Undercover Sheik

Dr. Sadie Kauffman had been always skeptical of people who, as their death sentence neared, claimed to have changed and reformed. Now she believed it. Time made all the difference, being locked up with nothing to do but think. She'd had forty long days and nights to mull over what her life had been so far--a mad race for things that in hindsight didn't matter. Shewouldlive differently. She rubbed her fingertips together. They tingled from nerves. Today was the day of her execution. She watched one of the bandits as he plodded toward her makeshift prison, his rifle slung across his shoulder, his face wrapped in the trailing end of his headdress to protect him from the blowing sand. He opened the low door that had been nailed together from pieces of scrap wood, and swore at her as she stumbled out awkwardly, her legs numb from her cramped quarters. "Move it," the man said, and although she was limping forward as fast as she could, it wasn't quick enough for him. He shoved his rifle barrel between her ribs to make her go faster. She blinked toward the desert horizon. The sun had barely breached it. Her last sunrise. No, she wouldn't think like that. She had to have hope. If the desert bandits killed her, what would they gain? They had to keep her alive to collect the ransom. She'd spent the night working out different ways to convince Umman, the camp's leader, to extend the deadline. It'll work. They need the money. She ran her fingers over her black headscarf and attached veil to make sure they exposed nothing but her eyes. The man kept shoving her at every few steps, toward the tents instead of the cooking fires as he would have on any other day. "It's as fast as I can go," she snapped without heat. Did he even understand her? Other than Umman, the rest spoke no more English than the few words they used to order her around. Her sandals sunk into the hot sand with each step. She still hadn't learned to balance her weight just right, angle her feet so she could walk the terrain with ease like the men whose tents sprawled like giant, unworldly beasts on the sand ahead. Most had their flaps open--giant, yawning mouths getting ready to swallow their prey whole. She shivered despite the heat that had to be nearing a hundred degrees already. She halted at the entrance of the largest tent, looked inside with quick, darting glances and kept her head down to make sure her gaze wouldn't directly meet anyone else's. Most of the bandits were in there, lounging on worn carpets and sipping spiced coffee. "So your country cares not if you live or die." The contemptuous voice was Umman's. As far as desert bandits went, they looked the part--Ali Baba and all that--missing teeth, savage faces, murderous weapons. They smelled the part, too. "The money is coming," she said with false confidence, knowing the U.S. never paid ransoms. She'd always thought that a reasonable policy--until now. "Today. It's a lot of money." Five million dollars. The men didn't appear to be impressed with her promise, nor did any of them look like they might be sympathetic to her cause. She was nothing to them, less than nothing--an annoyance, a reminder of a business plan that didn't work out. "You think me a fool." The leader's voice was low, yet it seemed to thunder across the tent. He was the oldest of the men, his face crackled with scars, his scraggly beard blending into gray as it fell to his worn brown robe. She had no doubt he would cut her throat without thought, as he would cut a goat. As he had cut one of his own men not two weeks before for some minor insubordination. "Your people show me great disrespect," he said. Her carefully crafted speech had sounded reasonable and convincing in her head in the quiet of the night, but now, faced with a tentful of bandits, the arguments she had prepared suddenly seemed laughably feeble. "I'm a doctor. You might need me. A few moMarton, Dana is the author of 'Undercover Sheik ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373229628 and ISBN 0373229623.