Captive

Chapter 12

MURAD RUSHED ALEX down the dark, dark corridor that led to the harem. Alex was so dazed that she ran blindly with him.

He pushed her through a pair of huge doors and into the women’s quarters.

They hurried through the courtyard, which was empty now, and illuminated by a full, glowing moon.

A moment later they were crossing the galleria and entering Alex’s apartment.

Murad closed the outside door. Alex stared at him without seeing him at all.

Ohmygod. It was really happening. Blackwell and her, together at last …

destined to be lovers, destined, she knew, to be man and wife.

And he was far more than she had even dreamed he would be.

Dear God. He was a real man, a real hero, and she knew, she just knew, he was feeling all that she was feeling, too.

“Alex.” Murad stood beside her. “Here. Drink some of this. You haven’t said a word since you left his room.”

Alex didn’t even look at the glass he was holding out to her. Joy seemed to be radiating out from the core of her being with increasingly intense and frequent waves. Ohmygod. When she moved, it felt as though she were walking in clouds.

Alex began to smile, hugging herself.

“What happened?” Murad demanded. “Did the bastard hurt you?”

She didn’t hear him at first, thinking about how Blackwell had looked and all that he had said, recalling how her body had tightened and flamed when he had touched her arm. She had never wanted anyone the way that she wanted him. Murad grabbed her arm. “What happened?”

She blinked at him.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No!” She smiled. “He would never hurt me, Murad. Oh, no.” She continued to smile.

“He didn’t even try to make love to me, although I know he wanted to.

My God, he’s a real gentleman, every inch a nineteenth-century man.

” She met Murad’s gaze. “He told me he’ll protect me, take care of me—that I have a friend and ally now.

” She laughed, not minding his chauvinism.

He was the product of his times, and she loved him for being who he was.

Murad regarded her, his gaze intense, then he turned abruptly away.

Alex thought that he seemed upset, but she was too overwhelmed with her recent encounter with Blackwell to really pay attention. She whirled around once, twice. “I can’t believe that this is finally happening,” she whispered. “Dreams do come true.”

Murad faced her, hands on his hips, unsmiling. “Do you even know this man?”

“Yes.”

“You never told me how the two of you met—or when you met, or where.”

Alex smiled. “Maybe the time has come for me to tell you everything.” Confiding in Murad, her best friend, would be the perfect ending to the perfect evening.

“Considering that it is my duty to protect you and take care of you, and that I have been doing just that for the past fourteen months, I think that would be a good idea,” Murad said sharply. His tone seemed somewhat bitter.

Alex cocked her head. “Are you jealous?”

He laughed, but he was flushing. “Of course not! Don’t be a fool, Alex. I am only trying to serve you well.”

Alex relaxed. It was ridiculous of her to have thought, even for a moment, that Murad was jealous. “He’s my destiny, Murad,” she said very gravely. And tomorrow they would rendezvous. He wanted to see her. She had promised to find a way.

But the risks, of course, were so great. Alex decided she needed a better disguise. If she continued to wander around the palace as a slave girl, she should stain her face and hands and feet.

Murad interrupted her thoughts. “Alex, I know you are romantically inclined, and I, too, believe in fate, but you should also be realistic. Has he offered to marry you? Has he told you that he loves you? Did you sleep with him?”

“No. To all of the above.” Alex plopped down on a big cushion. “But he will tell me he loves me and ask me to marry him. I am sure of it.”

“And you will sleep with him, of course,” Murad said harshly. “Risking both of your lives.”

Alex thought about the execution she had read about.

She knew in that instant that she must control herself, just as he must control himself.

They must not make love, not until they were safely out of Tripoli.

But Alex wanted to be with him even now so desperately that she wondered if they could refrain from the inevitable.

“So he’s led you to believe he loved you in the past? In America?” Murad demanded.

Alex gazed at Murad, sighing. “Not exactly.”

Murad sat down beside her. “What do you mean, not exactly? Alex, you can’t leave me in the dark. Not when you have me acting as your go-between.”

Alex hesitated. Murad was right. She needed him as a liaison, and his life was in danger, too, for the part he would play in their affair.

History, of course, would never record the execution of a mere slave, but Alex had no doubt that Murad would be the first to lose his head if she and Blackwell were ever found out.

He had a right to know everything, a right to know the truth. Alex laid her palm on his arm, leaning close. “You are my dearest friend, Murad. I love you so much.”

His expression softened. “I know.”

“I want to tell you everything. Murad …” She hesitated. “I am from the future.”

Murad rose and towered over her. “Alex, you said that once before. Why do you keep saying that? It’s not even amusing.”

“Because it is the truth.” She stood. “Really.”

Murad’s gaze remained fixed on her face, his expression strained.

“Murad, I was born in the Midwest of America in 1973.”

“Is this some kind of strange game? Is there a point to all of this?”

“No, this is not a game. It’s not a joke. I’m twenty-three years old, and I was born one hundred and seventy years in the future.”

Silence fell between them. “Alex, come sit down.” Murad was now alarmed.

She was so serious. He pushed her down onto the cushions, then sat beside her, his arm around her.

His heart was racing. “I am going to get a physician. You are not well. You are hysterical. What happened just now with Blackwell? What did he say, what did he do?” Murad couldn’t help it—he had to know.

Alex pushed at him. “I am not ill. I am not hysterical. I do not need a damned doctor. I am serious. Blackwell and I talked, Murad, nothing more.” She took his hands.

“You have to believe me. I am a graduate student at Columbia University from the year 1996. I was researching my masters thesis when I read about Blackwell. I read about his capture in July of 1803. In the account I read, he was ambushed off Cape Bon while taking on water, and the Pearl was destroyed in an act of sabotage at sea before ever reaching Tripoli.” Alex frowned.

“That’s why I was so shocked to see the Pearl arrive the other day. It’s all wrong.”

Murad said nothing, staring at her, his pulse racing harder now.

His mouth had become unnaturally dry. Why was she insisting on this?

What had happened between her and Blackwell, to make her talk this way?

But she had been surprised to see the Pearl arriving in Tripoli. He recalled that very clearly.

“And I also read about his execution in June of 1804.” Alex now gripped his arm. “The bashaw had him executed a year later, Murad. A year after his capture.”

Murad remained immobile. Afraid to think, afraid to breathe. Alex believed what she was saying.

“I’m telling you the truth. He was executed for his affair with a Moslem woman.”

Murad did not respond. He could barely absorb what she was saying. Was Alex insane?

“Murad?”

He couldn’t speak. Her words were not merely confusing him, frightening him, they were filling him with dread. And they were making him feel almost violently ill. He could not understand his own reaction.

“She was the wife of the bashaw’s son, Murad,” Alex cried, shaking him. “Don’t you see?”

And Alex was now wed to Jebal. Murad shook himself free of that thought. “Alex, you need some rest,” Murad finally said. “You are not well.” He was firm.

“No!” Alex stood. “I have not lost my mind. I fell in love with Blackwell, and somehow my love carried me back in time—to him. The oil lamp that was in my backpack, the blue one I keep in the chest, did it! All those strange stories I have told you and Jebal? Those are twentieth-century movies. Murad. I didn’t make up Darth Vader and R2D2 and Han Solo. Batman is a comic-book hero.”

“What’s a movie?” Murad was also standing, dismayed and mesmerized. “What’s a comic book?”

Alex sighed. “A movie is something you watch. Actors acting out a story, only it’s on film; the people aren’t real even though they move and talk.

Forget it, Murad. In my time people really fly in the sky in the airplanes I have described in my stories, and drive automobiles, and use telephones … I have proof.”

Murad folded his arms and watched Alex rush across the room. She was ill and he knew it. She was mentally ill, weaving this incredible story and believing it herself. That was the only possibility.

He stared as she returned with her backpack, a bag he had always found odd with its many strange clasps and pockets.

Alex pulled out a small, leather-bound book.

He had glanced at the small book before.

The silver rings had fascinated him. But he could only speak English, he could not read it, so he did not know what the book contained.

But whoever had written in the book had used strange colors of ink—red and purple and blue as well as black. He had never seen such colorful ink before.

She was triumphant. “My Filofax. Look at the calender. Murad.”

Reluctantly he took the small book, opened it. He stared at the dates. Dates, he could read. The calendar was for the year 1996, and there was also one for 1995 and 1997. “This is odd, but you might have had this made up,” he began. But he was wondering why on earth she would do such a thing.

“Why would I do that!” Alex cried. “You’re my best friend! I would never lie to you!”

Murad glanced at the red leather book one more time, then slowly he met Alex’s eyes. She would never deliberately lie to him. She believed what she was saying. Completely. Shivers ran up and down his spine.

And she was the most unusual woman he had ever met. But that was because she was an American.

“I am not crazy,” Alex insisted. “The reason I know so much about Tripoli is because I was studying the U.S. war with France. You know how I can always identify ships without fail? I am a naval historian. That’s why I am so familiar with different forms of sea power.

While I was studying, I read about Blackwell and fell in love with him.

Why won’t you believe me, Murad?” Alex cried.

“You are my best friend! I wanted to tell you the truth ever since Jebal gave you to me.”

Murad could not speak. What Alex said was impossible. Nobody could travel through time, neither backward nor forward, nobody. Yet Alex believed her own fantasy, which meant she was mad. “Alex. I don’t want you to speak of this to anyone else. Promise me.”

Alex licked her lips. “The current blockade? Which Morris just ended so stupidly? It is nothing now. But by next summer Tripoli will be starving, Murad. And next summer Preble will assault the city—he’s the next commander of the United States Navy in the Mediterranean—and he is nothing like Commodore Morris!

Some of the palace and much of the harbor and the city will be destroyed by Preble, Murad. ”

Murad was frozen. A new thought had occurred to him. One he found infinitely frightening.

And Alex understood. “Don’t look at me that way!

I am not a witch! I am from the future; I swear to you, that is the truth.

” Alex jerked on his sleeve. “Listen to me. In October the USS Philadelphia will run aground. The bashaw’s corsairs will attack, and its captain will surrender.

He will think he has scuttled his ship, but three days later the winds will shift and the Philadelphia will float free—and be taken into Tripoli Harbor, an incredible prize. ”

Murad did not move. Allah help us—Alex could see the future.

Alex had to wet her lips again. “On February sixteenth, 1804, the Philadelphia will be destroyed right here inside the harbor by the Americans, in the middle of the night.”

Or she thought that she could see the future.

Murad realized his arms were folded tightly across his chest. He was sweating.

The look in Alex’s eyes, the ring of authority in her tone, had mesmerized him.

Perhaps she was not a madwoman after all.

Perhaps she was a prophetess. “We will see,” he finally said dryly.

“I thought you were my best friend,” Alex said with a rush of bitterness.

“I am, Alex.”

“No, you’re not. Because if you were my best friend, you would trust me—and you would believe me,” Alex flung.

“I believe that you think you are from the future, Alex,” Murad said truthfully.

“Oh, thanks! When I was captured and Jebal decided to marry me, I knew Blackwell was truly my destiny. Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? He was executed for sleeping with the wife of the bashaw’s son! And I am now Jebal’s wife. I had nothing to do with that, Murad! Jebal chose me!”

Oh God, Murad thought, if Alex could see the future, then they were all doomed.

“I think that you are a soothsayer, Alex, not a witch, not insane, and that it comforts you to believe yourself a time traveler, but what you are saying is truly beginning to frighten me. You aren’t thinking about what you are saying. ”

“I have done nothing but think about what I have just told you!” Alex cried fervently. “Clearly I have been sent here, have become Jebal’s wife, because Blackwell is my destiny. I love him—and he loves me—and we are supposed to be together, as lovers!”

Murad grabbed her arm. He shook her once. He himself was shaking. “Alex, don’t you understand your own words?

What you are saying is that he is going to be put to death because of you.”

Alex froze.

Murad stared at her, hearing her labored breathing and his own roaring heartbeat. Then he said, “And what happens to you? The adulterous Moslem wife?”

She blinked. “I don’t know. I never found out.”

“If Blackwell is caught and executed because of you, you can be certain that you were executed, too. Moslem men do not forgive their wives adultery, Alex, not ever.”

Alex did not speak at first. “We will escape. We will escape and change the future, Blackwell and I.”

“No one escapes Barbary.”

“There have been a few successful escapes over the years, and you know it,” Alex said desperately.

“A few—as in one or two.”

Alex’s face crumpled. Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and you are ruining it.”

“That is not what I am trying to do. I am trying to help you see reason.”

“I do see reason.”

“This prophecy,” Murad cried, ignoring her, “is not about love, it is about death!”