My Desert Rose (17 page)

"Nice titties
for Cecil," he murmured, as pure evil ran over his face.

Not moving to
repulse him, she needed him to take at least another step forward,
which he did in his greed for the other breast. Katie nearly
vomited at the impact, and she had to fight her impulse to knock
his hands away and jump on him to scratch out his eyeballs. The
size of this guy meant that timing was crucial. If she was off by a
millimetre in her attempt to wind him, then she would lose the
whole war.

Just when he
was licking his lips again in his malicious greed and pressuring
his fingers around her breasts, she watched over his shoulder as
the guard behind Cecil crumpled to the floor. It took her a moment
to register him falling. Had he just fainted?

The sound of
his body as it hit the carpet caused Cecil to let go and turn
around. Katie took that moment to kick him hard between the legs,
right in his ugly bulge. Cecil howled and she clearly heard his
neck click as he swung his head in her direction to lunge for her.
His great big paws were aiming for her neck when she heard a crack
and his eyes suddenly glazed over. Katie wondered what the hell was
going on. Cecil began to sway on the spot and then he staggered
towards her. Moving out of his way, she watched in disbelief as he
toppled head first over the desk and landed in an unconscious heap
on the floor.

"What the -"
Katie whipped her head back to the door to find Miriam standing
there with a great big black metal iron in her hands.

"I erm...found
it in the linen closet and I used it as they were being really
nasty to you."

Katie’s mouth
fell open. "Shit Miriam! Way to go!" The shock at what could've
happened was now registering and she rubbed at her sore breasts.
There would definitely be bruises there. Going around the desk, she
bent over Cecil and took the small handgun from its holster,
checking to see if it was loaded. It was. Having only ever pulled a
trigger during clay-pigeon shooting, she'd never had to aim a gun
at something living before. She hesitated for a moment, but then
logic held sway. If his men were anything like their Captain,
they’d be animals, so if it came down to life or death, she’d pull
the trigger. Checking his pockets for keys, she murmured to Miriam,
"Get the door keys from the guard." Happy that he had nothing else
in his pockets, she checked the phone again, dead, so she unplugged
the lead from the wall just in case. Turning to look at a
white-faced Miriam, she handed her the phone and spoke softly.
"Now, just a few pictures of our Cecil and then let’s get out of
here." Taking out her camera, she took some shots of the
perpetrator, who was possibly responsible for the deaths of Tariq's
men.

Once she'd
finished, between them they pulled the guard further into the room
as he was blocking the doorway. After closing the door, they locked
it and put the iron and phone in the linen cupboard. Katie knew
that hiding the phone and locking the brutes in the room wouldn't
give them much time. Someone would eventually come looking for
Cecil, but it meant that they could work out what to do next.

"So, what now?"
asked Miriam, as her big brown eyes looked worriedly into
Katie’s.

"Do you have
your mobile phone?"

"Yes, but the
last time I checked there was no signal."

"But you have
Tariq’s number, right?"

Miriam nodded.
"I know it off by heart and I have his office number programmed
into my mobile."

"Okay, so we
need a phone to ring Tariq on and also a hiding place."

Katie headed
for the stairs.

Miriam followed
her mumbling. "I wish Tariq was here, he'd know where to hide."

Katie didn’t
know what she was mumbling about, but her gut instinct told her
that the phone to use would be the one in the Captain's bridge and
she remembered the glass room at the top of the ship. Once they'd
made contact with Tariq, the best place to hide would be in the
lower part of the ship. Going down the stairs to the bottom, she
looked out of the glass in the top part of the door. This was the
door that Amira had brought her through, but men were milling about
outside. The ship was well lit, so if they left, they would be
seen.

Thinking beck
to Cecil, she remembered that it had taken the guard only a few
minutes to bring him to the room, so the entrance to the bridge
couldn't be far away. Another corridor led off past this exit.
"Come on, looks like there's another set of stairs at the end."

Just before
they reached the stairs, they heard men's voices and footsteps on
the metal treads. "They're coming down the stairs," she whispered
to Miriam. "We'll have to back-track."

"What about in
here?"

Miriam had
found yet another cupboard. This time it was a janitorial store.
They quickly jumped in before the men rounded the corner of the
stairs. Hardly breathing as they passed by the door, Katie realised
just how much she was shaking. In the musty air of the dark space,
she grabbed hold of Miriam's cold fingers and gave them a quick
squeeze. "I think the coast is clear now."

The stairwell
not only led to an upper floor, but it also went down to the lower
bowels of the ship. There was a sign written in Arabic on the wall.
Katie could speak it well, but she hadn't read or written Arabic
since she was six years old. "What does the sign say, Miriam?" she
asked quietly.

"Down leads to
the engine room and store and up leads to the bridge."

Katie sighed
with relief. All they had to do was go up to the bridge, make the
call, and then follow the stairs down and hide in the store. "Okay,
first we go up." Both of them had Van sneakers on. Katie wanted to
laugh at the image they presented. Miriam was dressed in black
linen bottoms, a white overshirt and a black hijab scarf. Katie had
changed before meeting Amira in the car into her jeans and a light,
pale blue jumper. They were an odd combination of total opposites,
as in east meets west, yet they were on a mission as one team.

Quietly
climbing the stairs several floors high, they met two doors at the
top. One led to the roof and the other led to the bridge room.
Looking through the window in the top half, Katie could see a man
sitting with his back to them looking at the dials and screens in
front of him. Scanning further around the room, she made out a pile
of rope on the floor in the corner.

Taking the gun
out of her pocket, she released the safety catch and slowly turned
the handle of the door, silently stepping inside. Coming up at the
rear of the man, she placed the gun to the side of his temple.

The man stilled
his hand over what he was doing and just blinked.

"Move and I
will pull the trigger." She nodded to Miriam and indicated to the
rope with her other hand. "Very slowly, I want you to get out of
the chair and kneel on the floor with your hands behind your back."
For a few seconds he didn't move and Katie was worried that either
he didn't understand English or that she wasn't convincing enough,
so she cocked the trigger. The seriousness of the sound caused the
man to move quickly to his knees. Obviously, he understood English
very well.

Miriam dragged
the pile of rope over.

Katie couldn't
tie a knot for toffee. "How good are you at tying a knot with a
rope?"

Miriam grinned
up at her. "Well, Tariq took me out on many boat trips."

Katie frowned.
"So, does that mean you're good, not so good, never done it before,
which one?"

"It means I can
tie a constrictor knot."

The man
groaned.

"I guess that
means you're good then."

Miriam beamed.
"Hell, yeah!" she smirked.

Katie wanted to
laugh, but the ludicrousness of their situation quickly sobered
her. Miriam though, was proving herself to be extremely
resourceful.

While Miriam
was securing the man's wrists and ankles he spoke in extremely
heavy English. "You will not get away with this. The Captain will
make you suffer, very slowly."

"Oh, you mean
Cecil?"

The man nodded
and kept his gaze to the floor.

"I'm afraid
Cecil is out for the count after his meeting with the iron arm of
Bruce Lee." Katie spoke with a cool confidence. Inside, she was
anything but calm. After meeting Cecil, a further session of being
tortured by him was not exactly on her 'to do' list. Once the man
was secure and lying on his side, she went back to the door, locked
it and looked down the stairwell. Everything was clear.

The man spoke
again. "You don't have much time. Two men will be back from their
break soon."

"Where's the
phone?" she demanded.

He nodded his
head to the other side of the room. On the wall was the phone.
Picking it up, she called to Miriam, "Come and dial Tariq's mobile
number."

It went to
answer machine.

Damn!

"What's his
office number?"

Miriam took out
her phone from her tunic pocket and switched it on. A little
beeping chirped into the air. "I just need to type in my password,"
she said sweetly. This was immediately followed by an audible
message of 'Hello Miriam'. The cheery greeting rang out around the
room as a slow agonising wait ensued for her address book to fully
boot up.

Katie tapped
her foot restlessly. "You just couldn't make it up," she mumbled to
herself.

"We're in,"
grinned Miriam as she spoke the number out loud.

Katie dialled
it on the ship's phone. It was picked up on the first ring.

"Malik."

Katie almost
wanted to cry. "Malik, its Katie, where's Tariq?"

A huge sigh of
relief came down the phone. "Praise be to Allah, it's you. I've
been waiting by the office phone and Selina is by the home phone.
Look, he's on his way. Here's his ship's satellite number." Malik
reeled off a number and Katie picked up the pen next to the phone
and scribbled it down on her hand.

"Is that
father?" Miriam asked.

Katie
nodded.

Miriam called
over Katie's shoulder. "Hi Papa, we're on a ship!"

Katie could
hear a little choke on the other end.

"Miriam is with
you?"

"Yes," Katie
whispered back, grasping the enormity of their situation and that
they obviously didn't know Miriam was here too.

Malik's voice
broke. "Phone Tariq now! He's on his way."

Katie dialled
the number. "Miriam, go and check the door." On the third ring, she
heard his deep warm tone and her knees nearly buckled. "Tariq," she
whispered.

A silence so
long and wide spread out before her, yet in time it was possibly
only long enough for him to take a breath.

"Katie?" To
hear him say her name caused a rumble of emotion to pass through
her. She'd only known him five days, yet it felt like they'd been
together forever. The second she'd seen him something had stirred
deeply within her, like an invisible and unbreakable bond that
moved through time, touching and caressing every part of her. She
knew she'd been waiting for him all of her life. "I need you," she
breathed.

A puff of air
was exhaled down the phone. "Little moheet, I'm coming to get
you."

She wanted to
weep. What she would give to turn back time to the last moment when
she was in his arms in their suite. Knowing how little time they
had, she would've begged him not to leave her. Shakily, she spoke.
"There's not much time. The Captain's a Somali pirate and a mean
son-of-a-bitch! Amira led me here on the pretence that you were
waiting for me."

"I know all
about Amira. Where are you on the ship?"

"In the bridge
room."

"Okay, that's
good news. I want you to look along the front row of the main
controls. There will be three screens next to each other with a set
of dials in front."

Katie scanned
the room. She located the three screens and pulled on the phone
extension to move to where the man had been sitting earlier. "Yes,
I have them in sight."

Tariq sighed in
relief down the phone. "One of them on the left will be showing a
set of coordinates for the longitude and latitude. Read them out to
me."

Locating it,
she read them out.

"Gotcha!" he
replied in excitement. "I now have you pinned. Someone had disarmed
the tracker and we took the chance of you travelling towards
Somalia. We're at double knots to the ship."

She heard him
pause and breath heavily down the phone.

"I'm coming
baby, hold on."

He said those
words in such a pain-filled voice she almost sunk to her knees.

"Erm...Katie,"
Miriam called from the door. "Some men are coming up the
stairs."

"Was that
Miriam's voice?" Tariq bellowed down the phone.

"Yes, but I
can't explain it now. Men are coming." Panic was beginning to rise
inside of her.

Tariq cursed
heavily. "Listen, get out of there and go hide. We'll be there
within the hour."

"Tariq...I..."
There was so much that she wanted to say. If only they'd met under
different circumstances. Perhaps equally, they could have come
together without her being forced into his world of treacherous
conditions. "I just wish we could start again from the beginning
and get to know each other without all of this intruding."

Tariq's voice
was soft and low. "It's going to be okay baby. I promise you a
brand new start once I have you in my arms again."

A sob broke
from her throat.

"Now go!" he
commanded.

Putting down
the phone on Tariq was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do.

"Hey lady," the
man on the floor called to her. "You have to knock me out."

"What?" she
replied. Talking to Tariq had taken her into another world and now
she felt a little dazed and removed from reality.

He nodded to a
toolbox under the bench. "If I'm not unconscious when they come
through that door, they'll shoot me?"