Freedom Does Matter (Mercenaries Book 2) (12 page)

After stowing the phone, she returned to the water can; she unhitched it and horsed it to the ground. In the footwell where the phone had been, she found a cup floating. The warm fresh water tasted better than she expected, and she took the cup to offer to Noorah and Haleef.

After a sip, he smiled his thanks.

“I found my phone, if you want to try anyone?”

“No, thanks,” he said with a smile, walking toward the Jeep. “Even if it works, all my contacts are on the cell system.” As he reached the snorkel, he said, “She got the important things.” Then, as Beckie had before, he worked his fingers into the opening.

“Thought I might as well try, too,” he said. He paused as he reached. “Huh. Unsuccessful. But as long as you avoid deep water—”

“I will, I will!”

“Yeah, I guess you will,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll try and wrest the cap off. Then maybe I can…”

Beckie nodded as he went to work.

After a brief struggle, the top popped off and he peered down the pipe. “Well, it looks clear. I think the valve’s in the cap, so with it off, that shouldn’t be an issue.” He jumped off and peered under the hood. Beckie watched as he unclipped a plastic cover and removed it. “Yeah,” he said approvingly. “I watched you go under the water, but the air cleaner…” He pointed into the box he’d uncovered. “… is all dry. As promised.” He clipped the cover into place as Beckie slid under the wheel again.

She turned the key.

The starter cranked the engine for ten seconds before she let the key go.

“Try it again,” Haleef said. “You forced some water out the exhaust.”

She nodded; this time the engine caught after only three or four seconds. It ran rough for the first minute or so, but then settled into a smooth idle.

“I guess the sign is right about hurting this thing,” she said, full of happiness.

“Yeah. Put it in gear and make sure that works.”

Beckie drove up to the road and stopped while Noorah and the man both followed. He handed her the snorkel cap. “Will you be okay, now?”

“I think so. Unless another tsunami comes along, we’ll be okay, I think.” She paused for a second, thinking. “Yeah. We’ll be fine.”

“Then I’m going to make sure Grandfather’s all right.”

“Of course. Get going! Wish him well for me, too.”

With another long look at Noorah, he returned to his car. Beckie looked around before realizing he’d headed toward Alexandria. Or Cairo.

“Hmm.” She sat in the seat deciding what to do next. I want to get back—

“Miss, may we return? Back to… the resort?”

Beckie stared at her while she considered this option. Based on the flood, probably not going to be anyone, but still, do I want to be looking for… bodies? Ugh! But quickly she realized that there might be survivors and no one had passed them going in that direction. With a glance at Noorah, she turned the Jeep around and drove with caution back toward the resort. As they made the turn toward the shore, they passed a car lying off the roadway, but the doors were open and no one was either inside or close by. As she approached the resort proper, she had to slow even more to avoid debris littering the landscape. Noorah was silent, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

While Beckie was watching the road, she too was stunned by the scene before her. Puddles—no, pools. Big pools—of dirty water lay everywhere. Not surprising, I guess, as she considered the not too distant sea, once more calm and placid.

In addition to the water, seaweed and a few terrestrial plants had been washed out of the sand or dirt. Just ahead, as she approached the site of the resort buildings, more mundane objects littered the ground: bricks, beams, a section of roof there, a piece of wall here. Furniture was scattered about like the intersection of a doll house and its young owner’s tantrum. I know how that feels, Beckie thought.

“Do you see anything still moving?”

“No, Miss. Nothing except the water.” Noorah’s voice had a brittle sound to it. “Where are they?” she asked, so quietly Beckie guessed she didn’t want to hear the answer.

Beckie waved toward the interior. “Washed back that way, I suspect. Just like us.” Beckie turned the Jeep past a partially collapsed building and slammed on the brakes, looking in disbelief at the undercarriage of a car lying on its side under a forty foot length of wall.

“Com’on! I’ll boost you up, see if there’s anyone inside there. If they were inside before the wave hit, they might be okay, bruised instead of drowned.”

Noorah gaped at her, doubt written on her face and demeanor, but she nodded and pulled herself out of the Jeep to follow over the broken, destroyed building material.

Beckie didn’t understand how the car had come to rest, but realized it didn’t matter. The hood and front half of the roof had been trapped under the wall, leaving the back half in the open. She tried to grab a wheel and lift herself to see how much of the door was covered, but couldn’t find a handhold.

Noorah grabbed her arm and pulled her around to the back of the car. Through the rear window, they could see bodies, still and motionless, but it was dry inside.

Beckie did a quick survey, looking for anything that wasn’t sand or soft debris. A couple of feet away, she picked up a rock she could use to hit the window. It bounced off the first couple times; Beckie grimaced. “This’ll take awhile,” she said. “You get a rock, too, and hit there.” She pointed to the edge of the glass where it joined the roofline.

They spent the next hour and a half, along with some acrobatics, skinned knuckles and a bruised knee, wrangling three people out of the car through a door opening to the sky and then down to the ground. All of them were shaken and bruised, and one of the men had been unconscious long enough that Beckie expected him to have a concussion. She and Noorah had both been surprised to find a woman, but Noorah was astounded when she could see her clearly. “She came here after me. She is my teacher of English. I thought she would depart after I spoke with her and the boss.”

“Your sheikh?” Beckie hoped he was close by… or… Or something, she admitted to herself.

“No, no. The sheikh has other work. The… shift supervisor, I think.” Noorah seemed lighthearted once the woman, who Noorah called Saqira, spoke to her.

With the three survivors, they took shelter under a lean-to formed by another section of downed wall. Beckie had checked its security before waving them over. Out of the glare of the midday sun, she waved off the thanks that Noorah tried to pass along from Saqira and the men, then squinted up at the sun. “I guess it’s been two or three hours since the tsunami. I’d have thought we’d have at least seen a helicopter or some planes, looking for survivors. And damage estimates.” She stretched. “Noorah, like I told Kevin, I’m going to try and reach Cairo. Do you want to stay here with Saqira and the others?”

“Yes, Miss. This is my place.”

Saqira nodded as Noorah spoke, but then looked from Noorah to Beckie. Unsure what the look on the woman’s face meant, she nodded to Noorah and stood. As she waved to the four, one of the men said something.

“He asks if you are taking the Jeep,” Noorah said. “I told him yes, so you could reach Cairo.”

“Is he okay with that?” Beckie asked, all the while thinking of hundreds of reasons he wouldn’t be. Am I gonna have to run for it?

“No, but he understands, and he respects your willingness and ability to help when you could have left without bothering. He says there is a full gas can in the trunk of his car.” The man handed Beckie a key fob.

“I don’t know what to say, except thank you. It’s what anyone should do.” She started off, then turned back. “While you wait, maybe you can keep looking; see if anyone else is here.” When she brought the key back, she said, “I’ll let them know you’re here, but I hope someone will be here before then. Thank you for the gas!” Beckie spun to blink away her tears. Feeling in control again, she said, “Noorah, come out to the Jeep with me, please.”

Standing beside the vehicle, Beckie reached in to grab her phone. She handed it to Noorah along with the abaya from her bag. “You can put this on, and…” She rooted another few seconds and fetched a scarf that she pressed into the girl’s hands. “You should be set, now. I’m giving you my phone.” She spent a moment walking her through placing a call to Kevin. “You understand?”

The girl ran through the process again, then nodded. “But, why?”

“Two reasons. You’ll call if things are going badly for you and your brother and sister. And…” She now wondered if Noorah would be better off if she understood Beckie’s nascent plan to rescue the family; she decided not. “Well, I guess that’s really the reason. If you call, Kevin will find me no matter what.”

She helped the girl don the wet abaya, then drove away.

Chapter Thirteen

Day Thirteen - Cairo

BECKIE’S TRIP BACK TO CAIRO was blessedly boring. While it took every drop of gas the Jeep had plus that in the can, at noon the next day Beckie was in the hotel, being debriefed by Kevin and Dan with Sue’s occasional intervention.

She enhanced the brief status on the phone to include the sessions with Noorah, and the fact that she’d given her the sat phone.

“I know, Kev, you would have given her to the cops. If she didn’t speak English, I would have, too. But since she could talk to me, I wanted to find out why.”

Sue smirked while he shrugged. “And did you?”

“No, but I found out who. A last name, anyway. Sedki. He’s her tribe’s sheikh, and he threatened her brother and sister with death if she failed.”

“And you let her go back?” Sue exclaimed. “He’s gonna know she failed!”

“I didn’t think about that till about halfway back,” Beckie admitted. “Or maybe I did, subconsciously, and that’s why I gave her the phone. SOS, if she or the others need it.”

Dan stood and walked to the window. As he looked out, he said, “Not to throw a wet towel over this, but we’ll want to be real careful answering that call.”

“Right enough,” said Derek.

“We will!” Beckie said. “At the time it seemed like the best of bad choices. We’ll be careful. Now, what happened to you guys? And have you heard anything about Almaza Bay?”

“Well,” Dan said, moving from the window to the chair, “That area’s not a big concern for the government. All the effort’s going into Alexandria, Port Said and the delta. Lot of people dead, injured, missing.”

“And no place for survivors to stay, since everything’s pretty well scrubbed clean.” Kevin put his arm around her shoulder. “But let me say it again. Avoiding Ian’s wrath isn’t the only reason we’re happy to see you.”

“Yeah, yeah. What did Willie say about the new job?”

“Well,” Kevin said, “it’s more traditional, anyway.” He spent a couple of minutes describing the little he knew about the South American project.

Coming back to her work, Beckie asked about the negotiations.

“Those are on hold till the disaster’s been alleviated,” Sue said from the far windowsill. “Today’s a national day of mourning, instead of the holiday, so nothing’s going to happen. Maybe not tomorrow, either. But you should meet with them to confirm the delay and convey our best wishes. You can set a tentative date for the next meeting, too.”

“Yeah. You think two weeks will be enough?”

“Looking at the limited news coverage, I’d say three, but you can propose both and let them fight over it before saying, all right, a month.”

Beckie laughed at Sue’s irreverent tone, but agreed. “I gotta get some sleep. Let’s go tomorrow, if we can get hold of them.”

Chapter Fourteen

Day Fifteen - Cairo

MOVEMENT AROUND CAIRO WAS RESTRICTED the next day; arrangements were made for Friday. “We must be quick. Prayers will be important today,” al-Kassis said when they convened. Both sheikhs agreed that three weeks should be sufficient, ending the meeting. Beckie, along with Dan and Sue, decided to walk back to the hotel. Dan pointed out the high water mark on the bridge as they crossed the Nile.

“Looks like more than a meter,” Beckie said.