "I have to get out of here," she mumbled, and just then was rewarded by spotting a nearby shed. Inside, one donkey was tethered.
"Ah! Better than a camel!" she said with relief, and entering the shed, moved to the side of the donkey to inch by to untie its lead. Unfortunately for Mildred, the donkey, feeling Mildred's presence, for some reason, decided to sit down. On her. Face down in hay, with an ass on her back, she cried out pitifully, "Mr. Steele!"
Remington, Laura and the Jewel had been running the maze of the city streets with little success, still being followed by guards and gunshots. Losing speed and breath, they turned another corner- straight into a dead end.
"Great. Now what?" Laura asked.
"Over the wall!" Remington ordered, agilely climbing over it.
When Laura came down on the other side, she was afforded a different view of the "airport" which she had arrived at only the day before. His private jet was still there, yet now, the several non-descript objects that had been covered with tarps were out in the clear. Lines of tanks. Boxes of weapons. Barrels of gas. And one lone white fighter plane, whose cockpit was conveniently open.
And as Remington pointed out, it was safer than crouching behind some gas barrels, getting ready to be blown up as well as shot through when the guards inevitably found them again.
So the three of them got into the plane, Remington in the front and Laura and the Jewel sharing the backseat. They crouched down low, hoping not to be seen. Remington had found a flare gun in the front seat and held it in his hands, expecting someone to show up. And somebody did. The pilot. He had climbed up the ladder and was about to enter into the cockpit when Remington pulled himself up and leveled the gun at the man's chest.
"All right mate, your estimated time of departure is right about now."
The man half-climbed, half-fell down the ladder, and scrambling to his feet, began shouting at them in Arabic, mentioning Omar and baring his chest triumphantly.
The significance of this gesture was lost on Remington and Laura, now anxious as more men began to appear. The Jewel merely smiled, and seeing the throttle in the back seat, he gently nudged it forward with one finger, causing the plane to move and the cockpit shield to automatically come down.
"What are you doing?" Laura screamed at Remington.
"I have no idea! As far as I know, I'm not doing anything!" He grabbed hold of the front seat controls experimentally and wiggled them around.
"Well, do something dammit!" she screamed back, as the plane turned, headed straight for a large wall.
To be continued..